After a furious ten-day session in which 453 captions were submitted, it’s time to bring this thing home. Below are the 11 best entries in our Never Surrender caption contest. Read them all below, then vote for your favorite in the poll on the right. The five captions with the most votes win their authors a DVD copy of Never Surrender, and the five runners-up win CagePotato "Hall of Fame" t-shirts. The last-place caption earns the bitter frustration of coming so close to success but falling just short. Voting ends tomorrow at 4 p.m. ET, and the winners will be announced shortly after. Thanks to everyone who entered, and good luck!

Steve: Hey guys, after the movie, let’s go to my bedroom, take our shoes off, lie down on my bed, take about 20 to 30 minutes, and…

Rodney: This was taken just before BJ returned to his trailer and failed to come back out for the second half of the movie.

Til: Ok you can have him this weekend, but remember — lots of food and no Red Bull.

(Courtesy of Fight! Magazine via MMAFightGirls)

Previously: Exclusive Interview: UFC Octagon Girl Logan Stanton

(Wow. This actually makes UFC Iran look like a first-class promotion. Thumbnail images below courtesy of Sherdog.)

Well, we’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, Kyle Maynard made it through his amateur MMA debut last night in Auburn, Alabama, with no injuries whatsoever. Unfortunately, he lost the match in a unanimous decision (30-27 x 3), after his bantamweight opponent Bryan Fry spent all three rounds avoiding takedowns and keeping Maynard at bay with punches. Maynard was disappointed with the loss but vowed to return to the cage. As he told Sherdog:

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Now we know the name of Kyle Maynard’s mystery opponent tonight: Bryan Fry.  He fights out of Baraboo, Wisconsin and is 0-2 as an amateur.  Normally there would be no reason for the MMA world to even be familiar with the existence of an 0-2 amateur fighter from Baraboo, Wisconsin.  But clearly this is not a normal situation.  Auburn Fight Night goes down tonight beginning at 8 pm EST, and you can watch it on the old internets via pay-per-view.

(More mindless violence in the 209.)

Nick Diaz isn’t joking about how dangerous his hometown of Stockton, California is.  A new report from Forbes (thanks to reader CMH for the find) named Stockton the fifth most dangerous city in the nation. Detroit is currently number one on the list, followed by Memphis, Miami, and Las Vegas.  The weird part is, of all the five most dangerous cities, Stockton is the only one with less than a million people.  We strongly suspect that it drops to ninth place on the most dangerous list when the Diaz brothers leave town for a fight, but could easily claim the top spot if they were to have sons.  Handsome, articulate sons.

(ESPN’s "MMA Live" looks at the fate of Chuck Liddell.)

- War Machine fights tomorrow night, terrorizes women every night. (CageWriter)

- MMA finally headed to Ontario? (Fightlinker)

– Rashad Evans says "The Spider" doesn’t have the dog in him. (MMA Weekly)

– A quick look at Anderson Silva on "Inside MMA." (MMA Mania)

- Jared Hamman to step in for Renato Sobral against Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante. (Sherdog)

- Coming off his FOTY against Miguel Torres, Takeya Mizugaki will likely take on Jeff Curran next. (MMA FanHouse)

- Bull def. cowboy via KO, 0:06 of round 1 (Break)

- Mel Kiper Jr. breaks down girls at a bar. (HolyTaco)

- Obsessed reviewed by a hacky black comic. (ScreenJunkies)

- Classic wreck: Bobby Allison, Talladega, 1987. (All Left Turns)

- Daily Market Madness. (WallStreetFighter)

- Matthew Stafford is a lock to become a Detroit Lion. Sorry, buddy. (ScoresReport)

- The top 29 best cities to live in. (AskMen)

(Props: the UG)

Bruce Buffer may be the last sure thing left in the UFC.  Here’s footage of him introducing Anderson Silva at UFC 97 and making it into an event all its own.  Check out the hops on the Buff.  Who knew?  It used to be that Silva was guaranteed to give you your money’s worth.  With him not wanting to "risk" his belt, those days may be over.  At least Buffer still knows how to deliver.

After the jump, Ken Shamrock prepares to make his UFC comeback against an opponent who’s just his style.

(Do it for the Hammer, the Terror, and Bones.)

With the vote to lift the ban on MMA in New York State imminent (or so we hear), our NY state assemblyman friend Rob Walker has taken to Facebook to drum up some more support. In the mission statement for his newly-launched group "Support Mixed Martial Arts in New York State," Walker writes the following:

(Props: BloodyElbow)

Maybe you’ve followed our coverage of Kyle Maynard’s impending MMA debut — which goes down tomorrow at Auburn Fight Night, and can be seen live on KyleMaynardFight.com for $14.95 — but you don’t have the whole story if you’ve never seen this man in action. We wanted to pass along the above clip of an appearance that Kyle did on Larry King Live a few years ago, which shows that yes, he can write his name (and type 50 words per minute), he has insane body control, and he can put you in a very painful keylock, if need be; the entire transcript of the interview can be found here. No matter what happens tomorrow night, we’re pulling for him…

After the jump: The poster for Auburn Fight Night, which promises another special guest with a completely different handicap…

(Just when you’re hypnotized by the look of peace and harmony in his eyes, he whips around and lops your head clean off.)

Rising UFC heavyweight prospect Shane Carwin chose a nickname for himself, no thanks to you people.  After hundreds of suggestions from you and from members of his official fan community, Carwin went with “The Engineer” as his official nickname.  It makes sense, since he is actually an engineer, which you would know if you’d read Neal Taflinger’s awesome cover story on him in Fight! Magazine.  But since we thought you people had some decent ideas we wanted to get Carwin’s reaction to some of our favorites, just to see where the Potato Nation went wrong.  Here’s what he had to say.

(So…you guys are Matt Serra fans, I take it?)

You’re wondering, ‘Say I go to UFC 98, what am I supposed to do in this Las Vegas place to entertain myself before and after the fights?’  Fortunately, we’ve got you covered.  We asked the guys from RawVegas.tv and MMA Fix what out-of-town MMA fans like you might be interested in, and then we combined their advice with some of our own personal favorites.  Enjoy.

(Okay, but just so you know, shooting out jets of sparks from your arms is currently prohibited under the unified rules. Photo courtesy of faniq.com.)

I guess Bobby Lashley is serious about this cage-fighting stuff after all. MMA Mania reports that the former WWE star has signed with Canada’s Maximum Fighting Championship promotion, and will appear at their "Hard Knocks" event (May 15th, Edmonton) a month before he collides with Bob Sapp in Biloxi. Lash will be taking on Mike Cook, a Frank Shamrock-trained heavyweight who’s either 6-3 or 5-5, depending on who you ask. Will Cook further expose Lashley as a work-in-progress, or will Lashley redeem himself after his unsatisfying performance against Jason Guida? "Hard Knocks" will be broadcast live in North America on HDNet, and will feature UFC vets Marvin Eastman, David Heath, and Trevor Prangley.

MMA Mania also reveals that the June 27th Lashley vs. Sapp pay-per-view event has been given the official name of "Unarmed Combat." Din Thomas is expected to be on the card (along with Tom Atencio), and Lashley’s fight nickname is now "The Dominator." Yawn. Come on guys, I think we can do better than that…

(You think that’s gay, just wait ’til you see what they did to Andre Winner‘s rainbow-colored booty-shorts.)

Ricardo Feliciano abuses the English language, Cyrille Diabate abuses alcohol, and more behind-the-scenes nuggets from Wednesday’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, courtesy of Team USA lightweight Santino Defranco.

***

Jason Dent and Frankie Lester are officially part of the "Independent Americans". The fighters from the USA, myself included, were by no means a cohesive unit like the UK fighters. Team UK ate together, with head chef and cooking captain Dean Amasinger at the helm. They played together, participating in sports, WWE-style wrestling matches, and other limey-esque games generally led by England’s bouncer of the year and lead playwright, Dave Faulkner. And, with my new knowledge, thanks to modern technological devises such as cameras and tele’s, I have seen that they trained together, led by the "Gov’na" himself, Michael "TV will show how I can throw a tantrum" Bisping". The American counterparts, on the other hand, would have little to do with one another.

To the defense of the seemingly megalomaniacal Americans, we had just met each other and were now being recorded 24 hours a day by camera crews, some of whom had handlebar porn-staches and even went to the extreme of hiding in our closets in the middle of the night. That was a bit awkward for us. Team UK, however, had almost two weeks to get acquainted with each other before filming began. Team USA was not afforded that luxury, as we fought and were immediately thrown in a house with an angry, drunk hobbit. We were getting to know every one’s personality and idiosyncrasies during the first few weeks of filming. There was, however, a common ground of distaste between the Yanks, personified by the "Count", Michael Bisping.

(Lesnar’s fighting style is truly an inspiration to asshole big brothers everywhere.)

Gather round, Potato Nation.  It’s time to sort through the latest batch of your Ask the Potato questions and see what kind of pointless queries have been bouncing around in your precious little heads.  If you  have a question of your own, by all means, let us know in the forums.  If you already asked a question and we still haven’t answered it, we’re probably not going to.  Ask a better question.

Which fighter as of right now has the most drawing power, and why?? – Rokabee

The difficult part about answering this question is correlation vs. causation.  How do we know it’s any one guy drawing huge numbers, and not the timing or the overall card?  The best we can do is look at the highest performing pay-per-views and sell-out events and try to figure out which fighter consistently shows up on those cards.  When we do it that way over the short term, the answer is Brock Lesnar.  Every pay-per-view he’s on does better than the last one.  Thing is, he’s only been on three so far.  If we were fucking doctors or scientists or something, we’d probably say that was too small a sample size.  But we’re not, and you did say, “as of right now,” so there’s your answer.  His pro wrestling fanbase, the sheer curiosity as to what he might become in MMA, plus his volatility make Lesnar a consistent draw.

Are knees to the body on the ground the single most destructive and under-used strike in MMA? You wouldn’t figure it would take too many well planted knees to just ruin an opponent, but you don’t see many guys in side control try it. Wassup wit dat!!! – Dmonicideals

(That’s what you’re wearing to dinner? It’s Arby’s, Danielle. They have standards.)

God bless those jerks at Fight! Magazine.  They finally stopped throwing wild parties long enough to upload some photos from their extensive library on to their website.  Yeah, there’s a lot of good fight pics, but the best part is the ring girl spreads that you’ll find in every issue.  That’s how we found out about Danielle Loveland, a ring girl for TUFFNUFF who appeared in their February 2009 issue.

Things you should know about Danielle: 1) She used to be a lifeguard at the pool at the Palms in Las Vegas, 2) She’s "been a gymnast and a cheerleader my whole life pretty much. I’m real athletic – very flexible," and 3) her personal website contains some very NSFW (that means naked) photos.  Check out her MySpace page if you feel like you need to know more about her interests.

Some more pics of her, including one that makes the best use yet of the sexy black belt theme, are after the jump.

(As if this wasn’t humiliating enough, Jason was also forced to pay for his own rape kit. [What, too soon?] Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly.)

— Recent reports have indicated that middleweight Jason Day and welterwight Josh Burkman are the latest fighters to be canned by the UFC. Though Day won his UFC debut against Alan Belcher last April, he then lost back-to-back fights against Michael Bisping and Kendall Grove, both by first-round TKO. Burkman’s exit is even less surprising, as his loss to Pete Sell at UFC 90 was his third-straight Octagon defeat. Akihiro Gono was also cut last month after dropping two straight.

— After bumbling regional ref Rick Fike stopped their first fight way too early, lightweights Aaron Riley and Shane Nelson will get another chance to tangle at UFC 101 (August 8th, Philadelphia). Nelson was awarded a TKO victory at UFC 96 after knocking Riley to the mat in the first round, but Riley immediately invoked the "what the fuck is your problem?" rule and the crowd backed him up with chants of "Bullshit!"

(Props: D Wizzle’s World)

Above is a video of former UFC champ Kevin Randleman announcing his comeback at a press conference for "Shamrock vs. Diaz" earlier this month, in which he said, and I quote:

Granted, Randleman made it clear later that he’d really like to fight Tito Ortiz, but we weren’t expecting him to turn down the first fight offered to him after his "bring ‘em on" press-conference speech — especially when his employer could use the help. From a new MMA Fanhouse report:

(The hoax match-up the world has been talking about since never.)

It’s a crazy rumor no more.  Now Fedor Emelianenko vs. Shinya Aoki is a crazy fact, according to press release sent out today by M-1 Global.  The two will square off in a "five-minute special sparring exhibition" at the "M-1 Challenge Presented by Affliction" on April 29 in Tokyo.  So what will the lightweight and the heavyweight try to do to each other over the course of the most bizarre and pointless five minutes in MMA history?  According to the press release:

Complete rules of the Fedor vs. Aoki sparring exhibition are still being negotiated, but it will be presented as a special attraction during a 19-bout event scheduled to feature head-to-head M-1 Challenge matchups between host country Japan vs. England, Team USA West vs. South Korea, and Spain vs. France.

Well, that’s appropriately vague.  I guess this is what happens when you start to run out of credible opponents (who won’t ask for a lot money to fight you) but you still want to get out of the house and break a sweat: you spar with a skinny guy in tights.  Sounds reasonable.  Oh, wait.  No, it’s completely insane.  But what do we expect at this point?

(This pose yielded very different results during the Robbie Lawler shoot.)

Gina Carano and Ariel Helwani continued their star-crossed romance in an interview for MMA Fanhouse, mixing friendly banter with actual questions about when the hell we’ll see Carano fight someone.  Long story short, it’s going to be in Strikeforce, eventually, but they’re still working out the details.  One would assume that the major detail in question is money.  Carano was working extremely cheap for Elite XC, and now she has the chance to hold Scott Coker over the coals and really stack that paper, son.  Only Carano claims – get this – that money is not a big deal to her:

Frankly, I am absolutely unmotivated by money. And I know that maybe people take that and don’t understand what that means, but I am just not. What I am interested in is people that have respect. Not only respect for me, but people who have respect for women in MMA. So, the better that I can do for myself and the better I represent myself – which I have to work on all of this, by the way – the better it is for the sport.

Now I’m no business mastermind, but if I were to write a book about how to negotiate a contract the first chapter would be entitled: “Don’t Publicly Claim That You Aren’t Interested In Being Paid Lots of Money.”  The second chapter would be called: "The Power of Blackmail," so now you know why I’m not writing that book. 

But even if you’re willing to believe that Carano is the kind of idealist who doesn’t want to get paid as much as she possibly can for doing a dangerous and difficult job that has a very limited window of opportunity, then you have to find a way to reconcile that Gina Carano with this Gina Carano:

(See, there *is* life after fighting. Props to CagePotato reader Bjorn S. for the tip.)

Instructions for watching the new music video by UFC mark Mandy Moore, titled "I Can Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week":

1) Go to your iTunes and cue up a song that’s 2:51-3:00 in length. Perhaps "White Tar" by the Bronx.

2) Make sure the volume control on the above YouTube player is all the way down. Trust us, you don’t want to hear this mess.

3) Hit play on the video and on your iTunes as close to simultaneously as you can manage.

4) Find something else to do until about the 1:41 mark. Those blue toenails can only belong to one man.

5) Now watch carefully starting at 2:10. Mandy seduces the easily-seduceable Chuck Liddell by opening up her trenchcoat. Chuck gives her the dumbest drooling man-child look before realizing, "Hey, why is this chick who just caught me banging her sister trying to show me her tits? Uh-oh."

6) Look low, kick low. Oldest trick in the book.

TUF 9.4: Nick Osipczak KOs Mark Miller – Watch more Funny Videos
(Nick Osipczak puts Team U.K. on the board with his head-kick knockout of Mark Miller. Cheerio, bitches.)

In the battle of personal property defacement, Team U.S. is routing the Brits by a score of 2-0 — if only they could be that dominant in the Octagon. Last night’s episode of TUF 9 featured the show’s first quarterfinal match, with well-rounded beanpole Nick Osipczak drawing first blood for Team U.K., thanks to a highlight-reel knockout of the much scarier-looking Mark Miller.

The episode opened with the coaches introducing us to their assistants. Michael Bisping has flown in his own trainers at Wolfslair — Mario "Sucata" Neto (wrestling/submissions) and Dave Jackson (striking) — who will now be acting as his helpers. Dan Henderson is rolling a little deeper with Heath Sims (wrestling), Cyrille Diabate (Muay Thai), Ricardo Feliciano (jiu-jitsu), and Gustavo Pugliese (boxing).

Team U.S. is at a disadvantage because they just had to go through their elimination fights; Team U.K.’s took place two weeks prior. Hendo chooses the relatively unscathed welterweight Mark Miller to represent the Americans first against Nick Osipczak, who didn’t look like much in his elimination match against Tommy Maguire. "One to us," Bisping says of the pick.

(When he told her it was time to retire and give up the game for good, a tearful Paris Hilton told Dana: "But I am the game!" Only then did he fully understand the devils of fame and the ransom they demand. True story.)

- UFC president Dana White talked with Inside Fighting about the disappointing main event at UFC 97, and he also reiterated his commitment to keeping Chuck Liddell firmly in retirement, saying, “Believe me, it will be a fucking war if he tries not to retire, believe me.”  When pressed on other rapidly aging fighters who might need to be nudged into retirement, White admitted that Wanderlei Silva and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira “are right there too and yes, I will pull the trigger on them too.”  Dear God, he’s not going to kill them, is he?!

- A crazy rumor on the information superhighway says that Fedor Emelianenko and Shinya Aoki will square off against each other in a special grappling match at the “Deep M-1 Challenge 3rd Edition” in Japan on April 29th.  I’ll pause a moment and let that one sink in.  If true this would be completely insane, but to deny that we would totally want to see it would be to deny the very curiosity of the spirit that makes us human, and we aren’t about to do that.

(Props: MMA Opinion)

Is there any fighter who more closely resembles the animal for which he is nicknamed than Thiago "The Pitbull" Alves?  Just looking at his face makes me want to lock the door and call Animal Control.  He says in this video that he’s been working out at Wanderlei Silva’s new gym/daycare center in Las Vegas, and plans to return there the week before his title fight with Georges St. Pierre at UFC 100 to get his weight right.  Alves has had some weight issues in the past, and with a title fight he won’t get that extra pound allowance so he’d better be on point.  Something tells me that screwing up a title fight at UFC 100 would be a murderable offense in Dana White’s eyes.

Raw Vegas went by Xtreme Couture to talk with Kim Couture about her upcoming bout.  Am I the only one not buying it at all when she claims to be blissfully unaware of the criticism that suggests she’s only getting these opportunities because of who she’s married to?  Even if she doesn’t "go on the computer," the idea must have occurred to her that it’s not solely her 1-1 pro record that’s landing her on Strikeforce cards.  Whatever you think of Couture though, it’s nice to see a woman fighter slam "Cyborg" Santos’ woman trouble excuse.  It just doesn’t have the same force when we do it, for some reason.

After the jump, American Top Team boxing coach Howard Davis Jr. takes it to the gloves and shows us the hand speed.

(That’s what you get for rushing the mound, Manny. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)

Revered by Chicago-area MMA fans as a hometown hero, WEC bantamweight champ/East Chicago native Miguel Torres will take a big step up in public visibility when he throws out the ceremonial first pitch for the White Sox vs. Detroit Tigers game at U.S. Cellular Field on Wednesday, May 6th. As NWI.com reports:

Hopefully Miguel will be able to resist the urge to aim for the head. The 135-pound king will next defend his title against Brian Bowles this summer. Though we can’t imagine a better ambassador for the sport than Torres, his new poster-boy status is already weighing on him. As he explained in a recent interview for WEC.tv:

(He’s not kidding, Dana — tap or nap. Photo courtesy of MMA Mania.)

He might be a "t-shirt guy," but Affliction VP Tom Atencio has enough balls to actually compete in the sport that he promotes. According to MMA Fanhouse, Atencio will be fighting on the supporting card of the June 27th MMA event at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum in Biloxi that will be headlined by Bobby Lashley vs. Bob Sapp. Another heavyweight match between Pedro Rizzo and Gilbert Yvel has also been booked. Said Atencio on his decision to get out from behind his desk and strap on the gloves:

No, Atencio’s fight won’t be a celebrity MMA bout against arch-nemesis Dana White (who could smash Ricardo Arona, by the way). He’ll be taking on a yet-unnamed lightweight, probably at a weight of 160 pounds: "Not sure I can make 155 at 42 years old."

While we give huge props to Tom for the effort, we can’t help reading into what this means for Affliction as an MMA promotion. It can’t be a great sign when their main promoter and two of their heavyweights are planning on keeping busy with other endeavors for the month of June. When asked why he wouldn’t be fighting under the Affliction banner, all Atencio would say is "They don’t think it’s right for me to fight for my own event." (They?) Still no word on when/where Affliction’s third event will be held, if they are indeed having one, but we’ll keep you posted.

(‘Oh no you didn’t, Alistair. And to think I cheered for you against Cro Cop.’)

It’s not quite as bad as Lyoto Machida admitting to drinking his own urine every single morning, but Alistair Overeem seems to have some unusual dietary issues all his own.  In a recent interview translated by Robert K, Overeem said he’s changed everything about his life, from his girlfriend to his coach to his diet.  Now he lives mainly on “horse meat, rice, and protein shakes.”  And here you thought your dog was the only one on an equine-centric diet.

Turns out that eating horse meat is popular in certain parts of the globe that are not called the United States (the Mongolians even make a horse milk wine, so there).  According to the always informative Wikipedia:

“Horse meat contains 20% more protein than high quality beef cuts, 25% less fat, nearly 20% less sodium, double the iron and less cholesterol. When compared to ground beef, horsemeat has 55% more protein, 25% less fat, 30% less cholesterol and 27% less sodium.”

That sounds all right, if you can get past the fact that you’re eating a freaking horse.  I guess there’s no real reason, aside from the psychological ones, that it should be any weirder than eating, say, a cow.  And look what it’s done for Overeem’s physique!

Wait a minute, you thinking what I’m thinking?  All that speculation about how Overeem managed to go from a tall, kind of skinny light heavyweight to a bulky beast of a heavyweight centered on the theory that he was injecting something.  But maybe it’s the horses who have been injecting something.  You know, in their desire to get huge, floss, and get mares.  It all makes sense now.  And you know those horses are always outside tanning and stuff.  They really are the Phil Baroni’s of the animal kingdom.

A while back we told you that Kyle Maynard, the congenital amputee who wrestled at the University of Georgia, was planning to make his pro MMA debut at a small show in Alabama.  Well, that’s happening this weekend, and not everyone is happy about it.  Columnist Brad Zimanek for the Montgomery Advertiser refers to Maynard’s impending debut as “a freak show,” insisting that MMA fights are “basically no-holds barred combat” and the only people buying tickets to this thing are those who want to see “how badly Maynard gets beat up.”

Clearly, anyone who thinks Maynard’s fight is a freak show needs to watch Bob Sapp fight cartoon characters and learn what a real freak show looks like. Maynard may get beat up on Saturday night.  That’s a possibility, given that this is a fight he’s going into.  But isn’t that his choice to make?  There probably weren’t a lot of people who thought he could wrestle at the college level, but that didn’t mean college wrestling became a freak show the moment Maynard got on the mat.

(Still the best eva. Props: Genghis Con)

From a recent NerdSociety.com interview with the New York Bad Ass:

Hear that, nerds? Be more like this guy. You can read the rest of this illuminating interview here. Baroni takes on Joe Riggs at Strikeforce: Lawler vs. Shields on June 6th.

(Props: Nightmare of Battle)

Masanori Kanehara thinks you can, and at his open workout in Tokyo he told media members that that’s how he intends to beat Chan Sung Jung, also known as “The Korean Zombie,” (that’s who he’s supposedly preparing for in the above photo, but man what a cheap zombie mask) in the Sengoku featherweight Grand Prix.  Conventional wisdom has always held that the best way to deal with a zombie is by destroying the brain or removing the head, preferably by doing something awesome/gruesome.  

But the rear naked choke?  I guess that could work, though your risk of getting bitten while sinking in the choke seems pretty high.  Still better than an armbar or guillotine choke, though.  And don’t even think about trying to heelhook one of those suckers.

Basically, to sum up: if there is a zombie attack and you are forced to choose which MMA fighter to team up with until the whole thing blows over, Demian Maia is probably not your safest pick.  Your first instinct might be to go with Fedor Emelianenko, but lest you forget, he’s lived with some fear issues when it comes to darkness.  Something to think about.

On a related note, the zombie embodies man’s fear of the crushing force of society and conformity.  Discuss.

If we can believe half of the rumors we hear, this is going to be a busy summer for UFC champs.  According to Fighters Only, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is slated to get a shot at whoever has the belt around his waist after Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida go at it at UFC 98.  That fight is tentatively scheduled for August, perhaps even at UFC 102, the event still shrouded in mystery and speculation.  

If that’s the case, that would put it a mere three months after the Evans/Machida clash.  As you clever devils no doubt recall, Evans balked at fighting at UFC 96 in March because he’d just fought at UFC 92 in December, so you know he’s no fan of the quick turnaround.  Plus, there’s the injury factor to consider.  If Machida wins chances are he will have sustained no damage in the fight, since he can probably count the number of times he’s actually been punched in the face.  But if Evans wins it’s kind of a lot to ask for him to defend his title again three months later.

This is exactly why you need to save your sick days at your job.  No one’s going to believe it when you call in and tell them you came down with a bad case of shingles an hour before you’re supposed to work a double.  Trust me.