(What, no odds on whether Gina will make weight?)

If betting odds are any indication of how competitive MMA bouts will turn out to be, expect a lot of one-sided blowouts on Elite XC’s CBS offering this Saturday night. Not that it’s any surprise, really. In fact, with five fights crammed into a two-hour time slot CBS is going to need some quick beatdowns if they don’t want to run way over and have to cut into precious local news time. In any event, Best Fight Odds supplies the most gambler-friendly betting lines for ‘Elite XC: Heat,’ and they break down like this:

Kimbo Slice (-325) vs. Ken Shamrock (+329)
Jake Shields (-550) vs. Paul Daley (+524)
Gina Carano (-550) vs. Kelly Kobald (+525)
Ninja Rua (-196) vs. Benji Radach (+210)
Andrei Arlovski (-428) vs. Roy Nelson (+385)

Some thoughts…

(Inaccuracy #1: this doll appears to be smiling. And we all know smiling’s for pussies.)

Yahoo’s Maggie Hendricks located this creepy Kimbo Slice doll on Ebay today, and then had the good sense to share it with the world. The seller, “chuteboxegod”, has this to say about the six-inch figurine:

This is a one of a kind custom KIMBO SLICE action figure
aprox. 6 inches.
Pimp Fist Chain included!!

Beard is hand sculpted for extreme realism.

Shorts have sponsor patches (Triumph United etc).
Figure is durable and ready to play with!!
Recreate your favorite Kimbo moments with this figure.

As Kimbo would say “Let’s run this SH!T!!”
cage not included

Chuteboxegod, you had me at hand-sculpted beard. As for recreating my favorite Kimbo moments, do you have plans for an Afro Puff figurine any time soon? I already have my own miniature boat salvage yard to put them in. What? I have to fill my free time somehow.

We haven’t been giving it much attention on this site, but HDNet has begun airing the very entertaining M-1 Challenge (Friday nights at 8 p.m. ET), where ten teams from around the world do battle for MMA supremacy. Above is the recap of episode 2, in which Team Holland — led by Gegard Mousasi — blanked Team Germany 5-0. It wasn’t even close; Bogdan Christea, Romano de los Reyes, Jason Jones, Mousasi, and Jessie Gibbs all scored first-round stoppages over their German counterparts at the March event. We also learn that Russia’s Red Devil Team succumbed to France 3-2 in the premiere episode. (Ouch. Good luck explaining that one to Fedor.) Don’t forget to catch episode 3 this Friday, as the Finns take on the South Koreans.

Props to Fightlinker (I guess) for turning us on to this kinda depressing video of two “little people” fighting each other in a 6′x6′ cage for the amusement of a bunch of drunken hicks in a Tampa-area honkey-tonk. After a fierce back-and-forth battle, Chip “Demo” Santiago defeats the much larger Jason “Short Dog” Jones via guillotine choke, and referee Herb Dean climbs in to make it official. Seriously.

Dwarf Cage Fighting’s official website explains their operation thusly:

Dwarf cage fighting is a unique event. Dwarfs fight mixed martial arts in a smaller scale UFC style cage. [Ed. note: It's a dog cage, basically.] These might be little people; but they have big skills. They train just like other fighters, grappling, boxing, kickboxing, jiu jitsu, sambo, muay thai, and more. Often times fans leave with a look of shock on their faces when they see the skill level these micro athletes display…If you want the most SHOCKING [Ed. note: Because they're so skilled!], Unusual, guaranteed pull at your nightclub, you need to email us today!

The website also has a link to a St. Petersburg Times profile on Demo Santiago, where it’s revealed that DCF’s champion and marquee fighter is a former operations manager at UPS who married one normal-sized woman then impregnated another, and has put in work as everything from a St. Patrick’s Day bar leprechaun to a Valentine’s Day cupid. He also doesn’t need your pity:

“Where were you when people are making fun of me on the streets?” he asks anyone concerned. “Why are you trying to take money out of my hand?” … Santiago jumped at an idea suggested by his promoter. Ultimate cage fighting is a hit. So is the TLC reality show Little People, Big World. Why not dwarf ultimate fighting cage matches?

“It’s like TLC meets Spike TV,” Santiago says.

Fair enough. I just wish the cages were bigger. What do you think, people? Dwarves: Good or bad for the sport?

Related: Germany or Florida?

After battling a series of bizarre and career-threatening injuries, Benji Radach ran up an impressive winning streak in the IFL. He beat mostly mid-level fighters like Ryan McGivern and Gerald Harris, but he did it convincingly and in exciting fashion. Then he got TKO’d by Matt Horwich in his last fight. Apparently that was enough for the UFC to decide to pass on him when it came time to bid on IFL free agents after the company’s collapse. In an interview with Sam Caplan, Radach can’t seem to make sense of why MMA’s biggest organization wouldn’t want to sign a guy who’s coming of a loss and has a history of injuries:

“The UFC actually never pursued anything. I actually gave them the option at first (to negotiate) by letting them know I was interested in fighting for the UFC again. But they said I needed to win a fight before I could be a part of the UFC. That really was kind of retarded from my point of view. If there’s a good fighter out there, then you want to grab that good fighter. It doesn’t make a difference if he goes out there and beats a nobody and then gets a win and comes back in. It’s just really stupid. Why is it important that I go out and smash somebody just to get a win rather than fight a top guy in your organization?”

On one hand, Radach has a point. He could go to one of the smaller shows and knock out a guy no one has ever heard of, and it wouldn’t prove anything (aside from perhaps silencing lingering doubts as to his durability). On the other hand, if you want to fight for the UFC, why not go ahead and do that?

(‘Old and veiny. That’s how I roll.’)

In an interview with Gary Herman of 15rounds.com Ken Shamrock reiterates his desire to knock Kimbo Slice unconscious and then shave his beard (are the lines between pro wrestling and “the MMA” blurring for Ken in his old age?), and also offers this assessment of his game plan going into the bout on Saturday:

“If all goes well, I’ll get a win in the first round. I can handle him anywhere – stand-up or on the ground. I’m not going to force anything. If it’s there, I’m going to take it. If he leaves his face open, I’m going to punch it. If he gives me a leg, I’ll take that.”

A genius master plan it ain’t, but at least he’s going in there with something. Not to be outdone, Kimbo had this to say about his preparation for the fight, then added a word of advice for Shamrock:

“I daydream about the fights, man. This (expletive) is in my head. I see it over and over and over again. I don’t think about sex, I don’t think about smokin’, I don’t think about drinking. I think about the guy I’m fighting, I think about my opponent. That’s all I think about.

[...]

“Come into this cage and fight like a lion, rather than die like a pussy.”

Well, okay, two different rhetorical styles there but…wait a minute. Did Kimbo just suggest that Ken Shamrock might “die like a pussy” in their fight? I understand the “fight like a lion” part. Did he mean ‘lose like a pussy’? Then again, ‘pussy’ isn’t exactly the opposite of ‘lion.’ How about ‘lose like a lamb’?

All right, long story short, parallel sentence structure isn’t Kimbo’s strong suit. But either way let’s not go around talking about Ken Shamrock dying in the cage on Saturday, okay Kimbo? The guy’s getting on in years as it is, his cholesterol is probably a concern, and just think about how bad you’ll feel if he really does die. You don’t want that hanging over your head.

From Spike.com: Chris Leben says his loopy, wide-open style knocks people out. He also refuses to lose, check the news and read the interviews. Damn…dude is like the white Shonie Carter. Skip to the -5:14 mark for the ridiculous ending to his fight against Terry Martin; there’s your warning to not get cocky, Count. Later in this video, we look at the matchup between the Dean of the Mean and the Truth, also at UFC 89.

From CBS.com, for some reason: A preview of the UFC 90 welterweight feature between Thiago Alves and Diego Sanchez. “You are going to see the strongest Sanchez you have ever seen before,” Sanchez says. “The result is gonna be a dominating submission victory.”

(Props: “Card” on the UG)

(A legendary PRIDE rivalry will be settled in the Octagon in January.)

Confirming rumors that were circulating yesterday, the UFC announced via UFC.com that Dublin would indeed be playing host to UFC 93 on January 17th; the event will be held at the O2 Dublin.

Only two matches have been announced so far — but they’re worth the price of admission by themselves. The main event will be a light-heavyweight fight between Rich Franklin and Dan Henderson, a long-awaited pairing that seemed to be in jeopardy when Franklin moved up to 205. Does this mean that Hendo will be hanging around at light-heavyweight for a while? And would the fight interfere with him being a coach on the upcoming US vs. UK season of TUF? We’ll get those answers to you as soon as we can.

Here’s where the matchmaking gets kind of brilliant. The co-main event will be another light-heavyweight contest, between UFC Hall of Famer Mark Coleman and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. If you’re up on your MMA lore, you’ll remember that Coleman handed Shogun his only loss in PRIDE — a TKO due to broken arm at PRIDE 31 in February ’06 — which led to the infamous Chute Boxe/Hammer House brawl (the entire incident can be seen here). Now Rua will get a chance to settle the score, once and for all. Sure, Coleman hasn’t fought since getting armbarred by Fedor Emelianenko at PRIDE 32 in October ’06, and Rua has been battling injuries since his loss to Forrest Griffin at UFC 76, but you can’t beat that storyline…

(Props: MMA Scraps)

Things that you have to love about this Ken Shamrock video:

1) He doesn’t blame you for thinking he’s washed up based on his last few fights.
2) He continually refers to the sport as “the MMA,” just like your father might.
3) He apparently trains exclusively in slow motion with a piano tinkling in the background.

All kidding aside, this video makes me both excited and sad for Shamrock’s fight with Kimbo Slice on Saturday. The man’s will is still there but the flesh is, well, not. He’s doing a great job of crafting a narrative (around the 11:00 mark he starts talking about Kimbo, and at 14:15 he explains that Kimbo “is walking into my sport, and he hasn’t earned the right to be there.”), which has always been one of the things Shamrock does well.

But after what we’ve seen from him in recent years there’s just no reason to think he’s going to go out there and beat Kimbo. There is every reason to think that one of the sport’s pioneers is going to go out there and lose badly and it’s going to be a damn shame to see.

Who knows, though. He seems acutely aware of why Elite XC brought him in, and maybe he will indeed “completely blow up their party” on Saturday night. If he does I hope the CBS cameramen have the good sense to pan to Jared Shaw immediately afterwards. That look on his face? It will be the ‘That son of a bitch just blew up my party,’ look.

(Can a WAMMA belt be far behind? Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Though most casual MMA fans had never heard his name until this year, Gegard Mousasi (24-2-1) made his presence known in a big way during DREAM’s recent middleweight grand prix, cutting through highly regarded fighters Denis Kang, Melvin Manhoef, and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza to win the championship. Now he’s widely acknowledged as one of the best middleweights in the world — which is why we were hoping he’d be signed by the UFC to add some extra heat to their 185-pound division, and maybe challenge Anderson Silva for the belt one day. All that shit will have to wait, unfortunately, because it looks like Affliction got to him first. As he told Fighters Only Magazine:

“I’m going to train with Fedor in preparation for Affliction in January. I think it is Fedor against Josh Barnett and they want me to fight Vitor Belfort.”

Mousasi is part of the Red Devil International team and he shares a manager with Fedor in the shape of Vadim Finkelstein…

Affliction has yet to reveal a line-up for its January event but Vitor Belfort has told Brazil’s Tatame magazine that he has been contacted and offered a fight.

If Mousasi continues to perform like he has over the last two years, he should have no trouble whipping Belfort, Matt Lindland, and whoever else Affliction has under contract at 185. And now he’s training with Fedor too? Forget about it.

Mousasi’s claim that Emelianenko will skip straight to a fight with Barnett in January — foregoing the Arlovski/Barnett eliminator match altogether — is also interesting, but as with all rumors related to Fedor and fight-booking, we’ll believe it two weeks after it happens.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

Rank

Fighter

Comments

1.

Anderson Silva

That sound you’re hearing right now is all the UFC’s light-heavyweights collectively pissing their pants. Don’t worry guys, he’s just “testing the waters.”

2.

Paulo Filho

3.

Rich Franklin

It feels weird to just drop him off the list entirely. How about one spot for every fight at light-heavyweight, and he’s gone after three?

4.

Dan Henderson

5.

Robbie Lawler

Scott Smith may not be elite-level competition, but damn did “Ruthless” look sharp against him in their two recent bouts for EliteXC. With his heavy hands and iron chin, we don’t see him losing his EliteXC belt any time soon.

6.

Yushin Okami

7.

Gegard Mousasi

Melvin Manhoef and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza were both top-20 middleweights going into DREAM 6 — and Mousasi smoked ‘em both in the same night, needing less than three minutes of total fight time to do so. If there was ever a guy that the UFC needs to cherry-pick from Japan, it’s Gegard. The dude’s on fire right now.

8.

Nate Marquardt

9.

Frank Trigg

“Twinkle Toes” is a warrior, but with countless entrepreneurial interests vying for his attention, he may not be putting in the time to keep pace with the competition. Trigg hasn’t beaten a top ten opponent since February 2007; if he doesn’t get a win over a quality opponent soon, he’ll be leaving this list.

10.

Kazuo Misaki

(“The Count,” courtesy of Bisping.tv.)

Though he was impressive as a light-heavyweight — winning The Ultimate Fighter 3 after going 10-0 in England, then beating down Eric Schafer and Elvis Sinosic — two rough split-decisions convinced Michael Bisping to drop to a more competitive weight. And since then, he’s looked absolutely scary. Bisping will be looking to continue his success as a 185-pounder at UFC 89 (October 18th; Birmingham, England), where he’ll take on Chris Leben in the main event; a win would officially make the Liverpool-native a title contender. Ben Zeidler caught up with The Count recently to get his take on his next opponent, the UFC’s middleweight title picture, and that rumor about him being a future TUF coach.

***

CAGEPOTATO.COM: What have you done to prepare for Chris Leben?
MICHAEL BISPING: Well, obviously he’s a southpaw so we’ve been bringing in a ton of southpaws to spar with. I see a lot of problems with him, so I’ve been trying to really step up my training. You know, it’s the all-around game, the all-around training. I’m very focused.

Do you prefer to fight in England? What does it mean to be the hometown favorite every time out?
When I go out there, it’s unbelievable. I can’t even put it into words. I have great memories there, for sure, but the UFC fans are always amazing no matter where I go. The sport is so great and so awesome right now that any fans, in any arena in the world, are just great. Fighting in the UFC is very special to me.

There was a lot of controversy surrounding your UFC 75 win against Matt Hamill. Do you believe you won that fight?
You know what, I want to fight Matt again. It was really close and depending on what you’re looking for, you can make an argument either way. People say that it went my way because it was in the UK, but the UK judge is the one who gave it to Hamill. It was the Americans who gave me the decision. Hamill definitely won the first round, and that’s because I wasn’t prepared mentally. I didn’t focus. He caught me off guard and came out guns blazing. I needed to get in gear and I did. I started to take control, he got some takedowns but I got some on my own accord, and I did more damage. I won 2-1 but it was close. I should have given him more props, but we had some history going into the fight, so I wasn’t prepared. But I do think I won.

(You ready for this, America?)

I almost couldn’t believe it when I first heard the news: Elite XC had added a legitimately interesting big time bout to their next CBS show. No disrespect to “Ninja” Rua and Benji Radach or Jake Shields and Paul Daley. Those are fights worth tuning in for, even if Elite XC seems content to treat them as background scenery.

And Gina Carano fighting an opponent who’s coming off two straight losses while the opponent who really makes sense for her fights someone else on the same card? Sure, that’s cool too. And of course there’s the obligatory ‘Kimbo Slice beats up handpicked opponent’ fight that we’ve come to expect.

But Andrei Arlovski-Roy Nelson? Now that’s intriguing, Elite XC. I have to admit, I’m impressed. I wonder, however, if you’ve thought through all the potential ramifications.

On one hand, it’s brilliant. Elite XC links up with another struggling organization to see if they can’t form like Voltron and make something happen. This fight adds hardcore credibility to a card severely lacking in it. The fact that Elite had to go outside their own stable of fighters to find that credibility is something we’ll ignore for the moment. Fact is, they showed the “willingness to work with other organizations” that we always hear about but seldom see put to such good use. Bravo.

But here’s what I’m wondering: what happens if Arlovski/Nelson turns out to be a solid, technical, exciting MMA bout, as we all know it very well could be?

(Props: MMA Scraps)

It’s kind of creepy to hear Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta say almost exactly the same thing when asked by Fox News how the economic meltdown will affect their business. It’s as if they’re reading off the same cue cards. Clearly, this is a conversation they’ve had before, and most likely pretty recently as they’ve tried to figure out whether a piss-poor economy means they should cash in their chips and start hording gasoline and ammunition in the Nevada desert somewhere.

When it comes to pay-per-view buys, their logic holds up. You get six or seven guys together to split the cost of a UFC pay-per-view and it’s cheaper than going to a movie. Live ticket sales might be another matter, but big shows like UFC 91 in Las Vegas will still sell out, especially when they can count on the casinos to snatch up the ridiculously-priced tickets at Octagon-side.

MMA Payout recently broke down Lorenzo Fertitta’s claim the UFC has seen a “double-digit increase” in pay-per-views buys this year. Turns out it’s true, but just barely. 10.8% growth is technically double-digits, even if most of it is a result of holding two pay-per-view events in the UK in 2008, as opposed to just one in 2007. Domestic pay-per-view growth was at a meager 3.3%, but that’s still not cause for panic.

As we’ve discussed before, for some reason pro fighting is one of the sports that typically does well during hard economic times. Ballet, on the other hand, straight up tanks when the going gets tough. That’s right. Fuck you, ballet.

(Photo courtesy of BoutReviewUSA.com.)

— Yahoo! EuroSport is reporting that the UFC is finalizing arrangements on its first-ever second-ever event in Ireland. As the story goes, UFC 93 would be held January 17th at Dublin’s O2 Arena, and rumored fights include Matt Hughes vs. Matt Serra, and Rich Franklin vs. Chuck Liddell or Mauricio Rua. The UFC already has an event planned for January 31st in Las Vegas, which will be headlined by the welterweight match between Georges St. Pierre and B.J. Penn.

— Yushin Okami’s next fight won’t be against Anderson Silva after all; he’ll be facing Dean Lister at UFC 92 (December 27th, Las Vegas). Okami and Lister have both won their last two matches, and have been healing up from injuries — Okami with a hand injury that forced him to pull out of his rematch against Silva, and Lister with a tweaked knee that kept him out of a UFC Fight Night 15 match against Thales Leites.

— Despite Karo Parisyan’s questionable pull-out from UFC 88, the UFC has just locked “The Heat” into an eight-fight contract extension. Wonder if that includes naming rights to his first-born son…

— Gilbert Melendez only has one fight left on his Strikeforce contract, and has his eye on a move to the UFC: “I really do like Strikeforce, I think they’re a great organization and they took care of me, but I have other goals too, other dreams…[the UFC is] an organization I’ve always liked to be a part of and a lot of the guys in there I would want to fight.”

— The UFC has picked up former WEC light-heavyweight champions Brian Stann and Steve Cantwell in the wake of the WEC’s abolishment of the 185- and 205-pound weight classes. Stann and Cantwell have fought twice before, with each fighter scoring a win, and will meet for the third time at the UFC’s “Fight for the Troops” card on December 10th. Stann, who became the WEC’s light-heavyweight champ with a first-round knockout of Doug Marshall at WEC 33 in March, is a former U.S. Marine.

(Props: MMA Payout)

Gina Carano was a guest on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson last night to plug her upcoming appearance at EliteXC: Heat. It’s nice to see her getting some late-night couch time for a change (not that Kimbo’s appearances on Jimmy Kimmel don’t make for classic television). Explaining why she has chosen such a painful profession, Conviction explains, “I’d rather have a job where I travel and fight people and train than be married with children who hate me and a horrible husband.” Gina? WHY DO YOU HATE THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE SO MUCH? She also drops this bomb on Craig: “You can’t really hide anything in the cage. It’s just real, two people going at it. It’s kinda like sex.” But it’s cool, because she’s “just kidding.”

(‘Bring me your tired, your freaks, your outmatched fools. I fight them on eve of the new year, yes?’)

The official Dream website has posted an interview they conducted with Fedor Emelianenko, but unfortunately for me it’s all transcribed in squiggly lines that I can make neither heads nor tails of. Good thing Suki came along to translate it, otherwise we might have missed this:

- Japanese fans are expected to see you fight in NYE in Japan again.

I want to fight in Japan again; however, I cannot control everything. God knows what will happen. Whether I fight or not in NYE depends on a negotiation between my manager and DREAM.

Perhaps Fedor is just blowing smoke here to keep his Japanese public happy, but that’s a very different story than the one Tom Atencio is telling. He claims to have verification from Fedor’s management that he absolutely, positively will not fight on New Year’s Eve. So, assuming Fedor is not consciously lying in this Dream interview, this means:

1) Fedor’s management is willing to rent him out to the highest bidder, regardless of whether they’ve already committed him to fight elsewhere.

2) Fedor’s management doesn’t necessarily tell Fedor everything that’s going on.

3) There are some nuances being lost in translation.

The first option seems plausible because, well, Fedor is managed by crazy Russians, according Dana White. The second option is also not too unrealistic, for the same crazy Russian reasons. Option three is especially possible since Fedor’s comments had to go from Russian to Japanese to English. In other words, yeah, we don’t know what the hell is really going on. Which probably puts us in the same boat as Fedor.

- ESPN Radio’s Ball Park Frank talks with Randy Couture about a number of topics in this video (props to Steve Cofield), but perhaps most interesting is Couture’s assessment of Kimbo Slice‘s upcoming match with Ken Shamrock. As Couture astutely points out (around the 2:55 mark), a quick KO of Shamrock does more to affirm his over-the-hill status than it does to prove Kimbo’s worth as an MMA fighter. At the same time, if Kimbo goes back and forth with Shamrock will that only serve to prove that he’s not the fighter “Buzz” Berry is? Best case scenario for Kimbo is he looks good, Shamrock looks good, Kimbo wins via late KO. That’s also the least plausible scenario.

- Travis Lutter tells MMA Rated there is absolutely no truth to rumors he might be headed back to the UFC. Though it was originally reported that he might face Joe Doerksen in the Octagon, Lutter says neither he nor UFC matchmaker Joe Silva knew where the rumor came from, which means it’s back to the small time for Lutter. He did have a prediction for the Anderson Silva-Patrick Cote bout, though: “Cote is going to get murdered.” Come on, Travis, don’t sugar coat it.

- CBS executives say they will show five fights from ‘Elite XC: Heat’ on Saturday, even if it will probably cause them to run over the allotted two-hour space. Some fans wondered whether CBS had cut “Ninja” Rua-Benji Radach from the broadcast when the bout wasn’t mentioned in recent promos, but Executive VP Kelly Kahl says the fight is still on and will lead off the CBS portion of the card. That means Elite XC will have to keep its general dicking around to a minimum and still hope for a couple quick finishes to keep from going over. It’s something you’ll want to keep in mind if you’re planning on DVR-ing this sucker.

(Champion Robbie Lawler with the most amorphous MMA CEO in town)

Word out of EliteXC (and reported on by MMA Weekly) is that the November 8th showdown between Robbie Lawler and Joey Villasenor will be for the 185 pound title. This is fantastic news for EliteXC and MMA fans alike. Lawler hasn’t faced any true tests since winning the title from an over matched Murilo Rua and so it’ll be good to see him go against some top flight talent in Joey Villasenor. A more recognized name than Scott Smith, Villasenor should provide the EliteXC execs with the paycheck they’ve been looking for.

The now-Greg Jackson taught Villasenor is undefeated since losing a battle to Rua in 2007, and has looked very impressive over increasingly difficult competition. “Smokin’ Joe” suffered a flying knee loss to Lawler back in 2006 PRIDE competition, but both men would attest that they are much different fighters. At any rate, the fight represents a fascinating match from all perspectives.

Both men love to strike and it’s no surprise that most expect this to avoid a decision end. Additionally, the 185 pound title represents EliteXC’s most legitimate division and it’s encouraging to see that the promoters are competent enough to book solid fights when it matters.

(Oh yeah, finding opponents won’t be difficult at all…)

According to a new article by Fighters Only, Aleksander Emelianenko claims that he will be returning for the next Affliction show.  He also mentions that the medical rumors surrounding his ejection from the last Affliction PPV are simply untrue.  That’s right.  Just didn’t happen.  Looks like the CSAC was mistaken(?) when one of their top execs had this to say regarding Fedor’s little:

“The one thing that I can absolutely say is that he (Emelianenko) was not and will not be cleared to fight in California. He is officially denied a license and that will stand for all of the United States of America.”

Hmm. Well that’s not encouraging. Despite the harsh words from the Golden State, Emelianenko remains optimistic.

“I am going back to the States next week to do interviews and make some film for the January event,” he said.

“But I don’t know about any opponent yet, all that is in the process of being sorted out.”

Aleks added that he may also “fight around Christmas-time in Japan.”

“But there will be no problem this time – everything is cool.”

And by cool, he means it’ll be a piece of cake to find a top level fighter who is willing to fight a potential case of Hepatitis B. This can’t bode well for Affliction, as Fedor has made a history of mandating that his brother be included in all shows he does.

Chris Leben’s first shot at Michael Bisping didn’t exactly go as planned. Soon after signing to fight “The Count” at UFC 85 in London, Leben was forced to return to Oregon to deal with an outstanding warrant resulting from a DUI arrest before he could leave the country. Though Leben and the UFC were hoping to resolve the matter quickly, the judge had other plans. Leben was sentenced to thirty-five days in jail, prompting the UFC to scratch him from the card.

With his legal troubles now behind him, Leben is getting a second chance at Bisping, this time at UFC 89 in Birmingham, England. In this exclusive CagePotato interview Leben discusses his maturation process as a fighter, his gameplan against Bisping, dealing with hometown judges, and more.

CagePotato.com: Hey Chris. Thanks for talking with me. We’re a few weeks out from the fight. How is your preparation coming?

Really good, really well. It’s been long and intense and I’m kind of just getting to the point now where I’m ready to go fight and get this thing over with.

It seems like things really changed for you when you moved to Hawaii. What has that move done for you?

You know, it’s great. Moving to Hawaii is definitely the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I had the opportunity to be the head coach at Icon and there are a whole bunch of guys out here training with me who are just great. But besides the gym and the wonderful people out here you have the weather and everything that is Hawaii. It’s been really conducive to my training.

I hear a lot of people say you’re much more mature these days, no longer such a wild guy in and out of the cage. What do you think prompted that transformation?

Losing (laughs). You know, I got away with being a brawler for a long time. And it’s hard to change things when they’re working. But when I fought Anderson I realized, I might be able to beat 95% of the guys out there, but I’ll never be a world champion fighting this way. So I had to go back and change a lot of things. That was one part of it.

And the other part was, you know, coaching. Now that I have a team of amateur guys fighting, it’s hard to tell them to do something if you’re not doing it yourself.

We all know that Ken Shamrock has only one chance when he faces Kimbo Slice at ‘Elite XC: Heat’ on CBS this Saturday night, and that’s to get the fight to the ground and hope Kimbo’s ground game is still as bad as it looked against James Thompson. According to Kimbo, however, it just looked like he had no idea what he was doing on the mat in that fight:

“Against Thompson I learned that no matter what happens, nothing will hurt me,” Slice said. “It’s mind over matter. Mentally, I knew I was alright. It may have looked like I was in trouble, but I was fine. It’s mind over matter.”

Really? Mind over matter? That’s what he took away from that fight? Call me crazy, but just because Kimbo weathered a couple minutes worth of ineffectual elbow strikes from the decidedly mediocre Thompson, that might not be reason to believe that nothing will hurt him.

‘Conditioning and takedown defense’ might not be as cool a slogan as ‘mind over matter,’ but it would be a much better approach for Kimbo. Lucky for him both Shamrock’s mind and matter are equally weakened with age and accumulated beatdowns.

(Props to Robert @ betwwx.com. Click image for larger version.)

Because if Shinya Aoki can wear those grip-tights while fighting, Mirko should be able to wear a spiked cod-piece. For the sake of future generations of Cro Cops, he needs to.

And if you think that’s sexy, wait until you see what’s after the jump…

(Props: max power)

One of the great urban legends of MMA comes from PRIDE Shockwave 2005, where Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett was supposedly jumped by six members of Chute Boxe in a locker room after the event. As Krazy Horse tells it, he knocked out Wanderlei Silva after he regained consciousness.

Finally, someone has come up with video evidence of the fracas, and it turns out Horse’s version of the story has some holes in it. The clip above shows Bennett doing the “jumping,” as he tackles Cristiano Marcello after some trash-talk from the Brazilian. Rather than gang-stomping Krazy Horse, the Chute Boxe team displays remarkable restraint in letting the pair settle their beef one-on-one, which eventually leads to Marcello choking Horse into unconsciousness. (Now that is just high-level locker room jiu-jitsu.)

As for that bit about Bennett knocking out the Axe Murderer? Well, apparently, that moment wasn’t captured on tape. But hey, we’ll take Krazy Horse’s word for it…

(Jorge Masvidal vs. Ryan Schulz; more videos here.)

From today’s Sengoku show at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan…

Middleweight GP 1st Round:
Yuki Sasaki def. Yuki Kondo via submission (rear-naked choke), round 2
Siyar Bahadurzada def. Evangelista Santos via TKO (injury), round 1
Jorge Santiago def. Logan Clark via submission (arm triangle choke), round 1
Kazuhiro Nakamura def. Paul Cahoon via unanimous decision

Lightweights:
Jorge Masvidal def. Ryan Schultz via TKO, round 1
Kiuma Kunioku def. Sol Kwon via unanimous decision

Heavyweights:
Muhammed Lawal def. Travis Wiuff via TKO, round 1

Light-Heavyweights:
Xande Ribeiro def. Takashi Sugiura via TKO, round 3

In other weekend fight news…

– Phil Baroni scored his third-straight win as a welterweight on Friday with his unanimous decision victory over WEC vet Olaf Alfonso at Palace Fighting Championships 10 in Lemoore, California. Baroni later apologized for his performance, saying he couldn’t find his rhythm in the fight.

– Jeff Monson choked out MMA cautionary tale Mark Kerr in the first round of their bout at Don King Productions’ debut Vengeance FC card, held last night in Concord, North Carolina. It was Kerr’s ninth loss in his last 11 fights.

Fighters Only passes along the news that Dutch kickboxer and mixed martial artist Melvin Manhoef has announced his retirement, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. Manhoef compiled a career MMA record of 22-5-1 — with all but one of his wins coming by way of extremely violent KO/TKO — and he holds notable victories over Evangelista Santos, Ian Freeman, and Kazushi Sakuraba (who he kicked the living crap out of at DREAM.4 in June). Manhoef’s last performance was a submission loss to Gegard Mousasi in the semi-finals of DREAM’s middleweight GP last Tuesday, which snapped a five-fight win streak.

Though his retirement is not quite an Anderson Silva-level shocker, his stint in DREAM seemed to mark the beginning of a new stage in his career, not the end of it altogether. Here’s hoping that this family-man bit is only a temporary phase. In the meantime, enjoy the above highlight vid of Manhoef beating dudes like they said shit about his mama.

Wilson Reis vs. Abel Cullum

David Douglas vs. Malaipet

Erik Apple vs. Matt Makowski

(Game face. Photo courtesy of Sherdog)

The latest installment of Elite XC’s “ShoXC: Elite Challenger Series” went down live on Showtime from Santa Ynez, Cal. last night. If you’re wondering why you didn’t hear much about this event throughout the week leading up to it, well, they didn’t want to just tell everybody. What kind of sense would that make?

Wilson Reis was the big winner in last night’s action, claiming the organization’s first bantamweight (140 lbs.) title with a unanimous decision victory over Abel Cullum to remain unbeaten in his MMA career. Reis’ grappling was enough to carry the day, even if he was unable to finish the wily Cullum.

Full results from last night’s event are after the jump.

(‘Come get some, little Couture.’)

- Gina Carano says she sparred with Randy Couture’s son to prepare for Kelly Kobald. (AOL Fanhouse)

- “Ninja” Rua wants a title shot next. (Fighthype)

- Goldstein chats with the Fightlinker boys on BetUs Radio (BetUs.com)

- Fowlkes talks with Steve Cofield and Ariel Helwani. (MMA Rated)

- WEC drops 185 and 205 pound weight classes. (MMA Weekly)

- Jason Day has successful surgery. (MMA News)

- Assessing the “MMA Lifestyle Apparel” as an opportunity field. (MMA Payout)

- Randy Couture talks Brock Lesnar bout. (MMA Scraps)

- SFW porn somehow better than NSFW porn. In a way. (Holy Taco)

- Bailout Protests: suits vs. hippies. (Wall Street Fighter)

- Presidential debate drinking game. (Screen Junkies)

- Most amazing football catch ever. (Nothing Toxic)

(Sorry, bro. Not this year.)

Poor Fedor. All he wants to do is fight some weird, mostly meaningless bout on New Year’s Eve every year. But all these damn contracts keep getting in the way. It’s almost as if people want the world’s top-ranked heavyweight to only fight top-ranked contenders. Fascists.

Affliction VP Tom Atencio told me yesterday that he has good reason to believe that all the talk about Fedor fighting in Japan this NYE is just idle chatter. Said Atencio:

He is not going to [fight on New Year's Eve]. We have a contract with Fedor. We have a great relationship with Fedor. I just spoke with the guys from M-1 Global and they assured me that he’s not fighting so wherever that came from is beyond me. There are a lot of rumors in this industry and a lot of speculation, but I was told through the partnership that we have that Fedor is definitely not fighting on New Year’s Eve.

Where it came from, obviously, was Fedor’s comments at Dream.6. But Atencio seems certain that the next time “The Russian Last Emperor” gets in the ring, it will be under the Affliction banner. As for when that might be, the details there are a little hazier.