Buried at the end of Dave Meltzer’s latest column at Yahoo! Sports regarding the health of the MMA business is this little tidbit about DREAM’s possible plans to put a fight together between Japan’s most hated fighter, Yoshihiro Akiyama, and their most beloved foreign fighter, Mirko Cro Cop:

Under the gun to draw ratings, the company is attempting to put together middleweight Akiyama against heavyweight Mirko Cro Cop, the country’s most popular foreign fighter.

Really? A top tier middlweight against a top tier heavyweight? Is DREAM doing so bad that it would really put this matchup together? It seems a little farfetched, especially since Cro Cop vs. Alistair Overeem is being rumored for the next DREAM, but Japanese promotions have done crazier fights in the past. Usually freakshow fights favor one fighter heavily over the other, such as Choi vs. Fedor, but this is a matchup that I have no interest in seeing. Perhaps the Japanese simply want to see Akiyama get smashed by Cro Cop because they hate him so much? That’s the only plausible reason I could see for putting on this fight. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t happen, but don’t color me surprised if it does.

Steve Sievert from the Houston Chronicle caught up with UFC president Dana White and asked him about the recent announcement by Spike TV that Noah Thomas would be fighting Marlon Sims on the live season finale of TUF 5 on June 3.

White said the following:

They’re not fighting on the finale. Not only are they not fighting in the finale, they’ll never fight in the UFC. Spike wanted that fight. It ain’t gonna happen. No (expletive) way is that fight going to happen. Those guys will never fight in the UFC - ever.

Kudos to the UFC for standing up to Spike. Sims and Thomas are going to fight, but let them do it somewhere else. By trying to book the match, Spike made White look hypocritical following his rant about the street fight between the two and then his decision to kick them off the show. White has also been critical of the Kimbo Slice vs. Ray Mercer matchup scheduled for the Cage Fury Fighting Championship promotion.

The good news with this announcement is that we might get to see a great third place match in the tournament on the live finale. For instance, let’s say Nate Diaz fights Joe Lauzon in the final (not a spoiler, I am just predicting), you could then have Gray Maynard fight Manny Gamburyan or whoever else makes it to the semis.

This is the second time in which the UFC and Spike have had some issues. The UFC originally wanted UFC 72 to be televised on Spike but Spike passed on it, based largely on the fact that they are promoting an upcoming Fight Night event as well as the live TUF 5 finale on June 23.

White has praised Spike in the past but I wonder how he feels about them right now?

UPDATE: I contacted Spike TV and they have confirmed that the Noah Thomas vs. Marlon Sims match has been cancelled.