Yahoo! Sports and Heavy present Fight Day before UFC 134

The UFC's only official pre-fight show, Fight Day, returns before UFC 134 from Rio de Janeiro, on Saturday, Aug. 27. Hosts Dave Farra and Megan Olivi will guide you through the latest news of the week, including all the details of the landmark Fox/UFC television deal. We'll have an interview with UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, who discusses the finer workings of the UFC's business philosophy and much more. UFC heavyweight Junior dos Santos and bantamweight Joseph Benavidez will join us live on the set in Rio to discuss their futures, and MMA Junkie's John Morgan, MMA Fighting's Ben Fowlkes and Heavy.com's Matt Brown will discuss all of the latest hot-button issues in our media roundtable.

Join us Saturday at 5 p.m. ET for all Fight Day.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Yahoo-Sports-and-Heavy-present-Fight-Day-before?urn=mma-wp6184

Arman Gambaryan Manvel Gamburyan Sean Gannon Edgar Garcia

Get In The Van Part 1


More Skateboarding Videos
This is the first in a series Vans is doing in the UK called Get In The Van. In part 1, Sean Currie, Joe O?Donnell, Jake Collins and Jirka Bulin hit Milton Keynes, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester. The first park looks so fun and so simple. Park designers should take note.Found at MPORA among other skateboard videos.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MostlySkateboarding/~3/8hiH6CjRjpg/get-in-van-part-1.html

John Alessio  Houston Alexander Ricardo Almeida  Eddie Alvarez

UFC 134 picks, Vegas style: Okami is a huge underdog

The UFC stocked its Rio de Janeiro card with lots of Brazilian fighters, but according to the sports books and bettors that doesn't mean there's a ton of tight match ups at the top of card.

Yushin Okami is in the main event against Anderson Silva. He's got a 2006 win via disqualification over Silva, but he's still a massive underdog against the UFC middleweight champ.

This is also a big swing fight amongst sports books in Las Vegas and off-shore. Make sure you shop the odds. Some books have Silva as high as minus-625 and others have him at minus-450.

Okami is certainly intriguing as an underdog. The question is whether the Japanese grappling specialist can get the fight to the ground. Larry Pepe (ProMMARadio.com) and Damon Martin (MMAWeekly.com) on RawVegas.tv don't have a ton of confidence in the challenger.

UFC 134 betting odds (Courtesy Palazzo Sports Book Las Vegas):

Yushin Okami (+375) vs. Anderson Silva (-550) - UFC middleweight title

Forrest Griffin (+180) vs. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (-220) - Light heavyweight

Antonio "Rodrigo" Nogueira (+190) vs. Brendan Schaub (-240) - Heavyweight

Ross Pearson (+220) vs. Edson Barboza (-300) - Lightweight

Stanislav Nedkov (+170) vs. Luiz Cane (-200) - Light heavyweight

Spencer Fisher (+170) vs. Thiago Tavares (-200) - Lightweight

Dan Miller (+200) vs. Rousimar Palhares (-250) - Middleweight

David Mitchell (+300) vs. Paulo Thiago (-400) - Welterweight

Luis Ramos (+220) vs. Erick Silva (-300) - Welterweight

Yves Jabouin (+150) vs. Ian Loveland (-180) -Bantamweight

Felipe Arantes (+300) vs. Yuri Alcantara (-400) - Featherweight

Johnny Eduardo (+140)  vs. Raphael Assuncao (-170) - Featherweight

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/UFC-134-picks-Vegas-style-Okami-is-a-huge-unde?urn=mma-wp6217

Zelg Benkei Galesić Mauro Galvao Arman Gambaryan Manvel Gamburyan

UFC reportedly has deal with FOX; Network has big press conference announcement set for Thursday

The rumor merry-go-round continues to twirl with regards to the UFC and a new television deal.

First it was the Wall Street Journal reporting that Zuffa (parent company to the UFC) was closing in on a deal with Comcast/NBC. Now Sport Business Daily says FOX has stepped up to grab the mixed martial arts giant in a package that could be worth as much as $90 million per year.

In what would represent a major push into the mainstream for the UFC, Fox has agreed to a deal that will see the broadcast channel air as many as four MMA events per year, according to several sources. The multiyear deal would mark the first time the UFC will have consistent airtime on a broadcast network. Fox execs refused to comment on the deal, but sources with knowledge of the negotiations said bidding had gone as high as $90M per year. The Fox deal is believed to be for seven or eight years.

UPDATE: John Ourand from SBJ tweeted that FOX has a major announcement on the way later this week.


UFC president Dana White wouldn't confirm the deal to MMAjunkie.

"You guys will know when we have a TV deal," said White.

White appeared with Yahoo! Sports' Kevin Iole on Friday's "MMA Insiders" on ESPNRadio1100/98.9 FM in Las Vegas.

"We do not have a deal. We're out there talking to everybody. When you're out there talking to everybody there's going to be lots of rumors," White said (19:10 mark). "In a perfect world, what would really work out great is if you could be on CBS and FOX and Comcast/NBC. Just like the NFL is. That would be the perfect world, but this sport has a lot of room to grow."

White has been very selective over the years with the UFC's programming partners.

"I will not do a dumb deal. We're not going to do a deal that doesn't make sense. We could've been the first mixed martial arts on network television, but none of the deals made sense," White said. "And as you saw all those guys [that were on network TV like EliteXC on CBS] ended up going out of business."

The UFC has been looking for a multi-platform deal. The promotion would like programming on network TV and several cable channels. Currently, it's running live fights and additional programming with preview shows and past fights on Spike and Versus. That will change in a deal with FOX.

As part of the deal, most of the weekly programming that UFC has on Versus and Spike TV will move to FX starting in January. That includes several fight cards, plus shows like the reality series "The Ultimate Fighter." Fox-owned Fuel also will wind up with some UFC content. But rumors that Fox will rebrand Fuel as a UFC channel are not true, sources said. Fox was attracted to UFC programming, which has produced some of the highest viewership figures ­-- and most attractive demos --­ on Versus and Spike TV.

According to SBJ, Viacom-owned Spike dropped out of the bidding because of lagging numbers:

The UFC's talks with Viacom-owned Spike ended before that. Sources said Spike ultimately passed over concern that its UFC shoulder programming stopped growing. Shows like "Unleashed," "Knockouts" and "Countdown" averaged 1 million viewers in '05. This year, they are averaging 492,000. Spike holds the rights to UFC library programming through '12, including old fights and shoulder programming such as "UFC Unleashed."

The most recent live event on Versus actually trended up at UFC on Versus 5.

UFC's Sunday night event in Milwaukee on Versus also drew 766,000 viewers from 9:00-11:09pm ET, marking the net's most-viewed program for the week ending August 14. That figure is up 3% from 744,000 viewers for the last UFC event on Versus on June 26.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/UFC-reportedly-has-deal-with-FOX-Network-has-bi?urn=mma-wp5963

Allan Goes Takanori The Fireball Kid Gomi Akihiro Gono Gabriel Gonzaga

UFC 134 Weigh-In Results for ?Silva vs. Okami? in Rio

Weigh-ins for tomorrow's UFC 134 event take place today at 3pm ET in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where middleweight champion Anderson Silva, challenger Yushin Okami, and the rest of the card weigh in to make their fights official.MMAFrenzy.com will have live UFC 134 weigh-in results starting around 3pm ET.

Source: http://mmafrenzy.com/24139/ufc-134-weigh-in-results-for-silva-vs-okami-in-rio/

Marcus Davis  Tony DeSouza  Edwin Dewees  Nick Diaz 

Free clips for Chris Sharma ?King Lines? climbing video?

Interested in downloading high-quality clips of Chris Sharma climbing? Today I checked out the website for Chris Sharma’s King Lines movie - and there’s a new addition! Early versions of the DVD didn’t feature all of the extras properly, so the website features downloadable clips from the extras. This won’t replace the need to buy the DVD, but [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rock-climbing-blog/~3/v-YQWecn-lk/philsheard

Phil Baroni Don Barr Pat Barry  Vitor BelfortÂ