A CBS executive told me today that the network is committed to showing all five fights on Saturday night's EliteXC: Heat main card, and that the addition of the Roy Nelson-Andrei Arlovski fight just means that viewers will get five fights instead of four.
CBS Senior Executive VP for Primetime Kelly Kahl tells me that the fight between Murilo "Ninja" Rua and Benji Radach is "Absolutely still on" and will be the first fight on the CBS show.
Some MMA fans wondered when the Nelson-Arlovski fight was added to the card whether there would be enough time to fit five fights into a two-hour window. If CBS had to cut one fight, Rua-Radach would have been the logical odd fight out. Those concerns were heightened when CBS began running promos that mentioned Nelson-Arlovski but not Rua-Radach.
But Kahl said CBS only cut Rua-Radach out of some commercials because of space and time constraints, and that the network is still very much excited about showing that fight.
So the EliteXC: Heat card is set, and MMA fans can count on five fights shown live and in their entirety: Rua-Radach, Nelson-Arlovski, Jake Shields-Paul Daley, Gina Carano-Kelly Kobold and Kimbo Slice-Ken Shamrock.
