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What’s a promoter to do when an athletic commission says hell no to his main event? Well if you’re Monte Cox, you take that fight elsewhere. That’s what he did with the Tim Sylvia vs. Ray Mercer fight and that’s what he’s doing now with the Tim Sylvia vs. Wes Sims fight Ohio rejected two weeks ago. But instead of taking it to Alabama, which is now on the brink of regulating MMA, Cox is sending them to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada to headline an IFC card.

The International Fighting Confederation’s world super heavyweight title fight will be the main event of a 10-bout card coming to the Port City, tentatively scheduled for June 5.

Tim Sylvia, the former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion, will battle mixed martial artist Wes Sims for the IFC world title under the lights at Harbour Station.

Meanwhile, Sylvia has been tweeting how he’s “on the comback” and doesn’t want to fight “bums.”

HT: BE

Update: Another report states that Tim Sylvia will be fighting World’s Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski (1-0 MMA) in an April 23 event in Massachusetts. However, Monte Cox says that fight and the Sims fight are both still in negotiations. Cox also said they turned down an offer to fight Josh Barnett on March 22 at DREAM.13, though didn’t say why. Apparently, DREAM is looking for another opponent.

Man, Monte Cox is not having much luck getting his Andrenaline MMA main events approved by the athletic commissions. You probably remember last year’s Adrenaline debacle when New Jersey’s athletic commission rejected the proposed Tim Sylvia vs. Ray Mercer boxing match before Cox decided to take it to the unregulated waters of Alabama where it turned into an MMA fight at the last minute. Well, once again another main event involving Tim Sylvia has been rejected. This time the Ohio athletic commission turned down a proposed Tim Sylvia vs. Wes Sims fight because they didn’t feel it was competitive enough.

Ohio Athletic Commission executive director Bernie Profato ruled the bout “non-competitive” and informed Adrenaline promoter Monte Cox that it would not be sanctioned.

“The commission felt the fight was not going to be competitive at this time after comparing [Sims' and Sylvia's] records and the opponents both fighters had faced,” Profato stated in an email response. “And even though it was 2004, Sylvia previously stopped Sims at 1:36 of the first round.”

Cox won’t be taking his show back to Alabama this time though. He’s already lined up Brandon Lee Hinkle to replace Sims, and yes, Hinkle has been approved to fight Sylvia. Sims will remain on the Adrenaline V card. He’ll take on Kerry Schall.

Image via Sherdog

After all these years, Tim Sylvia will finally fight where the fans might actually appreciate him — Japan.

That’s right, according to Fanhouse, Sylvia will travel to the Land of the Rising Sun on NYE to compete on the FieLDS Dynamite!! 2009 card. His opponent is still up in the air, but according to his manager, Monte Cox, Alistair Overeem and Hong Man Choi are the two names on the table. But if Cox has his way, Sylvia will be the one looking up at his opponent for a change.

While Cox said Sylvia has been proposed fights against Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem and Hong Man Choi, he thinks it would make more sense to have “The Maine-iac” fight the Korean giant.

“We’re still trying to make a comeback, so I think he and Choi be the best match-up,” Cox said.

“Wow, two monsters. That would be fun.”

We can probably all agree that Sylvia-Overeem would be the better fight from a competitive standpoint, but for some strange reason, I’m actually somewhat intrigued by Sylvia taking on Choi. It would probably be a terrible fight — two slow, lumbering, awkward giants exchanging strikes — but the visual alone is enough to convince me to watch it, well, at least enough to coax me into clicking play on the internet video the next morning.

Remember when DREAM hinted they would be using a cage at DREAM.12 instead of a ring? Well, today they confirmed it with the release of this promo video for the Oct. 25 event in Osaka, Japan. I’m not sure I like this…at all.

Tim Sylvia faced off against Jason Riley and Houston Alexander met Sherman Pendergarst last night at Adrenaline IV on HDNet. Here’s the fights for those of us who can’t get HDNet.

Tim Sylvia’s rocky career is taking another unexpected turn. He’s apparently playing Jason in the newest Friday the 13th movie.

Former UFC heavyweight champion “Maine-iac” Tim Sylvia (24-6) is currently in Boston playing horror film icon Jason Vorhees in the yet-to-be-titled “Friday the 13th” sequel, Fighters.com has confirmed with a source close to the fighter.

Bloody Elbow confirmed the news with Tim’s manager Monte Cox. The good news, for Tim’s fight career at least, is he’s currently training with the boys at Sityodtong in Boston while filming the movie, so hopefully he won’t suffer another embarrassing upset when he takes on Jason Riley at Adrenaline IV. I hate to see Tim get to the point where he needs a machete to win a fight. (Badoom tsss!)

Update: Monte Cox was apparently a little confused about which horror film serial killer Tim Sylvia is playing. He’s actually a stand-in for Michael Myers in Halloween.

“I made a couple mistakes…,” admitted my source, who is very close to Sylvia. “Tim is a stand-in for Michael Myers in the ‘Halloween’ movie out now.”

In other mixed martial artist-turned-actor news, Keith Jardine makes an appearance in that new movie Gamer you’ve probably seen the trailer for a hundred times over now.

Not quite as badass as Don Frye in Public Enemies, or Don Frye in any movie for that matter, but you have to admit, Keith Jardine makes for a wicked looking bad guy.

Thanks to Berezansky for the Jardine tip

Inside MMA airs on HDNet every Friday night at 9PM ET.

Inside MMA Archive

More segments with Tito Ortiz and Tim Sylvia after the jump.

Inside MMA airs tonight on HDNet at 9PM ET.

When Andrei Arlovski lost to Brett Rogers last month, it looks like he also lost his six-seven figure meal ticket aboard the Affliction express.

Inside MMA airs tonight on HDNet at 9PM ET.