Tonight marks the second primetime offering from EliteXC, “Unfinished Business.” This card is pretty huge by EliteXC’s standards, featuring three titles on the line.

Those of us who have Showtime can double our pleasure tonight, because several of the fights on the card will air on Showtime before the CBS portion of the card airs. If you don’t have Showtime, you won’t be able to see the Heavyweight Championship fight.

The best fight on this card is definately the main event: Scott Smith facing off against Robbie Lawler. Their fight at the first Saturday Night Fights event was off the charts until the controversial ending. I’m hoping for this fight to live up to that one, but MMA is so unpredictable that we might see someone get knocked out early.

Also on the card is Nick Diaz–after the last Showtime event, I’m wondering if EliteXC will go for more cheap heat and have K.J. Noons come into the cage after the fight (if Diaz wins, Denny is no joke).

Here’s tonight’s televised card:

CBS Card (9e/8c):

• Middleweight Championship: Scott “Hands of Steel” Smith v. “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler(c)
• Welterweight Championship: Jake Shields v. Nick Thompson
• Lightweight bout: Nick Diaz v. Thomas “Wildman” Denny
• Women’s Batamweight bout: Shayna Baszler v. Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos
• Lightweight bout: Marlon Mathias v. David Douglas

Showtime Card (8e/7c):

• Heavyweight Championship: Antonio Silva v. Justin Eilers
• Featherweight bout: Wilson Reis v. Brian Caraway
• Light Heavyweight bout: Brandon Tarn v. Drew Montgomery

Discuss EliteXC: Unfinished Business here.

Frank Trigg was the most recent guest on the PWB Podcast Hotline with Lex and Ian. Frank discussed a wide variety of topics, including Affliction: Banned, his upcoming fight against Makoto Takimoto and his current stint in TNA wrestling. Frank also addressed the ever-popular “who is the best pound-for-pound” question.

If you’re too lazy to listen to a full interview, check out the clip above our the rest of our YouTube clips.

V.

The next two weeks are stellar times for MMA fans, and it all starts tonight with the UFC and upstart promotion Affliction going head-to-head.

The big question is, which one will you watch? For me, it’s a simple answer: UFC. It’s free, it’s got Anderson Silva, and I prefer the lower weight classes to the heavyweights–Affliction is going big on the heavyweights, tonight.

Discuss UFC Fight Night: Silva v. Irvin and Affliction: Banned here.

For full fight cards, check out UFC.com and Affliction’s web site.

Unless you’ve been under a rock this week, you’ve probably been following the coverage of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s unfortunate run in with the Costa Mesa, California police department.

Rampage is facing felony hit-and-run charges stemming from a Tuesday incident where he was chased by police, and the news hasn’t gotten better since them. A video of odd ramblings by Jackson has leaked to the pathetic, muck-racking web site TMZ (seriously, have you ever watched their TV show? Those people are the biggest tools in the world!), and now word is out that Jackson has been again picked up by police and taken to a hospital for observation after Rampage’s own friends became worried about his behavior.

It’s a strange turn in what everyone thought was a straightforward sports story: Jackson losing his championship belt by a questionable decision to Forrest Griffin. Now, as MMA fans, we’re left wondering just what the mental price of losing a such high profile, high pressure fight might be for one of our heroes, as more rumors say the morning of the incident was the first time that Jackson had watched his loss to Forrest Griffin.

I’m a huge fan of Rampage, so this coverage has been hard to watch; that’s why I haven’t covered any of these stories on the blog this week. Rampage has always been portrayed as a fun-loving, laid back guy who just happens to be a terror in the octagon, so that’s why this week’s events are so startling to Rampage fans. As fans we’ll never know what some of these fighters are like behind closed doors, but the responses from those close to Rampage–like Dana White and one of his sponsors, Throwdown–seem to support the idea that Jackson has had some kind of mental collapse.

Sadly, I’m sure opponents of MMA will now point to Rampage’s problems as evidence of the evils of MMA. Their argument will be pretty simple. Something like, “this guy has taken a beating over the span of his career, and it drove him over the edge.” As more information emerges about Jackson’s mental state, it might be a hard argument to refute.

Still, the perhaps the worst part of this situation is now what happens to Jackson’s health and to his career. He’s been hugely popular with fight fans since his days in Pride, and now he was getting the respect he deserved from UFC fans who might not have realized there was MMA outside of the United States. This week’s events have brought his rise in the UFC to a screeching halt; what’s most important now is that he gets his head straight.

Unfortunately, it’s not just a matter of getting back mentally for Jackson. He’s got criminal charges to fight, and most likely other lawsuits to deal with, as a woman involved in the incident claims that Jackson injured her and her unborn child. Regardless of his mental health, it seems like it may be a very long time before we see Jackson back in the cctagon, if ever at all.

Last night’s Phil Baroni-Scott Jansen Cage Rage main event featured a brutal knockout of Jansen by Baroni, but the fight didn’t end there–just after the fight ended, one of Jansen’s party headbutted Phil Baroni.

The headbutt has been played up on the Internet, but the great thing is, it doesn’t even phase Baroni. You can see the entire thing on the video above. The headbutt occurs about 4:40 in. Hopefully this will stay on YouTube for a while.

In today’s edition of the shoot, I’ve got all the MMA news fit to print, including tons of fallout from the UFC 86 PPV, news on Cro Cop and EliteXC’s July 26 mega-card.

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While I thought UFC 86 was a solid, if unspectacular PPV offering, any momentum the show had was killed off by the erratic performance of the judges in the final two fights last night. If you read any of my live coverage last night, you know that I had both Almeida and and Rampage winning their fights.

As someone who was, quite honestly, rooting for Rampage Jackson, I decided to take a respite from blogging immediately after the show, and then re-watch the last two fights this afternoon with a clear head and see if I came to a different conclusion about each decision. Of course, I focused on the rounds in question: round two of the Côté/Almeida fight, and rounds one, three and five of the Jackson/Griffin fight.

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It’s time for another highly-anticipated UFC PPV, with Forrest Griffin and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson facing off in the main event for Jackson’s light heavyweight title. If you haven’t read my UFC 86 preview, check it out to brush up on the fighters on tonight’s card, as well as my picks for the show.

Here’s what the UFC has planned for tonight’s show:

• Light Heavyweight Championship: Forrest Griffin v. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson(c)
• Middleweight bout: Patrick Côté v. Ricardo Almeida
• Lightweight bout: Joe “Daddy” Stevenson v. Gleison Tibau
• Welterweight bout: Josh Koscheck v. Chris Lytle
• Lightweight bout: Tyson Griffin v. Marcus Aurelio
• Heavyweight bout: Gabriel Gonzaga v. Justin McCully (may not be broadcast)
• Lightweight bout: Jorge Gurgel v. Cole Miller (may not be brodcast)
• Lightweight bout: Melvin Guillard v. Dennis Siver (may not be brodcast)
• Lightweight bout: Corey Hill v. Justin Buchholz (may not be brodcast)

Discuss UFC 86 here. I’ll be leaving live results in the comment thread as the show progresses.

UFC 86 doesn’t seem to be getting the hype that it deserves. The main event for this card is nothing short of epic, as two of the greatest fighters in MMA history will face off for the UFC light heavyweight championship. Based on that alone, this should be one of the most hyped UFC events ever, but it just doesn’t seem that way.

Regardless, let’s go ahead and get on with previewing the main card for UFC 86.

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Just a reminder that if you’d like to watch the weigh-ins for UFC 86, they will be carried live on Yahoo! Sports tonight at 7 EST, 6 CST.