A lightweight (155 lbs.) encounter between James “Binky” Jones and Calvin Kattar is the latest fight for the undercard of EliteXC’s debut CBS show on May 31 to be finalized.

A source first informed FiveOuncesOfPain.com of the news on Wednesday and we were able to confirm the news with Jones himself on Thursday evening.

Jones’ involvement with the show was first reported by the website FightTicker.com several weeks ago, however, his opponent wasn’t finalized until earlier this week.

Jones, a resident of the Baltimore area, has a substantial following in the Mid-Atlantic region and is a part of Team Ground Control and Team Rawdogg. Trained by John Rallo, Jones is 6-6 according to Sherdog.com’s fight finder. He’s currently on a two fight win streak and looked dominant in recent wins over Mark Getto during ShoXC’s Jan. 25 event and Al Buck during Ring of Combat 18 on March 7.

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View draft results HERE

The massive undertaking known as Five Ounces of Pain’s MMA Fantasy Mock Draft is starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Our six promotions continue this marathon of MMA promotion building for your amusement and your amusement only. Okay, that’s not true. We’re actually having fun with this. Maybe a little too much fun. Especially when you start freaking out because someone drafted your late round sleeper out from under you like Mike Huckaby did to me with his pick at 16.5.

In case you’re new to the site , you can re-live the glory of the previous rounds.

• Click here for rounds 1 & 2
• click here for round 3
• click here for round 4
• click here for rounds 5 & 6
• click here for round 7
• click here for round 8
• click here for round 9
• click here for round 10
• click here for round 11
• click here for round 12
• click here for round 13
• click here for round 14
• click here for round 15
  

To make a long story short, this is not a pound-for-pound top fighter list. What we’re doing is essentially pretending that every fighter in the world is suddenly declared a free agent with six new organizations selecting talent through a draft format.

The idea is to see how six different fans would construct their organization and which fighters they would select to help them execute their vision. Much like real world MMA, every promoter has their different philosophy with each organization establishing its own identity.

The results to round sixteen are available below.

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On last night’s edition of “The Ultimate Fighter,” viewers got to see not one, but two eliminations with Jeremy May losing via TKO in the first round to Matt Brown and Luke Zachrich losing via a second round TKO.

Earlier in the day, Adam Morgan was able to catch up with May and Spike TV was also kind enough to put 5 Oz. of Pain in contact with Zachrich.

I spoke with the former Division I wrestler about his loss last night to Daniel Cramer and while Zachrich was introspective about some of the reasons why he was defeated, he was unwilling to make excuses.

You can read the transcript of our conversation below.

Sam Caplan: On TV last night, they portrayed Daniel Cramer as a pretty boy. Was that an accurate feeling in the house, and do you think anyone took him lightly because he didn’t look like a traditional fighter?

Luke Zachrich: No, not really. It was more just one of those things that everyone in the house just joked with him about. When he got on the show we were told he used to work at a country club and that he’s from Connecticut. He’s got a degree in economics. He’s a very smart, talented kid. As far as how I was looking at things going into that fight, he obviously kicked the crap out of Jeremiah Riggs just to get in the house and I took nothing away from him. I didn’t want to look at him in a light where I thought it was going to be an easy fight because he’s obviously a lot tougher than he looks.

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MMAmania.com is reporting that Chris Leben has been sentenced to a jail stint that may jeopardize his next scheduled bout:

…middleweight fighter Chris Leben was today sentenced to 35 days in jail. No other details were available at this time.

As explained by T. Jay Thompson, a friend of Leben’s, the UFC contender turned himself in to Oregon authorities in order to settle a DUI he was charged within ‘05. Leben needs a travel visa after he was booked to fight at UFC 85 in London against Michael Bisping, something he would not qualify for without settling his debt with the state. Leben has been living in Hawaii and was unsuccessful in transferring his probation to his new home state.

Update: According to Sherdog.com, Leben has now been pulled off of the UFC 85 card vs. Bisping. The UFC was apparently prepared for this possibility and already has backup plans in place. According to MMARated.com, Nate Quarry appears to be one of the possible alternatives to face Bisping.

According to Fighters Only Magazine, U.K. welterweight Dan Hardy has signed a four fight contract with the UFC. The report says that the UFC intends to make Hardy “as big as Michael Bisping,” but no official announcement of the signing has been made yet.

Also according the report, Hardy was close to signing a deal with EliteXC but the negotiations with the UFC continued and Hardy ended up signing with them. He is expected to make his debut sometime this fall.

Hardy owns a 19-6 record and is one of the most popular and exciting fighters in the U.K. so it should be no surprise, with UFC moving into those markets, that Hardy is now a part of the promotion. Check out a nice highlight reel of Hardy after the jump.

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During last night’s episode of “The Ultimate Fighter 7,” Jeremy May became one of the latest fighters to be eliminated from the middleweight tournament after losing via knockout at the hands of Matt Brown.

Courtesy of Spike TV, FiveOuncesOfPain.com was able to speak with May a day after the loss was shown on television. We not only were able to get Jeremy’s thoughts on the fight itself, but also how he felt about his portrayal on the show, his knee injury, his beef with Matt Riddle, and a lot more.

Adam Morgan: After having a chance to watch a few episodes of the show, do you feel that the way they represented you on television was a fair assessment of how things really went down?

Jeremy May: It’s funny, like that one episode where they showed me messing around with everyone? That was an accumulation of about six weeks of messing around with people. Everyone else was messing around with each other too so they took six weeks of messing around with people and smashed it into one episode and said “Jeremy does this, Jeremy does that, Jeremy does this,” and made me look like a total douchebag! They made me look like I did that all in one day.

I don’t know, I just like to have fun and I’m not afraid to step out of the box or put a smile on someone’s face even if it’s just mine. It was kind of accurate, I guess.

Adam Morgan: Do you feel that they singled you out in particular?

Jeremy May: I think considering the fact that I wasn’t afraid to mess around and joke around with Rampage right off the bat, they took that and they had to use someone as a villain on the show and apparently they wanted to pick me to do that.

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Blonde bombshell Joanne is back with predictions for UFC 84.

For those of you attending UFC 84, you can hang with Joanne and TUF’s Corey Hill. Ecko Unltd is sponsoring this gathering and video taping it all for the internet voyeurs at home. So if your in the crowd for Sherk/Penn, look for the hot blonde sitting with the lanky black dude and go say “hi.”

Check out more UFC 84 content on FiveOuncesofPain.com

Ben Fowlkes has a new article up about Kimbo Slice at SI.com where he gets a great quote from Bas Rutten, one of Kimbo’s trainers, regarding the hate that Kimbo has to deal with now because EliteXC has put him in a main event:

“I don’t see anything that he does wrong for these people to talk about him like this,” Rutten said. “Is it just because of the way he dresses that they call him a thug? If he dressed however they told him to dress, just to make people happy, that seems more like a slave to me. More people know him than know some other fighters, and some guys don’t like that, but that’s not his fault.”

Exactly the point. None of this hype is Kimbo’s fault. He’s just a fighter who likes to fight. Chuck Liddell was the first one to take shots at Kimbo, not the other way around. People are quick to forget that. People are also quick to forget that Kimbo didn’t put himself in commercials, didn’t put himself in the main event, and didn’t ask to fight cans. And since when did being a heavyweight prospect early in your MMA career become a bad thing?

If you asked Kimbo to fight Chuck Liddell, I’m sure he would have no problem with that but his handlers would. A lot of this stuff is totally out of his control, so the hate is completely unwarranted.

Story updated at 3:41 p.m. ET.

The International Fight League revealed plans on Thursday to debut a six-sided ring as the fight promotion’s fighting surface. The new ring has been branded as “The Hex” and will debut on August 15 for a show at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J.

The prototype of the new ring is still being constructed. Upon completion, it will be stored in Las Vegas.

While not addressing the issue directly, it’s likely that the IFL’s decision to use a six-sided ring is based on claims by critics that their product looks too much like boxing on television. Publicly, the IFL is indicating that its audience enjoys the ring and that they are going with a six-sided version in order to create a larger fighting environment.

“From a production and live event standpoint, the ring has proven to be the most fan and media friendly environment, as well as providing the safest possible environment for our athletes,” IFL CEO Jay Larkin is quoted as saying in a press release. “The Hex allows for the larger surface that is utilized in other MMA organizations while still retaining the advantages we have enjoyed with the ring.”

No matches for the Aug. 15 card have been announced. The promotion may start revealing matchups to the public in June.

Other notes from the conference call:

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As reported yesterday it looks as if Nick Diaz vs Katsuya Inoue is officially back on this weekend’s DREAM.3 card from Saitama Super Arena. Sherdog has the scoop.

Questions arose when Diaz was originally pulled off the card as he had apparently gained weight due to the belief he wasn’t fighting.

Diaz will spend his last few hours in the United States cutting weight before heading to Japan to face former King of Pancrase Katsuya Inoue in Dream.

“Tonight we will be pulling an all-nighter cutting weight,” Gracie said late Wednesday.

Unfortunate for Diaz and hopefully he’s at 100% for the weekend. And according to Cesar Gracie the man we have to thank is apparently ProElite CEO Doug DeLuca….

“He thought Nick sort of got screwed with the whole California Athletic Commission thing,”

We still don’t have all the details on that situation but one would assume he needn’t bring his questionable medical marijuana card to Japan.

Dave Meltzer is reporting on the Wrestling Observer website that Bobby Lashley’s non-compete clause with World Wrestling Entertainment ended yesterday.

Many readers of this site are hardcore MMA fans who hate it when pro wrestling and MMA coverage cross paths, but the undeniable truth is that Lashley could be an impact player in MMA — should he choose to go down that path.

Being a former WWE U.S. champion and ECW heavyweight champion is meaningless when it comes to MMA, but I think his credentials as a former NAIA wrestling champion in college and his past training at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif. are very relevant. The fact that he also served the U.S. as a member of its Army is also a plus for him.

At age 31, time is against Lashley. However, he has an existing fanbase thanks to his WWE background and he’s really a great athlete. He’s without question someone who could really make some money for an MMA promotion if he was managed properly.

According to Meltzer, Lashley’s first non-WWE appearance will be for Booker T’s PWA promotion on May 23 in Pasadena, Texas. While getting to wrestle on a smaller show in order to help out your buddy is nice, Lashley is eventually going to have to decide what he wants to do long-term. My assumption that he has two options: continue wrestling and sign with TNA, or train full-time in MMA.

Personally, I’m hoping he chooses MMA. Like Brock Lesnar, I think he can bring a lot of new fans to the sport.

Former New York Giants fullback Jarrod Bunch recently contacted FiveOuncesOfPain.com to give his side of a previous story about him that we reported on April 30.

We reported last week that a proposed bout on EliteXC’s undercard on May 31 in Newark, N.J. between Bunch and former Steelers and Jets offensive lineman Carlton Haselrig was never signed because Bunch declined the fight.

While the report is accurate, Bunch wanted to make it clear that his reasons for turning down the bout had nothing to do with any concerns over facing Haselrig. Bunch stated in a e-mail exchange with Five Ounces Of Pain that he turned down the bout over financial concerns.

“The money they offered didn’t make good business sense,” Bunch wrote in response to an e-mail sent by Five Ounces Of Pain to verify a comment he submitted in response to our original story.

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View draft results HERE

The rounds are going by fast and furiously. Round 15 is the latest round in the books, which you can now check out by clicking below.

In case you’re new to the site , you can re-live the glory of the previous rounds.

• Click here for rounds 1 & 2
• click here for round 3
• click here for round 4
• click here for rounds 5 & 6
• click here for round 7
• click here for round 8
• click here for round 9
• click here for round 10
• click here for round 11
• click here for round 12
• click here for round 13
• click here for round 14

To make a long story short, this is not a pound-for-pound top fighter list. What we’re doing is essentially pretending that every fighter in the world is suddenly declared a free agent with six new organizations selecting talent through a draft format.

The idea is to see how six different fans would construct their organization and which fighters they would select to help them execute their vision. Much like real world MMA, every promoter has their different philosophy with each organization establishing its own identity.

The results to round fourteen are available below.

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The complete card for Adrenaline MMA’s first-ever show on June 14 at the Sears Center in Chicago, IL is nearly set. According to the fight promotion’s web site, the first card is shaping up like this:

Main Card:

• Jeff Monson (23-7) vs. Mike Russow (9-1)
• Daiju Takase (7-11) vs. Terry Martin (16-4)
• Alberto Crane (8-2) vs. Clay French (14-2)
• Tony Fryklund (14-9) vs. Brian Gassaway (25-17-1)
• Jeff Cox (9-6) vs. Bart Palaszewski (28-11)
• Taiwan Howard (6-1) vs. Rory Markham (14-4)
• James Giboo (11-2) vs. Mark Miller (9-3)
• Herc Hayes (7-5) vs. Kerry Schall (22-9)
• Rob Kimmons (15-3) vs. Hector Urbina (11-3)
• Aaron Rosa (10-2) vs. Ron Fields (18-24-1)

Preliminary Card:

• Dom O’Grady (4-0) vs. Mike Stumpf (8-1)
• Joe Jordan (40-11) vs. Ryan Williams (6-1)
• Christian Reynosa (6-2) vs. Josh Hosman (7-3-1)

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This episode, as they told us at the end of last week’s episode, we have two fights on tap for the evening. First, we have Matt Brown vs. Jeremy May as we were told last week and another fight to be determined later.

After the fight pick of Brown vs. May, Team Forrest is riding back in the van cracking jokes about how they’re going to end up telling their grandchildren about Matt Brown. Brown has apparently earned himself quite the reputation in the house in a very short period of time.

Back at the house, Matt Riddle and Brandon Sene are doing a little bit of boozing and to everyone’s surprise, so is Jeremy May. Even Team Forrest is a little suspect of his actions, telling him he should probably be more responsible when he has to represent his team in a fight the next day while May talks about how he’s had twelve shots of vodka.

May reveals during a one on one interview that he had simply filled a vodka bottle with water and was taking shots of water. Oh Jeremy, you jokester you. It’s well established throughout the house that Jeremy is the outsider of the group and everyone in their own way reveals how much they can’t stand the kid. Tim Credeur even goes so far as to say that May represents an image that the sport has tried to distance itself from. Harsh words.

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Debi Purcell and Carina Damm are the latest fighters to be added to EliteXC’s womens MMA division, FiveOuncesOfPain.com has learned.

According to a source, Purcell was recently in Los Angeles to record promotional content for her EliteXC debut. She has also confirmed through her a post on MySpace account that she has signed a three-fight deal with the promotion and will debut vs. Damm on June 27.

Purcell, 4-1, according to Sherdog.com’s fight finder. She has not competed in MMA since losing a unanimous decision to Hitomi Akano at a Smackgirl event in Japan on February 15, 2006.

Damm is the sister of professional fighter Rodrigo Damm. The Brazilian fighter has a career record of 9-3, according to Sherdog.com and could be best known for her three fights with the BodogFIGHT promotion. Currently on a four fight win streak, Damm recently competed on May 3 during Freestyle Combat Challenge 35, where she knocked out Lashonda Knox at 0:11 of round 1.

Editor’s Note: Damm is pictured on the left, Purcell on the right.

Cesar Gracie called in and talked to T.J. DeSantis on the Sherdog Radio Network this afternoon and said that Nick Diaz may be back on the DREAM 3 card against Katsuya Inoue. According to DeSantis, Gracie had just spoken with a representative from EliteXC who greenlit the fight to take place at DREAM 3.

Unfortunately, however, Gracie told DeSantis that Diaz has gained back a bunch of the weight that he had lost in preparation for the bout and wouldn’t be able to make the weight for the fight. DeSantis said that Gracie was going to talk to representatives from the DREAM organization as soon as possible to see if the fight could take place at a catch weight of 175 lbs.

We’ll keep you posted on the status of Diaz on the DREAM 3 card, so keep it dialed in to FiveOuncesOfPain.com!

Frankie Edgar and Chris Liguori will begin training with Renzo Gracie black belt and UFC middleweight Ricardo Almeida to improve their jiu jitsu game, according to MMA Weekly. Here’s what Almeida had to say about the two young fighters:

“Frankie and Chris are great athletes, but even better people,” said Almeida about his new teammates. “They have been able to get very far in MMA already, so I can’t wait to see what will happen when they are able to add solid jiu-jitsu skills to their arsenals. I’m stoked to have them join our team.”

This can only be beneficial to both fighters, especially Edgar. He has been trying to improve his BJJ skills and training with a jiu jitsu player the caliber of Almeida, who has had success in MMA as well, is a great thing for Edgar and his overall game.

Josh Gross, over at SI.com, is reporting that a fight between Matt Lindland and Fabio Negao is close to being a done deal for Affliction’s inaugural show on July 19:

However, SI.com learned Tuesday that the leading candidate to face the gangly wrestler is Brazilian middleweight Fabio Negao, owner of an 8-3 record. Splitting his last six bouts, Negao is coming off a loss in December to Rousimar Palhares, as well as two other defeats by Demian Maia (choke) and Ray Lazama (KO). South African middleweight Trevor Prangley had been discussed as a potential Lindland foe, but Affliction’s decision to pit Lindland against Negao appears close to final.

While I would much rather see Lindland face off against a David Terrell or a Trevor Prangley, Negao will have to do.

When Zuffa-owned World Extreme Cagefighting announced that it would be running the Arco Arena for its June 1 show in Sacramento, Calif., I cringed a little bit.

My initial feeling was that the promotion might be thinking a little too ambitious by running such a large arena so soon. However, my concerns were assuaged upon learning that the arena would be scaled for a smaller crowd.

Well, it looks like the home of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings will have to be re-scaled because the WEC announced Wednesday afternoon that all 8,000 of Arco’s lower bowl seats have sold out and that additional tickets are being made available for the event, which will feature hometown hero and WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber taking on former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver.

There are two things that I’ve learned from today’s announcement. Which are:

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