• Rob Yundt will take on Alessio Sakara at The Ultimate Fighter 7 Finale.
• At UFC 87 Heath Herring will fill in for an injured Mark Coleman and take on Brock Lesnar, Clay Guida will face Mac Danzig, Jason MacDonald takes on Demian Maia, and Manny Gamburyan will be in action against an opponent to be announced.
• Adrenaline MMA has inked a deal with HDNet to air the promotion’s first three events on the network.
• Jeremy Lang has replaced Eric Schambari against Tim McKenzie and Danny Castillo has replaced Richard Crunkilton against Donald Cerrone on the WEC 34 fight card, which is takes place on June 1st.
• Ryan Ford will take on UFC veteran Drew Fickett at MFC 17 for the promotion’s vacant welterweight championship.
• DREAM has announced the official pairings for the second round of the promtion’s middleweight tournament. The matchups are Kazushi Sakuraba versus Melvin Manhoef, Jason “Mayhem” Miller versus Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Gegard Mousasi versus Dong Sik Yoon, and Zelg Galesic versus Taiei Kin.
• Antonio Rogerio Nogueria will fight Vernon White at Affliction’s debut event, “Banned”, on July 19th.
• ESPN The Magazine featuring Kimbo Slice on the cover is on newstands now.
• EliteXC President Gary Shaw revealed this week that the promotion is likely going to introduce a heavyweight title in 2008.
• MMA veteran Matt Lindland won the Republican primary for the Oregon House of Representatives by a 14-point margin and will not take on Democratic nominee Suzanne VanOrman in the November 4th general election.
• EliteXC will stage a ShoXC event in San Diego, California on June 27th. Hector Lombard will make his debut with the promotion at the event, Cyrille Diabate will face Jamie Fletcher in a main card bout, and King of the Cage middleweight champion Keith Berry will look to defend his title against Reggie Orr.
• UFC 88 will take place on September 6th at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.

Yesterday former UFC and PRIDE veteran, Wallid Ismail (a close friend of Jacare) told All About MMA that Ronaldo has not signed with the UFC, but instead was in talks with another major MMA organization in which he was unable to name.

Today we’ve learned that the then-unamed organization is none other than the WEC, the sister promotion of the UFC. Sherdog was able to catch up with “Jacare” who commented on the rumored signing:

“I have not signed with Zuffa, unlike what people have said on the Internet. I was close to signing and fighting in WEC, but nothing is settled right now.”

Unfortunately, fans hoping to see the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu wizard competing in the famed Octagon will simply have to wait. However, not all is bleak as it seems. Jacare improved his MMA record to 6-1 on Saturday night with a first round armbar victory of Jose Ribamar.

Souza will look to secure his 7th straight victory less than two weeks from now. Another dominating win would definitely boost chances of sealing a deal with the WEC, which could ultimately lead to Souza transitioning to the UFC.

For those who aren’t familiar with Jacare, this guy sports one of the slickest and most aggressive ground games on the planet. The man is a very accomplished grappler. Some of you might recall that Jacare participated in an exhibition grappling match against UFC Heavyweight champ, Randy “the Natural” Couture back in November of ‘06. Although the two men battled to a draw, Randy admitted afterwards that he spent most of the night defending against Jacare rather than being the aggressor (even though he did outweigh his opponent by a substantial amount).

Jacare presently holds an MMA record of 5-1, with all of his victories coming by way of submission. If this announcement holds to be true, it would be excellent news for the UFC’s middleweight division which is in dire need of more fighters.