voodoo,
nothing is final at this point. why would they set it up this way? my guess is that this is the first year they are going to try to really make money on PPV. they need an american to win the tourney and they need a real ppv draw. that means mcdonald is out of the tournament and butterbean is in a superfight.

i'll see if i can find carter's opponents name in that tourney.

roger,
if rick gets his head caved in, he'll still be ranked high by the sanctioning orgs. the reason, the iska and the ikf are based in the us. no org updates their lists unless the fighters fight on a sanctioned event and when they do they go up in rank, not down. andy hug was dead and still ranked for nearly a year after his death. he may still be ranked by some.

No- he is still listed as a #1-contender by the major sanctioning bodies. But to me, he has to do very well in Vegas to still be considered that.

are you somehow going to change the rankings of said organisations? if your opinion is based on where orgs rank this fighter, how can you change it if rick remains ranked the same regardless of the outcome of this tourney?