By Joe Ferraro

It has to be considered a must win for Team Rampage on tonight’s broadcast of The Ultimate Fighter - can they really start off the reality show 0-5?

If they do lose, the remaining three fighters left on their team would have to win eight of the next ten fights to come out victorious.

As we know, there are fifteen fights per Ultimate Fighter Season…they win tonight, they are on the right path. If they lose, there will be ten fights left, and only three guys left on Team Rampage that can pull it off. Unless fighters from Team Rashad get injured and can ONLY be replaced by members of Team Rampage, I do not like the chances of Quinton and Crew.

While I sit here and countdown the hours until tonight’s broadcast on Sportsnet, there are a whack of MMA stories making headlines that have caught my eye:

Chuck Liddell is dancing days are done ( http://abc.go.com/shows/dancing-with-the-stars ). Well at least on “Dancing With The Stars”. For what it’s worth, I thought it was a great run for “The Iceman”. While I’ve been known to get my groove on (rarely), I give Liddell two thumbs up for trying to pull off some of those routines that I for one, would likely have no shot at executing.

After his controversial win over Donald Cerrone at WEC 43, newly crowned interim lightweight champion, Ben Henderson is likely going to be matched up with current champion, Jamie Varner in 2010 ( http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=9759&zoneid=13 ). If it was up to me, Henderson would be fighting Cerrone again, as I believe Cerrone won the fight 47-46. Henderson won rounds two and three, while Cerrone pulled off rounds four and five. It is the first round that has many of the MMA blogs and fans split down the middle.

It was definitely a tough one to call, but I gave it to Cerrone based on his submission attempts and near finishes over Henderson’s ground and pound. I tend to score bouts based on which fighter was closer to ending the fight (isn’t that the purpose of a fight?) and I believe Cerrone was far closer to ending the fight in round one than Henderson.

It looks like the Anderson Silva – Vitor Belfort title fight at UFC 108 is in jeopardy ( http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=9762&zoneid=13 ). Silva underwent arthroscopic surgery to his elbow on Monday, with Doctor’s noticing other damage they were unaware of. We will know more about the reality of this fight on Friday, after Silva goes for a “check-up” with his doctor, but when you have “The Spider” and his management disagreeing with Belfort as a title contender, I start getting visions of Silva’s performances over Patrick Cote and Thales Leites. The only difference here, is Belfort has serious speed that can potentially catch Silva if he starts messing around during their (potential) bout.

The UFC confirmed two of their December cards and I am pumped to see these bouts. First we have the confirmation of Jon “Bones” Jones vs Matt “The Hammer” Hammill in the main event of The Ultimate Fighter Ten Finale ( http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=23036 ) and second, the main event for UFC 107 in Memphis, featuring a lightweight title fight between BJ “The Prodigy” Penn and Diego “The Nightmare” Sanchez. UFC 107 also features a monstrous heavyweight bout between Frank Mir and Cheick Kongo, which was first reported right here on Sportsnet.ca.

Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas is always making news - some good and some not so good. First is that gym founder Randy Couture’s latest movie appearance in “The Expendables”, finally has a trailer for all of us to see ( http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php ). Second is the sad story of Xtreme Couture lightweight Junie Browning, who speaks for the first time since being arrested last week after assaulting three nurses, after trying to commit suicide ( http://www.rawvegas.tv/watch/junie-browning-issues-apology/f63e2bd61744b466c5fa9ed45b2c41 ). Lastly, we can remove the tag Xtreme Couture Coach from Shawn Tompkins, who has now migrated over to the TapouT gym in Vegas ( http://www.rawvegas.tv/watch/junie-browning-issues-apology/f63e2bd61744b466c5fa9ed45b2c41 ).

There is so much more MMA news out there, but this what I was reviewing during my morning coffee. I now look forward to lunch and dinner.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 1:28 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.