EliteXC’s debut show on CBS at the end of May was so successful that less than two months later, it returns to network television on Saturday night.

The card is highlighted by a rematch between champion Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith for the middleweight belt after the first fight ended in a no contest when Smith was inadvertently poked in the eye midway through the third round. Up to that point, it was nothing but two boxers going at it on the feet back and forth with Lawler having slightly the upper hand.

The rematch figures to be more of the same which means it should be a heck of a fight. Lawler continues to be very patient in his recent fights, which I thought hurt him against Smith. Twice he had Smith in trouble and seemed to lack that killer instinct to end the fight. I think that’s the only thing that saved Smith and things won’t be the same this time around. I’ll take Lawler by KO in the second round to retain the title.

EliteXC will also crown a welterweight champion as prized 175-pound fighter Jake Shields gets his shot at gold against Nick Thompson. Stockton’s own Nick Diaz takes on Thomas “Wildman” Denny and Shayna Baszler will fight Cristiane Cyborg to round out the CBS portion of the show.

Showtime will televise a lead-in to the CBS show that will have prized heavyweight Antonio Silva square off with Justin Eilers to see who will be EliteXC’s first heavyweight champion. Brazilian Rafael Feijao, who was impressive in his destruction of Wayne Cole in Hawaii last month, makes a quick return to the ring as he faces Travais Galbraith.

Both broadcasts will be tape delayed in Hawaii with the Showtime event at 5 p.m. and the CBS show beginning at 8.

Photo’s from Thursday’s press conference courtesy Tom Casino, EiteXC:

Robbie Lawler (left) vs. Scott Smith

Nick Thompson vs. Jake Shields

Thomas “Wildman” Denny vs. Nick Diaz

Shayna Baszler vs. Cristiane Cyborg

Justin Eilers vs. Antonio “Big Foot” Silva

Just got word that K-1 has finished putting together the fight card for its August 9 event at the Stan Sheriff Center beginning at 6 p.m.

Kailua’s Scott Junk will fight in one of three super fights that will include a fight involving K-1 heavyweight champion Badr Hari.

The eight-man tournament will include last year’s champion, Mighty Mo, as well as Hawaii’s Wesley “Cabbage” Correira and Chris West.

The full fight card, which as always is subject to change, is below:

Reserve fights
Gohkan Saki vs. Billy Hall
Randy Kim vs. Vilitonu Fonokalafi
Deutsch Puu vs. Rico Verhoeven
Grand Prix tournament
First round
Mighty Mo vs. Justice Smith
Wesley “Cabbage” Correira vs. Eric “Butterbean” Esch
Chalid “Die Faust” vs. Chris West
Nicholas Pettas vs. Rick Cheek
Semifinals
Mo/Smith winner vs. Correira/Butterbean winner
Chalid/West winner vs. Pettas/Cheek winner
Final
(Winner earns berth in  K-1 World Grand Prix tournament beginning in September)
Super fights
Badr Hari vs. Domagoj Ostojic
Paul Slowinski vs. Aziz Jahjah
Scott Junk vs. Min Soo Kim

For most mainstream MMA fans, this was the first time seeing Fedor in action. The hardcore MMA community would tell you that Fedor is the greatest fighter alive after the way he ripped through the competition in PRIDE, yet Silva is probably more recognized as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Not anymore.

Sure, Silva wasted no time disposing James Irwin in his first fight at 205 pounds, but it was nothing compared to the performance of Emelianenko (28-1), who took on one of the UFC’s most dominant heavyweights in history and made him look like an amateur making his professional debut.

Emelianenko destroyed Sylvia, taking 10 seconds to feel out his opponent before unleashing a fast and furious attack that dropped Sylvia before quickly sinking in a choke from the back side that ended the fight in 36 seconds. Forget comparing Affliction’s entire card against the UFC’s entire card because it doesn’t matter. Fedor is the most dominant fighter in the world and a potential matchup with Randy Couture would be the biggest fight in MMA history.

When Fedor didn’t sign with the UFC, Dana White called him a farce, not even putting him in his top five heavyweights in the world. After last night, it’s perfectly clear that Emelianenko is not only the best fighter in the world, but it isn’t even close. His only professional loss is due to a cut, and he destroyed current UFC interim heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira twice.

People were upset when Fedor didn’t sign with the UFC, saying he was ducking the best competition in the world. After last night, those claims have been put to rest. The only question remaining is whether there is ANYONE in the world that can beat the greatest mixed martial arts fighter of all time.

Consider me as one of those that says Couture has no chance.

Icon Sport is back with one of its biggest cards of the year. Two title bouts will headline the August 2nd card which will have 15 fights in all.

All of the following fights have been confirmed as of today:

Kala Kolohe vs. Rolando Dominique (non-title fight)
Mark Oshiro vs. Bao Quach for the 140-pound North American title
Phil Baroni vs. Ron Verdadero
Ross Ebanez vs. Keoni Bryant for the 170-pound state title
Sydney Silva vs. Hideto Kondo
Ed Newalu vs. Ricky “Hoku” Wallace
Sadhu Bott vs. Kurrent Cockett
Alan Lima vs. Chris Tennis
Jose Diaz vs. Mario Miranda
Eddie Rincon vs. Dean Lista
Maui Wolfgram vs. Richard Desforge
Lolohea Mahe vs. Eric Edwards
Kyle Miyahana vs. Brewski Lewis
Ian Dela Cuesta vs. Ola Silva
Brad Taveres vs. Devin Kauwe
Mark Tajon vs. Alan Lima

Couple of quick notes on the event:

Icon is changing its weight classes, so Oshiro’s 135-pound state title has been retired as he goes for the 140-pound belt against Bao Quach in probably the biggest fight of the night. Quach (14-8) has won eight fights in a row, including two in ShoXC.

Rolando Dominique, who fights Kala Kolohe in a non-title match, is the brother of former NFL safety Reggie Tongue. Sherdog lists Dominique as 1-0, but Icon Sport promoter Patrick Freitas says he’s been in many amateur fights in Canada and owns at least six KO victories.

Sydney Silva was scheduled to compete in a title fight against Bryson Kamaka, but Kamaka had to pull out of the fight due to injury so now he’s facing Hideto Kondo in a non-title match. Kondo is 2-0 in his young career and trains with Japanese legend Hayato “Mach” Sakurai.

Also, it’s good to see Phil Baroni back in Hawaii. It was a tough start in 2008 for Baroni, who lost to Kala Kolohe in the Icon Sport middleweight title fight in March and then lost by TKO to Joey Villasenor on the CBS show at the end of May. He came back with a win last weekend in Cage Rage against Ryan Jensen with a monster first-round knockout and will look to continue his climb back up the ranks with a fight against tough local fighter Ron Verdadero.

Tickets for the event are already on sale. The first fight on Saturday, Aug. 2 begins at 5 p.m.

Jackson entered the cage coming off wins over Chuck Liddell and Dan Henderson, but hadn’t faught in eight months and vowed after the fight to never let it happen again. Griffin, who choked out Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in his last fight, was trying to become the first Ultimate Fighter reality show winner without previous UFC experience to win a UFC belt.

The bout went five rounds  with Jackson knocking down Griffin with an uppercut in the first. Griffin returned the favor in round 2, using wicked leg kicks to chop Jackson down before dominating him on the ground. Griffin continued to pour it on in round 3 before Jackson mounted a comeback in the fourth. I had the fight even at two rounds apiece heading into the fifth round that I think Griffin barely pulled off. It could have gone either way and I was expecting possibly a draw or a split decision or someething along those lines.

Instead, Griffin was given the unanimous decision victory to become the new champion. Two judges scored the bout 48-46 while a third had it 49-46. Two judges must have given Griffin a 10-8 score in round 2 for his domination of Jackson to get a 48-46 result, but the third judge scored four of the five rounds to Griffin.

It’s another interesting judging decision as I can’t see how Jackson did not win rounds 1 and 4. In the fourth round, Jackson buckled Griffin twice, opened a cut over his eye, and took him down while Griffin didn’t come close to matching that. As for the 10-8 round, yes Griffin controlled Jackson the whole round and put him on the ground with leg kicks, but I didn’t see Griffin do much more than irritate Jackson more than anything by smothering his face with his forearm and elbow and landing elbows that weren’t anything crazy. Was that enough to be a 10-8 round?

Judging has become a big issue recently, which begs the question. Is a 10-point must scoring system ala boxing the way to go in MMA? Is there another, more effective way to judge fights? And what about the final result. Did Griffin deserve to win that fight? Did he win four rounds and should the second round have been scored 10-8? I’m curious to see what people think.

While July will be a quiet month for mixed martial arts locally, there are plenty of big shows nationally to get your fill.

The big one for me is the debut of the new Affliction organization. Yes, the UFC is bringing us Forrest Griffin vs. Rampage Jackson this Saturday on PPV and a free fight card on July 19 showcasing Anderson Silva making his UFC debut at 205 pounds, but this Affliction card has the chance to be one of the best MMA events of the year.

I think it’s safe to say the reason the UFC put together this last minute card on July 19 for free on SPIKE was to turn people away from Affliction’s PPV, which features the best heavyweight fighter in the world, Fedor Emelianenko, taking on former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in the main event.

The Affliction event is loaded with a PPV lineup that also features Josh Barnett, Andrei Arlovski, Matt Lindland, Pedro Rizzo and Babalu. As a lead-in to the PPV, there will be a one-hour show on Fox Sports Net featuring Fedor’s brother, Aleksander, fighting Paul Buentello and Terry Martin taking on Vitor Belfort.

It’s one of the most stacked MMA cards in a long time, but how well will an unknown organization do on PPV against a free UFC card featuring who most consider to be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world in Silva? The UFC saw just how big this Affliction show could be and made a smart business move to put together its own show to rival it on the same night, leaving MMA fans with a tough choice.

Do you shell out money to watch Affliction or do you take it easy and watch the free UFC show? For me, Sylvia/Fedor is the biggest fight of the year, so I’ll be putting the UFC on DVR and catching Affliction live, but am I in the minority? Is Fedor a big enough name in the US to put up big PPV numbers? What are you guys planning to watch? I guess we’ll find out in 18 days.

As part of this weekend’s big mixed martial arts expo Friday-Sunday at Blaisdell Arena, OTM Fight Shop presents its first annual Pac Sub Grappling championships. The competition takes places in the exhibition hall and includes some big super fights featuring:

Jeff “The Snowman” Monson vs. Abraham “Kumu” Cambra
Rafael Lovato Jr. vs. Niko Vitale
Jeff Glover vs. Ryan Lizares
Simpson Go vs. Luck Hacker
Mike Fowler vs. Sidney Silva
Scott Bieri vs. Joel Tudor
Cindy Hales vs. Gabriela Bermudez

All men, women and kids from 5-17 years old are eligible to compete. Competition begins each morning at 10 a.m.

The event is just part of the monster expo that will feature UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn, Mia St. John, Egan Inoue and others. Admission is $7 for adults, $5 for military and $3 for kids 7-12. Three-day passes can also be purchased for $18. Check out http://www.hawaiimmaexpo.com/ for more information.

Penn will also be appearing at Barnes & Noble at Ala Moana Saturday from 9:45 a.m. to Noon to sign copies of the second issue of MMA Hawaii - The Magazine, featuring “The Prodigy” on the cover. And yes, for those professional wrestling fans out there, John Cena will be making an appearance as well at the Ala Moana GNC that same day from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

For those that saw the fight, it looked to be an easy win for the Wailuku, Maui native until ring announcer Bruce Buffer read aloud the first score.

29-28….TANNER?!?!

I didn’t DVR the fight so I only saw it the first time around. It’s one thing to feel differently about a fight than a certain judge, but when the other two score the fight 30-26 Grove, there’s a problem. In my opinion, Tanner could have gotten the last round as Grove looked tired and wasn’t as explosive on his feet. But in the first two rounds, all Tanner could do was push his way inside and try to fight with Grove in the clinch and up against the fence. Grove dominated the stand-up game and his jumping knee off the single leg was crazy. Looks like coming home and training at BJ Penn’s camp in Hilo has done Grove well as he puts himself back in the middleweight title chase with a win over a formidable opponent.

Grove won that fight by a 29-28 margin at worst. No way Tanner won two of the three rounds.

Kendall Grove, just two years removed from his victory over Ed Herman to win the Ultimate Fighter series and a UFC contract, now faces a fight that could determine his future with the company. Consecutive first-round knockout losses have put him in a must-win fight against former middleweight champion Evan Tanner in the main event of the Ultimate Fighter finale Saturday night if he wants to remain with the organization.

It isn’t definite that this would be his last UFC fight if he loses, but Grove thinks it’s a possibility and finds himself fighting for his job. After spending most of his MMA career in Vegas, Grove has gone through some difficult times in the last year, saying a lot of the friends he surrounded himself with have turned their back on him in the last 12 months. With a baby girl on the way and a training center he’s opening in his hometown of Wailuku, Maui, Grove has moved home to clear his mind and try to take that next step in becoming a legit title contender.

He spent three months training for this fight (which can be seen on a tape delayed basis Saturday night at 6 p.m. on Spike TV, Oceanic digital channel 559) at Penn’s Academy in Hilo where he says he has learned just as much about the mental side of fighting as the physical side.

Find out more about the Maui-born fighter in tomorrow’s Star-Bulletin and check back Saturday for a recap of his fight against Tanner.

The big story coming out of Saturday’s EliteXC event was the post-fight scuffle between the camps of Nick Diaz and lightweight champion KJ Noons. Moments after Noons needed just 48 seconds to earn a TKO win over Yves Edwards, Diaz was brought to the ring to hype a potential rematch for the belt. After some choice words from both corners, a scuffle ensued with KJ’s dad in the middle of it.

I have a real problem with the whole situation. Why was Diaz allowed to jump into the cage? Everybody knows Diaz is one of the “bad boys” of mixed martial arts and it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone what eventually took place. Granted, the people at EliteXC probably wanted to try and get some hype behind what looks to be KJ’s next title defense, but at what expense? It had an element of professional wrestling to it, and isn’t that what MMA is trying to avoid?

However to me, the bigger problem is the fact that Nick Diaz is getting a title shot. In his only fight after being soundly whipped by Noons last November, he failed to make the 160-pound weight limits by OVER NINE POUNDS. Granted, I’ve been told his opponent, Muhsin Corbbrey, received a portion of Diaz’s purse for his troubles, but either way, Diaz has only fought once in EliteXC since losing to Noons, competes at a catch weight eight pounds over the limit, and wears his much smaller opponent out before winning in the third round by TKO.

If EliteXC is going to be considered a legitimate MMA organization, it can’t allow fighters to miss weight and still get title shots and it can’t have WWE-style post-fight antics like it had Saturday night. If Nick Diaz is the only fighter they have worthy of a title shot, then it needs to expand its talent pool and work on bringing up some bright up-and-comers and fast. With CBS already wanting another prime time show in July, EliteXC must focus on establishing some new fighting stars ASAP.