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Tickets for UFC 114 are set to go on sale next week.

UFC 114 is scheduled to take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday, May 29 and will air live on pay-per-view at 10PM ET/7PM PT. The card will be headlined by a light heavyweight grudge match between TUF 10 coaches Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Rashad Evans.

Ticket info below.

• UFC Fight Club Presale: Thursday, March 25, 10AM PT
• UFC Newsletter Presale: Friday, March 26, 10AM PT
• Public On-Sale Date: Saturday, March 27, 10AM PT

Ticket prices will range from $75-$650. They can be purchased through Ticketmaster and Stubhub. Stubhub is a secondary ticket market where you can find the hard-to-find seats even when the event is “sold-out.”

The latest UFC 114 fight card and event info can be found in our fight cards section.

James Irvin and Alessio Sakara meet in a middleweight match-up this Sunday, March 21, at UFC on Versus 1.

With all the pesky rumors about Rich Franklin replacing Tito Ortiz on TUF 11 and UFC 115, Rich makes absolutely zero mention of it in an interview with the Boston Herald. In fact, he confirmed he’s been in talks to fight Randy Couture just as Dana White said.

“It’s not signed yet, but we’ve been working Randy now for a while. We’ve talked June, then we talked August and now we’re talking June again,” Franklin said. “I think we’re having problems with Randy’s scheduling. So I really don’t know what the plan is at this point.”

Franklin also said he’s finally ready to make one more title run before he hangs up the gloves for good in 2-3 years.

“I’m at a point now where I’ve fought enough fights and it’s time for me to make a title run again and see where that takes me. That’s where my focus is Now,’‘ said Franklin, who has five fights left on his contract. “It depends on the speed of things. I would imagine I’ll probably end up negotiating one more contract before I retire. I’m looking at another two or three years of fighting.”

It looks like that run will start with Randy Couture, not Chuck Liddell, but I’m sure another report will surface before the week’s out saying otherwise.

Gegard Mousasi will enter the DREAM Light Heavyweight Grand Prix with some familiar company. Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, the two fighters Mousasi beat in Strikeforce, are both set to compete in the tournament alongside him.

Gegard Mousasi, Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou and Renato Sobral will all be participating in the Dream Light Heavyweight Grand Prix, which will begin on May 30 at Dream.15.

Mousasi confirmed his own participation in an interview with MMAFighting.com on Wednesday, and Dream officials confirmed that Sokoudjou and Babalu will be part of the tournament as well.

Considering Mousasi put both Babalu and Sokoudjou away rather handily in Strikeforce already, I think it’s safe to say he will remain the favorite in the grand prix.

In other DREAM.15 news, Marius Zaromskis is expected to return to action on the card. It’s unknown if his welterweight title will be on the line or who he will fight.

Image via Esther Lin for Showtime

When we think of drugs of abuse in mixed martial arts, or any sport for that matter, we usually focus on steroids. However, there’s seems to be an alarming trend of fighters abusing a different kind of drug — prescription meds. Karo Parisyan and Paulo Filho’s careers have taken a turn for the worse because of them, and if it wasn’t for James Irvin getting caught, he says his career was headed in the same direction.

“The Anderson Silva fight, I have 25 stitches across my cheek from when he blasted me,” the mixed martial arts fighter told The Canadian Press. “Every day when I look in the mirror, I have a clear reminder of what those drugs did to me and what lies ahead of me if I was ever to start using that garbage ever again.”

…

“It wasn’t until a time that I just stopped taking them that I realized I needed them just to keep on functioning,” he said. “At that time I had become an addict and I was hooked on them.

“I never even heard the word withdrawal,” he added. “I didn’t know what withdrawals were. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know to speak to a doctor about it. I took it the wrong way, kind of the cowardly path. I just kept on using the prescription drugs, but it’s a tough push-pull kind of thing in my line of sport. Injuries are a common thing, it’s something you’re always dealing with. And when you have bad ones, sometimes you have to take those medications.”

Irvin (14-5 with one no contest) now says the positive drug test was a blessing in disguise. He had become trapped.

“I needed to get caught,” he said. “I needed to get in trouble for it and wake me up and get off of those things.”

“Since then, since I’ve had that suspension, (since) I’ve been drug-free, it’s been the happiest time of my entire life. I can honestly say that,” he added. “A lot of people throw that around, but I can tell you (it’s true) with my family, with my wife, my training. I’ve found a new love in training again, it’s something that I had lost while using those prescription drugs and I just feel like a new person.”

Unfortunately in this sport, injuries are essentially unavoidable, and with those comes legal prescriptions for pain medication. No one ever sets out to get hooked on them, but it happens. Hopefully other fighters will learn from their peers like Irvin that just because a doctor provides them doesn’t mean they aren’t extremely dangerous if you abuse them.

James Irvin takes on Alessio Sakara this Sunday night at UFC on Versus 1, and no, he doesn’t want a rematch with Anderson Silva.

On this week’s edition of ESPN MMA Live, Jon Anik and crew recap WEC 47. Jon Jones also stops by to talk about his upcoming fight against Brandon Vera at UFC on Versus 1.

We’re back in business. Sorry for the late start today, but our flight was delayed several hours last night and I didn’t get home until 5 o’clock in the morning.

Brandon Vera takes on Jon Jones in a light heavyweight battle at UFC on Versus 1.