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Tickets for UFC Fight Night 21 are set to go on sale later this week.

UFC Fight Night 21 is scheduled to take place at Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina on Saturday, March 31 and will air on Spike TV at 8PM ET/PT. The card will be headlined by a lightweight tilt between Kenny Florian and Takanori Gomi.

Ticket info below.

• UFC Fight Club Presale: Thursday, February 4, 10 AM ET
• UFC Newsletter Presale: Friday, February 5, 10 AM ET
• Public On-Sale Date: Saturday, February 6, 10 AM ET

Tickets will be priced from $35-$250. 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 Fight Night 21 fight card and event info can be found in our fight cards section.

The rumors were true.

According to ESPN MMA Live, Takanori Gomi will make his UFC debut against Kenny Florian in the main event at UFC Fight Night 21.

Kenny Florian-Takanori Gomi expected as the main event for UFC Fight Night 21 March 31st in North Carolina.

So not only is this a great fight, we get to see it for free. And DirecTV subscribers don’t even have to worry about missing it because they haven’t struck a deal with Versus yet. This one is on Spike.

Other reported fights for the card include Nate Quarry vs. Jorge Rivera, Roy Nelson vs. Stefan Struve, Yushin Okami vs. Lucio Linhares, Cole Miller vs. Andre Winner and Ross Pearson vs. Dennis Siver.

Image via Sherdog

“It’s a fight that I think I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, ever since Gomi was the best over in PRIDE, so Gomi’s obviously a legend in the sport and those are the kind of guys that I want to challenge myself with. The quickest road back to the title is beating great fighters like Gomi…I see (Gomi) as a great opportunity to improve as a mixed martial artist and face one of the best fighters to ever fight as a lightweight. So for me, I’ve always had a lot of respect for the Japanese fighters and how they conduct themselves as martial artists, and obviously Gomi has accomplished a lot in the sport. To beat someone like that would be tremendous…I’m not sure what type of issues Gomi has had, whether it’s injuries or whatever, but I do know that Gomi is a very, very dangerous fighter. Whoever I face, I’m going to train harder than I ever have and smarter than I ever have. So for me, I always consider every fighter a threat, and certainly with Gomi, I consider him the ultimate threat…I would love to fight in New Jersey. It’s very close to home, and it’s a place where a lot of my fans would be able to go to. So it would be tremendous, and timing-wise, it works out excellent.”

—Kenny Florian telling MMA Junkie he hopes to challenge himself against Takanori Gomi at UFC 111

While this potential match-up is nowhere near official, there’s been so much talk about it since the Gomi news broke it would kind of be a disappointment if it didn’t happen. To be honest, Florian is probably the most intriguing opponent the UFC can give Gomi in his debut.

There’s still a lot of questions that surround Gomi after two disappointing performances in Sengoku from roughly a year ago, but this fight would go a long way in answering them. Gomi says he has rededicated himself to training and even recently trained a bit at AKA. If he manages to put himself back in peak condition, Florian will undoubtedly have his hands full.

Image via Sherdog

Cagewriter has video of Dana White talking to the press at UFC 108 about a variety of topics including when they’ll know when Brock Lesnar may return (this week), his thoughts on Shinya Aoki’s arm-breaking, bird-flipping incident from Dynamite!! 2009 (part of the fight game), who Takanori Gomi may fight (Kenny Florian possible) and more.

According to MMAFighting.com, the UFC has landed former number one lightweight Takanori Gomi.

Takanori Gomi, once considered to be one of the best lightweight fighters in the world, has signed a multi-fight contract with the UFC. MMAFighting.com learned of the acquisition from sources on Friday.

No word on when and where Gomi will make his debut for the UFC. The organization has yet to officially announce the signing.

If this signing had happened a few years ago, this would be much bigger news. Gomi was once king of the lightweight division during his PRIDE reign in 2004-2006. After PRIDE collapsed, Gomi took a ton of heat for not fighting top competition and eventually lost two fights in Sengoku he was expected to win. At that point, most outlets dropped him from their top ten lists.

Nevertheless, this signing is still very significant. BJ Penn is running out of compelling challengers in the UFC’s lightweight division. If Gomi can string together a couple impressive victories and prove he’s still got it, it could set up a big lightweight title fight between the two down the road. It is worth noting though that Penn already beat Gomi once in 2003.

Image via CombatLifestyle.com

Update: Ever since news broke that Takanori Gomi had signed with the UFC, rumors have been swirling that Kenny Florian will be his first opponent. Dana White confirmed the possibility at the UFC 108 post-fight press conference.

However, when told that ESPN’s “MMA Live” program posted a Twitter message saying co-host and top lightweight contender Kenny Florian (12-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC) could be Gomi’s first challenge, White smirked.

“Could be,” White said when asked by MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) on Saturday. “There’s a lot of guys in that division who could fight Gomi, though.”

It would be a great match-up if it happens. A few years ago, it would be Gomi by beatdown, no questions asked. Today’s a different story though. Florian has improved his game dramatically while Gomi has essentially done the opposite.

The other half of the rumor is the winner would get another shot at BJ Penn.

Alistair Overeem will finally defend his Strikeforce heavyweight title on August 15, but it won’t be against Brett Rogers. Instead, Fabricio Werdum will challenge him for the belt. Fanhouse has the scoop.

Alistair Overeem will finally defend his Strikeforce heavyweight title on August 15 against former PRIDE and UFC veteran, Fabricio Werdum. Strikeforce director of communications Mike Afromowitz confirmed the news with FanHouse Monday.

For those who are relatively new to MMA, this fight will actually be a rematch. Overeem and Werdum met in May 2006 at PRIDE Total Elimination Absolute. Werdum submitted Overeem in the second round with a kimura. However, that was before Alistair really packed on the pounds and hit his stride in the heavyweight division. I wouldn’t necessarily expect the same outcome.

As for Brett Rogers, no word yet on why he didn’t the title shot as previously rumored.

In other August booking news, it looks like Takanori Gomi finally found a US home in Affliction. He’s been added to the “Trilogy” card in a lightweight bout against Rafaello Oliveira. Don’t feel bad if don’t know who he is. Neither do I, nor do I know who his first two professional opponents were, Big Big and Fabio Fabio (seriously), but with names like that, how tough could they have been? Anyways, point being, Oliveira, whether he’s awful or becomes a world champion one day, isn’t the type of opponent that’s going to get anyone excited about Gomi’s Affliction debut.

Here’s Tito Ortiz again talking about signing with Strikeforce, fighting Babalu, Fedor, not returning to the UFC etc. He also claims he’s starting his own promotion with Strikeforce called “Punishment Fighting Championships.” And moving on…

Takanori Gomi has been generating a little buzz lately. Reports had him signing with Affliction, then not signing with Affliction, and now Tom Atencio says he’s very close to finalizing a deal with him. However, Nightmare of Battle tells us he’s also negotiating with Strikeforce, but talks aren’t really going all that well.

The reason that the negotiations with Strikeforce and Affliction are quite rough going right now is because of the fight money. It seems like there is a gap between the money that Gomi’s side wants and what the organizations are offering.

Dana White and Gomi’s side were having developments the year before last also, but they couldn’t get to an agreement because of money either.

It seems that Strikeforce’s offer with a win bonus, a title challenge, Showtime (tv, sponsors, etc.) is the best. However, because of the base pay they haven’t come to an agreement yet. If Gomi signs with Strikeforce, he will probably have his first fight on their August 15th or September events.

Basically, a mediocre Gomi isn’t worth as much in the US as his people think he is.

Gomi vs. Kitaoka and Mitsuoka vs Golyaev above.

More videos and results (at bottom) after the jump.

Update
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