Former WWE wrestler Bobby Lashley is rumored to be signing with the relatively low profile American Fight League, as reported by Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer:
Bobby Lashley is rumored to be at tonight’s American Fight League show in Atlanta at the Phillips Arena to announce his signing for his first pro fight with the [...]

Unless something falls apart in the 11th hour our sources are reporting that Tito Ortiz will sign with the new Affliction promotion. Affliction is willing to offer Ortiz a short term deal–possibly even fight by fight–for more money. Furthermore, its the promotion that will make Dana White the maddest. The thinking is [...]

Haven’t read the full thing yet but Dave Meltzer at The Wrestling Observer references this article in today’s USA TODAY:
Another USA Today article is on UFC vs. Elite XC. “Whether they like it or not, they’re the farm league,” said White. It had Gary Shaw and Jay Larkin complain about ratings where UFC fighters dominate.
Shaw [...]

With Dana on the cover of Men’s Fitness and the Fertittas on the cover of Forbes pretty much the only publications that *haven’t* featured a UFC article are ‘Woman’s Day’ and ‘Model Railroader’. You can scratch Rolling Stone of the “haven’t” list as they’ve got a big article on Dana and the UFC. [...]

More appropriately, to the surprise of no one, they won’t allow Kimbo Slice to wear anything plugging his sponsors at the “Reality Kings” porno website. Instead, Kimbo will wear a thermal with the image of Angela Lansbury from the long running CBS series “Murder She Wrote”. CBS also nixed his first choice of [...]

You might not recognize the name, but you’ll likely immediately recognize the face. Jacob ‘Stitch’ Duran is arguably the best cutman in the sport (boxing or MMA) and is a ubiquitious presence at big fights. Interesting interview with him posted at Ringside Report. Among other things, he notes that the UFC is [...]

Another MMA reality show is in the works, this one involving former UFC ref Big John McCarthy:
Owned Entertainment, Inc and JAC’d Productions announced today that they have partnered with Big John McCarthy (www.bigjohnmccarthy.com) and his gym, Big John McCarthy’s Ultimate Training Academy (http://www.bjmuta.com/) to produce an 8-episode reality show. The show will be filmed [...]

Fortunately the disdain for MMA expressed by the USA TODAY entertainment columnist doesn’t extend to the sports section. There we find an excellent profile of one of the more unique fighters in the sport, Jens Pulver:

Then, of course, the reader turns the page to learn more about Pulver’s life, to find out how Pulver [...]

For some reason the rest of the world still cares about Michael Jackson, at least more so than the USA. So its not really a surprise that his appearance at UFC 84 has been covered in newspapers from Japan to Europe to Australia. Here’s a blurb in an Australian paper. Interesting to [...]

In a column expressing disdain desperately trying to masquerade as objectivity, USA TODAY media columnist Michael Hiestand just doesn’t get it:

In broadcast networks’ long march from trying to appeal to enormous audiences — in the pre-cable TV era — to just trying to hang onto viewers after decades of audience erosion, it’s time for mixed [...]