(It gets a little heated at the 1:30 mark, and believe it or not it’s Cole Miller who escalates things.)

Those of you who were looking forward to the Steve Steinbeiss/Ryan Jensen fight that you probably weren’t going to see aired on Spike TV anyway are sure going to be…disappointed, I guess?  According to Cage Writer, the fight was scrapped when Jensen tested positive for Adderall, the ADHD drug also known to help fighters who are trying to cut weight or cram for that biology midterm.  So that explains that.

In other Fight Night 18 weigh-in news, check Cole Miller getting all up in Junie Browning‘s business.  It looks like Miller’s mouth is working hard too, though we can only guess what he was saying (something about Junie setting a bad example for the impressionable youth of Kentucky, we assume).  Oddly, Browning is the one who appears to remain calm throughout the encounter.  He even gives Miller a friendly, go-get-em butt slap.  Such a nice boy he turned out to be.  So supportive.

(Look who’s here to fix the cable…)

UFC Fight Night 18 in Nashville, Tenn. is not off to a great start.  They held the weigh-ins today, and both Jeremy Stephens and Gleison Tibau missed weight, with Stephens coming in a full two pounds over the allotted 156-pound limit.  Tibau was only off by a half a pound, but instead of letting him try to cut it they opted to change it to a catchweight bout at 158 pounds.  Because hey, screw it, right?

Ryan Jensen and Steve Steinbeiss didn’t weigh in as part of the regular proceedings at all.  UFC.com reports that they both later clocked in at 186, but the fight is “on hold at the moment, pending resolution of an administrative issue.”  Man, don’t tell me one of those guys has been going to Aleks Emelianenko’s favorite tattoo parlor.  Yes, they do great work there, but for the last time it isn’t worth it!

The rest of the weigh-in results look like this:

Martin Kampmann (170) vs. Carlos Condit (170.5)
Carmelo Marrero (205) vs. Ryan Bader (206)
Junie Browning (156) vs. Cole Miller (156)
Rafael Dos Anjos (156) vs. Tyson Griffin (156)
Matt Horwich (185) vs. Ricardo Almeida (185.5
Jeremy Stephens (158) vs. Gleison Tibau (156.5)
Jesse Sanders (171) vs. Brock Larson (171)
Nissen Osterneck (186) vs. Jorge Rivera (185)
Nick Catone (186) vs. Tim Credeur (186)
Joe Vedepo (185) vs. Rob Kimmons (185)
Aaron Simpson (186) vs. Tim McKenzie (184.5)

(They just don’t make MMA-themed t-shirts with the middle-aged manager’s body type in mind, do they?)

MMA agent/Adrenaline promoter Monte Cox is stunned, absolutely stunned, by the New Jersey Athletic Control Board’s decision not to sanction the proposed boxing match between former heavyweight champ Ray Mercer and owner of an unblemished 0-0 boxing record Tim Sylvia.  Talking with Ariel Helwani at Versus.com, he called the decision “ridiculous,” adding: “It must not have been as compelling as the Bonaduce-Canseco fight.”

That would have been a sweet burn…if that fight had actually taken place in New Jersey and not Pennsylvania, as Helwani points out.  As it is, it’s just a sweet burn on Pennsylvania, which, let’s not forget, only recently decided to sanction MMA.

Now that the fight has been moved to the lawless territory known as Alabama (pronounced: Al-uh-bam-uhhh) Cox is trying to convince people that it’s purely coincidental that he decided to relocate his entire event to a state with no sanctioning body:

We’re fully aware that it’s the game which should be hated, rather than the player, but this is getting ridiculous. So, Dean Lister used to be dating this girl. The general consensus was something along the lines of "maybe she’s too attractive to be with a goon-faced man who’s gone 5-5 in his last 10." Now we get news (and photo proof) from CagePotato reader Jerry V. that the Boogeyman’s latest conquest is not only hot, but kind of famous as well.

Closet WWE fans might know the above woman as Milena Roucka, who goes by the WWE Diva stage name Rosa Mendes. There really isn’t much more to say besides "how does this keep happening?" It’s Dean Lister, for crying out loud. Is his game really that tight? TEACH US, BOOGEYMAN.

(Props: YouTube.com/chaplinshouse)

The brilliant video-remixer/voice-mimic responsible for the Tito Ortiz music video in the #1 spot of today’s Worst Commentary Moments list dropped us a line this afternoon to let us know that his latest work has just been posted to YouTube. (Good lookin’ out, Chaplin!) "The Douchebag" makes fun of everything that BJ Penn can possibly be made fun of for, including (but not limited to) his lazy training habits, his mother fighting his legal battles for him, his failed appeal to The Rock for a movie role, and how his former jiu-jitsu teacher hates him now. Plus, we learn that when BJ’s voice is slowed down, he sounds basically retarded. (Coincidentally, Jeff Goldblum suffers from the same condition.) Chaplin also has a couple of non-MMA-related videos that you also need to check out. If you can make it through this voice-dubbed scene from last season’s Celebrity Apprentice without pissing yourself laughing…well, good for you. Must be nice having dry pants.

Apparently Cole Miller’s mother never told him that if you don’t have something nice to say about someone, you shouldn’t say anything at all.  Talking to Steve Cofield (it doesn’t get remotely interesting until a little after the six-minute mark), Miller responds to a question about what he thinks of Junie Browning on a technical level by saying: “Nothing.  I don’t think he’s technical at all.”

Miller then goes on to point out that Browning has never tapped out or knocked out anyone who matters, before then comparing him to past opponents like Andy Wang and concluding that Browning is the worst fighter he’s faced in the UFC, next to Allen Berube (ouch!).  

So is Miller right about Browning?  Maybe.  We don’t really know for sure, since all we’ve really seen of him comes from his “Ultimate Fighter” antics and his submission victory over Dave Kaplan, who’s not exactly top-level competition.  But even if he is right, I’m not sure it’s such a great idea to go around talking about how almost-comically bad your next opponent is.  If you manage to get people to believe that he’s one of the worst fighters ever to step into the Octagon, then it’s not enough to just beat him.  You have to beat him quickly and effortlessly, otherwise you look like a punk.

(You didn’t think Martin Kampmann’s eyebrows always looked so perfect by accident, did you?)

When last we left the Gambling Addiction Enabler, a mathematical error had left him mistakenly believing that he suffered a net loss at UFC 96 rather than a gain of $30.  So now that he’s realized his error, you might be wondering, does that mean he has an extra thirty bones to throw around at UFC Fight Night 18?  Sadly, no.  That event was several weeks ago, so he’s already spent the money on a bunch of Snoop Dogg posters from Hot Topic.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that his home office now looks straight-up gangsta.

But tomorrow night is a brand new opportunity to turn MMA knowledge and a taste for reckless financial risk into cold hard cash.  Here are the best lines on the internet, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Carlos Condit (+102) vs. Martin Kampmann (-110)
Ryan Bader (-400) vs. Carmelo Marrero (+360)
Tyson Griffin (-385) vs. Rafael Dos Anjos (+355)
Junie Browning (+120) vs. Cole Miller (-125)
Gleison Tibau (-145) vs. Jeremy Stephens (+145)
Ricardo Almeida (-275) vs. Matt Horwich (+245)
Brock Larson (-450) vs. Jesse Sanders (+400)
Tim Credeur (-117) vs. Nick Catone (+110)
Jorge Rivera (-135) vs. Nissen Osterneck (+140)
Rob Kimmons (-255) vs. Joe Vedepo (+230)
Tim McKenzie (+145) vs. Aaron Simpson (-167)
Steve Steinbeiss (+165) vs. Ryan Jensen (-195)

Thoughts…

#10: Frank Trigg‘s stunned disbelief
Affliction: Banned, 7/19/08

It’s not that Trigg’s reaction when Fedor started landing bombs on Tim was inappropriate; in fact, this was pretty much how we reacted during the fight. But when you’re being paid actual money to give insightful commentary about a sporting event, the viewers at home deserve a little better than "OH! OH-HO! OH-HO! OH-HO-NO-HO! OH!" Especially when you consider that this is a recurring trend with Trigg — when crazy shit goes down, the eloquence-train flies off the tracks, so to speak.

#9: Mike Goldberg tells us how precise Anderson Silva‘s precision is

The answer: Really. It’s really precise. Man, sometimes Mike is better off keeping his mouth shut until it’s time to ask Joe Rogan whether or not a fighter’s arm is in trouble. By the way, if you can watch that video for all ten minutes, we’ll send you a t-shirt.

#8: Kimbo Slice fails third-grade geography 
K-1′s World Grand Prix 2008 Final, 12/6/08

(Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a working video of this moment. Hopefully this Esther Lin/Lolcats mashup will be sufficient.)

Okay, give Kimbo a break. The man was extremely jet-lagged, and he clearly meant "the prefecture of Japan known as Kanagawa, which has Yokohama as its capital, where we are right now." It’s not like he asked co-commentator Michael Schiavello what the fuck up with all the Chinese people in the building. That would have been embarrassing. And speaking of which…

#3: Joey Villasenor vs. Hank Weiss @ King of the Cage: New Mexico (8/28/04), 5 seconds

We don’t know if Joey Villasenor had been studying tape on Hank Weiss, but Good Lord did Smokin’ Joe have his number. As soon as Weiss makes the grave mistake of dropping his hands while setting up his first attack, Villasenor is right there with the left hook (perfectly directed at Weiss’s knockout button) and the follow-up right straight (which missed, likely saving his life). And just like that, another beautiful one-punch KO was bestowed on the world. Weiss has lost 10 of his last 12 fights, but only one of those losses has been by knockout, so maybe he’s learned his lesson about keeping the mitts up and the chin down.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

(Whaddaya know, Josh Barnett owns a suit.)

– The rumored Clay Guida/Diego Sanchez scrap is now official as the headlining bout of the season finale of TUF 9, the UFC confirmed today.  It’s jumping off on June 20 in Las Vegas, and the big question is, will Guida stick with his suffocation attack against Sanchez, or will he have to revert to the old Guida, otherwise known as Enkidu the wild man, that we used to love so much?  Maybe he can enlist the services of his brother in the psychological warfare department, though Sanchez might be a little too out there even for Jason to screw with.

– In other bookings news, Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante will take on Tatsuya Kawajiri at Dream.9 on May 26.  Cavalcante hasn’t fought since losing a decision to Shinya Aoki last April, but his return to the ring against a quality opponent like Kawajiri should bolster the Dream offering just ever so slightly.

– The XFC (Xtreme Fighting Championships – original, no?) sent out a press release to declare that rumors of a Bobby Lashley/Marcus Jones fight at XFC 8 were totally bogus.  The release contained no other pertinent information, though the organization’s president did say that he “hopes Bobby Lashley – and MMA fans nationwide – enjoy XFC 8 ‘Regional Conflict’ on April 25, as it airs live from the 21 thousand-capacity Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tennessee, exclusively on HDNet.”  Oh, I see what you did there.

– MMA Payout is reporting that the in-game advertising we mentioned last week might be beneficial not only to the UFC, but also to individual fighters, who may have the ability to sell their own sponsorships in “Undisputed.”  Better get your checkbook out, Jesus Didn’t Tap.

All right, I’m done trying to force myself not to like “Bully Beatdown.”  The moment Michael Westbrook showed up to unleash a whipping on a guy who seems like a genuine jackass, that’s the moment I became a fan.  Not surprisingly, the less scripted “Mayhem” Miller is, the better he gets.  In this one he actually has a little bit of trouble convincing the bully in question to agree to certain doom, but manages to push the guy over the edge when he says, “You got one ball, please tell me you got two.”

Did I mention the bully was holding a basketball at the time?  Because it’s kind of crucial to this particular burn.

Again, this isn’t really MMA, and it probably isn’t especially helpful to the sport’s overall image (though I also can’t see how it’s all that harmful), but dammit, it’s fun. 

(Props: DC Sports Blog, via Cage Writer)

(Props: Bloody Elbow)

MMA pioneer Carlos Newton returned to the ‘W’ column on Saturday night at the W-1 Inception show in Gatineau, Quebec, snapping a three-fight losing skid with his KO victory over Nabil Khatib. As you can see in the video above, the Gatineau fans are awful, Newton still looks light on his feet, and he can still pound a motherfucker out when need be. Big ups to the Ronin, who increases his career record to 14-13.

Below: The Melvin Manhoef/Keijiro Maeda scrap from the K-1 World GP event in Yokohama on Saturday, in which the usually-sturdy Manhoef got Kimbo Slice’d by a short right hand from the retreating Japanese fighter. Fans have been calling this one suspicious, but it’s more likely that Maeda just found Melvin’s button.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

After the jump: Houston Alexander stops by the Sport Science lab to test the effects of adrenaline on punching power. The verdict? Houston hits like a hammer in his normal state, and puts out a full 1,000 pounds of force after trainer Mick Doyle provokes him into insanity. And that’s before the needles come out…

(Unfortunately, Ray Mercer won’t be this star-struck. Photo courtesy of Land Sharks.)

When we reported that the Tim Sylvia/Ray Mercer "Crystal Pepsi" match had been shot down by the the New Jersey Athletic Control Board, you probably thought it was the last you’d hear about this strange footnote in Tim’s career. Well guess what — life’s not fair. Monte Cox has moved Adrenaline III to a different state, and the Maine-iac’s pro boxing debut will go on. As Sherdog reports:

Well, that’s one way to get around the issue. There are no other bouts scheduled for Adrenaline III yet — and the league’s website offers nothing other than a link for a motorcycle helmet dealer — but if there’s no regulatory body to answer to, there’s really nothing stopping Monte from filling out the card with midget kickboxing, lesbian submission grappling, and a donkey act. Sounds like Birmingham is in for a good night.

Semi-related: Frank Shamrock also has his eyes on a move to pro boxing. In a new interview with MMA Convert, Shamrock says he might give the sweet science a try after he takes care of business against Nick Diaz, Cung Le, and (hopefully) Tito Ortiz. What, no more "Blood Brothers"?

(‘Okay, quit messing around now.  Where’s the rest of my paycheck?’)

Give the UFC credit, they can spot a nascent, kind-of-but-not-really grudge match in the making a mile away.  MMA Madness reports that Matt Hamill will meet Brandon Vera at UFC 101 in Philadelphia to see who has the chops to make it in the light heavyweight division and who will end up on the receiving end of an assholish celebration.

As you probably recall, Hamill head-kicked Vera’s friend and training partner, Mark Munoz, into a briefly frightening unconscious state, then paraded around the Octagon like he’d just hit a walk-off homerun in the last World Series game ever.  Hamill would later explain the celebration by pointing out that a) he’s deaf, so vibrations from an excited crowd get him really pumped, and b) he doesn’t head kick that many people, and this one was pretty sweet.

(Props: MMA Fanhouse)

As a footnote to his essay about leaving Red Devil and being totally cleared to fight in America, you may recall Aleks Emelianenko making passing mention of a bout against Ibragim Magomedov.  Well, it happened this weekend in Russia, and as you see it probably won’t be on anyone’s Fight of the Year list.

Emelianenko gets rocked by a good right hand at the end of an exchange and is clearly wobbled, but he’s savvy enough to clinch and hold on until he can get his mind unscrambled.  By that time, however, the referee has noticed that Magomedov is cut, and the fight gets stopped before it really had a chance to get going and Aleks is awarded the TKO victory.

A disappointing outcome?  Yeah, but you can’t blame them.  I wouldn’t want to be in there with Aleks if I had an open wound on my face either.  Come on.  We were all thinking it.

Related: Barnett Confronts Aleks, Re: Shit-Talking, Take Two
Sort of Related: Aleks Ponders UFC Offer, New Tattoo

(That pile of bricks used to be a building until Carlos mean-mugged it. Photo courtesy of DeMattos.)

The UFC’s next free show goes down this Wednesday on Spike TV at 8 p.m. ET/PT, with Carlos Condit vs. Martin Kampmann in the headlining spot and 11 more fights supporting it. (Yes, we will be runnin’ a liveblog, so keep that evening free.) Six fighters, most of them WEC veterans, will be stepping into the Octagon for the first time. Learn about them below, and tune in on Wednesday to see if their stories end in triumph or tragedy…

CARLOS CONDIT (WW)
?Experience: 22-4 record, with all wins by stoppage, and notable victories over Frank Trigg, Brock Larson, and Carlo Prater. Won the WEC welterweight title in March 2007 and defended it three times before the division was discontinued.
Will be facing: Martin Kampmann (14-2, 5-1 UFC)
?Lowdown: He finishes fights — seriously. Just 24 years old, the Natural Born Killer is on an eight-fight win streak, and hasn’t lost since June 2006. Condit began wrestling in high school and has been training jiu jitsu and kickboxing at FIT-NHB since he was 15. His opponent Martin Kampmann is another aggressive, well-rounded fight-finisher, so Condit’s UFC debut will not only be an important gauge of his abilities on MMA’s biggest stage, but an easy front-runner for Fight of the Night.

JESSE SANDERS (WW)
?Experience: 20-4 record in various midwestern promotions like Extreme Challenge and Iowa Challenge, with 18 wins by first-round stoppage. Holds a victory over the legendary Kenneth Allen.
Will be facing: Brock Larson (24-2, 1-1 UFC; returning to the Octagon after a five-fight stint in the WEC)
?Lowdown: Sanders’s old ProElite.com profile lists his nickname as "Iron Jaw" and his background as "retired from construction became broke then started fighting." It seems like going broke was a great career move, because the former boxer has become a force on the local circuit — as a can-crusher, at least. His last win was against a guy with an 0-4 record at the time, and only three of his opponents have had winning records. According to his MySpace page, he loves anything to do with NASCAR, enjoys riding 4-wheelers, laughed his ass off at Rush Hour 3, and doesn’t read. (Again, this is a real person, not a Jeff Foxworthy routine.) Larson wins this one via quality of competition.

#4: Takanori Gomi vs. Ralph Gracie @ PRIDE Bushido 3 (5/23/04), 6 seconds

Known for his very un-Gracie-like hard-charging style, Ralph Gracie racked up five-straight first-round stoppages in vale tudo matches during the ‘90s before re-entering competition in 2003 to test himself against modern mixed martial artists. But his PRIDE debut against Dokonjonosuke Mishima at Bushido 1 didn’t go so well — he only won by decision — and he returned to the ring seven months later ready to murder somebody. And that babyfaced little Japanese dude in the red corner, who Ralph’s student BJ Penn had choked out the year before? Yeah, he’d do. But Gracie was a little too anxious to get out there and kick ass (as evidenced by his refusal to touch gloves), and when he shot in right after the bell, his jaw ricocheted off Gomi’s knee; the Fireball Kid took over from there. This was the fight that officially put Gomi on the map — and served as the final six seconds in Ralph Gracie’s MMA career.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

(How can Josh be thinking about a fight with Fedor when his loss to Gunma Devil is still unavenged? Photos courtesy of JoshBarnett.tv.)

"I’ve heard nothing, I know nothing, I see nothing. What it comes down to is that I don’t have a bout agreement to fight anybody in particular. This is coming up on my third fight for Affliction, with the logical idea that it would lead up to [a fight with Emelianenko]. But as it sits, I’m sitting on my last fight and I’m just waiting for an opponent to show themselves. Whoever is available, I’ll take them, but I know the fans are really hot to see me fight Fedor. It just hasn’t been put together." — Josh Barnett on Inside MMA, discussing his uncertain future. The persistent rumor of Affliction’s third show going up against UFC 100 would seem even more ill-advised if it isn’t even headlined by Emelianenko vs. Barnett.

"To be honest I’m just waiting… for the UFC to give me a phone call and I’m able to fight my last fight. I’m just kind of waiting on that."— Roger Huerta on Inside MMA, discussing his own uncertain future. After declining to renew his UFC contract in January in order to pursue a career in acting and modeling, Huerta turned down a fight against Joe Stevenson at UFC 95 in February and hasn’t exactly been on the UFC’s speed-dial since then. Huerta has one fight remaining on his current contract, which runs through December.

(Time to "kill that master"? Photos courtesy of GrapplingStore and MMASplatter.)

According to a new posting on BJPenn.com, the UFC lightweight champ will defend his lightweight title against #1 contender Kenny Florian in the headlining bout of UFC 101 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 8th. The report states that Florian has already signed the bout agreement, and Penn’s own signing was imminent. It will be the first time the UFC’s lightweight title has been contested in 15 months, since BJ Penn defeated Sean Sherk by TKO at UFC 84 last May. Florian has won his last six fights (five by stoppage), but hasn’t competed since his first-round submission of Joe Stevenson at UFC 91 in November.

If the Penn/Florian report is accurate, it would mean that two of the UFC’s five championship titles could potentially be on the line in the month of August. As we previously reported, a middleweight title scrap between Anderson Silva the winner of Anderson Silva/Thales Leites [Ed. note: Ha! Sorry, Thales!] and Demian Maia may be added to UFC 102 (August 29th; Portland, Ore.).

#5: Jonathan Goulet vs Joey Brown @ TKO 17 (9/25/04), 7 seconds
He calls himself the Road Warrior, but Jonathan Goulet may as well be nicknamed “The Flash.” Twenty-five of the UFC/TKO veteran’s 32 pro fights have ended in the first round, and six have ended within the first 30 seconds. (Luckily, he’s won most of them.) Goulet’s all-time fastest victory was this seven-second KO against Joey “Knockdown” Brown. All it took was a head kick, a quick Thai clinch, and a knee fired right up the middle, and Brown was in dreamland. The win was Goulet’s fifth in what became a ten-fight win streak, which culminated in him scoring a contract with the UFC, shooting down Jay Hieron in his notoriously bloody Octagon debut, and choking out Shonie Carter back in Canada. As for Brown, he still seemed to be dizzy from Goulet’s knee during his next four fights, losing all of them.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

A source close to the camp of UFC middleweight contender Demian Maia has informed Cage Potato that the Brazilian is expected to be offered the next middleweight title shot against the winner of the Anderson Silva/Thales Leites bout (in other words, Silva) late this summer.

There’s no official date set, but our source says Maia’s camp is expecting the bout to take place in late August, which would most likely put it at UFC 102 in Portland, Ore.  The middleweight title bout would certainly bolster a card that’s rumored to be headlined by Randy Couture returning home to the Pacific Northwest to take on Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. 

If anybody’s earned a shot at the middleweight strap, it’s Maia.  The undefeated submissions wiz made Chael Sonnen look like a novice in his last bout, and his jiu-jitsu skills would offer a challenge that we haven’t yet seen Silva face during his run as UFC champion.

Stay tuned for more details as they emerge.

#6: James Irvin vs. Houston Alexander @ UFC Fight Night 14 (4/2/08), 8 seconds

If you compiled James Irvin’s best and worst moments, you’d probably have the craziest MMA highlight reel ever. After all, this is the guy who took out Terry Martin via flying-knee, fell through the cage against Bobby Southworth, was whipping Thiago Silva’s ass until his knee exploded, and became Anderson Silva’s first light-heavyweight victim. And even with all those wild finishes, the Sandman may be remembered best for the out-of-nowhere knockout victory he scored over poor Houston Alexander at UFC Fight Night 13 last April. Honestly, who leads off a fight with a Superman punch? As crazy as it sounds, that was Irvin’s game-plan from the beginning. It’s hard to predict what he would have done next if Alexander survived that punch. A spinning-backfist, perhaps? A sudden and unexplained case of total paralysis, maybe? You just never know with this guy.

Honorable mentions: Don Frye vs. Thomas Ramirez @ UFC 8 (2/16/96), and Jonathan Goulet vs. Travis Axworthy @ TKO 29 (6/1/07) — which also lasted 8 seconds

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

(Chuck Liddell puts on gladiator gear and punches stuff.  Props: MMA Fanhouse.)

- Jake Shields tosses some expletives back at Joe Riggs. (Versus)

- Brett Rogers to fight "Abongo" Humphrey on April 11. (MMA Frenzy)

- Frank Shamrock holds tryouts for some reason. (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Fight Night nearing sell-out in Nashville. (MMA Payout)

- Cung Le talks with a very distracting interviewer. (MMA Scraps)

- Bisping offered eight-fight deal with UFC. (Fighters Only)

- Cheick Kongo kicks Paul Kelly at the mall. (MMA Opinion)

- Hottest cheerleader video ever? (Scores Report)

- Things you didn’t know about Arianny Celeste. (AskMen)

- The Big Show reviews "12 Rounds." (Screen Junkies)

- God won’t give you a happy ending.  (Holy Taco)

- John Cena is a NASCAR fan. (All Left Turns)

- Dorm boxing leaves kid out cold. (Nothing Toxic)

- Daily Market Madness. (Wall Street Fighter)

(I’m sure it looks great on the wall next to Fedor’s prized "Wizard of Oz" commemorative plates.)

As you would have noticed if you weren’t so busy watching videos of midgets fighting on the internet, “MMA Live” has begun incorporating rankings from WAMMA recently.  This has the guys from Bloody Elbow in a twist because they just partnered with USA Today to feature their “meta-rankings,” and because they generally hate WAMMA.

I’m one of WAMMA’s rankings pollsters, so I can understand some frustration and confusion with some of WAMMA’s moves.  Naming Shinya Aoki champion, for instance?  I love the Man in Tights as much as anyone, but he’s not the world’s best lightweight and everbody knows it. 

WAMMA seems intent on giving out fairly meaningless titles to the best fighters not in the UFC, and that’s kind of dumb but it’s also not really hurting anybody.  And just because WAMMA’s executives make some stupid decisions and appear in hilarious photos from time to time, it’s not any reason to invalidate the actual rankings, which the executives have nothing to do with.

(Alistair Overeem presents Remy Bonjasky with the K-1 Oscar for "Best Acting" at today’s pre-event press conference. Bonjasky humbly accepts it, then accuses Overeem of steroid abuse. Yep, that should do it. Props to MMA Scraps for the video.)

The K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 goes down tomorrow in Yokohama, Japan, and will be broadcast live on HDNet. Because of the time difference, it’ll air late tonight in the U.S., at 4 a.m. ET/1 a.m. PT. We’re not fucking vampires, so we’re going to set up the little magic box on our cable TV and watch this thing tomorrow. And it definitely will be worth watching, particularly for the heavyweight headliner between Alistair Overeem and Remy Bonjasky.

If you’ll recall, Overeem most recently scored a shocking first-round TKO over Badr Hari in a K-1 rules match at Fields Dynamite!! 2008 on New Year’s Eve; earlier that month, Hari had his K-1 heavyweight title stripped after he stomped and punched a downed Bonjasky at a K-1 World GP event. You’d think that these experiences would bring Overeem and Bonjasky together as friends, but as you can tell from the above video, not so much. Alistair thinks Remy faked his complaints of vision problems to pick up the DQ win against Hari, while Remy thinks Alistair faked his new muscles. Trash-talk aside, if Overeem can pull this off, it’ll prove that his demolition of Badr Hari was no fluke, and cement his new reputation as the Baddest Heavyweight Striker in the World. And when you have accolades like that, who needs to pass a drug test in the U.S.?

The World GP will also feature a four-man heavyweight tournament starring Melvin Manhoef, and a group of "superfights" that include Semmy Schilt, Jerome Le Banner, Peter Aerts, and Errol Zimmerman. The full fight order is after the jump, courtesy of NightmareOfBattle.

(Yet another sign of CagePotato.com’s cultural prevalence: Our name is now being used as a pun to snap on Keith Jardine’s busted-ass face. Image courtesy of the Boston Phoenix.)

This may sound a little far-fetched, but apparently the Boston Phoenix claims there are 81 men in the world who are even uglier than Keith Jardine. It makes a little more sense when you see that the BF‘s new "100 Unsexiest Men of the Year" list includes guys who are more known for being ugly on the inside, like Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe (#73), reality-show retard Ray J (#57), late-night unfunnyman Jimmy Fallon (#22, and referred to by the Phoenix as "Conan O’Bortion"), and superswindler Bernie Madoff (#3). But yeah, the Dean of Mean is up in the mix, sandwiched between fellow crooked-faced athlete Rod Brind’amour and the blind, bumbling Governor of New York.

Now, we’re all for insulting people for the entertainment of others, but talk about soccer-kicking a man when he’s down. It hasn’t even been a month since Jardine dropped a decision to Quinton Jackson at UFC 96, pretty much ensuring that he won’t be in the UFC light-heavyweight title hunt again until the Palin/Jindal administration. And now we’re basically telling Keith that his face makes children hide behind their mothers. I guess all publicity is good publicity, but certainly they could have found an ugly fighter who actually deserves ridicule, like this guy, or this guy, or this guy.

Related:
Gina Carano is the 73rd Hottest Woman in the World
FMyLife.com

This week Sports Illustrated Online is looking at refereeing issues in mixed martial arts (you can read my defense of MMA’s refs here), and I got an opportunity to talk with “Big” John McCarthy about his thoughts on the state of officiating in our sport.  We also talked a little about the evolution of rules in the UFC, and the difference between rules that came about out of practical concerns and those that were changed to appease political opponents.

While I expected McCarthy to know more about refereeing MMA bouts than anyone else alive, I didn’t expect him to have such an encyclopedic knowledge of the sport.  The guy can rattle off the names of the fighters in almost every bout he’s ever worked from UFC 2 onward.  He also had a few great insights about the nature of the sport and what it demands from referees.  Here are some select excerpts from our conversation, just for you guys:

So tell me, when you went in to work your first bout at UFC 2, what guidelines were you given?

BJM: (laughs) The guidelines I was given were, ‘Don’t stop the fights.  The fighters will tap out or the corners will throw the towel in.  That’s how the fights will stop.’  That’s honestly how I got my job, because the very first UFC fight ever, Joao Barreto was the referee.  Teila Tuli was down and got kicked by Gerard Gordeau, and Joao stopped the fight and Rorian Gracie was upset because that wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Many of you disagreed with our description of yesterday’s cartwheel kick knockout as “the greatest KO ever.”  Yeah, we weren’t totally serious about that (ever heard of hyberbole?), but our good friend Matt Brown, editor of Fight! Magazine, took issue with it and sent us the above video to demonstrate what a truly amazing knockout looks like.

These two midgets pull out all the stops in this kickboxing bout, and as you can tell the announcer (is that you, Frank Trigg?) is loving it. So is this yet another sign of the impending apocalypse?  Maybe.  But we prefer to think of it as a sign that Matt Brown is a weirdo.  Don’t worry though, he insists that he only stumbled across the video by accident while searching for midget porn.

After the jump, Kimo Leopoldo is out of jail and breaking bricks with his head.  Is that more or less bizarre than the midgets?  You decide.

("Just out of curiosity, what’s up now, bitch?" Mousasi surveys the wreckage of the similarly-named Musashi in their K-1 match at Dynamite!! 2008.)

— Though he may still be making his U.S. debut for Affliction, Gegard Mousasi‘s next fight will be in Japan. FiveOuncesofPain reports that DREAM’s 2008 middleweight grand prix winner could return at DREAM 9 (May 23rd) to take on Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou; it would be Mousasi’s debut as a light-heavyweight, and his first MMA fight since last September. Sokoudjou currently carries a 5-4 record, and has dropped his last two matches to Luis Cane (at UFC 89) and Renato Sobral (at Affliction: Day of Reckoning). The African Assassin needs a break, but he probably won’t catch one here.

— A battle between two middleweight grapplers who flamed out of the UFC despite loads of talent has been booked as the main event of MFC 21 (May 13th; Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). MFC prez Mark Pavelich announced yesterday that Travis Lutter vs. Dean Lister would headline the show, which will also feature Marcus Aurelio, David Heath, John Alessio, and Solomon Hutcherson. Lutter hasn’t competed since his loss to Rich Franklin at UFC 83 last April, while Lister made his most recent appearance at UFC 92 in December, where he dropped a unanimous decision to Yushin Okami.