If you sacrificed sleep to watch Dream.9 or even if you just read our liveblog, you already know what a completely predictable shit-show the “Super Hulk” tournament was.  For the rest of you, behold the glory.  Above is Jose Canseco vs. Hong Man Choi.  Please take note around the 1:30 mark when Michael Schiavello has the balls to call Jose Canseco’s performance up to that point “pretty cerebral.”  That’s the dude in the long pants who’s throwing overhand rights and then turning his back on his opponent that Schiavello is talking about.  Apparently all you have to do to be considered cerebral at the “Super Hulk” tournament is not swallow your tongue.  

More videos after the jump, including a fight between Bob Sapp and Minowaman that has ‘work’ written all over it.  Shocking, I know.

(You know, Jason, it would be nice if your junk transitioned to a renewable energy source. Photo courtesy of DreamOfficial.com)

The return of Kid Yamamoto. Light-heavyweights fighting super-heavyweights. Desperate baseball players possibly dying in the ring. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to see some crazy shit. DREAM.9 kicks off in a few minutes, and if you’re reading this live, God bless you. Round-by-round updates from the HDNet broadcast are after the jump; refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest. If there’s a long stretch of time where there’s no updates, it just means that I’ve fallen asleep. Let’s all hope that doesn’t happen.
 

(Carano with Lil’ Gina.  Neither of them will go out with you.)

Awww, having her own Round 5 MMA action figure makes Gina Carano smile like she hasn’t since she got naked behind a towel at a public weigh-in.  It’s just a prototype, but it looks like the Round 5 people went ahead and enhanced some of her feminine features.  This is not all that surprising.  Round 5 even managed to make Sean Sherk look like he had normal-length arms, so we know they have no problem presenting their own alternate version of physical reality.  At least Gina’s figure will give both little girls and creepy old dudes the hero they need so badly in their lives.

(It was at that moment that Jose realized his life had become unmanageable. Photo courtesy of DreamOfficial.com)

DREAM.9 — which goes down tomorrow in Yokohama, and will be broadcast live on HDNet starting at 5 a.m. ET / 2 a.m. PT — is simply too epic for us not to liveblog. If you’ll be awake for some reason, swing by and find out how quickly/pathetically Jose Canseco gets his ass kicked by Hong Man Choi — as well as what happens with the rest of the Super Hulk Tournament opening round, the featherweight grand prix quarterfinals, and the Mayhem/Jacare middleweight title fight. If you’ll be sleeping like a normal person, just come over when you wake up and get caught up on all the insanity.

Weigh-in results are after the jump, courtesy of MMA Weekly.

(Photo courtesy of SI.com)

There’s nothing like a title changing hands, a hatchet being buried, and an upset or two to give the arbitrary numerical rankings system of the Potato Index something to talk about.  Let’s see who’s up and who’s down after UFC 98.

Lyoto Machida +316
He came into this fight as the favorite to win a boring decision.  Less than ten minutes later people were talking about The Machida Era as if it were the Ming Dynasty and lamenting the fate of whatever poor bastard had to face him next.  He proved you can be an elusive, complicated martial artist and still kick serious ass.  Dawning of a new age in MMA, or just a beautiful anomaly?

Rashad Evans -127
Becomes another 205-pound champ to lose his first title defense, and barely lands a punch in the process.  Keeping your back against the cage and trying to counter those whirlwind attacks can probably be ruled out as the strategy to beat Machida, but Evans had to try something.  Back to the middle of the pack.

(UFC 98 post-event press conference footage, courtesy of CageWriter.)

Confirming what many of us had already assumed, Dana White announced at Saturday night’s press conference that new UFC light-heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida will make his first title defense against former champ Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. Though the match isn’t tied to a specific event yet, White also announced (perhaps not coincidentally) that the UFC would be holding a show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on October 24th.

So, quick MMA rumor math: Machida will be fighting Rampage later this year + Rampage will be one of the coaches on TUF 10 = We might be seeing the Dragon lead a team of heavyweights on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter.

(I count 11 punches thrown and eight landed cleanly.  That’s precision destruction. Props: MMA Core.)

You can pick your reason for being surprised with the results of last night’s Lyoto Machida-Rashad Evans title fight at UFC 98.  If you expected Machida to win a less than thrilling five-round decision, you got to be completely shocked by seeing him turn into the guy who did the chasing for a change, as well as the guy who used Terminator-like accuracy to do the most damage with the least possible effort.  

If you expected Evans to use his wrestling to control Machida – a position which sounded so rational in my own head just twenty-four hours ago – you got to be surprised for all the above reasons and more.  Most likely your head is still spinning, and not just for lack of sleep.

Machida beat down a respected UFC champ (okay, one defending his title for the first time, but still) and made it look absurdly easy.  He did it in a fashion that has us all wondering if the fighter who might eventually dethrone him has even been born yet.  Just calling that performance ‘dominant’ doesn’t quite cut it.  Maybe that’s why I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Anderson Silva of two years ago, even as Anderson Silva fights like the Lyoto Machida of two years ago. I’m telling you, it’s spooky.

(Yep, that’s how bad it was.)

Yeah, I know that he was technically ineligible to receive a Submission of the Night bonus at UFC 98.  And the fight wasn’t competitive enough (read: at all) to garner consideration for Fight of the Night.  But when you beat ass with the kind of dominating, precise beauty that Lyoto Machida did last night, knocking out Rashad Evans and looking like a perfect fighting machine sent back in time by a futuristic Karate-centric society to teach us all a valuable lesson, it really seems like they ought to create a new bonus category to honor you.

(Just after this photo was taken, Rashad respectfully grabbed his nuts and blew Lyoto a kiss. Props to Combat Lifestyle.)

It got Koscheck. It got Okami. It got Alexander and Irvin and Wilson. But by God, the UFC 98 curse will not rob us of seeing Sean Sherk and Frankie Edgar fight to an inevitable decision, or Dan Miller submit Chael Sonnen in the first round, or Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida counter-counter-punch for the light-heavyweight title — unless the arena collapses within the next few minutes, which is always a possibility. Live round-by-round updates from tonight’s pay-per-view broadcast are after the jump; refresh the page regularly to see all the latest. Let’s get ready to EVAAAAAAAAAAADE!!!

(Kaplan/Roop is easily going to be Fight of the Night. And Dana went to MIT. Photo courtesy of this set on CombatLifestyle.com)

Spoilers after the jump…

With "Evans vs. Machida" signaling the end of a five-week UFC drought, the anticipation and nervous energy runs high in this video-blog-recap of Wednesday and Thursday. President White is in good spirits, checking out the new, heavier version of the UFC championship belt, cruising around in the ultimate guidomobile, and torching some poor schmuck who had the misfortune of showing up in a paisley shirt. ("You and the Revolution have a good day. Say hi to Apollonia for me.") Later, he presses palms at Thursday’s press conference, and has a very cordial phone conversation with Chuck Liddell, who’s his usual lucid self. I hope you’re all re-hydrating, because it’s about to go down…

(Who’s unconventionally elusive now, motherfucker?  Photo courtesy MMA Weekly.)

 Not to dash your hopes of big drama at today’s weigh-in, but everybody made weight for UFC 98.  Rashad Evans decided to go with the ‘I ain’t even got time to pose’ approach that you see above, but other than that there wasn’t much excitement to speak of.  Full results are after the jump.

(Does it even matter why this picture was taken?)

- Everyone is just trying to help Chuck Liddell. (Fightlinker)

- UFC Undisputed is a solid hit. (MMA Payout)

- Machida talks urine drinking. (Ask Men)

- The pros pick Evans vs. Machida. (Sherdog)

- Check out the final Bellator tournament schedule. (Fighters Only)

- Rashad Evans talks Machida, being the underdog. (Ask Men)

- Video of Machida vs. Bonnar. (MMA TKO)

- Top 3 most frustrating teams to watch in baseball. (Scores Report)

- The celebrity gender switch experiment. (Holy Taco)

- 10 great war movie quotes. (Screen Junkies)

- 56 insanely hot Indy car grid girls. (All Left Turns)

- Fat kid ATV jousting nut shot. (Nothing Toxic)

Lyoto Machida in Countdown to UFC 98 excerpt – Watch more Funny Videos

Last night’s Countdown to UFC 98 special on Spike put a lot of effort into selling Lyoto Machida as a star, running down his backstory and setting him up as a mysterious martial arts warrior with an ancient spirit. I just watched the first half, and decided to pull out a couple highlights for those of you who didn’t get a chance to see it. In the above clip, Lyoto explains exactly why Antonio Inoki slapped the shit out of him, and admits to the pressure that came with being set up as a bagman for Dana White during the Tito Ortiz mess. Also, he explains the historical precedent for his goal of never getting hit. 

Reminder: Our UFC 98 liveblog kicks off tomorrow night at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. We’d love to have you stop by.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Chris Wilson‘s month just went from incredibly awful to unbelievably terrible. As if getting home-invaded and robbed of all his valuables by Brazilian marauders wasn’t bad enough, the Team Quest welterweight now can’t even earn the money to replace what he lost. Bad, bad tidings from his blog:

Watch UFC 98 Picks From CagePotato.coms Ben Fowlkes! on RawVegas.tv

Oh, Christ.  There’s something really terrible about seeing yourself talk on video.  It’s a similar feeling to hearing your own voice on the answering machine, only much worse.  Anyway, this is me giving my UFC 98 predictions to RawVegas.tv and talking about what it’s like coming to Vegas to cover a UFC fight and staying at the sleazy Motel 6 across the street from the MGM Grand, which seemed to fascinate the Raw Vegas people for some reason.  Personally I prefer their work in the genre of girls kissing other girls for money in Vegas nightclubs.  That shit is art, yo.

Think of this video as a word of caution to all the kids out there considering becoming MMA writers.  It’s not cool.  In fact, it’s downright pathetic.  Just when you think it can’t get any worse some people with a video camera come in and make you pretend to type on your laptop, even as you are visibly mouthing the words, "type, type, type."  Congratulations to those of you who got the "Lawrence of Arabia" reference.  You are nerds.  And if you want to take issue with my picks, just check out who’s tied for first in the CBS Sports panel.

After the jump, Lyoto Machida‘s first fight, back when he was so young and so willing to come down to the ring in weird outfits.

(In the lobby of the MGM Grand, going mostly unnoticed.)

I’m not going to lie to you, Potato Nation.  There isn’t a whole lot of enthusiasm for this weekend’s UFC 98 event here in Las Vegas.   Maybe that’s not quite right.  Maybe it’s that there’s just not much awareness.  As great a presence as the UFC always has in Sin City, this week the reaction to the upcoming event from locals and tourists seems lukewarm at best.  But that doesn’t mean that MMA culture in general isn’t a pervasive force all around us.

(Don’t get used to it, buddy. By the way, those aren’t real tats — he’s wearing one of those queer-ass tattoo shirts. )

With his MMA debut coming in four days, you might be wondering what Jose Canseco has been doing to prepare for Hong Man Choi. After all, we’ve seen no photos or videos of him training at MMA camps, and he’s ignored every interview request from MMA news outlets (us included). It’s all a big mystery. Well, it seems like the real answer is the most logical one:

(Just before the nightclub brawl, Overeem also reportedly negged eight women and kino escalated on six.)

When it was announced that Alistair Overeem turned down a Strikeforce heavyweight title fight against Brett Rogers due to an injured hand, we thought it was one of those phantom injuries that mysteriously arises when someone asks you to fight a comparatively unknown up-and-comer on a month’s notice. But it turns out Overeem’s injury is very real. And there’s a pretty interesting story behind it. Fighter’s Only has the tale…

(Kampmann does some of his best thinking on the streets, right around dusk, wearing his UFC sweatshirt.  You wouldn’t understand, man.)

You have to love it when an MMA fighter explains why he turned down a fight that the UFC offered him and begins with the phrase, ‘No disrespect to [name of fighter he is disrespecting], but…’  It’s as smooth a move as saying, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ right before you say something that you know will be taken the wrong way.  That’s basically what Martin Kampmann is doing while explaining to Versus.com why he turned down a fight with T.J. Grant that has been all over the internets the last couple days as if were totally official:

“No disrespect to T.J. Grant, but I don’t think it’s a fight that makes any sense for me at the moment,” Kampmann said. “I want to fight some higher ranked guys. I never even knew who the guy was, and he’s probably a tough guy. But I want to fight guys who make sense for me and who can escalate me up the ladder more, so I didn’t accept that fight. I don’t know what happened, but apparently some miscommunication somewhere because I saw it all over the internet.”

Sean Sherk’s last two fights against B.J. Penn and Tyson Griffin respectively have seen him trying to reinvent himself as more of a boxer than the one-dimensional wrestler we’ve come to know and tolerate.  But will he really stick with that approach against Frankie Edgar who, as you can see, has some decent hands of his own?  Current Vegas odds have Sherk as slightly better than a 2-1 favorite, which makes sense if you think about the way he’s outwrestled opponents like Hermes Franca and Kenny Florian, and then compare it to the way Edgar was flat out dominated on the mat by Gray Maynard.  

But if Sherk gets caught up trying to please the fans and placate the people who say he can’t finish fights and isn’t entertaining to watch, he’s rolling the dice.  So which Sherk will we see on Saturday — the boxer or the wrestler?  And will it matter?

(Props: GenghisCon)

Just as he did with Rashad Evans, Genghis Con has put together a short profile video of Lyoto Machida in advance of UFC 98′s light-heavyweight title fight. It’s a huge file, so get the video loading, then go make yourself a sandwich, then eat the sandwich, then come back and watch this thing. And set your DVRs for UFC 98′s Countdown show on Spike, which airs tonight at 11 p.m. ET/PT. Apparently, it makes Hughes look significantly more likable than Serra.

After the jump: Steve Cofield raps with Rashad about poor fighter hygiene and Lyoto’s pee-drinking habit. Evans kind of suggests that they should test Lyoto’s urine for urine; he also admits that he manscapes. Also: An uncomfortable shirtless interview with Matt Hughes.

(Jeff Lawson lives like he fights: Balls to the wall.)

Sorry for missing last week’s blog. I have been traveling a lot and haven’t had the chance to sit down and write much.

"Parce!" The name turns my stomach. Honestly, I can’t believe that I have to continuously see this wretch on TV and write about him. He certainly has received his fifteen minutes. And hopefully after this I don’t have to waste the oxygen in my lungs to speak about the cantankerous fellow, or the typing power in my fingers to peck away at my keyboard, giving him any more notoriety than he has already stolen from every other deserving member on the show.

"Parce" (that is "Pierce" said with a British accent) came from a day when all of the Americans were playing pool together except him. Yes, even Jason "I bang my head against the wall" Dent was kickin’ it with the team. I decided that even though there was much disdain toward the fellow, I would invite him to come down to join our dysfunctional group. I yelled to Pierce, who was upstairs at the time, to come down and play pool with us. I called and called, but was not answered. Then it hit me! I turned to the other guys and said, "Oh, he can’t understand me." Then I started yelling in a British accent (a poor one at that) "Parce! Come down here good chap. Parce!" Looking back at the guys I explained that he could only understand words if spoken like a Brit. So that’s how that whole thing got started.

(I dare you to watch this entire video and remain unpumped.  No, check that. I double-dare you.)

Here at Cage Potato we value all of our loyal readers, but we value the ones who are at least semi-famous just a little bit more.  One such reader, as you probably know, is Bruce Buffer.  Today The Buff turns fifty and we would like to congratulate him on not only living this long, which neither one of us really expects to do, but also holding down a pretty sweet job all this time without getting fired for drinking too much or stealing microphones, which both of us would have done by now. 

Happy birthday, Bruce.  The Buffer Turn has done more to change the nature of ring announcing than any other single innovation, with the possible exceptions of electricity and language itself.  And if you don’t believe that The Buff is one of the sport’s most enthusiastic and passionate fans, well, you should really see what’s after the jump.

(‘I come only to drink my own urine and win decisions. And I am all out of urine for at least the next hour.’)

It’s….time!  Here we go again, arguing over UFC 98′s most compelling, pre-packaged storylines and making oblique reference to awesome internet videos we’ve wasted our time watching lately.  Just so you know what you’re in for.  And so it begins…

When Mike Tyson spoke of impetuous style and impregnable defense, he might as well have been describing Lyoto Machida. How can Rashad Evans beat him on Saturday?

BG: According to Jackson camp trainer Mike Winklejohn, Evans’s gameplan will involve countering Machida’s counters. But come on — do you really think Machida hasn’t been working on countering counters to his counters? (Don’t read that sentence while standing between two mirrors or your head will explode.) To be honest, we don’t know what works against Machida. We know what results in utter failure, and that’s trying to strike with him; if Evans is seriously planning on beating Machida in a point-karate match, he’s fucked.

Because of his elusiveness and competent takedown defense, Lyoto Machida hasn’t spent much time on his back during his career. But don’t forget, Evans is a fearsome wrestler. And as much as I hate watching this strategy in action, a boring lay-n-pray decision is Rashad’s best shot at keeping his belt. He just needs to borrow Clay Guida’s “Energizer Blanket” approach — shoot and get stuffed, shoot and get stuffed, shoot and score the takedown, lay on top until Machida escapes or the ref orders a stand-up, repeat as necessary, and win an unsatisfying decision without inflicting any real damage. Yes, it would be ugly, and the fans would be livid. I’d much rather see Machida ghost-ride Evans’s ass with punches and foot-sweeps until Sugar has a nervous breakdown on the stool between the fourth and fifth rounds. But hell, you asked for an answer and I gave you one.

BF: Impregnable defense, I’ll give that much to Machida.  But ‘impetuous’ in this sense means marked by an impatient, impulsive force or violence.  Does that sound like Machida to you?  He’s more like impregnable defense and indifferent style.  Whether he finishes you or not is of little consequence to him.  The guy can wait all night for a victory, and he has.  But on to the question at hand.  

(Josh’s "retarded proctologist" bit always brought a half-smile to Fedor’s face. Photo courtesy of fcfighter.com)

Yes, Affliction has yanked away the proverbial football a couple times before, but according to a new report on MMA Fanhouse, Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett are really, truly going to fight this summer — we hope:

TUF 9.8 Stoppage and Kara DioGuardi Strips Down – Watch more Funny Videos

Last night, doe-eyed heartthrob Kris Allen pulled out a stunning victory over scream-queen Adam Lambert to become 2009′s American Idol. The two-hour-plus finale broadcast included guest performances by Kiss, Carlos Santana, Cyndi Lauper, Brian May/Roger Taylor, and a near-death Rod Stewart, and Kara DioGuardi ripped her clothes off for charity, which was fucking epic (I know, I’m sorry), and my God that woman is like the new Elaine Benes, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Directly after, on a fledgling cable channel called Spiked Television (I think?), there was a new reality show about what happens when 16 guys who live together in a house stop being polite and start getting real. Half of them had strange accents, and a fight broke out at the end.

This is their story.

(‘Why won’t you die!?’)

Apparently deciding that if he can’t fight Anthony Johnson he’d rather fight no one at all, Matt Brown has opted to sit out and heal up instead of taking a bout against a replacement opponent at the “Ultimate Fighter 9” Finale on June 20.  Johnson pulled out with an injured knee earlier this week, putting an end to a fight we were really looking forward to on account of the guaranteed aggression that would have resulted from putting those two guys in one cage.  

Brown reportedly decided to nurse some nagging injuries rather than fighting a late replacement, and you really can’t blame him.  Who knows, maybe the bout will still happen a little ways down the road.  It just seems too good not to.

Here’s how you know your MMA rap video is off to a really bad start: you inform us that you are “here with the crew,” and when you glance over your left shoulder to indicate said crew there’s Spencer Pratt from MTV’s pseudo-reality show/vehicle for vapid rich kids, “The Hills.”  Great idea there, Kevin Casey.  Honestly, no matter what comes after that, and no matter how many highlights you show from the fight with “Minowaman” that you lost via TKO, your video is already screwed.  I’m not saying that maybe DMX didn’t have a dorky white friend at some point in his history, but when it came time to make a video of a bunch of dudes looking hard and mugging for the camera he was smart enough to give that friend a job behind the scenes.

After the jump, Matt Hughes heads to Minnesota to try some of that wacky caveman training Sean Sherk is always talking about.

(Vote ‘yes’ or Matt Serra will eat this baby. Photo courtesy of bleacherreport.com)

After months of debate and delay, the New York State Assembly Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts and Sports has set a date for their vote on bill 2009-B, intended to regulate mixed martial arts in New York. MMA Weekly confirmed that the vote will take place Wednesday, June 3rd, and passed along these additional details: