MMA News: WEC Payouts, Future Matches, Urijah's Surgery, Carano/Cyborg

Some various MMA news and notes from the last few days, following a busy weekend with another big event this Saturday night.

WEC

> The official salaries and bonuses from Sunday's World Extreme Cagefighting event are up now, released by the California State Athletic Commission. Jens Pulver (seen left) led the way in straight salary with $31,253 brought in—Not bad for less than a minute's work in defeat.

Second place? Former UFCer Manny Gamburyan who earned $26,960, which included a $14,000 win bonus.

Featherweight Champion Mike Brown earned $35,256 ($13k win bonus/$10k Fight Of The Night bonus), while Urijah Faber brought in $35,790 (includes $10k Fight Of The Night bonus). The numbers don't include any potential side bonuses (ratings, etc.) that may be doled out, so I assume both main eventers took a bit more home than that.

> Jose Aldo earned $10k for Knockout Of The Night thanks to his flying knee to Cub Swanson's head, while Seth Dikun earned $10k for Submission Of The Night. For the breakdown of the night, here you go.

> Speaking of Faber, he did suffer a broken right hand in his loss to Brown (MMA Weekly has the pics) and had surgery Tuesday. No word yet on how long he'll be out, but we should hear word Wednesday. However, I feel bad for Brown as it seems a lot of people are discounting his victory over Faber (again) because of the injury.

Listen, stuff happens like this in fights all the time. Look at Joe Riggs on Saturday night, who broke both hands in a unanimous decision victory over Phil Baroni for Strikeforce. You get hurt, you plow through it.

Faber is a tough dude, but understand this: Brown won that fight and this talk of an immediate third bout between the two seems a bit rushed. There are other guys in line for a shot at the belt (Aldo at the top of the list) and Faber should have to win his way back, just like he did last time.

> The rematch between Lightweight Champion Jamie Varner vs. Donald Cerrone has been inked and it looks like it will happen this fall. I would hope this will be a co-headliner with Brown vs. Jose Aldo for the Featherweight title which would be a great start to a WEC 43 card.

The replay of this past Sunday's show is Wednesday at 9 pm on Versus.

Strikeforce

> Gina Carano vs. Cyborg Santos is now official, headlining Strikeforce's August 15 show on Showtime, and it will be for the newly created 145-pound Female Championship.

The event, which will also feature Lightweight Champion Josh Thomson vs. Gilbert Melendez and likely Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers, will be held at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA. Tickets go on sale Monday.

> Cory Devela vs. Luke Rockhold has been added to the next Strikeforce Challengers (Showtime) show on June 19th at the ShoWare Center in Kent, OR. Joey Villasenor (26-6) and Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos (16-12) headline. Dennis Hallman, Jorge Gurgel and Nick Thomson also will be on the card.

UFC

Holy crap...UFC 99 is this Saturday. More on this later this week.

Other

> For those of you in New England, World Championship Fighting is having ring girl tryouts this Sunday at noon at Kelly's House of Harley-Davidson in North Billerica, MA. It is open to the public. Bring the kids! Next event is June 27 in Wilmington, MA. (Thanks to www.wcfighting.com)

> W1 MMA this Saturday at the Robert Guertin Arena in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. Show is headlined by Craig Brown vs. Dana Dickeson and Mark Holst vs. Chris Vorano. (Thanks to www.w1mma.com)

> And finally, this awesome lil' note from Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer which illustrates how truly delusional some people still are about MMA:

"WWE COO Donna Goldsmith spoke at the Noble Financial Emerging Growth Equity Conference today and had the line of the decade when she claimed that MMA was no threat to WWE because they didn't have any real stars. "Somebody gets knocked out and they're hurt and that may be the last you ever see from them again," she said. I could write 25,000 words about that.

She also claimed the last five WrestleManias all drew more than 1 million buys, which is funny since they just posted the WrestleMania 25 buyrate six days ago and it was 40,000 less than that. And looking at trending date, UFC 98, which didn't even have major current stars per UFC standards (Lyoto, Rashad and Hughes and Serra who hadn't fought in over a year) absolutely, completely slaughtered WWE's May PPV with Cena, Orton, Batista, Edge and Jeff Hardy on top."

Indeed.

Josh Nason - josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com] - has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. He has been a contributor to Fight Magazine since January 2009 and Bleacher Report since 2008.