The most cursed card in UFC history is just around the corner. UFC 108, which takes place Saturday, has seen more fighters pull out of fights due to illness and injury than any other card to date. One fighter even dropped off the card to film a movie. That fighter is Fighters.com sixth-ranked light heavyweight “Rampage” Quinton Jackson (28-7) who was scheduled to face fourth-ranked “Sugar” Rashad Evans (13-1-1) after their heated exchanges on SpikeTV’s The Ultimate Fighter 10. The UFC was smart enough to instead give Rashad tenth-ranked Thiago Silva (15-1) to fight in the main event. Sadly for Rashad this is a fight he will not win and his shot at fighting Rampage will be ruined.

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“I finish fights,” declared Fighters.com’s seventh-ranked lightweight “KenFlo” Kenny Florian (12-4) soon after losing a unanimous decision to then UFC lightweight champion “Muscle Shark” Sean Sherk (33-4-1) at UFC 64 in Las Vegas in 2006.

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Light heavyweight “Robot” Steve Cantwell (7-2) “may never fight again” due to an unspecified medical issue according to UFC President Dana White.  Cantwell’s fight versus “Janitor” Vladimir Matyushenko (23-4) has been removed from the card at UFC 108 in Las Vegas Saturday.

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MMA Gospel Radio presents another amazing show this week. Reverend Turk and Gary Friedman welcome Hermes Franca (19-8) as the first guest on the show. Hermes has signed with MAX Fights DM where he will fight for the interim lightweight belt against January 8.

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Fighters.com eighth-ranked light heavyweight “Iceman” Chuck Liddell (21-7) has started training jiu jitsu with Eddie Bravo of 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu. After winning the title in 2005 and defending it four times, Liddell has dropped four of his past five bouts, including back-to-back losses to fourth-ranked “Sugar” Rashad Evans (13-1-1) in 2008 and third-ranked “Shogun” Mauricio Rua (18-4) in 2009. I believe that this will help to elevate Chuck’s game and will help to right the losing skid he is been on as of late.

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Strikeforce light heavyweight champion and Fighters.com fifth-ranked middleweight “Dreamcatcher” Gegard Mousasi (23-2-1) and “Big Daddy” Gary Goodridge (23-18-1) will fight at Fields Dynamite!! 2009 in Tokyo on New Year’s Eve, the promotion has announced.

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Strikeforce middleweight “Jacare” Ronaldo Souza (9-2) climbed a rung to to number eight in December with a first-round submission of “The Law” Matt Lindland (21-7) at Evolution in San Jose December 19.

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Dana White told the Las Vegas Sun this week that by 2020 the UFC will be the biggest sport in the world. That’s just White’s fantasy.  I will stay away from the fact that the UFC is not a sport, but rather a promotion involved in the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA). Instead, I will focus on MMA and why there is no way that the UFC or any other promoter will ever have the mass appeal that football does as promoted by the NFL or that soccer does around the world.

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“Grabaka Hitman” Kazuo Misaki (22-9-2) and recent Strikeforce signee “Marvelous” Melvin Manhoef (22-5-1) will matchup at Fields Dynamite!! 2009 in Tokyo on New Year’s Eve, the promotion has announced.

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As the new year is fast approaching I sat pondering how far this sport of ours had come since it’s beginning. Then the future of the sport started to permeate my thoughts. Where will we see it go in the coming year? Will it fade a little bit or will we see it continue to forge ahead and make it’s way into the upper echelons of the sporting world? I am a mma radio host as well as a journalist but first and foremost I am a mixed martial arts fan and I have three wishes for the coming year.

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