UFC welterweight fighters Matt Serra (11-6) and Chris Lytle (29-17-5) will rematch one another at the upcoming UFC 119 in Indianapolis.

The fight was first reported by MMAjunkie.com who noted that both fighters have agreed to face one another but have yet to sign the bout agreements.

They first faced each other in the welterweight Finale of “The Ultimate Fighter 4: The Comeback” in November of 2006. Serra earned a split decision from the judges to earn the win over Lytle.

Serra, who since then, has gone on to win the UFC welterweight title, earned a victory in his last fight after losing two straight. At UFC 109 he faced Frank Trigg knocking him out in the first round ending Trigg’s hopes of returning to the UFC. He fought once in 2009 and 2008, losing bouts to Matt Hughes and to Georges St-Pierre, who won his title back from Serra at UFC 83.

Lytle, meanwhile has gone on to win a few and lose a few since facing Serra, putting together a 7-3 record since the loss at the TUF 4 Finale. One thing he has done though is win numerous “Fight Night” honors, earning 7 bonuses including 4 “Fight of the Night” awards. Lytle has won his past three bouts having submitted Matt Brown at last weekends UFC 116 event, Brian Foster at UFC 110, and Kevin Burns at the “TUF 9″ Finale.

The yet to be officially announced UFC 119, is believed to take place at the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on Sept. 25.

Matt Brown is set to take on Chris “Lights Out” Lytle at UFC 116 on July 3 and the fight has MMA fans salivating for what should be an exciting bout. The first fight between the two took place outside the UFC with Lytle getting the submission victory via guillotine choke but Brown had only two weeks to prepare for the bout. This time both fighters have had a full camp and Brown will be hungry for a win after lossing to Ricardo Almeida at UFC 111. Lytle has rattled off two victories in a row, his latest coming at UFC 110 against Brian Foster. Brown isn’t looking for Fight of the Night honors though, he’s looking for the KO of the Night(quote via UFC.com):

“This time I have a full training camp, so I’ll be prepared for whatever comes,” he says. “And I can see where people are coming from with the fight of the night stuff. There’s no question that if I was looking at it from the outside that I would say it’s got Fight of the Night written all over it. But I plan on it being Knockout of the Night—I don’t see it being Fight of the Night at all. I’m going to knock him out. I don’t think either of us is going to be happy with this fight going to a decision. We’re coming, we’re out for blood. We’re coming to hurt each other.”

UFC welterweights Dustin Hazelett (12-5) and Rick Story (10-3) have agreed to meet at UFC 117 according to sources close to the event.

UFC 117 has yet to be made official by the promotion, but it is expected to take place on Aug. 7 at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. and will be headlined by a middleweight title bout between champ Anderson Silva vs. challenger Chael Sonnen.

Hazelett had been rumored to face Dan Hardy as part of UFC 119, but the fighter declined the bout because he is planning on getting married in the fall.

Hazelett is coming off a loss to Dan Hardy at UFC 108 where they fought at a catch weight of 172 pounds. He had scored two previous victories over Tamdan McCrory and Josh Burkman, earning “Fight Night” awards for both. His UFC 91 win over McCrory earned him the “Submission of the Night” while he submitted Burkman at the “TUF 7″ Finale to earn the “Submission of the Night” and “Fight of the Night” honors.

Meanwhile Story has rattled off three victories after losing his UFC debut in June of last year. The 25-year-old has earned victories over Brian Foster, Jesse Lennox and Nick Osipczak in his past three fights. Not unfamiliar with double “Fight Night” honors, Story earned the “Submission of the Night” and “Fight of the Night” awards against Foster at UFC 103.

No information was provided on where on the UFC 117 card, the bout will appear.

HT: MMAjunkie.com

Sometimes regular life is more dangerous than cage life.

UFC welterweight Brian Foster on Wednesday evening
broke his left leg and will be out of action for at least six to eight
weeks. Marc Fiore, Foster's trainer at the H.I.T. Squad, today told
MMAjunkie.com the unfortunate news.

Foster, a Salisaw, Okla. resident when he's not at the H.I.T. Squad's
gym in Granite City, Ill., was playing basketball with players from a
local high school when he fell and broke his tibia. He also dislocated
his ankle.

The undercard for UFC 116 just got a bit more exciting with a fight between Matt Brown and Chris “Lights Out” Lytle has been booked according to a recent report on MMA Fighting.

Both fighters usually put on some of the most exciting fights in the welterweight division and this fight should be no different. This fight has been added to what should be a huge event with the return of Brock Lesnar in the main event.

This will be a rematch from 2007 in the United Fight League, as Lytle choked Brown out with a guillotine choke in the second round.

Since his return to the UFC after a stint on the fourth season of The Ultimate Fighter, Lytle has racked up seven “Of the Night” bonuses, with four fights of the night bonuses against the likes of Kevin Burns, Marcus Davis, Paul Taylor, and Thiago Alves. Since his return in 2007, Lytle has gone 6-3 with his only loses to Davis, Alves, and Matt Hughes. His most recent victory was over Brian Foster in-which he executed a beautiful rolling kneebar only a minute into the fight.

Brown made his debut after his stint on The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rampage vs. Team Griffin, and has gone 4-2 in the promotion, with his only losses to Dong Hyun-Kim and recently to Ricardo Almeida at UFC 111. Brown’s most memorable fight in the octagon might be his fight against Pete Sell at UFC 96, in which he dropped Sell to only have the fight restarted, and then proceeded to pound Sell some more despite Brown wanting the fight stopped.

UFC 116 takes place on July 3 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and it will be aired on PPV.

Thomas Gerbasi, UFC - Admit it - you've looked at a fight on television at one point or another and said 'I could do that.'
Well, instead of just crushing your dreams with a simple 'no, you can't,' let's use Rick Story's UFC 103 bout with Brian Foster as an illustration. Forget the fact that mixed martial arts is a sport that requires years of training in various combat sports disciplines, athleticism, etc. I just want you to look at one aspect of the game.

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.

He may go by the moniker of “Lights Out”, but you can rest assured that Chris Lytle has no problem paying his electric bill.

It’s a fact: Chris Lytle is not only one of the most consistently exciting fighters to watch currently in the UFC, but in the history of the sport for that matter.

This UFC bonus check recovery specialist has taken being among the top earners in the promotion into his own hands, capturing a total of seven performance dictated bonus checks over the course of the last several years after making a conscious decision to focus almost exclusively on being known as one of the most electrifying athletes of mixed martial arts.

In total it has been four “Fight of the Night” honors, two “Submission of the Night” checks and a “Knockout of the Night” bonus that has helped to factually legitimize Lytle as a bonafide bad ass that likely has the late Arturo Gatti looking down on the Indiana based fireman, nodding his head in approval.

“That’s my main goal this year, when people here that I’m going to be on the card I want them to want to order the pay-per-view because they know it’s going to be an exciting fight,” said Lytle in a January 2009 conversation with FiveOuncesofPain.com. “I want to be in high demand and I want people to want to see my fights.

“I want to make sure that by the end of this year for everyone to want to see every fight I’m in. I want to be the kind of fighter that makes people want to buy pay per views just because I’m going to be on it.”

Mission accomplished, Chris. Well played.

All in all, Lytle has captured a grand total of $310,000 over the last two and a half years in FOTN bonus checks alone. Of course, that’s not counting the walking highlight reel’s guaranteed “show” and possible win money.

The moral of the story is that I could easily think of more than a handful of highly rated fighters that could do themselves a great service by taking a few notes from Lytle. I’ve heard the same consistently dull fighters promise excitement time and time again with no results, but action speaks louder than words, and of course money most definitely talks while empty promises walk.

Check out the fruits of Lytle’s hard work below:

$40,000 for “Submission of the Night” inverted triangle/straight armbar over Jason Gilliam during UFC 73 on July 7, 2007

$55,000 for “Fight of the Night” honors against Thiago Alves during UFC 78 on November 17, 2007

$60,000 for “Knockout of the Night” over Kyle Bradley during UFC 81 on February 2, 2008

$40,000 for “Fight of the Night” honors against Paul Taylor during UFC 89 on October 18, 2008

$40,000 for “Fight of the Night” honors against Marcus Davis during UFC 93 on January 17, 2009

$25,000 for “Fight of the Night” honors against Kevin Burns during The Ultimate Finale 9 on June 20, 2009

$50,000 for “Submission of the Night” kneebar over Brian Foster during UFC 110 on February 21, 2009

To kick things off in the previous edition of “The Aftermath: UFC 109″ I listed a series of fighters which I fully expected to be released from the UFC such as Frank Trigg, Justin Buccholz and Phillipe Nover, all of which have since been let go, but when examining the rubble of UFC 110 and it’s unfortunate victims it seems that this event may have had an opposite effect on the careers of a few athletes with questionable futures under the promotion.

Two fighters that will most likely NOT be cut following UFC 110:

Stephan Bonnar: Bonnar’s performance in the most pivotal bout in UFC history has cemented his place with the promotion in an extremely unique way. Luckily Saturday’s bout with Krzysztof Soszynski ended via controversial headbutt so Bonnar’s career will undoubtedly continue in the UFC with little need for explanation from the promotion considering “The American Psycho” holds the unfortunate distinction of having suffered defeats in three consecutive bouts at this point.

Keith Jardine: The sad thing about Jardine’s defeat to Ryan Bader at UFC 109 was the fact that “The Dean of Mean” actually looked better than he had in recent memory before the end came. If Keith had mounted some offense in the final three minutes of the bout that Bader made sure we didn’t get to see, we could have been looking at a decision for the master of herk-jerky-fu. Sure, Jardine’s gone 2-5 in his last seven, but look at who he’s been fighting. A case could be made for his dismissal, but I feel an even stronger case could be made for Jardine’s spot on the UFC 205 pound roster to stay intact.

With a couple exceptions… Things aren’t looking great for Igor Pokrajac from here right now. I’d expect his release to be reported in the coming hours or days. I wouldn’t hold my breath for the future of Anthony Perosh in the UFC at this point either, but at least he can say he tried.

“Oh yeah, that’s right, I have a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu“. This must have been what ran through the head of Chris Lytle in the days leading up to the Indiana fireman’s UFC 110 Submission of the Night victory over Brian Foster. Lytle is a legitimately dangerous submission fighter with a black belt in BJJ, and Foster, well Foster isn’t. As a matter of fact, four of Foster’s five defeats to date have now come by way of tap out. Kudos to Lytle for doing the right thing in this bout, and still somehow managing to grab a bonus in the process.

Lytle cements his legacy as one of the most exciting fighters to watch… ever. With an unprecedented SEVEN fight of the night bonuses (1 Knockout, 2 Submission and 4 Fight of the Nights) in his last nine fights, you’d be hard pressed to argue against the fact that “Lights Out” is one of the most consistently exciting fighters not only in the UFC, but in the history of the sport. A fighter’s fighter. Well done Chris.

Could Jardine cut? This may sound completely crazy out of my mind, but seriously, does anyone think that Jardine could possibly make a drop to 185 pounds? And if so, do you think that would be a weight class where the Greg Jackson trained fighter could revitalize his career? I’m just saying…

A defeat inside of a victory for Cro Cop? I remain unconvinced that Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic is anything more than financially relevant in the UFC’s current heavyweight division. One of my favorite fighters from about five years ago looked like a shell of his old self this past Saturday evening in victory over Anthony “A Few Hours Notice” Perosh. Where was the high kick that the man is known, and used to be feared for? It was non-existent. That’s where it was. And why? Is Perosh that much of a threat? Not to an “elite level striker” he shouldn’t have been. Just like the sad time when I realized that I would no longer have any additional knockouts to add to my Mike Tyson highlight reel, I have come to the grips with the fact that the only time I will be seeing the patented left “right leg hospital, left leg cemetery” from Cro Cop will be on my old Pride DVD’s. If he couldn’t get the job done against Anthony at UFC 110, then who’s it going to be? I’d love to Mirko prove me wrong, but it seems like the fire is gone. And once the fire is out for many fighters, it’s nearly impossible to rekindle that flame.

Smile now, cry later… again. I’ve said it before after Mike Swick was recently belted off-side his head and choked out at the hands of Paulo Thiago, and I’m going to say it again following Joe Stevenson’s recent defeat to George Sotiropoulos in Australia. Stevenson seemed to be a little overly happy and upbeat heading into his UFC 110 showdown with George, while Sotiropoulos looked as if Joe had just sent a personal insult in the direction of his mother. There was obviously more than just attitude and mindset to take into account this past Saturday evening in this lightweight match-up, but attitude and mindset are two factors in any form of professional athletic combat that refuse to be ignored.

George Sotiropoulos vs. Kenny Florian anyone? I couldn’t help but notice similarities between the two lightweights both standing and on the ground as Sotiropoulos methodically picked apart Joe Stevenson this past Saturday evening. Now that George has established himself as a top-flight contender in the lightweight division with a win over a fighter like Joe Daddy, a potential match-up between the two aggressive and well-rounded 155 pounders could spell a future title shot for either man in the future if Florian looks impressive in victory over Takanori Gomi at UFC Fight Night 21, which I fully expect he will.

A revitalized “Axe Murderer”. With a win over Michael Bisping, Wanderlei Silva has officially established himself as a legitimate contender in the UFC middleweight division. It appeared as if Wanderlei had a renewed sense of timing and hand speed this past Saturday evening at 185 pounds, although the importance of getting of the win obviously affected his overall performance in the bout. With that being said, there were absolutely points where we saw the old Wanderlei in action, particularly in the closing moments of each round. If Silva had chosen to let those brief flurries go in say, the middle of any given around, we very easily could have seen the knockout many had anticipated.

Velasquez erases all doubt. The one-sided beating dished out to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira absolutely solidified Cain’s place near the top of the UFC heavyweight mountain. Velasquez displayed the type of timing and explosiveness in his striking that is rarely seen by the majority of top-level wrestlers that make the decision to make the the transition to mixed martial arts. With the victory over Big Nog in Australia, Velasquez asserted himself as a bonafide top three heavyweight in the UFC due to the fact that it has been a years time since we have last seen Shane Carwin action.

“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.