The Weekly Wrap: Dec. 12 - Dec. 18

Odds and Ends

• Five-time World's Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski made a wild MMA debut on Dec. 11 in Poland, swarming boxer Marcin Najman with a hail of violence at KSW 12. Wearing wrestling shoes, Pudzianowski threw unrefined powerful kicks to drop Najman, following with hammer fists until the tapout came 43 seconds into the fight. The fight was a happening in Poland, as the television broadcast of KSW 12 on a station called Polstat, the country's fourth biggest, peaked at more than six million viewers, according to mmarocks.pl. There were reports that KSW is working to put together a Pudzianowski vs. Alexander Emelianenko fight.

• The UFC announced this week it will release its second video game under a contract with THQ, “UFC Undisputed 2010,” on May 25. It appears the game will be released before the premiere MMA title from Electronic Arts, “EA Sports: MMA,” is released, likely in August, according to The Wrestling Observer. EA this week announced a new set of fighters its game will include: Cung Le, Josh Thomson, Gilbert Melendez, Robbie Lawler, Scott Smith, Matt Lindland and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza.

• MMA luminaries Georges St. Pierre and Fedor Emelianenko earned plaudits in their home countries this week. St. Pierre was voted Canada’s SportsNet Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year, edging hockey great Sidney Crosby, while Emelianenko was voted best male Russian athlete in an online poll that saw 500,000 votes cast.

• The UFC and Bellator Fighting Championships locked up two of the sport’s more promising prospects this week.

Light heavyweight Phil Davis signed a multi-fight UFC contract. Davis, a four-time Division 1 All-American wrestler and a 2008 national champion, started training in MMA in 2008 and is 4-0. He trains with Alliance Training Center in San Diego and with American Kickboxing Academy. He’s done well in no-gi grappling competition, taking gold in the world championships last month in Los Angeles.

The Bellator Fighting Championships has signed standout Dan Hornbuckle to participate in its 2010 welterweight tournament. Hornbuckle is coming off a scintillating head-kick knockout of Akihiro Gono and a decisive stoppage of Nick Thompson, both formerly ranked welterweights, in the Sengoku promotion.

• The city council in Vancouver, British Columbia, which stopped regulating MMA in 2007 despite its wild popularity there, passed by a resolution this week to regulate the sport for a two-year period. That paves the way for a planned UFC event in June.

• Troubled former No. 2-ranked middleweight Paulo Filho picked up a first-round submission win on Dec. 12 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Filho cranked a kimura on Tatsuhiko Nishizaka in the main event of the fifth card from Bitetti Combat, a card that also saw Murilo "Ninja" Rua dispatch Jason Jones of Holland via second-round TKO.

• The UFC announced tickets sold out on the first day of availability for its first event in Australia, UFC 110 on Feb. 21. The card will be held at Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia's largest indoor sports venue. The 16,500 tickets sold surpasses the tally for a big recent boxing fight at the arena between Roy Jones Jr. and Danny Greene, according to Australian media reports. The card's main event will be Cain Velasquez vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, with Michael Bisping vs. Wanderlei Silva co-headlining. UFC 110 is the second-fastest selling event in the company’s history behind UFC 83 last year in Montreal.

• The UFC will hold its second Fan Expo on Memorial Day weekend in Las Vegas, featuring 200 companies covering 200,000 square feet of convention floor space highlighting apparel, gaming, fight gear, equipment, nutritional supplements and more. The company's first expo, held in conjunction with UFC 100 in July, was a lauded success. It is not clear if the 2010 expo will coincide with a UFC fight card.

• The Thunder Promotions “Alabama Pride” event, scheduled to take place Dec. 12 at the BJCC Arena in Birmingham, Ala., was cancelled, reportedly due to poor ticket sales. The card was to feature Jeff Monson vs. Travis Fulton and a celebrity kickboxing match involving the rapper Coolio.