(War Machine slips into a brief trance.  This is why we say no flash photography around him, people.)

- Competing at last night’s XMMA event in Montreal, the fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver earned a submission victory over previously unbeaten Guillaume “El Toro” Delorenzi via rear naked choke.  When reached for the comment, the citizens of the world replied, “War Machine?  That guy who threatened the president on MySpace?  He fights?”

- Mike “Quick” Swick will face Ben Saunders at UFC 99 in Germany, according to Five Ounces of Pain.  Saunders last competed against Brandon Wolff, the fighter War Machine refused to face due to fears that he might be both good and relatively unknown, thus earning his dismissal from the UFC.  Using his height and a series of brutal knees, Saunders made quick work of Wolff at "Fight for the Troops."  Now he gets Swick in Germany.  Why not.

- After insisting that he’s been in negotiations with Strikeforce to give this MMA stuff a try, it seems as if Hasim Rahman is even more full of shit than we suspected.  Strikfeforce’s Mike Afromowitz told MMA Fanhouse there has been “no dialogue” with Rahman or his manager about a fight with Kimbo Slice, as Rahman’s manager had claimed.  Maybe by ‘talking to Strikefore’ he really meant ‘watching old Strikeforce fights on the internet?’  As for Kimbo, Afromowitz described those talks as “ongoing.” 

(Video game Cheick Kongo is terrifying. Maybe even more so than actual Cheick Kongo. Image courtesy of IGN.com)

- What’s to become of Kaitlin Young?  (MMA Payout)

- Kawajiri/Ebanez added to Dream.7.  (MMA Weekly)

- MMA in India.  It does exist.  (MMA Fanhouse)

- Johny Hendricks describes getting KO’d by Phil Baroni.  (Cage Writer)

- Wanderlei Silva not worried about dropping weight.  (Fighters Only)

- Jorge Santiago likes Anderson Silva’s chances.  (Tatame)

- Frank Shamrock will say absolutely anything.  (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Hardy says anyone outside of top three is "fair game."  (The Sun)

- Cleveland Browns trade Kellen Winslow.  (Scores Report)

- Dennis Rodman goes from riding high to totally unconscious.  (Holy Taco)

- Top 7 Heroes who need to die.  (Screen Junkies)

- Forbes Magazine takes on Nascar.  (All Left Turns)

- Female cops fired for this flashing video.  So sad.  (Nothing Toxic)

- Top 25 men who look like old lesbians.  (Cracked)

- Cheap elbow causes hockey concussion.  (Break.com)

(Mike Brown prays to Krom for victory.  But if Krom does not help, then to hell with him, Brown will do it himself.)

You may have forgotten all about WEC 39 on Sunday night, such is your excitement for our party with Fight! Magazine in Columbus, Ohio, but we remembered because someone has to keep things in order around here.  In case you’re not content just watching a night of free fights on Versus, we’ll also help you throw away your money betting on them.  Because that’s how little we care about your welfare and happiness.

Here are the sweetest lines out there, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Mike Brown (-165) vs. Leonard Garcia (+160)
Marcus Hicks (+134) vs. Rob McCullough (-144)
John Franchi (-118) vs. Mike Budnik (+108)
Johny Hendricks (-312) vs. Alex Serdyukov (+300)
Chris Mickle (+700) vs. Jose Aldo (-850)
Damacio Page (-140) vs. Marcus Galvao (+130)
Alex Karalexis (-175) vs. Greg McIntyre (+165)
Phil Cardella (+151) vs. Danny Castillo (-160)
Rafael Rebello (even) vs. Kenji Osawa (-110)
Justin Haskins (+180) vs. Mike Pierce (-193)
Bart Palaszewski (-272) vs. Ricardo Lamas (+260)

Thoughts…

(Props: "hubris" on the UG)

What you’re about to see is a highlight-reel of sorts from a 1998 flick called Champions. We’ll let IMDb handle the synopsis:

Anyway, I feel bad for anyone who had to watch this, but Trejo is a legend, and it’s pretty cool that his character’s last words are "AHHH! BEEYITCH!"

(Arianny Celeste, pre-airbrushing.)

LAS on "How’s Taste My Clay-Pee-Pee?": This will be the best toy ever for the first 3 minutes before it breaks, at which point you will really regret paying 5x as much as you should have for it.

dwhite@ufc.com on "Scott ‘LionHeart’ Blevins Cannot be Stopped": Guys Got more Balls, Then Anyone Ive Scene Leave a Comment on this, Guy,..Hes Talented by Heart and at UFC, Thats the Kinda Guy we Are Currently Looking for,,He can do the 145 Class,,Really,..Hes 130 but Fights alot of Over Weight Guys,..So I Beleive I Be in Touch with Mr.LionHeart,.Hes Got me Added on Myspace so I Beleive I will do that! Contract it is,Contract it be,.
DW
[Ed. note: Look, I know this wasn't written by the real Dana White; I shouldn't even have to say that. But whether it was written by a Scott Blevins fan, or LionHeart himself, or a snarky CagePotato reader pretending to be Scott pretending to be Dana White (and if so, well done sir), all I can tell you is that "Contract it is,Contract it be,." made me LOL so hard that I immediately set it as my new e-mail signature.]

manutdfan on "Arianny Celeste: Yep, Still Hot": Here we are, Potato Nation, huddled around our glowing screens, ripping apart photographs of a woman that 99.99% of us will never have the chance to land (no, TUF Guy, you are not that .01%). At the end of the day, we shall retire from our cubicles (or ESL class), go home to our shitty hovels we call ‘home’, and think "Well, I really pwned on the comment section today, calling out that airbrush job on AC!" Then our mother’s voice calls out, "Jimmy, get outta the bathroom and come to dinner. Why you stay in there so long, I don’t wanna know!"
Instead, just enjoy the pics, and be happy the Bens bring us such joy.
[Ed. note: *wipes away tear*]

If your name has been called, e-mail your real name, address, and shirt size to Feedback@CagePotato.com and we’ll send a CP "Hall of Fame" t-shirt to you at some point, when we feel like it.

(‘Crank my neck all you want…I still say…a strategy that involves nationalizing banks…is untenable…over a long period of time.’)

Now here’s a rare positive story coming out of the strange place where economic disaster and martial arts training meet.  The Gracie Barra gym in Clearwater, Florida is offering free classes to people who have recently lost their jobs.  As a way to ease the stress of the unemployed and keep them from killing themselves and their families, owner Eduardo de Lima will let you train for free for six months or until you get a job, whichever comes first:

"I always said to my students, ‘If you lose your job, just come in anyway.’ It’s more important for them to work out, because it releases the stress of life," said De Lima, 40, who’s been teaching jiu-jitsu for 16 years. "When (people) get stressed from money problems, they do dumb things," he said, citing the Los Angeles man who recently shot his family and then himself after losing his job.

Stress relief, huh?  I guess that’s one explanation behind this free jiu-jitsu offer.  Another explanation might be that de Lima is training an army of the economically disenfranchised.  Think about it: they’re desperate, angry, and have nothing to lose.  They also don’t have to go to work, so they can train pretty much all day.

Sure, it sounds crazy now.  But we’ll see whose crazy in six months when de Lima and his legions sweep through Washington D.C. and then Wall Street, taking over the country and its financial institutions via armbars and rear naked chokes.  Viva la jiu-jitsu revolution!  Free gi’s for everyone!

(Unfortunately the beating wasn’t the worst thing to come out of UFC 95 for Mandaloniz.  Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

According to BJPenn.com, Troy “Rude Boy” Mandaloniz has been cut from the UFC following the decision loss to Paul Kelly that left the Hawaiian’s face looking like an impressionist painting that had been left out in the rain.  While we’re not terribly surprised to see a guy who is 3-2 in his career and 1-1 in the UFC (with the lone win coming against Richie Hightower) cut from the big leagues, he seems fairly shocked.

"I thought I showed them what I was made of, but I guess not. I don’ think I see too many other fighters out there fighting with the same passion and intensity that I bring. I’m a fighter that people want to see fight and maybe one day after I prove myself again I could be back in the UFC.”

Rude Boy apparently learned he had been cut via email (sure it wasn’t a text message to someone else in the camp?), which seems kind of cold.  They couldn’t even pick up the phone and call him?  

Maybe dropping fighters from the UFC is like breaking up.  If they’ve only fought twice for you, an email is fine.  If they’ve been around a little longer, you gotta call.  And if it’s an ex-champion who’s put in years of service, you take them out to a mediocre Mexican restaurant and break the news over appetizers, then let them have just one more go-round in the bathroom for old times’ sake.

Of course, if they’ve only had one fight?  Like poor Josh Hendricks?  Then you can inform them via a post on their Facebook page.  Right before changing your status to “Accepting heavyweight applications.”

(Image courtesy of XMMA.tv)

Well at least there’s one brave, honest MMA organization left in the world that’s willing to take a chance on War Machine despite his arrests and controversial views on American politics. Canadian league XMMA is holding an event tonight in Montreal which features the fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver in the main event against Guillaume "Il Toro" de Lorenzi. De Lorenzi is a perfect 5-0 in MMA competition with all wins by TKO, the last four of which came in the first round.

Machine is actually a replacement for Phil Baroni, who pulled out of the match against "Il Toro" two weeks ago when Strikeforce acquired his contract from Pro Elite; Baroni expects to make his Strikeforce return in May. Machine — who most recently scored a first-round TKO win over David Anderson at a Desert Rage event in November — still has about ten hours to do something stupid enough to get him kicked off the show, which is like eight weeks in normal-people time. So cross your fingers for him, and if you’ll actually be buying the XMMA pay-per-view broadcast, let us know how it goes.

Related: War’s gay club brawl? Totally started by someone else.

(Rahman snatches the WBC/IBF/IBO heavyweight boxing titles with his fifth-round KO of Lennox Lewis in April 2001.)

According to a new report on Sherdog, former heavyweight boxing champ Hasim Rahman is planning on entering MMA competition sometime this year. Has he joined an MMA camp yet? No. Does he have any grappling experience? No — unless you count the brief wrestling contest he had against Lennox Lewis when they were promoting their rematch in November 2001. But his manager Sandro Gelke seems to have a pretty solid grasp on the sport, so he should be just fine:

Georges St. Pierre’s Breathing Technique – Watch more free videos

This is the "video evidence" referred to in the Jackson camp’s official response to the NSAC regarding B.J. Penn’s greasing allegations.  Here we get to see the witchdoctor-approved breathing technique without all the fancy editing that Penn employed to make it look worse.  We also get to see it in other contexts, such as the GSP-Jon Fitch fight, the B.J. Penn-Sean Sherk fight, and backstage while GSP is wearing a t-shirt.  Makes you think they have a pretty strong case that it was all just an accidental screw-up by Phil Nurse.

ESPN’s “MMA Live” breaks down UFC 95 and previews Sunday’s WEC 39 event.  Kenny Florian also dishes about his Penn fight drama and tries to stay positive, even as Franklin McNeil attempts to get in his head about the long layoff.

After the jump, an “Inside MMA” preview and the UG’s Miss Rara in lingerie.  You read that right.

‘Sup, Potato Nation.  What are you guys up to next Friday night?  Just sitting around, painting your toenails and wishing it was Saturday already so you could watch UFC 96?  That’s a bummer, because we’ll be partying our asses off at a VIP party with Fight! Magazine at the Sugar Bar in Columbus, Ohio.

It’s no big deal, really.  Just us, the dudes from Fight Mag, a bunch of UFC fighters, an open bar, and a ring girl contest hosted by none other than Bruce Buffer himself.  See I lied, it’s totally a big deal!!!!

But we’re not telling you simply to brag about how big time we are.  We want you to come party with us to kick off the UFC 96 weekend, and two lucky Cage Potato readers will get the full VIP treatment – free drinks, hobnobbing with the stars (and, you know, us), the works.  To determine which two of you will receive this honor, we’re going to have ourselves an old-fashioned (really, really short) essay contest.

Simply tell us, in 100 words or less in this forum thread, why you think you deserve to hang with the stars and party it up in Columbus, Ohio before UFC 96.  Only entries in the forum thread will be considered, and to be eligible you should a) be 21 or over, and b) be reasonably capable of actually getting to Columbus on March 6.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

Well, we’re nine days away from the most-anticipated [Columbus, Ohio-based] UFC card in history since last March. No, the lineup isn’t exactly knocking anybody’s dick off. But people bitched about UFC 95, and that turned out to be insane from top to bottom, so who really knows? Above is the extended promo clip for the night’s two main events. Quinton Jackson says Keith Jardine‘s chin is suspect, and vows that somebody’s gonna pay for making him go back to the chilly U.K. to train. Jardine says he an overall better fighter that Jackson, and plans on testing his spirit.

Meanwhile, both Gabriel Gonzaga and Shane Carwin take pride in the fact that they finish fights. The undefeated Carwin still hasn’t been out of the first round in his career, which is both a good thing (can anybody make it to the second bell against this guy?) and potentially a bad thing (will he gas out if it goes to rounds two and three?). But now that Carwin is training with Greg Jackson’s camp, he’ll be able to draw from the wisdom of guys like Keith Jardine, Nate Marquardt, Rashad Evans, and GSP, and the brilliant gameplans of the team’s namesake. Deal with that, Team Link.

Semi-Related:
— Quinton Jackson is not Lyoto Machida’s biggest fan: "I mean, he’s good, he’s undefeated, but he’s boring. If I was the promoter of a show I wouldn’t have guys like that fighting on my show.” And so the trash-talk for an eventual face-off begins…

— Sore as hell from his three-round burner against Troy Mandaloniz last Saturday, Rampage’s Wolfslair teammate Paul Kelly is dropping to lightweight.

— Keith Jardine’s friendship with Rashad Evans would prevent him from fighting "Sugar" for the UFC light-heavyweight title. If it comes to that. Which it won’t.

(Mickey Rourke prepares for his next role.)

The Natural and Minotauro — two legendary heavyweight champions whose last performances had fans wondering if their days of competing at the sport’s highest level were over. But later this year, one of them will triumph once again. MMA Weekly breaks it:

(‘Don’t even come in here with your faulty premises and negative proof fallacies, dude.  Just don’t.’)

In a response to B.J. Penn’s request for the Nevada State Athletic Commission to investigate Georges St. Pierre’s use of Vaseline in their main event bout at UFC 94, the Jackson camp has fired back with an exhaustive argument refuting any accusation of wrongdoing.  

As reported by Sherdog and the L.A. Times (which has a PDF of the full response), the Jackson camp provided seventeen pages of documents explaining what happened, why it wasn’t an intentional attempt to cheat, and why it had no bearing on Penn getting his ass handed to him.

A statement signed by Greg Jackson and Phil Nurse details the breathing technique used on St. Pierre between rounds and insists that video evidence shows only a “scant amount of Vaseline” ever found its way to GSP’s body.  It also lays out four recommendations for improving the NSAC’s policies to avoid the greasing question in the future, including wiping down fighters before every round and using a “touch test” to see if they are unnaturally greasy.  And of course they conclude by referring to Penn’s griping as “a desperate attempt to protect [Penn’s] reputation and commercial value after being totally dominated by a superior athlete.”

Oh.  Snap.

(People tell him to stop going to that damn epileptic barber, but Heath just won’t listen.)

Remember yesterday when we told you that Cain Velasquez was going to be back in action at UFC 99 in Germany, and we were hoping he’d see a step up in competition?  Well, our wish has been granted, as MMA Weekly reports that Velasquez will face noted heavyweight stepping stone Heath Herring in Cologne this summer.

Herring, who is 2-3 since migrating to the UFC, last saw action as a one-man pony ride for Brock Lesnar in a decision loss that left Herring with a fractured orbital bone and Lesnar with a title shot.  Before that Herring won a victory over Cheick Kongo, who briefly thought he was a wrestler, and lost a decision to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira despite rocking Big Nog with a head kick early on.

If what we saw in Herring’s performances against Lesnar and in his UFC debut loss to Jake O’Brien are any indication (remember what Velasquez did to O’Brien?), getting matched up with another big wrestler that the UFC has high hopes for is not a good sign for “The Texas Crazy Horse.”  Velasquez seemed to have really rounded out his skill-set in his last fight, and he could put a serious hurting on Herring. 

If he does, it’s basically Velasquez’s pass into the upper echelon of the UFC’s heavyweight class.  If he doesn’t, Herring gets to keep hanging around in his win one, lose one fashion.

No word yet on who Velasquez’s AKA teammate Mike Swick will face, but there is this:

The UFC has released the finalized lineup and bout order for UFC Fight Night 18, which will go down April 1st at the Sommet Center in Nashville. Leading up to the main event between the WEC’s final welterweight champion Carlos Condit (who has won his last eight fights) and Martin Kampmann (who is 5-1 in the UFC) will be three televised bouts featuring alumni from The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir — all of whom are undefeated in their professional careers.

Lightweight winner Efrain Escudero (11-0) will take on the heavy-handed Jeremy Stephens (14-4), who’s coming off a submission loss to Joe Lauzon at Fight Night 17 earlier this month. The infamous Junie Browning (3-0) will get a big step up in competition when he faces ATT submission specialist and TUF 5 alum Cole Miller (14-3). And in the light-heavyweight division, TUF 8′s 205-pound winner Ryan Bader (8-0) will welcome Carmelo Marrero (10-2) back to the Octagon. The official lineup is below:

MAIN CARD
Carlos Condit vs. Martin Kampmann (WW)
Efrain Escudero vs. Jeremy Stephens (LW)
Ryan Bader vs. Carmelo Marrero (LHW)
Junie Browning vs. Cole Miller (LW)

("Well I might be an asshole, but I’m the asshole who just killed this bobcat, so what’s up now?")

MMA Junkie has confirmed the ugly rumors: Tim Sylvia will be strapping on some boxing gloves to take on Ray Mercer in the headlining match of Adrenaline III (May 30th; Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, Atlantic City). Though the bout was originally proposed as an MMA match between the former UFC heavyweight champ and the dude who got choked out by Kimbo Slice, Sylvia’s manager Monte Cox had this to say:

Here’s the problem as I see it: There aren’t too many people who want to watch Tim in an MMA match anymore, let alone competing in a less-interesting sport, against a guy who was a champion in 1991. (Though don’t get us wrong, Mercer’s a boxer and Sylvia isn’t, so this actually could turn into another high-profile, embarrassing loss for the Maine-iac.) But honestly, why headline an MMA card with such a meaningless exhibition? Does this mean that Sylvia, who has lost three out of his last four fights, might be transitioning to a new sport? Could we be that lucky?

Well, not so fast. Sylvia’s fight against Ken Shamrock may have fallen apart, but Cox is angling to get Timmy on Affliction’s third fight card against Paul Buentello, as long as it’s not too close to May 30th. Affliction III looks like it’ll go down in June, with Emelianenko vs. Barnett headlining.

(Renzo Gracie tells the charming tale of his fight with Oleg Taktarov.  Just for fun.)

– Nick Thompson says he’s been picked up by Strikeforce and will compete for them as soon as they give him an opponent.  Thompson told MMA Weekly that he was excited to join the promotion, and would also continue to fight for Sengoku, saying he has plans on winning a welterweight tournament in the works for later this year.   

– According to sources at MixFight.nl, Remy Bonjasky has accepted the proposed K-1 bout with Alistair Overeem, and the two will square off at the end of March with the big gloves on.  This means no MMA any time soon for Overeem, and likely no UFC in the foreseeable future as he reportedly still has several fights on his contract with Dream.

– AKA teammates Mike Swick and Cain Velasquez are both expected to fight at UFC 99 in Germany, though not against each other, obviously.  No opponents have been named yet for either one, but it would seem like both are due for a step up in competition after Velasquez throttled a UFC rookie his last time out and Swick knocked out the hairstyle-challenged Jonathan Goulet at Fight For The Troops.

- MDS over at MMA Fanhouse went straight to the source at HDNet to find out why they’re airing Sengoku live, but Dream.7 on a tape delay six days after it happens.  The answer, according to Andrew Simon, CEO of HDNet Fights, is that Dream has screwed themselves by having their fight on a Sunday night in Tokyo, and the good people at HDNet figure no one in the U.S. is going to want to watch MMA at odd hours when they have work in the morning.  Because we’re totally not a bunch of weirdos who would stay up late/get up early to watch fights on a Sunday, thus making us zombies for the work day.  Noooo way….

(Actual slogan: "The One With The Deer On It.")

If you’ve been feeling like recent UFC events have lacked ‘spirit,’ I have some good news for you.  The UFC now has an “official spirit sponsor,” and it’s Tequila Cazadores.  Giddy-up.

According to a recent press release, “Tequila CAZADORES will be featured nationally through Pay-Per-View broadcasts, digital and print media content as well as venue signage throughout the year. In addition, Tequila CAZADORES will host special adult consumer tastings, events, and promotions to support the Sponsorship.”

That’s right, UFC-related tequila tastings.  Is it just me, or did it suddenly get dangerously awesome in here?  And I do mean literally dangerous, because there are very few scenarios that begin with feeding tequila to testosterone-fueled young men and do not then move directly to chairs being thrown, shirts removed, faces punched, and property damaged.  But hey, where I come from we just call that spirit.

Now begins the countdown to the moment we hear Joe Rogan say, “Talk us through the Tequila Cazadores replay.”  It’s still better than Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor.  Oh, how far we’ve come.

(Takeya Mizugaki vs. Daichi Fujiwara, 6/22/08. Fight starts at the 1:08 mark; Mizugaki’s in the white trunks. Videos of two more Mizugaki wins are after the jump.)

MMA Weekly reports that the WEC‘s #1 bantamweight contender Brian Bowles has suffered an "undisclosed injury" [update: it was a back injury suffered during a training session at ATT] and has been forced to pull out of his title scrap with #4 P4P fighter Miguel Torres at WEC 40 (April 5th, Chicago). It’s an incredibly tough break for the undefeated Bowles, but on the bright side, the WEC has managed to pull a very credible replacement directly out of their asses. Stepping in for Brian will be Takeya Mizugaki, an 11-2-2 veteran of Shooto and GCM Cage Force who’s on a five-fight win streak, and who MMA Weekly currently ranks as the #6 bantamweight in the world. Mizugaki is expected to sign a five-fight contract with the WEC.

Speaking of which: WEC 39 is this Sunday in Corpus Christi, and will be broadcast live on Versus. The card will feature the featherweight title fight between Mike Brown and Leonard Garcia, Jose Aldo vs. Chris Mickle in a featherweight contender match, and lightweight bouts between Bart Palaszewski and Ricardo Lamas, and Rob McCullough vs. Marcus Hicks.

(Photo courtesy of myspace.com/scottthelionheartblevins.) 

As losing streaks go, the one that Scott "LionHeart" Blevins is currently riding has to be one of the roughest in the sport. Sherdog lists the Indiana-based fighter’s record as 0-13, with all losses by first-round stoppage, and no match lasting past the 2:10 mark. But that doesn’t account for all of his fights — it doesn’t include his losses to David Love or Ryan McIntosh, for one thing, and it doesn’t include his victory-via-DQ over Eddie Mirabella, whose win was reversed after he threw his mouthpiece into the crowd.

Yes, Blevins’s fights generally end badly. The first time I heard about him, I had to know two things: 1) Was this some kind of joke? 2) If it wasn’t, why keep doing it? When I finally tracked Scott down, a few days after his most recent loss to Chico Camus at an Evolution Fighting Championship event in Wisconsin earlier this month, he was on the way to the hospital, due to a mysterious ailment that had laid him out. But he took the time to explain that despite the losses, despite the haters, despite a family that thinks he’s crazy, this shit is the furthest thing from a joke. As for why he keeps doing it, well, you’ll have to keep reading. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…LionHeart.

***

CAGEPOTATO.COM: How frustrating is it to put yourself on the line again and again, and still fall short of winning?
SCOTT "LIONHEART" BLEVINS: Well, I admit it does get to me, but I know I gotta keep on trying and I know that eventually I’m going to get those wins. It’s just going to take some time to do it. Each fight is different and I do see an improvement in myself each time I step in the cage. But I’ve had some tough competition throughout my career.

What went wrong in the Chico Camus fight?
He got me to the ground and I ate a bunch of his elbows. His trainer is Duke Roufus, and Duke is one of the top guys out of Wisconsin, and he just trains those guys harder than what most guys train. Chico is a top-notch fighter. He’s undefeated.

Where do you train for your fights?
I’m from Mentone, Indiana, and I run Fighting Dragons Mixed Martial Arts, and I do that pretty much seven days a week. It’s based out of my house, because I haven’t found a facility for it yet. My training regiment is basic stuff — boxing, jeet kune do, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing. It’s a mix of everything. But I try to move around to different gyms in Indiana, and I try to find [training partners] at my weight who have the same skills.

You compete as a 135-pounder. How much weight do you have to cut before each match?
I don’t cut weight. I’m actually 130 pounds. I did take a match at 125 once, but I lost; the guy was just really, really tough.

(A joy so pure, so simple, it can only come from two ice cream cones.)

Noted author and smug smartass Matthew Polly traveled to Russia to witness firsthand Fedor Emelianenko’s loss at the Sambo World Championships in St. Petersburg in November.  He tells the tale in an article for Slate.com that contains several interesting insights about Russia and none of the cloying, faux-intellectual bullshit that usually finds its way into any Slate article (“Was Kevin Costner’s ‘Waterworld’ an Ahead-of-Its-Time Eco-Parable?” asks one such article.  No, asshole.  No it wasn’t).   

While the whole thing is interesting, even if you don’t care about Russian history or why St. Petersburg is a bizarrely beautiful and yet poorly-designed city, the last page is where we get serious about the mystery of Fedor.  What we end up learning, though, both in the Slate article and the full post-Sambo loss interview on Fightlinker, is that Fedor is either too nice to be interesting or else an impenetrable enigma.  And maybe we just choose to believe the latter because it’s more fun.

(And here’s where things took a turn down Queer Street, which is located dangerously close to TKO Way.)

Josh Koscheck commented on his somewhat controversial upset loss at UFC 95 on his website, and – surprise! – he argues that the ref should have let it go on a little longer.  To his credit, however, Koscheck doesn’t lay the blame for the loss at the ref’s doorstep.  Instead he puts it squarely on his shoulders, right where it belongs:

As for UFC 95. . . YES, I would have liked to see the ref let the fight go on a little bit more because we are all fighters and we fight until the end. Yes, I got hit hard, but felt as though I could have recovered if I had the chance. As for next time, my message to all the ref’s would be to, please let the fight go until I’m put out to sleep. . . Just so I don’t have the thought of what if, going through my mind and probably the minds of all of you, my fans.

…I could be like a lot of other people and cry about it for weeks and months and make a big deal about it, but it’s now when the true character and discipline of a person is tested.

Then he goes on to quote Martin Luther King Jr. and apply it to his current situation, that of having lost a fight he was supposed to win.  Nice.

Apologies if you’ve seen these photos before, but they were new to us. Props to F-Listed (via Holy Taco) and MissAriannyCeleste.com.

CagePotato readers Jeb R. and Jamie sent in the above footage of Bob "Boooooooo!" Reilly‘s press conference from Friday, in which the New York Assemblyman compared MMA to prostitution, argued that the sport would actually be economically harmful to the state, and claimed that it would breed more violence in society. All incredibly valid points from a well-informed, not-at-all-senile government official. (Reilly also says that he could fill the Pepsi Arena for a dogfight, which, if that’s true, he might consider leaving the bureaucracy field for the more glamorous and lucrative world of fight promotion.) It’s one thing to read about this joker on our website; it’s quite another to hear these specious non-arguments come out of his mouth. Again, sign our petition if you haven’t yet for some reason, and if you can keep your emotions in check and your arguments high-minded, feel free to get in touch.

Below: Randy Couture‘s son Ryan increased his amateur MMA record to 2-0 on February 15th with this second-round submission victory over fellow lightweight Art Martinez at a Tuff-N-Uff event in Las Vegas; the fight starts at the 3:48 mark. Watch as Couture almost locks in a triangle in the first round, then an armbar, but Martinez manages to survive until the bell. (Damn those two-minute rounds.) It’s all good, though — Couture immediately takes advantage of some bad positioning by Martinez in the second frame, and it’s tap or nap.

(Props: XtremeCouture.wordpress.com)

After the jump: UFC announcer Mike Goldberg unwinds after Saturday’s show by working some Muay Thai combos with a training partner. In a crowded bar.

(An excuse to post this picture again?  Why not.)

Round 5 sent out a press release today announcing Gina Carano as the newest addition to their stable of fighters willing to be made into disproportionate MMA action figures.  Carano is the first female fighter to sign on with Round 5, and they expect her figure to drop along with their fourth series this summer.

In the release Carano says the normal stuff about how excited she is to be a part of this, so on and so forth, and then there’s this: “When I was a little girl my dad always joked about making a ‘Gina doll’ and I smile when I think it has become a reality.”  

He joked about making a doll of his daughter?  As in, for her?  Or just, you know, to have around the house, in case anything happened to the original?  I don’t get it, but I find it vaguely troubling.

 
Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Denis Kang – Watch more free videos
(Akiyama putting a hurting on Denis Kang, back when that meant a little more.)

UFC.com announced this afternoon that Yoshihiro Akiyama has signed on with the UFC.  There’s no word on who his first opponent will be, but he’s expected to step into the Octagon for the first time this summer.  

This is a big move for the UFC because it not only bolsters their middleweight roster, but also helps Dana White’s eventual plan to take his business to Japan.  Akiyama is the kind of fighter many Japanese fans (and Shinya Aoki) love to hate, partly because he is ethnically Korean and has been involved in one or two greasing scandals of his own.  As the UFC gets more top Japanese fighters on its roster, especially ones the Japanese fans will pay to see in spite of themselves, it’s going to make things much easier when the UFC finally manages to schedule an event over there.  

As Dana White is quoted as saying in the UFC.com story:

Props to MMA Weekly, UFC.com, The Sun, and the “UFC 95: The Aftermath” set on Combat Lifestyle.                       

(Images courtesy of MoSpace)

So, Maggie from Cage Writer came across the top photo of Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal‘s amazing new tattoo, which she found on his MySpace page. A cursory visit to that page reveals a nearly non-stop cavalcade of awesomeness — honestly, such a welcome and uplifting change of pace from the reliable sadness of myspace.com/warmachine170nhb. I mean, just look at Lawal’s "About Me" essay:

(Props: Smoogy on the UG)

Josh Koscheck’s TKO loss has been the subject of a lot of debate on the old internets for the past couple of days.  Some people think the stoppage was too fast, not giving Koscheck the chance to recover and defend himself.  One of those people, obviously, is Koscheck himself (side note: man, give that camera man credit for going into a tense locker room, hearing that rant, and then having the balls to ask, very simply, “Do you think he should have stopped it?”), but the fact is he’s wrong, and so is everyone arguing his side in this case.

Here’s how you know your fight was stopped early: you can immediately look into the ref’s face as he moves in to stop the bout and say, ‘What the fuck is your problem?’  If you can do that, preferably without slurring or attempting to rise and then falling back down, then you have a legitimate gripe.  I like to call this the ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ rule.  

If you can’t say ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ (other acceptable variations include: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’, ‘That’s fucking bullshit!’, and ‘Mazzagatti, you asshole!’) immediately after the stoppage, then the ref had reason enough to stop the fight.