(Less a drunk, more a prophet.)

While I will normally attest that anyone who gets involved in a fight at a UFC event deserves everything they have coming to them, this might be a little extreme (via WinnipegSun):

No charges will be laid as a result of a fight in the stands between two men during the UFC 161 event at MTS Centre on Saturday night, police said Monday.

One man involved reportedly laid unconscious in the pool of his own blood for about 15 minutes. He was taken to hospital for treatment and was released, police said. Police said they did interview another man involved in the fight.

“It’s just one of those things — it just sounds like two guys fighting at UFC,” said Winnipeg police spokesman Const. Eric Hofley. “There were no other incidents related to the UFC event that night.”

I’m glad Constable Hofley was around to clear things up. At first I thought the article was just referring to the bloodbath that was Sam Stout vs. James Krause, but upon hearing that it was just one of those things where guys fight at UFC, I can rest assured knowing the MTS Centre staff and security did everything within their power to ensure a quick and expedient rescue for the poor bastard who was stewing in his own blood.

If we are to take one positive thing away from this story, however, it’s that Winnipeg has apparently yet to be affected by the smartphone trend currently turning American youth into an army of mechanized dullards. For if they were technologically up to speed, we would have surely seen half a dozen videos of the fight in question with the caption LOLBATH AT WINNY, #DURP #PRAY4WEEZY uploaded by now.

-J. Jones

Grizzly injury videos are quickly becoming this month’s Harlem Shake videos amongst the MMA community. Just last week, Mark Hunt videotaped the aftermath of what we can only assume was a horrific Blunderbuss accident, and today, Cat Zingano (or rather, her husband, Mauricio Zingano) has made us privy to the aftermath of the ACL injury that derailed her plans to coach opposite Ronda Rousey on the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter. And just like that, another War Machine conspiracy has been debunked. I guess we can put the Evan Tanner sponsorship-related suicide theory to bed as well. *Sigh*

As Karmaatemycat will surely tell you, the fluid-draining process is one of the more disgusting aspects of being a mixed martial artist — right up there with fighting Dan Severn in the late aughts. It appears that Cat was similarly horrified when forced to watch the equivalent of a dozen Five Hour Energy drinks being drained from her knee first hand. Honestly, I just hope this gross MMA video trend doesn’t take an even grosser turn into the world of anal colonic interview videos a la Tom Lawlor, or I am out this bitch.

To cleanse your palate of all this surgery-related grossness, we’ve thrown the now-classic video of Zingano during sexier, stretchier times after the jump.

(Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu discusses his disappointing draw against Brendan Schaub, backstage after the event. Video via YouTube.com/CagePotato)

By Elias Cepeda

The six-match Metamoris II Pro Jiu Jitsu Invitational card from two weekends ago produced some good action in a number of matches and not great action in others.

The main event, however, left everyone but Shinya Aoki satisfied. The Japanese MMA lightweight and submission ace went up against one of the top submission grappling competitors in the world, Kron Gracie.

The match produced the event’s only submission, with Shinya losing fast to Kron via guillotine choke. With how effective Aoki has been with submissions in MMA, it is fascinating to see him lose to Kron in a similar way to how he lost to all-time great Marcelo Garcia a few years ago at ADCC.

Shinya knows he can make his submissions work against guys who punch and kick him, whereas Kron and Marcelo have less assurance of that right now given their limited MMA experience. However, with strikes removed, Aoki is no match for the likes of Gracie and Garcia, likely because they are able to spend all of their training time on grappling, instead of having to split their time between that and the many other things you need to do in MMA.

The main event finished furiously and in exciting fashion but Kron and Aoki did spend the opening few minutes on their feet, hand fighting with not much happening. Apparently Kron wanted it to go to the ground, however, because eventually he chose to jump full guard in order to get it there.

Once Kron forced it to the ground, he made short work of the MMA fighter Aoki.

Stalling – The Controversy

Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu could have done the same against the vilified Brendan Schaub, but did not. I’m not saying that Schaub was going for the win in his match and one could criticize him for that, but he certainly isn’t the only one to blame for he and Abreu’s uneventful match.

“Cyborg” told us after the match that he was angry. Hell, he told everyone as much while still on the mat, criticizing Schaub for not engaging with him enough.

(Also, wearing a scarf over a t-shirt indoors will now be punishable by death. / Photo via Esther Lin for MMAFighting)

As revealed in an update on Benson Henderson’s Facebook fan page, the UFC has just instituted a dress code for its fighters that would ban shorts and require shoes during publicity and marketing appearances. Though requiring athletes to look professional in public is something that other major sports leagues already do, Henderson took the news as a personal affront to his freedom, and his easy-breezy open-toed lifestyle. Here’s what Bendo had to say:

Mwahahaha!!! Guess @ufc decided to make it official…I’m a start calling them the NBA…guess it’s one thing to be encouraged to do or dress one way & entirely another thing to be told to do or dress one way…

“Per Jackie, effective immediately, fighters and talent traveling on press tours and PR/marketing-related appearances are no longer permitted to wear shorts or flip flops. Jeans are acceptable and shoes are a must.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna dress how my employers want but doesn’t mean I gotta be happy about it…”Don’t let the man hold you down” “Fight the power” “You can take my life but you can never take my FREEDOM!!!”

Not to give any of you Massachusetts-based Taters a full-blown, Buster Bluth panic attack, but UFC on FOX Sports 1: Shogun vs. Sonnen is currently facing some legal issues that could throw a wrench into the plans of several foreign fighters hoping to compete on the Boston card in August, including headliner Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.

The Boston Herald first passed along word of a potential issue, which relates to temporary Social Security numbers that must be attained by foreign-born fighters before they are allowed to compete in Massachusetts:

“This law has been in existence since we legalized mixed martial arts in the commonwealth of Mass­achusetts,” said Terrell Harris, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety, which regulates prize fighting.

“It’s been brought to the attention of the UFC more than a few times since we legalized the fighting here. But they’ve chosen basically to ignore the law and hope that they could skirt it somehow,” Harris said. 

When they bring in fighters that are not American citizens, there are exceptions that allow them to obtain a Social Security number,” Harris said.

“The Social Security Administration will issue a temporary work visa but it’s up to them to do their due diligence…the law is the law. The law doesn’t allow us to make exceptions.”

“Indeed it does not.” – Chad Johnson. “Occasionally it does.” – Lindsay Lohan

(And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why history must be re-written.)

By Matt Saccaro

Tournaments seem like a great way to determine the best competitor from a group of athletes. You have 8 (or 16 or 32 or whatever the number) fighters, put them in a bracket, and then let them fight it out. The last dude standing clearly must be the best because he survived the tournament, right?

At first, that logic seems OK. But upon closer scrutiny, it starts to sound like something Master Shake would try to argue.

Tournaments — like the ones the UFC used to run — are heavily dependent on how the bracket is organized. Some fighters get an easy run, others get a gauntlet.

This got us at Cage Potato thinking: What if some of the early UFC tournament brackets were re-organized or even shuffled just a little bit? Who would end up becoming the “Ultimate Fighters” of the 1990s? Let’s find out!

UFC 2

UFC 2 was the first and only 16-man tournament run by the UFC. The first round of the tournament — save for Royce Gracie’s fight (of course)—didn’t air on the PPV and aren’t on the DVD either.  These “lost fights” from UFC 2 have quite a few interesting characters such as the enigmatic Pencak Silat master Alberto Cerro Leon and the chubby, sweatpants-clad Robert Lucarelli.

Look at the complete bracket and see how many names you recognize. Most of these guys from the UFC 2 dark matches had no chance in the tournament, save for a man named Freek (or Frank) Hamaker.  We’re going to stick with Freek because it rhymes with Reek. A fighter like Hamaker was a rarity in the early days. He wasn’t a hapless striker fated to be embarrassed.  He was a sambo practitioner who trained under legendary European grappler Chris Dolman.

Hamaker’s first (and only) fight was at UFC 2 against the mysterious San Soo Kung Fu man Thaddeus Luster. The fight went like the typical early UFC fight. The guy with grappling immediately took down the guy without grappling and won shortly afterwards. Hamaker withdrew from the tournament after defeating Luster and disappeared to the pornography theater from whence he came.

(Be honest: How many of you were even aware that this fight was happening? / Image via Facebook.com/King.Mo.FH)

Props to @MMAdamMartin for giving us the heads up that Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal is currently as high as a -1545 betting favorite in his scheduled match against Seth Petruzelli this Wednesday at Bellator 96. Keep in mind that Lawal was a 10-1 favorite in his last match against Emanuel Newton, which ended with Mo getting knocked out with a spinning backfist in the first round.

Let that sink in for a moment. Still with us? Good. So, after losing that match, Lawal has somehow become an even more immense favorite against a guy who is BEST KNOWN FOR A DRAMATIC UPSET, FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

At this point, you can get Seth Petruzelli for +725 at SportBet and 5Dimes, meaning that a $100 bet on the Silverback would return $725 in profit if he wins. Meanwhile, a $1,545 wager on Lawal would return $100 in profit if he wins, which has to be the dumbest investment in the history of world currency.

If you want to bet on Petruzelli, do it now before the oddsmakers sober up.

Over the past few years, the UFC has used a number of different hooks to lure you into buying Anderson Silva‘s fights on pay-per-view, from building Silva up as a supernaturally-gifted phenom to acknowledging the ridiculousness of his matchups. So here’s a new angle: To hype Silva’s UFC 162 middleweight title fight against Chris Weidman, the UFC has cut together clips of Gray Maynard, Georges St. Pierre, and Rashad Evans talking about Weidman as if he’s the next champ. Indeed, “every fighter out there” apparently thinks Silva is going to lose his belt on July 6th.

Call it trash-talk by proxy. Weidman isn’t speaking for himself in this promo because, 1) having other people do it lends him credibility by association, and 2) the sound of Chris Weidman’s voice has never gotten anybody excited for anything. Not trying to hate, here. Chris is just a soft-spoken, respectful dude who does his talking in the cage. And that’s fine. And that’s why GSP and Joe Rogan are doing the talking for him.

Whether that’s an effective promotional strategy or not remains to be seen, but I think this clip captures the current zeitgeist among MMA fans. Whether it’s because they truly believe that Weidman possesses the skills to knock Silva off his throne, or they’re just getting tired of King Andy’s bloody reign, it feels like public support is leaning hard on the challenger this time.

So who are you picking for Silva vs. Weidman? And why? And are your reasons actually rooted in reality?

(Video via YouTube.com/CagePotato. Subscribe, dammit!)

At the age of 47, BJJ legend (and retired MMA fighter) Royler Gracie is preparing to return to competition later this year at Metamoris 3 (date/venue TBA), in a grappling rematch with Eddie Bravo. In this interview following the match announcement at Metamoris 2 earlier this month, CagePotato reporter Elias Cepeda recaps the first meeting between Royler and Eddie back in 2003 — which made Eddie Bravo’s name overnight and legitimized his forward-thinking approach to jiu-jitsu — and gets Royler’s take on their second meeting ten years later. As Royler puts it, “I’m not trying to make history, I’m already part of history.”

For more behind-the-scenes videos and MMA interviews, please visit CagePotato’s YouTube channel.

If there’s anyone that Dana White gets pleasure out of verbally tearing down in the media more than Roy Nelson, it’s Steve Mazzagatti, the (formerly) porn-stached, cool as a cucumber veteran UFC official who has given us such avant-garde decisions as “Eye Poke Equals a TKO,” “Flying Head Kick? 40 More Punches to Convince Me” and “Tap 10 Times For Assistance.” The Baldfather has stated on numerous occasions that he doesn’t think Mazzagatti should even be watching MMA — which is all the more astounding when you consider all the crazy shit DW has said and done to try and sell a pay-per-view before — and even gone as far as to unofficially dub Mazzagatti “The Worst Referee in the History of Fighting.” In a world where this was allowed to happen, that’s a pretty bold claim.

As it turns out, Mazzagatti found himself at the center of controversy once again last weekend when he basically handed over his reffing duties to Josh Burkman during his WSOF 3 clash with Jon Fitch. After clipping Fitch early (like somebody here predicted he would), Burkman locked in a tight guillotine that put Fitch to sleep just over 40 seconds into their headlining bout. Burkman then proceeded to roll his unconscious opponent over and stand over him triumphantly before Mazzagatti decided to step in. It was perhaps the first walk-off submission in MMA History, and for some reason, you all are pissed about it.

Although White and Fitch have been involved in a war of words ever since the AKA product was released from the UFC, at the end of the day, it’s safe to assume that White wishes no ill will towards the former title contender. And being that Mazzagatti is higher up on White’s hit list than Fitch, the UFC Prez recently laid into the veteran ref for nearly 10 straight minutes at the UFC 161 post-fight media scrum. It was, quite honestly, the harshest takedown we have seen since Neal Page’s “Chatty Cathy” criticism of Del Griffith.

We’ve placed the full video of Dana’s rant above. After the jump, we’re going flush our last remaining scrap of credibility down the toilet in an attempt to do the unthinkable: defend Steve Mazzagatti. We know, we know.