Amir Sadollah talks about his upcoming bout with Johnny Hendticks at UFC 102

mmajunkie reports:

We’ve all heard the rumors of Tito Ortiz’s possible return to the UFC.

UFC light heavyweight Stephan Bonnar has heard them, too.

Bonnar, who recently dropped a unanimous decision to Mark Coleman at UFC 100, today said he doesn’t have an upcoming fight scheduled, but he’s certainly willing to head the welcome wagon for “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’s” potential return to the octagon.

On Wednesday, July 29, CNBC takes viewers back inside the Octagon with an update on the “Ultimate Fighting” 1-hour special that reveals how the UFC continues to grow – even as other professional sports face financial crisis.

Premieres Wednesday, July 29th 10p | 1a ET

by 5ouncesofpain

Affliction Trilogy canceled; Affliction shuts down as a fight promotion and becomes official sponsor for UFC; and now……

It’s looking as if former UFC champion Tito Ortiz could be on the verge of a return to the Octagon.

“The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” has recently been welcomed back to the UFC with open arms by former friend and enemy, Dana White.

The UFC president had this to say earlier via his Twitter account, “I am going on espn 1100 in vegas at 6pm. I will be talking anything mma. Call in number is 702 364 1100! Oh yea and welcome back tito ”.

While no official word is out about the signing of Ortiz, obviously the word will be coming down shortly.

Earlier this week Five Ounces had reported on the fact that Dana and Tito had met amends, but at the time White was quoted on his Twitter account as saying, “Doesn’t mean he’s back. It means we aren’t smashing each other anymore and we don’t hate each other.”

You can scratch that, as the recent comments from Dana definitely show that Ortiz is back.

Ortiz has fought 21 of his career 22 bouts in the Octagon.

UPDATE: The UFC President backed off his Tito Tweet a little on the radio show. He said bringing Ortiz back was a “possibility”. Dana also mentioned the former UFC light heavyweight champion’s back issue, but expressed that he felt Tito could still compete.

From Cagewriter:

“I was on Opie and Anthony a couple of nights ago and those guys were like you know what? [Brock Lesnar is] your Mike Tyson. This is the guy where people are gonna tune in and say ‘Oh My God what’s this guy gonna do next?’ You know what the crazy part is? I just flew up there a couple weeks ago and we hung out and went to dinner. [Lesnar’s] such a good guy, but I’ll give you this: The week of the event I have a hard time dealing with him. He gets miserable, he’s a grouchy guy who can snap at any time. That’s for real.”

Kevin Iole has the story on Yahoo Sports:

After promoting two critically acclaimed but financially disastrous mixed martial arts cards, Affliction on Friday first canceled its pay-per-view card scheduled for Aug. 1 and then opted to get out of the promotional business.

Affliction released a statement Friday evening in which it announced “a collaboration with the UFC.” It confirmed that it will cease operations as a fight promoter and that its clothing division will become a UFC sponsor.

“Our brand is synonymous with the ‘Live Fast’ approach to life and UFC is the perfect venue for us to market our brand. We have come to an agreement with the UFC which we feel will be the best for the sport and will help the UFC continue delivering the highest caliber of fights.” said Eric Foss, co-founder of Affliction.

Affliction had a card slated for Aug. 1 with a main event of Fedor Emelianenko, the No. 2 fighter in the Yahoo! Sports mixed martial arts rankings, against former UFC champion Josh Barnett at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.

But Barnett tested positive for an anabolic steroid and on Tuesday was denied a license to fight by the California State Athletic Commission.

UFC Prez Dana White talks Fedor:

“My job is to put on the best fighters and to give you, the fans, the fights you want to see. I’ve been trying to get Fedor in the UFC. I want it because you want it. Believe me, I’m trying to make it happen. He’ll fight for the title first. What does he need, a tune-up fight or something? … To argue where this guy sits in the heavyweight division, we can argue that all day. Fedor has a ton of experience. The guy’s been around forever. But you can’t take anything away from Brock Lesnar … It’s an interesting fight. It’s a very good fight. Fedor’s got to come to a deal first. If Randy can go out there and cut that deal with Fedor, then Randy, get to work, buddy.”

While the Japanese-based DREAM organization recently reschedule for DREAM.11 event to Oct. 6, that apparently doesn’t mean the promotion is slowing down.

Fighting and Entertainment Group execs recently announced that the next edition of the series, DREAM.12, will take place less than three weeks after DREAM.11, with the promotion visiting Osaka, Japan, on Oct. 25.

There are currently no rumored bouts for the card.

DREAM has shuffled a few events in recent months; DREAM.11 had been expected for a September date. When it was announced that the date had been pushed back to October, there was some speculation it would be the final event of 2009 for the promotion.

Instead, the organization will now hold two events within 19 days of each other.

Both events will air in North America on HDNet.

While the details of DREAM.12’s card will be announced over the next several weeks, DREAM.11’s schedule is nearly complete. The Oct. 6 card features the semifinals of DREAM’s featherweight grand prix and “Super Hulk” tourney, as well as a rematch between Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza for the organization’s vacant middleweight title.

The full DREAM.11 card currently includes:

* Featherweight grand prix finale
* “Super Hulk” grand prix finale
* Champ Joachim Hansen vs. Shinya Aoki (for DREAM lightweight title)*
* Jason “Mayhem” Miller vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza (for vacant DREAM middleweight title)
* Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante vs. TBA*
* Bibiano Fernanders vs. Joe Warren+
* Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Hideo Tokoro+
* Hong Man Choi vs. Ikuhisa Minowa#
* Gegard Mousasi vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou#

While speculation is running rampant that UFC 103’s headlining bout between Rich Franklin and Dan Henderson may be in line for an update, at least one of the evening’s competitors is unaware of any potential change.

It has been learned from Franklin’s camp that the UFC has yet to negotiate with “Ace” for a different bout.

Franklin and Henderson are currently scheduled to meet in the main event of UFC 103 on Sept. 19 in Dallas.

Several observers have pointed to the UFC’s official website as a clue to the potential change. While multiple sources have cited the Franklin vs. Henderson bout as having been “recently removed” from the UFC’s official UFC 103 event page, the truth is the contest was never listed.

While the UFC officially announced the rematch on Monday – receiving a largely negative response – the bout was actually never added to the UFC 103 event page on UFC.com.

The heavyweight bout between Junior dos Santos and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, also announced on Monday, also has not been added to the page, though that note has gone largely ignored by the outlets pointing toward a potential main-event switch for the September event.

Instead, the Mike Swick vs. Martin Kampmann welterweight No. 1 contender match has enjoyed top-billing since four UFC 103 contests were officially announced on July 14.

While MMAjunkie spoke with Franklin’s camp to determine the latest status of the rematch, the former middleweight champion himself also posted a note on his Twitter account regarding the rapidly spreading rumor.

“I’ve heard the UFC pulled my fight off the website for 103,” Franklin stated. “I don’t know why. They haven’t spoken to me about this, and I assume the fight is still on.”

–thanks to mmajunkie for this piece