Ian and I were lucky enough to get current Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion and Dream-contracted fighter Alistair Overeem on the latest edition of the PWB Podcast Hotline. Overeem is a candid guy, and he discussed several topics during the interview, including:

• His upcoming kickboxing match against Badr Hari on New Year’s Eve at the K1 Dynamite show
• How training for kickboxing is different than training for MMA
• His controversial fight against Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović
• The war of words with “Cro Cop” since the fight, “Cro Cop’s” invitation to fight him in his “personal cage” in Croatia
• His future with Strikeforce and other American promotions like Dream

The best part of the interview is definately about the fallout from his fight against “Cro Cop.” For those of you who haven’t seen how the fight went down, here’s a video:

If you’re interested in seeing the knees in question, there’s a nice replay at about 5:30 of that video.

For more on Alistair Overeem, please visit his official web site, alistairovereem.com.

Also, I’m working on a new PWB podcast that should be out soon, so look out for that.

The time has finally come: tonight, we find out if Ken Shamrock Seth Petruzelli can defeat Kimbo Slice in the much-hyped main event of tonight’s EliteXC Heat event.

Remember, this card airs live at 9e/8c on CBS in the United States. Viewers outside the U.S. are plain out of luck.

Here’s tonight’s televised card:

• Heavweight bout: Kimbo Slice v. Ken Shamrock Seth Petruzelli
• Welterweight Title Bout: Paul Daley v. Jake Shields(c)
• Heavyweight bout: Andrei Arlovski v. Roy “Big Country” Nelson
• Women’s bout: Gina Carano v. Kelly Kobald
• Middleweight bout: Benji Radach v. Murilo “Ninja” Rua

If you’d like to listen to a great preview of this show, check out MMA Shoot Podcast #2.

No need for a podcast table of contents for MMA Shoot #2–on this edition, Ian joins me to preview Saturday’s EliteXC: Heat show that will air on CBS. The main event of that show features Kimbo Slice taking on Ken Shamrock in a highly-anticipated fight. Also on the card are Jake Shields v. Paul Daley for the Welterweight Title, Gina Carano v. Kelly Kobald, Andrei Arlovski v. Roy Nelson and Cristiane Cyborg v. Yoko Takahashi.

As a bonus for this show, don’t forget to check out the raw audio of the September 25 EliteXC conference call featuring Gina Carano, Kelly Kobald, Jake Shields and Paul Daley.

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.

Dave Meltzer is reporting (via Fightline) that UFC 89 will air for free on SpikeTV in the United States. UFC takes place on October 18 in Birmingham, England, so it will obviously probably air both in the afternoon and then replay again at night (Update: MMA Junkie now reports that this event will air via 5 hour tape delay in primetime; also, the UFC will hold another PPV event the week after UFC 89).

So far, we know that Michael Bisping will face Chris Leben at that event, but now MMA Weekly is reporting that Thiago Alves v. Diego Sanchez is also going to happen at UFC 89. That should be a scintillating fight; Alves is on a roll with wins over Karo Parisyan and Matt Hughes, and Sanchez looked awesome at the The Ultimate Finale with his victory over Luigi Fioravanti.

First we get the July 19 Ultimate Fight Night, and now UFC 89 is going to be free. It looks like the UFC is trying to prove to the new Affliction promotion that it’s not going to be beaten.

There’s so much going on in the world of MMA it’s hard to fit it all into one blog. That’s why I’m starting a new feature here on MMA Shoot: every few days I’ll post a summary of the latest and greatest news from the MMA world. Of course, I’m calling the new feature “The Shoot.” Without further adieu, let’s get to the first edition.

* * *

MMARated.com is reporting that Rich Franklin will move up to 205 to face Matt Hamill at UFC 88. This adds to an already packed card, including Chuck Liddell v. Rashad Evans, Dan Henderson v. Rousimar Palhares, Karo Parisyan v. Yoshiyuki Yoshida, and James Lee v. Tim Boetsch.

MMA Junkie has also confirmed the bout.

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