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Daniel Gracie, the cousin of Renzo and Roger Gracie, woke up one morning and knew it was time to return to MMA.

His last fight -- a loss to to Allan Goes in the now-defunct IFL -- took place in November 2006. Since then, the 38-year has remained active as a jiu-jitsu instructor, most recently taking over the Renzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Stamford, CT.

But when Gracie stopped by The MMA Hour on Monday, he announced that his time away from MMA was coming to an end later this year.

"I can't just watch it. I was getting cranky because I wasn't fighting. Actually, I decided to take a little while from MMA because my English was terrible. I could talk but not teach jiu-jitsu, so I said, I have to learn to teach in English, because I know that my future is going to be having a jiu-jitsu school and teaching jiu-jitsu."

Leading up to UFC 118, James Toney told anyone who wanted to listen that he asked to fight Kimbo Slice (after his first request of facing Brock Lesnar was turned down) in his Octagon debut. Unfortunately for him, the organization had different plans and matched the boxing champion against Randy Couture.

You all know how that turned out for "Lights Out."

But when Slice stopped by Monday's edition of The MMA Hour, he said he had never been offered a fight against Toney, but was certainly open to the idea.

"I never heard anything about me fighting James Toney, but you know, like I said, again, I'll fight anybody, man. C'mon, everybody knows that about me from my street-fighting days. Put anybody in front of me, train me to be the best, I'll fight the best. That's one thing about Kimbo Slice that everybody knows."

Contrary to published reports and the fighter's own Twitter account, Jay Hieron has not yet secured his release from Strikeforce.

The fighter recently told MMA Fighting that the two sides are still speaking, but he's looking forward, not backward.

"I jumped the gun. We're working on it," said Hieron, who was in Boston last weekend to help teammate Randy Couture finish preparations in facing James Toney at UFC 118. "Strikeforce is a good organization. I've had a good time fighting for them but I'm looking to the future. We haven't cut ties yet. We're working on a few things. But I'm in the gym every day and I'm definitely going to fight again in 2010."

In a marketing move the promotion is calling "unprecedented," Shine Fights will allow fight fans to assume the role of matchmaker for its upcoming lightweight tournament.

The promotion announced Monday that the first-round matchups for its eight-man, one-night tournament, scheduled for Sept. 10, will be chosen by fans through an online voting process.

Before the start of two separate matches on national television Saturday night, fighters K.J. Noons and "King Mo" Muhammed Lawal could be seen inhaling from small, cylindrical canisters handed to them by their cornermen. In Lawal's case, the canister -- which contained canned oxygen -- was furnished to his camp two weeks ago by a company named Oxygen4Energy. Lawal tried the product and liked it enough that he decided to use it on fight night.

By the next morning, though, a small controversy had erupted. The MMA site MiddleEasy.com published a story which stated that "compressed oxygen is a substance banned from nearly every endurance sport, including MMA; in every state, including Texas."

Why then, were Lawal and Noons using it in so openly in public? And were they openly breaking the rules by using performance-enhancing substances?

Back in 2007, around the time that the UFC started doing gangbusters business in the competitive pay-per-view world, the big names in the boxing universe started hearing questions about the upstart promotion. Aside from the financial threat it offered as a combat sports alternative, the queries usually centered on how a fighter in one world would do in the other's realm.

As a general rule, boxers were highly dismissive of their counterparts in MMA. Back then, Marvin Hagler referred to it as "street fighting," Bernard Hopkins dismissed it, saying, "I don't want to watch two grown men wrestling with panties on," and Floyd Mayweather offered, "Just imagine what happens if a heavyweight contender lays hands on an MMA fighter. We both know what the aftermath will look like."

Well, times have changed, and apparently so has the boxing world's view on MMA, because James Toney's promoter, Dan Goossen, is already angling for a rematch after UFC 118. A boxing rematch.

Acknowledging that Toney is at a "severe disadvantage" in his upcoming fight with Randy Couture, Goossen released a statement to the media offering Couture the same payday he will receive at UFC 118 to face Toney in a 12-round boxing match.

The intriguing Shark Fights 13 event scheduled for Sept. 11 has added further depth, adding former UFC fighter Johnny Rees against Strikeforce veteran Paul Bradley to the card.

A source close to the fight confirmed the matchup to MMA Fighting.

For his actions following a UFC 113 loss in which he punched opponent Josh Koscheck well after the final bell, Paul Daley has been handed a 30-day suspension from the Governing Body of Alcohol Races and Games of Quebec, which oversaw the May 8 event.

Daley and his manager Wad Alameddine were not present at the decision, but accept the punishment, which will not affect his recently announced Sept. 11 Shark Fights bout with Jorge Masvidal.

"Whatever the commission decides is fair," Alameddine told MMA Fighting. "It is fair in my eyes. It's their job to look at these things and analyze the situation and the scenario. Paul and I would have accepted whatever decision the athletic commission came to."

Jay Larkin, a former Showtime boxing boss who later unsuccessfully tried to turn around the short-lived International Fight League, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 59.

Larkin took over as the acting CEO and President of the IFL in Nov. 2007, over a year into the company's existence. The executive tried to rebound the company's sagging fortunes by getting rid of the cartoonish team names, instead favoring a camp approach, controlling costs and attempting to appeal to more fans. But he also earned the wrath of many MMA fans by making controversial comments that while largely aimed at the UFC, reflected poorly on the sport.

Middleweights Joey Villasenor and Drew McFedries will look to get their careers back on track when they meet at Shark Fights 13 on Sept. 11, the organization recently announced. The fight will take place at the Civic Center Coliseum in Amarillo, TX.

Shark Fights 13 will be headlined by Trevor Prangley vs. Keith Jardine. The co-main event features a light heavyweight bout between Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou and Houston Alexander.

Update: The CSAC has approved the McCullough vs. Hill fight.

Former WEC lightweight champion "Razor" Rob McCullough and UFC fighter Corey Hill have agreed to fight in the co-main event of Tachi Palace Fights' upcoming sixth event on Sept. 9 in Lemoore, Calif., event coordinator Jeremy Luchau confirmed with MMA Fighting.

However, while the California State Athletic Commission initially refused to sanction the fight due to the fact that McCullough has competed in 24 pro MMA fights, while Hill has only competed in 7, Luchau said that he has filed an explanation as to why the fight should be sanctioned, and was confident that the CSAC would eventually sign off on it.

"They wanted me to give an explanation why Corey Hill would be a good opponent for 'Razor,' so I had to send a letter explaining that Corey Hill had fought in the UFC," Luchau said.

In October 2008, just days before he was scheduled to leave his suburban Maryland home to accompany his most famous student, Brandon Vera, to a UFC event in England, jiu-jitsu and MMA instructor Lloyd Irvin found himself in a fight of his own. But this one was for his life.

In the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 4, Irvin woke up on his couch at 4:30 am to find two gunmen standing over him. Taking bold action when the opportunity arose, Irvin disarmed one of the perpetrators, forcing them both to flee. No one was hurt in the attempted home invasion, but now the case has taken a chilling twist.

According to Washington D.C. news outlets including WUSA-9, police now believe that one of the men involved in Irvin's home invasion attempt is a suspected serial killer.