(Hey buddy, if it gets tough in there just remind that limey about how we saved their asses in WW II.  Works every time.)

After one of us floundered and one of us totally fucking ruled with our UFC 99 picks, we’re giving it another shot for tomorrow night’s “Ultimate Fighter” 9 Finale, just to make sure last week wasn’t some fluke.  Obviously, we’re ineligible to win Lyoto Machida’s “Karate for MMA” DVD set, which explains why our footsweeps haven’t been coming along like we’d hoped, but you can still get your picks in to our forums for round two of the first phase of this contest.  

In the meantime, take a glance at how we see it going down.  And while we’re on the subject of fight predictions, one of us is now all alone in first place atop at the CBS Sports Head-to-Head panel of MMA writers.  So take that, high school guidance counselor who advised me to “marry well.”

(Props: Round5MMA.com)

Images of Round 5‘s fourth series of MMA figurines have been released, and my God, would you check out the moose knuckle on Mauricio Rua. You gotta respect the attention to detail, but this might be the work of a vindictive figurine artist/Chuck Liddell fan who got pissed off after UFC 97 and thought, okay hot shot, now I’m going to make you look like a woman. Meanwhile, Gina Carano is wearing long, loose-fitting shorts. So I guess they didn’t use my concept art after all…

10. "I’m here to get paid and hurt people’s feelings, so…it’s time to do the man dance." — Damarques Johnson, offering his mission statement.

9. "You just gotta do what you gotta do whatcha can." — Dan Henderson, on the meaning of life.

8. “Oiiiieeeeehhhh!” — Michael Bisping, every time a Team U.K. fighter landed a shot on an American, and sometimes when they just came close.

7. "Put another shrimp on the barbie!" — Rob Browning, not the most worldly gentleman, tries to mock the Brits with a beloved Australian catchphrase.

(It beats the hell out of welfare.)

In case you’ve forgotten, the Strikeforce Challengers event from Kent, Washington is on Showtime tonight, headlined by “Smokin” Joey Villasenor taking on the other “Cyborg” Santos.  You know, the dude one.  That’s all well and good and they even shoved each other at the weigh-in yesterday to add a little easy hype, but the story that’s being overlooked right now is just how much Nick “The Goat” Thompson obviously does not want to fight Army special forces bad-ass Tim Kennedy.  He’s not even pretending that this was his idea, or that he is anything but resigned to his fate at this point.  Just check out these quotes from Thompson, courtesy of Strikeforce:

As fighters go, Chris Lytle is uncommonly honest with himself.  He’s one of the few guys in this sport who, when asked about his goals, doesn’t give you some boiler plate answer about a title shot.  He’s in his mid-thirties, in one of the UFC’s deepest divisions, and he’s coming off a loss.  He knows there probably isn’t much time left, so he wants to make the best of the opportunities he has to put on a show.  

In this candid interview Lytle talks about some hard lessons learned in the fight game, why he’s perfectly content to fight a guy like Kevin Burns on a Spike TV TUF Finale card, and what advice he has for the new crop of fighters who will be just breaking into the UFC on Saturday night.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for talking with me, Chris.  It seems like the past couple of years your focus has really shifted to being in good fights rather than racking up consecutive victories.  Is the quality and entertainment value of your fights more important to you now than wins and losses?

Yeah, I mean, obviously I don’t want to say that I don’t care if I win or lose.  It’s painful to me when I lose a fight.  I go out there to do what I came to do and win, but I don’t want to win at any cost.  I want to put on an exciting fight and win.  When I do that, it’s great.  When I lose, obviously I didn’t do what I wanted to do.  But I’d rather go out there and fight the way I want and lose an exciting fight than win a boring decision.  That’s my mentality.  I want to fight my way.  I want to win, but that’s not the only thing on my mind.

Props to "buggs mcmulligan" for turning us on to Penny Mathis/Jennifer Perez, an Internet model who has done stellar work for the MMA apparel companies Take a Nap Fight Gear and Hitman Fight Gear, among other brands. Be her friend at MySpace.com/ThatsJenny, and check out more pictures after the jump…

Nasty MMA Head-Kick Knockout – Watch more Funny Videos

Last Saturday, Nick Felix won the ALLSTARMMA welterweight title at an event in Springdale, Arkansas, by Cro Cop’ing the crap out of Jeffrey Escobar. Escobar had come into the fight with a 3-0 record, with all wins by first-round stoppage; unfortunately, he didn’t even last 10 seconds that night. Just as impressive as Felix’s head kick knockout was the diving tackle the ref made to get him to stop whaling on his unconscious opponent. One more performance like that and he’ll be able to break into the top 5. For more ALLSTARMMA fight videos, click here.

(The best financial investment since GM?)

There aren’t a whole lot of internet sportsbooks offering lines on more than a couple of the fights from Saturday night’s TUF 9 Finale – something about laying odds on dudes most of us have only seen in the context of reality TV must be unappealing when it’s how you actually make a living – but fortunately you can find just about anything on the internet, whether it’s Asian Nazi porn or odds on the Cameron Dollar/Jason Dent fight that absolutely no one is talking about.  Here are the most current lines from BestFightOdds.com:

Diego Sanchez (-270) vs. Clay Guida (+251)
DaMarques Johnson (-310) vs. James Wilks (+250)
Chris Lytle (-225) vs. Kevin Burns (+185)
Ross Pearson (+165) vs. Andre Winner (-205)
Joe Stevenson (+136) vs. Nate Diaz (-145)
Brad Blackburn (-115) vs. Edgar Garcia (-115)
Melvin Guillard (+195) vs. Gleison Tibau (-245)
Mike Ciesnolevicz (-125) vs. Tomasz Drwal (-105)
Cameron Dollar (+215) vs. Jason Dent (-275)
Frank Lester (+195) vs. Nick Osipczak (-245)

Our picks…

(Props: MMA Videos)

As we count down to the "Ultimate Fighter" season 9 finale on Spike TV this Saturday night, take a look at some of Diego Sanchez‘s preparations in the gym.  Looks like someone plans on countering Clay Guida‘s wrestling with the old fake kick/side kick combo.  Good times, good energy.  

After the jump, Guida chats with MMACanada.net, whose interviewer simply could not sound more Canadian, and says he isn’t worried about people thinking he’s boring.  Dude’s just living to eat, sleep, drink, and punch Diego Sanchez. 

Last night’s season finale of The Ultimate Fighter ended with each coach telling us exactly what he thinks of the other guy; basically, Dan Henderson thinks Michael Bisping‘s a douchebag, and Bisping thinks Henderson’s time has passed. And maybe they’re both right. But with three weeks left until they face each other at UFC 100, tensions aren’t exactly building. Here’s a highlight from a media conference call held earlier today, via MMA Fanhouse:

(Photo courtesy of Maxim.)

“I bet you I’ve taken over 60 steroid tests. In college I had 15 random drug tests in two years. I’ve taken drug tests for the NFL, the WWE, the UFC. I must be pretty good at masking steroids. God gave me this body: Are you jealous of it or what? Give me a break. I got the genetics of — not to get into racism or anything — but I’m built like a black man…It’s all genetics. I wouldn’t say we’re all created equal. That’s just to make the other guys feel good who don’t have what you’ve got.”

So says UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar in a new Maxim magazine profile, discussing the allegations of steroid use that have followed him from the WWE to the Octagon. For an entertaining recap of Brock’s life and career, read the rest of the article here. Or you could just read the two best parts after the jump…

(A match made in Japan.)

Maybe Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic wasn’t kidding about wanting to pack as many fights as possible into the years he has left, because SI.com’s Josh Gross is reporting that he’s agreed to fight K-1 kickboxer and occasional MMA fighter “Mighty” Mo Siliga at Dream.10 on July 20 in Japan.  So take that all you people who said Cro Cop wasn’t serious about fighting the best heavyweights in the world.  Siliga is an impressive 3-1 in MMA, with his last victory against the always tough available Ruben “Warpath” Villareal a little over two years ago.  The guy’s no Mostapha Al-Turk, but at least he’s not one of those annoying/bad-ass wrestlers that populate the UFC’s heavyweight class.

Diego Sanchez headlines Saturday night’s “Ultimate Fighter” Finale on Spike TV just a little over four years after becoming the show’s very first winner.  Now he takes on Clay “The TUF-Slayer” Guida in a fight that, according to Sanchez, will catapult him into an immediate lightweight title shot.  Does that mean the same title shot is on the line for Guida?  Not so much, says “The Nightmare.”  He also had some interesting things to say about positive thinking, the upcoming B.J. Penn/Kenny Florian title fight, and how he feels about being the UFC’s resident weirdo.  All this and more in our exclusive interview.

CagePotato.com: This is your second fight at lightweight.  Is the weight cut easier for you this time?

The weight cut’s gone great.  It’s been a lot better this time around.  I’ve been able to apply the right supplement and nutrition programs.  I feel right on point.  This week I was at about 171, and that’s right where I want to be.  The last ten pounds or so and the last couple days shouldn’t be too tough.  Then I’m fight ready.

With MMA Madness reporting that Frank Lester vs. Nick Osipczak will be added to the TUF 9 finale, and the Grant/Markham scrap taken off the card, we have a pretty solid idea of what Saturday’s show will look like, barring any last-minute surprises. Here’s the lineup:

MAIN CARD
Diego Sanchez vs. Clay Guida (LW)
DaMarques Johnson vs. James Wilks (TUF 9 welterweight finals)
Ross Pearson vs. Andre Winner (TUF 9 lightweight finals)
Joe Stevenson vs. Nate Diaz (LW)
Chris Lytle vs. Kevin Burns (WW)

PRELIMINARY CARD
Melvin Guillard vs. Gleison Tibau (LW)
Mike Ciesnolevicz vs. Tomasz Drwal (LHW)
Brad Blackburn vs. Edgar Garcia (WW)
Cameron Dollar vs. Jason Dent (LW)
Frank Lester vs. Nick Osipczak (WW)

So if you participated in round 1 of our pick-off contest and you still want the Lyoto Machida "Karate for Mixed Martial Arts" DVD set, read on…

(Click above for the completed TUF 9 welterweight bracket. Props: Wikipedia.)

With the last welterweight semifinal coming up, Team U.S. comes together for one last barbecue. Frank Lester gets all swoony over Dan Henderson, telling Hendo "your eyes don’t look bad at all" and "I wouldn’t fuck with you because of your ears." This is what six weeks without women will do to a man.

Damarques Johnson does his best to build up Lester’s confidence for his fight against James Wilks. He says James can’t absorb as much damage as Frank and be okay with it. We never really got to see why Damarques hates James so much, but Damarques tells us that "James is just such a pompous prick, and I want Frank to hurt him badly." He also refers to James as a "pretty boy." Seriously. This James Wilks. I think it’s safe to say that Damarques has a different standard of beauty than the rest of us. Just another example of how the absence of females can distort your perceptions.

(Davis continues to deftly straddle the fence between being an "American Fighter" and an "Irish Hand Grenade," but how long can his loyalties remain divided?)

It’s funny, Dan Hardy was the one who started the war of words prior to UFC 99, but now that the fight’s over it’s Marcus Davis who won’t let it die.  After refusing to shake Hardy’s hand in the Octagon and fuming over the split decision loss as he stormed out of the arena, Davis claimed that Hardy admitted backstage that he lost the fight (which Hardy naturally denied, because that’s just what you do in that situation).  Now Davis is basically demanding a rematch before the year is out, on the grounds that he won 12 of the 15 minutes in their fight:

(Proving that only quitters stop when they hit rock bottom.)

When it comes to heaping one bad career decision on top of another, Eddie Murphy doesn’t have shit on Tim Sylvia.  Showing up fat and then getting knocked the hell out by Ray Mercer either destroyed what few brain cells he has left, or it made him realize that he has to go even lower on the totem pole to find someone he can beat, because now he’s saying that he wants to be on the next season of MTV’s “Bully Beatdown,” and – get this – he wants to fight his actual childhood bullies:

(Jose Aldo: Murdering his way to the #4 spot.)

After the recent whirlwind of MMA activity in the UFC, WEC, Strikeforce, and DREAM, I’ve updated the Heavyweight, Welterweight, and Featherweight pages of our Power Rankings section. Check ‘em out and let us know what you think. Do Jeff Monson and Brett Rogers deserve to sneak into the heavyweight list? Who do you think sits just outside of the welterweight top ten? Is it okay that I’m so biased towards the WEC’s featherweights? Feel free to peruse all our divisional rankings, though I realize that the middleweight list is severely outdated, and I might not even want to deal with it until after UFC 100.

(BG)

Watch Forrest Griffin Says He Would Drink Machida’s Magic Pee and Other Wittisms on RawVegas.tv

We couldn’t tell you how Forrest Griffin‘s physical preparation is coming along for his fight against Anderson Silva at UFC 101 (August 8th, Philadelphia) — but at least his head’s in the right place. Here are some highlights from a recent interview he did with RawVegas.tv:

On the Silva fight: "People keep telling me that I’m a big guy and they think I’ll do pretty well. I don’t believe ‘em, I think they’re out of their minds…I’m planning on getting beat up by Anderson Silva…Yeah, he’ll probably beat me up. But I could still win the fight. Even fights I win I get beat up in. That’s just how I roll."

On his book, Got Fight?: "It’s just an insane sense of flattery that people would not only read your random thoughts, but maybe even pay money to read nonsense that you have to say…It’s a very short book. It’s not gonna take you a whole lot of time to get through, so I think you can pick it up and pretty much read the whole thing [at the bookstore] in two or three cups of coffee…and maybe a little piece of brownie or something, and you don’t have to buy the book. But if you would, try not to get brownie on the book because somebody may actually buy it for some misguided reason."

(Just a little brush. Props: MMA-Core)

All right, Cro Cop.  We were willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on the whole UFC/Dream fiasco.  But now you’re making that difficult by alternating between statements that seem doubtful and those that seem completely ridiculous.

In this new translated interview Cro Cop claims that he hasn’t signed with Dream yet, which is a direct contradiction of what one Dream official told USA Today.  Then he says that he still wants the UFC belt but decided not to sign with them because they weren’t going to give him another fight until six months from now, and that’s too long a layoff for a guy trying to pack as much action as he can into the years he has left.  But it doesn’t really get fun until he decides to blame Mostapha Al-Turk for the eye-poke.  Seriously.

(The July issue, with a cover story written by one of Cage Potato’s own.)

The first thing I learned about Thiago Alves when Fight! Magazine sent me down to south Florida to write this month’s cover story on the UFC’s top welterweight contender, is that is he doesn’t exactly have the same concept of time that most people do.   At first I was willing to chalk it up to “Brazilian time.”  Then I talked to some of his friends and training partners, who were also Brazilians, and even they thought Thiago had a problem.  To them it was a running joke.  Brazilian time gave way to “Thiago’s time.”  For me, the guy trying to learn as much as possible about him in only a few days, it was a little more stressful.

(Anthony Johnson does his Bushwick Bill impression following his July 2008 fight against Kevin Burns.)

If Keith Kizer has his way, Dan Miragliotta and Steve Mazzagatti’s ability to fuck up fights by not paying attention could be severely limited by the year’s end. The Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director revealed yesterday on the GoodSports radio show that his commission is trying to figure out how an instant replay system could be incorporated into MMA, to be used only when a potentially illegal blow leads to the immediate end of a match (i.e., Mostapha Al Turk getting eye-poked by Mirko Cro Cop, and Anthony Johnson’s repeated pokes by Kevin Burns). As Kizer explained:

After a three-day delay, the UFC 99 fight-day installment of the Dana White Video Blog was finally uploaded to youtube.com/ufc, and the massive two-parter feels like any other classic double-album — sure, it would have been "better" if it were edited down to a single video, but then you wouldn’t get the scope of the Danavlog’s ambition. In the first, more boring half (shown above), Dana roams the streets of Cologne, taking a lot of pictures with fans and getting a taste of the Germans’ particular brand of crazy. (See: short-shorts guy at 0:04, crazy dog man at 1:10-1:28, and blue afro lady at 4:57.) He also spends time explaining how this whole UFC thing works to curious German camera crews, winding his way through an endless receiving line at the arena, and congratulating Stefan Struve, who’s still sore about that Dos Santos fight. Anyway, you don’t need to watch it unless you’re a Danavlog completist, but the backstage action picks up in part two…

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

If you’ve ever sat around and wondered whether your favorite MMA fighters would be total bad-asses in prison, or whether the lack of rules and weight classes would relegate them to being someone’s one true love, congratulations, you’re a total weirdo with too much time on your hands. 

But if you’d like to hear about how prison fights and MMA bouts are different from someone who has experienced both, you should really check out MMA Fanhouse’s fascinating interview with undefeated Strikeforce fighter/former meth addict and convicted felon Lyle Beerbohm.  He’s fighting Duane “Bang” Ludwig at Friday’s Strikeforce Challengers event after having discovered MMA while in prison:

(Just killing time between fights at UFC 99. I hear Mike Goldberg spends his down time at events in the exact same way.)

So you thought Twitter was only useful in keeping the world up to date on the civil strife inside Iran?  Not so, my friends.  It can also be used to post pictures of yourself in your capacity as a “professional hot chick," and nobody, but nobody, does that better than Arianny Celeste.  We’ll say this for Arianny’s twitter account: even if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can be pretty damn sure of what you’re going to find. 

After the jump, some of Arianny’s finest moments in the delicate art of taking pictures of herself and then posting them to the internet for no real reason.  Isn’t it nice to know that one social networking site can serve the interests of democracy and gawking at attractive women in bikinis all at once?  What an exciting time to be alive.

(Image courtesy of the UFC)

Earlier today, the UFC distributed its first poster image for UFC 102 (August 29th; Portland, Oregon), making the top two fights official — Randy Couture vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in the main event, and Keith Jardine vs. Thiago Silva as a lead-in. Interesting…is this the first UFC event that’s being headlined by four guys who are coming off losses? Would it have been that hard to slot Demian Maia and Nate Marquardt (who are also on the card) in the co-main spot? After all, that fight will produce a legitimate middleweight title contender, even if Michael Bisping or Dan Henderson could sneak to the front of the line depending on their performance next month. Meanwhile, Jardine and Silva aren’t getting close to the 205-pound belt anytime soon.

Tickets to UFC 102 go on sale to Fight Club members on Thursday, newsletter members on Friday, and will probably be sold out by the time they’re released to the general public on Saturday. In addition to Couture/Nogueira, Jardine/Silva, and Maia/Marquardt, the following bouts have also been confirmed for UFC 102, according to UFC.com:

(Props: MMA Worldwide via MMA Fanhouse)

Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos is a passionate, passionate woman. In fact, she’s so passionate that when the interviewer in the above video asks an innocent question about how long it would take her to choke out Gina Carano (skip to the 4:13 mark), Cyborg sinks in a rear-naked and squeezes until her male training partners have to drag her off. The interviewer eventually comes to, and when he sort of figures out what happened ("I was sleeping?"), he’s so terrified that he goes on record saying that Santos will beat Carano on August 15th. This is what Cris Cyborg does to non-biased journalists — she fucking ruins them.

After the jump: If Diego Sanchez thinks Clay Guida is just going to lay on him this Saturday, he’s "terribly confused"; Dana White says Brock Lesnar "could possibly be the best heavyweight in UFC history"; and our friend Joanne of the MMA Girls takes us through the heel hook.

(Word is he also stole several pairs of those UFC gloves, the bastard.)

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic has yet to admit that he really did screw the UFC by bailing on them for Dream after his victory over Mostapha Al-Turk at UFC 99, but it seems as if Dream has gone ahead and outed him anyway.  USA Today’s Sergio Non said he got an email from Mike Kogan, of FEG’s American parent company, confirming that Cro Cop had signed a three-fight deal with the Japanese organization.  If true, this would make Cro Cop look like a dirty, low-down liar, since he initially claimed that it was all a baseless rumor before then switching his stance and referring to it as a “business secret” that he couldn’t discuss. (P.S. Al-Turk’s proposed appeal of the eye-poke incident?  Yeah, that isn’t going anywhere.)

So here’s our ethical question of the day: Is Cro Cop wrong for ditching the UFC like this, or is he just looking out for his own interests the same way the UFC does when they ditch fighters?

Joe Stevenson began his UFC career on the second season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”  On Saturday night he returns to fight another TUF alum, Nate Diaz, on the season nine finale in what might prove to be a make-or-break outing for him.  In our exclusive talk with him, Joe “Daddy” tells us why he changed training camps after his decision loss to Diego Sanchez, whether he’s worried about being cut, and why he might be hesitant to appear on a new season of TUF if he were coming up through the ranks today.

CagePotato.com: So you’ve been in New Mexico with Greg Jackson’s team preparing for this fight.  What made you decide that it was time for a change of training camps?

JS: Honestly, I’ve been here for going on seven weeks now and it’s been great.  I was feeling a little stagnant and I knew that if I didn’t try something different I would regret it.  If you don’t try all your avenues you’re going to end up when your fifty wishing you’d done something different and I don’t want to be that person.  On top of that, there’s great coaching here, great strategy, and they’ve given me a different outlook on the way I fight.  I’m just excited to let people see it now.

You mentioned strategy and that’s something a lot of people talk about when it comes to Greg Jackson.  How is his way of strategizing for a fight different from what you’ve been exposed to in the past?

(Careful, Shaq, that’s no cardboard cutout. Image courtesy of The Baltimore Sun.)

We’d take this with a grain of salt until the UFC makes an official announcement, but the usually-accurate U.K. paper The Sun says it has the names of all 16 castmembers for the next season of The Ultimate Fighter. (Props to TheGarv for the tip.) Unfortunately, there are no more shocking additions — no Lashleys, no Petruzellis, no Quinns — just the usual gang of up-and-comers trying to make a name for themselves. We already knew that Kimbo Slice, Roy Nelson, Wes Sims, Marcus Jones, Brendan Schaub, Matt Mitrione, and Wes Shivers scored bunks in the TUF house. So who else is gonna be hunting for that six figure contract? Here’s the lowdown: