FightUK.com

Gina Carano grapples with Tonya Evinger. Photo by Tom Casino/EliteXC.

EliteXC Live Events President Gary Shaw announced his organization’s plans to expand their promotion of women’s mixed martial arts with the potential of the addition of a women’s championship and a strictly female fight card at some point next year.

"We're talking about doing two things,” Shaw stated earlier today during a conference call with the media. “We're talking about doing a women's title and we're also talking about an all-women's show where we feature one night of all women's fights. "That's something that I'd like to present to the public, a night of women's fights. I think that would be a major milestone."

Shaw stated that the first women’s title, at 140 lbs, could possibly be decided as early as this fall, with the winner of the scheduled bout between Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young on May 31st possibly being able to be part of the historic bout. Additional titles could be added in the future depending on the amount of divisions the organization decides to incorporate.

The all-female show, which are rare these days save the events put on by California-based Fatal Femmes Fighting, would be the first to be televised on national television. (Showtime) Shaw also stated that while many of the other major organizations have refused to put on female fights, his promotion will continue to do so without hesitation.

“We’ll continue putting women on Showtime and on CBS and we’ll continue putting them on the ShoXC cards as well,” Shaw said. “If no one else wants to do it, it’s all the better for us.”

HT: MMA Junkie

Jeff Monson. Photo property of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Adrenaline MMA, the newly-formed promotion headed by former M-1 Global CEO Monte Cox, has announced a handful of changes to it’s inaugural fight card, which will emanate from the Sears Centre in Chicago on June 14th.

International Fight League veteran Zac George has been added to the festivities, replacing renowned grappler Alberto Crane in a featured lightweight bout against Clay French. Anthony Lapsley, who is coming off of a six-month suspension from the California State Athletic Commission due to a positive marijuana test, will return to action in place of James Giboo against former U.S. Marine Mark Miller.

Longtime veteran Joe Jordan will now take on Josh Hosman and a heavyweight matchup between Adam Maciejewski and Louis Taylor has also been signed. The event will be headlined by a heavyweight clash between former UFC heavyweight title contender Jeff Monson and PRIDE veteran Mike Russow.

The updated card for the event looks like this:

Main Card:

Jeff Monson vs. Mike Russow
Daiju Takase vs. Terry Martin
Zac George vs. Clay French
Tony Fryklund vs. Brian Gassaway
Jeff Cox vs. Bart Palaszewski
Tiawon Howard vs. Rory Markham
Anthony Lapsley vs. Mark Miller
Herc Hayes vs. Kerry Schall
Rob Kimmons vs. Hector Urbina
Aaron Rosa vs. Ron Fields
Louis Taylor vs. Adam Maciejewski

Preliminary Bouts:

Dom O’Grady vs. Mike Stumpf
Joe Jordan vs. Ryan Williams
Joe Pearson vs. John Hosman

Paul Kelly throws a right hand at Paul Taylor. Photo property of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Just one week after scheduled opponent Jonathan Goulet pulled out of his UFC 85: Bedlam bout against Paul Kelly due to conflicting reasons, Kelly himself has withdrawn from the event after injuring his right hand during training.

The news comes from MMA Weekly, which reports that Kelly originally injured a finger on his right hand three weeks ago before eventually discovering that he had pulled ligaments, which will now require a cast.

The cast will stay on Kelly for 3-4 weeks and physical therapy will then follow, knocking the part-time training partner of Michael Bisping out of action at least for the near future.

Goulet’s reasoning behind pulling out of the fight has varied in reports. The Victoriaville native first said that he was stepping away due to undisclosed health reasons, but reports have since said that Goulet may have backed out of the fight at the request of his training partners because a lack of adequate preparation time at the Tristar Gym, of which he recently aligned himself with.

Kelly remains undefeated so far in his professional mixed martial arts career. The exciting welterweight made his debut with the UFC in January, winning a unanimous decision over fellow Englishman Paul Taylor in what turned out to be UFC 80: Rapid Fire’s fight of the night.

Nick Diaz grapples with Katsuya Inoue. Photo courtesy of FEG.

Following his impressive victory over reigning welterweight King of Pancrase Katsuya Inoue, EliteXC’s Nick Diaz already has quite the test waiting for him following his scheduled fight against Muhsin Corbbrey in June - a DREAM title bout against Japanese veteran Hayato "Mach" Sakurai in July.

Diaz confirmed the potential matchup with Sherdog.com, stating that a fight against Sakurai would be one against a fighter that he looks up to.

“You know, there’s a lot of other people I’d like to fight, just considering Sakurai is a lot older than I am,” Diaz said in the report. “He’s probably in his late 30’s I’d imagine, so I’m going to have a lot of respect for him and everything he’s done. I tend to do better with people I have less respect for. To be honest, I’d rather be fighting Aoki or Kawajiri - somebody other than the guy that got knocked out by someone I already beat in Gomi.”

“But I think I match up very well against Sakurai,” Diaz continued. “I think he’s a little too short to reach me, and I think his ground game needs a lot of work and you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Like I said though, I’m not afraid to fight anybody, that’s not the issue. I’ll fight anyone you got. I’m here to prove I’m pound-for-pound the greatest fighter in the world.”

Diaz’s scheduled fight against Corbbrey in Hawaii will mark the second time that they were slated to fight. The two were set to clash this month but EliteXC’s island event was moved to June, forcing the fight to be re-signed.

The battle between Diaz and Sakurai will be for DREAM’s welterweight title despite “Mach” being upset by David Baron at a Shooto event on May 3rd.