So, you’re not all that excited about seeing Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank Mir coach season eight of “The Ultimate Fighter”, you say? Think it’s going to be just another plodding season of the same crap over and over again? Well, hold on to your butts, MMA fans, because Big Nog is turning up the heat!

From a recent interview with Graciemag.com:

“The mood of rivalry between us is getting strong. We see each other here all the time, and I’ve known his game for awhile. Ever since he submitted Roberto Traven at the UFC, in 2001, he’s been known. But you’ll see: I’m going to be all over him standing, I’m better than him both standing and on the ground.

“In the fight with Sylvia the way to the win was clearly on the ground, but against Mir I’m going to show more of what I’m capable of to the world and my fans. I’ll always respect him as an adversary, of course. Even more so since he’s trained with Demian Maia and Robert Drysdale.”

Boo-yah! You hear that? The rivalry is getting strong! You know, still respectful and professional between both men who will each try and do their best as sportsmen, but a strong rivalry nonetheless! Take that, Ken and Tito. Now you’re all pumped up, right? Right? Guys?

(Props: MMA Mania)

(Da Spyder)

Two years ago Kendall Grove was on top of the world. He came through season three of “The Ultimate Fighter” and beat out Ed Herman in a climactic bout to win the finale and a UFC contract. Now Grove finds himself back on another “Ultimate Fighter Finale” card, but in a much different situation. Coming off two straight knockout losses, he’s fighting to prove he belongs in the UFC, as is his opponent, Evan Tanner.

In this exclusive Cage Potato interview, Grove opened up about what it means to fight for your job, and how he plans to pull himself out of the lowest point of his career and get back in the win column in a fight neither man can afford to lose.

CagePotato.com: Hey, Kendall. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. What have you been doing in training for this fight to prepare for Evan Tanner?

Kendall Grove: I moved back to Hawaii. I moved back to Maui, but I’ve been in Hilo working with BJ Penn. I’m just getting ready for a fight where anything can happen. Whatever happens, happens. I know he’s going to want to take me down so I’ve been working with some big wrestlers to get ready for that. I’m just ready for war.

Do you expect him to come in with a sense of desperation in this fight?

Yeah, I do. I think we’re in the same position that way. We both need to win. This is a do-or-die fight for both of us.

Does that mean you’re assuming that the loser of this fight will be cut from the UFC?

I think so. Nobody likes a loser. That’s just how it is. I think that makes for a great fight. We’re both fighting for our jobs, you know? When you’re fighting for your job you have to go out there and give it everything you have. That’s all you can do.

What’s it like fighting as the main event for an Ultimate Fighter Finale, fighting for your job, when just two years ago you were fighting as a contestant and it seemed like a high point in your career?

Yeah, it’s weird. I evolved there as a fighter. That’s where I was born into the UFC. I had my ups and suffered some downs since then. But it’s not like I was fighting punks. I was fighting tough guys and I had some tough losses. That’s why I’m in the fight game, to fight tough guys.

It was very nice two years ago to be fighting in the finale and it’s cool to see those guys coming out of it now, but I’m a different person now than I was then.

How are you a different person now? How is the Kendall Grove of today different than the guy who won TUF?

Richard at TheMMAPost passed along this video of a Pancrase fight between Alavutdin Gadzhiyev (who Ralek Gracie defeated via armbar at DREAM.4) and Hikaru Sato, which contains a finish that’s just about as rare as the Aokiplata — a knockout from underneath mount. Skip to 2:27 to get to the good stuff. Yeesh…glass jaw, much?

(Nate and Nick Diaz; July 4th, 1993)

Karl Noons, Sr. on the Diaz Brothers situation: “We were just enjoying the moment. I heard Nick in the left-hand corner trying to push into the interview and try to dis. I retorted back that, you know, that’s uncool and back and forth, and next thing I know [Nate Diaz] throws a bottle at me after throwing his middle fingers. And then pushing from them came and then I just chased him on the ring, hit him, and then I came back in and grabbed Nick. Bottom line is, major disrespect. [It was] the last thing I ever thought would happen, you know, after my son winning a great fight. Bottom line is, on record, those Diaz brothers are just punks from Stockton and they’ve got no respect. They’re just punks, and I hope we don’t see them out tonight.”

Nick Diaz, by way of rebuttal: “I was there to hype up the rematch when KJ’s dad tried to attack us. I think that when he’s that drunk he should stay at home and watch the fights from his couch.”

(Props: Fightline)

(Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith will have another chance to go at it next month.)

Dave Meltzer at Yahoo! Sports is reporting some early details on the next EliteXC/CBS “Saturday Night Fights” broadcast, which is slated for July 26th. Word is:

The company’s plan is to stage an event that would start at either 7:30 or 8 p.m. (ET) on Showtime — with either a 60- or 90-minute show that would feature three or four fights — leading into the 9-11 p.m. CBS show. The venue has not been finalized, although the Savvis Center in St. Louis is under consideration.

A middleweight title re-match between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith is already expected to headline the broadcast, while other likely bouts include Jake Shields vs. TBA (for EliteXC’s vacant welterweight title), Antonio Silva vs. TBA (possibly for EliteXC’s vacant heavyweight title), and matches featuring Shayna Baszler and Wilson Reis.

Particularly astute CagePotato readers might think “Jake Shields vs. TBA? Hasn’t he been trying to fight Drew Fickett for like a year?” And you’d be right. Except Fickett might be getting bounced from EliteXC for being an absolute moron.

I don’t believe in telling fighters they should retire. Not really. When fans and writers insist that a legend of the sport should give it up it always seems so hollow. What do we know about what someone like that should do with their lives?

But even I have to admit that Kazushi Sakuraba’s beating at the hands of Melvin Manhoef in Dream.4 this weekend was difficult to watch. I’ve always had a soft spot for Sakuraba. He embodied so many of the best fighter attributes. He was tough and resilient, and at the same time he was also crafty and dangerous. He always seemed like he was having fun, even on his worst nights.

That’s why it’s so hard to see him continue past his prime. He’s obviously not having fun these days. His efforts are joyless and perfunctory, like a man waiting on his pension. And yet, for some reason, he can’t seem to walk away.

I used to wonder what it was that made pro athletes hold on too long. Almost everyone does it. The difference is that a baseball player who’s too old and too slow gets sent to the minors. A basketball player who can’t keep up gets cut.

But with fighters it’s a different story. They either step down significantly in competition, or they start taking some bad beatings. Sakuraba has done both. The former may harm his legacy somewhat, but it’s nothing compared to what the latter will do to you.

(Someone’s excited by Rashad’s performance, and someone else is just very bored.)

The UFC has officially announced the previously-rumored Chuck Liddell-Rashad Evans bout for UFC 88 in Atlanta, Ga. on September 6. In an email blast sent out today they played up the fact that it will be the UFC’s first foray into Atlanta, which will no doubt be referred to as “Hot-lanta” by Mike Goldberg at least twice during the live broadcast of the event.

Call me crazy, but this main event sounds better and better. “The Iceman” may have slowed a step or two, but one thing he can still do is avoid a takedown and get right back up if you do manage to put him down.

If Evans can get Liddell to the mat and beat him there, it will be hard to ignore him in the light heavyweight picture. If he decides to stand and bang with Liddell and somehow manages to win that way, well, then either Liddell will have proven that he’s ready for retirement or the world as we know it will have changed forever. There’s a good chance the laws of gravity might even fail if that happens, so you might want to tie down some of your valuables, just in case.

- In other UFC news, Evan Tanner tells Thomas Gerbasi from UFC.com that he’s a poet or artist or something:

You know what you probably shouldn’t do when your opponent has you off your feet and headed for the mat? This.

Zelg Galesic broke Taiei Kin’s arm when he attempted to stop this takedown during their bout at Dream.4 this weekend. It’s one of the most embarrassing but still not uncommon injuries in all of MMA, sort of like breaking your wrist Rollerblading.

Something about these kinds of injuries makes me feel at once a little sick and also like I want to see it again and again. This one is especially ugly. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to recall a worse injury from someone trying to break their fall during a takedown.

Oh, right. Now I remember…

(Evan Tanner endorses Sprawl shorts, Bud Light, and shirtless prospecting all in one magical afternoon.)

MMA Mania has a look at what is the most current fight card for this weekend’s Ultimate Fighter Finale, and it’s interesting to note that it doesn’t include too many familiar faces from this season of TUF. If their report is correct, the event should look something like this:

Evan Tanner (32-7) vs. Kendall Grove (8-5)
TUF 7 Finalist #1 vs. TUF 7 Finalist #2
Diego Sanchez (18-2) vs. Luigi Fioravanti (12-3)
Josh Burkman (9-5) vs. Dustin Hazelett (10-4)
Spencer Fisher (20-4) vs. Jeremy Stephens (13-2)
Marvin Eastman (15-7-1) vs. Drew McFedries (6-3)
Dean Lister (10-5) vs. Jeremy Horn (79-17-5)
Matt Brown vs. Matt Arroyo
Dante Rivera vs. Matthew Riddle
Rob Yundt (6-1) vs. Rob Kimmons (20-3)

This isn’t necessarily the final fight card, and we should expect to see at least one more addition from the pool of TUF 7 fighters following Wednesday night’s completely insane shocking twist episode. But it still seems odd for the UFC to bring in so many of their regulars for a TUF Finale show.

Maybe some of the guys drank their way out of consideration after being eliminated, as Mike Dolce pointed out. Or maybe the UFC figured out that signing more fighters just because they were on a reality show isn’t conducive to their strategy of slimming down their overall roster.

Either way, a card like this — headlined by two guys who are as equally in need of a victory as Evan Tanner and Kendall Grove — might give the UFC plenty of opportunity to make more cuts once it’s over.

Why aren’t more people talking about how great this fight between Hideo Tokoro and Darren Uyenoyama was? Easily the fight of the night at Dream.4, these two showed us what great MMA really looks like. It’s just a shame that it seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle with all the action over the weekend.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

Former IFL fighter and Team Quest member Devin Cole was arrested for rape in Oregon over the weekend. Sherdog reports that Cole was picked up at 7:40 am on Saturday morning and charged with two counts of first-degree sexual penetration and two counts of first-degree sodomy and is being held on $5 million bail.

Needless to say, this is very bad news for the MMA community. The former All-American wrestler at Southern Oregon University left Team Quest recently and defeated Vince Lucero in the Palace Fighting Championships in May.

(Nick Diaz makes the most of the one comment allotted him by Bill Goldberg.)

Here’s what seems just a little disingenuous about this situation in Elite XC over the weekend: you don’t invite/allow Nick Diaz into the cage here if you don’t want trouble. If you truly want to let KJ Noons have his moment and enjoy his successful title defense, you keep Diaz and his brother out of there altogether. The fact that Elite XC went the opposite direction really only tells you that they were probably hoping for a WWE moment such as this one.

Judging by the past couple of Elite XC events, it’s starting to seem as if they are interested in putting on a certain kind of fight. They either want the type that is entirely one-sided, or they want the kind that stays standing for the entire fight and ends in a knockout. Of course, getting both is ideal, but they’ll settle for one or the other.

Perhaps this is what Gary Shaw meant when he said he wanted only “action fighters” and not guys who would lay on the mat and have a love fest. As we’ve all seen, there’s nothing that endears you to MMA fans so much as suggesting that ground fighting is gay.

But when you combine that with the post-fight antics they encouraged this weekend, it makes you wonder what’s going on over at Elite XC. Are they trying to out-sensationalize the UFC? Do they think that a reputation for mismatches and quick knockouts and post-fight brawls will help them siphon off some the UFC viewership that has been slow to embrace MMA outside of the Octagon?

Maybe the better question is, could it work? Maybe. It might not be the best thing for the sport in the long run, but it might be effective for a little while. If people start tuning in to see what crazy thing will happen on Elite XC rather than coming just to watch the fights, it still equals ratings in the end. That might be all Elite XC wants, however they have to get it.

(The Fertitta brothers doing their best to look upstanding.)

With their efforts to get MMA legalized in New York, the UFC has drawn a lot of attention in the Big Apple recently, and not all of it is positive. New York Magazine published its own piece on the legislative push and the UFC itself recently, and they aren’t afraid of a little implied character assassination in their articles:

Frank Fertitta III and his brother Lorenzo made the cover of Forbes last month for what the magazine dubbed their “Ultimate Cash Machine.” The Fertittas come from a long line of casino entrepreneurs. Their grandfather, Anthony, ran gambling halls in Galveston, Texas, where he was convicted for beating up a Life reporter who came to town to investigate the scene. Frank Jr., the brothers’ father, was running Las Vegas’s Fremont Hotel when the Feds busted up the place to break a money-skimming operation (he wasn’t charged); the ordeal is said to have become the basis for Martin Scorsese’s Casino. He later opened a local-friendly casino miles away from the Strip, and he passed that business to his sons.

Now that’s how you suggest that someone is an immoral crook without ever explicitly saying it. You just mention that they come from a long line of crooks, and then let the reader come to their own conclusions after that. I hope you’re taking notes, journalism students.

The article also adds some insight as to the obstacles the UFC faces in the New York legislature, and it doesn’t seem as if the Elite XC event on CBS helped them any.

(‘Little Wanderlei and I are ready to do our duty for Mr. Dana White.’)

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the UFC, it’s that if you invited them to your birthday party and they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t just not show up. They’d throw their own damn party on the same damn night, and it would have a petting zoo and “Rampage” Jackson would make balloon animals and even your closest friends would be tempted to go check it out. It ain’t nice, but that’s just how the UFC do.

They employed this strategy against Elite XC with their ‘Ultimate Iceman’ special on Spike TV, hoping to steal a few viewers. Apparently they’ve decided that simply repackaging old fights isn’t enough, so they’re taking their counter-programming efforts to a whole new level to try and stop Affliction in its tracks.

Sherdog reports that the UFC is trying to put together a live event on July 19, the same night as Affliction’s MMA debut, and they plan to offer it free on Spike. Both Wanderlei Silva and Brandon Vera have been approached about fighting on it, possibly against each other.

Heavyweight prospect Cain Velasquez has also been approached about fighting on the show, according to MMA Mania.

This means the UFC is trying to put together a show on about five weeks notice, which isn’t easy, all just to screw with Affliction. Of course, they’ll probably also have it in Las Vegas, where maybe they can steal some would-be ticket buyers from southern California. Affliction almost has to feel pleased that the UFC hates them this much already.

Maybe in the future this will become a yardstick by which to measure how seriously the UFC takes a competitor. If they throw together a last-minute live show to rival yours, then you’ve got them a little worried. If you’re only kind of on their radar, they’ll settle for a Spike TV highlight show of some kind. ‘Ultimate Iceman’ means you’ve got their attention. ‘Ultimate Koscheck’ however, means you’re really a nobody.

(“The goggles…they do nothing!”)

Melvin Manhoef def. Kazushi Sakuraba via TKO (strikes), 1:50 of round 1
Ronaldo Souza def. Jason Miller via unanimous decision
Zelg Galesic def. Taei Kin via TKO (injury), 1:05 of round 1
Gegard Mousasi def. Dong Sik Yoon via unanimous decision
Hideo Tokoro def. Darren Uyenoyama via unanimous decision
Ralek Gracie def. Alavutdin Gadzhiev via submission (armbar), 3:02 of round 1
Alistair Overeem def. Tae Hyun Lee via KO, 0:36 of round 1
Shinya Aoki def. Katsuhiko Nagata via submission (gogoplata…FROM THE TOP!![?]!), 5:12 of round 1

(Shinya Aoki vs. Katsuhiko Nagata)

(Melvin Manhoef vs. Kazushi Sakuraba)

(Alistair Overeem vs. Tae Hyun Lee)

If you’re a fan of quick, one-sided demolitions, last night’s EliteXC: Return of the King card didn’t disappoint. In the main event, lightweight champ KJ Noons and top contender Yves Edwards sparred for the first thirty seconds of their bout before Noons caught Edwards with a jaw-punch that sent him to the mat. Noons leaped onto Edwards and started raining down blows like a man possessed by both Satan and PCP; the ref called it at the 48-second mark, and a dazed Edwards was left wondering what the hell had just happened.

Following the match, Nick Diaz — who weighed in a full nine pounds over his 160-pound limit for his earlier match against Mushin Corbbrey — stepped into the cage to confront the man who’d handed him his last loss at EliteXC: Renegade last November. In an apparent attempt to hype a re-match with Noons, Diaz (along with his brother Nate) mouthed off to Noons and stuck his middle fingers into the faces of Noons and his father. The Noonses lunged at the Diazes, but security intervened before things got out of hand. Amid a chorus of boos, Nick and Nate left the cage, their beloved middle fingers extended toward the crowd.

Diaz certainly had no reason to be cocky. Besides coming into the fight a full weight-class over Corbbrey (which Diaz is trying to blame on the ocean),
Diaz needed nearly all of the three scheduled rounds to put away an outmatched, outsized Corbbrey, which he finally did via strikes from the mount.

In other action, Murilo “Ninja” Rua made Tony Bonello pay for a seriously ill-advised guard-pull at the beginning of their match, dropping elbows and punches from the top until the fight was called, while Icon Sport middleweight champion Kala Kolohe Hose was quickly choked out in a non-title match by King of the Cage/Freestyle Cage Fighting vet Robert “Bubba” McDaniel. Full results are below, and a couple vids are after the jump, courtesy of MMAScraps.

MAIN CARD
K.J. Noons def. Yves Edwards via TKO, 0:48 of round 1
Nick Diaz def. Muhsin Corbbrey via TKO, 3:59 of round 3
Murilo Rua def. Tony Bonello via TKO, 3:16 of round 1
Dave Herman def. Ron Waterman via TKO, 2:19 of round 1
Rafael Feijao def. Wayne Cole via TKO, 2:47 of round 1

UNDERCARD
P.J. Dean and Dean Lista fought to a draw
Mike Aina def. Kaleo Kwan via unanimous decision
Mark Oshiro def. Chris Willems via submission (triangle choke), 2:12 of round 1
Robert McDaniel def. Kala Kolohe via submission (rear naked choke), 0:41 of round one

(Now there’s hardware at stake.)

MMA Rated is reporting that the Fedor Emelianenko-Tim Sylvia bout on the July 19 Affliction card will be for the WAMMA heavyweight title. For those that don’t know, WAMMA is the World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts (In the interest of full disclosure, I’m on the rankings committee, as is Ariel Helwani, Sam Caplan, and a bunch of other guys). This would be the first title put up by WAMMA, and in a fight with two men ranked first and fourth respectively in the heavyweight division.

Affliction VP Tom Atencio confirmed the report, and while it might not yet be the most meaningful title in the world, it does add a little extra interest to the Fedor-Sylvia bout.

Dana White seems surprised that people are so interested in his “big [expletive] announcement”. I mean, all he did was talk it up to ESPN, then go on CNBC and deny a bunch of rumors, then change the day altogether and keep telling people how absolutely huge it was. Can’t imagine why that stoked people’s curiosity.

Now White is changing his tune, saying he never really planned to announce it to the media. Even though he told a member of the media about it. Here are his recent comments to The Baltimore Sun:

I’m doing it Tuesday. Let me tell you how out of [expletive deleted] control that thing is. I was talking to ESPN and [the reporter] was talking about competition and I said, ‘Let me tell you what. People have been trying to compete with the UFC for years, even before we bought it. The last big one everyone thought was a big threat … was the IFL. They went public, raised 800-[expletive deleted] million dollars, then they were talking about doing fighter benefits and stuff. They got the first network deal and those other guys weren’t the first on. They got time on 60 Minutes with us when 60 Minutes did their piece on us, and now the IFL is gone. They are [expletive deleted] down, their stock is worth half a cent (Editor’s note: IFLI closed today at $0.02). That’s what we were talking about that day and I said I’m going to make an announcement to my employees that shows everyone exactly where this business is going in the next couple years.

I said I wanted to make the announcement to my employees, so it’s not even like I was making a big announcement to the media. If I was doing that I would’ve had a big news conference and then gone off to London. I wanted to wait until I was back to do it.

It’s a big [expletive deleted] announcement, it’s a big [expletive deleted] deal but I got a lot of other stuff we’re working on right now. It was never anything I said I was going to announce to the media.

So, he told ESPN about an announcement that he didn’t intend to announce to the media? Because that seems…odd. Or stupid. I’m not sure. It’s such a thin line between those two.

(Props: Five Ounces of Pain)

Natural Born Killers – Watch more free videos

If you’re like me, you probably spend way too much time watching MMA videos on the internet. You probably also have this thing on your neck that everyone says you should go to a doctor about, and you say you will, but you know you won’t.

Anyway, in the brief time you have to live you should really check out Genghis Con, who is single-handedly the greatest creator of MMA highlight videos. You may have seen his stuff already. If you haven’t, do yourself a favor and check it out.

How can you tell he’s good? He makes a video about guys like Drew Fickett, Jorge Masvidal, and Jay Hieron into something that’s completely riveting. Anybody can do something great with a Fedor video. Well, not me, but anybody with video editing skills. But it takes talent to pull something like “Natural Born Killers” off.

Respect the skills, people. That’s all.

(We know he can take a beating, but can he still give one?)

I admit it, I was shocked to see the betting odds for Dream.4 list Kazushi Sakuraba as a favorite over Melvin Manhoef. In his time, Sakuraba was a beautiful phenomenon. And yet, all things come to an end. He’s old, he’s banged up, and Manhoef plays to all his greatest weaknesses (crazy strikers with a hankering for blood).

Then I remembered Guy Mezger’s comments about the shenanigans that have been known to happen in Japan, and I thought twice. Could that be it? Could enough people be putting money down on Sakuraba as a sentimental favorite? Maybe. Or maybe all they remember are the good old days.

After going back and taking a look, I admit it, Sakuraba’s good old days were pretty good. Refresh your own memory with this fun highlight. After the jump, take a look at Manhoef’s. Should be an interesting weekend.

Kazushi Sakuraba Highlight Video – Watch more free videos

(Comin’ for that #1 spot…)

2008 is shaping up to be the busiest and most exciting year in MMA’s history — which is a great thing, unless you’re trying to keep your top ten lists current, in which case it’s a total pain in the ass. Though there aren’t many profound changes in the latest update to our Power Rankings page, recent events have caused some fighters to drop due to losses (i.e., Matt Hughes, Sean Sherk, Hayato Sakurai, Masakazu Imanari) some to jump up after big wins (Wanderlei Silva, Thiago Alves, Power Rankings newcomer Gegard Mousasi), and some to secure their already impressive positions (Lyoto Machida, Urijah Faber, Robbie Lawler). Give it a look, and click on each weight class for additional notes and to leave comments. And stay tuned, as Sunday’s DREAM.4 card could produce some changes in the middleweight list, and July 21st’s Affliction event could lead to a massive re-shuffling of the heavyweight deck.

(BG)

(Quit it, you homos!)

IFL CEO Jay Larkin is no stranger to making crybaby speeches when things aren’t going so well. But with the IFL canceling events until further notice, and with its publicly traded stock currently hovering at two fucking pennies (down from $17 per share in January 2007), it’s not going to get much worse than this, business-wise. Larkin knows it, which gives him the freedom to say whatever pops into his head, no matter how gross it makes him look.

Business magazine Portfolio just published a profile on IFL’s current tailspin, in which it revealed that the company is now on the auction block for a cool million. Here’s the third paragraph, which follows a description of a recent IFL fight, written in wildly purple prose:

Jay Larkin surveys the inaction with a weary, seen-it-all expression. “This isn’t my idea of fighting,” he says of the world’s fastest-growing spectator sport. “To me, two guys rolling around on the floor is tedious, like watching gay foreplay.”

Wow. And this guy runs an MMA league? He sounds like your average message-board troll. Later, presumably after a few more whisky-sodas, Larkin drops another gem:

(Hey pretty-pretty. You need a ride? Hop in, take off your underwear.)

Dana White recently revealed that Chuck Liddell would return to the Octagon in Atlanta this September, but he didn’t say who he’d be facing. Now ESPN the Magazine is saying it will be….Rashad Evans. So, yeah, basically we’re back to where we were before UFC 85.

ESPN says the fight has been “agreed to in principle”, though not signed. The article itself largely focuses on “Sugar” Rashad and his lack of popularity among MMA fans. Trouble is, it attributes the lack of enthusiasm for Evans to — get this — “showboating.”

Evans points to one moment that may have held him back. During his first fight on The Ultimate Fighter, he bobbed and weaved his head excessively. After beating Tom Murphy in the bout, opposing coach Matt Hughes lambasted Evans for showboating. Much later, the two kissed and made up. (Evans now admits he was over-the-top with his posturing.) But Hughes’ comments have stuck, and fans continue to be lukewarm. “It hurts a little bit that people still don’t really root for me,” Evans says. “Everybody seems to think I’m a showboat, and I’ll probably always have to fight that perception.”

Evans saying that people don’t like him because he’s a showboat is kind of like Clay Aiken saying people hate him because they’re afraid he might sleep with their girlfriends. It’s the right sentiment, but it’s being chalked up to the exact wrong cause.

The strangest thing is to imagine that Evans really believes this is what’s hurting his popularity with the fans. You can almost picture him looking in the mirror in his dressing room before a fight and saying, ‘All right, Sugar, let’s go out there and keep it real flat and monotonous. Got to get rid of that showboat label.’

(“Rampage” struggles to remember whether he turned the stove off before leaving the house.)

So here’s a mental challenge that fighters face: what do you tell yourself when you’re about to fight a guy who recently beat someone who absolutely demolished you? That’s the situation “Rampage” Jackson is in as he prepares to face Forrest Griffin, who beat Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, who nearly kicked Jackson’s head into the fifth row of the Osaka Dome.

Fortunately for “Rampage”, there are any number of variables he can point to in order to distinguish the “Shogun” he fought from the one Griffin beat. And that’s exactly what he does in this interview with Gary Herman:

I didn’t even watch that fight on tape yet. I was there, but that fight didn’t impress me much. Shogun wasn’t the same. If I watch that fight and try to go off that fight, I’d be misled because Shogun wasn’t 100%. If Shogun was 100% and fights like he normally fights, that would be the fight to watch. Heck, Shogun’s girlfriend could have beat him that night.

…

Things happen. I think Shogun took the fight with Forrest because he needed it. I don’t think he should have taken the fight on such short notice. I’m a fighter. I can tell how the fighter fought in the past and how they are fighting on that day. I could tell something was up with Shogun that he was hurt.

Valid points from “Rampage”. Makes you wonder, though. If the “Shogun” that Forrest beat was but a shadow of his former self, what about the “Rampage” that “Shogun” beat? Maybe Griffin should watch that fight and see what he can learn. Minus the soccer kicks, of course.

Clad in a gay-friendly rainbow t-shirt, Dana White pumps up the 90-minute final episode of The Ultimate Fighter: “In seven seasons of doing this show, there has never been a bigger twist.” Bold words considering that the TUF series has had a history of monumental twists, like when Anthony Torres turned out to be a woman who was only posing as a man to compete on the show, and the crazy TUF 5 finale, where it was revealed that the entire season was just a dream Jens Pulver had while he was in a coma.

Personally, I hope the twist is that Jesse Taylor gets kicked off the show for breaking a limo window and killing Jeremy May, and the semi-final match between Amir and CB is so exciting and close that Dana White decides to have them fight again on the finale for the contract. That’s kind of an “everybody wins” type of scenario. Between the pissing, the puking, and the laying-and-praying, I think I’ve had my fill of Mongo…

(Props: Fightlinker)

Tara LaRosa — who you may know either as the best female MMA fighter in the world, or as that broad who can’t stand Gina Carano — just signed a landmark deal with the Kentucky-based American Fight League that could pay her between $500,000 and $750,000 for four fights over 18 months. LaRosa (15-1) holds notable wins over Shayna Baszler, Roxanne Modafferi, Amanda Buckner, and Julie Kedzie, and most recently competed in the Bodog Fight organization (if you can call it that); she reportedly negotiated with Affliction, the IFL and EliteXC before inking the deal with the AFL. “Since I definitely have a really big contract, it sort of raises the bar as to what others can get,” Larosa said in a Sherdog interview. “If I get paid higher, everyone else gets paid higher. That’s what I’m hoping for.”

The AFL’s new focus on their women’s division has caught the attention of Kim Couture, who makes her pro MMA debut next Friday in Las Vegas against Kim Rose. Couture told MMAWeekly that she’d also been in negotiations with the American Fight League and will likely sign with them soon: “There are a couple of leagues coming up that are building up the women’s league. The American Fight League, they just signed Tara Larosa “They’ve contacted me. And they’ve got a few other girls getting ready to sign with them, so I’m more headed that way.”

The AFL has only put on two small-scale events in its brief existence, which featured Diego Saraiva, Junior Assuncao, and Rory Singer. The league recently made headlines for signing former WWE pro wrestling star Bobby Lashley to a multi-fight contract.

(Looks like the rubber match might have to take place in another organization.)

Here’s something that MMA fans and IFL fighters have in common: they both heard this week’s big announcement via the internet. Apparently, when the IFL canceled its August show it came as news to just about everyone, even those who had planned to fight on the card.

The IFL’s Chris Horodecki (coincidentally, it’s not a great idea to call a guy nicknamed “The Polish Hammer” during the Poland-Austria soccer match) heard the news from fellow Canadian fighter Mark Hominick, who read it online.

“I was talking to Hominick and he said, ‘Hey, I think your show is canceled.’ I didn’t believe it at first, but I looked on line and there it was,” said Horodecki.

Horodecki said he had not spoken to anyone at the IFL, and had no idea what would become of his contract or if the IFL would attempt to find him fights with another organization, as Larkin indicated was a possibility for some fighters on the IFL roster.

“I don’t know what’s happening right now,” Horodecki said. “I have no idea, but I’m not worried.”

(I gotta say, I don’t see a series here.)

The word from Dave Meltzer (via MMA Payout) is that the UFC plans to do more reality TV in the future, and while Meltzer is sketchy on details, he claims that Matt Hughes will be involved “in a big way.”

Maybe this was something the UFC talked about before Hughes’ recent loss to Alves. Maybe it’s an idea that has since been scrapped. But adding more reality TV would already be tenuous prospect, and the chances for failure only become greater if it’s a reality show that revolves around Hughes.

I say this for two reasons: 1) Hughes is less of a draw now than at any time in the past five years, plus he’s coming off two losses and is no longer relevant to the UFC’s welterweight title picture, and 2) Reality TV is not a good medium for Matt Hughes.

Hughes used to be the UFC’s humble all-American farmboy. After his appearances on “The Ultimate Fighter”, however, he came off more like the cocky jerk who gets taught a lesson in the end of a teen sports movie. That is, when he’s not handing out Bibles and asking people to identify which character represents him (always a good use of practice time).

I’ve always said that broken English is the world’s universal language. So while I would need a translator to understand what the hell this Brazilian interviewer is saying, him and Georges St. Pierre understand each other perfectly — and the multi-lingual “Rush” also shows off some of the Portuguese he’s been learning. Impressive! In this Sherdog viddy, GSP talks about his upcoming matchup with Jon Fitch, but doesn’t want to reveal his strategy for beating him, which is understandable. Anybody think Fitch has a chance in this one?

Oh, by the way, the greatest martial arts movie in history is after the jump.

(Mayhem is not to be underestimated.)

Hat tip to BloodyElbow for alerting us that all three major MMA events this weekend are open for wagering at BetCris.com. Let’s run through the numbers…

EliteXC: Return of the King (June 14th; Honolulu, Hawaii; live on Showtime)
Yves Edwards (-130) vs. KJ Noons (even)
Nick Diaz (-450) vs. Mushin Corbbrey (+370)
Murilo Rua (-250) vs. Tony Bonello (+200)
Dave Herman (-155) vs. Ron Waterman (+125)
Rafael Feijao (-280) vs. Wayne Cole (+220)

Notes: Nick Diaz just got surgery to file down his sharp ocular bones, which is supposed to prevent his face from shredding so easily (and losing him another fight). Sounds dodgy to me, and it hasn’t yet been proven that the procedure was a practical success. With odds that wide and Diaz’s scar tissue still a question mark, we’d definitely throw a double-sawbuck on Corbbrey, who has shown some great submissions in his relatively brief career. Undefeated Australian King of the Cage vet Tony Bonello (16-0-1, 14 wins by submission) may also be a good underdog bet, even if the competition he’s faced is nowhere near the level of the guys that Ninja Rua has gone up against.