GREG BEACHAM AP Sports Writer

Randy Couture and Mark Coleman have been headed for this fight since the UFC’s event numbers were in the teens.

These two pioneers of mixed martial arts are now in their mid-40s, and they’ve been circling each other since their sport’s infancy. During the years when Coleman fought mostly in Japan, when Couture became an actor in his spare time away from the octagon, they never stopped anticipating a fight that nearly happened in 1998.

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By GREG BEACHAM, AP Sports Writer
World Extreme Cagefighting will stage its first pay-per-view event April 24, scheduling a star-stacked card for its first attempt to persuade mixed martial arts fans to pay $44.99 for its fights.
Urijah Faber will meet featherweight champion Jose Aldo in the main event of WEC 48 from Sacramento, Calif., the lighter-weight MMA promotion’s leaders told The Associated Press before Wednesday’s announcement.
Former featherweight champion Mike Brown also will meet Manny Gamburyan at Arco Arena, and lightweight champion Ben Henderson will fight Donald Cerrone in a rematch of their acclaimed October bout.
After years of showcasing its product on Versus and online, the WEC is eager for its long-anticipated — and possibly treacherous — step into pay-per-view.
“We wanted to wait until we had this type of card to go to pay-per-view,” WEC general manager Reed Harris told the AP. “We didn’t want to do a pay-per-view show until fans would say at the end of the night, ’This was worth it.’ This will truly be the biggest event we’ve ever done.”
The WEC and industry-leading UFC are both owned by Zuffa, the company primarily behind MMA’s surge into international popularity during the past decade. A few months after Zuffa bought the WEC in December 2006, the promotion reached a deal with Versus to show live events on the cable channel.
While the WEC doesn’t have the UFC’s widespread popularity, its December 2008 move to focus on lighter-weight fighters in its smaller octagonal cage has appealed to most MMA fans. The WEC now believes it’s attractive enough to open those fans’ wallets for the same price charged by the UFC for its major pay-per-view events.
“It’s a natural progression,” WEC vice president Peter Dropick said. “The WEC is growing, and going to pay-per-view is the next step. It’s an important step from a business standpoint. We weren’t just going to put a pay-per-view on. We wanted to make sure it was the right card and the right matchup. We’ve got the ability to put on one of the best cards we’ve ever done. The timing is right.”
Pay-per-view is a staple of the UFC’s business model, but other MMA promotions haven’t been as successful charging fees for their product. Affliction, the clothing company which briefly emerged as a promotional rival to UFC, couldn’t stay in business after just two pay-per-view shows.
Strikeforce, the steady Bay Area-based promotion which partners with heavyweight star Fedor Emelianenko’s M-1 Global, has expressed an interest in the pay-per-view business several times in recent years. But CEO Scott Coker hasn’t jumped into that particular octagon just yet, preferring to focus on his showcases on CBS and Showtime.
The WEC scheduled its biggest event on a night with no conflicts with the UFC’s schedule or competition from major boxing matches. The promotion plans to put together a preview show similar to the showcases that drum up interest in the UFC’s big events, along with an extensive marketing plan.
Although Faber is considered the WEC’s biggest star, the promotion hopes to showcase a large portion of its top talents before the pay-per-view crowd. Faber grew up in the Sacramento area, and his popularity in Northern California made Arco Arena the natural choice to host the event after enthusiastic crowds greeted each of the WEC’s previous events there.
Aldo is the WEC’s newest major player after his surprising stoppage of Brown to claim the featherweight title last November. Brown won that title by beating Faber in November 2008, and thought he also won their rematch last June, his next bout is against Gamburyan, a former UFC lightweight who has two victories since dropping down to featherweight last year.
Cerrone, the hard-living lightweight known as “Cowboy,” is among the WEC’s most popular fighters. He’ll meet Henderson, who held off Cerrone for a thrilling unanimous decision in what was widely labeled the promotion’s best fight of 2009.
If the card is as successful as Harris and Dropick expect it to be, the WEC expects to schedule more pay-per-view events. Yet the promotion still counts on Versus for most of its exposure and competition.
“I think we’re destined to always be on free TV,” Harris said. “This is just something where the timing is right to take the next step.”
Tickets for Arco Arena will go on sale Saturday.

I’m not sure I can ever forgive the fine folks at Topps, Upper Deck, Fleer … and every other fly-by-night trading card company that cranked up during the mid-90s, just in time to zap what little money I could muster as a pre-teen who was in love with the big three — basketball, baseball and football — and, then, eventually price me right out of the market.

I can even remember the moment when my days as a collector began to end. Remember the Shaq rookie card craze? If you were or still are a collector, surely you remember just how valued Shaquille O’Neal’s rookie cards were. I do because I was lucky enough to be able to go into the downtown card shop and watch the 30-somethings buy and barter those things like the precious commodity they were. Yes, I still want that Topps Stadium Club O’Neal rookie. But, I won’t buy the thing.

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By GREG BEACHAM, AP Sports Writer
Brock Lesnar is ready to resume training to defend his UFC heavyweight title after a serious intestinal problem derailed his career and endangered his life.
Lesnar hasn’t been in the octagon since UFC 100 last July, when he beat Frank Mir in the biggest event in mixed martial arts history. He struggled through several months of pain and confusion with an illness eventually diagnosed as diverticulitis.
UFC president Dana White expects Lesnar to return this summer, likely fighting the winner of Mir’s March 27 bout against Shane Carwin in Newark, N.J.
“Everybody has got life-changing experiences, and this is one of them for me,” Lesnar said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I believe things happen for a reason. It gave me a different perspective on life and my family. I considered myself a healthy human being, and for something like this to happen to me, I need to re-evaluate. I have to make some changes.”
After just four fights over less than two years with UFC, Lesnar is considered the league’s top pay-per-view draw. The former NCAA wrestling champion and WWE professional wrestler is thrilled to resume his MMA career after thinking he might be forced to retire by major abdominal surgery.
“The heavyweight division should be back on their toes again,” Lesnar said.
He spent several months struggling with diverticulitis, a swelling of pouches in the intestinal wall. Lesnar said he had abscesses in his intestines that became infected — and he also apparently tested positive last fall for mononucleosis, which might have delayed getting the proper diagnosis of his intestinal woes.
Lesnar withdrew from his scheduled fight against Carwin at UFC 106 last November, but didn’t yet know why he was exhausted and losing weight. Although Lesnar is vague about the dates and locations of his health woes’ progression, he lost 40 pounds and eventually had a major scare while at a hunting lodge in Canada, when he became delirious and passed out from pain while at least three hours from medical treatment.
After a stint in a Canadian hospital that left him criticizing the entire Canadian medical system and railing against U.S. health reform Wednesday, he returned to North Dakota and was diagnosed with diverticulitis after a trip to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. But after originally being told he would need surgery, a colonoscopy on Jan. 5 revealed the problems apparently had healed with the help of antibiotics.
“The Mayo Clinic said, ’You’ve got a winning lottery ticket,”’ Lesnar said.
White said Lesnar will return in the summer, giving a boost to the ever-growing company after a series of injury postponements and cancellations over the past several months. If an injury prevents the winner of Mir’s bout with Carwin from being ready, Lesnar is likely to fight the winner of a Feb. 21 bout in Australia between Cain Velasquez and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.
Lesnar has altered his diet, moving away from an “all-protein” approach befitting his weightlifting program and adding more fiber and greens. He’ll return to his gym for training on Thursday morning after raising his weight from a low of 248 — which he hadn’t weighed “since second grade” — to 273.
“I think it’s raised my conditioning level, because I was really at the bottom,” Lesnar said. “Now I’m back in the gym, and I feel great. I feel like my old self again.”

MIAMI LAKES, Fla. (AP) — Even Herschel Walker’s mother apparently isn’t too keen on her son’s latest competitive venture.
“She’s been praying that they wouldn’t find an opponent for me,” the former Heisman Trophy winner and mixed martial arts novice said with a broad smile. “Even though she wants me to do it, she’s been praying that they don’t find me an opponent.”
So much for divine intervention.
Walker’s MMA debut was finalized Tuesday when Greg Nagy was announced as his opponent for the Strikeforce card to be contested Jan. 30 at the Florida Panthers’ arena in Sunrise, Fla.
At an age — 47 — when most NFL players have long walked away from that violent sport, Walker is 2 ½ weeks away from entering a realm defined by armbars, neck cranks, choke holds and tapouts.
“MMA is the No. 1 sport out there for me,” said Walker, whose self-challenges previously have found him doing Olympic bobsled and even ballet. “I love competition; I don’t want to lose at anything. I’m a little bit older, but I love competition.”
Walker was the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner while at Georgia and played professionally for Dallas, Philadelphia, Minnesota, the New York Giants and the New Jersey Generals.
In his football days, Walker dropped jaws with a workout regimen that included upwards of 3,000 situps and pushups everyday. He also holds a fifth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. But even that, he said, could only begin to prepare him for what he’s learning about MMA.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Walker said. “When a guy gets me in an armbar within two minutes (during training), I’d better be learning something if I’m going to get in the cage.”
Trainer Javier Mendez, whose American Kickboxing Academy is renowned for producing MMA champions, acknowledged he was initially skeptical about the idea of training Walker.
“I thought someone like him shouldn’t be fighting at this stage,” Mendez said Tuesday. “But once I saw him, I was amazed. His explosiveness, his cardio, his willingness to learn I don’t think anybody could have done it other than him.”
Nagy, 26, sports a 1-1 record in MMA, both coming at Rage in the Cage events in Arizona.
Allan Fields, chief physician for the Florida Boxing Commission that also oversees MMA sanctioning, said Walker passed the “most strenuous tests that possibly you can impose on an athlete.”
A stress test on Walker’s heart given by a “major cardiac institution,” Fields said, produced the highest score of anyone ever tested by facility.
“He’s in as fine a shape as Muhammad Ali or any of these people we’ve had the care of,” said Fields, a former U.S. Olympic team physician. “This guy is 47 going on 22, as far as his physical fitness goes.”
Even so, Walker acknowledged there will be skeptics. Nor does it help that former baseball slugger Jose Canseco lasted just 78 seconds in his foray into MMA last July.
“There have been some athletes that have been totally an embarrassment,” Walker said. “Jose Canseco, it’s insulting, the guy never trained. I’m a guy that’s serious about this. This is fighting, you get hurt.
“People that talk about (this as a publicity stunt) don’t even know me. That’s why I always tell people to come and join me or come and work out with me. Then you’ll see who I really am.”

Rodney Wallace got what he wanted.
On the plane ride home following his UFC debut — a unanimous decision loss to Brian Stann on the undercard of The Ultimate Fighter 10 finale show — Wallace asked UFC matchmaker Joe Silva to get him on the UFC 111 pay-per-view card, scheduled for March 27 in Newark, New Jersey. This week, it was confirmed that Wallace (9-1, 0-1 UFC), a former Bamberg-Ehrhardt High School football and wrestling star, would take on Jared Hamman (10-2, 0-1 UFC) on the undercard of the star-studded lineup. Although the card has yet to be officially announced, UFC 111 is scheduled to feature a main event of welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre against Dan Hardy as well as a possible interim heavyweight title matchup between Shane Carwin and Frank Mir.
“Yeah man,” Wallace said when asked if he was excited. “I was just happy to get on. I talked to Joe after the last fight, and I told him I wanted to fight in New Jersey. He said that would be no problem.”
Wallace said he asked for the chance to fight in New Jersey because he was raised there until he was 11. His father still lives there. As for Hamman, Wallace said he is looking forward to a tough fight.
“I saw his last fight, and another fight that he fought on Elite XC,” he said. “He is an aggressive dude, but he doesn’t do anything too technical. He’s just an aggressive striker.”
Wallace’s fight against Stann was a hard-fought loss, and many credited him with, at least, winning the first round of the fight. Prior to that, in 20 months as a professional, Wallace was 9-0, including six victories via unanimous decision. Hamman, who trains under UFC light heavyweight Vladimir Matyushenko, suffered a knockout at the hands of Alexander Gustafsson in just 41 seconds in his UFC debut at UFC 105 in November.
Wallace, who is scheduled to corner former UFC heavyweight contender Jeff Monson at 5150 Combat League/Xtreme Fighting League-New Year’s Revolution Friday night in Tulsa, Okla., said training has been going well since his last fight.
“We are just rolling through,” he said. “We are traveling back-and-forth up to Raleigh, getting it in, and we are looking to get with a couple more guys that have been in the game for a while. I’m going up to corner Jeff Monson, and I’ve trained with him a couple of times. Hopefully, we can get a week down there at American Top Team with him.”

For more MMA coverage visit www.thetandd.com/mma or check out Brian Linder’s blog, MMA Takedown, at www.thetandd.com. Linder can be reached via e-mail at blinder@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5553.

Former Bamberg-Ehrhardt High School football star Rodney Wallace’s next fight is set for UFC 111 March 27 in Newark, New Jersey according to several reports that surfaced Monday morning.
In a previous interview with The Times and Democrat, Wallace expressed desire to fight on the UFC 111 card. The light heavyweight, who lost his UFC debut via unanimous decision to Brian Stann in December. He is now expected to take on Jared Hamman (10-2).
UFC 111 features a stacked lineup. Georges St. Pierre will defend his welterweight title against Dan Hardy and Frank Mir will take on Shane Carwin in an interim heavyweight title bout.

Brock Lesnar was in the midst of doing the unthinkable.
The former pro, or as a section of the MMA world liked to call him “fake wrestler,” had just taken down Frank Mir and pounded his face with his big mallet-like hands. Mir looked completely different than the man who walked into the Octagon that night last July, UFC 100, so brash, so confident that his skills far outweighed any physical advantage that Lesnar may have had.
Mir being Mir, and in the spirit of selling a fight, the former UFC heavyweight champion had openly spoke of his fight against Lesnar. Mir was confident. Lesnar wasn’t on his level.
In his short time as a fighter, Lesnar has proven one thing – he’s also not afraid to express himself, public be damned. And so, after punishing Mir en route to an early stoppage and the undisputed UFC heavyweight championship, Lesnar was there in Las Vegas, parading around the octagon, throwing up the old double middle-finger salute to the crowd, putting down a sponsor – we know now that he drinks Coors Light, COORS LIGHT, because Bud Light doesn’t pay him anything – and perhaps in the best display of poor sportsmanship, rubbing it in Mir’s face. Literally, Lesnar had a wide smile as he stuck his finger in Mir’s face just moments after the fight.
It was a spectacle, and Dana White seemed none to pleased. Thing is, Lesnar was channeling from his pro wrestling. Former pro wrestling manager Jim Cornette – he of Midnight Express fame – has gone on record as saying that MMA, and UFC in particular, does wrestling better than wrestling. By that, Cornette meant that MMA, which in no way should be confused with wrestling and its pre-determined outcomes, was bringing in wrestling fans by providing the most basic, best money-making storyline there has ever been. The UFC has done a good job of developing guys, many of whom are beloved by the fans, and putting together fights between guys who are a.) fighting for something and b.) generally don’t like each other.
In Cornette’s world, the liked fighters would be coined “baby faces.” In Cornette’s world, the world of pro wrestling, the bad guys are termed “heels.” Lesnar was the UFC’s ultimate heel after UFC 100, if he wasn’t before it. He was massive. He had a good reach and he delivered strikes with force – see Heath Herring tumbling end-over-end after taking a Lesnar shot. He is a great amateur wrestler who can combine those talents with an often great size advantage to keep opponents, such as Mir at UFC 100, down and punish them. The list of guys that could beat him in his prime didn’t appear to be great, but at the same time, there were enough guys in the UFC to put together interesting fights and, face it, Lesnar was such a heel after UFC 100, so hated, that Dana White could have put him up against a line of tomato cans and watched the pay-per-view buy rates explode. People wanted to, and still want to, see Lesnar lose.
Unfortunately, it appears that the man who stormed around the octagon at UFC 100 creating controversy that had people talking for weeks, may have also been stepping into the octagon for the final time.
Thursday, a report on MMAFRENZY.com stated that an update was posted on Lesnar’s Faceboook page that read :Brock has had more problems (we can’t say what they are) and could be out all year if things don’t get better.”
The news isn’t exactly shocking. Lesnar pulled out of a scheduled title defense against Shane Carwin with a “mystery illness” that, at the time, UFC President Dana White said could keep him from fighting again.
Since, that “mystery illness” has been identified in many reports as diverticulitis, an infection in the intestines. Earlier this week, White said that Lesnar’s future could be determined by a scheduled visit to the doctor. Now, it appears that Lesnar won’t fight again until 2011.

By Matt Erickson, matt.erickson@nwi.com

The injury bug continues to bite the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Former lightweight champion Sean Sherk has suffered an injury and will not fight on the Jan. 2 UFC 108 card, The Times learned Thursday from sources close to Sherk’s camp.

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By BRIAN LINDER, T&D Sports Editor

Muhammed Lawal loves to talk about his entrance.

Just five fights into his professional mixed martial arts career, Lawal’s walk-in has, depending on the fan, secured a place amongst either the most entertaining or most absurd entrances in the sport.

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