Leave to the last 24 hours to get the MMA world talking...

>UFC announces card for UFC 84: Ill Will - This morning, the UFC sent out the card for their May 24th event at Las Vegas' MGM Grand. Headlining will be a World Lightweight Championship "unification" bout as Sean Sherk (champ) takes on BJ Penn (interim champ). Penn is fresh off a beatdown of Joe Stevenson to claim the interim title, while Sherk is fresh off a suspension for alleged performance-enhancing drugs use.

Also, Tito Ortiz will battle Lyoto Machida, surprising considering Ortiz' recent comments about Dana White and the UFC and the speculation he was done there. Wanderlei Silva and Keith Jardine will also hook it up in a match of recent Chuck Liddell opponents. Overall, these are three pretty money bouts, certainly more interesting than the Silva vs. Henderson ppv scheduled for Saturday which has zero buzz around it.

>Grab a Bud Light...and then punch someone - The UFC also announced that Bud Light has inked a three-year sponsorship deal as the 'exclusive beer sponsor' of the UFC brand. This is a huge breakthrough for UFC and will undoubtedly open the door for more mainstream, male-friendly sponsors to come on board. This is very important, because....

>Will this mean Andy Rooney can be forced to tap out? - MMAJunkie.com broke the news that Elite Xtreme Combat (EliteXC) will soon announce a deal with CBS that'll put MMA on a major network for the first time ever. Showtime, which also shows EliteXC events, is owned by CBS, making this juncture easier to understand. Some quick-hit thoughts:

-Both Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano are going to be pushed HUGE thanks to this deal. It'll be intriguing to see how the American Gladiators/NBC deal works out and what move she'll make. You have to imagine she can't appear for both. With Slice, he provides the heavyweight fighter that boxing has been dying for since Mike Tyson went insane. (And you wonder why UFC was so eager to sign Brock Lesnar.)

-Early speculation is that it's a Saturday night deal, which I think will mean late-night airings since I can't seem them leading off the 8 pm hour with MMA. I'd love to be surprised though.

-My final thought is whether early on, they'll air clip shows to help generate an understanding and background of the fighters to build for more of the live shows. Personally, that's what I would do. I couldn't name more than two or three EliteXC athletes, so the mainstream will have to be driven by some sort of drawing power, hence why Slice was such an important sign.