Pre-Thanksgiving Rumor Funhouse

Apologies to those of you who patiently waited all day yesterday for our weekly rumor feature, which has been making us tons of new friends in the industry, believe me. After the jump, you’ll find five juicy items, mostly pertaining to guys getting screwed out of money. As usual, four are complete fabrications, and one is 100% on the level. Can you solve the mystery? Can we avoid getting sued for one more week? Time will tell!

– Jay Hieron was offered a contract by the UFC that paid approximately half of what his Bellator contract pays, and he was going to take it because of the exposure he would have gotten fighting in the Octagon. But when the UFC spotted him on a Bellator broadcast, they connected the dots and figured out he was also in talks with the fledgling promotion, and pulled their offer off of the table.

– This ESPN article about Karo Parisyan‘s troubled return to the UFC left out one even more troubling detail: He was planning on no-showing the fight. One of Karo’s cornermen decided to check in on him at his hotel room before going to bed last Friday, and discovered Parisyan with his bags packed, heading out to his rental car. The cornerman spent over an hour pleading with Karo to stay and go through with the fight. Karo finally agreed to let the cornerman hang on to his wallet and car keys, and stayed up the entire night in his hotel room ordering room service and watching movies.

– In the wake of F@ggotgate, the UFC is making Joe Rogan donate his TUF 12 Finale broadcasting salary to the Trevor Project. Joe will work the phrase “it gets better” into his commentary at least twice that night.

– After the Harris/Falcao fight at UFC 123, Maiquel Falcao was offered two choices: You can have your win bonus, or you can have another fight in the UFC; you can’t have both. Falcao chose to forfeit his win bonus for another chance to prove himself. ‘Big Rig’ will most likely compete in the first match of the prelims during the UFC’s return to Dublin in March. His opponent will not be Rousimar Palhares.

– After Arianny Celeste and Tiki Ghosn were outed as a couple, their relationship became strained, and Tiki finally broke things off with Arianny over the weekend. Yes, he broke up with her. (She’s been telling friends that it was a “mutual” decision.) Last night, Arianny was spotted at PURE Nightclub making out in a booth with TUF 3 vet Tait Fletcher.