We were waiting for B.J. Penn to film a video blog in a parking garage at the Las Vegas airport to let us know how he feels about defending his title against Frankie Edgar at UFC 112, and lo and behold, here it is.  Penn says he thinks Edgar is "a very good opponent" with "a lot of big wins," and he’s generally pretty pleased with the bout.  He doesn’t exhibit the kind of fire that he might if he were getting Georges St. Pierre or Matt Hughes again, but what do you expect? 

Still, the muted though positive reaction from Penn forces us to consider the gradual decline in pre-fight heat from "The Prodigy" as his fights have gotten less personal and less challenging all at the same time.  Remember when he fought Sean Sherk in May of 2008?  Penn couldn’t get through an interview without painting him as an immoral cheater who deserved Wild West-style justice.  Then it was GSP, who he was ready to fight to the death, followed by Greasegate text message denier Kenny Florian, who he says he punished a little more than necessary, and lastly it was Diego Sanchez, who he really had nothing against. 

Now, it’s Edgar.  A good opponent with some good wins.  Okay, fine.  Why not?  He isn’t getting any younger, and it’s already been more than a month since he’s licked anyone else’s blood off his gloves.

Bonus: After the jump, Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta explain to street hustler Mike Straka why Gray Maynard isn’t getting a shot at the title.

Junior Dos Santos and Gabriel Gonzaga were originally supposed to throw down at UFC 108, before a staph infection put Napao down for the count. Now that Gonzaga is recovering, the UFC has officially announced that the heavyweight matchup has been rescheduled to UFC Fight Night 21 in March (aka "UFC on Versus"), where it will serve as a lead-in to the Jon Jones vs. Brandon Vera main event. If you look up you’ll see all four men, not exactly mean-mugging, but serious-mugging at the very least.

Dos Santos is currently on a 4-0 tear in the Octagon, scoring dramatic wins over Fabricio Werdum (KO, round 1), Stefan Struve (TKO, round 1), Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic (TKO/bitchassness, round 3), and Gilbert Yvel (TKO, round 1); Yvel filled in for Gonzaga at UFC 108. Gonzaga’s last cage-appearance was a TKO win over a nut-crushed Chris Tuchscherer at UFC 102.

(Evan Dunham fattens up his 401k with this slick finish. Props: UG)

If you were to look through the disclosed payouts from UFC Fight Night 20 and use them to form conclusions about which fighters are most valuable to their employers, you’d probably come up with some pretty hilariously wrong results. You’d also probably get a little bit sad for the guys at the bottom of the card, though when is that not the case on a Spike TV fight card? Check out the salary breakdown below, via Sherdog, but keep in mind that it doesn’t include undisclosed bonuses, sponsorship money, fees, or spare change found on the floor of the locker room:

Gray Maynard: $40,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus)
def. Nate Diaz: $48,000

Evan Dunham: $48,000 (includes $9,000 win bonus, $30,000 Submission of the Night bonus)
def. Efrain Escudero: $15,000

(You don’t interview James Toney. You merely hold a mic near his face and wait for something confusing and almost terrible to happen.)

It’s been a little over a week since we’ve heard any rumblings from James Toney about his desire to fight in the UFC.  Maybe that means he’s changed his mind and will instead be bringing his formidable side check kick skills to K-1?  Not so fast.  Toney seems to be staying focused on his goals, and recently he told FightHype.com that he knows he can do well in MMA because he once sparred with Andrei Arlovski and, at least to hear Toney tell it, things didn’t go well for our Belarussian friend:

"I sparred with Arlovski before.  It was ugly.  They had to pull me off of him.  They didn’t want to let that go on too long."

This quote doesn’t tell us whether they sparred in boxing or MMA, but we’re going to go ahead and say that it probably wasn’t Toney’s head kicks that floored Arlovski, if you catch our drift.  Arlovski has been looking into a boxing career for some time now, but maybe a beating from Toney made him rethink that.  Of course, maybe it also made Toney start thinking about an MMA career.  ‘Cause hey, Arlovski used to be a UFC champ.  If Toney can beat him up, he can beat up anyone.  Isn’t that right, Brett Rogers?

(Props: UFC)

Spike TV’s new Best of PRIDE compilation series premieres this Friday at 10 p.m. ET/ 9 p.m. CT, and the UFC is plugging it online by releasing the above teaser fight from Total Elimination 2003 — and what a coincidence, it’s one that involves a UFC superstar beating the crap out of a current Strikeforce champion! Of course, Chuck Liddell vs. Alistair Overeem would probably play out a little differently today, particularly if it took place in a country that doesn’t test for horse-meat. Still, it’s interesting to see the Iceman take full advantage of those lovely PRIDE rules with some knees to Overeem’s dome on the ground. And as you can see from the Randleplex at the 3:55 mark, Fedor Emelianenko won’t be shut out of this thing just because Dana White hates his management. Don’t forget to set your DVRs…

After the jump: Nearly every active Brazilian MMA fighter and trainer wishes Wanderlei Silva good luck for his upcoming UFC 110 fight against Michael Bisping.

(Ben Saunders’s clinch: Not where you want to be. Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

According to MMA Weekly, welterweight contenders Martin Kampmann and Ben Saunders have agreed to meet at UFC 111 (March 27th, Newark). Both fighters recently bounced back to the win column after suffering knockouts in previous fights: Kampmann scored a first-round submission over Jacob Volkmann earlier this month after getting smoked by Paul Daley at UFC 103, while Saunders is coming off his first-round knockout of Marcus Davis at UFC 106, after being on the wrong end of a TKO against Mike Swick in June. UFC 111 will be headlined by the championship doubleheader of Georges St. Pierre vs. Dan Hardy and Frank Mir vs. Shane Carwin. In other UFC fight-booking news…

— Speaking of Marcus Davis, the Irish Hand Grenade will look to snap his two-fight losing streak at UFC 113 (May 1st, Montreal) against Canadian welterweight Jonathan Goulet, who returns to the Octagon for the first time since his 33-second knockout loss to Mike Swick at Fight for the Troops in December 2008.

(Frankie Edgar is looking into your soul, and he is not impressed.)

We can’t say we didn’t see this coming.  After Gray Maynard‘s lackluster win over Nate Diaz on last night’s UFC Fight Night 20, Dana White tells MMAFighting.com that Frankie Edgar will get the next shot at lightweight champ B.J. Penn, tentatively scheduled for UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi this April.  Edgar last fought at the TUF 10 Finale on December 10, where he submitted Matt Veach with a rear naked choke in the second round.  Funny, we don’t recall a chorus of voices rising up in the wake of that victory to declare Edgar the consensus number one contender, but maybe that’s just because we didn’t watch the fight in New Jersey.

But seriously, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that Edgar earned this shot primarily by process of elimination.  After Penn smoked Diego Sanchez, it came down to Edgar or Maynard.  Fortunately for Edgar, "The Bully" managed to win in the least impressive fashion possible, so he gets the shot by default, even though Maynard ran through him with relative ease at UFC Fight Night 13. 

Is it kind of unfair that a guy Maynard beat, who’s coming off a win over a relative UFC novice, is getting the shot just because his own win wasn’t quite exciting enough?  No, it’s not kind of unfair.  It’s totally unfair.  But that’s life in the fight game.  Video of Dana White explaining the thin rationale behind the fight, as well as why he decided to sell 10% of his company essentially to the government of Abu Dhabi, is after the jump.

("Could you take it again? I think I blinked that time." Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

With another WEC event in the books, it’s time once again to see what these poor bastards are living on. Urijah Faber‘s $62,000 haul represented a little over 20% of the total $302,000 disclosed payroll from Sunday’s show, and was about triple what Jamie Varner and Benson Henderson individually earned for their efforts. Mike Brown came in a not-so-close second with his $38,000 check. The numbers are below, courtesy of MMA Junkie…

Benson Henderson: $22,000 (includes $11,000 win bonus)
def. Jamie Varner: $18,000

Urijah Faber: $62,000 (includes $26,000 win bonus, $10,000 Submission of the Night bonus)
def. Raphael Assuncao: $13,000

Kamal Shalorus: $10,000 (includes $5,000 win bonus)
def. Dave Jansen: $4,000

Mike Brown: $38,000 (includes $19,000 win bonus)
def. Anthony Morrison: $4,000

(Props: youtube.com/K1 via MMA Scraps)

Feel like being entertained for about 24 minutes? Then check out this K-1 knockout compilation, which features kickboxing legends like Ernesto Hoost, Andy Hug, Peter Aerts, Jerome Le Banner, and Mark Hunt leaving their opponents with permanent neurological damage. Part 2 is after the jump. You will not be disappointed.

(Believe it or not, Nate’s biceps are the pride of the 209. They don’t have that much to be proud of.)

Ah, the post-defeat talk of changing weight classes. Or, as we like to call it, the fighter’s false friend. Usually, unless a guy is getting on in years, his answer to a difficult patch in his career is to go down in weight, maybe fight some of those pipsqueaks in the division below his. Nate Diaz however, has a different idea. According to post on GracieFighter.com in which he apologized for fighting “like garbage” and suggested that Gray Maynard’s face was too bloody to really deserve the decision, Diaz outlined a plan to go up to welterweight, explaining:

“I really don’t think I’m going to stay at 155lbs. I don’t make enough money to have to drop this much weight so I’d like to fight at 170 and only go to 55′s every once in awhile.”

Forgetting for the moment that his reasoning is completely flawed (seriously? you acknowledge that you can cut the weight, but don’t get paid enough to do it?), here’s why that’s a terrible idea:

(Photo courtesy of FightMagazine.com)

This morning I woke up, fed the dog his usual breakfast of Golden Grahams and uncooked bacon, made myself some coffee, and then sat down to watch the Tom Lawlor-Aaron Simpson fight once again, this time without furiously typing as it was happening.  I didn’t do this because I necessarily felt that it was a horrible decision.  You let a fight stay that close while also gassing out down the stretch, it’s like running your ancient space heater next to your collection of oily rags — sympathy is going to be hard to come by when something bad happens.

I went back and watched the fight again only because I wanted to see if my initial assessment of the first frame as a 10-8 round for Lawlor held up under closer scrutiny.  The verdict?  Absolutely.  Which is why it might be worth having a discussion about what a 10-8 round really looks like.

Following up reports last week of Zuffa selling a chunk of the UFC to Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UFC has publicly released some information on the sale. First, the official statement via UFC.com:

Dana White followed up the announcement with a Q&A on UFC.com to put it all into layman’s terms for the fans. Some highlights:

(Gray Maynard discusses his fight against Nate Diaz, and the prospects of a future title shot against BJ Penn. Props: Sherdog.)

Since we only got to see the four main card fights on last night’s UFC Fight Night 20 broadcast, here’s a recap of the prelims…

– Chris Leben def. Jay Silva via unanimous decision (30-27 x 3)
– Rick Story def. Jesse Lennox via split decision (30-27 x 2, 28-29. Due to a scoring error, the bout was initially declared a majority draw.)
– Thiago Tavares and Nik Lentz fought to a majority draw (29-27 Lentz, 28-28 x 2. Tavares was deducted a point for low blows.)
– Rory MacDonald def. Mike Guymon via submission (armbar), 4:27 of round 1
– Rafael dos Anjos def. Kyle Bradley via unanimous decision (30-27 x 3)
– Gerald Harris def. John Salter via TKO (strikes), 3:24 of round 3
– Nick Catone def. Jesse Forbes via split decision (28-29, 29-28 x 2)

For scoring the night’s only stoppage via strikes, Gerald Harris pocketed a $30,000 Knockout of the Night bonus. Evan Dunham picked up the $30,000 Submission of the Night bonus for his horrible-looking armbar on Efrain Escudero (don’t worry, Effy’s fine). $30k Fight of the Night bumps went to Tom Lawlor and Aaron Simpson for their memorable three-round battle, which saw Simpson get battered half to death in the first round before edging out Lawlor in rounds two and three (according to two judges, at least).

(Is it me, or did it just get way too real in here? Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

What happens when you get one fighter who has the nickname "The Bully" and another fighter who simply has the attitude of one together in the same building at the same time?  It becomes a very bad night to be a geek and/or a poser in Fairfax, Virginia.  That’s what.  Nate Diaz and Gray Maynard are set to go at it in the main event of UFC Fight Night 20 tonight, and we’ll be bringing you all the live results and priceless commentary you can stand.  Some of it will be spelled right, and at least 50% of the subjects and verbs will be in agreement, but other than that there’s really no telling what might happen. 

Will we accidentally hit upon a brilliant idea for a screenplay?  Will we suffer a crisis of conscience midway through an inappropriate joke about Mike Goldberg’s sister?  Only one way to find out, and it’s by joining us after the jump and hitting refresh often.  Things will get under way at around 9 p.m. EST, and it will be a laugh a minute after that. But only if you read very, very slowly.  And are very, very easily amused.

As much fun as we’ve been having with our wild speculation about what Tom Lawlor‘s entrance will look like on tonight’s UFC Fight Night 20 event, we didn’t actually want to know ahead of time.  Sure, we grilled Tom about it and tossed out our own ideas, but that’s like shaking the presents under the Christmas tree to find out which ones might be something good and which ones are crappy jigsaw puzzles from your aunt.  It’s all part of building the suspense. 

Apparently, nobody ever told Seth Petruzelli that.  The Kimbo-slayer took to Twitter this afternoon to let the world know that Lawlor is planning a Hulk Hogan-esque entrance tonight.  Lawlor has previously bandied about the idea of coming out to Hogan’s "Real American," but Petruzelli seems to be setting us up for a full Hulkamania entrance.  Or…is this all a bit of misdirection?  Is Petruzelli purposely deceiving us to make it even more awesome when Lawlor actually comes down to the Octagon Ultimate Warrior style?

We should have our answer soon enough.  Make sure to keep it locked on Cage Potato tonight at 9 p.m. EST for all the liveblogging fun.  Whatever happens, you’re going to want to share the moment with your internet BFF’s.  And no, we’re not talking about those nice Nigerians you keep wiring money to.  They don’t really like you.  Same goes for the people on that dating site.

A bonus, just to get us all pumped for tonight, is after the jump.

(The Urijah Faber story continues over at FightMagazine.com. See previous installments here and here.)

This isn’t the first time Urijah Faber has told the story of the night he was almost killed by an angry Indonesian mob, but it’s the kind of tale that we never tire of hearing.  At first you find yourself feeling bad for Urijah, who’s just trying to dance with some girls and ends up getting hit in the head with brass knuckles, which we didn’t even know existed outside of old-timey cartoons and pro wrestling matches. 

But then, once you start to think about it, your sympathies almost can’t help but lie with the angry mob.  They must have looked at Faber, a 5’6" American kid with long, girlish locks who had just hurt their friend and thought, ‘Well here’s a slam dunk.’  Then he starts dropping people on the pavement and elbowing people in the face and suddenly the reputation of your nation’s bloodthirsty mobs is in jeopardy.  Of course they picked up hammers and bottles and rocks.  You let that guy get home and start telling this story to the world, pretty soon no one is going to take an Indonesian mob seriously.  Once you’ve lost that, what have you got?     

(They used to be boring wrestlers until Guida stopped being boring and Sherk stopped wrestling.)

Seems like it had to happen eventually: According to a new report on MMA Junkie, a lightweight showdown between Clay Guida and former champion Sean Sherk is being penciled in for UFC Fight Night 21 (March 21st, Denver; live on Versus). With his wrestling prowess and relentless pace, Guida has long been a threat in the 155-pound division, but he’s dropped his last two fights against Diego Sanchez (via split decision in June) and Kenny Florian (via second-round rear-naked choke in December). Meanwhile, Sherk has lost two out of his last three appearances — most recently a unanimous decision against Frankie Edgar at UFC 98 — due in large part to a decreasingly effective focus on boxing. Sherk was supposed to make his Octagon return earlier this month against Rafaello Oliveira, but was struck down by The Curse.

As we previously reported, the 3/21 card will be headlined by Jon Jones vs. Brandon Vera, and will likely include Anthony Johnson vs. John Howard. A lightweight scrap between Spencer Fisher and Duane "Bang" Ludwig, and a light-heavyweight tilt between Vladimir Matyushenko and TUF 8 vet Eliot Marshall are also being reported for the event

(Props: Showtime via MiddleEasy)

It took their lazy asses two full months, but Strikeforce has finally released the video of Marloes Coenen‘s rematch with Roxanne Modafferi, which was part of the unaired preliminary card at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers. Though Modafferi was able to grind out a split-decision victory when she first fought Coenen in the finals of an eight-woman K-Grace tournament in May 2007, their last meeting was a 65-second pwnage by Marloes, who used razor-sharp striking to drop Modafferi before methodically setting up an armbar. With her Strikeforce debut an unqualified success and her reputation growing in the States, the good-lookin’ Golden Glory product will now challenge for Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos‘s 145-pound belt on January 30th. Any predictions?

(Blackburn vs. Jay Hieron, 6/1/07)

Brad Blackburn is 3-0 in the UFC and hasn’t lost a fight since 2007, and yet he still doesn’t feel he’s getting the recognition – or the accompanying paycheck – that he deserves. The fame he could take or leave, he says, but the money is a different story. In this exclusive interview, “Bad” Brad tells us exactly what he’s hoping to accomplish when he faces Amir Sadollah (who, as we already know, is expecting things to be pretty terrible) at tonight’s UFC Fight Night 20, and why he has every reason to think he’ll be successful.

CagePotato.com: You’ve been in the sport for a while now, but it seems like a lot of casual fans, people who are only UFC fans, still have no idea who you are.

Blackburn: Yeah, that’s true. UFC fans. Which is the bulk of the fans.

Do you feel like the fight with Amir, who a lot of them probably know, is a chance to change that?

That’s exactly how I feel. Actually, that’s why I took the fight. If he didn’t have a big name it wouldn’t be worth the risk since he hasn’t really done a lot. He’s only had a couple fights. He’s a game fighter and he had a couple good wins, but he hasn’t done a lot in the sport. The value in it for me is his name. People know who he is.

(It’s such a thin line between a genuine mean-mug and a pouty little kid on the verge of a tantrum-mug. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

UFC Fight Night 20, which we’ll be liveblogging, is coming at you on Spike TV from Fairfax, Virginia tonight.  It’s free MMA and you’re not one to pass that up, obviously, but you don’t want to go in cold, do you?  Best to cover all your bases by reading our half-ass predictions and petty bickering first.  This is Ben vs. Ben. 

Nate Diaz is a sizable betting underdog in his fight against Gray Maynard, due to the problems he’s had with wrestlers in the past. Are you giving Nate any chance to submit Gray like he did during TUF 5, or is this a guaranteed smothering?

BG: All signs point to smothering. Both guys have improved a great deal since their time on TUF 5, but it’s worth noting that Maynard was a green 2-0 coming into the show, and simply didn’t have enough experience to deal with a sharp submission game like Diaz’s. Three years later, submission defense is no longer a visible hole in Gray’s armor; seasoned grapplers like Jim Miller and Rich Clementi were absolutely helpless from their backs during their fights against him. Arguably, Diaz’s jiu-jitsu is on a higher level than Miller and Clementi’s, but after those losses to Clay Guida and Joe Stevenson last year, do we really need any more proof that wrestlers are Nate’s kryptonite?

(An open mind, and the ability to pull tall chicks. Gotta love this dude.)

From NYDailyNews.com:

(Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

Three months after Benson Henderson squeaked past Donald Cerrone in a grueling (and controversial) five-rounder at WEC 43, and a year after Jamie Varner defended his lightweight title in his own contentious battle against Cowboy, the WEC’s top two lightweights met last night at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento to determine an undisputed 155-pound ruler — and this time, the scorecards would not be necessary.

Henderson’s inhuman ability to resist submission holds served him well in WEC 46′s main event. The first round saw Varner latch on a tight guillotine against the fence after slamming Henderson to the mat, but "Smooth" stayed calm and escaped. Except for one strange moment when Varner wandered away with his back turned after taking a body kick — apparently looking for a pause in the action, which he didn’t receive — Varner seemed to have the edge early on. The second round was an evenly-pitched striking battle, with both fighters testing out their kicks; Henderson looked comfortable against the champ, but wasn’t pushing the pace.

In the end, Henderson’s reactive style turned out to be the perfect strategy. Midway through the third round, Varner shot in for a double-leg takedown, and Smooth countered with a flying guillotine that made Varner tap almost immediately, earning him the WEC’s unified lightweight title. Varner wasn’t exactly gracious in defeat: "S*** happens. I was winning the fight, all he was doing was throwing body kicks. I got the takedowns, had the control…go ahead and boo. I came to fight, Ben came to grapple. Two different things." Christ, what a bitch.

(Oh. No. He. Didn’t.)

Tom Lawlor told us he was laboring under exceedingly high expectations after his display at UFC 100, and he didn’t know how he was going to live up to them.  I mean, how do you follow a ‘Just Bleed’ homage?  If you’re Lawlor, you do it with a tribute to UFC old schooler/Niagara Falls madman Harold Howard.  Just look at the attention to detail.  The mullet, the wife beater with accompanying black belt, the willingness to do a crazy scissor flip kick at any time (yeah, he totally did that) — it’s all there.  And while a lot of these new fans might not appreciate the reference to a guy who last fought for the UFC in 1995, the hardcores are sure to eat it up.  

Oh, and for those interested, all fighters made weight.  A video of the intense Nate Diaz/Gray Maynard staredown is after the jump.

Well look who’s getting name-checked on "Inside MMA."  Ron Kruck references our story on Brock Lesnar’s ongoing health issues before cutting to Randy Couture, who says he’s spoken with Lesnar and things are looking up for the big man.  If we can believe Couture (and he doesn’t seem the like the type to just make stuff up — that’s Tito Ortiz’s game), Lesnar is already back in the gym and ought to be Octagon-ready by this spring.  We should probably treat this with the same healthy skepticism we had for "Comprido" Medeiros’ assurance that everything was going to be just fine, but at least it’s encouraging news.

Once again though, we can’t help but wonder what’s with all the secrecy.  If Lesnar really is back in the gym and beating the hell out of poor Chris Tuchscherer again, why wouldn’t he be cool with the world knowing that?  Is this all part of an attempt to fake his own death just to get out of paying taxes?  That’s it, isn’t it?  That sly son of a bitch. 

(Photo courtesy of vegasnews.com.)

By CagePotato.com contributor Elias Cepeda

CAGEPOTATO: Jens, you’re fighting March 6th in Columbus, Ohio. You’ve lost four straight to some very good opponents. Any word yet on who you are fighting?
JENS PULVER: Nope. I don’t know yet. I told them I don’t even want to know.

You actually asked not to know?
Not until they really have to tell me. Who cares who I’m fighting? Opponents don’t beat me, I’m beating me. You’ve got all these guys saying I’m getting punchy. I got hit on the head against Leonard but the other two of my last three losses were chokes. With Faber I ate everything, Lauzon clipped me on the chin. I’ve never been knocked out to the point of four minutes later they are waking me up and I’m trying to figure out what happened, saying ‘shit, what happened?’ I’ve been clipped. I might get punchy at some point but come on, it’s not happening now. Let me get mine. What fucking part of guillotine chokes don’t people understand? I appreciate their concern all the same but people don’t pay attention. Where does most of the damage fighters take come from? Not from fights but from when we are sparring with pillows on our hands and we take hours of brain rattling. Fights are five to twenty five minutes long; the brain damage comes from sparring. You don’t ever hear people saying we should quit sparring. So I’m not really worried about who I’m fighting. I’m fighting me right now. I’m fighting against myself, trying to be the old me. I’m trying to beat myself.

You’re talking about the old vs. new you.
I’m not talking about the young bullet-proof me. I’m talking about the middle me that has gotten his ass handed to him. I don’t complain to people, I don’t bitch about income. Of how there are all these other guys who have made a lot of money. Maybe I’m not that savvy with business. I’ve had a rebirth with meeting my wife, having my son and my daughter getting older. The biggest thing for me was how we moved training camps, finally. This one in Boise, I’ve designed. You can see it at DrivenTC.com. Just little things with this gym are going to make a lot of difference for me, I can’t even tell you. Our supposed great leader back in Iowa who didn’t even have a boxing ring or a cage — what kind of people fight in MMA and have never even sparred or trained in a cage? I’ve brought in Tony Fryklund and all positives happen with him around. That right there is leaps and bounds better.

"You miss me? ‘Cuz I missed yoouuuuuu…"

So says Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in the above trailer for The A-Team, which hits theaters this summer with Jackson mean-mugging his way through the B.A. Baracus role. To be honest, we kinda did miss Rampage; it would have been nice to have him in the cage at UFC 108, that’s all. The word on the street is that Jackson will return to the Octagon against Rashad Evans in May. Between beating his felony evading charges, playing one of his childhood heroes in a movie, and having the opportunity to put his fists on an arch-rival, this is shaping up to be a banner year for Jackson. Great to be you, homey.

Speaking of MMA stars on the silver screen…

(Another Urijah Faber video from our friends at Fight Magazine.)

- Herschel Walker will fight Greg Nagy (1-1) on January 30. (MMA Fighting)

- Efrain Escudero having some travel issues before Fight Night 20. (Cagewriter)

- Renzo Gracie discusses the timing of Rashad Evans’ black belt. (GracieFighter)

- Fight Night 20 main card preview. (The Rumble)

- Brock Lesnar’s trainer says he will fight again, sooner or later. (Sportsnet)

- "Rampage" Jackson to begin training for Evans fight in March. (Fighters Only)

- Wrestling Canada officials weigh in on GSP’s Olympic hopes. (The Score)

- Another awkward UFC fighter cam moment. (Lookoutawhale)

- Does Cro Cop have anything left in the tank? (Bleacher Report)

- In Uganda, they don’t just say stuff. (Combat Blog)

- Discovery of second Earth may be coming soon. (Asylum)

- Michael Cera talks "Youth in Revolt." (Ask Men)

- Why did Boise State finish #4? (Scores Report)

- Flowchart to determine if you’re a douchebag. (Holy Taco)

- 10 good mid-season TV picks. (Screen Junkies)

- Winter hobbies for men. (Made Man)

- Who is the shaved-back Nascar guy? (All Left Turns)

- Amateur wrestler gets arm broken in less than thirty seconds. (Nothing Toxic)

(Nothing says ‘law-abiding citizen’ like a mohawk in court.)

You can officially cross legal issues off the list of things that may keep “Rampage” Jackson from returning to the UFC, at least for now. An Orange County judge struck down his felony conviction for evading police and – get this – congratulated him for a job well done successfully completing 200 hours of community service in penance for misdemeanor reckless driving. Just goes to show you that a wild chase that ends with police drawing their guns on you and ordering you to the pavement can still end with an ‘atta boy’ from a judge, as long as you carry it the right way.

‘Page vowed to stay out of trouble from now on, telling the OC Register, “I don’t see myself doing anything crazy again…I want to be a positive role model.” Jackson’s lawyer said his community service consisted of seminars with young people and Marines, and he did more than the amount required by the court.

The mohawk gave Jackson the rare chance to use his court appearance to plug his upcoming "A-Team" movie, saying he had to keep rocking it since filming is still ongoing, adding “it’s going to be a great movie, (especially) for fans of the TV series.” That is, except for those fans of the TV series who will inevitably feel that their happy childhood memories have been brutally raped.

(Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta chill with Sheikh Tahnoon during a recent boar hunting trip. Photos courtesy of twitter.com/danawhite.)

And here we thought Dana White was just visiting Abu Dhabi to set up a monster fight card and spring Lee Murray out of jail. FiveOuncesofPain has broken the wild and developing story that after a few months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the UFC has sold a piece of its empire to Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, son of former United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and founder of the world-famous Abu Dhabi Combat Club. MMA Payout estimates that Sheikh Tahnoon now owns approximately 10% of the UFC, and the proceeds of the sale will likely go towards regaining control of Station Casinos.

According to the original report, the deal was brokered with the help of Renzo Gracie, who happens to be Sheikh Tahnoon’s BJJ instructor; Tahnoon is a black belt under Renzo. The sale has massive implications, but without an official statement from the UFC, there isn’t much more we can tell you. Either Sheikh Tahnoon becomes instrumental in helping the UFC become a truly global operation, or he creates a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation, leading to counter-productive infighting and unfortunate ring girl choices. What’s clear is that Tahnoon has money and passion to spare. Let’s see how this thing plays out.