When Diego Sanchez steps in to the cage against
John Hathaway at Saturday night's UFC 114 event in
Las Vegas, it will be the first time "Nightmare" has competed at
welterweight since a June 2008 win over Luigi Fioravanti.

Sanchez made the move back to 170 pounds after a failed lightweight
title bid against B.J. Penn at UFC 107 this past December.

A winner of the original "The Ultimate Fighter," Sanchez said the return
to 170 pounds was always in the cards, and though he's done with
lightweight for now, he feels there's unfinished business with Penn.

Middleweight fighter, 40 year old Matt Lindland, will take to the cage this Friday in Portland, Oreg. as part of the Strikeforce: Challengers series against Spencer Pratt. He was a guest of Eddie Goldman’s radio show on Monday and had a chance to talk about his career, as well as the business of mixed martial arts.

During the interview Lindland was asked about what could be done to help protect the fighters involved in the support, as well as the politics involved behind the scenes.

“Unless you can get the top athletes and you’re not going to do that. I mean the fighters, they’re all whores, they just fight for the biggest purse and it’s going to be tough unless you could somehow get all the fighters to agree to something like that and you know there’s always somebody going to come up underneath who’s not willing to do it. Like I said, it doesn’t matter who the best guys are, it only matters what the announcers are telling you who the best guys are and the fans are going to believe it.”

“You only have a finite amount (of years) that you can compete and you want to make as much money as you can in that time and you don’t want to mess around with the politics of the sport.”

You can listen to the entire interview with Matt Lindland HERE and if you find yourself interested in his story check out his documentary, Fighting Politics: The Story of Matt Lindland.

Props to Zach Arnold at FightOpinion.com for the transcription.

It’s pretty easy to see just how one sided last nights title fight was between Strikeforce champ Alistair Overeem over Brett Rogers.

Looking at those stats and seeing that Rogers only landed one punch in the whole 3:40 of the fight, fans are starting to question the ability of “The Grim’s” last opponent, Fedor Emelianenko.

MMA forum boards everywhere are comparing Fedor’s win over Rogers to Overeem’s win last night.

The Russian needed two rounds to stop Rogers, looked in trouble in the first, and walked away with a bloody nose. While Overeem ended the fight in the first round, was never in any trouble, and left the cage unscathed.

That is why people are comparing the two fighters and calling for both men to step into the cage.

Stoking the fire was Rogers comments before the fight of him saying how better prepared he was for Overeem than he was for his fight with Fedor. Fans are beginning to question the invincibility of the “Last Emporer.”

A fight pitting Overeem against Fedor should happen and will be the only true way of determining the top heavyweight within the Strikeforce organization, otherwise fans will start to lose interest and begin to turn against the promotion.

M-1 Global can only make excuses for so long. Fedor’s management has to make a choice to either put him in the cage against the Dutch fighter, or they can keep their cash cow in a glass bottle like they’ve been doing, lose more respect of the MMA community, and wither as a promotion, as no one will ever take them seriously again.

Of course, for this fight to mean anything, if it does happen, Fedor has to defeat Fabricio Werdum on June 26.

Props to MiddleEasy.com for the photo.

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.

Frank Curreri, UFC - He departed the cage, not entirely on his own power, but walking gingerly and having to lean on his trainers for support. Once backstage, an exhausted Benson Henderson was whisked away on a gurney, loaded into an ambulance and he would spend the night in a local hospital. IV tubes extended from his arms to a machine that nourished him to cure his severe dehydration. Trainers sat at the 26-year-old's bedside, offering encouragement, knowing the immediate physical misery of their star pupil would eventually yield to a lasting glory.

Most people would consider locking themselves in a cage with another man
hellbent on inflicting as much damage on you as possible just a wee bit
crazy.

And most people would probably also consider rushing into a burning
building for a living a bit risky, as well.

Not James Hammortree (5-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC). He does both.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - It was undoubtedly one of the oddest moments in UFC
history.

At Wednesday night's UFC Fight Night 21 at Bojangles Coliseum in
Charlotte, N.C., as emcee Bruce Buffer began the introductions for the
evening's co-main event, a power failure saw the cage lights go dark.

After a brief delay, Roy Nelson returned to the cage and earned a
first-round knockout of Stefan Struve. Following the win, Nelson said
the outage was no accident - it was a sign.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - It was undoubtedly one of the oddest moments in UFC
history.

At Wednesday night's UFC Fight Night 21 at Bojangles Coliseum in
Charlotte, N.C., as emcee Bruce Buffer began the introductions for the
evening's co-main event, a power failure saw the cage lights go dark.

After a brief delay, Roy Nelson returned to the cage and earned a
first-round knockout of Stefan Struve. Following the win, Nelson said
the outage was no accident - it was a sign.

This weekend was a great one for the UFC, their first trip into the 300+ movie theaters across the country seemed to be a boon for business and in the main event we got to see just how amazing Georges St. Pierre really is as he completely stifled Dan Hardy from the beginning of round one all the way to the final bell. But the question that haunts a fan like me, what is next for GSP? Looking at the top welterweight fighters in the world, GSP has beaten all of them, except Paul Daley, who is a clone of Dan Hardy (and no that is not a English joke) and would most likely be stuffed into the corner of the cage and also be unable to return fire on GSP much like the fight this weekend.

On Saturday night Jon Fitch was on the grind with a win over “Killa B” Ben Saunders that, while was not that exciting, was certainly a technical display of what Jon is extremely good at. The problem is that another fight between Fitch and GSP would be also as “technical” and not very fan friendly which is exactly why Dana wasn’t quick to grant that at the post-fight press conference. In fact, Dana was more interested in goading Jon into fighting Koscheck in a # 1 contender’s match, to which Jon responded “that fight would take place at our gym behind closed doors.”

The other scenario that has been floated around since this weekend was that The Ultimate Fighter 12 would be coached by Koscheck and “Semtex” Paul Daley for a shot at GSP. The problem is that while the fights between Fitch and Koscheck or Daley and Koscheck would be fun for MMA fans because either two teammates fighting each other and what that opens up for matches does it for you, or seeing if Paul’s hands can defeat Josh’s takedowns does, but the end game would be GSP beating all three men.

So what is next for GSP? Does he move up a weight class after this next defense for the Anderson Silva superfight? Is there a third match with Bj Penn? If so why? There is no doubt that George is one of the best if not the best in mixed martial arts when you look at his list of victims and his 20-2 record and as impressive as his performance on was Saturday, as a fan I look forward to seeing more competitive match-ups for George. I mean when you see a fight like the Carwin vs. Mir fight and then Brock steps in the cage to face off against Shane, I get goose bumps. That is because seeing Doomsday and the Incredible Hulk square off in a cage in July is great for business and has zero chance at being boring.

Fans have made MMA what it is today, their debates, videos, blogs, and most importantly their hard earned dollars and I appreciate George’s apology on Saturday night because he knows that the key to being a fan favorite is finishing the fight. And while finishing has different meanings to different people I think it is a universal truth that we enjoy his wins over Serra and Hughes verses his wins over Fitch and Koscheck. 2010 is going to be a brilliant year for MMA and the UFC and it would be great to see George back in the cage taking on guys that could test him. The only problem, George gets better every time he steps in the cage and there aren’t many humans that are in the same neighborhood, let alone share the same address as GSP.

Less than 72 hours before his chance at redemption against Jon Fitch,
Brazilian slugger Thiago Alves was told he wouldn't get the chance to
step inside the cage.

An irregularity in a pre-fight CT scan was the culprit, but Alves'
agent, Malki Kawa of First Round Management, told MMAjunkie.com that his client is aiming for a quick return.

"Thiago is very disappointed," Kawa said. "But he remains in good
spirits and hopes to get back in the cage very quickly."