(The New York Badass struts into the abyss.)

Some visual highlights from my visit to the Prudential Center. Click photos for larger versions; hold cursor over photos for identifications. All images courtesy of BG/CagePotato.com, and may be reproduced with credit.

(Kimbo denies that he tapped during his fight with James Thompson.)

(Kimbo on Thompson’s horrific cauliflower ear.)

(Kimbo’s succinct evaluation of his ground-fighting ability.)

Hey all; just got back from Newark, and boy is my t-shirt sweaty. Lots to talk about, of course, but I first wanted to share this highlight from the post-event press conference. As the fighters trickled in one-by-one, each was given some time to address the press before questions were directed at the group. Brett Rogers used his mic time to savage Kimbo Slice’s performance. “I’m a real heavyweight,” he said, “and that was some garbage-ass shit.” Regarding James Thompson, Rogers said “I didn’t know you could win three times in the same night and still lose.”

When Kimbo finally arrived, entourage in tow, Rogers was prompted to get back on the mic and repeat what he said while Kimbo was within earshot. No punk, Rogers complied. The above video — taken with my garbage-ass Canon PowerShot — is what happened next. Not sure how much of this is manufactured hype, or a calculated attention-grab by Rogers, but we think Kimbo just found his next opponent.

(Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

Your long wait for MMA on network television has finally ended. It’s not pay-per-view, it’s not YouTube, it’s CBS, bitches. My fellow MMAholics, we done came up. Settle in, grab yourself a cold one, and prepare for your world to be changed forever — and that’s just the Busta Rhymes performance!

Click more to get your liveblog on. Refresh every few minutes for the latest witty remarks and harmful generalizations. Hit up the forums to share your precious opinion with the rest of the Potato Nation.

Kimbo Slice on Inside MMA – Watch more free videos

Elite XC’s Jared Shaw (son of Gary), Kimbo Slice, and announcer Frank Shamrock showed up on HDNet’s ‘Inside MMA‘ to discuss tonight’s event with Bas Rutten and Kenny Rice. If you were expecting hard-hitting interviews or a Hardball-style journalistic gauntlet, prepare to be disappointed. Basically, it’s Kimbo’s trainer (Bas) giving air time to Elite XC while they make their case for this first CBS show.

Much of the highlights come from Jared Shaw, who calls Robbie Lawler “arguably, possibly the best 185-pounder in the world, aside from Anderson Silva.” Not only is that statement dubious to begin with, but what’s the point of calling someone the best in the world if you have to follow it with ‘except for this other guy who is obviously better’? Shaw goes on to try and hype the winner of the Brett Rogers-Jon Murphy as the newest entry into the “Kimbo sweepstakes.”

Sure, he says that now, but we all know that the only people who ever win those sweepstakes are old ladies in Florida. Check back later tonight for our Elite XC liveblog and get more comedic gems like that one, free of charge.

…and you see a guy wearing this shirt, that’s me.

Yeah I make iron-on t-shirts as a hobby, what.

(BG)

(Come on Dad, just once can’t we have a pleasant Saturday night where you don’t show your flaming Nazi tattoo and then pass out with a cigarette in your mouth? I invited people over!)

Hey Potato Nation. So, maybe you’ve heard that the big Elite XC on CBS show is tomorrow night. Does that sound familiar? Seems like we’ve mentioned it a time or two, I don’t know. The good news is, you don’t have to wait like all the rest of the network TV-loving suckers to get your fight fix tomorrow. CBS Sportsline will be streaming the undercard bouts live from 7-9 pm EST tomorrow night, and when the action hits the national airwaves you can count on Cage Potato to get our liveblog on.

It’s a great way to get all the sarcastic, snarky commentary that you’ve come to expect, only in real time! It’s like you’re sitting next to us on the couch during the event, only this way you don’t have to politely ask us to put our shirts back on and stop yelling. Good thing too, because we wouldn’t do it anyway.

Stop by Saturday night and check it out. As always, we can have ourselves some completely incoherent disagreements over every petty little thing in the comments section and the forums. Looking forward to it.

(Yeah, that’s a Confederate flag on his shirt. What? Too soon?)

You may recall that we speculated about a potential match between IFL heavyweight champ Roy “Big Country” Nelson and Elite XC’s Kimbo Slice not so long ago. Apparently we’re smarter than even we realized, because IFL CEO Jay Larkin is telling Five Ounces of Pain that it’s a very real possibility:

“If Kimbo wins, we’ll make that match (Nelson vs. Slice) without hesitation,” said Larkin. “We”ll do in on an IFL card or an Elite card — we don’t care. Promotions working together is the only way for this business to grow.”

Two things in response to this: 1) promotions working together is the best (though not only) way for them to gain ground against the UFC, so Larkin has a point there, and 2) the IFL obviously has way more to gain from this fight than Elite XC does, so don’t be surprised if it never happens.

Right now Elite XC has a network deal, some big name fighters, and enough hype to choke a horse. The IFL has a six-sided ring. You tell me whose prospects are brighter. When you consider that Roy Nelson is not only a major threat to actually beat Kimbo, but also relatively unknown and far less marketable to mainstream fans, you have to wonder what the upside would be for Elite XC.

It’s also telling that Jay Larkin is the one talking up this fight, while Gary Shaw is concentrating on blowing people’s minds with MMA’s Tiger Woods this weekend. That’s Kimbo, just in case you haven’t been keeping up. One can only imagine what Shaw will liken him to if he wins tomorrow. MMA’s Alexander the Great? Seems appropriate.

(Hey, she could be a lightweight and we’d still love her. Welterweight would be pushing it. Photo taken by Esther Lin for EliteXC; props to Fightlinker.)

Weigh-ins for tomorrow’s EliteXC “Saturday Night Fights” event were held today in Newark, and all fighters weighed-in successfully — meaning that all fighters succeeded in finding the scale and stepping on it. If you’re wondering whether all fighters came in at their assigned weight limits, well, that’s another story.

In what’s now a recurring theme in her career, Gina Carano missed her 140-pound limit by a wide margin, hitting the scale at 144.5, which is about what Urijah Faber and Jens Pulver will weigh when they check in for Sunday’s WEC show. As MMAMania reports:

Normally, she would have one hour to lose 3.5 pounds; however, MMAmania.com learned from Nick Lembo, the New Jersey Athletic Control Board (NJACB) Deputy Attorney, that the regulatory body didn’t want her to cut any more weight at that time.

Therefore, prior to the official weigh-ins, a deal was struck between the Carano and Young camps that the fight would go on and “Conviction” would surrender a 12.5 percent purse penalty.

An embarrassing moment for Carano, to be sure. But on the bright side, Kaitlin Young will probably be able to afford that Jeep Wrangler now. The full weigh-in results are as follows:

Kimbo Slice (235.5) vs. James Thompson (257)
Robbie Lawler (184.5) vs. Scott Smith (184.5)
Joey Villasenor (184.5) vs. Phil Baroni (185)
Gina Carano (144.5) vs. Kaitlin Young (140.5)
Brett Rogers (263.5) vs. Jon Murphy (260.5)
Carlos Moreno (261) vs. Carlton Haselrig (263)
Chris Liguori (161) vs. Jim Bova (160.5)
Nick Serra (167) vs. Matt Makowski (171)
Wilson Reis (140.5) vs. Justin Robbins (140.5)
James Jones (154.5) vs. Calvin Kattar (155.5)
Zach Makovsky (135) vs. Andre Soares (134)
Mike Groves (154) vs. Joe Sampieri (155)

UPDATE: Kaitlin Young is ripped. Photo comparison after the jump.

Sure, it’s a hacky concept that you’ve probably seen before on an MMA forum, but we haven’t weighed in on it yet. Plus, Fighthype recently put together a list on the same theme that really sent us over the edge. (Lyoto Machida and Evan Tanner made their list, among other jacked and crazy-looking sonsabitches.) So without further ado, here are the fighters we wouldn’t mind coming across in a dark alley. Keep in mind that placement on this list is no judgment on their abilities as fighters, just on the fact that they look better suited to customer service or fast food restaurant management than cage fighting. Happy Friday.

***

9. Luke Cummo

8. Emmanuel Yarborough

7. Fedor Emelianenko and Wanderlei Silva (only when in drag)

(BG)
(BF)

Remember when you were a kid and your parents would argue and it was really loud and you got scared so you went to hide under the bed and cry until it was over? This is kind of like that. Except instead of your parents it’s Ben Goldstein and Ben Fowlkes, the two editors of Cage Potato, and we actually care about you. We’re still not coming to your Little League games, though.

Could James Thompson rain on the Kimbo Slice hype parade? If so, what then?

Fowlkes: Look, we all know Elite XC didn’t make this fight because they want to be in the James Thompson business. They brought him in because he’s knockout fodder, and also because he’s big and scary looking and to the average sports fan he seems like a monster. Kimbo beats him, then they sell Kimbo as a monster slayer. That’s their plan, no doubt about it.

That said, a guy like Thompson should never be completely counted out. He hasn’t looked good lately. This much is true. But when you’re 6’5″, and hovering in the 265 region, you’re never more than one good punch or knee away from victory. Even so, I have hard time imagining him winning this. His flash chin, his reliance on aggression over technique, that spells trouble.

If he were to win, well, Gary Shaw would cry. That’s the first thing that would happen. Then Elite XC would immediately begin hyping a lukewarm rematch. Basically, they’d lose a lot of steam. Almost all their steam, to the point where their steam levels would be dangerously low. Which is why Shaw will do anything short of leaping into the cage himself to stop it from happening.

Goldstein: It’s kind of a moot point considering there’s absolutely no way in hell that the Colossus will win this fight. MMA pundits talk about Thompson’s need to take the action to the ground against Kimbo — but since when was Thompson ever skilled on the ground? Just because Slice is a novice in MMA, it’s automatically assumed that Thompson’s jiu-jitsu is far superior? His brief stint at Xtreme Couture gave us hope that he’d be rounding out his game, but now he’s back in his comfort zone, working out at an outfit with the sadly appropriate name “London Street Fighters.”

(Shaw gazes upon the wonder that is Kimbo.)

Apparently it’s not enough to make the erroneous Kimbo Slice-Mike Tyson comparison anymore. With Elite XC’s big event just a day away, Live Events President Gary Shaw is kicking it up a notch. Now Kimbo isn’t just the Mike Tyson of MMA, he’s the Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, too. Shaw made the case at yesterday’s final presser in New York City:

“The first time I introduced Kimbo, I was introducing him as a YouTube sensation with over 10 million hits. I knew he was a star then. I knew he could be a superstar. There are great basketball players, but nothing like Michael Jordan. There are great golfers, but nothing like Tiger Woods. Every once in a while there is someone who crosses over that line to a superstar. You just know.

“When Mike Tyson walked in, the place erupted. When someone else walked in there were only a few claps. Well, Kimbo Slice is a superstar. He is probably the most recognizable name in all of MMA. On May 31, when he gets in the cage, he will be the single most known face of MMA.

“(UFC’s) Dana White will be at home watching us on CBS. When he rips Kimbo Slice, it only proves he is an idiot. When he says that BJ Penn is the best fighter in the whole family and can knock out Kimbo Slice, the DEA should raid his home. I know BJ Penn would never say that and is probably embarrassed. Although BJ Penn is the best fighter in the family, he’s not the smartest Penn (JD, his brother, is an executive at EliteXC).

…

“Kimbo has a complex side to him as well. He is intelligent. He is well-read, well-versed. He is street through and through. He has not forgotten where he came from. On the bus ride over here, he told me he bought two 26-inch TVs and is going to give them to someone needy in the work area in Newark. He wants to leave Newark with a positive impression. It not only says something about Kimbo but the MMA family. I am telling you, Kimbo Slice is real.”

That’s got to be the first time the statement, “He is well-read,” was followed by, “He is street, through and through.” Shaw went on to reveal that Kimbo will use his fight purse to adopt and care for a bunch of cute, furry animals, and then will return to his homemade laboratory to find a cure for cancer before being named Poet Laureate of the United States — so fuck you, Charles Simic.

(Urijah Faber: Never a dull moment.)

Though EliteXC’s CBS show is grabbing most of the attention for this weekend, WEC is putting on its biggest event to date on Sunday at Sacramento’s ARCO Arena, headlined by the monumental featherweight championship match between Urijah Faber and Jens Pulver, and also featuring Miguel Torres, “Razor” Rob McCullough, Jeff Curran, Chase Beebe, and Charlie Valencia. If you get Versus, you can watch the action live starting at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT. — and judging from recent WEC shows, missing it wouldn’t be in your best interest. Let’s take a look at the four main card fights…

Urijah Faber [champion] vs. Jens Pulver (featherweight title fight)
Don’t let his beautiful anaconda choke of Cub Swanson at WEC 31 fool you — Jens Pulver is still a stand-up banger, and his greatest advantage over the California Kid is his dynamite-loaded striking. Faber will probably try to trade shots for a while, but he’ll eventually employ his superior wrestling to get the fight to the mat and look for a submission or ground-and-pound TKO. If Faber can neutralize Pulver’s boxing and avoid getting caught early, the hometown boy’s relentless aggression and inventiveness will win the day. Prediction: Faber via 3rd-round submission.

Miguel Torres [champion] vs. Yoshiro Maeda (bantamweight title fight)
Miguel Torres owns one of the most impressive records in MMA (33-1, 21 wins via submission), but he didn’t start getting name-checked as one of the best fighters in the world until he tore through Chase Beebe in February to win WEC’s bantamweight title. Torres has never been stopped, and he avenged his sole loss to Ryan Ackerman in 2003 by submitting him two years later. Known more as a striker, Maeda is a seasoned veteran of Pancrase and DEEP, and made his impressive U.S. debut at WEC 32 when he delivered a knockout body-kick to Charlie Valencia midway through the first round. It’ll be a tough test for Torres, but he’s looked incredibly impressive in his last few matches, and he’s got enough momentum to defend his belt. Prediction: Torres extends his streak of five-straight submission victories to six, and does it in the second round.

(Yeah, you should probably get that looked at.)

The Nevada State Athletic Commission announced that six fighters have received medical suspensions related to their losses at UFC 84. They are…

Sean Sherk: Suspended until July 7th, with no contact until June 24th (laceration on right cheek)

Keith Jardine: Suspended until November 21st, with no contact until July 9th, but could be cleared by a doctor to compete as early as July 24th (nasal fracture)

Tito Ortiz: Suspended for six months or until clearance by a doctor (injured left hand and wrist)

Wilson Gouveia: Suspended for six months or until clearance by a doctor (broken nose and ribs)

Kazuhiro Nakamura: Suspended for six months or until clearance by a doctor (broken nose)

Jason Tan: Suspended for six months or until clearance by a doctor (broken nose)

Update from MMAMania:

Goran Reljic — The Croatian is suspended until June 24 and there is no contact allowed until June 15.
Antonio Mendes — The Brazilian is suspended until June 24.
Terry Etim — The British lightweight is suspended until June 24 and there is no contact allowed until June 15 because of a right cheek laceration.
Christian Wellisch — “The Hungarian Nightmare” is suspended until June 8 and there’s no contact allowed until June 1.

After the jump: The third episode of ESPN’s “MMA Live,” where Jon, Kenny, and Franklin run down Kimbo Slice’s controversial main event status, UFC 84′s results, Sunday’s WEC show, and the matchup between Fedor Emelianenko and Tim Sylvia; plus, Bas Rutten demonstrates another nasty neck-crank.

(That’s the hype pie right there. It tastes like cherries and forgotten dreams.)

It’s not easy to get your share of the spotlight when you’re fighting on the same card as Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano. Maybe that’s why Phil Baroni and Joey Villasenor decided to turn up the heat in a recent conference call. The hell of it is, it might even work if they keep after each other like this:

Question: Joey, do you think you have the advantage in overall technique?

Villasenor: I think my overall game is improving daily. I have power with movement. It’s about executing. Overall, we all know that Baroni has stand?up power, but I’m going to try to expose him with my movement. So, it’s just all about executing.

Baroni: Basically to sum it up, Villasenor is going to run. He basically just said that he (will) bring his track shoes and chase me. He’s going to run. It doesn’t matter because in the cage you can run, but you can’t hide. I’m going to find you, I’m going to hit and everyone’s going to think about you.

Oh, Baroni. We can always count on you to make statements that are at once inflammatory and also kind of unclear. For instance, first saying Villasenor will run and then saying he will chase you. I’m no physics expert, but if Villasenor is chasing wouldn’t that mean Baroni would be the one running?

And what does he mean when he says that he’s going to hit and everyone will “think about” Villasenor? Does he mean people will feel bad for him? Or does he mean that people will really think about him in an existential sense? Or does even Baroni have no idea what he meant? I don’t know, but fortunately they didn’t end on that cliffhanger.

(“The African Assassin” in a quiet moment of shirtless reflection.)

In case you missed it, Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou had a brief, but memorable message for Mauricio “Shogun” Rua following his victory over Kazuhiro Nakamura at UFC 84. All right, it wasn’t much of a message. He basically just said “Shogun”, and left it at that, but something tells me he wasn’t referencing the James Clavell novel. These remarks only confirm my suspicion:

“I would love to fight that guy. I’ve tried to fight him ever since I fought in Pride and he’s been ducking me. Shogun has been ducking me since the Pride days. Shogun’s camp told me that to fight him, I had to fight [Evangelista] Cyborg [Santos] first. I told them I want to fight Shogun, not Cyborg, and then Pride went away and now he’s in the UFC and he hasn’t fought for a minute. I know he got injured for his last fight, but I think by the time I’m ready to fight again hopefully he should be ready and will take the fight.”

Well, now he’s gone and done it. It was one thing to subtly call out “Shogun” on the UFC broadcast, but if the storied history of Chute Boxe in Pride has taught us anything it’s that accusing a Brazilian of ducking you is the quickest way to send him into a murderous rage. Who knows, it might just the motivation that the oft-injured Rua needs to get back in the Octagon. No way can he let this slide.

Just a little something to whet your appetites for Saturday. James Thompson has suffered some quick and embarrassing knockouts in his career, but this freak bout against Eric Esch at Cage Rage 20 in February 2007 was maybe the most humiliating. The announcers warn Thompson of “Buh’ah’bane”‘s infamous overhand right — but alas, poor James cannot hear them, and he’s out seconds later.

More video awesomeness after the jump…

(Oh my God that looks fun!)

Despite being offered a four-fight contract extension before his bout with Lyoto Machida last Saturday, and despite his vague statements during the post-fight interview, Tito Ortiz confirmed last night that he’s absolutely not coming back to fight in the UFC. “Me going to somewhere else is 100% happening,” Ortiz said, like some sort of caveman, or Indian chief, or Yoda. “The way [Dana White] treats me, I can’t continue on with them. He’s a monster and I’m going to go elsewhere where they respect me.”

Ortiz will now begin a three-week tour in support of his autobiography This Is Gonna Hurt, and will then go about deciding where to fight next. He hopes to compete again this fall, and according to MMAWeekly, he’s considered starting his own MMA organization.

In other UFC news you can use…

— The Ultimate Fighter 7‘s resident psycho Matt Brown (6-6), who was out-hustled by Amir Sadollah on last night’s episode, will be taking on TUF 6 castmember Matt “No Regard” Arroyo (3-1) in a welterweight match at the TUF 7 Finale (June 21st; Las Vegas, NV). Brown and Arroyo previously met at an RFC event in November 2006, where Brown won by TKO. At this point, Brown is only the fifth TUF 7 fighter expected to have a spot on the finale card, in addition to the show’s two finalists, and an all-but-confirmed match between Matthew Riddle and Dante Rivera.

(Oddsmakers say, don’t blink.)

If betting odds are any indication of how a fight will go, then the question in the Kimbo Slice-James Thompson bout this weekend isn’t so much what will happen but rather how long it will take. Of course, you can also bet on those other guys/girls who happen to be fighting, but it doesn’t look nearly as fun. Let’s take a look at the odds, shall we?

Kimbo Slice (-600) vs. James Thompson (+400)

For those of you not experienced in gambling away your money on MMA fights, the above line means that you’d have to bet $600 on Slice to win $100 (assuming he’s victorious). On the flipside, a $100 bet on Thompson would net you $400 if he won. If you’re interested in stimulating the off-shore economy, you go ahead and make that Thompson bet.

Those lines confirm what we already know: Kimbo is a heavy favorite. Perhaps suspecting that action on this fight might be lean, Bodoglife has provided some other options.

(Whoo-ha, bitches. Whoo-ha indeed.)

This morning I woke up, drank my coffee, checked my email, and became suddenly concerned that perhaps I’d wandered into a time warp. Was it 1996? Had I slipped through some tear in the space-time fabric? If not, then how do you explain this email from Elite XC:

Multi-platinum rap music star Busta Rhymes will bring his unique brand of hip-hip to the Prudential Center on May 31st at MMA’s (Mixed Martial Arts) first primetime television event on the CBS Television Network.

Performing the track “Don’t Touch Me (Throw Some Water On ‘Em)” from his upcoming Interscope Records release “Blessed,” Rhymes will set the stage for up-and-coming MMA heavyweight contender Brett Rogers’ bout against John Murphy at the milestone event, “CBS ELITEXC SATURDAY NIGHT FIGHTS.”

My first reaction was, are you shitting me? But as I read on it became clear that Elite XC was not, in fact, shitting me at all. Busta Bust will be in full effect on Saturday night.

The thing about fighters coming out to live music is it usually seems like a better idea than it actually is. Then again, if anyone can pull it off, it would have to be someone who is animated like, say, a Busta Rhymes.

Those of you who don’t care for the whole hip-hop/nightclub feel of earlier Elite XC promotions and were hoping that CBS might curtail some of that, you’re about to be disappointed. Then again, if you don’t like Busta I can only assume that you did not come of age in the nineties, otherwise you would have an irrational affection for him that you find yourself still unable to explain lo these many years later.

I guess you could call this CagePotato’s first original highlight reel. We rounded up the most insane TV commercials starring MMA fighters and stuffed them into a single video for your convenience and enjoyment. Some of them are beloved classics; some you’ve probably never seen before. Noticeably absent are the unauthorized Fedor Emelianenko honey-drink spot (because we’d like to avoid any rude letters from Fedor’s lawyers), and the Rich Franklin “Xyience Teacher” commercial (because it seems to have disappeared from the Internet). But if we’ve left out any other good ones, shoot us some links in the comments section. As Randy Couture might say, “Oh, you’re gonna like this.”

(Jesse Taylor pisses his shorts on national television.)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s ep, in which retard-strong (and retard-smart) Jesse Taylor pounded his way to victory, and Amir Sadollah and Matt Brown put on the best fight of the season.

***

By now everyone should know that Jesse Taylor is for real. He’s not the most exciting fighter in the world, but he’s solid and gets the job done. I can’t hate, because I respect winners and he’s also a Team Quest fighter so I was rooting for him. Dante just laid there and took a beating. He’s a veteran in the game and also a brown belt under Ricardo Almeida, so I assumed that he would catch Jesse, but Jesse just punched the [blank] out of him for two full rounds.

Now, let me get to the action! Matt Brown vs. Amir Sadollah was crazy. That’s a fight that people would pay money to watch. I think the first round could be given to Brown for the aggression and last second takedown. Amir seemed to pick up steam in the second round, took Matt down, punished him from the top, and eventually sunk in a triangle choke. I liked the fight because it wasn’t a sloppy slugfest. Brown has a great boxing background and Amir showed his Muay Thai and ground game with the strikes and sub finish. It’s crazy that the more you pressure him, he gets stronger and doesn’t fold — that’s the quality of a good fighter. I can say the same about Brown plus he was very humble in his loss and showed respect for his opponent.

(They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.)

It’s no secret that the UFC loves controlling stuff, especially if that stuff has to do with the media. The L.A. Times has apparently had enough of it. Their Las Vegas blog, The Movable Buffet (get it?), took issue with the UFC’s strict rules following UFC 84 this weekend:

One local journalist who covered Saturday’s Ultimate Fighting Championship card at MGM’s Grand Garden Arena wrote me an e-mail, offering this impression: “UFC attempts to be more controlling than other sports. UFC sounds like it’s trying to hem in media.”

…

We were discussing his experience as well as the credential application that UFC demanded that I sign to be approved to cover the fight. The application specified everything from the trivial, forbidding my wearing certain clothes, to the ridiculous, controlling where and when I was allowed to write about the event forever more. In explaining this bizarre credential application that most would call not an application but a contract, UFC events manager Diann Brizzolara wrote me: “We have the right to protect our brand and how coverage taken from our events is disseminated.” Actually, UFC does not have that right to control “how coverage taken…is disseminated” at all. This rather unique privilege in fact is what the credential application is trying to give them a back door claim to having.

When you hear these stories about the UFC’s obsession with control, it makes you wonder what they’re so afraid of. Is it a holdover from the dark days when the “human cockfighting” label nearly drove them into extinction? Or is it just that the UFC is leery of the media in general, despite the fact that they need the media in the same way every pro sports organization does: it’s free advertising.

(Gina pretends not to realize how hot she is.)

Over at Yahoo! Kevin Iole is doing his typical fighter fluff piece, extolling the virtues of Gina Carano and simultaneously forcing a storyline about her sister’s struggle with drug addiction into every possible inch of the article. Seems like someone really took to heart those journalism classes where they discussed ‘theme’.

Anyway, one of the more interesting moments comes when Carano expresses confusion at MMA fans and their preoccupation with her as a sex object:

“All the attention has helped me, but it’s also hurt me,” she said. “Sometimes, you get portrayed the way you don’t want to be portrayed. People start thinking about you a certain way. I’m like, ‘What’s everybody talking about with this sex appeal thing?’ I don’t get it. I’m not that way. I’m not that person and I’m never going to be that girl, because it’s not in me to get people’s attention sexually. But that’s what people are saying out there now.”

I have to ask myself a couple different questions when I read that. For starters, do I believe that Gina Carano doesn’t realize that she is very attractive for a woman in general, and extremely attractive for a successful female athlete? I do not. I’m pretty sure she knows by now. I’m also pretty sure she knows that it’s a big part of the reason she’s getting all these career opportunities outside of MMA while other female fighters toil in relative obscurity.

If my assumptions are correct, then I have to ask myself, why is she being so coy about it? If she realizes that the Maxim photo shoot and the tight American Gladiators outfit were designed to promote her as a sex object, why is she pretending to be surprised? The answer, I suspect, is that no matter how great the money and attention is, it probably gets really annoying to have everyone focus on only one thing about you, especially if that one thing is your looks.

(Carneiro and Chonan during a DEEP match in 2005, which ended in a controversial TKO loss for Carneiro due to a cut.)

Joe Silva’s hands have been full this week piling on fighters for UFC 87, and scrambling to replace them for UFC 85. First, the word on “Bedlam” (London, England; June 7th):

— Ryo Chonan has pulled out of his rematch with Roan Carneiro for unknown reasons. Replacing him will be Kevin “The Fire” Burns, a 4-1 UFC newcomer with possibly the cheesiest nickname we’ve ever heard. The UFC is doing Fire no favors by putting him against “Jucao,” who already boasts wins over Rich Clementi and Matt Horwich.

— Speaking of undercard bouts few people will care about, British fighter Neil Wain has broken his nose and won’t be able to face Antoni Hardonk. Filling in for him will be Eddie Sanchez, who has won his last two UFC matches against Soa Palelei and Colin Robinson, and will do his best to deal with fighting across the Atlantic Ocean on two weeks notice.

As for “Seek and Destroy” (August 9th; Minneapolis, MN):

— Frankie Edgar, who took his first career loss against Gray Maynard at UFC Fight Night 13, will be returning at UFC 87 against an opponent to be named later. With Sean Sherk indicating that he wants to be part of the first UFC card in his home state of Minnesota, an Edgar/Sherk bout isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

(“I’m not a little girl by any means.”)

The hordes of screaming Gina “Crush” Carano fans who tune into the premiere of CBS’s “Saturday Night Fights” this weekend to see EliteXC’s poster girl kick some ass might be in for a seriously rude awakening. Carano’s opponent for the co-featured bout is Kaitlin Young, a 21-year-old Minnesota Martial Arts Academy product who famously knocked out three women in a one-night HOOKnSHOOT tournament last November; the combined fight time was just one minute and 45 seconds. We gave Kaitlin a call last night to ask her about rolling with dudes, the advantages she’ll have in her fight against Carano, and her shitty ’91 Honda Accord.

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CAGEPOTATO: We recently posted the video of your “Caveman Training” at Athletic Performance Incorporated. Be honest — they took they engine out of that pickup truck you were pulling, right?
KAITLIN YOUNG: No, everything was as-is, just as it came from the factory. Honestly, it’s not as hard as it looks. The wheelbarrow is the real killer.

When did you know you wanted to be a competitive fighter?
It’s really all I ever wanted to do. I did Olympic-style Tae Kwon Do starting when I was 14, and I’ve enjoyed the fighting arts ever since then.

Are there enough women at Minnesota Martial Arts Academy to spar and roll with, or do you usually have to train with the guys?
There are a couple of other girls, but it’s mostly guys that I’m training with at this point. Greg Nelson and Tom Schmitz help me a lot. My boyfriend Ryan Murray is a big heavyweight pro Thai boxer, so he helps me with striking and pads, and some of the wrestlers from the University of Minnesota have been working with me too.

What else do you do when you’re not training for a fight?
This semester I was a full-time student at the University of Minnesota, studying kinesiology — exercise science, which kinda fits in — and I also do a bit of strength and conditioning coaching on the side at API.

You took your first pro loss in February, against Sara Schneider at a BodogFight event. What do you think went wrong?
She did a good job executing her game plan, so I don’t want to take anything away from her, but I think I made the mistake of following a good grappler to the ground when I’m a striker. I was winning pretty decisively on the feet, and I tried to pound her out and got caught in an armbar.

How do you think you’ll apply that lesson to Gina Carano? She comes from a Muay Thai background, but she’s at least serviceable on the ground.

Las Vegas Review Journal columnist Ed Graney took a swipe at Dana White last week in a column entitled “UFC head White: ‘The white Don King‘”. Dana White, as it turns out, did not care for that comparison. In an interview with Steve Cofield of ESPN Radio, White referred to Graney as a “moron”, and expressed his rage at the article thusly:

“Not only did he not compare me and Don King — because he couldn’t, okay, number one — but not only did he not compare us, he didn’t even interview me. He interviewed Tito, and then called me ‘the white Don King’. I live in Las Vegas. My kids go to school in this town. I grew up here. And you get one of these moron reporters who go out and write a half-assed story, this guy’s probably never even seen a fight in his life.”

White was subsequently informed that Graney has been to fights, and he is a columnist who writes opinion pieces. White then made it clear that his opinion was that Graney’s opinion “sucks.”

There are two things we should keep in mind here: 1) columnists don’t typically get to write their own headlines, so it’s slightly unfair to take him to task for a headline that makes a claim which isn’t really supported or even argued in the article, and 2) Graney invited that headline and that baseless comparison with one very dumb line that should have been cut entirely.

(You’re headed for a serious beatdown, democracy.)

You may recall that some weeks ago the UFC’s push to get MMA legalized in the state of New York involved an aggressive PR campaign and the help of lobbyists in the state capitol. Now it seems the UFC is pursuing that same strategy on a national level, enlisting the services of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck to help their cause in Washington D.C.:

Brownstein lobbyists don’t face any big fights on Capitol Hill. They say their mission is to let lawmakers know how far the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA), which combines karate, jiu-jitsu, boxing, kickboxing, wrestling and other forms of martial arts, has come.

“The sport that McCain objected to many years ago is really a sport that doesn’t exist anymore,” said Lawrence Epstein, general counsel for the UFC.”

“UFC is at the point where they are one of the fastest-growing sports leagues, and we want to make sure members of Congress are aware of the changes MMA has undergone,” said Makan Delrahim, a former top Justice Department official who is now a lobbyist at Brownstein Hyatt.

At first it seems odd to hire lobbyists just to make sure Congress is “aware of the changes”, and not to try and effect some type of change. After all, what’s the goal? If they aren’t trying to get a law passed or stop a law from being passed, why spend money on lobbyists? And then you read this:

Our friend and content partner Ariel Helwani at MMARated just put up a great interview with Forrest Griffin, where the Ultimate Fighter coach and light heavyweight contender reveals that he’s been eating a lot of french toast lately, popping tons of valium, he really doesn’t care about TUF, and he digs Nick Cave, but not enough to actually pay for his music.

The official UFC 85: Bedlam trailer clip, featuring Matt Hughes, Thiago Alves, Michael Bisping, Jason Day, Brandon Vera, Fabricio Werdum, Nate Marquardt, Thales Leites, Marcus Davis, and Mike Swick.

HDNet Fights’ 86-minute “Best of 2008″ video; props to MMAScraps.

And also? You’re going to want to click that “More” link…

The source for this one is a bit shaky, but Fightline is passing along news that Ben Rothwell will indeed be taking on Andrei Arlovski at Affliction: Banned (July 19th; Anaheim, CA) according to a Sherdog thread where Rothwell personally confirms it. As Rothwell writes:

I tried to never say if i was/was not fighting AA but most all the forum took it that way, sorry i guess.

anyway I’m excited to fight a top10 HW, so thanks for the support, peace

CagePotato reported this rumor two weeks ago, but there has been no official statement from the organization yet. Speaking of Arlovski, the Pitbull’s presence in an upcoming Adrenaline MMA meet-and-greet could suggest that he will fight for that outfit as well.

In other non-UFC news…

— HDNet has agreed to broadcast Adrenaline MMA’s first three fight cards. The first one is going down June 14th in Chicago (headlined by Jeff Monson vs. Mike Russow), and the second is slated for September 6th in Moline, Illinois, and will feature Tim Sylvia and Ben Rothwell; yep, just like the first Affliction show. Personally, we wouldn’t book Tim to fight less than two months after throwing down with Fedor Emelianenko, but hey, we’re not Monte Cox.