According to MMAJunkie.com, Houston Alexander is already back in the gym with his coach Mick Doyle, trying to figure out what the hell went wrong on Saturday night and how to prevent it from ever happening again. They’ll surely be watching this video on repeat, which shows just where things fell apart. Instead of coming out swinging in his usual wildman style, Alexander calmly stalked Thiago Silva at the start of the first round before falling into a clinch. From there, Silva’s Chute Boxe jiu-jitsu skills take over, and Alexander is brought to the mat and mounted. Referee Dan Miragliotta steps in when Alexander seems to lose consciousness, but lets Silva haul off a few more times just to be sure. Not that I blame him — I certainly wouldn’t want those Jersey savages hounding me about an early stoppage…

Like King George III and Hugh Grant before him, Michael Bisping is quickly establishing himself as a Brit who Americans love to hate. During a post-fight press conference, Bisping was asked how he felt about the way the crowd reacted to him during UFC 78. His witty response: “They can all go to hell.” Listen to the audio here. As Mr. Sunshine reports, “it did put a slight grimace on the face of UFC president Dana White, who was standing behind Bisping.” Though we imagine if Dana was in Bisping’s shoes, he’d probably say something more along the lines of “Basically, Jersey can go fuck itself.”

Be advised! Forrest Griffin and Ice-T’s wife Coco guest star on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — tonight at 10/9c — as a possibly homicidal “ultimate fighter” and the woman who loves him. Detective Stabler better bring his A-game; you don’t just slap cuffs onto the man who tore apart “Shogun” Rua…

If you were bummed that Octagon Girl Ali Sonoma was M.I.A. during UFC 78, prepare to be even more bummed — the 23-year-old model has put down her ring cards for good. According to a blog entry on her MySpace page:

“I am no longer a ring girl for UFC…I am proud to say I am moving up to bigger and better things. There is always a time when you get comfortable at a job…you seem to lose focus on what your main goal is…I guess I got a little comfortable myself, of course, I loved the fights, loved the experience, but my real dream is to actually speak on camera, to act, not just shake my booty for the crowd. (even though it was a lot of fun while it lasted and I met some amazing people)”

This is truly a somber day. Let us celebrate Ali’s memory by gawking at some of her pictures, after the jump…

To see Cung Le kick ass, Sean Salmon get KTFO’d, and all of my predictions fall apart one by one, click here.

As reported here last month, the next season of NBC’s awful-behavior competition The Apprentice will be a celebrity edition featuring UFC star Tito Ortiz. The Associated Press has now reported that the season premiere is set for January 3rd, and the full cast of contestants has been officially announced. They are (in order of my own personal interest):

Tito Ortiz — UFC light-heavyweight with the super-heavyweight head
Gene Simmons — Kiss bassist/singer known for shameless branding, disturbingly long tongue
Lennox Lewis — Retired heavyweight boxing champion
Vincent Pastore — Big Pussy!
Stephen Baldwin — Born-again Christian, founder of Breakthrough Ministries, co-star of Bio-Dome
Tiffany Fallon — 2005 Playboy Playmate of the Year
Trace Adkins — Musical genius behind “Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk”
Nadia Comaneci — Romanian gymnast best-known for her perfect-10 pwnage of the uneven bars at the 1976 Olympics
Carol Alt — Model/actress/raw foodie
Jennie Finch — Sort-of-cute Olympic softball gold medalist
Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth — The ball-buster from season 1 of The Apprentice
Marilu Henner — Actress, diet shiller, host of America’s Ballroom Challenge
Piers Morgan — Poor man’s Simon Cowell on America’s Got Talent
Nely Galan — TV producer and Telemundo executive, and the only contestrant you’ve literally never heard of

The 14 celebs will compete in business-oriented tasks around New York City, and their performance will be judged by Donald and his Lil’ VeePees, Ivanka and Donald Jr. The grand prize won’t be a job with Donald Trump, but instead a $250,000 bonus to donate to their favorite charity. I know what you’re thinking — charity, right? — but at least it’ll be some good exposure for Kiss Kaskets.

Steroid accusations aside, Sean Sherk has had one of the most dominant careers in MMA. In 34 professional fights, he’s only lost twice, against superstars Matt Hughes and Georges St. Pierre. This fight from UFC 56 in November 2005 is Sherk’s only loss by stoppage, and his second-to-last appearance as a welterweight. As for St. Pierre, in two more matches he would be the UFC’s welterweight champion…

(Hong Man Choi/Choi Hong Man on “Heroine 6″)

Have you ever seen a seven-foot-tall man move like that? And how ’bout that flower bouquet trick?!

Pictured: Akihiro Gono’s pretzel-like armbar of Tamdan McCrory at UFC 78. The foot up the shorts is just there for added humilation.

(I’m only posting this picture because my Google image search for “moth flying out of wallet” was a total bust.)

Since the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board isn’t releasing fighter salaries for UFC 78 in order to maintain the fighters’ privacy, you’ll have to make do with the numbers from Friday’s Strikeforce event:

MIDDLEWEIGHT TOURNAMENT
Jorge Santiago [winner] ($15,000)
Trevor Prangley [finalist] ($30,000)
Falaniko Vitale ($20,000), Sean Salmon ($5,000)

MAIN CARD
Cung Le ($50,000) def. Sam Morgan ($10,000)
Alistair Overeem ($30,000) def. Paul Buentello ($20,000)
Lemont Davis ($3,000) def. Brian Schwartz ($30,000)
Anthony Ruiz ($3,500) def. Bobby Southworth ($10,000)
Luke Stewart ($10,000) def. Bryson Kamaka ($1,500)

UNDERCARD
Eric Lawson ($5,000) def. Josh Neal ($1,500)
Anthony Figueroa ($4,000) def. Pete Sabala ($1,000)
Alex Crispin ($4,500) def. Clint Coronel ($3,000)
Chris Drumm ($1,000) def. Evan Esguerra ($1,000)
Dennis Hallman ($10,000) def. Jeremiah Metcalf ($5,000)

These figures include win bonuses that ranged from $500 to $5,000, though the participants in the middleweight tournament all received a flat fee regardless of their performance. Man, that’s called “doing it for the love,” people…

Though the Potato was a pathetic 1-out-of-5 in his predictions for the night’s action, at least the sure thing came through, as rising superstar Cung Le ended Sam Morgan’s night with a vicious body kick at 1:58 into the third round. To watch the fight (with aggravatingly un-synced audio), click here, and to see a post-fight interview with Le, click here.

The rumors are true — Fedor Emelianenko will be fighting in Japan on New Year’s Eve, according to an announcement on Greg Savage’s Savage Radio Show. And now for the truly bizarre details…

— The fight will not be M-1 Global’s first event. Instead, the event is being organized by a Japanese outfit called Hustle Pro Wrestling. It looks like Fedor’s already taking advantage of the wiggle-room in his M-1 contract.

— His opponent will be Hong Man Choi. Choi is a 7’2″, 352-pound behemoth, who, according to MMA Junkie, “suffers from a rare disease that causes him to continue growing throughout his life.” Which must be really frustrating during weigh-ins.

— Choi built up a 12-3 record in the K-1 kickboxing league, but has only one MMA fight to his credit, a 16-second TKO victory over Bobby Ologun, who weighed nearly 150 pounds less than him.

— Choi was supposed to be Brock Lesnar’s first MMA opponent, at the K-1 Dynamite!! USA show in June, but the California State Athletic Commission wouldn’t clear him to fight, reportedly because of a benign tumor on his pituitary gland. Lesnar went on to cream replacement Min Soo Kim in 69 seconds, and we’re left to dream of what could have been…

In an announcement that almost makes up for how weak “Validation” was, former PRIDE champ / current UFC contender Dan Henderson has decided to drop down a weight division and face Anderson Silva for the UFC’s middleweight title; the long-rumored fight will be the main event of UFC 82, which goes down March 1st at Columbus, Ohio’s Nationwide Arena.

Henderson’s last fight (and first UFC fight in nine years) was a unanimous decision loss to light-heavyweight champ Quinton Jackson. According to Henderson, “Dana wanted me to drop down to 185 pounds, so I’ll have a few fights in that division but I think I’ll eventually get back up to 205.”

You know a UFC card is dull when John McCarthy, Herb Dean, Steve Mazzagatti, and Mario Yamasaki all have better things to do. No knock on the reffing abilities of Dan Miragliotta and Kevin Mulhall — or the lovely state of New Jersey — but nearly everything about UFC 78 was substandard, and every fighter proved that they weren’t quite ready for the big show. Let’s get through it…

[Lightweights] Frankie Edgar def. Spencer Fisher via unanimous decision

[Middleweights] Ed Herman def. Joe Doerksen via K.O. (punch, third round)

[Welterweights] Karo Parisyan def. Ryo Chonan via unanimous decision

[Light heavyweights] Thiago Silva def. Houston Alexander via TKO (punches, first round)

[Light heavyweights, main event] Rashad Evans def. Michael Bisping via split decision

Full report to come tomorrow, but here’s a sneak preview: This was the dullest and most disappointing UFC event I’ve ever seen. And that’s not just sour grapes because my prediction* turned out to be inaccurate. Name me one UFC card in the AF era that was worse than this one.

* If my dream wasn’t a foretelling, what do you think it meant? (There’s no “MMA” entry in my dream dictionary.) I’m open to all (most) suggestions.

“If you give me another hickey, I’ll choke the shit out of you.”

…and in this dream, Rashad Evans beat Michael Bisping in the first round, via TKO due to strikes. So, that will be my official prediction for their fight tonight.

It’s totally healthy that I dream about this stuff now, right?

See what I mean about the bruises?

Yuki Sasaki has been pulled from tonight’s Strikeforce middleweight tournament after a second-consecutive MRA exam raised concerns with doctors; his participation has been questionable since his original MRA and MRI exams revealed an unspecified neurological condition. Sean Salmon — originally scheduled to fight in the tournament’s alternate bout — will take Sasaki’s place, and the alternate bout will now be fought between Dennis Hallman and Jeremiah Metcalf.

MMA fans talk about Cung Le like he’s the second coming of Bruce Lee — and when you see him in action, you’ll understand why. Le’s last fight was a non-stop demolition of Tony Fryklund at Strikeforce’s Shamrock vs. Baroni event in June. Why Fryklund didn’t try harder to take the fight to the ground is anybody’s guess — Le is possibly the most dominant striker in MMA right now, and the fight was a brutal showcase of his abilities. As we mentioned before, Le takes on Sam Morgan at tonight’s Strikeforce event, and Morgan should have a different game plan than Fryklund’s if he hopes to stand a chance.

If you need any more hype, get it here.

(Ed Herman)

CBSSports.com has a great preview of Saturday’s UFC card, where all of the match-ups (including the ones in the undercard) are analyzed by MMA writers Denny Burkholder, Sam “WAMMA” Caplan, Todd Martin and Ben Fowlkes. If you have some free time, check it out. If not, we’ll summarize:

— Nobody thinks Michael Bisping stands a chance against Rashad Evans.
— Ditto for Thiago Silva against Houston Alexander.
— Even though Joe Doerksen beat him when they met at SF 7 in 2004, Ed Herman gets the edge in their rematch tomorrow.
— Todd Martin calls a Karo Parisyan victory over Ryo Chonan his “lock of the night.”
— Sam Caplan predicts Edgar/Fisher will be the best fight of UFC 78.
— Thiago Alves, Joe Lauzon, Marcus Aurelio and Akihiro Gono will be sure things in their respective fights. (Man, it’s like these MMA writers share a brain…)

Strikeforce is putting on a way-killer show tonight at San Jose’s HP Pavillion, with a 13-fight card that features kickboxing star Cung Le, PRIDE vet Alistair Overeem, light heavyweight champ Bobby Southworth, and a four-man middleweight tournament that will determine the next contender to challenge Frank Shamrock for his title. The event kicks off at 6 p.m. PT, and will be available to all Internet users located beyond a 150 mile radius of San Jose, via a stream on Yahoo! Sports. Though the fighters in the 185-pound tournament were announced a month ago, the exact brackets were determined by a lottery held yesterday. They are:

Trevor Prangley (185) vs. Falaniko Vitale (185)
Yuki Sasaki (183.3) vs. Jorge Santiago (184)

As for the rest of the evening’s action…

— Dana White and Randy Couture have a dinner date on Tuesday to discuss Couture’s future with the UFC.

— Kimbo Slice says he will likely fight at EliteXC’s next event, which takes place in February. Though it’s mentioned nowhere in the story, MMAFightline uses its headline to throw in a completely unfounded rumor about Tank Abbott. That’s what we like to call “aggressive journalism.”

— HDNet Fights’ next event will be on December 15th in Dallas. The 10-fight card — named “Reckless Abandon” (!) — will feature bouts between Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Sean Salmon, and Frank Trigg against Edwin Dewees.

— Carlos Newton and Maurice Smith are out as IFL coaches.

— The first date on Amy Winehouse’s new tour didn’t go so well.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my family, my friends, all the fans who supported me when people said this couldn’t be done — and I’d like to turn your attention to the navigation bar at the top of this page, particularly the button that says “Fight Schedule.” See, if you click on it, it takes you to a page where you can learn about upcoming MMA events in your area. And get this: If you’re a fighter or promoter and you don’t see your event listed on our site, just e-mail feedback@cagepotato.com with the info, and we’ll get it right up there. Cool? Cool.

It’s not the first time that this rumor has been brought up — so take it with every grain of salt you can get your hands on — but M-1 Mix Fight (the Russian precursor to M-1 Global) has reported that the first M-1 Global event will take place in Japan’s Saitama Super Arena on New Year’s Eve, and that more details will be posted on the site later.

Whoa, fingers crossed! But there’s one thing that concerns me. When they say “No one other than four times Pride Heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko will fight in the main event,” could that possibly mean that Fedor will be in the ring by himself? People, I wouldn’t rule out any possibility at this point…

That ESPN.com profile of Houston Alexander has inspired me to track down his fight against Keith Jardine from UFC 71 and post it for y’all in its entirety. Check out Houston springing up from a knockdown and dirty-boxing Jardine into unconsciousness. If he can operate on this level on Saturday, Thiago Silva doesn’t stand a chance. Two more things to keep in mind:

1) If it wasn’t obvious during his fight with Chuck Liddell, this video makes one thing abundantly clear — Keith Jardine is one awkward-ass fighter. He basically limps out to meet Alexander, and shakes his arms at eye level in what Joe Rogan describes as “the chimpanzee approach.”

2) That last knee from Houston? Quite illegal. But hey, Jardine was probably going to lose anyway…

So, big news — a group of fighters, journalists and promoters held a press conference yesterday to announce the creation of a new MMA sanctioning body called the World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts (WAMMA), which would rank the top ten fighters in nine different weight divisions and arrange cross-promotional fights to recognize unified champions. Involved in this pipe dream noble undertaking are MMA guru Pat Miletich, UFC legend Don Frye, ex-wrestler/commentator Bill Goldberg, and ProElite.com/FiveOuncesofPain.com’s Sam Caplan, who will chair the rankings committee. WAMMA’s president and CEO will be Dave Szady, a former FBI assistant director with no MMA credentials; the guy doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Speaking of which, I’d include a link to WAMMA’s official website, but I couldn’t find it. WAMMA.com doesn’t work, and WAMMA.org really, really doesn’t work (trust me).

(Before we delve even further into this thing, I’d like to point out that the image at the top of this post is not there because of my own laziness; I didn’t do a google image search for “rainbow gloves unity six fingers” and take the first result. That’s the WAMMA’s actual, official logo, which was designed by LeRoy Neiman, who your grandfather might be familiar with. It’s a little lightweight, if you ask me, and not in a juiced-up Sean Sherk kind of way. At any rate, Neiman does have a Wikipedia page.)

Moving on…

UFC 78 is only two days away (!), and ESPN.com is doing its part to pump it up. Check out these videos on some of the night’s key fighters and get psyched.

(“I think I do just about everything better than Bisping.”)

In last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, the quarterfinal matches were announced, Mac Danzig upsets the entire animal kingdom, Ray Longo turns out to be one of those guys who pronounces “penalized” as “peenalized,” and Jon Kolosci goes out like a punk. Read on, if you dare…

The International Fight League announced today that it has formed a video sharing partnership with YouTube and Google AdSense that would deliver IFL content — including full-length fights — to thousands of websites around the world that use AdSense and YouTube players (including YouTube itself, obvi). Though YouTube has had similar partnerships with the NBA and NHL, this is the first video sharing deal it has struck with an MMA organization. The arrangement also includes a revenue sharing model that would allow the IFL to generate income from advertisements shown with its videos. According to the press release: