A report surfaced last week on Fightline.com that Kimbo Slice v. Brett Rogers was confirmed for the month of October. Apparently, nothing is final yet, and Fightline printed a retraction of sorts today:

EliteXC VP and matchmaker Jared Shaw contacted Fightline.com to clarify his position and update our readership on the status of this fight after viewing how the story had been picked up and used on other websites.

“Slice-Rogers is far from a done deal. They have each other and this is definitely on the horizon but currently we don’t know what our platform will be for the months of October and November and on. It’s a fight that is likely to happen within a year.”

Shaw also told Fightline.com that Rogers is currently in the mix and being discussed as Kimbo’s next opponent but there are also two other intriguing names out there for Kimbo and a decision has yet to be made for his next fight.

I was pretty shocked that EliteXC had confirmed the fight, so this news is not surprising. Fightline, one of the most reputable sites out there for MMA, is taking the hit on this one, and saying Shaw was misquoted in the original story. That could be the case, but why did it take Shaw a week to contact Fightline to clarify the story?

Another possibility, in my opinion, is that EliteXC may be backpedaling on this one. After allowing themselves to get caught up in the hype of the post-fight press conference last month, maybe the matchmakers realized that a loss to Rogers would seriously damage Kimbo’s marketability as a top-flight fighter.

At this point, it’s all speculation, which is part of the fun of MMA, but I’m willing to bet Kimbo’s next opponent will be one of the “two other intriguing names” Shaw referenced in his comments to Fightline, and not Rogers. That’s disappointing to me as an MMA fan, but I can see from a business standpoint why EliteXC would make that decision–they obviously can’t have their prized ratings machine suffering a loss early in his career.