If you have nine minutes free, check out this video preview of the two headlining fights at UFC 83 on April 19th: Serra vs. St. Pierre 2 and Franklin vs. Lutter. In a recent CagePotato poll, 82% of you thought St. Pierre will win the main event (a full 60% had him winning specifically by KO/TKO), though we’re pulling for our New York homeboy to keep the belt in the States.

(Unfortunately, his fight with “Da Spyder” won’t be a pick-axe death-match.)

— Fedor Emelianenko recently carried the Olympic torch in St. Petersburg. There were no survivors.

— In a match where the loser may have to re-think their current career path, Kendall Grove and Evan Tanner have been booked to face each other at the Ultimate Fighter 7 finale on June 21st in Las Vegas. Grove, the middleweight winner from the third season of TUF, has dropped back-to-back contests against Patrick Cote and Jorge Rivera, while Tanner has lost three of his last four UFC matches, most recently a second-round KO loss to Yushin Okami at UFC 82. By the way, Tanner’s blog is back up, after being taken down temporarily in the wake of his gambling bender post.

— Kenny Florian will join Mike Goldberg in the broadcast booth at UFC 83 (April 19th, Montreal), filling in for Joe Rogan, who will be unable to attend due to previous obligations. We look forward to a new voice constantly correcting Goldberg, as well as less references to the “rape choke.”

— Kim Couture won her first MMA match on Saturday in Portland, Oregon, taking care of Jessica Cruz via ground-and-pound TKO at 1:43 of the third round. “It was a good fight for Kim because Cruz was scrappy,” Randy Couture said. “You don’t want your first fight to be too easy, but you don’t want to be over your head either. It was a perfect first fight.” Speaking of Randy, he addressed his future in a new interview with MMAMadness, saying “More than likely, I will end up signing with HDNet and Affliction. Realistically, that is the best option.”

— In his first match since his back exploded during Strikeforce at the Dome in February, Joe Riggs will headline Phoenix Fight: Street Justice on April 26 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, facing Mike Gates (5-3-1). Gates is a natural welterweight, and the match will be fought at a catchweight of 180 lbs.

— You know that skinny, nerdy looking new UFC ref who handled the Hamill/Boetsch and Maynard/Edgar fights at UFN 13? Well, apparently he has an open marriage.

(Worst. Pride parade. Ever. Photo courtesy of Tom Casino @ Pro Elite.)

Five fights, five first-round stoppages; last night’s ShoXC Challenger Series card was unquestionably badass. But for our money, the night belonged to Shayna Baszler. With mentor Josh Barnett in her corner, “The Queen of Spades” faced Keiko “Tama Chan” Tamai — who was clownlike in both attire and demeanor — and smoked her, dispatching the outmatched Japanese fighter with a suplex (seriously!), ground-and-pound, and finally a neck crank; maybe the first time we’ve seen that submission since Dan Severn in the mid-’90s. With the win, Baszler improves her pro record to 9-4, with all nine wins coming via submission. After the fight she claimed ownership of EliteXC’s women’s division, and declared she was ready for any challenger to try and prove otherwise. LaRosa and Carano, you’re officially on notice.

Also notable was the fight between undefeated middleweights Matt Lucas and Givanildo Santana, who had previously defeated nine of his ten opponents via armbar, earning him the nickname “The Arm Collector.” You’d think Lucas would be extra careful to avoid the same fate, but like an idiot, he got on top of Santana during the fight, leaned over too far without protecting himself and got snatched up. Make that ten wins by armbar.

Wagnney Fabiano defended his featherweight belt in shocking fashion at Friday night’s IFL event, first blasting out Shad Lierley’s legs with a low kick, then knocking him into last week with an overhand right. The knockout was only his second KO in 11 pro fights; Fabiano won his last five via submission. Action starts at the vid’s 1:40 mark.

(“The Janitor” cleaned “The Suit” at the IFL’s Jersey joint.)

Three titles were on the line at last night’s IFL event in East Rutherford, New Jersey and Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko, Wagnney Fabiano, and Jay “The Thorobred” Hieron all successfully defended their titles in front of 5,131 fans at the Izod Center. Matyushenko seemed to be in for quite a fight when his opponent, local boy Jamal “The Suit” Patterson, had a strong showing in the opening frame. The second was a different story, however, and the champ ended the fight with a series of blows for a TKO win with 30 seconds left in the round to raise his record to 21-3.

In Fabiano’s fight, the champion KO’d Seattle fighter Shad Lierley just 37 ticks into the fight, which was somewhat unexpected due to Fabiano’s love for taking it to the ground early. The other championship fight also ended in the first, with Jay Hieron dominating Mark Miller. The fighter picked up a TKO after a vicious GnP of his Chicago challenger.

The camp match-ups pitted Miletich Fighting Systems versus American Top Team and Midwest Combat versus Renzo Gracie Academy. Featherweight LC Davis of KC, got a win for Miletich when he KO’d Rafael Dias in the Brazilian’s second fight for the IFL. The fight was an exciting one throughout and Davis just managed to get the KO with seconds left in the bout. ATT got a win when welterweight Emyr Bussade got a second-round kneebar sub over Jesse Lennox. The deciding fight ended up being a non-decisive one when it was ruled a no contest. It was a light heavy match-up featuring two Pennsylvania fighters, Carmelo Marrero and Mike Ciesnolevicz. The no contest came about when Marrero received a cut on his head from an inadvertent head-butt and the gushing wouldn’t stop. Where’s “Stitch” when you need him?

(The #1 image on GIS for “friday grind”…seriously.)

It’s the usual post-April Fool’s holiday blues wind-down. We’re all just biding our time until Happy Hour, so here are a few shorties to keep you busy until then.

— The UFC is now making more fights official for UFC 85. The show is to go down on June 7th in London. We already know Chuck Liddell will face Rashad Evans in the lame main event, and we’ve followed the other rumors, so let’s take a look at the UFC’s official card as it stands now:

– Chuck Liddell vs Rashad Evans
– Fabricio Werdum vs Brandon Vera
– Martin Kampmann vs Jorge Rivera
– Mike Swick vs Marcus Davis
– Nate Marquardt vs Thales Leites
– Jason Lambert vs Luis Cane
– Thiago Tavares vs Matt Wiman

Other rumored fights for the event that have not been stamped with the UFC official approval yet include: Jess Liaudin versus Paul Taylor, Antoni Hardonk versus Neil Wain, and Ryo Chonan versus Roan Carneiro. This comes via MMAWeekly, but we’ll keep our eyes on it for you.

— BloodyElbow is reporting that the UFC Fight Night 13‘s ratings were — in a word — shitty. The show did a 1.1 rating, which is terrible if you know anything about ratings. For such a stacked card, this really sucks for MMA on free TV. It goes to show you the unfortunate need for a Kimbo/Brock Lesnar/Chuck Liddell as a main eventer.

“TUF 7″ pulled a 1.3 immediately after the 3-hour event, so the previous joint retained its audience and gained some reality show hounds, too. For whatever it’s worth.

— And file this one with the Too Drunk to Care Bureau. Fightlinker dug up a crack-head’s video of Ken Shamrock apparently jonesin’ for meth. Check it out if you dare:

I’ll give them a tip o’ hat for editing, but first — a few quick words to the meth-head:

1) Work on your spelling and punctuation
2) Work on a Ken Shamrock ‘roids video
3) Meth…we’re assuming the Ken Shamrock pictorial is meant as sarcastic?
4) You gotta’ hook-up?

Have a bitchin’ weekend.

(Undefeated light-heavyweight Jared Hamman looks to make it 10 in a row tomorrow night. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Just a quick reminder that the IFL has their latest untitled event tonight at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey; it will air live on HDNet starting at 8:30 p.m. ET, so set your DVRs post-haste. Champions Jay Hieron (welterweight), Wagnney Fabiano (featherweight), and Vladimir Matyushenko (light heavyweight) will all be defending their belts, while lightweight star Chris Horodecki will make his first ring appearance since his title fight loss last December.

Also, Pro Elite is putting on another ShoXC Challenger Series card tomorrow night at the Table Mountain Casino in Friant, CA; you can check it out on Showtime starting at 11:30 p.m. ET. The main event pits undefeated Californian Jared Hamman — who boasts nine straight victories, all by stoppage before the third round — against Hawaiian light heavyweight Poai Suganuma, who has put in work in Pancrase, Icon Sport, and K-1 Hero’s. You’ll also get to see Shayna Baszler kick the ass of Keiki Tamai — who has lost her last five fights — and up-and-comers Matt Lucas and Givanildo Santana battling to keep their flawless records intact. The full lineup looks like this:

Televised Card
Jared Hamman (9-0) vs. Poai Suganuma (8-1)
Fabricio Camoes (7-4) vs. Joe Camacho (10-11-3)
Shayna Baszler (8-4) vs. Keiko “Tama Chan” Tamai (16-14)
Matt Lucas (9-0) vs. Givanildo Santana (10-0)
Doug Evans (5-2) vs. Bao Quach (12-8-1)

Undercard
Melanie LaCroix (1-0) vs. KC Noland (1-2)
Jaime Iracheta (debut) vs. Brent Cooper (1-0)
Telly Sanders (debut) vs. Roberto Vargas (1-0)
Yasser Pezzat (debut) vs. Luke Riddering (debut)
Carl Saumantafa (2-0) vs. Terrell Dees (2-1)
Yoko Takahashi (13-9) vs. Breanne Vickers (0-1)

If you don’t have HDNet or Showtime, call your cable provider, and come back here this weekend for complete results and recaps.

(Will the Bodog Girls have to go back to their IT jobs?)

MMAPayout passes along the rumor that BodogFight is on its last legs, after losing a reported $38 million last year:

Most of the company’s employees have been let go, there are no events planned (although they are sponsoring some smaller events), there is no new TV deal, and a recently proposed small budget (with the idea of slowly rebuilding) by Jeff Osborne was turned down.

Does it seem suspicious to you that every fight club Fedor Emelianenko has been involved in has gone out of business? Think about it…

RINGS — dead!
PRIDE — dead!
M-1 Global — dead!
Bodog — dead! (maybe!)

Dear lord, the man destroys everything he touches! Although to be fair, the fact that BodogFight couldn’t hold events in the U.S., maintain a regular events schedule, land a deal with a big-name cable channel, or maintain good relationships with its fighters could have also contributed to its fate. Anyway, we doubt that many of you are huge BF fans, so this isn’t much of a tragedy. But hey, those Bodog Girls are somethin’, am I right?

Here’s a preview clip from tonight’s episode of Inside MMA, in which Ricco Rodriguez discusses his participation in YAMMA’s debut event (April 11th, Atlantic City). We’ve already established that the fight surface is a big bowl, but even Ricco still doesn’t know what the enclosure is going to be like, and doesn’t expect to find out until he gets there. For the record, if it turns out to be Plexiglass, Bas Rutten came up with that idea first. Also, horse-jockey Gary Stevens throws in his two cents, God knows why. (Props to TheMMAPost for the video.)

Bonus: Marcus Aurelio’s armbar of Ryan Roberts on Wednesday was damn nasty…

…and Manny Gamburyan is kind of a dick.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

11. Rashad Evans vs. Sean Salmon (UFC Fight Night 8, 1/25/2007)

10. Chris “Red Bull” Willems vs. Akoni Nakila (ROTR: Beatdown IV, 7/14/07)

9. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic vs. Aleksander Emelianenko (PRIDE: Final Conflict 2004, 8/15/2004)

(Roger Huerta could be ending his fight-hiatus in August.)

Brief (but important) developments in the world of organized violence…

— MMAMadness has learned from a “very reliable source” that UFC lightweight Roger Huerta will return to the Octagon at UFC 87 (August 9th, Minneapolis), against a yet-unnamed opponent. Could this be related to Kenny Florian’s recent call-out of “El Matador”? If it’s not, Joe Silva can basically go eff himself.

— In his first TUF7 column for Fox Sports, Forrest Griffin reveals that all the fighters were instructed to show up at no heavier than 190 pounds; so that one dude who had to drop 17 in one day only has himself to blame. Also: “I noticed that for the first couple of days ‘Rampage’ was much more funny than me and I was upset by that.”

— Perhaps due to the controversy spurring from last week’s news coverage of kiddie MMA, legislators are seeking to ban children’s MMA competitions in Missouri, the only state where youth matches are allowed. The MO-based youth-MMA organization Freestyle Combat League already requires its fighters to wear head gear and shin guards, and prohibits strikes to the head of a grounded opponent. The head of the FCL, Nathan Orand, says he’ll also be adding chest and stomach protectors for fighters younger than 14, allowing referees to stop a match if they see the danger of a joint injury, and switching from a cage to a ring. Sounds safe enough for our daughter!

— This Portfolio article on Chuck Liddell-as-accountant is notable for the following metaphor: “When I’m watching pre-fight tapes, I’m collecting all my receipts on my opponents, accumulating data,” [Liddell] says. “Once I step into the cage, it’s April 15. Everything is due.”

— MMAJunkie just put up an article evaluating the UFC performance of the 100 fighters featured on the first six seasons of The Ultimate Fighter. Junkie’s rather downbeat assessment: “[O]nly about 20 percent could be generously credited as UFC stars, or even serious contenders in their weight classes…more than half of the “TUF” contestants were unequivocal flops in that they failed to last more than two or three fights with the organization, if even that long.”

— Our buddy Ariel at JarryPark was recently named Editor-in-Chief of MMARated.com (mazel tov, brotha), and just put up a great audio interview with Cung Le, in which the new Strikeforce middleweight champ discusses Frank Shamrock’s trash-talk and his current contract situation with Strikeforce.

— Have a friend you don’t mind getting uncomfortably close with? Then these 10 “Ultimate Fighting” Exercises might be for you…

(Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly.)

DREAM announced today that Gesias “JZ” Calvancante and Shinya Aoki will face each other again at DREAM.2 (April 29th; Saitama, Japan), to decide which fighter will proceed to the second round of its all-star lightweight grand prix. Calvancante and Aoki’s first match, at last month’s DREAM.1, ended in a no-contest after Calvancante landed a series of illegal elbow strikes to the back of Aoki’s neck, and Aoki wasn’t able to continue fighting; Calvancante had been dominating the action up to that point, and many fans speculated that Aoki overplayed his injury in order to escape the fight and avoid a loss.

DREAM.2 will also feature the opening round of a middleweight grand prix that will feature bouts between Denis Kang and Gegard Mousasi, Kiyoshi Tamura and Masakatsu Funaki, and (possibly) Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Andrews Nakahara; Yoshihiro Akiyama and Ikuhisa Minowa are also expected to participate. The winner of the JZ/Aoki battle will have to compete again just two weeks later at DREAM.3 (May 11th; Saitama, Japan) against Katsuhiko Nagata, who defeated Artur Oumakhanov by unanimous decision in the lightweight tourney’s first round. The rest of the lightweight GP’s second-round matchups look like this:

Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Luis “Buscape” Firmino (note: Kawajiri and Firmino previously met at PRIDE Bushido 8 in July 2005, where Kawajiri won by unanimous decision.)

Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Caol Uno (note: Uno, a UFC/K-1 Hero’s vet, didn’t compete in the lightweight GP’s first round, and is getting an automatic bye into the second.)

Joachim Hansen vs. Eddie Alvarez (note: Joachim Hansen is a freakin’ beast.)

M1Mixfight.com has posted the results of last night’s M-1 Challenge event in St. Petersburg, where all three Red Devil Sport Club headliners walked away with victories. Amar Suloev scored a first-round TKO over Jacek Buczko, Roman Zentsov won a split decision over Daniel Tabera, and Aleks Emelianenko executed Silvao Santos, who came into the fight with an MMA record of just 1-0. Video of the squash match “Superfight” is above, and full results are after the jump.

(Mark Miller (L) will attempt to knock Jay Hieron’s shades off.)

Quiet out on the MMA plains this evening, but here are a couple of news pieces to check out:

— The official weigh-in for tomorrow night’s IFL show in Jersey came and went today, and all went smooth. The show kicks off at 7:30 pm (ET) and goes live on HDNet at 8:30 pm (ET).

Here are the weigh-in results:

Title Fights
Jay Hieron (170) vs. Mark Miller (170.4)
Wagnney Fabiano (145.4) vs. Shad Lierley (145.8)
Vladimir Matyushenko (205.4) vs. Jamal Patterson (205.6)

Non-Title and Team Fights
Delson Heleno (170.8) vs. Brad Blackburn (171)
Jim Miller (155) vs. Bart Palaszewski (155.5)
Nate Lamotte (155.8) vs. Chris Horodecki (154.6)
Mike Ciesnolevicz (206) vs. Carmelo Marrero (205.8)
Emyr Bussade (170) vs. Jesse Lennox (170)
Rafael Dias (145.6) vs. L.C. Davis (145.6)
Alex Schoenauer (204) vs. Brendan Barrett (205.5)

We would post video of the weigh-ins, but it was just too intense for a Thursday.

— Keith Kizer and his NSAC boys weren’t able to bust any of the fighters from WEC 33. Fighters were tested for the normal perf-enhancing drugs and those of abuse. Brian Stann, Doug Marshall, Logan Clark, Alex Serdyukov, Richard Crunkilton, Chael Sonnen, Bryan Baker, Steve Cantwell, and Marcus Hicks were given a pass for their piss. Kizer said that the state of Nevada has had “no positive tests yet this year, although we have tested way more fighters in January through March 2008 than in any other January through March period of years past.” Brag, much?

We would post video of the piss — and other — tests, but it’s too early on a Thursday for that sort of thing.

(Speer’s turning to jelly wasn’t good enough for Johnson to bank $20,000.)

Ken-Flo and J-Lau pulled $20k each for “Fight ‘o da’ Night” bonuses from last night’s UFC Fight Night 13, and it was well-deserved. In case you just woke up, Florian beat Lauzon with his “mount”. Been there, done that. As for the other money-pluses, not all were as dead-on.

James Irvin tied the UFC record with the fastest KO in the organization’s history and grabbed a fistful of dough ($20k) for “Knockout of the Night”. Sure, Irvin did it in 8 seconds, but it was a TKO — not to mention that the victim of the quick grounding (Houston Alexander) was able to profusely protest crazy Steve Mazzagatti’s stoppage of the fight. This would deserve the KO bonus if Anthony Johnson hadn’t fought on the same card. “Rumble” Johnson simply got ripped off. His opponent, Tommy Speer, was KTFO and couldn’t move from his collapsed position against the cage. How does this not get “Knockout of the Night”? If Houston Alexander can jump up and bitch to the ref about the stoppage, there is no way in hell James Irvin should be $20k richer.

Mazzagatti is quickly rising in my “People I Hate List” — and yes, I keep such a list, right next to my collection of Good Housekeeping back issues. Stopping that fight was just retarded. And a strong case can be made for him shooting his stoppage wad in the Karo Parisyan fight, too. Anyway, I’m thinking Mazz the Mustache is either on goofballs so he wants love not war, or he had a side deal with J. Irvin. I’m certainly not one for conspiracies, but this is some bullshit.

The “Submission of the Night” kick went to Nate Diaz and that’s more than cool — especially since we suggested it. He had a solid comeback win over Kurt Pellegrino after taking a good thrashing, and his triangle choke in the second round wrapped up the $20k bonus in legendary fashion.

What do you say to that, Mazzagatti?

(Props MMAJunkie)

When Frank Shamrock starts off this video by saying he wants to “clear up all rumors,” we thought he was going to assure us that his fight against Cung Le was absolutely not a work. Well, he doesn’t do that, but apparently his wife hasn’t given birth yet. Good to know. The most notable part of the video is Frank’s claim that his arm was already broken in the second round, but the bones didn’t separate until the third. Sounds terrible no matter when it happened, and Frank has the fat cast to prove it. The song at the end is a strange choice, but whaddya gonna do, the guy’s 35 years old; his favorite TV show is probably still Friends.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

Nightmare of Battle passes along the news that Sengoku II — which is scheduled for May 18th at Tokyo’s Ariake Colosseum — will feature a bout between Kevin “The Monster” Randleman and “Big” Jim York. You may remember Randleman as the former UFC heavyweight champion who got a suplex-variation named after him in 2004 and went through a nasty bout of staph last year. York is a New Zealand-based vet of the MARS and Spartan Reality Fight clubs, who’s won all nine of his fights since getting choked out in his pro debut. By comparison, Randleman has only won two of his last nine fights (though they’ve been against much, much tougher competition than York’s).

The match joins already-booked bouts between Satoru Kitaoka and Ian Schaffa, as well as Eiji Mitsuoka vs. Kwang Hee Lee; Roger Gracie, Yoshihiro Nakao, Yuki Sasaki are still expected to compete, against fighters to be names later.

In other semi-interesting fighter news, Affliction’s nascent MMA promotion has picked up Mark Hominick for its debut card, slated for July in Texas. Hominick most recently competed as a featherweight for WEC, and has also fought for TKO and the UFC; his opponent hasn’t yet been named. Hominick’s manager Shawn Tompkins confirmed that Affliction is no longer doing business with Golden Boy Productions: “I heard there was a conflict between HDNet and HBO wanting the TV rights to the shows.”

Hey man, it’s like John Thor said — everybody wants a piece of the action.

Many of you wanted the underdog to pull this one out, but it’s hard not to be impressed by Kenny Florian, who faced another tough opponent last night and walked away without so much as a scratch. The match certainly lived up to the hype, with a wild first round and decisive finish. Unfortunately, Lauzon was completely lost under Florian’s mount, and did very little to control Florian’s body. The better fighter won; simple as that. Let’s hope the UFC grants Ken-Flo’s wish and gives him a fight with Huerta to decide the 155-pound division’s next lightweight title contender…

(Image search result for “f***ed up.”)

Who could have seen this coming? We’re getting just as sick of this as you are, but we’re here to report another change. It was ri-fuckin-diculous the first four or five times they lost fighters, then picked them up again, then lost them yet again. It’s now obvious Bob Meyrowitz and crew are putting together their own version of “The Producers” by creating a new MMA organization that is doomed to fail — on purpose. I almost don’t even have the strength, but here it goes:

Butterbean lost his opponent, Gary Goodridge (again), because GG got KTFO on March 30th. Now YAMMA Pit Fighting has announced Goodridge’s replacement via their myspace page. You’ll never guess who is replacing Big Daddy Goodridge.

YAMMA Pit Fighting has announced that Pat Smith will replace Gary Goodridge in the YAMMA Pit Fighting “Masters Superfight” against Eric “Butterbean” Esch in Atlantic City on April 11, 2008. Goodridge was forced to withdraw from the event after losing a fight in South Korea on March 30, 2008 in what has been determined a knockout. This rendered Goodridge ineligible to fight on April 11 by the New Jersey Athletic Commission, which requires 30 days of inactivity following a KO.

Yeah. That Pat Smith. The one who was supposed to fight Oleg Taktarov in the other “Masters Superfight” of the night, then was out due to his arrest, but who was resubmitted to fight Oleg when Maurice Smith ditched the fight. Mark Kerr is allegedly now taking on Oleg and Pat Smith is allegedly fighting Butterbean. As far as we know, the heavyweight tournament hasn’t changed since the last time we checked.

I can’t think of an event in history that defines “clusterfuck” like YAMMA. Next thing you know they’ll fire the ring bowl girls and hire ring dudes. Until then, if you want a sneak of the YAMMA Girls practicing the YAMMA YAMMA dance, go here.

On a side note, YAMMA has over 2700 friends on myspace so join up if you’re looking for a relationship, a friend, or just want to network.

Despite his best efforts to back out of their upcoming middleweight tournament due to leg injuries, DREAM insists that Kazushi Sakuraba will be participating in the April 29th event, and recently interviewed the Japanese MMA star about it. The result, as translated by SukiMMA, is hilarious:

DREAM announced that your participation in the middleweight GP officially. How’s the right leg?
My right leg? It’s healed. I don’t think I can fight in the tournament because my left leg is now injured.
…
Tell me why you don’t like the tournament?
I want to concentrate on my upcoming fight and put everything into the fight. I don’t want to worry about the next. I also have a problem with my legs.

Are you talking about your NEW injury on your left leg???
Yes. Look, swollen, right?

A bit though.
Look, one more time from the side! You know what, I have been telling not to fight in the tournament since I spoke in the ring in DREAM 1.

Yeah right, your injury was switched from the right to the left though.
My left was in a serious condition. I doubt if I’m ready for the tournament.
…
If you fight in DREAM 2, it was long time since you fought in Saitama Super Arena. Do you like fighting in Saitama?
Yes, Saitama! I’m not excited yet, however, I like there. It’ right across the highway exit. That’s what I like about the most. I felt awesome driving the highway which had no traffic every time. I got off and arrived in a second. I have had a miserable fight before. I was exhausted that day because of the traffic…That traffic congestion made me super tired….I guess I should take a train if I can get seated. I cannot fight if someone kicks my leg in a train!

I hope the traffic is not bad. Any message to your fans?
Thank you to your support. I will probably fight.

Man, these DREAM people don’t take no for an answer. But Kudos to Sakuraba for preparing his excuses in advance. And they’re plausible, too — if you’ve ever had to ride on a Tokyo subway, you’d know that getting kicked in the leg is the least of your worries…

We should be able to post more UFN 13 fight vids soon, but here’s a couple to tide you over. Check ‘em out quick before they’re pulled.

James Irvin vs. Houston Alexander (fight starts at the 2:02 mark)

Nate Diaz vs. Kurt Pellegrino (fight starts at 1:37; “look fuckers, no hands” choke starts at 9:44)

(Yep, Kenny finishes fights. Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly.)

It’s a shame that the UFC couldn’t squeeze a fourth hour out of SpikeTV for last night’s Fight Night broadcast, because the preliminary matches were just as action-packed and stoppage-heavy as the televised card. Some highlights:

— Clay Guida dominated Samy Schiavo, taking the Frenchman down in the middle of the opening round and ground-and-pounding him against the fence until the ref stepped in.
— Marcus Aurelio sent Ryan Roberts to the mat with a right hand directly following the bell, then quickly tapped him with an armbar; the submission victory took just 16 seconds. The win contributed to a 2-1 showing for American Top Team fighters last night, as Thiago Alves defeated Karo Parisyan, and Din Thomas dropped a unanimous decision to Josh Neer.
— Of the three Armenians competing last night, only Manny Gamburyan found a win, finishing Jeff Cox in the first round with a guillotine choke; Karo Parisyan and Roman Mitichyan both suffered second-round TKO losses.

Full results are below:

Main Card
Kenny Florian def. Joe Lauzon via TKO, 3:28 of round 2
Thiago Alves def. Karo Parisyan via TKO, 0:34 of round 2
Gray Maynard def. Frank Edgar via unanimous decision
Matt Hamill def. Tim Boetsch via TKO, 1:25 of round 2
Nate Diaz def. Kurt Pellegrino via submission (triangle choke), 3:06 of round 2
James Irvin def. Houston Alexander via TKO, 0:08 of round 1

Preliminary Card
Josh Neer def. Din Thomas via unanimous decision.
Marcus Aurelio def. Ryan Roberts via submission (armbar), 0:16 of round 1
Manny Gamburyan def. Jeff Cox via submission (guillotine), 1:41 of round 1
Clay Guida def. Samy Schiavo via TKO, 4:15 of round 1
George Sotiropoulos def. Roman Mitichyan via TKO, 2:24 of round 2
Anthony Johnson def. Tommy Speer via TKO, 0:51 of round 1

Some final thoughts…

(The coaches, sans shirts, for “TUF 7″.)

The season premiere of “The Ultimate Fighter 7″ kicked off after UFC Fight Night 13 rocked the shit. If you’re not drunk enough yet, hold on for a full rundown of what happened in the opening show of Team Forrest versus Team Jackson…

After a recap of the past seasons — peppered with Dana’s “you’re gone” speeches — we get underway.

Segment One
It took a few moments, but the 16 fighters standing around in the gym who think they are the official 16, were soon shown additional fighters. They all soon realized there were a bit more than 16 of them. Turns out, one or two of them can count and there are 32 fighters. Dana comes in and explains that he is tired of the “pussies and the posers” — hence the solution of having 32 fighters. “This season, you’re gonna’ fight your way onto the show,” says Baldy.

Rampage claims to have smelled the shit in the fighters’ pants after Dana’s speech. Meanwhile, Dana was being bleeped more than Ozzy Osbourne.

After some brief “confessional” interviews with some of the cast, the guys weigh-in after only 48 hours to make weight. I think I just saw my brother on the show, but he ran away years ago. Maybe I should call my Mom about that one…

For those keeping track, here are the fighters fighting to get on the show: Paul Bradley, Steve Byrnes, Mike Dolce, Gerald Harris, Dante Rivera, David Baggett, Matt Brown, Erik Charles, John Clarke, Daniel Cramer, Tim Credeur, Clarence Dollaway, John Hall, Nick Klein, David Mewborn, Mike Marrello, Jeremy May, Prince LaDonas Mclean, Aaron Meisner, Reggie Orr, Matthew Riddle, Jeremiah Riggs, David Roberts, Nick Rossborough, Amir Sadollah, Patrick Schultz, Brandon Sene, Dan Simmler, Jesse Taylor, Cale Yarbrough, John Wood, and Luke Zachrich.

Burger King has it their way and sponsors the first elimination fight. It pits Prince McLean (4-5) against Mike Dolce (4-4). Just a couple of sweet kids trying to make their way.

Segment Two
The fight kicks off and Prince — after having earlier mentioned he has been on a losing streak — takes a shot and they hit the ground. Rampage mumbles something about liking Prince, just before he gets taken out via TKO by Dolce. He seems to be okay until the fucking waterworks start. We’re not even officially on the show yet and we have crybaby tears. The sad music tugs at my hearts strings. Not really.

Fight Two is Cal Yarbrough (0-0) against John Clarke (6-2). Seems Cal is kinda’ pals with Forrest Griffin — although Forrest isn’t bettin’ on him. However, his opponent had to drop 17 big L.B.s to make weight. He also says he’s getting too old to keep doing this — fighting in Boston pubs and stuff like that at his age. Um…no comment about the town that lives for St. Patty’s and knocking out teeth for fun.

Segment Three
The fight is on and Clarke scores, prompting Forrest to say it’s “garbage.” Some punishment by Clarke has Yarbrough rolling around and almost getting nailed by a kimura. Some back-of-the-head warnings are given to Clarke — thanks to an audience of back seat refs. They go to their feet for a bit, but it hits the mat again almost as quickly. Clarke almost pulls an armbar, but Cal slips it and almost gets caught in a g’tine. Somehow, the thing gets upright again but it looks like Clarke is whipped — funny how dropping 17 pounds in 48 hours will do that to you. Cal tosses some shitty throws and it’s called due to Clarke being gassed. Clarke really could have won the thing had he been in the shape he needed to be in. Now we should cue the sad music.

No “seeya” for Clarke, but he was probably too tired to do that, too. The next elimination fight sees Steve Byrnes (6-1) against Amir Sadollah (0-0).

Case of beer? Check. Piss bucket? Check. Well then, we’re ready to roll! Click the “more” link and refresh the page every few minutes to get the latest updates from the “Bloodbath in Broomfield” (a.k.a. UFN 13).

(Frank Mir poses in front of the world’s ugliest ring girls.)

Some UFC-related notes as we build up to tonight’s four-hour block of awesomeness…

— Josh Koscheck, who recently signed a new multi-fight contract with the UFC, confirmed yesterday that he will be facing Chris Lytle at UFC 86 (July 5th, Las Vegas). “Lights Out” Lytle (25-15-5, 4-7 UFC) has lost to a who’s who of welterweight stars during his time in the Octagon — Matt Hughes, Matt Serra, Robbie Lawler, and Karo Parisyan among them — but may be on the comeback trail after beating the dogshit out of Kyle Bradley at UFC 81.

— Frank Mir and Justin McCully have also been booked for a bout at UFC 86. With the heavyweight class as thin as it is right now, we wouldn’t put it past the UFC to offer Mir an immediate title shot depending on his performance in July; his disposal of Brock Lesnar at “Breaking Point” proved that he could still be a viable contender. McCully won a decision against Antoni Hardonk during his UFC debut last April, and has won his last four fights overall, but the matchup still feels like it’s intended to be a tuneup for the former champion.

— Xyience Inc. was sold yesterday to Manchester Consolidated Corp. for $15 million. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal:

The sale price will cover only part of the secured debt at Xyience, debtor attorney Laurel Davis said after the hearing. As a result, unsecured creditors and stockholders in Xyience will recover none of their money, she said…

Manchester, which submitted the only approved bid, will pay $200,000 in cash and will assume $14.8 million in debt…

Separately, unsecured creditors on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal court, saying the judge should take $14.8 million in assets from the Fertittas for the benefit of Xyience creditors.

In related news, that hot brunette from the Xyience commercials has been spotted wearing a barrel held up by suspenders. Okay, not really, but it’s an amusing image!

(We may never get to witness this historic matchup.)

When we first reported that Gary Goodridge wouldn’t be able to fight Eric Esch at YAMMA 1 because he was focusing on his MFC fight against Eric Pele next month, his crew came out in full force to correct us; Big Daddy was up for it, and was ready to “KICK SOME UGLY ASS.”

Well, we had no idea that Goodridge had another fight booked to go down just two weeks before his scheduled appearance in YAMMA’s Death Bowl. Apparently, he fought Mu Bae Choi in Seoul last Sunday and was knocked out in the second round. (Video can be seen here.) Subsequently, the New Jersey Athletic Control Board informed FiveOuncesOfPain that Goodridge would not be approved for his YAMMA fight due to health and safety concerns.

And it gets better: Yesterday we passed along YAMMA’s official announcement that Mark Kerr will be filling in for Don Frye Patrick Smith against Oleg Taktarov in one of the event’s “Masters Superfights,” but the Kerr/Taktarov match hasn’t been approved either due to Kerr’s previous suspension in the state of Connecticut.

So, unless Bob Meyrowitz can successfully bribe the NJACB to allow Goodridge to fight on April 11th, both of YAMMA’s headlining superfights are now in limbo. Our suggestion to Bob Meyrowitz? Save yourself the headaches and do what Strikeforce did — make the two guys who lost their opponents fight each other. Butterbean vs. Oleg Taktarov isn’t a bad main event, in a county fair sort of way. Or, let Oleg slice his way through the eight-man heavyweight tournament and pull up Ricco Rodriguez to battle Butterbean in New Jersey’s own version of the Megaton. Look, your fighting surface is a freakin’ bowl — don’t act like your credibility is at risk.

(GIS result for “props.”)

If you checked out CagePotato yesterday, you may have thought to yourself “Why does it seem like a legitimately talented professional writer has started doing these posts?” Well, there’s a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with wacky April Fool’s Day shenanigans. Truth is, I was moving to a new apartment across the East River, and was without a dependable Internet connect until just now. Gracefully, our friend Ben Fowlkes stepped up to help with a few posts, and I just wanted to give him some public recognition. So thanks, Ben. If you were otherwise occupied yesterday, here’s some of the stuff that you missed:

Exclusive Interview: Ben Rothwell Talks Adrenaline MMA and More

Bob Sapp Mentioned In Connection With BALCO Steroid Case. Get Your Surprised Face On.

In other news, UFC Fight Night 13 kicks off at 7 p.m. tonight on SpikeTV, and I’ll be putting up some live results and commentary during the show. I don’t know if it’ll be a full-blown liveblog at this point — it’s on free TV, after all — but it’ll be something, so come by and share your thoughts with the most loving and welcoming MMA community on the web.

We now return you to your usual level of amateurism…

(Glass Jaws = Quick KO’s)

It doesn’t appear to be a rumor anymore. The May 31st KO victim for Kimbo Slice will be — God help us — James “The Colossus” Thompson and his glass jaw. The fight will be the main event for the first CBS/EliteXC Saturday Night Fights show, which is set to go down in Newark, NJ. All this comes from “Carson’s Corner”, an MMA radio show hosted by Bob Carson. The show’s team claims to have received confirmation from higher ups at ProElite, though their names were not given.

Ken Shamrock was once mentioned as an opponent for Kimbo, but at Ken’s current level of, um, ability, would that have been any better? Ken would have wanted to take it to the mat, but if Robert Berry doesn’t let that happen, Kimbo certainly doesn’t. So with Thompson looking like a sure thing, Kimbo’s ground game will still be called into question even after the fight because “Colossus” isn’t exactly known for much on the ground other than falling hard to it after being KTFO.

Just to be fair, let’s try and make a case for Thompson. The fighter is 14-8 overall. He was 6-1 when he went over to PRIDE and lost immediately against Aleksander Emelianenko. He then bounced around between PRIDE and other organizations, amassing a 12-2 record by the turn of 2006. Then things got ugly. A May 2006 fight against Kazuyuki Fujita ended in a loss that would send Thompson on a 2-6 skid with 5 of those losses coming via TKO or KO. His last two fights — both losses — ended in him going to sleep thanks to Neil Grove (in 10 seconds) and Brett Rogers.

(Suck it up! You just made $300k!)

The numbers are in for the Cung Le/Frank Shamrock-led Strikeforce/EliteXC event from this past Saturday. The 411 on the payroll for the fighters comes from the California State Athletic Commission and as expected, the main eventers took home the lion’s share. It was a night where the HP Pavilion in San Jose pulled in 15,192 at the gate — with 14,710 of those paying — for a solid total of $1,117,855 in tixs. Half a mil of that went to Cung ($200k) and Frank ($300k), which amounted to about 3/4 of the overall fight purse of almost $668k.

The amounts:

– Cung Le ($200,000) over Frank Shamrock ($300,000)
– Drew Fickett ($10,000) over Jae S. Lim ($3,000)
– Gilbert Melendez ($50,000) over Gabe Lemley ($7,000)
– Wayne Cole ($10,000) over Mike Kyle ($10,000)
– Joey Villasenor ($36,000) over Ryan Jensen ($6,000)
– Billy Evangelista ($10,000) over Marlon Sims ($2,500)
– Tiki Ghosn ($8,000) over Luke Stewart ($6,000)
– Darren Uyenoyama ($4,000) over Anthony Figueroa ($2,000)
– Jesse Jones ($2,150) over Jesse Gillespie ($1,200)

Bonuses for wins went like this:

– Drew Fickett ($5,000)
– Wayne Cole ($5,000)
– Joey Villasenor ($18,000)
– Billy Evangelista ($5,000)
– Tiki Ghosn ($2,000)
– Darren Uyenoyama ($2,000)
– Jesse Jones ($500)

(Coming to a trailer park near you)

Keith Jardine is working under a sponsorship deal with new friend of the Octagon Harley-Davidson, and we could not imagine a more appropriate choice. I mean, look at him. His goatee alone should qualify him, plus he’s from Butte, Montana.

We’re guessing that the people from Harley decided to sponsor him without any further information. The fact that he can fight, it’s just a plus.

Jardine is also starting up a new web site (coming soon), where he plans to sell gear more attuned to the sensibilities of Jardine fans. Like belt buckles that say “Mean” on them. You pumped up yet? We are.

If you’re still not buying this as a great way to spread the appeal of MMA to another demographic, then check out Jardine’s Bike Week video. Jess from Rock of Love with Bret Michaels is there, so you know it’s a good time. She’s the chick who beat out the other skanks to win the first season of the show. Which makes her a success?

Whatever. It’s all good at Bike Week, baby.