“The lightweight division is one of the most talent-rich in the UFC, and this card is a prime example of that,” said UFC President Dana White. “Maynard and Diaz are two top contenders with a history between them, and this is one of those fights that could be career-changing for the winner. The stakes are just as high in the Escudero-Dunham fight, as both of these guys are looking to make the jump from prospect to contender.”

Tickets for this event will go on sale Saturday, November 21 at 10 a.m. ET and are $203, $128, $93, $63 and $43 (plus applicable service charges). Tickets will be available through all Ticketmaster outlets including the Patriot Center box office, online at www.ticketmaster.com or via Phonecharge at 703-573-SEAT, 202-397-SEAT or 410-547-SEAT.

UFC® Fight Club™ members will have the opportunity to purchase tickets to this event Thursday, November 19 at 10 a.m. ET via the website ufc.com. A special Internet ticket pre-sale will be available to UFC newsletter subscribers Friday, November 20 starting at 10 a.m. ET. To access this presale, users must register for the UFC newsletter through ufc.com.

The UFC Fight Night main event features a rematch of lightweight contenders Gray Maynard (fighting out of Las Vegas, Nev.) and Nate Diaz (fighting out of Stockton, Calif.) who first met in the Octagon on season five of The Ultimate Fighter™. Diaz defeated Maynard on his way to being named “The Ultimate Fighter” that season.

A former teammate of Rashad Evans on the Michigan State wrestling team, Maynard currently trains with UFC legend Randy Couture in Las Vegas. The 30-year-old with the 9-0, 1 NC record is riding one of the most impressive winning streaks in the sport, defeating an impressive array of 155-pound fighters including Frankie Edgar, Jim Miller, and, most recently, Roger Huerta this past September.

Diaz has won six of his last eight UFC fights including a win over Melvin Guillard this past September. The pride of Stockton, California and a product of the renowned Cesar Gracie Fight Team, Diaz needs a win over Maynard to continue on his path toward a shot at BJ Penn’s lightweight crown.

Winner of the eighth season of The Ultimate Fighter™, 23-year-old Efrain Escudero (fighting out of Tempe, Ariz.) is coming off of an impressive TKO victory over Cole Miller at UFC 103 in September. At a perfect 13-0, Escudero will look to use his superior grappling skills against another rising star in the division, Evan Dunham.

An Oregon native, Evan Dunham (fighting out of Las Vegas, Nev.) was victorious in his first two fights in the UFC, most recently earning a split decision win over Marcus Aurelio at UFC 102 in August. Now at 9-0 as a professional mixed martial artist, the 27-year-old lightweight fighter is looking for his third win in the UFC.

Coming off a submission win over CB Dollaway at UFC 100, Fall River, Massachusetts’ Tom Lawlor (fighting out of Orlando, Fla.) has already compiled a 6-1, 1 NC record with two consecutive wins in the UFC. A former three-time national wrestling champion for the University of Central Florida, Lawlor uses his superior wrestling skills to dominate his opponents.

Another up-and-coming fighter in the UFC, undefeated Aaron Simpson (fighting out of Phoenix, Ariz.) is a perfect 2-0 in the UFC and 6-0 as a pro. A former Arizona State University wrestler and two-time NCAA All-American, Simpson scored a TKO win over Ed Herman at UFC 102, his second knockout in as many UFC fights.

The remaining bouts will be announced in the near future.

For more information, or current UFC fight news, visit UFC.com, UK.UFC.com, GERMANY.UFC.com, UFCJapan.jp or UFCEspanol.com. All bouts live and subject to change.

About The Ultimate Fighting Championship®
UFC is the largest live pay-per-view event content provider in the world and the fastest growing main stream sports organization in history. Owned and operated by Zuffa™, LLC, and headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev., UFC® produces over twelve live pay-per-view events annually that are distributed residentially through North American cable and satellite providers including iNDEMAND Networks, DIRECTV, DISH Network, Avail-TVN Entertainment, BellTV, SaskTel Max™, Shaw Pay-Per-View, and Viewers Choice. International distributors include WOWOW in Japan, Rede TV and Globosat’s Combate Channel and SporTV in Brazil, ESPN in United Kingdom, Televisa in Mexico and throughout Central America, with worldwide distribution via the Internet on UFC.com and Yahoo! Sports. UFC content is distributed commercially through Joe Hand Promotions in the U.S. and Canadastar in Canada. UFC programming is distributed in 132 countries, territories and jurisdictions, reaching 430 million homes worldwide, in 20 different languages.

Ultimate Fighting Championship®, Ultimate Fighting®, UFC®, The Ultimate Fighter®, Submission®, As Real As It Gets®, Zuffa® , The Octagon™ and the eight-sided competition mat and cage design are registered trademarks, registered service marks, trademarks, trade dress and/or service marks owned exclusively by Zuffa, LLC and licensed to its affiliated entities and other licensees in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks referenced herein may be the property of Zuffa, LLC, its affiliates or other respective owners.

About Spike TV
Spike TV is available in 97.7 million homes and is a division of MTV Networks. A unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), MTV Networks is one of the world’s leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms. Spike TV’s Internet address is www.spike.com.

Source: http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=26517

Richards won four of those shows and was the first runner-up in the other, and included three in the U.S. (1982 America Cup, 1983 Teen Los Angeles, 1984 California Gold Cup Classic) and two abroad (1989 Mr. Barbados, 1992 Nigerian Championships).

Although a 36-inch waist may seem fairly wide for a bodybuilder, when you have a 67-inch chest and 26-inch arms, your belt line doesn’t sound as large. But Richards, who was profiled frequently in the Weider publications, was always viewed as someone who could not be taken seriously because of his thickness.

One must remember that during the main part of Richards’ career, Lee Haney was the reigning Mr. Olympia and had a muscular build with symmetry, a word that would never be confused with Richards.

The year that Richards stopped competing, Dorian Yates succeeded Haney as Mr. Olympia and began the monstrous era. Thicker bodies, including waists and ultimately abdominals, eventually became commonplace and the next one to be crowned Mr. O, Ron Coleman, took it to a different level.

He is sometimes called the “Natural Uncrowned Mr. Olympia,” but that sounds like pure fantasy no matter if you read into it or not, and in more ways than one.

Richards did possess a physique that was not appreciated then as much as it would have 10 or so years later. The USC graduate may have become a winner of more than one Sandow if he came along later on, but that doesn’t take away what he once was.

Some people never learn. Even when their team is going through a miserable season in which they were lucky to have the one win they can show for themselves, selfishness rises to the top. In the case of the Cincinatti Bengals, what could go wrong has gone wrong. Head coach Marvin Lewis somehow manages to keep his job as the inmates have run the asylum during his watch. The leader of the pack has been Chad Johnson…oh, excuse me…Ocho Cinco. It pains me to have to do that. On second though, screw him. I’ll call him Johnson if he likes it or not!

While his antics may have been amusing in the past when the team was playing decent football, that act has gone cold mighty fast. Whatever the reason(s) why the attention-seeking Johnson was deactivated approximately 10 hours before a Thursday night kickoff, the fact of the matter is that he is a lightning rod for controversy. Is he talented? There is no questionof that, so to leave him out of a game where he could have made a difference is even more glaring.

What appears to have occurred is Johnson having a disagreement with one of the assistant coaches during a team meeting and him possibly walking out of the room. What makes this even more annoying is teammate John Thorton stating that Johnson “has done worse” in the past and didn’t get suspended, and that Lewis was making a “statement” by doing so. The problem that I – and everyone else should – have with this is that if Lewis had done his job before and layed down the law, Johnson would have never dreamed of committing such insubordinate acts, if he even was still on the team.

Maybe this is just another prime example of why Lewis took so long to get a head coaching job in the NFL. He was being lauded as such a great defensive mind when he was on the staff of the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, and rightfully so. But to be the ‘bad guy’ and have to throw down the hammer is a totally different situation that being an assistant coach.

When you’re a one-trick pony, there should be no surprise that a lesson is never learned. Take Stephen A. Smith, for example. At one point in his career, he was writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and had his own radio and television show. All three have blown up in his face, and no matter what spin he may want to put on it, his controversial ways sealed his fate.

Smith has an uncanny ability to rub people the wrong way with his pro-African American views on everything in the sports world. Someone can be proud of their race and heritage, but when you’re supposedly doing your job – which calls for objectiveness – leave those ideas home. No one reading about a sports organization wants to hear which player is best black athlete. The old saying, “You root for laundry,” means just that – fans don’t care if the player is white, black, hispanic or other. We’re into the team because we grew up with them and cheer for the players wearing that jersey.

Because Smith turns off the majority of the audience – if you need me to spell it out, the white part of the audience – his ratings were not up to par and thus the reason for “Quite Frankly” bouncing around the schedule before being dropped a year and a half later. While the man knows his business, he loses a lot of his credibility by harping on social issues that have no correlation. A prime example is his latest “Up Front” column in the August 25 issue of ‘ESPN The Magazine.’ Calling himself an “angry black man” who has “no desire to be PC,” Smith sounds as if he were standing on a small platform in Times Square instead of sitting in front of a computer.

The title of this piece is ‘Thanks for Your Feedback. But Can’t We All Just Get Along?’ Smith takes on the people who allegedly responded to him, and uses a Rodney King reference to open up the show. First, he feels the need to remind us of his credentials, that he has been a journalist for 15 years and a beat writer for 10 of them. What he should have added was that he was let go by The Inquirer after they demoted him. He further described his arriving at ESPN was the result of “years of blood, sweat and tears.” Sportswriting should not be described as that. I’m sorry, but being in the field myself as a second career after finishing one that could coin that phrase, Smith appears even more short-sighted than before.

The column continues with Smith attempting to prove to a reader named ‘Josh’ that the black athletes of today have a responsibility to be activists, a la their brethren from a generation ago. Just exactly what Smith wants players such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James to do to is a good question. What has held them back from becoming the best in the NBA and multi-millionaires? For that matter, the former NBA players he mentions that ‘cleared the path’ (Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul Jabaar) didn’t exactly break the color barrier.

Taking exception to an e-mail from a reader named ‘Bryan,’ Smith attacks him when he points out that people such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Smith are keeping racism alive by “bitching” about it. Possibly Stephen A. took exception by being lumped together with two people that have had their fair share of negative publicity, or maybe judging by his response he is proud of the association. He once again has to go back in time to make his point. He brings up the civil rights movement, and makes a reference of modern day oppression. At the end, he talks about “pimp-slapping.”

‘Eric’ from Utah gets on Smith’s good side because he tells him he’s white and looks at Tommie Smith and John Carlos as heroes, and that he is instilling into his two teenage children that “they have the privilege of deciding for themselves whether to follow the rules,” which makes Smith respond with a double “Amen.” I don’t know who sounds more clouded here – Dad giving the keys to his impressionable kids to run wild with his blessing, or Stephen A. finding some good in that. As if teenagers needed a reason or okay from a parent to break the rules.

Following a response where he says that he has “toned it down considerably” after being a “loudmouth windbag” in the past, Smith questions ‘Matthew’ when he has the gall to call Stephen A. out to write an article without the topic of race. How did he fire back? By telling the reader to look back at his material from the past, plenty of it which is not race-related. He then continues by describing his articles from his Inquirer and New York Daily News days as him “getting on one black athlete after another,” and then suspecting that Matthew would find that “perfectly okay.”

Let me back up for a second. Smith defends his not always writing about race by stating that he also rips black athletes? Digest that on your own.

Finally, when ‘Scott’ writes to Smith with a complaint of his “pomposity” and that he can’t talk sports without injecting his own agenda, Stephen A. tells him that he’s doing his job as a columnist, and that he has a “license to editorialize” and give his opinion. While I agree with him that it is his column and he can be as opinionated as he wishes, a sports column should be about sports, not social issues that took place in the South 40 years ago. Those articles may have their place, but it is certainly not between the box scores and game recaps.

Almost comically, Smith then tells the reader to “get rid of the Haterade.” He should practice what he preaches.

Sports is the one place to go to get away from everything that is wrong with this world. When issues that don’t belong are dragged into it and force-fed by people like Smith, it takes away the purity of the game. Anyone that knows anything will admit that Jackie Robinson was more than as baseball player, but when people like Smith try to make a comparison of what he went through in the 1940s to a teenage millionaire like LeBron James, it not only does a disservice to Robinson, but to James, as well.

On his personal website, Stephen A. gives us a little insight on his controversial ways. “My aspiration is to talk beyond sports, to use sports as a venue to talk about what really matters to so many people out there. I want the world, not just the sports world.” So, I suppose that Smith feels that sports doesn’t matter to people. Surely, not all will agree with him on that analogy. Maybe he should look into a job with Time magazine or CNBC. Quite frankly, I – along with many others – wouldn’t give a damn.

First, golf was talking about getting tough on steroids, which seemed ludicrous enough. But now another sport you wouldn’t think of when talking banned substances has taken steps towards punishing players who look for that extra edge. The International Tennis Federation voted in an anti-doping code that was necessary for compliance for inclusion in the Olympics.

Effective on January 1, 2009, the rules will be more flexible for suspensions, and what was described by the ITF as “increased flexibility of sanctions.” This another prime example of trying to get the ‘one up’ and show the public that an organization – in this case all of tennis’ governing bodies – is not going to have the necessity of its own Mitchell Report. The specter of steroids even lurks over the tennis court, albeit it for real or just for show.

Close, but no cigar. Over 150 bottles of liquid testosterone and Deca Durabolin nearly made it through Australian Customs, but the shipment was intercepted by the Dick Tracy’s of the Outback. A clever attempt on masking the steroids in bottles shipped from Thailand marked “Gay Lube Oil” was thwarted, and the quote from a Customs official didn’t seem to come out as planned.
“They might think we won’t examine it because…it’s a bit yucky or whatever,” Richard Janeczko told reporters.

With the recent crack downs on performance-enhancing drugs, dealers have taken smuggling to the next level, and this is a prime example of that. What was once only expected from cocaine and heroin seizures, steroids have become a huge underground business, raking in millions of dollars.

Operations such as last years “Raw Deal” has put the war on steroids in the forefront, and seizures similar to the one in Australia may become commonplace.

Good luck finding a new book that is up to date with anabolic steroids. Most of the staples are now considered ‘oldies,’ and have actually become collectibles for some. But for recent info on what is going on in ‘gear world,’ you have to come to websites like this one – I hope!

Steve Gallaway’s “The Steroid Bible” (Third Edition) is a spiral-bound book that is still available on www.AnabolicSteroids.com for $49.99, and that includes a report “Importing Drugs.” A bit pricey, as far as I am concerned, for a book that is from 1997 with a $24.95 cover price.

You can find it cheaper on places like Amazon, so assuming that you have already made up your mind and want this one, here is what you should expect: The Introduction is right on the money by pointing out that the medical community is not always on top of everything, and steroids are a prime example why. Side effects are always a concern, but the ‘know-it-all’ doctors that tried to say that athletic performance would not be enhanced with steroids while side effects would be the only thing to expect couldn’t be any wronger.

It has the usual chapters like How Anabolic Steroids Work, Side Effects, Anabolic Steroids and the Law, and Anabolic Steroid Detection. The next section, entitled Anabolic Steroid Experiences, is said to be actual first hand accounts from users, including unnamed top bodybuilders. Unfortunately, it reads as a “Frequently Asked Questions” area and not very believable. I’ll give you an example – ‘Do steroids work for everyone? If they don’t work for everyone, then what is the reason why?’ You couldn’t get a more rigidly phrased juice question in a can.

Chapter Six, Alternatives to Anabolic Steroid Use, comes across much more genuine, especially when Gallaway states, ‘There are no miracle products that can replace anabolic steroids by providing the benefits of steroids without the side effects.’ But he blows it when the inside back cover is basically an ‘ad-itorial’ for a legal supplement that the company that is selling the book put out. Gallaway stands on his head praising ‘Growth Factor-1,’ which is still for sale on the website.

He says that this product is “the key to serious growth” and is the “only way to build a freaky, professional bodybuilder-type physique.” Not satisfied with ‘freaky,’ Gallaway continues with a comparison of your gains on this supp with “cartoon-like muscles.” Then to really make it legit, he warns that men and women can use this product, but ladies beware! Mixed with weight training, GF-1 will “leave you with a physique that most people would describe as masculine.’ Are you kidding me?

Then the punchline – Gallaway tells the reader that GF-1 is “extremely difficult to obtain” and that there is a “limited supply” available and sold on a “first-come, first-serve” basis at the price of $49.99 per month or $249.95 for a year’s worth of this ‘find.’ One of two things have occurred here. Either not many people made the plunge nine years ago, or that “limited supply” was a bit larger than reported. Oh, and another thing. With inflation, the current rates are $20 bucks more on the website.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not totally killing this book. It does have some cool info and is certainly not the worst book on the subject. But the author lost me when he pulled the oldest trick in the book. He comes across as a very informative individual, one of ‘the guys,’ so to speak. He tells us everything we want to hear about steroids and then grabs us on the way out by throwing the trust we just gained in him at us in an attempt to peddle his ‘snake oil.’