Ten weeks after announcing his intentions to walk away from mixed martial arts forever in a frustrated blog post on his website, former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson plans to return to the UFC to finish out his contract and has announced his intentions to silence critics, including UFC President Dana White.
Further upset from what he felt was selective editing of episodes of The Ultimate Fighter 10, on which he served as a coach, Jackson feels that he was unfairly portrayed and has scores to settle in the company.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to New Jersey for the first time in well over two years at UFC 111 next March and the event will be headlined by a UFC Welterweight Championship bout between champion Georges “Rush” St. Pierre and rising British star Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy.
Already the exclusive home for Strikeforce Challengers Series events in Canada, the Super Channel television network has taken a bigger step into the world of mixed martial arts and will now broadcast all Strikeforce on Showtime events live across Canada, beginning on December 19th.
Returning to mixed martial arts after a successful tenure in boxing, former EliteXC Lightweight Champion “King” Karl James (KJ) Noons has signed a multi-fight deal with Strikeforce and is expected to make his promotional debut on January 30, 2010 in Sunrise, Florida.
The Strikeforce middleweight division became a lot more interesting today when the promotion announced the signing of “Marvellous” Melvin Manhoef, who is arguably the most feared striker in all of mixed martial arts and advanced to the semi-finals of the DREAM Middleweight Grand Prix last year with a pair of vicious knockouts.
UFC welterweight contender Josh Koscheck may get a chance to avenge his humbling February knockout loss to Paulo Thiago, as the pair are reportedly set to compete in a rematch at UFC 109, which takes place just shy of one year after their first meeting at UFC 95.
With his extremely impressive WEC Featherweight Championship win over Mike Brown at WEC 44, Jose “Junior” Aldo claims the top spot in the 145-pound rankings, but a busy month of fights in November has resulted in many other changes among the divisions.
According to a press release from M-1 Global earlier today, #1-ranked heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko’s historic Strikeforce debut against Brett “The Grim” Rogers drew a worldwide audience of over 25 million viewers, with 16 million people tuning in from Emelianenko’s home country, Russia.