Some training footage of Gina Carano and Kim Couture working on their ground game together at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas:

Carano and Couture are two of the best-known women in mixed martial arts, with Carano serving as the public face of women's MMA because of the way EliteXC has promoted her, and Couture well known because of her husband, Randy.

In reality, they're not the best two women in the sport. I think Carano will lose when and if EliteXC matches her up with Cris Cyborg, and Couture is a novice. But it's still cool to get a look at them going one-on-one.

Via Bloody Elbow.

It's an interesting marketing tactic that as Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson prepares to step in the cage again, he's appearing in videos like this one:

Kimbo talks about how he wanted to be a football player until Hurricane Andrew ruined his senior year in high school, and how fighting was the way he re-built his life. It's an effort to humanize Kimbo, and although it's not the move I would have expected from EliteXC, I like it.

Ken Shamrock is a 5-1 underdog in his October 4 fight with Kimbo Slice, but one person who knows both fighters well is confident that Shamrock is going to win: His brother, Frank Shamrock.

Frank Shamrock is an EliteXC on CBS commentator (he might be calling that October 4 fight), and he tells Kevin Iole that Kimbo is nowhere near Ken's class:

"Ken has 10 times Kimbo's ability, so if he can get just 10 percent of that, and he's focused, he can beat him," Frank Shamrock said. "If not, he's going to get clubbed horribly upside the head and fall down, all scary looking."

Now, before you go assuming that it's simply the bond of brotherhood that causes Frank to say Ken is the vastly superior fighter, remember that Ken and Frank Shamrock are adopted brothers who didn't grow up together and don't much like each other. (There's actually a pretty good chance that Ken and Frank will fight each other some time in 2009.)

After I questioned today whether Ken Shamrock could be medically cleared to fight Kimbo Slice on October 4, I spoke with EliteXC Head of Fight Operations Jeremy Lappen, who told me he's confident that the 44-year-old Shamrock will get approval of the Florida State Boxing Commission.

"We're concerned about all of our fighters, we always want to make sure they're healthy," Lappen said. "We're confident that Ken is going to pass his physical exams. ... When anybody fights you have to make sure they're OK to fights, and that's the commission's responsibility."

Lappen noted that Shamrock was cleared to fight Tito Ortiz twice in 2006, once in Florida and once in Nevada.

"He got approved by Florida and approved by Nevada, two of the top athletic commissions in the country," Lappen said.

EliteXC announced this week that Ken Shamrock will fight Kimbo Slice in its October 4 show on CBS, a show that could be make or break for the future of EliteXC.

But before the fight can go down at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida, it must be approved by the Florida State Boxing Commission. And Alexis Antonacci, press secretary for the Department of Business and Professional Regulations, which oversees the Boxing Commission, told me today that such approval is not a foregone conclusion.

Specifically, I asked Antonacci about the fact that the 44-year-old Shamrock has lost each of his last five fights by first-round knockout or technical knockout, and whether that could play a role in the Commission determining that it isn't safe to put Shamrock in the cage again.

"That is certainly something that we look at," Antonacci said of Shamrock's five straight knockouts. "The safety of the fighters is one of our foremost concerns."

I've previously written that I like the idea of having two women's fights on the October 4 EliteXC CBS show, but apparently that's not going to happen. Although the Gina Carano-Kelly Kobold fight will be one of the four featured in prime time network television, Five Ounces of Pain is reporting that the other women's fight, Cris Cyborg vs. Yoko Takahashi, is likely to be on the non-televised undercard. For those who don't know her, here's a look at Takahashi in action:

I like how she starts her fight by getting into a three-point stance and charging at her opponent, but with a 13-9 record, I just don't think Takahashi is good enough to challenge Cyborg, so maybe it's just as well that the fight won't be on CBS.

The news that Kimbo Slice will fight Ken Shamrock in a nationally televised mixed martial arts bout on October 4 has been greeted with derision by hard-core MMA fans who note that Shamrock is far past his prime.

How far past his prime? I asked the folks at the online betting site Bodog for the odds on the fight and was told that Kimbo will be a huge favorite when Bodog starts taking action next week.

"Our Bodog oddsmaker expects Kimbo to be about a 5-1 betting favorite when we open the line," said Richard Gardner, the manager of the Bodog sports book.

Kimbo has fought only three times and has yet to take on a significant opponent, while Shamrock is one of the legends of the sport. But Shamrock is a legend whose skills have diminished so much that EliteXC chose him for this fight specifically because they want Kimbo to fight someone he'll beat. Shamrock hasn't won a fight in four years and hasn't really looked impressive in 12 years. Even at 5-1 odds, I can't imagine many people putting money on Shamrock.

Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson, the YouTube sensation who turned his backyard brawling into a career in mixed martial arts, appears to have an opponent for the next time he steps into the cage: Ken Shamrock, the MMA legend who competed in UFC 1 but hasn't won a fight in more than four years.

Sherdog is reporting that Shamrock vs. Kimbo will be the main event for EliteXC's October 4 show on CBS.

From EliteXC's perspective, Shamrock is the perfect opponent for Kimbo because he's a recognizable name within the sport of MMA, but Kimbo has a legitimate chance of beating him. Shamrock at his best would have destroyed Kimbo, but at age 44 he's long past his prime. Shamrock has lost five straight fights, all by first-round knockout.

Kimbo vs. Shamrock isn't a marquee mixed martial arts fight, but it is a fight that will get a reasonable amount of attention and perhaps get good enough ratings to keep EliteXC afloat through the year. For that reason, Shamrock is the right choice.

Kelly Kobold will fight Gina Carano in the next EliteXC CBS show on October 4, and EliteXC Vice President Jared Shaw tells Fight Hype, "Anybody that doesn't know Kelly Kobold needs to get on YouTube." As you wish, Jared:

That was Kobold defeating Adrienna Jenkins via a first-round submission last year.

Kobold has an impressive 16-2-1 record and has some impressive highlights on YouTube, although she has lost her last two fights. However, shouldn't EliteXC and CBS be doing more than just telling fans to go to YouTube to promote the Kobold-Carano fight? I didn't think EliteXC and CBS did enough to promote their last show, and the early indications are that they have a lot of work to do to promote their next show, too.

After the jump, an interview with Kobold.

You have to go more than a minute and a half into this interview before you actually hear Fedor Emelianenko say anything, but once he does answer a question about Kimbo Slice, he actually has some interesting things to say:

Emelianenko, widely regarded as the best mixed martial arts heavyweight in the world, obviously knows that Kimbo is not a great fighter. But Emelianenko also had some perceptive parts about the way Kimbo has been marketed.

"As an athlete, I think he's got a lot more work to do," Emelianenko said through his translator. "I think he's got to have a lot more fights and really boost his competition and the quality of the opponents he fights."

But he said more than that.