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Ever since Kenny Florian dispatched Joe Lauzon in the main event at Ultimate Fight Night 13, speculation has been rampant about a possible match-up between him and Roger Huerta. According to MMAWeekly.com, it looks like all that speculation is about to be realized as both fighters have reportedly received the bout agreements to fight each other at UFC 87 in August.

Both fighters are the clear top contenders within the UFC’s lightweight division, and one would think whoever wins will earn a title shot against the winner of the Penn/Sherk title fight at UFC 84.

Huerta is riding on a six-fight win streak in the UFC. His last fight was a war with Clay Guida at the TUF 6 Finale last December. That match was considered by many to be 2007’s fight of the year.

Chuck & Kimbo’s War Of Words

In true Chuck Liddell counter-punching style, Liddell has responded to Kimbo Slice’s warning video in an interview with Rear Naked Radio in Dallas. Liddell threw the first punch in the beginning of the month by saying Kimbo won’t deserve all the attention he’s getting until he beats a real fighter.

I was unable to find the actual audio from this interview on their site, but MMAJunkie.com managed to get a hold of a few quotes:

“All I said is fight to someone real. The only guy he lost to in his street-fight things came into the UFC and lost. Fight a guy that is real and fight a guy… who has a few wins in MMA, and then talk about it.

“Before he talks about fighting me, he might want to think about beating somebody that has a winning record. He’s an Internet sensation who beat up guys at Taco Bell. Come on. How hard is that to do?”

DREAM.2 is hours away from getting underway in Japan. The event is scheduled to start at 4PM JST, which converts to 2AM EST. The event will be broadcasted on PPV in Japan and on tape delay on the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) and HDNet in North America. For you lucky ones that actually have it, the event will air Saturday night, May 3rd on HDNet. A replay of DREAM.1 will air Friday night, May 2, on HDNet. For the unfortunate ones, myself included, with shitty cable companies that don’t carry HDNet and the impatient (I fall into this category as well), the fights will most likely be popping all over the internet after the event. Here’s the preview:

Update On DREAM television deal with TBS

Fight Entertainment Group (FEG)—the people behind DREAM & K-1—have informed Sherdog that they were not pulled from TBS as originally reported. It appears the plan for DREAM.2 to air on tape delay & PPV instead of primetime was the original intention.

Travis Lutter appears to be the latest victim in the UFC’s roster purging effort. Lutter notified Fightticker.com today of his release from his UFC contract.

This comes as no shock. Lutter competed last weekend at UFC 83 in a losing effort against Rich Franklin. Lutter almost secured a victory with an arm-bar in the first round, but Franklin was able to roll out of it. Lutter subsequently gassed out in the second round to the point where Lutter could barely keep his arms up. Franklin picked him apart and the fight was stopped.

Lutter is perhaps best-known for failing to make weight in his title-shot against UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva, after winning The Ultimate Fighter Season Four.

Lutter admittedly has taken the media and fans’ reactions to his losses and failure to make weight hard, so it will interesting to see if he will be able to overcome this latest setback and rebound in another organization.

Affiction’s first MMA event on July 19 has been named “Banned” as a stab back at the UFC for banning its fighters from wearing Affliction-sponsored clothing at UFC events. The announcement was made on last Friday night’s edition of HDNet’s “Inside MMA.”

Details have been slowly emerging about the event in the past month or so. As previously reported, Fedor Emelianenko, widely regarded as the world’s top heavyweight mixed martial artist, will square off in his first meaningful fight in two and half years against former UFC Heavyweight Champion Tim Sylvia. Matt Lindland, a top ten middleweight, has also announced his participation on the card, although it is still unknown who his opponent will be. Other rumored participants include Josh Barnett, Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral, Andre Arlovski, Ben Rothwell, Aleksander Emelianenko and Pedro Rizzo.