For the first time two Vegas celebrity starchefs will do battle on the Food Network’s top-rated Iron Chef America show and it takes place this Sunday at 9 p.m.

“Multo” Mario Batali, who has two restaurants at The Venetian and another at The Palazzo will fire up his grill against Paul Bartolotto from the Ristorante de Mare at the Wynn.

No advance word yet on what the “mystery ingredient” will be in a bid to stump the celebrity chefs.

We’ll have the result right here at Luxe Life on Monday morning.

A two-hour live Mixed Martial Arts CBS-network telecast tomorrow (SAT) night has got the UFC head honchos here steamed! That’s because the debut free over-the-air show 2,400 miles away in Newark, New Jersey could drastically change forever the tough-guys mega-bucks playing field! Ironically it’s a case of two Las Vegas fight producer promoters going head to head in the full-blown drag-out knockdown ratings battle, and it’s started an incredible war of words between EliteXC officials and Dana White, who heads up the home-town headquartered UFC.

In a further ironic note Dana negotiated with CBS first, but the network officials decided they just couldn’t or wouldn’t work with him. They announced back in February they would go with EliteXC instead! To blunt the CBS impact, Dana has ordered his Spike cable TV partners to run a 12-hour Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell hosted marathon of super fights and bio-films. Its an unprecedented move in TV history. But at stake are at least three future big-money Saturday night CBS telecasts right from here in Vegas! If the CBS ratings are good the deal is on, and Dana wants to do everything possible to prevent that happening!

The CBS card promises extraordinary action for MMA fans: Kimbo Slice, of Perrine, Fla., will face England’s James “Colossus’’ Thompson in the main event, EliteXC middleweight champion Robbie Lawler of St. Louis defends against Scott Smith of Sacramento, Calif., Phil Baroni of Long Island, N.Y., meets Joey Villasenor of Albuquerque, N.M. in a 185-pound scrap; Brett Rogers of Minneapolis takes on Jon Murphy of Philadelphia in a heavyweight match; and in the only women’s bout Gina Carano of Las Vegas will face hard-hitting, confident “Hook ‘n Shoot” champion Kaitlin Young of Circle Pines, Minn., at 140 pounds Elite Xtreme Combat, also known as EliteXC, is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The first network primetime exposure for MMA is being produced by David Dinkins Jr. of Las Vegas, who during the CBS telecast of the recent Academy of Country Music Awards, sat in the satellite trucks parked behind MGM to fully understand the network’s live requirements and rules.

Already the “war of words” has escalated into an explosive fiery feud between EliteXC’s Gary Shaw and UFC’s Dana White. It started with Dana: “The amount of talent and fights we put on are second to none. Think about it, the CBS fight that they are coming up with, who gives a crap about Kimbo Slice? This guy can’t fight MMA. You know what would happen if he fought in the UFC? Slice would get annihilated. Kimbo has no credibility at all in MMA.”

Shaw was furious about White trashing his card and his organization and minced no words at all. “Dana White is a jack-off. Dana White is a (expletive) idiot and you can quote me on that. If he cared about MMA, he would understand that. Comments like that make you look like a jerk. If Dana wasn’t such an idiot, the CBS show would be the UFC instead of us. It’s my honor to promote this show in primetime. This event is probably the single biggest thing to ever happen in the sport of mixed martial arts. The fact you will get this for free is huge for MMA. It is something we are very proud to bring you. More eyeballs will watch this show than has seen any other fight in the world. Nothing can be bigger for our company. To these fighters, this is it. Come Sunday they will be cult heroes. It will change their lives dramatically. To the athletes that signed with EliteXC, we have delivered something that has never been delivered in MMA.

“I believe the future of the sport is resting on our shoulders. If we don’t have the largest MMA audience, I will hang myself. That will make for great live television. It will be a fast five-fight format that will really move with fast-paced action.

The stoppages are fast, the action is fast. You don’t get 12 rounds of a boring fight; you get non-stop action and high energy throughout the night. On EliteXC, you are not going to watch two guys having a love fest on the ground. You are going to see an exciting fight. Fighters are the most important thing in our company. We work for the fighters.

“No organization owns all the best fighters and no organization owns all the best fights. UFC got this started, but we are coming now. When UFC looks through the rearview mirror, we are on their bumper. There are a lot of important things that we can do to help MMA. Imagine if we could do a show of UFC vs. EliteXC. We are willing to do that. If we can send women to war, then they should fight on TV. We are ultra confident that we will bring the arena experience right into your room. We are all about the sport. If we don’t succeed in growing the sport, it will die on the vine. Every time we do these fights it gets bigger and bigger. Some like the violence, I like the fast pace. That is what boxing is missing.”

A CBS executive commented: “We are thrilled to be bringing mixed martial arts to a wide audience. We’re going to start with the four fight broadcasts and in success hopefully expand that further but the bar for success isn’t all that high. We really don’t know what to expect, but we’re anticipating good things. To get new fans in to the fold, we really want to build the sport and one way to do that is to maximize the sport as best we can. These are world class athletes who walk out of a gym and into to a cage.”

Our hometown heroine Gina Carano added: “I think it’s important to remember we’re not just female fighters. We’re fighters. This is going to be one of the toughest hardest fights of my life and I hope the guys enjoy it. It is exciting. There are a lot of female fighters in the world, the public just needs to warm up to them.”

Vegas producer David Dinkins Jr. commented: “We wanted to fill all the requirements with great experts, the best historian, reporter and announcer. We are sensitive to the violence level. I think we are going to see how fast we can go. We don’t want it to be too graphic and we don’t want to turn people off, but we want to be true to the sport. The refs are on top of things. There isn’t a chance of sustained concussions. This sport is very safe. It is sport and entertainment. What makes the stars stars is that there is the special X factor of the entertainment portion. If we are not properly broadcasting this, we are not doing our jobs. What makes this special is the arena experience. It will be a smooth running story of the night that we plan to broadcast. There will be some challenges with the commercials, but we will show you the whole night.”

Commentator Gus Johnson said: “Hopefully our approach is to not only highlight what these athletes do in the ring, but also outside. I want to know about Kimbo Slice and how he was one of the Top 10 linebackers in the U.S. I want to know more about Gina Carano. Our team will approach this the same way we approach the NFL on CBS, the NCAA on CBS. Mixed martial arts is the sport of the future. It’s about kids, not 30-year-olds like us. What America is going to see is guys going out there and fighting. I have called all the big sports, but what I like about this sport is you get to see athletes who will leave it all out in the ring. You will see non-stop action, and that is exciting. We will tell America what we see. We won’t be edited by anyone. We want to tell a positive story.”

Dana White’s “war of words” isn’t only against Elite XC. He’s also continued his verbal assault on Tito Ortiz who fought his last UFC contract battle six days ago at MGM: “Tito is a (expletive) idiot. He’s one of the dumbest human beings I’ve ever met. Everything that comes out of his mouth makes no sense. I put up with his (expletive) when he was a good fighter. He’s not anymore. He’s not in anybody’s top 10. I have no interest whatsoever in being in the Tito Ortiz business. I’ve never wanted to see anyone get their ass kicked worse than I want to see Tito get his kicked.”

Tito fired back: “Dana White is a complete monster, a controlling guy who wants his hands in everything. He’s a bully. He has always been about the power. He wants everything focused on him. UFC is a great company. They just have a monster running it. It’s time for me to forget about Dana White, to move on after 11 years of building my legacy and helping UFC become a household name. It’s time to show everyone what I am worth. Dana can just go fly around in his jet and act like a superstar. He has always considered anyone who speaks out as a threat. That’s fine. I guess being a bully makes him feel better about himself.”

Its definite that Fall Out Boy rocker, Pete Wentz, and his new father-in-law Joe will be on the red carpet with sister-in-law Jessica Simpson tomorrow (SAT) for the glittering official celebrity opening of George Maloof’s new Palms Place condo-tel.

It’s not so definite that his new wife, Ashlee Simpson will. That’s because she’s pregnant and Pete has finally fessed up they are expecting a baby. “While many have speculated about this, we wanted to wait until after the first trimester to officially confirm that we are expecting our first child,” he posted on his personal Web site before jetting into Vegas. “This is truly the most joyous time in our lives and we are excited to share the happy news and start our family.”

The 28-year-old rocker and his 23-year-old pop-princess wife married earlier this month after a two-year dating spree wound up in an April engagement. Ashlee is also celebrating her new Bittersweet World, album which has racked up some 20 million plays on MySpace. Pete will take on the role of DJ for the poolside party at Kerry Simon’s new restaurant there.

Jessica is not expected to be with allegedly newly-reconciled boyfriend, Dallas Cowboys star Tony Romo, so expect nosy journalists to feast on all the love and baby updates, with Joe doing his best to block ‘em all!

Luxe Life broke the story of their bust-up after his expensive high-roller “bachelor-styled” weekend with football buddies at the Hard Rock ended in a blistering scream-fest. They reunited at the Pet-Ashlee nuptials for the sake of a monetary magazine photo-contract!

George has a slew of other stars inbound for the festivities including the hot Hills’ actresses Lauren Conrad and Lauren ‘Lo’ Bosworth. Also expected are actors Luke Wilson, of Beverly Hills 90210 and Dancing With The Stars’ friend Ian Zeiring, Scrubs’ star Donald Faison, singer Eve, Lisa Rinna with husband Harry Hamlin (also from DWTS) and the cast of the E! hit reality show Sunset Tan with the Olly Girls, Janelle Perry and founder owners Devin Haman and Jeff Bozz. Cameras will also film their Ditch pool party fashion show today (FRI) launching their new sexy bikini Dare Me line. The segments will air during the 2nd season of the reality show.

Paparazzi photographers are hoping (and betting) that pop comeback queen Britney Spears will show too, but all we know for certain is that Luxe Life will have the full photo report of the weekend long festivities right here on Monday.

Being the most downloaded beauty queen on the Internet didn’t help gorgeous Cindy Margolis save her marriage to LA businessman Guy Starkman. They split up and now the mother of three is talking fully about it for the first time.

A regular Vegas visitor, who has often been seen at the Palms with owner George Maloof Cindy admits: “The end of any marriage is very sad, however, I feel blessed that we remain very close, truly the best of friends and the most devoted parents.” The official bust-up news comes as her new second celebrity nude photo layout for July’s Playboy is about to hit newsstands on June 14. Cindy confessed that she hasn’t had a date in six months and asked Hef and Trump to help her out.

So for the first time ever Playboy will run a celebrity sweepstakes to “Win A Date With Cindy Margolis” and escort her to the annual “Mid-Summers Dream Party” at the Playboy Mansion, it’s biggest party of the year. Then June 21 Donald will give Cindy a “coming out” party at his Taj Mahal Hotel in Atlantic City. “My heart has healed now and I’m ready for romance again,” she says. “I’m a cheap date because I don’t need to be wined or dined. I just need to laugh and have great conversation with a fun interesting guy.”

First lady Dawn Gibbon’s divorce lawyer, Cal Dunlap has gone public in court documents blaming her broken marriage to Governor Jim Gibbons on another woman. Cal is trying to get the divorce case unsealed and open in a public forum. He doesn’t beat around the bush claiming Nevada’s No. 1 executive wants the divorce because of an affair with another woman:

“Despite his disingenuous, shallow and transparent protestations that his relationship with another man’s wife is a mere friendship, his infatuation and involvement with the other woman is the real, concealed and undisclosed reason for his voluntary departure from the marriage and the mansion where he occasionally resided.” Ouch!!

None of this should come as a surprise to Luxe Life readers because we were the first to reveal the ever-increasing torrent of back and forth IM’s ad text messages between the Governor and the long-time friendly woman that infuriated the First Lady. We served up the saucy soap-opera scandal six weeks ago in our “Wicked Whispers & Racy Rumors,” way ahead of all the various Nevada state newspapers who have now only this week jumped all over the scandal.

If you’re baffled by all the extra foreign languages being spoken over the next five days around town fret not, it’s the 40th annual Travel Industry Association convention with visitors from 70 countries around the world checking out all of our new Strip and Downtown attractions. It’s their first visit back in almost 20 years, since 1989. A ton of changes have taken place since then. That’s before the Bellagio, The Venetian, The Palazzo and The Wynn super resorts were all built and opened.

Officials with the 5,000 delegates predict they will generate between $3 and $4 billion in future USA travel with maybe as much as 20 percent of that headed for Vegas, and boy, in this current economic climate we desperately need it. The opening party tomorrow night is at Mandalay Beach followed by a special night with Blue Man Group at The Venetian and a farewell fiesta on the Fremont Street Experience. Executives from 13 participating Vegas casino resort hotels are taking part and have recruited many of their headliner acts to make personal appearances

Billionaire The Venetian & Palazzo owner, Sheldon Adelson is spending over $150 million for an 1,800-seat theater and the launch of the first Cirque du Soleil show in his Macau resort. The production, to premiere on Aug. 28, will mark the 1st anniversary of his Venetian hotel casino there will be titled Zaia. It will be the first permanent Cirque production in Asia. Adelson and his top Vegas executives including Bill Weidner, Brad Stone and Rob Goldstein will all fly to the Chinese gaming enclave for the gala opening.

Cirque productions have played to almost 80 million spectators in over 200 cities on five continents and this year will present 17 shows simultaneously around the world. The Zaia spectacular will be about a young girl who journeys into space on a strange, yet familiar voyage of self-discovery. As she travels, she encounters the beauty of humanity and eventually brings it back with her to share with the inhabitants of earth. Zaia, which is from the Greek word for “life” presents her perception of the stars and planets, space and infinity, all populated by panoply of fantastic, literally out-of-this-world creatures with extraordinary acrobatics for the Chinese audience.

*Actor Chazz Palminteri had a busy few nights on the town during his Vegas visit. He palled up with actor friend Robert Davi and rapper Chris “Gotti” Lorenzo for Dom Perignon champagne at the Jet nightclub in The Mirage.

Then he switched over to ghostbar at the Palms and changed drinks for Bailey’s on the rocks. He also hit the Big Sleepover pj party at the resort’s Moon nightclub. Chazz who appeared with Cher in Faithful also took in her show at Caesars Palace while here. It was the same night that Erich Bergen who plays Bob Gaudio in the Jersey Boys musical at The Palazzo visited and presented her with a custom-made rhinestone crusted sailor’s hat as gift from the Jersey cast and crew!

*From the Surveillance File: Former UFC champion Tito Ortiz, took sexy girlfriend, former porn queen Jenna Jameson to Cirque du Soleil’s water spectacular “O” at the Bellagio where they landed front-row center! …..
still getting hot and heavy Drew Barrymore and Justin Long at the Caramel Bar in Bellagio enjoying Silver Oak wine. … sports stars galore showed up at Victor Drai’s Tryst nightclub in the Wynn: NBA greats LeBron James, Jermaine O’Neal, Al Harrington, Rashard Lewis, plus Javon Walker, Oakland Raiders, Larry Johnson, Kansas City Chiefs; Braylon Edwards, Brady Quinn, and Donte Stallworth, all with the Cleveland Browns.

Also joining in the fun rappers 36 Mafia, actress Gabrielle Union and boxers Floyd Mayweather and Zab Judah who returned the next night for another back-to-back session. Over at Jet in The Mirage SUM 41 band members led by lead singer Deryck Whibley checked out DJ Ronnie G’s AV show, world-famous DJ Tiesto spun to a packed house that included Mr. Universe Jake Cutler. Self-confessed bi-sexual actress Bai Ling danced atop the banquettes there while UFC Wanderlei Silva hosted a party which included Sugar Shane Mosley

Dining at Stack in The Mirage: Phoenix Suns center superstar Shaq O’Neal with his wife and kids enjoying Hot Rocks, Kobe Beef and 2 pound lobster tails.

Also there David Spade enjoying the wood-grilled filet and fresh sashimi …. At Fix in the Bellagio Bank Job, Transporter actor Jason Stratham picked Kobe sliders and sashimi to prepare himself for the night of dancing that followed at the Bank nightspot. Also partying till the pre-dawn hours at Bank were Shawn Marion, celebrating his birthday with Steven Cooper and Sean Phillips, boxer Floyd Mayweather who can’t seem to stay home, and NFL star Champ Bailey along with Eric Green, Shawn Springs, Hines Ward, Terrell Suggs, Shawn King and Shaun Phillips. Terrell Owens got very upset (temper temper!) when he was turned away because of inappropriate attire!

*Congratulations to actor Kevin Burke and author Rob Becker for the unprecedented 12-month renewal of their Defending the Caveman show at the Golden Nugget.

To date the unique show has been seen by more than 7 million people worldwide in more than 30 countries in 15 languages. Here in Vegas it will celebrate its first year run of 450 performances next month. It remains Broadway’s longest running solo show.

*Today marks the opening of the annual World Series of Poker with the first $10,000 world championship event at the Rio resort’s convention center. Some 50,000 entrants will play for 53 different bracelet events between now and the Main Event, which will begin July 3 and wrap July 16. Last year out of the $150 million-plus prize pool Jerry Yang grabbed the big $8.25 million prize. This year, however, to increase fan fanaticism the final table of nine players won’t be held until Nov. 9 allowing heightened drama and promotion on ESPN. Its now time to bluff no further and show our double-aced hand before the river runs dry with the entertainment and fun highlight attractions of our weekend wonders, so we’ll draw it out with what we affectionately refer to around here as the ROYAL ROBIN RUNDOWN:

Friday May 30:

*One of the most successful Latin American rock bands of the decade, Ozomatli will sing in English and Spanish when they take the stage at the Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel with their musical mashed mix of rap, rock and rhythms, Latin flavored with percussion, drums and blaring brass horns for their unique urban sound. “Embrace The Chaos” they make and “Don’t Mess with the Dragon.”

*Comedy is king with two scrappy comics testing the limits. Robert Schimmel, who beat cancer and finds humor in his struggle against the disease is raw and savage at the Monte Carlo for two nights. Steven Wright will keep his hat on to deliver his deadpan unorthodox comedy about life’s ordinary stupidities at the Orleans through Sunday night.

*Singer Debby Boone presents “reflections of Rosemary in a tribute to her famous mother-in-law Rosemary Clooney up at the Suncoast through Sunday evening. Debby, the daughter of Pat Boone, has gone from pop to country to Christian with her music but she can still “Light Up Your Life.”

*My comedic impressionist pal, Stephen Sorrentino directs and producers a one night only Superstar Latino’s tribute show at the 1,800 seat Dallas Events Center in Texas Station with five impersonators and a seven-piece band honoring Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin.

*It’s a rare Sin City appearance for the Jackson Family maverick, LaToya Jackson when she hosts her party at the Privé nightclub in the Planet Hollywood Resort casino.

Saturday May 31:

*Grammy-winning songstress Christina Aguilera headlines her own night of revelry at the LAX nightclub in the Luxor where she is an investor. As reported above she goes head to head against Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy and sister in law Jessica Simpson, who will be just two of the many stars attending the grand opening of hotel tycoon George Maloof’s new Palms Place.

*An amazing lineup of country music stars including the Charlie Daniels Band, Shooter Jennings and 38 Special perform at the 2008 Volunteer Jam Tour at the Orleans Arena.

*We didn’t have space in our top story to advise that the Xtreme Fighting Association presents XFA 2 at the Cox Pavilion, it’s full contact, stand-up xtreme fighting between Vernon White, Anthony Brown, Joshua Hancock and Shawn Yarborough, while women fighters Amy Davis, Vanessa Aliling, Miriam Nakamato, Keri Scarr, Catia Vitoria, and Jamie Lynn Walsh and Jodie Esquibel keep the gloves on.

*There’s a Hot Bodies US Weekly magazine celebration on the Tao Beach at The Venetian hosted by a pretty hot body himself, Dancing with the Stars dazzler Mario Lopez.

*Godsmack’s Sully Erna will do solo-duty in his own show at the Joint in the Hard Rock hotel casino, while at the House of Blues its more like a MA*S*H unit with 3 Inches of Blood and Type O Negative performing with Hatebreed.

Sunday June 1:

*It’s the 6th annual Animal Foundation’s “Best In Show” at the Orleans Arena with Spamalot king John O’Hurley hosting. I’ll join in to handle the special jewelry auction and you’ll have an incredible opportunity to take home and “adopt” one of the heart-tug puppies right from their parade of stars!

*World-famous DJ Tiesto twists the turntables at the Hard Rock hotel’s Rehab pool party and hisw spin sessions will be filmed for the new Rehab reality TV series.

*Starting at 6 a.m. the Las Vegas Roadrunners will spend the next 28-consecutive Sunday morning group-training runs for folks who want to take part in the Zappos.com Las Vegas Marathon on Sunday, Dec. 7. Its perfect to prepare runners of all levels for success on race-day, even from beginners with limited to no running experience to take them from the couch through the finish line. The program will be based out of Sunset Park and you can register or obtain more information from LVRoadrunners.com.

We’ll have the full photo report with all the stars at the Palms Place grand opening celebrations and Christine Aguilera’s visit to LAX at the Luxor. Next week we’ll run our exclusive interview with hip-hop superstar Nelly and the extraordinary “near deathbed” confessions from Madhouse producer Jeff Beacher who sneak previews his next Strip sensation.

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