MMAWeekly.com is reporting that the Kelly vs. Delgado matchup has been confirmed between and is most likely ticketed for the UFC 99 undercard during the UFC’s German debut on Saturday, June 13.

Kelly, who trains out of the Wolfslair Academy, is coming off a victory over another Ultimate Fighter veteran Troy Mandaloniz at UFC 95 last month in London, England. Soon after the win Kelly made the decision to move down in weight.

The British born fighter is 8-1 with his lone loss coming at the hands of Marcus Davis at UFC 89. He was also awarded a “Fight of the Night” bonus after defeating fellow British fighter Paul Taylor at UFC 80.

Delgado is a jiu-jitsu black belt who made a successful debut in the UFC at live finale for the eighth season The Ultimate Fighter where he defeated housemate John Polakowski via second round submission.

While on the show, Delgado had the legitimacy of his black belt questioned by many of the other contestants as well as coach Frank Mir. His opponent, Junie Browning, even went as far as to throw a black belt in front of Delgado after their fight on the show had been announced and spit on it. Delgado gave Browning all he could handle pushing the fight to a third round in which he ultimately lost despite being a heavy underdog.

UFC 99 will take place in Cologne, Germany and will emanate from the Lanxess Arena. The show’s main event will feature former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin and former PRIDE middleweight (203 pounds) champion Wanderlei Silva in a catch weight bout that will be contested at 195 pounds.

Part of the appeal of this summer’s Olympic wrestling team will be the fact that the squad, which is traditionally laden with veterans, will have some fresh new faces in search of Olympic glory for the first time.

Two of those faces are 21-year old Arizonan Henry Cejudo and 18-year old Minnesotan Jake Deitschler, who will be two of the young faces to watch for the U.S. in Beijing. The pair were part of the Olympic wrestling team that visited New York last week on their “Fuel The Dream” tour, and both were more than aware of what challenges and opportunities lie ahead in Beijing and beyond.

But are they MMA fans? You bet.

Deitschler, who is scheduled to attend the University of Minnesota in the fall (classes start just three days after the closing ceremonies) has had the chance to grapple all over the state with a host of the world’s best wrestlers, and recently spent time in Minneapolis speaking to UFC and WWE veteran Brock Lesnar on his transition from wrestling to the professional side.

“The great thing about being around the University of Minnesota is that you get to talk and workout with the best,” Deitschler began. “And although I haven’t wrestled with him, Brock has been great at giving advice and helping me prepare for what lies ahead. He helped set the standard.”

That standard includes NCAA glory followed by a path to the WWE and recently to the UFC. is it a path Deitchler would follow?

“I started watching my first UFC videos when I was seven, so I know all about the stars of MMA and how many of them have wrestling backgrounds,” he said. “Right now all my focus is on the Olympics and then being a great wrestler. Whatever happens after that for me is a very long way off.”

Cejudo, a trailblazer himself, skipped college and went right into the Olympic Development Program in Colorado Springs at 18, and is now a world wrestling veteran at 21. The Mexican-American has the experience and attitude to bring home gold in Beijing, and after that would consider an MMA career, although his focus too is on Beijing.

“I have watched the UFC all my life, and I think wrestling, especially for someone my size, gives me a great advantage against other MMA disciplines,” said Cejudo. “Can I learn the striking and the jiu-jitsu? Yes. And like with wrestling I would learn those skills form some of the masters. I think my biggest concern would be weight class. I’m using my quickness to be successful, and althought there are many lower weight classes in boxing, they don’t exist as much in MMA. Maybe a 135 is something that the UFC would start in the future, but for now I’m just glad to get a chance to be part of the Olympic wrestling team and go from there. My goal right now is to be the best wrestler, period.”

MMA in the Olympics is something that former IFL commissioner Kurt Otto, EliteXC Live Events President Gary Shaw, and UFC President Dana White have all championed in the past.

I actually spoke to several promoters about the concept of MMA as an Olympic sport while researching a potential magazine article. Everyone I spoke to made great arguments as to why MMA would benefit from becoming an Olympic sport, however, no one really could provide logistical details of how medal winners would be determined.

I am often asked when I believe MMA will finally become an Olympic sport and it’s an easy answer. I’m not a gambling man but I’d bet my house that we’ll never see MMA inducted into the Olympics as a sport.

Did you hear that? Never.

No one can dispute the fact that MMA in the Olympics would be a tremendous validation for the sport and a tremendous boon towards gaining increased acceptance from the mainstream.

So yeah, it’s easy to see how being involved with the Olympics would be good for MMA. But has anyone thought about whether it would be good for the Olympics?

Regardless of who it’s good for and who it’s not good for, it doesn’t matter because it’s not going to happen in our lifetime.

I’m not being cynical or pessimistic; only a realist. After I give you the reasons why we’ll never see MMA in the Olympics, even eternal optimists will share my point of view.

The Selection Process…

How would fighters be selected for the Olympics? It’s real easy to do a selection tournament for amateur boxing considering they use headgear and heavy gloves. By the time the Olympics roll around the qualifiers all have had plenty of time to heal.

But does the industry really want a selection process in MMA that would add to the commitment fighters would have to make to be a part from the organization they fight for? Let’s say the UFC was willing to commit Georges St. Pierre to the Olympics; taking him out of the mix for one fight would be tough to swallow. However, the selection process would mean he’d be unavailable to the UFC for a second fight.

There’s also the issue of nationalism. U.S. and Japanese fighters wouldn’t care about fighting each other but what about the Brazilians? I hope I don’t offend anyone by making a gross generalization, but a lot of Brazilians at the pro level do not like fighting each other.

Top Brazilian fighters would be flat out psyched to represent Brazil in the Olympics against other nations, but if asked to compete each other in a head-to-head format, a lot of them would bail.

You could always form selection committees and eliminate a qualifying tournament but then things become very political.

The Promoters are Full of It…

When it comes time to commit fighters to the Olympics, the promoters who support it will suddenly go quiet. White has said he’d like to see it, but let’s say MMA was going to take place during the Beijing Olympics in August. And let’s say Chuck Liddell is representing the U.S. and Wanderlei Silva is representing Brazil and the two are scheduled to face each other. Such a situation means that the UFC would lose one of its biggest main events. They’d literally be handing millions of dollars in revenue opportunities to the International Olympic Committee without anything in return.

And you know White would never allow one of his fighters to fight a fighter that represents another organization. Let’s say Anderson Silva was the representative for Brazil at 185 lbs. but there was a possibility that he might have to fight EliteXC’s Robbie Lawler, who is representing the U.S. If there was any chance of one of White’s top fighters facing a top fighter from another organization, the UFC’s support would vanish.

The bottom line: no promoter from a major MMA organization is going to loan out resources to the Olympics when they don’t have a financial piece of the action.

I could see promoters possibly loaning out some of their younger, lesser established fighters who could become superstars with a strong run in the Olympics. But whether pro or amateurs are used, it needs to be the best of the class in order for MMA to be taken serious at an Olympic sport.

If promoters weren’t willing to lend out their fighters but still wanted the rub of legitimacy MMA would get by being an Olympic sport, they could always push for amateurs. After all, wasn’t there a day and age where you had to be an amateur in order to compete in the Olympics?

The problem there is that there is no universal standard for amateur status. The U.S. finally caved and agreed to allow the NBA to represent the country in the Olympics because all of the other countries were using pros. So what if the U.S., Japan, and Brazil agree to send amateur fighters but Russia starts sending pros? What if you have 32-year old Red Devil veterans smashing 20-year old kids?

Lack of Acceptance…

So far, only one network has been willing to show MMA in primetime and that is CBS. But CBS Sports doesn’t produce EliteXC’s events as it’s done through the network’s entertainment division.

NBC has entered into a timebuy agreement with Strikeforce and shows MMA early Sunday mornings. But once again, it’s done through NBC’s entertainment division and not it’s sports division.

MMA is still a tough sell to the mainstream and the reality is that NBC has a lock on the Olympics for several more years. If it isn’t yet willing to show it in primetime, why would the sports division suddenly agree to televise it? Sports producers see the Olympics as their golden ticket to win an Emmy. The last thing they want is to impugn the Olympics by featuring a sport known for violence and blood.

The Logistics of the Tournament Format…

I’m not an Olympics expert, but whether it’s an individual or team sport, medals are determined via a tournament-style format. Athletes have to compete multiple times over a short time frame, sometimes multiple times in a day. Single-day tournaments in MMA were done away with a long time ago. They’ve been brought back recently in altered fashion; California allows single-night four-man tournaments while New Jersey recently approved a concept for YAMMA in which a single-night tournament was allowed with the bouts in the first two rounds of the tourney lasting only one round of five minutes and the tournament final consisting of three, three minute rounds.

So the reality is, if you did the Olympic MMA tournament old school UFC style, you make a dangerous sport even more dangerous. You’ll run into situations where fighters that lost actually end up advancing because the guy who beat them was too hurt to advance.

Doing the single-night four-man tourney that Strikeforce utilized isn’t an option because then the tournament is limited to just four nations. And who the hell wants to do a tournament the way YAMMA did it? A fight that only lasts five minutes?

MMA in the Olympics will never happen because it’s just not feasible. However, there two like-minded options that realistically could work:

1. Submission Grappling in the Olympics – The Olympics already features Taekwondo, Judo, and wrestling, so why not jiu-jitsu? There is no striking in jiu-jitsu so it fits into the whole sportsmanship aspect of the games. And if you’ve ever been to a major grappling tournament, you already know it’s operated in an Olympic fashion through its tournament bracketing system. And when winners in a division are declared, they are announced on a podium and presented medals and trophy. Competitive submission grappling is already an Olympic sport… it’s just not yet in the Olympics.

2. An MMA World Cup done Grand Prix style – MMA is a global sport and it would be pretty cool to see nations go head-to-head. Why not do a Grand Prix-style tournament that would take place over the span of three fight cards and would be run independent of the International Olympic committee, similar to what FIFA does with the World Cup in soccer? The biggest hindrance here is that promotions still might not want to have involvement and there currently isn’t an International MMA organization that could sanction and produce such an event. Who wouldn’t be jazzed for the World Cup of MMA?