(James Thompson photo courtesy of ProElite.com)

James “Colossus” Thompson’s next scheduled fight is with TKO Championship Fighting of Canada on October 3 at the Bell Centre in Montreal. His opponent will be former hockey player Steve Bosse.

The news is according to the website TKOExtreme.com, which is attributing the announcement of the Thompson vs. Bosse fight to TKO CEO Stephane Patry.

Bosse, who is extremely popular in Canada, is 3-1 since making his mixed martial arts debut in June of 2007. He recorded his most notable victory to date during his last fight on June 7 at TKO 34. In the fight, Bosse was able to submit former UFC heavyweight Wes “The Project” Sims in the first round.

Prior to turning to MMA, Bosse was a leading enforcer in the North American Hockey League. He began his martial arts training with Mark Colangelo and with Stephane Dube.

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James Thompson is quickly becoming the Rodney Dangerfield of MMA; the man simply can’t get any respect.I woke up Sunday morning at my hotel in Newark and put on SportsCenter. I was delighted to see that ESPN decided to devote coverage to the festivities from the night before. There was one glaring problem though, which was that the anchor introduced the clip with a headline that read, “Kimbo crushes Colossus.”

Say what!?

Kimbo Slice no doubt inflicted a lot of damage upon Thompson that night, but from my vantage point, Thompson did his share of harm onto Kimbo as well. To claim Kimbo “crushed” James Thompson in their fight this past Saturday night was an egregious error. But then again, Thompson is not a man that was a stranger to egregious errors this past weekend weekend.

During the press conference that proceeded the debut of “Saturday Night Fights” on CBS, EliteXC Live Events President Gary Shaw pronounced that Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith would rematch each other in the near future following the stoppage of their fight due to an eye poke that Smith received from Lawler. That decision makes perfect sense, but what would make just as much sense would be to sign a rematch between Slice and Thompson. It’s a rematch that Thompson deserves — no, it’s a rematch that he’s entitled to it.

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FiveOuncesOfPain.com contacted James Thompson via phone at his home in England on Wednesday and he granted us an exclusive interview. During the interview, Thompson was candid about his feelings regarding his main event fight vs. Kimbo Slice during the debut of “Saturday Night Fights” on CBS. Thompson held nothing back and addressed all the questions we had pertaining to his fight vs. Slice.

He revealed during the interview that he intends to file an appeal; that he knew what was going on after the fight had been stopped and had intentionally put his hands on referee Dan Miragliotta; how he feels about one judge who scored the second round in favor of Kimbo; and that in hindsight, he feels uneasy with the tight nit relationship between Gary and Jared Shaw and Slice.

Below is the transcript of our one-on-one with Thompson:

Sam Caplan: I wanted to first see if I could get a general update on your health. How are you doing right now?

James Thompson: Yeah, I’m fine. Right after the fight a lot of people wanted me to go to the hospital. Obviously, I needed to go to the hospital for my cauliflower ear but other than that my health was 100 percent. My cauliflower was busted. They put stitches in it and sliced and diced it a little bit but that’s all fine now and that’s kind of healing. So yeah, I am 100 percent.

Sam Caplan: I wanted to go through all the events that took place this past Saturday night. First, I wanted to start with the post-fight press conference. It was kind of strange because the press conference started with Gary Shaw announcing that you were in bad shape and that you had been rushed to the hospital. Then, a few minutes later you walked in and given the circumstances, you appeared relatively fine. Did you know he had made that announcement, and if so, how did you feel when you heard that he had said that?

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Cauliflower ear has never been more popular, so we at Five Ounces of Pain wanted to get a nice pick up here and open the communication lines in reverence of this “alien life form,” as the commentary crew mentioned.

Photo courtesy of Sherdog.com and photog Dave Mandel.

This is a post-fight ear picture, after Kimbo Slice punched in head-on and busted it wide open.  Don’t forget to vote in our Poll (left column of the site) regarding your opinion on James “Colossus” Thompson’s ghastly ear!

There has been much said, post-fight, about EliteXC: Primetime’s main event between Kimbo Slice and James Thompson. The majority of which surrounds fight-fixing conspiracies, premature stoppages, phantom taps, why Kimbo will never be a top 10 heavyweight and how terrible it was that that fight was the main event on MMA’s first network card.

Much of the criticism levelled at the main attraction pre-fight was that Kimbo Slice was undeserving of the role of ambassador for mainstream mixed martial arts because of his lack of experience and his backyard brawling background and that the fight would be just be an early first round knockout and would be more about showcasing Slice than it was MMA.

A quick first round knockout wasn’t what we saw on Saturday night though and I for one am glad that I got to see 10 minutes and 38 seconds of back and forth MMA action instead. Granted, the fight wasn’t filled with the cleanest of exchanges and grappling transitions but in my opinion it was a lot better viewing than the much predicted alternative.

If Slice/Thompson went as everyone expected it to go then MMA’s first foray into the world of network television would of come across to the novice viewer as just sloppy kickboxing with the occasional tackle.

The hardest part, I think, of introducing MMA to the uneducated public is getting the public to understand the intricacies of the ground game. If MMA is going to have any sort of staying power or longevity as a mainstream sport it needs an educated fan base. You can only dish up less than technical stand-up war after stand-up war for so long until the product becomes stale and in my opinion what gives MMA its lure is the contrast between the intensity and power of the stand up and the technical and tactical battle of the ground. Surprisingly, Kimbo/Thompson probably ended up helping the education of the newer audience in the details of the ground more so than any other possible fight could.

Like it or not, the overwhelming majority of people that tuned in yesterday that haven’t watched an MMA event most likely did so in order to watch Kimbo Slice. Now if you had only very limited knowledge about MMA beforehand and were only tuning in to watch Kimbo Slice you would be very eager and interested to learn what was going on when Thompson was on top of Kimbo. The commentators did a good job of explaining what Kimbo needed to do in order to get out of the bad situations he found himself in and what James Thompson was trying to do. For an MMA newcomer and Kimbo fan that would resonate more deeply than it would if it were two BJJ blackbelts rolling in the main event.

With any luck that fight planted seeds in the minds of many newcomers so that the next time they stumble upon an event they will be able to see and recognise those positions and will be able to get more insight and enjoyment out of that fight/event.

James “The Colossus” Thompson made headlines last year when he announced his decision to relocate to the United States and Las Vegas in order to train at Randy Couture’s Xtreme Couture gym.

At the time, the feeling was that by training at Xtreme Couture, Thompson’s overall MMA game would begin to evolve as a result. However, against Brett Rogers during his EliteXC debut in Miami this past February, Thompson still opened the fight with his patented “Gong ‘N Dash” maneuver in which he charges his opponent. And while Thompson did put Rogers against the cage in an apparent attempt to take him off his feet, he was unsuccessful in doing so and was knocked out at 2:24 of round 1.

Thompson will return to the cage next Saturday in the main event of EliteXC’s debut on CBS when he takes on Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson. But for the fight, Thompson has returned to his native UK and is no longer working with Xtreme Couture. Instead, he’s been preparing for his fight at a camp called London Street Fighters.

But for Thompson, the decision to not train at Xtreme Couture for the Slice fight was one made based on logic.

“I’m training with a team called London Street Fighters at the moment in England,” Thompson responded during a conference call on Thursday when asked to talk about his preparation for the fight. “You know I spent some time actually (deciding where to train). I joined a great team with great people. I learn from them. The problem was Shawn Thompkins has done a lot of work with Bas and Kimbo. I didn’t want to put him in such an awkward position. Shawn is a great guy. So I started looking for all the teams and followed up on one in England. It’s all been going great for me.”

EliteXC held a conference call today for the media. Featured guests were EliteXC promoter Gary Shaw, headliners Kimbo Slice and James Thompson, as well as Kimbo’s trainer and MMA legend Bas Rutten.

By far the most entertaining bit came at the beginning of the call. A reporter asked about Dana White’s comments that BJ Penn would “destroy” Kimbo in a fight.

Gary Shaw: Dana White is a jerkoff. That’s what Dana White is, a fucking idiot, and you can quote me on that. If he cared about mixed martial arts and the sport instead of caring about his big ass swimming pool and his own personal gains, he’d understand that statements like that make someone into a jerk. First of all, I love BJ Penn and he is a friend of mine. Kimbo Slice, one shot, would knock BJ Penn out, a 155 pounder. But they are never going to fight, it is an idiotic statement from a complete idiot… Dana White’s an idiot. And if he wasn’t an idiot, May 31 would have been the UFC instead of EliteXC. I rest my case.

Kimbo Slice: You know, it’s a free country and everyone can have their own opinion.

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Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson’s opponent for EliteXC’s first show on CBS on May 31 will be officially announced by week’s end, NBCSports.com’s Mike Chiapetta is reporting.

According to the report, the opponent set to be announced is none other than former PRIDE veteran James “Colossus” Thompson.

It was reported by FiveOuncesOfPain.com (www.FiveOuncesOfPain.com) following the combined EliteXC & Strikeforce show on March 29 that Thompson was in fact the leading candidate to face Slice after an attempt to finalize Ron Waterman as an opponent was unsuccessful.

Slice, 2-0, last fought on in February during EliteXC’s “Street Certified” show in Miami, Florida. During the card’s main event, Slice recorded a first round knockout victory over MMA pioneer Tank Abbott.

Thompson also fought on the same card, but lost to heavyweight prospect Brett Rogers after being knocked out at 2:24 into round 1.

Thompson, who trains out of Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, is 14-8 lifetime and holds notable career victories over Don Frye, Hidehiko Yoshida, and Dan Severn.

The debut CBS show, which is set to emanate from the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., will also feature Robbie Lawler defending his EliteXC middleweight title vs. Scott Smith, Gina Carano facing Kaitlin Young in a women’s MMA fight, and Phil Baroni taking on Murilo “Ninja” Rua.

EliteXC has announced that James “The Colossus” Thompson will face undefeated heavyweight Brett Rogers on the undercard of the promotion’s February 16 show in Miami, Florida that’s scheduled to be headlined by Kimbo Slice vs. Tank Abbott.

The promotion has also announced that Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett has been added to the undercard against an opponent yet to be announced. Bennett is a Florida native, hailing from Ocala.

Bennett, 19-14-2, will be fighting for EliteXC for the first time since a disappointing loss to Victor Valenzuela during August’s ShoXC event. Bennett tapped due to strikes at 3:23 of round 1 in what had been promoted as a heated grudge match.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REMAINDER OF THIS CARD ON SAM CAPLAN’S PROELITE.COM BLOG

According to MMA Weekly, James Thompson will be stepping back into the cage on Sunday, December 16 for Ultimate Force in the United Kingdom:

“The promotion has secured a headline bout between Tengiz Tedoradze and James Thompson in a rematch of their June 2004 encounter.”

For Thompson, it will be interesting to see how he rebounds from a ten second KO at the hands of Neil Grove at Cage Rage 22 in July. Thompson’s brawling style has been a crowd pleaser for years, but his lack of a signature victory over a top caliber opponent has relegated him to undercard status.

Thompson is also planning to fight for EliteXC sometime in the future.

In an exclusive interview with recently signed EliteXC fighter Kimbo Slice, the Internet street fighting legend informed FiveOuncesOfPain.com and ProElite.com that several opponents are being discussed as possibilities for his debut for the promotion on Nov. 10 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

According to Kimbo, a match against Tank Abbott that was scheduled to take place for the Cage Fury Fighting Championships this weekend before it was canceled last week could still take place inside an EliteXC cage. He also said that PRIDE and Cage Rage veteran James “Colossus” Thompson has been mentioned as well.

The transcript of my interview with Kimbo will be available on my ProElite.com blog later on this evening.

UK-based Cage Rage has a big event planned for Wembley Stadium in London on July 14. Just added to the card is a super heavyweight clash between James Thompson and Wesley “Cabbage” Correira.