MMA Melee 3/15/09 Shamrocks, Diaz, Penn, & Cro Cop

Well there's news a plenty this past week with more steroids, Shamrocks, card shuffling, free agent signings, and death.
Frank Mir is injured and out of his title unification rematch with Brock Lesnar at UFC 98. Frank suffered a knee injury in training and had arthroscopic surgery moving the bout to UFC 100 in July. Taking place of the rematch at 98 will be Rashad Evans vs Lyoto Machida for the Light Heavyweight title since Quinton Jackson is "tired" and "over-trained" for his fight with Keith Jardine. Sounds like someone isn't ready to back up their shit talk so the 2 undefeated fighters will face off in what should have been the title fight anyway, since "The Dragon" has reeled off 6 impressive UFC wins in a row.
After publicly stating his interest in bringing Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic back to the UFC in January, Dana White looks to have lost out on the 2006 Grand Prix Champion who is rumored to have signed a 3 fight deal with DREAM including a run in a Heavyweight tournament that may include Alistair Overeem, Semmy Schilt, Fedor Emelianenko, and others.
Heavyweight prospect Brett "The Grim" Rogers has finalized his deal with Strikeforce and will be competing against an as yet unnamed opponent at Shamrock vs Diaz. The 8-0 fighter has wanted to fight Kimbo Slice but since terms have yet to be reached with the street fighter, opponents could possibly be Paul Buentello or maybe even Josh Barnett if Affliction cannot get their next card together soon.
UFC lightweight champ B.J. Penn and his camp have filed a formal complaint with the Nevada State Athletic Commission against welterweight champ Georges St Pierre. The Penn camp filed a twenty-page document detailing the complaint and outlining the consequences they’d like to see. They just want to see GSP, his trainers, and other as of yet unnamed parties fined $250,000, have the bout result changed to a no contest, suspend the licenses of GSP, Phil Nurse(the greaser), and Greg Jackson, and force GSP to undergo pre-fight showers. Pre-fight showers? Yes, Penn claims GSP "ingested a substance” to make his body especially slippery during the fight via his sweat. OK, I'm not sure about all that but maybe BJ just wants to watch Pierre shower before GSP mounts and pounds him in this supposed rematch. Penn is just making things worse for himself trying to cling to excuses as to why he so thoroughly got his ass kicked.
Frank Shamrock squared off with Nick Diaz to promote their upcoming Strikeforce bout with a lot of sharp words and some middle fingers at the press conference. Frank is always disrespectful with his arrogant "I'm a Legend" bit, and Nick gets angry in an instant, especially if you talk shit to him, while responding with eloquent well rehearsed retorts. Kinda funny to watch but Diaz is already cut for their future fight and notice Frank said he has "never been tapped in MMA." Umm, Masakatsu Funaki and Manabu Yamada both submitted you. Its going to be a circus and I can't wait for the weigh-in. Also announced is Jake Shields goes up 15 lbs. in weight to face Robbie Lawler in May for a non-title bout.
Step brother Ken Shamrock has tested positive for steroids after his quick fight with 400 lb. mass of blubber Ross Clifton (not Andy Kaufman). He claims innocence but three illegal anabolic steroids, norandrosterone, noretiocholanolone and stanozolol were found in his bloodstream. The suspension will take out Ken for a full year making him a spry 47 years old when he is able to return to action. That Tank Abbott fight will just never happen but more importantly, the sad spiral end to Ken's career has hopefully closed for good so we don't see this over hyped pro wrestler embarrass himself any further. I mean obliteration by Tito Ortiz twice in a row, a failed attempt to fight Kimbo Slice and Frank Shamrock, 7-9 overall since 2002, and a failed steroid test, let's call it a career already.
"Baby Fedor" Kiril Sidelnikov has also tested positive for steroids after his recent loss to Paul Buentello at Affliction. Stanozolol was found in his system which he believes came from a nasal spray by accident. The suspension period is retroactive to the conclusion of the bout on January 24 and runs through January 18, 2010. He has been fined $2,500. Fedor Emelianenko is currently beating the piss out of the young fighter in the Red Devil dojo.
Bobby Lashley will now face Jason Guida instead of Ken Shamrock at Roy Jones Jr.'s "March Badness" MMA/boxing hybrid event. Guida, and impressive 17-19 professionally, will be mauled back into obscurity in under 1 round.
So by now, everyone knows Tapout's Charles "Mask" Lewis died in a car accident after racing his Ferrari with a drunken Porsche driver and splitting his car in half around a cement pole. I never liked the Tapout crew, their merch, or their retarded Halloween get ups so I'm not going to pretend to be concerned or saddened by this event. Yes, the guy was a legit fan of the sport and a T-shirt pioneer (for whatever that is worth) but he was also a spoiled adult putting others lives in danger including his girlfriend who was thrown from the car and is still in the hospital. I'm not sorry, and he won't be missed, either half of him.