(‘Rampage, I’m not saying that you’ve turned into a little Spencer Pratt-acting, Hollywood punk bitch. But your actions and your statements lately have been very Spencer Pratt, Hollywood punk bitch-esque.’)

It’s been a while since old CP had to lay the ban hammer down on something.  Ever since people stopped comparing Kimbo Slice to Mike Tyson, it just hasn’t seemed quite as necessary.  But when we read both Rashad Evans and “Rampage” Jackson insisting, on separate days and in separate venues, that they would fight one another for free, we felt that we had no choice.  It stops here, gentlemen.  No more offering to fight for free.  

Here’s why:

Going somewhere with “Mayhem” Miller is in many ways like going somewhere with a live chimpanzee.  He can act human-like for extended periods of time, but there’s always a chance that he’s going to throw his poop at someone, probably at the exact worst moment.  The designers of the EA Sports game must have been feeling that way when they showed Mayhem his character in their video game.  Turns out they didn’t give him a very high skill rating, and he’s not going to be content to just boycott the game like T.J. Houshmandzadeh.  AllElbows.com captures his reaction in this video (for the full video of Mayhem and King Mo hanging out at EA Sports, go here) which is fun if only because it’s probably going to provide these video game designers with interesting stories to tell over dinner for the next six months.  Then their friends will all get tired of them again and everyone will go back to talking about TV shows in between bouts of uncomfortable silence and chewing.

(Zak Cummings and Tim Kennedy engage in a vicious staredown at yesterday’s weigh-ins. Photo courtesy of Esther Lin / Strikeforce.)

We may be entering a month-long UFC drought until "Machida vs. Shogun," but all is not lost. Strikeforce is putting on its latest "Challengers" event tonight at the SpiritBank Event Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the main card will be broadcast live on Showtime starting at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT. Here’s what’s in store…

Tim Kennedy (10-2) vs. Zak Cummings (10-0)
Army Ranger Tim Kennedy, who most recently scored a TKO over Nick Thompson at the last Strikeforce Challengers show in June, takes on undefeated middleweight prospect Zak Cummings, who enters the fight as a replacement for the injured Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos. Cummings defeated Terry Martin by split-decision earlier this year, and most recently scored a TKO victory over Dominic Brown in May.

Ray "Sugarfoot" Sefo (1-0) vs. Kevin Jordan  (11-7)
Five-time Muay Thai world champion Ray Sefo, who hasn’t competed in MMA since a knockout of Min Soo Kim in 2005, tries his hand at cagefighting once again in this heavyweight bout against journeyman Kevin Jordan, who you might remember from his UFC losses to Paul Buentello and Gabriel Gonzaga. On August 1st, Jordan won a unanimous decision over UFC old-schooler Patrick Smith, breaking a two-fight losing streak.

("I’ll have the usual." Photo courtesy of MMA TKO.)

We can officially add Strikeforce lightweight champ Josh Thomson to the list of Epically Cursed fighters that already includes James Irvin and Amir Sadollah. The Punk told MMA Weekly that he re-broke his leg in training, postponing his return — and rematch against interim champion Gilbert Melendez — even further:

(Tell me you’re not getting on that thing without a helmet. Unsafe, Natasha.)

This month’s Fight Magazine girl is none other than UFC Octagon girl Natasha Wicks.  There’s also a picture of Fedor Emelianenko on the cover and an article about him penned by redheaded raconteur and friend of the Potato, Neal Taflinger, but because there is a disturbing lack of boobs in those pictures we just skimmed through the article.  We assume it was great, though.  Among the things we learn about Natasha in her interview with Fight:

- She was homeschooled until high school (uh-oh)
- She got a track scholarship to Northern Arizona University, but left to join a "missionary-type program that helps disaster victims."
- She loves to laugh (and aren’t we all sick of those chicks who hate laughter?)
- She’s single, but wants someone with "the initiative to go out and do stuff and take life by the handles" (dammit, life has handles? and after we’ve wasted so much time looking for the horns)

As you probably guessed, there are plenty more pictures of Natasha in various states of near-nudity in the magazine.  Check it out.  If Taflinger asks, tell him we said you should buy it because of his Fedor article. 

(Click the image to go to the video on Spike.com)

For the most part, Team Rashad is all lovey-dovey brotherhood and positive visualization, and that’s clearly worked for them so far. But all is not well in the land of the black-and-yellow. Left out of last night’s episode was an incident in which Darrill "Titties" Schoonover accidentally crushed and drowned a bird in the backyard. As he’s telling the story to Rashad and MVA, he puts on a high-pitched voice — simply to set the scene and give it some much-needed drama — which James McSweeney takes as direct mockery. The spazzy kickboxer gets up in Darrill’s face, and Titties removes his glasses, ready to throw down. "You think you’re a big man?" McSweeney says. "You’ll get fuckin’ served right up…I will knock you the fuck out. I ain’t a li’ul bird."

Rashad is able to chill McSweeney out later, but it’s clear that their little happy-go-lucky bubble has been punctured. Team Rampage assistant Hector Ramirez witnesses the near-debacle and runs to tell Tiki Ghosn that their rival team might be fracturing. It probably isn’t, but after Team Rashad finishes running the table during the round-of-16, his guys will have to start fighting each other, and we may see Schoonover vs. McSweeney before long.

(And the circle of life continues…)

Following Quinton Jackson’s Baracus-related retirement, we began wondering what would be next for odd-man-out Rashad Evans. Well, he already has a fight in mind, and it sounds as good as any other. According to MMA Fanhouse, Evans could be fighting Thiago Silva sometime this winter. Said Sugar:

(The old arms-crossed staredown. That’s how they used to settle disputes in the Old West. At least before they discovered the practice of shooting each other.)

You knew it was only a matter of time.  To Dana White, signing a 47-year-old former NFL player to your roster of MMA fighters is like sending a skinny, fake-breasted, dolled-up blonde chick over to talk Chuck Liddell in a nightclub.  The response is predictable.  Talking with Fanhouse’s Mike Chiapetta, White started off a little slow this time, calling the signing simply “ridiculous,” instead of opting for the more vehement “fucking ridiculous,” that we’ve come to expect.  But don’t worry, he didn’t stop there:

"People think we’re anti-competition? We’re anti-dumb competition. Doing stupid things like this, putting a 50-year-old guy in the Octagon for the first time, and then going out there putting out press releases like it’s a big deal because you signed a 50-year-old Herschel Walker? Are you serious? …Strikeforce is a small, little, regional show.  The geniuses over at Showtime, these guys are the most arrogant, cocky, pompous jackasses I’ve ever met in my whole life. … Which athletic commission is going to let this guy fight?  Who the fuck are they going to find to fight Herschel Walker? A guy in a wheelchair?”

Now we await White’s apology to the American Association of People with Disabilities, wherein he takes the opportunity to say that he totally believes there are some guys in wheelchairs who could beat Walker in an MMA fight.  But White also lambasted the move as “disrespectful to the sport,” which seems like grounds enough for us to ask, does he have a point, or is he just saying what Dana White says when a competitor does anything?

(‘My heart, she breaks.’)

The sadists among you who were hoping Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic would go back home to Croatia and rediscover the will to fight by repeatedly kicking a wall at his family’s home, well, you’re about to be disappointed.  Cro Cop has now officially called it quits, telling Nokaut.com that he has “no motivation left and it’s time to leave.”  He also reportedly told his manager, Zvonimir Lucic, to release the various members of Team Cro Cop, which we assume included a young, bright-eyed intern who refused to accept the news and tried in vain to get a “Cro Cop” chant going even as everyone else filed silently out of the room.  

A sad day in MMA history, but a necessary one.  The game just ain’t in him no more.  We’ve already paid him a tribute, but allow us to dedicate one more video after the jump:

Last week, we saw one of the bloodiest fights in TUF history. This week brought us one of the ugliest, as James McSweeney and Wes Shivers proved that they’re not quite ready for primetime. Plus, Roy Nelson lands on Team Rashad’s shitlist and Kimbo Slice gets picked to fight.

The episode opens with Justin Wren and Roy Nelson talking about how they both want to take out Kimbo. Says Big Country: "I’ve been trying to get that one for years." Foreshadowing!

In practice, Rampage "got specialness" for Kimbo, and his coaches give the Miami Pound Machine a crash course on ground-fighting, while Kimbo tries to sponge it up. Meanwhile, Rashad Evans is feeling good about his team and wants to make sure his guys are mentally strong and moldable, but Roy spends most of his practice time joking around and pushing back against his coaches. Team Rashad assistant coach Trevor Wittman gives him a firm dressing-down in the locker room: "To me, you’re uncoachable…instead of listening, you always have a rebuttal…you got knocked out by Arlovski, do you want that to happen again? If you don’t want to keep it serious, I’m gonna ask Rampage if he needs another guy."

(In Russia, we don’t train with heavy bags, just gypsys. Photo courtesy of CanvasChronicle.)

As first reported by MMA Weekly, Strikeforce’s upcoming CBS event on November 7th will go down at the Sears Centre Arena, an 11,000-seat venue in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, near Chicago. Tickets for the event, which start at $35 and can be purchased at Ticketmaster and Strikeforce.com, go on sale to the general public this coming Monday at 10 a.m. CT. Besides the heavyweight headliner of Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers, the show will feature Jason Miller and Jake Shields fighting for Strikeforce’s newly-vacant middleweight title; Gegard Mousasi and Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos are also rumored to appear, against opponents to be named later.

In other Strikeforce news, Kim Couture and Kerry Vera have agreed to meet in a 135-pound bout at a proposed Strikeforce Challengers event on November 20th. Couture is 1-1 in professional MMA, and hasn’t competed since her first-round TKO win over a befuddled Lina Kvokov last November. Vera, who previously competed as a kickboxer and won the 2007 season of Fight Girls, won her MMA debut via unanimous decision over Leslie Smith at a Bellator event in May. Kim’s soon-to-be-ex-husband Randy and Kerry’s husband Brandon, are scheduled to fight one week earlier at UFC 105.

We know Roy Nelson is going to have an advantage on the ground against Kimbo Slice on next week’s episode of "The Ultimate Fighter," but can he slug with ‘Ferg?  The video evidence suggests, yes he can.  "Big Country" may not be the world’s most technical striker, but he can take a shot and throw one back, and if you’re still standing in the same place when he does it’s probably going to end badly for you.  Just take a look at the video evidence after the jump if you don’t believe us.

BTW, who’s that handsome son of a bitch in the video where Roy talks us through his overhand right?  That guy seems really smart and funny.

(Props: DanQuinnSteviaFan)

Yes, I know it seems like Dan Quinn is off his lithium. Real talk: He’s simply expressing deep rage in a civilized manner. In this recent rant, Quinn curses out his mom for evicting him because she can’t accept the fact that he was tied to a tree by Fred Reeva for four and a half hours when he was eight years old and abused pretty much his whole childhood, and also because she didn’t have his back when he was accused of attempted rape at Notre Dame, ruining one of his several shots at becoming a millionaire, considering he was a white outside linebacker that could cover black running backs downfield, and she even went to town on his body with Hot Wheels tracks when he was a kid (by the way, check out his wrist-vein at the 6:58 mark — what’s up with that?), but it’s understandable because she was hit in the head with a baseball bat when she was a child and still has a dent in her forehead and is hypoglycemic on top of that, but nevertheless, there’s a lot of people who would let him stay in his car in front of their house and take showers. And then, with the timing of a veteran comedian, he rear-ends a parked car. File the papers, bitch.

(Props: CRE)

Well, nobody’s calling for his head yet, but it’s clear that Dana White and Rashad Evans are more than a little disappointed by the latest chapter in the Rampage Done Lost His Mind saga. During an appearance on the Carmichael Dave Show, White claimed that his criticisms of Quinton Jackson‘s acting pursuits were only done with Jackson’s best interests in mind:

(Props: CagePotato reader "Numa." Fight starts at the 6:00 mark.)

It’s official: Dan Hornbuckle is the Real Deal. The Hammond, Indiana-based fighter improved his record to 19-2 (17 wins by stoppage) with his TKO victory over Nick Thompson earlier today at Sengoku 10th Battle. As you’ll see in the video above, Thompson was able to hang with Hornbuckle for most of the first round, but "the Handler" started to find his range by the end, and he went in for the kill in round two. Skip to the 14:55 mark to see Hornbuckle end the fight by landing about a dozen unanswered blows on Thompson. Directly afterwards, he demanded a Sengoku belt to go along with his pile of small-show titles. Sengoku doesn’t currently have a welterweight champion; expect to see Hornbuckle in a title fight in the near future.

After the jump: Hornbuckle’s one-round rager against Courtney Ray in the finals of an eight-man HOOKnSHOOT tournament in March 2007.

(Props: MMA Fanhouse)

If we’ve learned anything by obsessively following MMA, it’s that a change in fighting surface is usually a sign that an organization is in serious trouble.  So when we saw this promo video for Dream.12 promising to “appease the wrath of God in rage” by putting their October 25 event in a cage, we got a little worried.  For several reasons, really.  Never let it be said that the Dream art director is afraid to take risks, but we have to wonder whether the decision to switch to a cage is a) permanent, and b) a sign of desperation.  

We also have to wonder what Dream’s basis is for advertising Alistair Overeem’s participation.  “The Demolition Man” is fighting in K-1 this weekend, and then he’s rumored to be going back to Holland for the Golden Glory ten-year anniversary show on October 17.   It’s hard to imagine that Overeem and his recovering hand would sign up for three fights in less than a month.  If we ask ourselves which party is most likely to be knowingly misleading people about what their next event will consist of, we’re probably going to say it’s the same people who made the weird artsy promo video about a wrathful God and the ways in which an island nation might appease Him.

(‘Okay, final offer. You take me back in the UFC and I’ll give you this hat that I made out of a sofa. Going once…’)

Before he burns any bridges with the UFC, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson might want to take a look at the cautionary tale of Roger Huerta.  After losing what was supposed to be his last match in the UFC before running off to a land of riches and pain-free adulation in Hollywood, Huerta now says he might like to stick around and see where this fighting thing takes him.  And what caused this tremendous shift from the guy who signed a development deal with Lion’s Gate Films and has been very vocal about his displeasure with the UFC in the past?  From the sound of it, this acting plum isn’t quite as sweet as Huerta thought it would be:

“I’m still open to acting,” said Huerta. “Hopefully we get something going with that, but I’m not going to prioritize (acting) now. I’ll still prioritize fighting. If the UFC wants me back, I’d be willing to go back. …We started looking at the things we were going to do with Lion’s Gate.  We’ve looked over some roles, but nothing that I’ve wanted to sink my teeth into (yet).”

Translation: I thought doing this one cheesy role in a video game movie would lead to gigs where I co-starred with Scarlett Johansson and blew up helicopters, but instead all I got offered was a role opposite Vanessa Johansson in the sequel to “Shark in Venice.”

(Silva vs. York. Props to MMA Share)

Sengoku 10 went down earlier today in Saitama, Japan, and what it lacked in big names, it more than made up for in thrilling finishes. In the headlining bout, Olympic judo silver medalist Hiroshi Izumi made the brilliant decision to stand and bang with Kiwi kickboxing champ Antz Nansen, and got worked; the ref eventually stopped the fight after Izumi was punched to the mat three times in a single 35-second stretch. Meanwhile, in the fights that you might actually care about, Antonio Silva ended "Big" Jim York‘s night in the first round with an arm-triangle choke, following a methodical performance that saw Bigfoot control the standup and take York down with ease.

Dan Hornbuckle followed up his knockout of the year candidate against Akihiro Gono last month with another fantastic performance against Nick Thompson, earning a second-round TKO with a flurry of strikes that began with a straight left and ended with a knee to the jaw. (We’ll post the video when we find it.) Also, Kazunori Yokota scored a first-round knockout over former IFL lightweight champion Ryan Schultz, who has now lost three straight fights in Sengoku.

Full results and more videos after the jump…

("I want my belt back! And a prominent role in the next Wayans Brothers comedy!" Photo courtesy of Vancouver Sun.)

We’ve witnessed enough of Quinton Jackson‘s bizarre interviews and vehicular freak-outs to know that he’s not the most stable human being on the planet. But we were still shocked by the long blog entry he posted on his website last night, announcing his retirement from MMA; registration is required, so just click here if you’re not already a member. According to Jackson, his career with the UFC has been an endless run of unfortunate obligations, bait-and-switch, and disrespect. Here’s a quick recap:

— He accepted the UFC 71 fight with Chuck Liddell even though he needed another tune-up match to get over with American fans. When the fans booed him after the fight, it hurt him deeply. His subsequent fight against Dan Henderson was announced before he was told about it.

— He should have gotten an immediate rematch with Forrest Griffin because the fight was so close. He instead fought Wanderlei Silva while nursing a jaw injury, which was risky "because of all the drama that was happening to me at the time," then fought Keith Jardine "as a favor to the UFC instead of getting my belt back (which wasn’t even worth it to me financially)."

With MMA fighters running off to dancing-based reality shows and movie remakes of old TV shows, it’s easy to become discouraged.  But don’t worry, because we found something much, much worse: Steven Seagal’s "Lightning Bolt" energy drink.  As you’ll see, it includes flavors like Cherry Charge and Asian Experience.  We’ll leave it up to your imaginations to decide what the latter tastes like, but just for fun let’s take a look at the ‘About Steven’ section of the website:

A master of several Japanese martial arts, Steven Seagal is a popular action movie hero whose films combine spiritual concepts and social/environmental consciousness with high-voltage violence.

By spiritual concept and social/environmental consciousness, we assume they’re referring to this.  At least MMA fighters aren’t so hard up that they’re resorting to energy drinks…oh, wait:

(The oddly-proportioned Antonio Silva and the impeccably-dressed Nick Thompson pose for cameras earlier today in Tokyo. Photos courtesy of Sherdog.)

If you’re one of the lucky few who still gets HDNet — go fuck yourself, Time Waner Cable! — why don’t you go ahead and set your DVR for the live broadcast of Sengoku 10, which goes down late tonight at 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT. Though there isn’t much star power on the card, the show will feature Antonio Silva, Nick Thompson, Dan Hornbuckle, and a headlining bout between two fighters making their MMA debuts: Olympic Judoka Hiroshi Izumi and New Zealand kickboxing champion Antz Nansen. The lineup is below (props to BloodyElbow):

LHW: Hiroshi Izumi (debut) vs. Antz Nansen (debut)
HW: Antonio Silva (12-1) vs. "Big" Jim York (11-2)
WW: Makoto Takimoto (5-5) vs. Jae Sun Lee (2-3)
LW: Kazunori Yokota (9-2-3) vs. Ryan Schultz (20-11-1)
LHW: Ryo Kawamura (10-4-2) vs. Fabio Silva (11-5)
WW: Nick Thompson (38-11-1) vs. Dan Hornbuckle (18-2)
MW: Joe Doerksen (42-12) vs. Takenori Sato (9-6-4)
LW: Maximo Blanco (3-2-1, 1 NC) vs. Tetsuya Yamada (3-1)

(Photo courtesy of MySpace.com/scottthelionheartblevins.)

Back in February, we interviewed Indiana-based fighter Scott "LionHeart" Blevins about his unrelenting quest for MMA glory, despite the fact that he’s never won a professional fight. Less than two weeks after that interview was published, Blevins was arrested on suspicion of child molestation, and suddenly it looked like there was something much darker behind the quirky and inspirational story of LionHeart. Now out of jail and awaiting trial, Blevins spoke exclusively with CagePotato.com to discuss the legal battle he’s facing that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.

CAGEPOTATO.COM: It’s good to talk to you again, Scott. Where have you been the last six months?
BLEVINS: Kosciusko County Jail.

The news report that first came out said you were arrested after a two-month investigation. Basically, they said you molested a girl under the age of 14, then helped police arrest three marijuana dealers. What exactly happened the day you were arrested?
Well, on October 14th I had emergency surgery, and then on the 17th my wife and kids asked to go to this guy’s house for a birthday party that was put on for my daughter. And that night she was molested by the guy, and as soon as I found out — which wasn’t until December 29th — I immediately rushed her to the emergency room to be checked for a rape kit, etc. And the police officer that we called, his name is Terry, he tried to say that my daughter was lying. He just didn’t believe it. He tried to say that she was coerced.

The night I took her to the emergency room, the Mentone cops came and talked to the guy who actually molested her, and from my understanding, he accused me to escape from what he did to my little girl. My daughter’s 11 and she’s been taking Tae Kwon Do, learning the honesty and faith of martial arts, and she has never lied throughout her martial arts career.

So your daughter has never changed her story in saying that it was this other guy who molested her, right?

Now that we’re done weeping over Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic‘s career funeral pyre, we might as well turn toward the promise of the future by taking a harder look at the man who beat him at UFC 103 — Junior "Cigano" Dos Santos.  What you see in the above video is the lone loss on Dos Santos’ professional record.  It happened in November of 2007 when he faced off against submissions specialist Joachim Ferreira.  This fight was actually a rematch after Dos Santos beat Ferreira via submission due to exhaustion about seven months earlier.  As you can see, the armbar comes when Dos Santos gets a little careless working out of Ferreira’s guard, and the next thing he knows a mild annoyance becomes a fight-ender.  So what does this mean?  In itself, probably nothing.  But it reminds us of something else, and that’s that we have yet to see how Dos Santos does against the kind of ground specialists who populate the American/UFC heavyweight scene.  That’s right, I’m talking ’bout wrestlers, son.

It’s looking like MMA great Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic might call it a career and move on to a life that does not involve kicking people in their heads.  That’s sad for those of us who remember his glory days in Pride, but it’s also an inevitable fact of life.  No matter how well you do something, you can’t do it well forever.  Just ask Mötley Crüe.  But at the risk of eulogizing Cro Cop too soon, we wanted to pay tribute to his greatest moments in the ring.  Nothing gold can stay, but we’re guessing these victims will never forget their beatdowns.

#5: Cro Cop vs. Aleksander Emelianenko, Pride Final Conflict, 8/15/04

Some of you youngsters may find this hard to believe, but there was a time when Aleksander “Don’t Ask Me To Take a Blood Test” Emelianenko was a fresh-faced killer on the Pride scene, knocking dudes out and not feeling one way or another about it.  Then he ran up against Cro Cop, who fed him a steady diet of straight lefts and a brain-jarring high kick that effectively ended it.  Though Fedor would later win a decision over Cro Cop in a bit of reluctant revenge for his embarrassing younger bro, it didn’t cancel out the sheer brutality that left brother Aleks on his back in a mummy pose.
 

(Props: Fightlinker)

For those of you who didn’t watch it last night — which includes myself, so this post is as much for me as it is for you — here’s Chuck Liddell‘s debut performance on Dancing With the Stars. The first thing that sticks out is his voice in the intro. Liddell’s from Cali, but he’s taken so many blows to the head over the years that he’s starting to sound like a grizzled Sam Elliott. Anna Trebunskaya‘s main piece of advice to Chuck is to smile so he doesn’t come off as a psychopath. Things start out well enough, though the discomfort is obvious on Chuck’s face at the 2:27 mark, and there are a few obviously botched steps. It doesn’t help that Dana White and the Fertitta Brothers are in the front row, laughing their asses off at him the whole time.

Constructive criticism from the judges starts at 3:51: Bruno refers to Chuck as a "gentle neanderthal" and says he has some work to do. Carrie Ann Inaba calls him "smooth" but wants him to improve his footwork. The old guy in the middle asks him to get in touch with his feminine side, and is lucky he didn’t get punched out for it. Chuck’s combined score of 22 put him in 5th place among the eight celebs who competed last night.

"That was an appetizer, Dana. Let me eat."

So said undefeated American Top Team prospect Todd Duffee after his seven-second storming of Tim Hague at UFC 102. It was one of the most fearsome debuts in UFC history, and Duffee made it clear afterwards that he wanted to get right back into the cage to show fans what he’s really capable of. And it looks like the UFC has found him a suitable challenge for his follow-up performance.

MMA Junkie is reporting that Duffee (5-0) will return at UFC 107 (December 12th, Memphis) to take on seasoned striker Paul "The Headhunter" Buentello (24-10). Buentello previously had a four-fight stint in the UFC in 2005-2006, where he scored stoppage wins over Justin Eilers, Kevin Jordan, and Gilbert Aldana, but suffered a knockout loss to Andrei Arlovski in a heavyweight title fight at UFC 55. Following his exit from the Octagon, he went 3-1 in Strikeforce, with his sole loss coming at the hands (and knees) of Alistair Overeem in a fight for Strikeforce’s heavyweight title. Now, the Headhunter is coming off back-to-back victories in Affliction over Gary Goodridge (via decision) and Kirill Sidelnikov (via third-round TKO).

I think if I was “Big Nasty” and I had agreed to go on “Bully Beatdown,” I might allow myself a solemn moment of self-pity when they announced that I’d be facing Andrei Arlovski.  If he saw season one of the show, this bully was probably expecting some mediocre heavyweight, maybe someone with a record barely above .500.  He certainly could not have been expecting a former UFC heavyweight champ, but dammit, Arlovski heard those victims’ tales of bullying woe, and he came to help.

If you’re wondering how authentic this stuff is, you should check out the October issue of Fight Magazine, where editor Donovan Craig goes behind the scenes of this show and watches the Arlovski beatdown live.  After getting KO’d in a little over thirty seconds, this bully seemed, shall we say, humbled.  As the doctors checked him out backstage and the show’s producers questioned him about his experience, he summed it up thusly:

“Ya’ll are mean, dawg. …When I heard them say Andrei Arlovski…I thought it was a joke. …That was fucked up.”

Yes, Big Nasty.  From your perspective, it must have seemed so.  From ours, it was quality entertainment.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

I can’t tell you how much I enjoy this video of Brock Lesnar training for his upcoming UFC heavyweight title defense against Shane Carwin.  A lot of that enjoyment comes from listening to Brock describe himself as "a caged animal waiting to kill a…bird."  Not only is it a hilariously inept analogy, but it’s one that even Lesnar loses interest in before it’s over.

Okay, so the guy’s not a wordsmith.  We knew that already.  But that’s not what he gets paid for, and his coaches and sparring partners seem totally convinced that he’s got this one in the bag.  They should know.  They’re the ones helping him to perfect his hammer fists (or masturbation punches, if you prefer), and yeah, he spends a considerable amount of gym time actually practicing that caveman-like attack.  Hope you’re ready, Carwin.

(Nate Quarry: Worth every penny. Photo courtesy of Fight! magazine via Fightlinker.)

Though we’re still waiting on payout figures for UFC 103, the Oklahoma State Athletic Commission has just released salary info for last Wednesday’s UFC Fight Night: Diaz vs Guillard event, which brought in a live gate of $577,966.72 from 6,687 paying spectators (9,490 total). The numbers are below; keep in mind that that the figures don’t include revenue from sponsorships and undisclosed "locker room bonuses," or deductions for insurance, taxes, and licensing fees.

Nate Diaz $78,000 (includes $24,000 win bonus and $30,000 Submission of the Night bonus) def. Melvin Guillard $14,000

Gray Maynard $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus) def. Roger Huerta $21,000

Carlos Condit $48,000 (includes $24,000 win bonus) def. Jake Ellenberger $10,000

Nate Quarry $90,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus and $30,000 Fight of the Night bonus) def. Tim Credeur $40,000 (includes $30,000 Fight of the Night bonus)

(Images courtesy of MySpace.com/badaby. Props to MMA Fight Girls for the tip!)

Aby Rulloda is a San Francisco-based go-go-dancer, model, clothing designer, and former Strikeforce ring girl. And oh yeah, she’s also a competitive kickboxer who trains with World Team USA and previously won WCSC‘s California State Super Flyweight Championship. Now that’s hustle. You can get to know Aby better at MySpace.com/badaby and Twitter.com/badaby. After the jump: Lots more pictures, plus a video of Aby working the pole.