CBS and EliteXC announced that the next CBS Saturday Night Fights would be broadcast live from the Stockton Arena in Stockton, Calif. on Saturday, July 26 on the CBS Television Network.

The first installment of Saturday Night Fights left MMA purists yearning for more. We got the point. They wanted to lure the casual fan in, and they left the hard cores out to dry while they garnered a whole new audience. Were we happy about it? No, but Elite promised that the next fight card would be geared toward exposing the newly acquired fans to a pure version of the sport.

The first edition of Saturday Night Fights saw MMA fighters whose forte is to stand up and slug. Aside from Joey Villasenor, who has submissions to his credit but isn’t really known for submission prowess, there were no tapout specialists on the main card. The matchmakers wanted knockouts, and they put together a card chock full of fighters who win the majority of their fights by landing fists square on the jaw of their rivals.

Brett Rogers –87.5 percent of his fights won by knockout
Scott Smith – 84.62 percent of his fights won by knockout
Robbie Lawler – 80 percent of his fights won by knockout
Jon Murphy – 75 percent of his fights won by knockout
Phil Baroni – 70 percent of his fights won by knockout
Kimbo Slice – 66.67 percent of his fights won by knockout
James Thompson 64.29 percent of his fights won by knockout
Gina Carano – 50 percent of his fights won by knockout
Kaitlin Young – 50 percent of his fights won by knockout
Joey Villasenor – 47 percent of his fights won by knockout

The next card features an assortment of well-rounded fighters. Hopefully this is an effort to show new fans that MMA fights don’t have to end in brutal knockouts to be entertaining.

The fight card is:
-Robbie Lawler vs. Scott Smith – Rematch for the EliteXC Middleweight Championship
-Jake Shields vs. Nick Thompson
-Nick Diaz vs. Thomas Denny
-Antonio Silva vs. Sergei Kharitonov (rumored opponent) – EliteXC Heavyweight Championship bout

With any luck, I won’t have to read any articles by some over the hill dummy who will brand MMA as “Human Cockfighting” or “a glorified street fight” after this card takes place.

This is the type of card that a hardcore MMA fan expects to see, a blend of fighters with legitimate stand up, grappling, and wrestling skills.

Is it pure coincidence that the card is held in Stockton, California, the hometown of Nick Diaz? Probably not – EliteXC knew they hit gold when the brothers Diaz confronted the Noons family after KJ Noons stunning knockout over Yves Edwards. I am sure EliteXC is going to replay the post fight incident between Nick Diaz and KJ Noons the entire night in an effort to set up the hype for title fight rematch between the two rivals. This fight would hopefully take place in the third installment of CBS Saturday Night Fights.