Liveblog: ROC 22 Part 5

• Chris Liguori is battling in the cage against Cory Mahon. Liguori sports a tightly-buzzed bowl-cut hairstyle that looks to be throwing Mahon off his game.
• Ricardo Almeida is shouting instructions from Liguori's corner. My how times have changed. Eight years ago, Liguori was a member of Pitts Penn - a team of salty scrappers who wouldn't have hesitated to let the air out of the tires of Almeida's ten-speed bicycle. Now they're all friends.
• Liguori lands the bout-ending armbar. He's now the ROC lightweight champ, and he gets his pick of any one of the ring card girls.
• Dante Rivera squares off against Paul "Heebee-Jeebees" Bradley. Rivera is wearing a full-body condom.
• Bradley stuns Rivera with a hook and follows it up with a storm of punches on the ground. The referee steps in after 34 seconds. The ROC middleweight belt now belongs to someone who doesn't live in the Tri-State area. Boo.
• And I'm spent.

Liveblog: ROC 22 Part 4

• Constantino Phillippou and John Doyle are up now. You can cut the tension in the air with a knife. Okay, not really. Everyone is cool.
• Phillippou via TKO in the third round. I think he must be Greek, as ecstatic fans showered him with feta cheese.
• Tim Troxell vs. Dave Sachs is up now. Wow. Either Troxell is having an "off" night, or Sachs is way better than I thought. The Pittsburgh Fight Club representative has got the AMA FC/Team Renzo stud on the defensive almost constantly.
• Sachs submits Troxell late in the second round. This is why I don't bet on fights. Well, that and I'm morally against gambling. Plus I don't have money.

Liveblog: ROC 22 Part 3

• Dom Stanco with the KO at :40 of Round Two. Listen up, people: you cannot stand and trade with this guy. He will kill you.
• Joe Abouata is now 2-0 against big, scary black dudes. He needs to face people of other ethnic backgrounds, though, before I make any claims as to his potential.
• Jimmie Rivera and Jay McLean seemed to have an agreement before the bout to make things as difficult as possible for the judges when it went to the scorecards. It worked. Blatnik, who is judging and is sitting directly in front of me, actually wept when the final bell rang.
• Boy, this Igor Gracie fellow sure is good at jiu-jitsu.

Liveblog: ROC 22 Part 2

• Jim Boudourakis needs to work on something other than just charging in with his head down. I think he might have been a bull in a past life.
• Nick Pace is one scary 135 pounder.
• Jay Isip's return bout ended with him getting rear naked choked by John Salgado. You know what? You can't help but like Isip - win or lose.
• The ring card girls seem to have more silicone than usual tonight. Just an observation.

Liveblog: ROC 22 Part 1

MMA Journalist is here at the Tropicana Casino & Resort in Atlantic City liveblogging ROC 22. The card has suffered some last-minute dropouts, but it's still an extremely solid one. Some notes:

• Rob Guarino's bout against Doug Sonier is off. Rhino Fight Team representative Sean Foreman is out with staph and shingles, so his bout against Greg Soto is off. Everything else is a go - including three badass title fights.
• The new NJSACB commissioner Aaron Davis is in attendance. He seems pretty relaxed. I don't think anyone has told him that, since this is his first ROC, he has to fight.
• All the usual suspects are here: jiu-jitsu legend Renzo Gracie, UFC fighter Pete "Drago" Sell, top-level trainer Ray Longo, Olympic gold medalist Jeff Blatnik, and pink anthropomorphic mountain lion Snagglepuss.
• Just kidding. Snagglepuss isn't here.
• The cafeteria selection included roasted chicken, mussels in some ungodly white sauce, a mystery fish, plain linguine and yellow rice.

Tom Galliccio to Fight Phil Baroni

This just in from the MMA Journalist rumor department: New Jersey star welterweight Tom Gallicchio will face Phil Baroni at the January 23rd Adrenaline show in Atlantic City. Stay tuned for more unsubstantiated rumors as they come in.

MMA Journalist to Liveblog ROC 22

Provided the Internet connection at the Tropicana isn't on the fritz, MMA Journalist will be liveblogging ROC 22 tomorrow night. Tune in for some insight from cageside, including a detailed analysis of the selection in the cafeteria.

Newsflash: Dana White Doesn't Play Fair

Ivan Tremblow (one of the best MMA bloggers out there) has a pretty solid piece up at http://www.ivansblog.com/ on the whole Dana White/Jon Fitch/American Kickboxing Academy conflagration, and in the article Tremblow points out how White is trying to drive a wedge between fighters and their managers. White's behavior, while reprehensible, is certainly nothing new. According to a manager I spoke to last year, when a certain East Coast fighter made it into the Octagon and earned himself a sizable performance-based bonus, White and company handed the fighter his money personally and urged him to keep it all for himself - a blatant attempt at undermining that fighter's relationship with his manager. Based on this and similar stories, and White's public prompting for Fitch to just call him, White is all about circumventing managers when it suits him. He always has been. And until something changes (fighters' union, anyone?), he always will.

A Message to the Media from Dana White Re: the Fitch Contract Debacle

"[Expletive] you all! I [expletive] my [expletive] [expletive] all [expletive] to [expletive], and this is just [expletive]! If you could [expletive] [expletive] a duck, then I'd [expletive] three iguanas and a [expletive] to Domino's Pizza with a piece of [expletive]. Know what I'm saying? Seriously, [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] you!"

UFC Cuts Jon Fitch Over Rights to His Soul

The MMA world is abuzz today over the news that top welterweight contender Jon Fitch has been cut from the UFC roster for his management team's refusal to let him sign a contract that would give Zuffa the rights to his image and likeness forever. The contract in question stems from a much-maligned merchandising agreement drawn up by the UFC's Bogunga Indian attorneys (the Bogunga, an Indian tribe in Amazon Jungle, believe all pictures and images of people are mechanisms used to capture the subject's soul), and the UFC has harnessed the dark mystical magic within these merchandising agreements to maintain control over their fighters - and even the industry itself. Also dropped from the UFC's roster are Fitch's American Kickboxing Academy teammates Christian Wellisch and Cain Velasquez. The future of noted welterweight Josh Koscheck, an AKA fighter as well, is also in question. Said AKA Head Shaman "Crazy" Bob Cook, "Oh Great Spirit, please guide us through these trying times. Also, does anyone have Affliction's phone number?"