It was a rough night for Takanori Gomi, as “The Fireball Kid” dropped a split decision to Russian Sergey Golyaev at Sengoku 6 (video is above). Kind of makes you wonder what happened to the guy who used to dominate in Pride. His last victory was a lackluster decision win over the relatively inexperienced Seung Hwan Bang, and now this fairly uninspired performance. You can’t really say he fought poorly, but you also can’t say he looks like the same guy he was two years ago.

Jorge Santiago and Satoru Kitaoka were the big winners on the night, each notching two victories in their respective tournaments. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira also picked up a unanimous decision win over Moise Rimbon.

Full results and more videos after the jump.

Sometimes mainstream pop culture is just a tad slow when it comes to keeping up with trends. A little less than a month after his image-shattering loss to Seth Petruzelli, which was followed by the demise of EliteXC, and this week Kimbo Slice‘s name is on everybody’s lips. First it was Tracy Morgan on Conan O’Brien, then Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, and then PTI’s Michael Wilbon dressed up as him for Halloween.

Oh, the cruel irony of it all. Has Kimbo been elevated to true celebrity status due to his mainstream exposure, or is he merely the pop culture joke of the week? At this rate he’s nearing Joe the Plumber status, or that ‘Leave Britney Alone’ guy (that was a guy, right?). Kimbo better hope it lasts long enough to sign a new contract.

(I’m going to guess…Moses the golfer?)

- Michael Wilbon is Kimbo Slice for Halloween. (MMA Fanhouse)

- Back on internet radio, along with Ariel Helwani and Steve Cofield. (MMA Rated)

- And 1 sponsors Nate Quarry. (NBC Sports)

- Anthony Johnson talks eye-pokes, rematch, and Steve Mazzagatti. (FightHype)

- A cartoon eulogy for Jared Shaw. (Fightlinker)

- Vinny Magalhaes tries to talk his way out of being Big Nog’s enemy. (MMA Weekly)

- Nick Diaz files notice to get free of EliteXC. (Gracie Fighter)

- Best lines from the worst movie. (Holy Taco)

- Out of control stock traders. (Wall Street Fighter)

- 16 bad guys we’d rather see win. (Screen Junkies)

- Long-haired kid gets serious ass-kicking. (Nothing Toxic)

(Swaying the important ground-and-pound voter block.)

Former UFC champ Matt Hughes received the prestigious Yale Chubb Fellow this week, which he described as, “just an award for being who you are and standing up for what you believe is right.” That’s one way of putting it, though it wouldn’t explain why Queen Latifah has yet to receive the award.

A slightly different description comes from Time magazine — “the prestigious fellowship was endowed by Insurance Executive Hendon Chubb (’95) to encourage student interest in public affairs” — but then that doesn’t explain why Hughes got it. Other recipients include Harry Truman, Jesse Jackson, Maya Angelou, and Adlai Stevenson. How Hughes fits in there, I have absolutely no clue.

Anyway, they brought him to Yale and gave him some money, which he then gave to the Rancho 3M Christian orphanage, so something good came out of it.

Hughes also discusses the presidential election in his recent blog entry. We already knew he was voting for John McCain, but here he takes some time to explain why, perhaps to sway those mythical undecided voters we keep hearing about. After the jump, the political endorsement that could turn the tide of the election.

(For the record, this is what Lyoto and Houston were staring at.)

So, anybody got any good costumes this year? If you do, let us know in the comments section, and if you live in Vegas, definitely swing by Dana White’s house:

“We give out real candy bars, not the little ones from the bag,” he said.

Good to know. We also wanted to pass along this photo of Roli Delgado’s “Ronald McDojo” costume; the TUF 8 castoff seems to have a good sense of humor about his much-speculated BJJ pedigree…

(Props: Fightlinker)

After the jump is the greatest non-MMA-related costume that I’ve seen so far this week. Mad props to WallStreetFighter for the find.

We’ve mentioned more than once that Affliction’s postponed “Day of Reckoning” card (January 24th; Anaheim, CA) will be a co-promotion with Golden Boy Promotions — though we weren’t really clear on what that partnership might look like. But it seems that Golden Boy is putting on a big-name boxing match the same night — Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley — which will air on HBO opposite Affliction’s pay-per-view card. In other words, they’re not so much partners as direct competitors. As Bloody Elbow’s Michael Rome sees it:

I don’t think there is any joint promotional deal between Affliction and Golden Boy. I heard a few weeks ago that nothing was signed, and it looks like all they have is a t-shirt deal, or a production deal at most. They announced it prematurely to distract people from the fact that they cancelled their October show because it sold about 700 tickets.

This is not good. Without the promotional muscle of Golden Boy, there’s no guarantee that “Day of Reckoning” won’t tank as hard as it did originally. We already know that Affliction may be trying to cut their losses, and if there’s no real pact with Golden Boy in place, that’s one less incentive for them to remain in the game.

In the latest episode of MMA Live the two sides of the ‘Is Anderson Silva just a big jerk?’ argument adopted here by Stephan Bonner (a fighter) and Franklin McNeil (a writer) tells us something we should have guessed from the start. That is, what you thought about that fight probably depends a great deal on how you see fighting in general.

Bonnar argues that Silva was fighting smart. It’s not his obligation to finish Patrick Cote in one round, even if he can. It’s his obligation to win and not do anything stupid that might jeopardize that.

McNeil takes the fan perspective, arguing that Silva owed a flashy finish to the people who had paid money to see him punch a hole in Cote’s face. He also compares Silva’s “playing around” to Roy Jones Jr.’s, while failing to mention how totally sweet Jones was in his prime.

The thing both men touch on is that because of who Silva is, as well as what the consensus opinion on who Cote is, Silva was in a tough spot. An immediate first-round KO might have seemed satisfactory. Maybe. And if Cote hadn’t blown his knee out, if he had stuck around until Silva put him away, we might not even be talking about this. It’s more a confluence of events that has us talking about Silva as if he’s suddenly public enemy number one, and because of all this talk, I honestly feel sorry for his next opponent.

(Two dudes from Stockton, let’s call them the Diaz brothers, just for the sake of argument.)

Thanks to everyone who submitted a question for Ask the Potato in our easy-to-use, fun and free forums. We chose a few we liked and decided to drop to some knowledge on you. If your question isn’t answered this time around, it could be because we plan to answer it in the next edition, or it could be because we don’t care about your stupid question. Either way, feel free to submit as many questions as you like, and we’ll get to you eventually.

If there was a guy from Stockton, let’s call him Nick, that wanted to fight another guy from Stockton, let’s call him Nate, which guy would show up and be the bigger gangster? — Knightrida
BG: That’s a very good question, Knightrida. Obviously both of these guys would show up and be gangster as fuck. In the absence of any other information about who these gentlemen could possibly be, I’d have to call the fight a draw, but I’d assume that one of the two would be younger, and kind of strange-looking, and would speak with a near-indecipherable lisp. After the fight ended, each fighter would try to assault the father of the other one. All audience members would personally have middle fingers shoved into their faces — otherwise known as the “Stockton Heybuddy.” The arena would be burned to the ground in triumph.

(Props: MMA Mania)

UFC 90 was profoundly disappointing, and UFC 91 doesn’t offer much outside of Randy vs. Brock, but the UFC promises to make up for it and then some with “The Ultimate 2008,” their stacked-to-death year-end card (December 27th, Las Vegas). The official lineup for the event was announced yesterday with the additions of Matt Hamill, C.B. Dollaway, Cheick Kongo, and Yushin Okami. Here’s what we’ll be seeing…

Main card
Forrest Griffin vs. Rashad Evans (for light-heavyweight championship)
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Frank Mir (for interim heavyweight championship)
CB Dollaway vs. Mike Massenzio (middleweights)
Wanderlei Silva vs. Quinton Jackson (light-heavyweights)
Cheick Kongo vs. Mustafa Al-Turk (heavyweights)

Undercard
Yushin Okami vs. Dean Lister (middleweights)
Antoni Hardonk vs. Mark Burch (heavyweights)
Matt Hamill vs. Reese Andy (light-heavyweights)
Ryo Chonan vs. Brad Blackburn (welterweights)
Dan Evensen vs. Pat Barry (heavyweights)

Why Dollaway vs. Massenzio gets a main card slot over Okami vs. Lister is anyone’s goddamned guess. But it’s hard to complain with those three headlining fights. Any early predictions? Remember, “The Ultimate 2008″ isn’t the only card the UFC is putting on in December — there’s also “Fight for the Troops” on December 10th in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the TUF 8 finale on December 13th (location TBA). Both events will be aired on Spike.

(Images courtesy of this week’s caption contest.)

Voting — it’s so hot right now. In honor of next week’s election (and to prevent some of the inevitable bitching), we’re gonna go back to having you guys vote for the winners of these things. Remember, two copies of the November issue of Playboy signed by Rachelle herself are on the line, courtesy of Playboy Digital. And the nominees are…

Ted Nutmeg: In a bittersweet moment, Lyoto realized that standing next the chick in the red skirt is the closest he’ll ever come to scoring a knockout in the UFC.

PHISTAKUFFS: “Tito better be careful parking the car!”

RTS: Chick 1: “My man is a technician in bed.”
Chick 2: “Sounds great!”
Chick 1: “It’s actually quite boring.”
Chick 2: “My man is a knock out artist.”
Chick 1: “That sounds good.”
Chick 2: “He only lasts a minute, if that.”

Baba: Somewhere, Anderson and Thiago Silva are laughing in the midst of a Timberland shoot.

The king adrock: For the first time in career, Machida pressed the action.

JTho: After three grueling days and countless different models, the photographer was finally able to keep Alexander’s knees from buckling, and Machida from back pedaling out of the shot.

JoseMonkey: This photo was taken just moments after someone yelled, “Hey douchebag!”

Jordan: “Ok, next question….what the fuck are you looking at?”

Geriatric Peon: The Transvestite Realization Face

Horror Fighter: “All right, take ‘em off. It’s time to do the Condom Depot photos now.”

Cast your vote in the poll on the right side of the page. The two captions with the most votes by 8 a.m. ET on Monday win magazines. You are welcome to cast write-in votes in the comments section below, but if they aren’t shown above, they probably weren’t that funny. So please do your civic duty as a CagePotato reader, and good luck to all the nominees!

(The infamous “he’s going to eat that spit” speech. Inspiring.)

The last time we devoted blog space to Ultimate Fighter coach Al “Stankie” Stankiewicz, some of you complained that we were applying a double-standard by encouraging his drunken antics and denouncing those of Jesse Taylor and Junie Browning. Fair enough, but what you have to remember is this: when a young, strong professional fighter gets drunk and violent, it’s called assault. When a crazy old man who goes by the name “Stankie” does it, it’s hilarious. Why? Because he’s old. The rules are different for old people. The rest of us just have to accept that.

It’s kind of like when you go to a family Thanksgiving and your racist grandfather makes a remark about “those thieving, hot-blooded Latins.” There’s no point in getting upset, and you know he’s just talking about Desi Arnaz anyway. So you do what any minimally functioning family does. You pass the potatoes and pretend it didn’t happen.

Today’s Stankie story comes yet again from Ryan Bader, who seems way more interested in telling these tales than any other cast member, God bless him. This time, it was our very own blogger, Efrain Escudero, who found himself pulled into the mysterious world that Stankie seems to inhabit all by himself:

Stanky had this thing with Efrian Escudero. He liked Efrian a lot but really wanted to spar him. Stanky always told him that he would kick his ass if they boxed. So one day we told Stanky his dreams were going to come true. Nogueira told him he could spar Efrian in straight boxing if he wore the chest/rib protector. They would spar in the ring, with full walkouts and the whole hooray. I would corner Efrian and the rest of the team would be behind Stanky. This made his day, if not year — well, probably decade.

Kyle overheard Stanky while he was hitting the speed bag warming up talking to himself. Stanky was muttering out loud to himself, “Stanky, one last hoorah. This is it, old chap! You’re back in the game! Back in the fire! Do this and you can finally put down the gloves.”

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(These fond memories now belong to HDNet.)

In an apparent attempt to bolster their MMA content, HDNet has purchased the IFL’s remains for $650,000. The purchase includes the IFL’s video library, their brand name, intellectual property, as well as some of their liabilities. Since the IFL hasn’t put on a show since May, and since much of their 2008 season was broadcast on HDNet anyway, the question we have to ask regarding this purchase is, now what?

Not that the IFL didn’t put on some good fights, but how much is old fight footage really worth? With the exception of the really good bouts, watching old fights can be a lot like watching old college football games on ESPN Classic, which is to say it appeals to a very select audience, mostly the unemployed and the very, very drunk, either of whom are likely to think they’re watching live TV.

But HDNet seems too savvy to pay that much for a bunch of old fights that have already been aired on Fox Sports Net and MyNetwork, not to mention spread around the internet. So what do you have up your sleeve, HDNet? Don’t tell me you paid more than half a million dollars just to air Chris Horodecki highlights in between old episodes of Hogan’s Heroes. All right, I admit I’d watch that.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

Joe Rogan and Dana White mark out hard about Brock Lesnar’s athleticism and Randy Couture’s unquantifiable champion essence in this in-depth look at UFC 91′s marquee matchup. One of the talking points is that Lesnar’s strength and wrestling ability will negate Couture’s natural advantages — though that could easily work the other way. As of now, Couture is a very slight betting underdog against Lesnar. Betting against him, historically speaking, is not a great idea.

Below: Tracy Morgan actually name-checked Kimbo Slice on Late Night With Conan O’Brien last night. Conan had no idea who he was referring to, and Morgan explained that they’re actually related. Who knew? After the jump: “The Passion.”

(Props: BloodyElbow)

Props to MMA Fight Girls for alerting us to this Skeletal Metal photo shoot featuring former UFC Octagon Girl Amber Nichole Miller. More from the shoot is below, as well as a small sampling of what’s been added to her MySpace page since we last gave Amber the Hot Potato treatment. Enjoy…

(When you’re a jerk to the guy with the cute puppy, you always come out looking like the bad guy.)

You’d think Affliction wouldn’t take Randy Couture‘s return to the UFC personally. For one, they never signed him. For another, it had gotten to the point where it looked like Couture’s choices were between making up with Dana White or spending what little remains of his fighting shelf life in legal battles. But apparently there are those in Affliction, namely co-owner Todd Beard, who are pretty pissed off about the whole scenario.

Appearing on the Scott Ferrall radio show (you remember him, the “crackhead-looking motherfucker” Dana White used to pay to cover UFC events?) Beard reportedly said, “Randy, if you’re listening right now, I hope (expletive) Lesnar kills you.”

Which seems, you know, uncalled for. Even Couture can’t make much sense of the outburst:

“I really don’t understand where Todd Beard’s coming from in his attack to me, my wife, and my attorney, and now the Ferttitas and Lorenzo specifically, and Dana White. I don’t understand it,” stated Couture. “He feels there’s this adversarial relationship created and I just don’t get it. It’s gone beyond kind of the antics of being a promoter, so we’ll see how all that unfolds, and where the relationship stands, and where we end up with that down the road.”

So Affliction really wants Couture to rep them with his Xtreme Couture gear, so much so that they had talks with the UFC about it, which also ended with Todd Beard swearing at someone, but antics like this certainly aren’t helping things. Looks like Affliction needs to get their boy under control, or we may have seen the last of Couture sporting the skulls and chains.

(Big Nog puts it as gently as he can.)

Watching The Ultimate Fighter, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it’s all clever editing that makes some people/teams look like the bad guys. But this extra footage from last night’s show has me thinking that no, Team Mir really is the evil team.

After the fight we see Jules Bruchez looking downtrodden while Vinny Magalhaes is asking, with regards to Octagon girl Arianny Celeste, “Can anybody get her number?” No, Vinny. Not anybody. Then we go inside each team’s locker room after the fight. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira tries to help Jules understand what the hell just happened to him, while Frank Mir jokes with Vinny and the gang about breaking Jules’ arm. You know, just for laughs.

I’m not saying that Team Mir are all bad people, but if this were an 80′s teen movie, I think we all know which team would be the mean-spirited bunch who gets their comeuppance in the end, and which would be the lovable losers with the hearts of gold who persevere despite the long odds. And can’t you just imagine Nogueira smiling and laughing his way through the training montage while a Bonnie Tyler song blares?

(Does that look infected to you? Photo courtesy of myspace.com/allen_browning)

Following in the footsteps of fighters like Mac Danzig and Amir Sadollah, Junie Browning is the latest Ultimate Fighter notable to re-focus his training at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas. MMA Weekly has confirmed that Browning started training with the camp about a week and a half ago, and so far he hasn’t tried to throw training equipment into the hot tub or jump off the roof:

“He’s been very quiet in the gym, there’s been no antics, there’s been no nothing,” [Randy] Couture said. “He shows up everyday and straps his gloves on and gets his work done.”

In other words, he’s functioning like a normal person, which is quite an achievement for the Kentucky native. At any rate, he’ll be whipped into shape by the team at XC, which includes UFC lightweights Tyson Griffin and Gray Maynard — who hopefully haven’t taken Junie’s “boring fucking wrestlers” comments too personally.

Related: Junie’s latest TUF blog for UFC.com is up, where he discusses the wave of interviews he had to do last week, Team Nog’s family-vibe, and the Jules/Vinny scrap (“To be honest, I don’t think Jules could have won a fight at 155″).

During this week of The Ultimate Fighter, we start off with the Junie fight recap. This guy ran his mouth and couldn’t finish Rolando. In my eyes Rolando could have beat Junie if he would have kept behind his jab. I really wanted to jump the cage and ask him how it feels!!! I had to stop myself because knowing Junie he would have gone absolutely crazy, but oh well, I’ll just have to wait and see what the semi-finals have in store for me.

We started having some fun in practice, even though our practices were always different. We played some games on couple of the days which made me forget about fighting for a while. It reminded me that I was there to enjoy my time there and train hard; there is a time to have fun and a time to work. I really needed it at the time. Meanwhile the other team continued to get upset at us because we were enjoying ourselves and they were miserable.

Then we have Coach Nogueira’s birthday. He could have gone out and had a great time — after all, it is Las Vegas — but he decided to come to the house and hang out with us. We cooked dinner and baked him a cake which was a pretty good time I was glad I could be a part of it, and you see that it really meant a lot to him. Once again the blue team hated on us for this. Let’s face it, that’s all they know how to do at this point. In the house guys talk, that’s a given, but then Vinny started saying that he was better on the ground than Coach Nogueria!!! Word got out to Nogueira, and he didn’t take to it kindly. Coach confronted Vinny, which caused a big scene around the house. Me personally, I would never say that about any of my coaches because I think that my coach is there to help me; not for me to prove anything.

(‘Oh, the bruises? It’s not her fault. I just make her so mad sometimes. She’s really very sweet. You don’t know the things she says to me when we’re alone’.)

You think the death of Pro Elite was a great day for MMA, Dana White? There are those who would disagree with you. For example, the newly unemployed Scott Smith who puts a very, very sad human face on the whole thing:

“I’ve been in camp for over eight weeks and I’ve been pushing myself hard. It’s one thing if [it happens] two months out from a fight, but two weeks? It’s devastating. Even if I lost, worst case scenario, (including sponsorship money) I would still be out close to $40,000. Until all the paperwork and everything is done I’m not going to be cleared to fight somewhere else before the end of the year. It’s close to the holidays, I got a mortgage to pay, I’ve got two kids, it’s tough.”

Damn, Scott. Now I just feel terrible. There may have been a lot of small failures and a few colossal ones behind EliteXC’s demise, but you sure as hell can’t put any of it on Smith, whose clashes with Robbie Lawler were among the most memorable (for the right reasons) bouts in EliteXC’s brief history.

So if it ain’t Scott Smith’s fault, dammit, whose fault is it? Former Pro Elite VP of Home Entertainment Turi Altavilla doesn’t explicitly say it was Jared Shaw’s fuck-ups that did them in, but he certainly doesn’t absolve $kala from responsibility either. Apparently after Jared’s father, Gary Shaw, left the company under the condition that his son would stay on, things took a turn for the stupid:

Steve Mazzagatti responds to Brock Lesnar’s request – Watch more free videos
(Props: MMA Scraps)

Referee Steve Mazzagatti is playing it cool regarding Brock Lesnar‘s very specific request that he not be allowed to ref the main event at UFC 91. Doesn’t bother him at all, or so he would have us believe. Personally, I’m not buying it. Maybe I’m just a sad, vindictive person, but if it was me Lesnar was trying to blackball from the main event, I’d definitely want to see Randy Couture turn his big, square face into mush.

Not Steve “Love Thy Enemy” Mazzagatti, though. He says requesting a different ref is Lesnar’s right. He also says it’s “easy to get in the ring and walk around and look cool,” but it’s another thing to have to make the calls. Hold up, look cool? Steve, we need to talk about a few things, and yes, one of those things is your would-be catch phrase, “hook ‘em up.” It’s going to be a long and unpleasant talk for both of us, but it has to happen.

CagePotato reader Brian W. just turned us on to the hard-hitting investigative journalism of Chicago-based sports website Mouthpiece Sports, which works in some solid MMA coverage between the Bears/Bulls/Cubs/Sox/B’hawks stories. Here’s a sampling of their work; Diego Sanchez, Miguel Torres, and Dana White talk fighter groupies in the video above, Tyler Bryan discusses his web-legendary double-knockout with Shaun Parker in the video below, and we get a look at some of the knuckleheads we might be seeing on TUF 9 after the jump. “Plubicity” FTW.

(Yeah, we definitely need to see this again.)

So, the South Florida Sun Suntinel has this story about how EliteXC’s collapse affects South Floridians (thanks for the tip, Fight Opinion), and it contains this rather amazing quote:

Rookie MMA fighter Kimbo Slice is already back in a local gym after his 14-second loss to last-minute replacement and UFC light heavyweight washout Seth Petruzelli in Sunrise.

Slice, who spent Thursday at one of his children’s school career day, is weighing his options with his agent Mike Imber. He may fight on the DREAM K-1 New Year’s Eve show in Japan, possibly a rematch with Petruzelli.

Oh man, career day? Poor Kevlar. I wonder if Kimbo was too embarrassed to talk about MMA following his recent loss, and instead delivered a five-minute speech about what it takes to be a porn company bodyguard.

(We’re on it?)

Due to some necessary site maintenance scheduled from 1-7 p.m. ET, we won’t be putting up any more posts until this evening. Also: Comments made on the site during this time (i.e., caption contest entries) will be temporarily lost, but will be re-imported and available by tomorrow. Apologies for the inconvenience. In the meantime, why not start a couple threads in our forums section? Or, you know, actually do your job for once without reading blogs on company time. Just a thought. Talk to you later…

Looks like we’ll be holding off on this B.S. until next week. We will return shortly to regular posting. Thanks for your patience…

(They aren’t there to protect “Cro Cop” from you. They’re there to protect you from “Cro Cop”.)

Despite having one of his testicles relocated to the inside of his body by Alistair Overeem‘s low blows during their last meeting, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic says when they go around again this New Year’s Eve at K-1 Dynamite it’s oddly not his junk that he’s worried about. In an interview with a Croatian website, then translated on MMA Fanhouse, Cro Cop says his trick knee has been acting up and that he’ll have to undergo another surgery on it immediately after the fight with Overeem:

“The advice I got from my doctors was that fighting Overeem only two months after my knee operation was a suicide mission. I already had missed the July bout and postponing my September bout was not an option for me. I have only myself to blame.”

“I’ve had several operations this year, and I’ll have to undergo another one straight after the NYE event. It’s frustrating to have to undergo all these operations but that’s the sportsman’s life. Many others have had it worse then me.

“Sportsman” seems like an odd translation in this context. I have an uncle who’s really into fishing. He calls himself a sportsman. Other than a love of pranks involving the threat of violence, my uncle and Cro Cop really have nothing at all in common.

(Props: UGO via MMA Mania)

WEC bantamweight champ Miguel Torres reminisces about coming up in the wild, unregulated world of barroom fight nights and smokers, fighting guys 40+ pounds heavier than him without a mouthpiece or cup. He also explains why he doesn’t put much faith in gameplans, and how his father’s Mexican-American pride inspired his own career path. Total class, this guy; Torres fights next at WEC 37 on December 3rd against 10-0-1 Manny Tapia.

Fightlinker has dug up Matt Lindland’s latest political attack ad against Suzanne Van Orman. I think it’s safe to say the gloves are completely off at this point.

Also worth seeing:
— Things aren’t looking good for K-Sos tonight (watch to the end)
— Chuck Liddell blames overzealousness for last loss, wants to fight again
— Matt Hughes talks April fight with Matt Serra

(The Fireball Kid returns on Saturday; Diaz may be ringing in ’09 overseas.)

— Though most of us want to see him return to the UFC eventually, Nick Diaz‘s next fight will likely be in Japan. Diaz’s manager Cesar Gracie told MMA Weekly that he’s already been contacted by Fight Entertainment Group (Dream’s parent company) and Sengoku, and Diaz will be competing either on FEG’s K-1 Dynamite! card on New Year’s Eve, or Sengoku VII on January 4th. Diaz’s EliteXC contract states that he can compete in Japan as long as it doesn’t interfere with his EliteXC duties — so, no problems there.

— According to MMA Fighting, former IFL lightweight standout Chris Horodecki will return to action on November 24th at the Shootboxing “S-Cup 2008,” a one-night eight-man tournament that will go down at the Saitama Super Arena; the tournament will also feature PRIDE vet Luiz Azeredo. Known as “standing vale tudo,” Shootboxing doesn’t incorporate ground-fighting, although throws and standing submissions are allowed. Horodecki is still penciled in to compete at Affliction’s “Day of Reckoning” show on January 24th.

(The only stupid questions are the ones you don’t ask.)

We here at Cage Potato value our loyal readers so much we’ve decided it’s high time we started giving a little something back to you. That’s why we’re introducing our new feature, Ask the Potato.

You have a question? Maybe you want to know who our favorite Diaz brother is (depends how high we are) or who we think would win in a fight between Fedor Emelianenko and a cyborg Grizzly (depends if it’s on New Year’s Eve). Or maybe you even have a non-MMA question for us, something about your parents’ divorce perhaps. It doesn’t matter. Ask us anything.

Just head on over to the Ask the Potato thread in our free, easy-to-use forums and put your question down. If we choose your question, it will be answered on the site before God and your peers, so make it good. To save time, if your question is ‘Why didn’t I win the last caption contest?’ The answer is, because we’re jerks. There, you happy now?

We look forward to reading all your questions and disappointing you with our answers. Huzzah!

(It’s like he saw that Condom Depot ad and became enraged. I’ve never seen a man who hates birth control with such a ferocious passion.)

You bastards have done it now. You fans and media with your hate mail and hate articles, accusing Anderson Silva of conduct unbecoming a champion. Now he’s pissed. And Silva is not like your sister. He doesn’t turn to ice cream when he’s upset. He turns to awesomely destructive violence, and he would prefer to do it as soon as possible according to UFC president Dana White, who had this to say to the Las Vegas Review-Journal regarding the champ:

“He’s flipping out. He wants to fight again, like, on Nov. 15,” White said. “He’s (upset) about his performance and he wants to fight again immediately.”

Now that’s the attitude you want from your champ. Of course, it’s completely unreasonable to think the UFC could get him a worthy opponent in time for UFC 91, so don’t get too excited. But this might be the perfect time for creative matchmaking on the UFC’s part. Maybe they can’t get a top-level challenger, but could they get three mid-level guys? Middleweights, light heavyweights, anyone who needs a paycheck, really. How about if Silva faces Ed Herman, Houston Alexander, and an unemployed ninja all at once?

No, that’s still not fair. Okay, the ninja can use his throwing stars and Houston can use illegal knee strikes. Ed Herman, he has to show up drunk. Check that, he gets to show up drunk. This is one night he’s not going to want to remember.

(Props: Bloody Elbow)

The WEC has released the final lineup for next Wednesday’s event at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Here’s what we’ll be seeing:

Main Card (airing live on Versus, 8 p.m. ET)
Urijah Faber vs. Mike Brown (for featherweight championship)
Paulo Filho vs. Chael Sonnen (for middleweight championship)
Jens Pulver vs. Leonard Garcia (featherweights)
Jake Rosholt vs. Nissen Osterneck (middleweights)
Rob McCullough vs. Donald Cerrone (lightweights)

Undercard
David Avellan vs. Aaron Simpson (light-heavyweights)
Jose Aldo vs. Jonathan Brookins (featherweights)
Alex Schoenauer vs. Steve Steinbeiss (light-heavyweights)
Danny Castillo vs. Ed Ratcliff (lightweights)
Yoshiro Maeda vs. Rani Yahya (bantamweights)

The video promo above wonders if Mike Brown is the man to stop Urijah Faber’s reign of dominance in the WEC. Most likely, he isn’t — which should explain why Faber’s betting line is as high as -450 on sports wagering sites. The fight to really pay attention to here is Paulo Filho vs. Chael Sonnen. Before the controversial armbar stoppage in their first match last December, Chael Sonnen was dominating Filho, beating the middleweight champ standing and scoring multiple takedowns. Filho entered treatment for chemical dependency shortly after the fight, and hasn’t competed since; Sonnen last fought at WEC 33 in March, where he won a decision over Bryan Baker. It’ll be interesting to see where Filho’s head is at. And of course, there’s no way Lil’ Evil vs. Bad Boy will be a dull fight. Not bad for free TV…

(Clearly.)

Add Nick Diaz to the list of EliteXC refugees who Dana White may be looking to pick up. During an appearance on TapouT Radio Live, the UFC prez was complementary of Stockton’s favorite son, though he made it known that he doesn’t approve of Diaz’s confrontational antics:

“I think Nick Diaz is a bad ass. Nick Diaz is a tough kid. Nick Diaz doesn’t handle himself right all the time in public. I like him — I respect him as a fighter. I love his attitude. I love the way that kid fights. But you can’t do the stuff that this kid does in public. You can’t get into fights when the fight is over … you can’t do that stuff.”

Of course, we immediately think of Diaz’s in-cage taunts of KJ Noons and his father at EliteXC: The Return of the King in June — and the obscene gestures he makes at the crowd after his fights, which is something of a Diaz family tradition. But Dana White is likely also referring to a bizarre incident that took place after Diaz’s UFC 57 fight against Joe Riggs in February 2006. As Wikipedia retells it: