Dan Miller, UFC middleweight up and comer and brother of Jim Miller who recently beat Duane Ludwig at UFN 20, was awarded his black belt after training for just 4 years by his instructor Jamie Cruz. Cruz, himself a Renzo Gracie black belt, awarded the black belt to Miller at the AMA Fight Club in New Jersey.

Dan Miller has won 7 out of 11 career victories by submission and will go up against possibly his stiffest competition when he takes on Jiu Jitsu wizard and UFC middleweight contender Damien Maia on the main card of UFC 109 at the Mandalay Bay Event Center in Las Vegas.

This will be Miller’s first fight after a loss to Chael Sonnen at UFC 98 and will get him back at the top of the division really quick, should he be able to best Maia, which is no mean task.

Tatame reports that Brazilian PRIDE sensation and former WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho is one of the confirmed participants for Bitetti Combat 6, scheduled to be held on February 27th in Brasilia, Brazil.

Fernando Miranda, the promoter, said that they want to have a good mix of international fighters and Brazilians for the card and are working on getting competitors in for the event. Filho, once hailed as the best athletes out of Brazilian Top Team and a force to reckon with in PRIDE during its heydays, has fallen on hard times lately, battling addictions and a lack of confidence and conditioning. This, and fights from here on are extremely important for the former champion if he is to get his name back up again and in to the ranks of the elite in his division.

Time will tell what happens with Filho, but we sincerely hope that the Brazilian comes out and wows the MMA fans once again like he used to.

He’s back! Joachim Hansen will finally defend his DREAm lightweight championship against Shinya Aoki at DREAM 11. Hansen suffered an injury before his fight on New Years Eve last year, and this will be his first fight in over a year. Another rumour for DREAM 11 is the featured matchup between Paolo Filho and Jason “Mayhem” Miller.This fight is presumably a result of the signing of Jacare by STRIKEFORCE that may have caused DREAM to replace Jacare with Filho.

This is the announced card for DREAM 11 so far:

Lightweight Title Fight:
Joachim Hansen (champion) vs.  Shinya Aoki (challenger)

DREAM Featherweight GP Semi-Finals:
Hideo Tokoro vs.  Hiroyuki Takaya
Joe Warren  vs.  Bibiano Fernandes

Reserve: Kazuyuki Miyata  vs.  Daiki “DJ Taiki” Hata

SuperHulk Semi-Finalists:
Ikuhisa Minowa
Hong Choi Man
Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
Gegard Mousasi

STRIKEFORCE and DREAM to exchange fighters.

STRIKEFORCE and the japanese based DREAM promotions have agreed to enter a partnership that will facilitate the exchange of fighters between the two organizations. The official statement is expected to be released today.

“We’ve talked about [the partnership] for a long time,” Coker said on the Carmichael Dave Show. “It’s finally going to happen now so maybe [Sergei] Kharitonov could fight Fedor at some point.” This not only opens up the possibility of Fedor fighting in Japan, his favorite hunting ground, but also opens up the possibilities of a lot of high potential fights in both organizations. The exchange really helps STRIKEFORCE further strengthen their welterweight and lightweight divisions as well with the additions of notable fighters such as Marius Zaromskis, Hayato Sakurai, Andre Galvao, Andre Dida Amade, Vitor Ribeiro, Shinya Aoki, Joachim Hansen, Gesias Calvancante, Tatsuya Kawajiri, etc.

This could be the deal that STRIKEFORCE and DREAM both needed to finally get some mileage going and will definitely help STRIKEFORCE as they go into their TV deal with CBS, having to put on more shows than ever before.

The promotions already share a few fighters such as Gegard Mousasi, an M-1 fighter similar to Fedor and the current challenger to STRIKEFORCE light heavy weight champion Babalu Sobral’s belt.

James “The Sandman” Irvin has had to withdraw from his scheduled fight against Wilson Gouveia at UFC 102 due to a “massive” knee injury. The injury is the second time in a row that Irvin has had to withdraw from a fight following his loss to Middleweight champ Anderson Silva. Irvin was suspended after the fight for testing positive for banned painkillers and after that had to withdraw from a fight against heavy handed Drew McFedries in May.

This is not a new thing for Irvin who has had to battle with several injuries throughout his career which has seen him drop down from heavyweight to middleweight. There has been no announcement as to who will be brought in as a replacement against Gouveia.

Props to Carmichael Dave from the Carmichael Dave Radio show for breaking the news.

Fedor Emelianenko has officially signed with STRIKEFORCE! The blockbuster announcement has been released via M1Global and Fedor’s management. The entire announcement is available below:

World’s No. 1 MMA Heavyweight To Fight In STRIKEFORCE / M-1 Global Co-Promoted Events

First Fight To Air This Fall, Live on SHOWTIME®

NEW YORK (August 3, 2009)–After a week of intense negotiations and speculation, the hottest topic of discussion in the professional fight world has come to a head as the world’s number one heavyweight and most sought after mixed martial arts (MMA) champion Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko has signed a historic, multi-fight agreement that will see him headline mega-events co-promoted by world championship promotions STRIKEFORCE and M-1 Global.

Emelianenko, known globally as Fedor, will make his premium television debut this Fall when his first fight under the new agreement airs live on SHOWTIME®. Up until now, Emelianenko’s live fights have aired exclusively on pay-per-view in the United States.

“I am looking forward to going back to work and fighting at the highest level,” said the 33-year-old Emelianenko. During his nine year professional fight career, which included a four and a half year stay with the world’s former top MMA promotion, the now defunct PRIDE Fighting Championship, the Russian native has faced and defeated all comers.

In his last effort, the 6-foot, 235-pound Emelianenko decimated the number two ranked heavyweight at the time Andrei “The Pitbull” Arlovski with a single punch in the first round (3:14) of the main event of Affliction: “Day of Reckoning” at Anaheim, California’s Honda Center on January 24.

“STRIKEFORCE is a top fight promotion that houses some of the greatest fighters in the world,” continued Emelianenko. “I am prepared to fight any of them.”

“We are extremely excited to have the opportunity to work with M-1 Global and Fedor,” said STRIKEFORCE Founder and CEO Scott Coker, a martial arts fight promoter of over 25 years. “Fedor has been the reigning king of MMA’s heavyweight division for quite some time now so being able to work with M-1 and Fedor will substantially increase the level of competition amongst the athletes in this weight class.”

Former Affliction fighters and where they are going to be now -

UFC

• Vitor Belfort
• Paul Daley
• Chase Gormley
• Ben Rothwell
• Dan Lauzon
• Oliviera

WEC

• Javier Vasquez
• LC Davis
• Mark Hominick

STRIKEFORCE

• Gegard Mousasi
• Jay Hieron

With all the rumours of the announcement of Fedor signing to the UFC floating around, the collapse of Affliction’s promotion business might turn out to be a good thing for a lot of the fighters. Of course, this does not include fighters who have since signed with STRIKEFORCE such as Gegard Mousasi, Jay Hieron et al.

This makes UFC’s Friday conference call an even more anticipated one with all the major announcements that can come through at the call.

Hieron Signs with STRIKEFORCE

The pieces are falling ladies and gentlemen! Jay Hieron follows in the footsteps of fellow Affliction victim Gegard Mousasi and has signed with STRIKEFORCE. This strengthens Strikeforce’s welterweight division a little more since having an absolute stud like “The Thoroughbred” is a real nice addition to a weak division depth wise.

Hieron who is coming off a 45 second KO victory in his last outing at Affliction “Day of Reckoning” is one of the better welterweight fighters not fighting in the talent rich UFC division and was actually offered a UFC contract before he signed on to Affliction due to business reasons.

Hieron is now being touted as Nick Diaz’s next opponent and may in fact be fighting on the August 15th card, replacing Joe “Diesel” Riggs and further strengthening an already stacked card on Strikeforce “Carano v/s Cyborg”.

If this match is made, this could possibly be the show stealer in this card and makes Strikeforce’s next event an even more must-watch.