Vitor Belfort is the latest fighter displaced by Affliction to migrate to the UFC.

UFC president Dana White announced he had signed the former UFC champion Friday on a conference call with reporters.

“I like to bring the fans the best fights I can possibly bring them and the fights that the fans want to see,” said White. “When we announced that Rich Franklin was fighting Dan Henderson, fans were pissed. There was some backlash. People didn’t like it.

“So, we went out and we just signed Vitor Belfort. Vitor Belfort is now fighting Rich Franklin in Dallas in September. That’s the new main event.”

Although White originally announced, and the promotion later issued a statement, declaring that the bout would be contested at 205 pounds, Franklin on Friday evening posted on his Twitter account that the bout would instead be contested at a catchweight.

“Just found out I will be fighting Vitor at a catchweight of 195 (pounds) as per his request,” wrote Franklin.

The change in weight to 195 pounds works well for both fighters. Franklin recently fought Wanderlei Silva at that weight and felt very comfortable doing so, and Belfort’s most recent fights have been in the middleweight division at 185 pounds.

The announcement squashed rumors Belfort had booked a fight in Brazil in September.

Belfort was one of two fighters tapped to replace Josh Barnett at Affliction “Trilogy” before the show was cancelled last Friday. Affliction folded their fight promotion operations shortly after.

The announcement of Belfort signing on with the UFC was a bit of a surprise, which added to the expected announcement that Tito Ortiz had also re-signed with the promotion.

Mizuto Hirota, after battling Satoru Kitaoka back-and-forth for three rounds, finally earned the Sengoku lightweight championship by stopping the now former champ with a series of gruelling knees to the head as he desperately tried to shoot in for takedowns.

In the first bout of the semi-final round, Hatsu Hioki thoroughly dominated Masanori Kanehara over the first two rounds of their fight, doling out a ton of punishment before undergoing a much closer third round. In the end, Hioki swept a unanimous decision for the victory.

In the opposing semi-final bout, after three rounds of action in which most saw Marlon Sandro as dominating Michihiro Omigawa, the scores came up with one judge in Sandro’s favor, while the other two had it tallied as a draw. Under Sengoku’s system, when the fight is scored a draw, that official must then choose a winner, despite the scoring. In a somewhat surprising turn, the two judges that scored the bout a draw ruled in favor of Omigawa and he moved on to the final.

Unfortunately, upon the event doctors doing a thorough examination of Hioki, they were concerned that he may have suffered a concussion and thus sent him to the hospital, ending his run in the Grand Prix.

Kanehara returned for the final round of tournament and wound up taking a majority decision to be crowned the Sengoku Featherweight Grand Prix champion. The initial score had it two judges for Kanehara, and one a draw, with the judge scoring a draw selecting Omigawa as the winner, still leaving Kanehara as the overall victor in a two to one split.

In other notable action, Kazuhiro Misaki def. Kazuhiro Nakamura by guillotine choke in the first round, Blagoy Ivanov won a split decision over Kazuyuki Fujita, and Dan Hornbuckle knocked out Akihiro Gono in the final round of their bout, sending the Japanese fighter to the hospital as a precautionary measure.

Sengoku 9 Results:

Main Bouts:
-Mizuto Hirota def. Satoru Kitaoka by TKO (Knees) at 2:50, R4
-Masanori Kanehara def. Michihiro Omigawa by Majority Decision
-Kazuo Misaki def. Kazuhiro Nakamura by Submission (Guillotine Choke) at 3:03, R1
-Blagoy Alexandre Ivanov def. Kazuyuki Fujita by Split Decision
-Dan Hornbuckle def. Akihiro Gono by KO at 2:50, R3
-Eiji Mitsuoka def. Clay French by Submission (Guillotine Choke) at 1:51, R1
-Chan Sung Jung def. Matt Jaggers by Submission (Triangle Choke) at 1:25, R2
-Michihiro Omigawa def. Marlon Sandro by Split Decision
-Hatsu Hioki def. Masanori Kanehara by Unanimous Decision
-Yoshihiro Nakao def. Chu Mu Bae by Unanimous Decision

Preliminary Bouts:
-Ikuo Usuda def. Koji Ando by Unanimous Decision
-Shigeki Osawa def. Harai by TKO at 4:25, R1
-Ryosuke Komori def. Takeshi Numajiri by KO at 3:25, R1

Source: UG

 Josh Barnett who earlier last week was found positive for steroids which ultimately led to the demise of the affliction card has issued a statement through his manger Shannon Hooper:

The media has reported that Mixed Martial Arts Heavyweight fighter Josh Barnett would not be eligible to fight Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction Trilogy as he was denied his California license due to an alleged positive test for 2α-methyl-5α-androstan-3α-ol-17-one, which is purportedly a metabolite of a banned substance. Mr. Barnett was shocked at these allegations and was extremely disappointed to learn that Affliction had made the hasty decision to cancel the August 1st event in its entirety. Mr. Barnett vehemently denies intentionally ingesting any banned substances in preparation for the August 1st fight and he is looking forward to presenting his case to the California State Athletic Commission.

In the meantime, Mr. Barnett has yet to learn of the results of the B sample testing and he has not received any of the documentation that provides further details of the alleged positive sample despite numerous requests. In fact, the documentation that Mr. Barnett has received raises serious questions about the integrity of the sample and the validity of the results themselves.

At this time Mr. Barnett would like to thank his fans and colleagues for their ongoing support and faith in him. He intends to vigorously defend himself against these allegations and hopes for a swift resolution to this matter so he can get back to what he does best — fighting!

I would like to further add that Josh is as disappointed as all of his fans and supporters that he will not be fighting on August 1st. He also empathizes with all of the other fighters that were scheduled to appear on the card and shares their frustration and shock at the cancellation of the entire event.”

This is the 3rd time Barnett has been tested positive for steroids. With the results of the B test still unknown, it seems unlikely it will come back in Josh’s favour. Recent media outlets have stated that it looks like Josh will be heading to Japan to revive his old Pro Wrestling career.

 

According to a recent post on Dana Whites Twitter page, it looks like not only have Tito and Dana kissed and made up; but, Tito is possibly back in the UFC. I imagine Dana will spill all the beans on his July 31st press conference which is going to be “crazy”.

With Tito (assumingly) back in the mix hopefully this will save the UFC 103 card which I was previously meant to be Henderson v Franklin II. I guess Zuffa felt the reverberation of 10 million face palms all going off at once after this matchup was announced. And pulled the matchup was per speculation on Rich Franklins Twitter:

 

 So, maybe, just maybe there could be a possible Hendo or Franklin v Tito for UFC 103? Or maybe since the collapse of Affliction there could be a possible Vitor v Hendo / Franklin v Tito matchup. With any luck Dana will spill all the beans in his press conference and answer all these questions. Stay tuned for more updates.

All is quite on the western front. There has been rumours from both sides of media. One side saying the UFC is close to closing a deal with Fedor. The other, are saying that things aren’t looking great and UFC fans should prepare for the worst.

It has been recently slated by Fedors manager & M1 Boss; Vadim Finkelchtein that they would be willing to negotiate and come to an agreement with the UFC but only if they are prepared to co-promote Fedor with M1. Judging by UFC’s history and dealing with other organisations; I highly doubt the UFC would fold to this request.

On the other hand, in order to persuade Fedor and Vadim out of the co-promotion offer, the UFC has given Fedor quite a lucrative contract proposal. Carmichael Dave a CBS MMA radio host recently published on his twitter what the UFC have offered Fedor. To say the least, it is very appealing, take a look:

The UFC offered Fedor a 6 fight, 30 million dollar contract. That’s 5 mil a fight

• The UFC offered Fedor an immediate title shot


• Lesnar/Fedor would be the biggest PPV in MMA history and the UFC offered M-1 Global a cut of the PPV on top of Fedor’s purse.


• Fedor was free to wear as many M-1 logoed items as he wished.


• The UFC relented on allowing fedor to compete in combat Sambo

 

If you were Fedor, you would be crazy not to except this deal, right? Wrong. Numerous media outlets have stated that regardless of how beneficial the contract is; if the UFC won’t co-promote with M1 Global then M1 won’t play ball.

With everyone itching to get their hands on the Last Emperor, maybe another promotion such as Strikeforce will conform to Vadmin’s demands. This story is still unfolding, so stay posted for updates.