After nearly 1,000 of you cared enough to cast votes in our Halloween Costume Contest, we are thrilled to announce our winners. Thanks to everyone who entered; no thanks to everyone who didn’t enter, but still felt the need to crap all over the finalists. Now then…

1st place: Cody V., who blew away the competition with 31% of the vote, thanks to his Fedor-o-Lantern (shown above). Cody gets a $100 gift card from MMA Warehouse for his brilliant efforts.

2nd place: Zach L., who took in 20% of the vote with his beefed-up Brock Lesnar costume. Zach earns a $50 gift card from MMA Warehouse, and may even get on top of his wife tonight.

3rd place: Jeremy H., who also took in 20% of the vote for dressing up as UFC Hall-of-Famer Billy Mays; he gets a $25 card from MMA Warehouse. The official count taken this morning had Zach at 195 votes and Jeremy at 193 votes. Thank God Jeremy didn’t go as Al Franken, or else we’d be re-counting votes for the next six months.

If your name has been called, please e-mail feedback@cagepotato.com with your address, and we’ll get your prize out to you ASAP. Mega-props to MMAWarehouse.com for making this all possible!

(Props: sports.sho.com)

For Brett Rogers, the challenge on Saturday will be to strip away the myth from Fedor Emelianenko and approach him like he’s any other man. Which he is, of course. Fedor, as we saw last night on Fight Camp 360, is just a guy who loves his family and God, who works out in a community gym alongside schoolchildren, who still lives in the small mining town he grew up in, who enjoys a good oak-twig whipping in a Russian sauna. It’s unnerving how normal Fedor is. His priest/BFF, Father Andrey, says: "You can feel the kindness come out of him, and when you communicate with him, you are being charged by his kindness." Really? Are we talking about the same guy who did this to Gary Goodridge?

(Keep it down, Duffee. Can’t you see the man’s trying to catch some shut-eye?)

Whatever gypsy Dana White pissed off while riding around in his limousine and tossing chicken bones out the window, he’s got to be regretting it now.  The string of recent injury withdrawals continues, and this time it’s heavyweight prospect Todd Duffee who’s pulling out of his bout against Paul Buentello at UFC 107.  Duffee wouldn’t say what the nature of his injury is, and that’s smart even though it’s bound to fuel a bunch of internet speculation (is it shingles, Todd?  it’s shingles, isn’t it?), but he did refer to the decision to withdraw from the fight as "one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make."  Second hardest?  Choosing between regular Captain Crunch and Peanut Butter Crunch.  No matter which one you go with, afterwards you always feel like you screwed up big time.

Buentello is bummed at the news, but says that Stefan Struve and Mike Russow have both been discussed as possible replacements for Duffee.  For purely selfish reasons, we hope they go with Russow so Struve can get his David-n-Goliath on with Pat Barry, but that’s just us. 

On a related note, anybody else feel like all these injury pullouts are getting just a little bit spooky?  No?  Then just you wait until Tito Ortiz goes down with a heart murmur on the same day that Forrest Griffin is diagnosed with whooping cough.  After that there’ll be nothing left to do but sit around and wait for the swarm of locusts.   

(Fedor and his friends had such a good time that day, they vowed that every year, no matter what was going on in their lives, they’d come back here together and stare at this giant metal thing until it showed them their future.)

Somewhere on your list of things that you should never, ever do, maybe squeezed in between ‘Mix beer and ice cream’ and ‘Let your girlfriend move in with you just until she finds a place of her own,’ you might want to take a pen and scribble in, ‘Mess around with a company of crazy Russians.’  The boys at Affliction apparently made no such note, and now they’re getting sued over their decision to back out of “Affliction: Trilogy” and leave Fedor Emelianenko high and dry. 

According to documents obtained by MMA Payout, M-1 believes that Affliction could have, should have, and would have paid Brett Rogers to step in against Fedor had their deal to get back on the UFC’s good side not gone through.  But as we all know, that deal got done, Affliction cancelled the show, and Fedor was left wandering around the U.S. without anyone to punch.  According to M-1, that means “Affliction elected to serve its own financial interests at the expense of its partners.”

Regardless of who was right or wrong here, it’s a shame to see these two parties end up in a long legal battle.  Can’t we just settle out of court for some GSP t-shirts and a few of those $1,200 silver skull rosaries?

(Props: M1mixfight)

Letting Jerry Millen and his D-bag friend Ron introduce this footage of Fedor Emelianenko kickin’ it in Stary Oskol may be an immediate buzzkill, but stick with it and you’ll catch the Glorious Sweater of Absolute Victory paying its respects at church and settling down for a nice cup of tea. Hopefully tonight’s episode of Fight Camp 360 will shed a little more insight on where the sweater came from and what it might want from us.

The temptation to keep fighting until you’re nothing more than a broken-down shell of your former self can be an overpowering one. Somehow, these men managed to resist it…

BAS RUTTEN

(Rutten vs. Kevin Randleman, UFC 20, 5/7/99)

Though he’s better-known these days as the barely coherent host of Inside MMA and part-time children’s fitness coach, Bas Rutten’s legendary run as a professional fighter ended in 22 consecutive fights without a loss. After knocking off such MMA pioneers as Frank Shamrock (twice), Maurice Smith (twice), and Guy Mezger during his five-year stint in Pancrase, Rutten joined the UFC where he won their vacant heavyweight title in his second Octagon appearance (a split decision over Kevin Randleman at UFC 20). But while preparing for his next fight, Rutten suffered serious injuries to his knee and biceps, and was forced to retire from the sport.

Bas landed on his feet, though – his ongoing commentary gig for PRIDE as well as acting roles kept him busy until he decided he was healthy enough for one last dance around the cage, seven years later. Originally booked to fight Kimo Leopoldo at WFA: King of the Streets in July 2006, Rutten instead faced Ruben “Warpath” Villareal when Leopoldo pissed hot for Stanozolol two days before the fight. The beating was so lopsided that it eventually became featured in a CagePotato Video Tribute. With that last challenge conquered, El Guapo rode off into the sunset for good, an undefeated UFC champion who hadn’t tasted defeat in over 11 years. Party on, indeed.

GENKI SUDO

(Sudo vs. Damacio Page, Premium 2006 Dynamite!!, 12/31/06)

Genki Sudo’s brilliance didn’t end with his unforgettable ring entrances; he was also one of the most skilled submission specialists to ever heel-hook a fat guy. The Neo-Samurai was innovative even when it came to retirement: At the height of his popularity, following a first-round triangle-choke victory over Damacio Page at Premium 2006 Dynamite!!, Sudo announced to the shocked Tokyo Dome crowd that his days as a fighter were over. At that point, he’d won eight of his last nine matches — including victories over Mike Brown, Royler Gracie, and Hiroyuki Takaya — making him one of the only MMA fighters to ever retire in his prime. Sudo now spends his time as a wrestling coach, author, and J-pop star. You know, normal retiree stuff.

(A quick game of rock, scissors, paper to determine who has to sit next to Jerry Millen. Photo courtesy of MixFight.ru.)

If there’s anything the old Gambling Addiction Enabler loves more than placing irresponsible bets on sporting events, it’s placing irresponsible bets on sporting events that are broadcast on network TV.  It has an odd way of making you feel less like a degenerate and more like a regular citizen with a crippling addiction.  It’s like going from drinking malt liquor behind T.J. Maxx to drinking it in a nice, drafty flophouse.  You end up sleeping on broken glass either way, but there’s something that feels so much classier about indoor broken glass, you know?

The best betting odds on the internet come to us courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Fedor Emelianenko (-495) vs. Brett Rogers (+497)
Jake Shields (-266) vs. “Mayhem” Miller (+236)
Gegard Mousasi (-460) vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (+393)
Antonio Silva (+156) vs. Fabricio Werdum (-165)

The breakdown…

(The most compelling reason yet to keep your daughters out of the porn industry.)

By now you have finally begun to recover from the shock and trauma of seeing War Machine get his ass literally waxed in anticipation of his porn debut and you’ve gotten to the point where you’re beginning to ask some questions as part of the healing process.  Chances are you’re wondering things like, Is he actually getting paid for this? What safeguards are in place to ensure that he does not accidentally breed?  Does this mean War Machine already has or will soon develop a cocaine problem?

According to a recent interview, he’s not only totally serious about transitioning to an actual career in the field of fornicating on camera, he wants to be the very best on-camera fornicator, even if it means taking a step back from MMA:

My priority right now is to make good money and feed the War Machine. I’ve been fighting for seven years and MMA, I make a living but I don’t make enough money to save. I’m never going to be able to have enough to buy a house or buy a cool car. Right now, my main priority is making money. I want to do my best in the porn industry and I want to try to be one of the top, top porn guys, you know what I mean? So right now, porn is more important than MMA at the moment. I love to fight and I’m always going to fight, regardless of what happens.

(Props: sports.sho.com)

With Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers just five days away, Showtime is spreading the word with an episode of their new half-hour hype-series, Fight Camp 360; the Fedor/Rogers installment debuts tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT, so set your DVRs now. As you can see from the preview clip above, Emelianenko is being presented as a living embodiment of "fear of the unknown" — an immortal of MMA with no apparent weaknesses — while Brett Rogers is the man of little fear and great faith, who can create his own legend with a win on Saturday.

Fight Camp 360 will take viewers inside the training camps of both fighters, from Fedor’s remote compound in Stary Oskol, to Rogers’s home base in Minnesota. For a better idea of what you’ll be seeing tonight, check out MMA Fanhouse’s detailed recap of the show, and MMA Junkie’s exclusive photo set from Emelianenko’s camp (warning: shirtless Jerry Millen). Replay times are after the jump…

(Mike Pierce takes Brock Larson for a ride during the "Diaz vs. Guillard" prelims in September. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Poor Jon Fitch. Two weeks ago he was "So excited!" about his rematch with Thiago Alves, which was set up when his original opponent Ricardo Almeida went down with a knee injury. But Alves soon had to pull out for the same reason, and Fitch is now faced with a nightmare scenario for any top contender — a dangerous opponent with little name-value. As reported by MMA Mania, Fitch will now compete at UFC 107 (December 12th, Memphis) against Mike Pierce, a 10-1 up-and-comer who recently scored a major upset over Brock Larson during his Octagon debut at UFC Fight Night 19. Before he joined the UFC, Pierce toiled in regional promotions where he picked up wins over TUF castmembers Mike Dolce, Mark Miller, and Paul Bradley. He’s currently riding a six-fight win streak.

Obviously, Fitch should take this one; just as he derailed Paulo Thiago‘s hype train at UFC 100 after the Brazilian scored a freak upset against Josh Koscheck, Fitch will probably do the same thing to Pierce, who’s coming off the biggest win of his career. But once again, it’s a fight that doesn’t do much to move him towards another shot at the welterweight belt. Unfortunately, when your opponents are struck down with injuries, and you’ve already had a shot at the champion, and you won’t fight Josh Koscheck and Mike Swick because of your camp affiliation, your options tend to be limited.

(Josh Neer: just a hairless orangutan trying to make it in this big, bad world.)

It was hardly surprising to see Josh Neer get the boot from the UFC after his decision loss against Gleison Tibau at UFC 104, and it’s even less surprising that his manager, Mickey Dubberly of KO Dynasty, issued a statement to assure the throng of Neer fans that “The Dentist” would be back in the UFC as soon as he wins a couple in the minor leagues.  But what’s oddly telling is the rationale Dubberly used to make it seem as though Neer was the aggrieved party in all this, and how similar that rationale is to Neer’s attitude in his last two losing efforts in the UFC:

Unfortunately Josh was matched up with fighters that wanted to take him down and lay on him to grind out a victory. If you are going to take Josh down then at least try to finish him, just don’t lay on him and hold him down. Most fighters are not going to want to stand and bang with Josh, and they just want to play it safe, hold him down, and get the win. Josh wants to put on exciting fights, and there is nothing more frustrating to Josh than not to put on an exciting fight for the fans. Right now we have a few offers from different organizations that want to sign Josh immediately so we are just weighing our options, and going with the best opportunity for Josh. Josh will be back in the UFC after he wins a few fights outside the UFC. We appreciate all the support Josh’s fans have given him.

You know that annoyed face Neer started making every time he was taken down by Tibau in his last fight, and by Kurt Pellegrino in the fight before that?  This statement is basically that facial expression put into words.

(Props: CP reader John)

As Brett Rogers approaches what could very well be the zenith of his celebrity in the run-up to his fight against Fedor Emelianenko on CBS this weekend, he has decided to do something good with his pre-fight fame by taking a bold stand against dog fighting.  The stilted delivery of these few lines might make you glad that "The Grimm" didn’t get that role as B.A. Baracus after all, but dammit, I dare you to look at an enormous man who is holding an adorable puppy and tell him that his acting sucks.  Ain’t nobody that heartless.

While looking over KnockOutDogFighting.org and seeing the other MMA fighters who have lended their support to this very worthwhile cause (Cung Le, Rob McCullough, Tito Ortiz, and former Rogers/Fedor victim Andrei Arlovski, among others), I couldn’t help but notice that Fedor’s name was conspicuously absent from the list.  Kind of makes you wonder, no?  Why won’t he tell the world how he feels about dog fighting?  What is he hiding!?!  Is it the bloated, scarred pile of dog corpses in his Stary Oskol basement!!!?!??

Call me an alarmist now, but when it’s finally revealed that Fedor draws his strength from the blood of puggles, then we’ll see who looks like the idiot.

("Which hand’s the penny in, motherfucker? WHICH HAND?!?")

From nwitimes.com via MMA Junkie:

(Props: twitpic.com/photos/allelbows)

In an attempt to guard himself from all the stray bullets that continuously fly around Chicago, Fedor Emelianenko once again donned the Glorious Sweater of Absolute Victory during an appearance at the Bears/Browns game on Sunday. Emelianenko sustained no bullet wounds, and the Bears won — once again proving the fearsome power of the horizontally-striped invincibility cloak.

Speaking of the Last Emperor, Emelianenko just wrapped up a media conference call with Brett Rogers and Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker. Some highlights, via MMA Fanhouse:

You know you’re somebody in the world of mixed martial arts when A/V genius Genghis Con makes you the subject of one of his mesmerizing videos.  That’s why we’re still waiting for that highlight reel featuring clips of us sitting at our computers to the tune of obscure Japanese pop bands (and we won’t wait forever, Genghis), but in the meantime we can entertain ourselves with some of the Con’s most recent work on new Strikeforce signee Marius "The Raging Demon" Zaromskis.  It’s everything we’ve come to expect from our favorite video editing machine.  The video game-esque music is the perfect compliment to Zaromskis’ ridiculous string of head kick KO’s, and nothing tells you that the guy has a Street Fighter II-like overconfidence in himself quite like the attempted backflip attack at the 2:37 mark.

Not that we can’t understand the reasoning behind it, but we’re still a little disappointed in the change of nickname for Zaromskis.  Sure, "The Whitemare" is the kind of thing that might not play in the U.S., but at least it’s unique.  "Raging Demon" sounds like a skateboard company started by a group of guys who dropped out of community college.  The very least Strikeforce could do is to give him a nickname that is as quirky and uncommon as his last one, even if he ends up hating it as much as Gegard Mousasi despises his.   

(Rumina Sato vs. Cory Grant, 10/30/09)

You may have been too busy putting the finishing touches on your half-assed pop culture-referencing costume to notice, but Takanori Gomi was one of several Japanese MMA fighters to get back into action at Vale Tudo Japan 2009 in Tokyo this past weekend.  The event also included Rumina Sato, who you see in the above video effectively using those pesky leg kicks to soften up Cory Grant before putting him away, and Takeshi Inoue, who dispatched former Shooto champ Alexandre Franca Nogueira with strikes in the fourth round.

Video of Gomi’s five-round battle with American Tony Hervey is after the jump.  It’s a pretty fun little scrap, and definitely worth watching.

(Might as well face it, she’s addicted to blood. Photo courtesy of twitter.com/ariannyceleste)

Now that our post-Halloween hangovers have almost completely subsided, it’s time to present the finalists for our MMA costume contest. Take a look at the best submissions after the jump, and please select your favorite costume via the poll on the right. Remember: $175 in MMA Warehouse gift cards are on the line, so vote thoughtfully.

(All hail the new Cro Cop. Props: lqdocelot19)

Dream Welterweight Grand Prix champion Marius Zaromskis — who recently scored his third-straight first-round head-kick knockout at Dream.12 — has signed a multi-fight contract with Strikeforce, according to Sherdog. The 29-year-old Lithuanian will still be able to compete in Dream, but could make his U.S. debut at Strikeforce’s December 19th event in San Jose. As you can see on Strikeforce.com’s fighters section, Zaromskis’s awesome but slightly-racially-tinged nickname "The Whitemare" has been changed to the more generic (but still appropriate) "Raging Demon."

It’s a fantastic pickup for Strikeforce, which has been basically waiting for Nick Diaz to get his shit together before they can crown somebody their welterweight champ, to the great disgust of Jay Hieron. Now, Zaromskis can take on Hieron for the vacant belt if Diaz continues to act squirrelly, or kick the crap out of someone like Joe Riggs to establish himself in America first. More to come…

Semi-related: Undefeated lightweight prospect Lyle "Fancy Pants" Beerbohm signs two-year contract with Strikeforce.

(Well, at least you’re both winners in *our* book. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

The "immediate rematch" between Lyoto Machida and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua just got a lot less immediate. Following the controversial outcome of their title fight at UFC 104, Dana White wanted to set up a re-do as soon as possible, hoping for UFC 108 on January 2nd. Unfortunately, Yahoo! is reporting that Machida needs surgery on one of his hands, and won’t be ready to return in two months. As of now, it’s unclear when Machida vs. Rua II will actually happen.

The postponement is just the latest in a unbelievably cursed stretch for the UFC that’s seen a number of headlining fights go down due to acting aspirations, injuries, and illnesses. Speaking of which, don’t expect to see Anderson Silva defend his middleweight belt against Vitor Belfort any time soon either. According to Silva’s manager Ed Soares, the Spider is still recovering from elbow surgery, and won’t be ready to compete in time for UFC 108. As with Machida, Silva’s return date is uncertain. Said Soares: "At the end of the day, it’s going to be a great fight [against Belfort]. Like I said before, I don’t think he deserves a title shot, but that’s over with now. It is what it is."