Sengoku: Fourth Battle emanated from Saitama Super Arena last night in Saitama, Japan with the opening round of their lightweight grand prix as well as the return of Takanori Gomi and Frank Trigg to the ring. Below are the results from the event:

Undercard:

• Valentijn Overeem def. Yoshihiki Takahashi via KO (flying knee) at 2:42 of round one
• Moise Rimbon def. Peter Graham via submission (rear naked choke) at :42 of round two
• Yang Dong Yi def. Pawel Nastula via TKO at 2:15 of round two

Lightweight Grand Prix Bouts:

• Mizuto Hirota def. Ryan Schultz via KO (superman punch) at 4:25 of round two
• Kazunori Yokata def. Bojan Kosednar via unanimous decision
• Eiji Mitsuoka def. Rodrigo Damm via submission (rear naked choke) at 3:13 of round one
• Satoru Kitaoka def. Clay French via submission (achilles lock) at :31 of round one

Co-Main Event:

• Frank Trigg def. Makoto Takimoto via unanimous decision

Main Event:

• Takanori Gomi def. Seung Hwan Bang via unanimous decision

World Victory Road has announced that heavyweight prospect Roger Gracie has been added to its Sengoku 5 card on Sept. 28 at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan.

Gracie, one of the best pure heavyweight grapplers on the competitive circuit, is 2-0 in his brief MMA career. He debuted in 2006 with a first round submission of Ron Waterman during BodogFIGHT’s “USA vs. Russia” event. Gracie then returned to action this past May during Sengoku 2, where he submitted Yuki Kondo with a rear naked choke at 2:40 of round 1.

Gracie’s opponent for Sengoku 5 has yet to be named.

The promotion has also announced that Yuki Sasaki has been added to a Middleweight Grand Prix field that already includes Jorge Santiago, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos, and Siyar Bahadurzada.

Also added to the card in separate bouts were Jorge Masvidal and Xande Ribeiro. Masvidal had been rumored as a challenger to Josh Thomson and Thomson’s Strikeforce lightweight title during the San Jose-based promotion’s Sept. 20 show at the Playboy Mansion. It’s unlikely that Masvidal will be fighting for Strikeforce on that date in light of Sengoku’s announcement.

World Victory Road’s Sengoku promotion has announced four of the eight fighters that will be competing in its Middleweight Grand Prix beginning at Sengoku 5 on Sept. 28 at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium.

According to a press release received by FiveOuncesOfPain.com on Friday, Jorge Santiago, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos, Siyar Bahadurzada, and former UFC and PRIDE light heavyweight Kazuhiro Nakamura will all be a part of the tournament field.

Santos is a former veteran of PRIDE and the husband of EliteXC female fighter Cris “Cyborg” Santos. The Chute Boxe Academy team member is contracted in the U.S. to the San Jose based Strikeforce promotion but has yet to compete there due to visa issues.

Santiago is a veteran of the UFC and the Art of War promotions. Like Santos, he also also under contract to Strikeforce and won the promotion’s four-man, single night middleweight tournament last November.

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World Victory Road’s Sengoku promotion has officially announced that former Judoka Olympic Gold Medalist Pawel Nastula is coming out of retirement to fight Korean wrestler Yang Dong Yi at Sengoku 4 on August 24.

Nastula, who won gold in the 1996 Olympics while representing his native Poland, is 1-3 lifetime in MMA in spite of his impressive Judo credentials. All four of his fights took place inside the rings of PRIDE, where he sustained losses against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Aleksander Emelianenko, and Josh Barnett.

His lone victory took place s during PRIDE’s “Critical Countdown Absolute” in July of 2006 when he executed a first round submission against Edson Draggo.

Nastula announced his retirement from MMA after the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended him for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs following his submission loss to Barnett at PRIDE 32 in October of 2006.

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The fallout from the IFL debacle continues as Sherdog is reporting that former IFL lightweight champion Ryan Schultz is headed to the Japanese Sengoku promotion. He will start out in the promotion by competing in their first ever 8-man lightweight grand prix. The opening round of the grand prix takes place on August 24 in Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

The deal could span six total fights should Schultz fight his way into the grand prix finals. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to the report.

Schultz, who is 20-9-1 on his career, will be facing off against Cage Force and Shooto veteran Mizuto Hirota, who is 9-2, during the opening round of the grand prix. Schultz is riding a six fight win streak into the grand prix and this will be his first fight on Japanese soil since dropping a fight against Kuniyoshi Hironaka in 2006.

Just when you thought Dynamite USA!! couldn’t get any worse, now comes word from Josh Gross of Sherdog.com that Royce Gracie has tested positive for Nandrolone, a commonly used anabolic steroid.

The test result came after Gracie’s decision victory over Kazushi Sakuraba on June 2 at the LA Coliseum.

The California State Athletic Commission has suspended Gracie from June 2, 2007 through May 30, 2007 and fined him $2,500. Both are maximums. He has 30 days to appeal.

I also believe there’s a chance his victory could either be ruled a no contest, or even overturned.

Update: Apparently CSAC doesn’t have the ability to overturn decisions in California (thanks, reader Mike DeGeorge). So I guess cheaters can prosper?

“This is why we went to the Coliseum: to make a statement. For anyone to then question our numbers is preposterous and ridiculous.” - Mike Kogan, U.S.-based events director for FEG, as quoted in the LA Times.

Then I guess that makes me preposterous and ridiculous.

In regard to the 18,340 fans that were actually accounted for officially, claims continue that there were more fans. According to the article in the Times, witnesses claim that “truckloads” of fans entered the Coliseum at gates that had no turnstiles. One of those witnesses is pretty credible in CSAC member William Douglas.

Douglas and EliteXC co-promoter Gary Shaw both estimated the actual crowd between 25,000-30,000.

However, Kogan is claiming that the many of the 39,083 tickets FEG purchased from itself were actually sold. I’m not making it up.  Here’s his quote:

“All of those [39,083] tickets were sold, mostly to the Korean communities,” Kogan said.

“Our card had a pretty heavy number of Korean fighters on it, and we were heavily relying on the Korean and Asian communities for sales. We directed our marketing to Koreatown and Little Tokyo.”

The hilarity continues at:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-mma9jun09,1,7259399.story?coll=

Note to promoters: If you want to boast an attendance record and don’t want have to deal with credibility questions, make sure proper accounting is done. A record isn’t a record just because you say so.

The California State Athletic Commission has released the fighter payroll for this past Saturday’s Dynamite USA!! event held at the LA Coliseum.

Here’s the listing (winners listed in bold):

Brock Lesnar made $500,000 for 1:09 submission win.

Min Soo Kim made $30,000 for 1:09 submission (strikes) loss.

Royce Gracie made $300,000 for 15:00 unanimous decision win.

Kazushi Sakuraba made $30,000 for 15:00 unanimous decision loss.

Hideo Tokoro made $15,000 for 2:41 submission win.

Brad Pickett made $8,000 for 2:41 submission (armbar) loss.

Dong Sik Yoon made $20,000 for 6:17 submission win.

Melvin Manhoef made $50,000 for 6:17 submission (armbar) loss.

Siala “Mighty Mo” Siliga made $30,000 for 1:33 TKO win.

Ruben Villareal made $30,000 for 1:33 TKO (strikes) loss.

Bernard Ackah made $5,000 for 0:38 KO win.

Johnnie Morton made $100,000 for 0:38 KO (punch) loss. *1

Jake Shields made $24,000 ($12,000 base salary + $12,000 win bonus) for 2:06 submission win.

Ido Pariente made $2,500 for 2:06 submission (rear naked choke) loss.

Jonathan Wiezorek made $40,000 ($15,000 base salary + $25,000 win bonus) for 5:50 TKO win.

Tim Persey made $19,000 for 5:50 TKO (strikes) loss. *2

Katsuhiko Nagata made $15,000 for 15:00 split decision win.

Isaiah Hill made $2,500 for 15:00 split decision loss.

Gesias “J.Z.” Calvancanti made $36,000 for 0:26 TKO win. *3

Nam Phan made $29,500 for 0:26 TKO (strikes) loss. *4

TOTAL OF ALL SALARIES: $1,292,000

*1 - Johnnie Morton’s entire $100,000 purse is being withheld by the CSAC after Morton refused a post-fight drug test.

*2 - J.Z. Calvancanti was fined $9,000 of his $45,000 purse for failing to make weight.

*3 - Tim Persey tested positive for methamphetamine in his drug test. Persey has been suspended for 6 months and fined $1,000 of his $20,000 purse by the CSAC.

*4 - Nam Phan was awarded $4,500 of J.Z. Calvancanti’s salary for Calvancanti failing to make weight.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Tim “Big Perm” Persey tested positive for methamphetamine in a post-fight drug test that was taking following his loss to Jonathan Wizeorek during the EliteXC portion of last Saturday’s Dynamite USA!! card in LA.

Persey could be suspended six months and fined $1,000 by the California State Athletic Commission.

Ivan Trembow has a report at MMAWeekly.com about the Dynamite Attendance that is about 1,000 times better than mine:

http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=4100

I’m getting a lot of e-mails and reading a lot of message forum posts about why certain sites (such as Sherdog.com) and this site are reporting two different attendance figures for FEG’s Dynamite USA!! show this past Saturday.

Well, we’re all reading the same reports, we’re just interpreting them differently.

It’s actually an age old debate that has been going on in sports for quite some time when it comes to attendance: is final, official reported attendance: 

a) paid attendance (total tickets bought/sold)

or

b) actual physical attendance (people who actually showed up to the event… the head count, turnstile count, etc.).

Here are the facts according to the numbers released by the California State Athletic Commission:

Tickets Sold: 42,757

Turnstile Count: 18,340

It’s up to you to decide whether you believe paid attendance (total tickets sold) or actual attendance (people who showed up) should count as the official attendance number.

Now, CSAC has a disclaimer in its report that certain gates did not have turnstiles, opening up the possibility that people who sat in seats to the event were never officially counted. I don’t have facts, but I have little doubt more than 18,340 somehow made it into the LA Coliseum this past Saturday. But you can’t report official attendance as people who weren’t physically counted.

I don’t believe 42,757 people were ever physically in seats and here’s why: ticketmaster and the LA Coliseum sold 3,674 tickets. The report also says that tickets sold by FEG total 39,083. Now, you might be wondering who FEG sold those tickets to? Well, according to Loretta Hunt of The Fight Network (one of the most trusted reporters in this industry), FEG sold those tickets to themselves!

The vast majority of the 39,083 tickets that FEG bought from themselves (at a reduced rate, since they bought them in bulk) were distributed in the LA area, similiar to the way flyers are handed out on the street (and we all know everyone holds onto a flyer that’s handed to them by a complete stranger). So for the 42,757 number to be actual attendance, it would have meant everyone who was handed a free ticket decided to use it.

What’s the likelihood of that actually happening?

So FEG used smoke and mirrors and shady accounting just so they can claim they set the attendance record for a single MMA event in the U.S.

Which brings us back to tickets sold vs. tickets used.

In Major League Baseball, some teams report official attendance as tickets sold while others report official attendance as tickets used. That’s why a team might sell 35,000 tickets for a game and report it as the official number on a rainy night when only 22,000 people showed up.

So what’s the difference between what some MLB teams do and what FEG did? Well, the teams that use their official number as tickets sold actually sold tickets to real human beings! They didn’t sell them to themselves! You know, the Washington Nationals have bad attendance totals at times. But they don’t buy tickets from themselves in large quantities so they can fudge numbers (well, some teams find other ways to fudge numbers, but that’s a different story).

Based on the fact that the tickets sold in question that weren’t used were tickets bought by FEG, how can anyone report the paid attendance as the actual attendance for the Dynamite USA!! event without some sort of asterisk or disclaimer?

Furthermore, why should FEG be viewed as the record holder for MMA attendance in the U.S.? If any company can buy tickets to their own event and it be allowed to be considered a legitimate practice when reporting official attendance, then the records are a joke and attendance shouldn’t even be counted in the first place. CSAC tracks attendance and CSAC is a government agency. That means the salary of the employees on the commission are paid for by the tax payers. So the people of California are paying money just so a company like FEG can boast a bogus attendance record?

One more thing to add. The total house for the show was $2,545,590. But the total gross receipts for tickets sold by the Coliseum and Ticketmaster (i.e. the total amount of money generated by tickets FEG didn’t sell to themselves) was just $203,090.

I love MMA and I have no personal gripe with FEG or K-1. I would have liked the show to do well. But it didn’t, and I’m not going to report shady accounting as fact.

More than 18,340 people were probably at the event. But nobody officially counted them and that’s the bottom line, folks.

The California State Athletic Commission has made the attendance figures available for FEG’s Dynamite USA!! show that took place this past Saturday at the LA Coliseum.

Total attendance for the show was 18,340 . The paid attendance was 3,674.  The total house was approximately $2.3 million in gross receipts.

Loretta Hunt from The Fight Network reported on Mauro Ranallo’s radio show earlier this week that FEG has purchased tickets from themselves (buying them at a bulk rate) and put them out on the streets to be distributed in the days leading up to the event. It looks like that number was 39,083. The number of comps (tickets that FEG didn’t have to buy in order to give away) was 13,600.

The actual turnstile count (total of number of people who attended, paid and free) was 18,340 (CSAC had someone whose sole job it was on Saturday to handle tracking the number of fans entering the Coliseum).

FEG’s reported number of over 50,000 in attendance was totally bogus.

If you didn’t order the Dynamite USA!! show last week but were still curious, Showtime is going to be hooking you up if you’re a subscriber. Basically, they’re going to show you all the good stuff from Dynamite USA!! without making you sit through all the crap.

The one hour telecast will air this Saturday at 9 p.m. ET (right before the Antonio Tarver vs. Chad Dawson boxing match) and will feature Brock Lesnar’s MMA debut against Min Soo-kim, Royce Gracie vs. Kazushi Sakuraba, Don Sik Yoon vs. Melvin Manhoef (said to be very good), and Johnnie Morton vs. Bernard Ackah.

Hopefully they’ll be able to edit out the DJ.

I have not seen the entire show but I have had an opportunity to watch the Brock Lesnar and Johnnie Morton fights from last night’s Dynamite USA show. 

First, I will give my thoughts on Lesnar. What else is there to say than he absolutely destroyed Min Soo-kim? Lesnar showed good technique and tremendous strength. Kim had no business being in the ring with Lesnar, considering he was just 2-5. Kim’s background is in Judo but throwing someone the size and strength of Lesnar would have been next to impossible. CSAC is so heavy-handed when it comes to licensing and match making yet they somehow allowed that match to be approved?  

The fight was so short and his opponent was so poor that it’s really hard to evaluate Lesnar. Some people are saying in message forums that he’s a threat to Fedor, while others are saying they aren’t impressed. My feeling is, how can you really form a true opinion? I really don’t feel like we have many answers to the questions about Lesnar and his conversion to MMA. I will say though that his debut last night went as well as it possibly could have gone. 

Lesnar, now a free agent, certainly helped his market value. There was a lot of talk that whether the Dynamite USA show was a financial success or failure would fall on the shoulders of Lesnar and affect the money offers he’d receive from fight promotions. But FEG did such a poor job in putting on the event that I think any fight promoter or executive of a major fight promotion will give Lesnar a free pass. His dominating performance in the ring will also make other fight promotions a lot more comfortable about offering big money for a commodity that is still relatively unproven.  

I think the sky is the limit for Lesnar when it comes to MMA and I can’t wait to see him fight again, but this time against legitimate competition. I expect Lesnar to sign with a promotion sooner rather than later, because the sooner he signs, the sooner he gets paid. His representatives will most likely be getting calls starting Monday (if they aren’t already calling). 

As for Morton, man, did that knockout look bad. He had no business fighting on a major show. Yes, he’s a tremendous athlete and football is a contact sport, but he had no combat sports background going into the fight. He hadn’t even competed on a high-level amateur event. CSAC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing that match to happen. Someone really needs to do an investigation in regard to that commission.  As if Morton’s performance in the ring wasn’t embarassing enough, he further humiliated himself by refusing to submit a sample for a post-fight anti-doping test (reports indicate that he did provide a sample for a pre-fight drug screening). CSAC suspended Morton on the spot. I’m not sure if they will withhold his purse or not, but Morton was scheduled to make $100,000 for the fight. 

UPDATE: Loretta Hunt from the Fight Network is reporting that Morton’s suspension is indefinite and that his purse is being withheld until both sides talk further. Also, Morton’s initial sample was to only be tested for steroids. Since he refused the post-fight test, the scope of testing of his original sample will go beyond steroids. Apparently the pre-fight test is for steroids and the post-fight test is to see if there are other illegal drugs in a fighter’s system. 

Morton’s refusal to submit to testing likely signals an end to his career in MMA. It’s likely he had no desire to step in the ring again so he probably saw no reason to submit to further testing. FEG did have long-term plans for Morton though, as they felt he might be able to become some sort of a draw in Japan because he is half-Japanese. Those plans are likely out the window. 

He had been saying that following the fight he wanted to pursue getting back into the NFL. The outcome of his fight will have no bearing on whether he resumes playing football or not, but his performance on the field in his final season makes it unlikely he’ll get another shot. Morton, a possession-style receiver, was not very productive towards the end of his career. He lacks the speed needed in the NFL to achieve separation from defenders and I don’t think there is an NFL team desperate enough to want to bring him back. 

In a strange twist of irony, Dennis Rodman was at the Dynamite USA show. While playing for the Lions, Morton at one point had tried to market himself at the NFL’s version of Rodman by going out and getting a lot of tatoos and trying to act quirky. It never went anywhere.  

Just like his fighting career.

If you’re looking for a breakdown of last night’s Dynamite USA card with results and little editorializing, then I recommend you check out my boss’ article from CBS Sportsline. Denny Burkholder does a good job of giving just the facts without butchering last night’s card: 

http://cbs.sportsline.com/mmaboxing/story/10210286

According to the Wrestling Observer, more changes have been made for this Saturday’s K-1 Dynamite USA!! card. The biggest changes are to the co-main events, which had been scheduled for five rounds at five minutes a piece. Now, the Royce Gracie vs. Kazushi Sakuraba and Brock Lesnar vs. Kim Min-soo matches will be five rounds that last three minutes each. 

Wow, suddenly both matches have an exhibition-like feel to them. 

Johnnie Morton’s opponent, Bernard Ackah has also been cleared to fight, so that match is a go. Also, in the “dark” match of the card, Isiah Hill has been contracted to fight Katsuhiko Nagata. FEG/K-1 had been trying to get Gabe Ruediger cleared to fight Nagata. 

In regard to Ruediger, CSAC continues to deny that he’s been suspended or denied a license. They are saying there isn’t enough time for him to undergo testing in order to get him licensed before Saturday. The word is that those “tests” are ones that are psychological in nature due to concerns stemming from his appearance on The Ultimate Fighter. I just find it hard to accept that there isn’t “enough time” to get Ruediger licensed considering how many other licensing hurdles CSAC has allowed the FEG fighters to jump over. 

The Observer also reports that after claiming rumors that Dennis Rodman would be appearing at a press conference today and be at the Dynamite USA!! card were nothing more than rumors, FEG did a double-take with their press agent claiming Rodman will be around this weekend. There are reports out of Japan that Rodman will be making his “MMA debut” later this summer, possibly in Holland. Oh, joy.

Loretta Hunt of The Fight Network was able to also contact the head of the California State Athletic Commission, Armando Garcia. Garcia was a bit more forthcoming with Hunt in regard to Gabe Ruediger than he was with me.  

According to Garcia: 

“His [Ruediger's] license was not suspended nor was it denied. His renewal application is still under review and he will not be available [to fight] this Saturday.” 

Sounds like semantics to me. Renewal application still under review? If Kazushi Sakuraba after all the beatings he’s taken can get a quick response to his application than why not Ruediger? And if Johnnie Morton, who to my knowledge has never so much fought in an amateur match, can get licensed, why is Ruediger’s renewal still “under review?” 

I’m still waiting to hear back from Ruediger but according to Hunt’s article, he’s apparently considering legal action. Good for him. 

Ruediger’s case has brought to light many other questionable situations in which CSAC denied or revoked licenses. Don’t be surprised if Garcia really comes under heavy scrunity in the coming months. 

Also, Royce Gracie has been licensed so his match vs. Sakuraba is definitely going to happen. 

I still plan to save my money and get my MMA fix on Sunday night by watching the WEC’s debut on Versus.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any crazier in regard to this Saturday’s K-1 Dynamite USA card, something new happens that completely boggles the mind. 

Former TUF 5 contestant Gabe Ruediger has been selected to compete on this Saturday’s card during the non-televised portion of the event as an injury replacement. Ruediger was going to fight at a catch weight of 161 pounds. However, he has been denied a license by the California State Athletic Commission. 

No official reason has been given, but word is that the head of CSAC, Armando Garcia, saw a tape of TUF 5 and deemed Ruediger mentally unfit to fight after he determined that he had a “mental breakdown” on the show.  

No, I am not making this up! 

Ruediger has posted on the Underground forum and has confirmed he won’t be competing. However, he indicated he wasn’t able to talk about the circumstances surrounding his removal from the card. 

Here is the post Ruediger left on the UG: 

“I haven’t been here in some time. An attorney and friend of mine told me about this particular thread. I cant say much about the situation, but I am not happy about it. 

“I trained hard for this fight. My weight last night was 169 (4 pounds below the weight I started cutting from on the show), with another 3 days until weigh-ins. I am extremely disappointed that I will not be fighting. In this fight I wasn’t concerned about winning or losing (of course I felt I was going to win, and expected to win), just fighting. Now I don’t even get to do that. 

“You can say what you want about me. You can ridicule me and make your little gifs and pictures (I thought some of them were actually really funny), but this situation goes well beyond the show. 

“Once again, I can’t talk about what is happening, but I’m not going to allow this to just be.” 

With this decision, CSAC has done something I didn’t think was possible: turn Gabe into a sympathetic figure. The decision to prevent Ruediger from fighting is wrong on so many levels. If it’s indeed because he suffered a “mental breakdown” on TUF, then Garcia should be forced to resign. How can you make such a determination by watching an edited reality television show?  

Gabe screwed up royally on TUF 5 but there’s no reason why he should be denied a right to make a living.