Nick Diaz and Brett Rogers won’t be sitting on their hands waiting for their arch-rivals KJ Noons and Kimbo Slice to become available — MMA Junkie reports that both fighters have been scheduled to appear at EliteXC’s November 8th event, which will be broadcast on Showtime. Their opponents haven’t been announced yet, but EliteXC’s Jared Shaw confirmed that Joey Villasenor will also be part of the event; rumor has it that he could face Robbie Lawler for the middleweight title.
Speaking of the Showtime card, FiveOuncesofPain reports that EliteXC wants to add Eddie Alvarez to the lineup, and build up to a fight for the vacated lightweight title if him and Nick Diaz win their fights and KJ Noons continues to be a problem. Side note: Before Diaz competes again for EliteXC, he’ll head to Japan to battle Hayato “Mach” Sakurai at DREAM.6 (September 23rd; Saitama, Japan) for DREAM’s welterweight title. In other EliteXC news…
— A fight between Cristiane “Cris Cyborg” Santos and Yoko Takahashi has been officially added to the undercard of Saturday Night Fights III on October 4th. If time permits, the match will be shown on the broadcast on a tape-delay basis. Cyborg vows to improve on her last performance by knocking Takahashi out three times in the first round.
— EliteXC’s heavyweight champ Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva has released a longer statement about his steroid bust. Some highlights:
“I maintain the conviction I never used any improper substances for this fight. I will take the exams again in the best laboratories in the USA to prove to the media, EliteXC, and mainly to my fans that I am innocent. Last year I underwent surgery to remove a tumor, as I suffered from “Acromegalia”, for which I spent over 100 thousand reais on hospital, doctors, airplane tickets, medication and 20-days stay in the city of Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro. After surgery my case was followed by an endocrinologist who is controlling my hormones, as up until I got the tumor, my GH (Growth Hormone) was…equal to that of five men…
Besides loving my profession, I love life even more and I know that taking any type of steroid could risk my life. I want to make it clear it is only a question of time before I prove I took no product aside from natural ones and three injections prescribed by my doctor to control my GH…Besides not being able to take steroids, I also do not need to, because I am privileged in how my body produces high levels of hormones naturally.”
— You may also be interested in this new interview KJ Noons did with Fighters.com (props to Fightlinker), where he lashes out at EliteXC for not hyping him as much as they hype Nick Diaz, and expresses his wish to fight Josh Thomson and avenge his loss against Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett. And it looks like Noons can sling shit as good as anyone:
Fighters.com: It seems like CBS is running the show at EliteXC more and more now…
K.J. Noons: Well, that’s good. Maybe they’ll appreciate who they have. My contract is up in November. You know what I mean? So, maybe they’ll appreciate someone who doesn’t flick the cameras off and can talk on CBS. I mean, that shit will fly on Showtime. You can say whatever you want to say, but…we’ll see. Maybe they still want to promote pot-smokin’, middle finger, street-fightin’…I don’t know. Maybe it’s not the organization for me, maybe it is. Hopefully they’ll want to keep me. I do like them…As long as I’m the champion, I want to stay, so hopefully they can see the value in me. And like I said, in November, my contract is up. I’ve got two more fights and that’s it.
