mma news

Shinya Aoki is the lightweight champion of Dream, Japan's biggest mixed martial arts promotion, and in his last fight he beat Mizuto Hirota, then the champion of Sengoku, Japan's No. 2 promotion. He's firmly established himself as the best in Japan.

But a month before his fight with Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, Aoki said that adding the Strikeforce lightweight belt would mean something particularly important to him, not just for personal pride, but for national pride.

The North American MMA scene may be the healthiest it's ever been, what with the UFC, WEC, Strikeforce and Bellator all aggressively looking to expand. What makes this current climate so interesting is that each organization offers something a little different than others.

Just as interesting is the MMA video game landscape, which until last year was pretty non-existent. However, after the success of UFC 2009: Undisputed, THQ is set to release the 2010 version of the highly successful game in May.

A few months later, EA Sports will deliver it's first-ever video game, featuring some of the best fighters from Strikeforce and DREAM (and Randy Couture). Both companies put out new teasers of their respective games this week, which can be found below

Pat Curran, the cousin of former WEC contender Jeff Curran, has signed on to become the eighth and final name in the upcoming Bellator season two lightweight tournament.

The 22-year-old Pat comes from a wrestling background and began fighting MMA two years ago. His career has been guided by Jeff, who also helped land him on an episode of TapouT on Versus in 2008 (video above).

Tito Ortiz returned home Tuesday after hospital treatment for a bout with flu, the fighter updated on his Twitter page.

"Nice to be home. They put six bags of fluid in me. I'm better now. I lost 15 pounds. I thought I had swine flu but I didn't. Just a really bad flu," Ortiz wrote.

Ortiz's illness contributed in recent days to a lot of discussion whether he would be fighting opposing coach Chuck Liddell following the airing of all the taped The Ultimate Fighter 11 episodes.

During the March 6 WEC bout between Miguel Torres and Joseph Benavidez, an elbow from Benavidez opened an enormous cut on Torres' forehead.

Moments later, Benavidez got Torres to tap with a guillotine choke, and Torres was left covered in blood. Torres had to have a surgical procedure to repair the wound, and he posted this video of that procedure. It's obviously not something that people who get squeamish about medical procedures want to watch, but it's worth watching if you want to get an idea of just how much damage that elbow from Benavidez inflicted.

Check it out after the jump.

The addition of Roger Huerta to the Bellator lightweight division has given the upstart organization a nice boost as it prepares for the start of its second season on April 8.

But what about Huerta's relationship with his former employer, the UFC? Huerta really made a name for himself fighting inside the Octagon eight times over the course of three years and even became the first and only MMA fighter to land on the cover of Sports Illustrated while a member of the UFC roster. In other words, the UFC has been a big part of his fighting life.

When Dan Henderson chose to sign with Strikeforce instead of the UFC, he said he wanted to personally break the news to Dana White, but on Tuesday's edition of SiriusXM Fight Club, 'El Matador' said that his UFC run ended quietly.

As Jon Fitch prepares for his UFC 111 bout with Thiago Alves, he's lobbying for a welterweight title rematch with Georges St. Pierre, and he's got his talking points down pat.

"I've cleaned out one side of the weight class, [Alves has] cleaned out the other. I beat him, it's kind of like putting all those wins in my back pocket, too," Fitch says in the upcoming Countdown to UFC 111 show. "If I could stop Thiago Alves I did something twice that GSP couldn't do in five rounds."

It's not often that a fighter looks back and is thankful for a drug suspension, but James Irvin's positive drug test in 2008 forced him to overcome a painkiller addiction, the UFC fighter tells The Canadian Press.

"I needed to get caught," Irvin said in the interview with Neil Davidson. "I needed to get in trouble for it and wake me up and get off of those things."