Spike TV and the Ultimate Fighting Championship will show bouts from “UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez” in a bid to counter program the live CBS broadcast of the “Strikeforce: Nashville” event on April 17th.

The announcement was made today by Spike TV officials who will air the UFC event at 9p.m. ET/PT, the same time as the CBS broadcast. The original PPV broadcast for UFC 110 took place on Feb. 20 from the Acer Arena in Australia featuring bouts such as Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez, Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping, and Joe Stevenson vs. George Sotiropoulos.

The “Strikeforce: Nashville” event is headlined by a middleweight title bout between newly signed Dan Henderson vs. champ Jake Shields, with other CBS bouts including Shinya Aoki vs. Gilbert Melendez and Gegard Mousasi vs. Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal.

The UFC 110 bouts that will make the Spike TV broadcast are as follows:

- Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez
- Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping
- Joe Stevenson vs. George Sotiropoulos
- Keith Jardine vs. Ryan Bader
- Mirko Cro Cop vs. Anthony Perosh
- Chris Lytle vs. Brian Foster

UFC.com

New York, NY, April 5, 2010 – Spike TV presents an encore presentation of the star-studded “UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez” fight card featuring many of the sport’s biggest names including Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Wanderlei Silva, Mirko Cro Cop, Cain Velasquez, Joe Stevenson, and Michael Bisping, among others on Saturday, April 17 at 9:00pm ET/PT. “UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez” took place at the sold-out Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia on Saturday, February 20.

Spike TV’s telecast will include the following bouts:

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez

Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping

Joe Stevenson vs. George Sotiropoulos

Keith Jardine vs. Ryan Bader

Mirko Cro Cop vs. Anthony Perosh

Chris Lytle vs. Brian Foster

For the latest news, information and videos on “The Ultimate Fighter” and the UFC on Spike TV, log onto ultimatefighter.com.

Spike TV is available in 98.6 million homes and is a division of MTV Networks. A unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), MTV Networks is one of the world’s leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms.

For the first time ever, February's "UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez" event will be available on cable station.

Spike TV officials today announced the event, which initially aired on pay-per-view Feb. 20 from Acer Arena in Australia, will air April 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

The broadcast counter-programs "Strikeforce: Nashville," a CBS-televised event that features three title fights.

lAll eight fighters who underwent drug testing at February's UFC 110 event tested clean for performance-enhancing drugs and recreational/drugs of abuse.

UFC 110 took place Feb. 21 at Acer Arena in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

The NSW Combat Sports Authority, the local regulator, oversaw the drug testing, and a UFC official today confirmed with MMAjunkie.com that all the tests came back clean.

The Acer Arena broke records after hosting it’s first Ultimate Fighting Championship event this past weekend in Sydney, Australia. A total of 17,831 fans attended the event, surpassing UFC 105 in Manchester, England as the highest attended UFC event outside of North America.

Not everyone in Australia was impressed with the show after a less than flattering article posted by The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday.

Welcome to something called the Ultimate Fighting Championship which, as well as claiming to be the world’s fastest-growing sport, made its debut in Australia yesterday on a schedule suited to the American pay-per-view prime-time Saturday night audience.

A cross between Fight Club, rock’n'roll, a vicious bar-room brawl and the fall of Saigon, the idea is that this is “multi-discipline fighting” – across three five-minute rounds – incorporating everything from boxing to wrestling, kick-boxing to karate, judo to jujitsu to just about anything else you can think of, including choke holds, and …

And so the afternoon goes on, with nine vicious bouts and much blood spilt. About 30 police watch as the fighters continue to bash each other to a pulp. If it were to happen 100 metres away, on the street, those same police would have to arrest them for grievous bodily harm – though they’d take the precaution of calling for back-up first.

This is as far from professional wrestling’s tightly choreographed theatrical fighting. These are deadly serious contests fought by highly skilled men. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea – and it will be the last bout I’ll attend – but it looks like we might have moved into an age when tens of thousands of people no longer want cups of tea. They want buckets of blood.

Photo by Steven Siewert of The Sydney Morning Herald and the UFC.

There were a few notable tidbits of news and notes from last nights “UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez” post fight press conference.

UFC 110 took place at the Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia which was the Ultimate Fighting Championships first event in that country. The show actually took place on Sunday Feb. 21st due to the 16 hour time change between Australia and North America. This allowed the PPV to air on Saturday evening at it’s regular time of 10 p.m. EST (7 p.m. PST).

- UFC president Dana White say’s Cain Velasquez on standby for UFC heavyweight title match against Brock Lesnar barring outcome of Mir vs. Carwin bout.

“We’ll see what happens with Mir and Carwin – see who wins that – and if the guys come out unscathed, they’ll fight for the title,” White said. “If not, then Cain Velasquez will get that slot.”

Velasquez on downing Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in the first round.

“When I threw that right hand, it just went through him,” Velasquez said. “That’s all I felt. There was really no give. I just tried to follow it up with that left hook, and I saw him go down. I tried to capitalize on it. I tried not to get too anxious in there because I know he can take a lot of punishment and come back.”

- Ben Rothwell was only out with a stomach virus, a bout with Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic still possible.

Mirko told the press “I can say I was satisfied with my performance. I didn’t fight my original opponent. He canceled the fight. Perosh jumped in, and I’m grateful to him for that. He showed great courage and guts. He came to fight.”

UFC president Dana White hopeful that bout between two can happen soon.

“I think what we do is we do the fight that was supposed to happen tonight. We’ll make that fight happen, and obviously Mirko didn’t have a rough night tonight… Ben isn’t out because he’s injured or anything. He got a stomach virus, so hopefully we can make this fight quick and put this one together soon.”

UFC 112 could be a real possibility for this fight with 8 weeks till the event in Abu Dhabi and both men being generally healthy.

- Michael Bisping congratulates Wanderlei Silva for victory but disagrees with outcome judges decision.

“It’s a close fight, but personally, I thought I won rounds one and two,” Bisping said at the post-fight press conference. “Congrats to him though.

“It was an absolute pleasure stepping in there with someone like Wanderlei Silva, and I do have absolute respect for the guy,” said a gracious Bisping. “I believe the reason he got the decision was because of the knockdown at the end, and I’m bummed out about it, but congratulations to Wanderlei.”

Silva said it was a “Tough fight, close match, but I think I won. I had good position, and [the] knockdown in the last round. Maybe if the round last five more seconds, I’d win by knockout, too.”

- Yoshihiro Akiyama wants to face Wanderlei Silva next, “The Axe Murderer” more than happy to oblige.

“Akiyama wants to fight Wanderlei very bad,” White said. “It’s a big fight that he wants. We offered him another fight, and he said he wants Wanderlei.”

“Wanderlei is sitting here with stitches in his chin and a black eye and everything else,” White said. “He’s going to go home, relax, heal, and then we’ll talk to Wanderlei and see when he’s ready again. But yeah, Akiyama wants that fight really bad.”

Ever the competitor, hearing that Akiyama had the gall to ask for a fight with him left Silva with a simple request for his next matchup.

“Akiyama,” Silva said flatly.

“There you go,” White said with a smile. “It just pissed him off that I said Akiyama wants to fight him, so now he wants Akiyama.”

- UFC president Dana White feels that Australian Goerge Sotiropoulos is in the “mix” for the UFC lightweight division but not ready for title shot yet.

“He just beat Joe Stevenson,” White said at the evening’s post-event press conference. “Let him get a couple more fights before we start talking about title fights. He’s in a very competitive division, and the champion in that division, (B.J. Penn), is the best he’s ever been and one of the best ever in MMA history.”

- Light-heavyweights Stephan Bonnar and Krzysztof Soszynski open to a rematch.

“It was a headbutt, and you know what the worst part is?” Bonnar asked in the post-fight press conference. “Take a close-up on this head. This cut is actually shaped like a ‘K’ for Krzysztof, so I now I’ve got to walk around with a scar in the shape of a ‘K’ on it…Would love a rematch.”

“I agree with Stephan,” Soszynski said. “If the UFC wants it and the fans want it, I think we should finish what we started.”

Quote sources MMAjunkie.com, MMAFighting.com, and UFC.com.

“UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez” the UFC’s first foray into the “Outback”, drew a total of 17,831 attendees to the Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia for an approximate gate total of $2.5 million. That total makes the Australian event the highest attended UFC event outside of North America, surpassing UFC 105 in Manchester for top spot, that event recorded a total of 16,693 attendees.

UFC president Dana White also noted that the event surpassed Acer Arena records for attendance, gate total, and merchandise sales.

The Feb. 21st event handed down “Fight Night” awards to George Sotiropoulos, Joe Stevenson, Cain Velasquez and Chris Lytle with each man earning $50,000 for their efforts.

Sotiropoulos and Stevenson were given the “Fight of the Night” award after their three round Jiu-Jitsu clinic. Velasquez was given the “Knockout of the Night” award after knocking former UFC heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira out early in the first round of their bout. While Chris Lytle earned the “Submission of the Night” award after securing the only submission victory at the event, submitting Brian Foster with a knee-bar in the first round.

Sotiropoulos earned a unanimous decision victory over Stevenson after going three rounds of non-stop exciting action. Sotiropoulos had the crowd in his corner as the home town boy, controlling most of the fight on the ground and showing some effective stand-up against Stevenson. Joe “Daddy” looked very relaxed in the bout, showing off his own Jiu-Jitsu skills against the Australian but was defeated by a more skilled opponent in the end.

Velasquez looked sharp right from the sound of the bell, tagging Nogueira with several punching combination’s that appeared to leave “Minotauro” flat footed. It didn’t take the American Kickboxing Academy fighter long before he landed a solid punch sending Nogueira to the mat. Velasquez was quick to follow that up with several more punches to his opponents head leaving referee Herb Dean with only one chose but to stop the bout. With that victory Velasquez remained undefeated moving to an 8-0 record.

Lytle was the only competitor to earn a submission victory at the event. Often known for his stand-up style, Lytle showed off his little known submission skills by tucking down to secure Foster’s right leg after the welterweight had his back from a standing position. “Lights Out” repositioned his hold on the leg to secure a knee-bar submission leaving Foster cringing in pain for several minutes after the fight was stopped.

With a dominating victory over what he called "probably the best heavyweight of all time," UFC president Dana White has reiterated an earlier promise and said UFC 110 main-event winner Cain Velasquez is on standby for a title shot.

If the winner of next month's UFC 111 interim-title fight between Frank Mir and Shane Carwin is injured or sidelined, Velasquez instead gets the title with champion Brock Lesnar.

"We'll see what happens with Mir and Carwin - see who wins that - and if the guys come out unscathed, they'll fight for the title," White said after UFC 110 at Acer Arena in Sydney, New South Whales, Australia. "If not, then Cain Velasquez will get that slot."

While the UFC's first-ever trip to Australia certainly delivered on
in-cage action, "UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez" didn't do too bad at
the box office, either.

At the UFC 100 post-event press conference, UFC president Dana
White said the event drew 17,831 attendees to Acer Arena in Sydney,
Australia, for a reported $2.5 million gate.

While attendance figures outside of North America are rarely certified
by local commissions, the reported figure marks the highest total ever claimed by the UFC for an event outside of North America.

George Sotiropoulos, Joe Stevenson, Cain Velasquez and Chris Lytle each
earned $50,000 fight-night bonuses at Saturday's "UFC 110: Nogueira vs.
Velasquez" event.

Sotiropoulos and Stevenson took home "Fight of the Night" honors, Velasquez
earned the "Knockout of the Night" award, and Lytle picked up the
"Submission of the Night" bonus at the Feb. 20 pay-per-view event.

UFC 110 took place at Acer Arena in Sydney and marked the UFC's first-ever trip to Australia.