(Funny, I don’t remember this position being taught in those Gracie Jiu-Jitsu instructional videos. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Being a Gracie in MMA is a little like being a Kennedy in American politics – for better or worse, there are certain expectations. We realize Rolles Gracie had only his fourth professional fight at UFC 109 on Saturday night, so we didn’t expect him to burst on the scene like the second coming of Rickson. We did, however, expect him to beat a guy who took the bout on a few days’ notice, and whose most significant career win thus far was a knockout of Houston Alexander in January.

For the first few minutes things seemed to be going as planned. Then Rolles turned into an exhausted zombie, plodding flat-footed and open-mouthed around the Octagon before eventually giving up altogether and lying flat on his stomach as he waited for the referee to get bored enough to stop the bout.

A lot of trainers might try and soft-pedal their disappointment out of regard for the guy’s feelings after a fight like that. Renzo Gracie is not one of those trainers. Talking to GracieFighter.com, he called the performance “embarrassing,” adding:

(Props: Bloody Elbow)

As the story goes, Thomas Edison was once asked about his thousands of failed experiments in developing the storage battery, to which he replied: "I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work." That quote has always reminded me of the cinematic output of action-movie auteur Hector Echavarria, who has directed, written, and/or starred in such movies as Confessions of a Pit Fighter, Never Surrender, and Death Warrior, all of which are about retired martial artists forced to compete in underground fighting leagues.

Hector’s latest effort is Unrivaled, which goes directly to DVD later this year. As you can see from the trailer above, there’s the requisite mob-shakedown angle, the cameos by UFC stars, and the Superman punches — my God, so many Superman punches — but Unrivaled breaks with tradition by being about an above-ground fighting league that the main character enters by choice. Has Echavarria finally created an MMA movie that’s actually worth renting? Much like the desperate fighters he plays in his movies, the odds are stacked against him…

(‘Dairy is rape, you son of a bitch!’ Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

You can file this under the category of ‘Things That Should Have Been Obvious Without Any Supporting Evidence,’ but the ratings numbers from Spike TV’s recent broadcasts of select preliminary fights from UFC pay-per-views prove that fight fans actually like seeing more fights for free. As MMA Payout points out, the UFC 109 prelims scored the highest rating yet, despite the lack of big names (sorry Justin Buchholz fans, but it’s true), with an average of 1.7 million viewers for the hour-long broadcast.

This is one of those ideas that, in retrospect, seems baffling for it to have taken this long to come to fruition. The UFC isn’t doing much with those undercard fights anyway – they can’t show all of them, and it’s not like a bunch of people are willing to pay extra online to see Guillard and Torres go three rounds – and, who knows, you might even convince a couple people who were flipping through the channels on a Saturday night to pony up and buy the pay-per-view. Or maybe they find themselves watching Joe Rogan do a thorough analysis of an attempt to clean up ice and they flip back to “Man vs. Wild” reruns. Either way, keep them coming and we’ll keep on watching.  Unless Bear Grylls goes somewhere really crazy, like the moon.  Come on, Man vs. Moon?  Forget about it.  There’s just no way we’re missing that.

(Props: TSGIGOR via the UG)

As much as he likes to portray himself as an ordinary, boring family man outside of his job knocking people’s heads off their shoulders, it seems like whenever we get a glimpse of Fedor Emelianenko‘s private life he is always doing something awesome.  When he’s not beating up six Koreans at once, hanging out with Vladimir Putin and Silvio Berlusconi at lavish dinner parties catered by miserable teenagers, or wearing a series of unbelievable sweaters, he’s playing ping-pong in the world’s sweetest rec room in Kiev, Ukraine. 

It’s not even fair that one man should have this great of a life, while the rest of us have to settle for wearing normal sweaters and playing ping-pong in rooms totally bereft of bizarrely ornate furnishings.  We may not be the greatest heavyweight in the world, but does that mean we don’t deserve to hang out in the kind of place that has both a ping-pong table and a gold sectional sofa?  Maybe it does.  Maybe that’s just how life is.  Even if you can kick a little ass, or perhaps most of the ass, the world will not share such lavish bounties with you unless you can kick all asses.  Just ask poor Anthony Johnson…

It’s been over two months since we’ve seen Chuck Liddell throw around Russian pixie Anna Trebunskaya, but the two have been reunited for one last score, thanks to a Dancing With the Stars-themed feature in the 2010 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Watch as Anna bounces around in a bikini while Chuck bounces around like a jackass. Obviously this isn’t going to be the deciding factor for you to go out and buy the issue — there’s an entire spread on bodypainted ex-girlfriends of soccer players, so you should already have this thing pre-ordered.

Personally, I blame Chael "Epic Troll" Sonnen, who recently proved that even if you have a somewhat dull fighting style, MMA fans will start caring about you as soon as you accuse Anderson Silva of being an overrated punk who’s fluent in both English and Spanish. Sonnen’s recent success in playing the heel is only encouraging trash-talkers to get bolder with their call-outs, and the latest instigator is UFC welterweight contender Josh Koscheck, who has been on Twitter the last couple of days demanding that Tito Ortiz fight him. Considering that Koscheck is two weight classes smaller than Ortiz, this seems like a fight that Ortiz would actually take, although the HBBB hasn’t responded yet.

Obviously, the matchup would never be approved by the UFC or any athletic commission in this country*, even if Kos went on an all-Bojangles diet for the next three months. And in that sense, the call-out is virtually useless, outside of the fact that it gets us talking about Josh Koscheck for a few minutes one Tuesday afternoon. It’s like when somebody says "I’d kick your ass if my friends weren’t holding me back." In this analogy, the "friends" represent the 35-pound weight differential. You’re talking shit with a safety net. Yes, Josh, in the old days of the UFC, you’d occasionally see a guy like Keith Hackney beating the crap out of a guy like Emmanuel Yarborough. But I’m not sure that argument’s strong enough to convince Dana to toss out the unified rules on your behalf.

* Wait a minute. Are they just building up heat for a future headlining fight in Abu Dhabi? Oh God, no.

Those of you who missed the Spike TV broadcast of the Melvin Guillard-Ronnys Torres fight at UFC 109 didn’t just miss a very close three-round scrap, you also missed a chance to see Joe Rogan flip out over something besides marijuana, locker room meat-gazers, or the craziness of space.  I refer now, of course, to an ice spill in the Octagon. 

It’s no one’s fault, really, except maybe the person who decided to use a cheap grocery store produce bag in Torres’s corner.  The thing comes apart at the most inopportune time, and the result is a group of grown men trying frantically to clean up a large pile of ice while Rogan yells at them and a packed arena boos their efforts.  The difficulty these men (or, as Rogan refers to them, "the goddamn Three Stooges") have in this task just goes to show how much more difficult everything becomes in a high-pressure situation.  Try unlocking your front door while someone yells at you about what an incapable moron you are, or clean up broken eggs on the kitchen floor as your emotionally unstable girlfriend stands nearby and refers to the situation as "a disaster."  Then maybe you’ll understand.    

(Skip to the 3:15 mark to hear Coleman’s thoughts on the rule changes in MMA that forced him to "learn a lot of other skills.")

Those of you who became MMA fans somewhere between "Iron Ring" and “Bully Beatdown” might not realize this, but there was a time when Mark Coleman was a holy terror as a fighter. We know, he didn’t look like it against Randy Couture at UFC 109, but give the guy a break. He’s 45 years-old and has been using his body (and sometimes his head) as a weapon to hurt other men since 1996. That stuff is bound to take a toll on you, which is why Couture is the exception and not the rule.

After his loss on Saturday night it now seems like Coleman is done, or at least done in the UFC.  At the very real risk of eulogizing Coleman’s career too soon, as we did with Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic’s – Christ, doesn’t anyone quit this sport when they should? – we’d like to pay tribute to the monster Coleman used to be by looking back at some of his finest MMA moments.

Anderson Silva is a tough nut to crack. We know he doesn’t want to fight friends, and we know he doesn’t want to fight guys he’s already beaten, and we know he doesn’t want to fight guys who got middleweight title shots in the UFC without ever competing in the UFC at that weight class. New #1 contender Chael Sonnen doesn’t fit into any of those categories, so you’d think there wouldn’t be a problem. But as Silva’s manager Ed Soares has proven, you can find an excuse to duck pretty much anybody:

In this talk with Fox News’s "Fight Game" it’s difficult to tell whether Phil Baroni is drunk or just on the downward slope of a career spent getting punched in the head.  It’s like that time you did a terrible karaoke rendition of "Little Red Corvette" before throwing up all over your girlfriend’s shoes.  There’s only one acceptable explanation, and it’s ‘I was drunk.’  Let’s hope the seven-dollar beers at the Mandalay Bay were to blame for how this interview turned out, and not ten years worth of abuse in the cage.   

The catalyst for this particular discussion is the UFC 109 victory by fellow New Yorker Matt Serra over one of Baroni’s Xtreme Couture training partners, Frank Trigg.  Apparently, gym loyalties are nothing compared to regional ones.  Plus, Serra goes into the Starbucks where Baroni’s mom works and gives her good tips, while all Trigg has ever done is make an awkward pass at her at Baroni’s wedding.  Yet another situation where ‘I was drunk’ is the only explanation that will suffice.   

After the jump, Eddie Bravo discusses his path to jiu-jitsu, and subtly overstates his own importance.

(Props: MMA Mania)

Michael Bisping is less than two weeks away from what could either be his greatest triumph or his ugliest beatdown — a match against legendary fighter Wanderlei Silva at UFC 110 (February 20th; Sydney, Australia). The latest installment of Bisping’s video blog shows him handling the usual press obligations and keeping sharp at the Wolfslair in preparation for the battle. Skip to 4:06 for a rare sighting of Rampage Jackson outside of a movie set. As for Bisping’s expectations for the Silva fight, the Count recently wrote that Wandy reminds him of another old rival:

Has Wanderlei Silva fallen so far that one could realistically describe him as a more-explosive Chris Leben? Damn, that’s a depressing thought. Silva has lost five of his last six fights, with his only win coming against Keith Jardine in May 2008 — but the guys that have beaten him were all legends and former champions. If the Axe Murderer loses this one, there will no longer be any doubt that the game has passed him by. Will he smash the Brit and redeem himself, or are we about to see Wandy’s last stand? Your thoughts, please.

(Ortiz chats with Ariel Helwani, before and after heckling Mark Coleman.)

There are any number of reasons Tito Ortiz might have decided to try and steal the spotlight by shouting at Mark Coleman during his post-fight interview at UFC 109. For instance, he’s just always been kind of a prick, so there’s that. Or, if that’s not comprehensive enough for you, he’s also an opportunist prick, which is exactly the type of prick who would try to start a fight with an elderly opponent who had just shown himself to be easy pickings. But Ortiz’s official explanation for kicking Coleman while he was down? It was payback for that time his manager pointed out what we already know about Ortiz’s lady friend.

Of course, Coleman’s manager only said those things in retaliation for Ortiz calling Coleman a “sissy” after he pulled out of their scheduled bout with an injury, and then he apologized as soon as he calmed down and realized that an attack on Ortiz’s famous porn star girlfriend was neither cool nor necessary. But the HBBB isn’t going to let a little thing like that stop him from a) erroneously attributing the remark to Coleman, and b) being really immature about the whole thing. Why would he? This is Tito Ortiz we’re talking about here, who still insists that his ‘Chuck Liddell was an alcoholic’ comments were meant in the nicest way possible. He’s not one to let the truth get in the way of an opportunity to act like a total jerk.

(Mark Coleman shows these young whippersnappers what a proper punch-face looks like.  Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine’s UFC 109 gallery.)

After a night of upsets and several plodding decisions at UFC 109, we turn to the Potato Index to tell us who’s up and who’s down.

Randy Couture +77
Yes, he dominated Mark Coleman. And yes, that would have been impressive ten years ago. But let’s be brutally honest here. The way Coleman looked last night, there aren’t many light heavyweights in the UFC who couldn’t have beaten him. It’s still a good win for Couture, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s ‘getting better with age.’ It just means Coleman isn’t.

Mark Coleman -91
Two months in Vegas working with a striking coach and he still can’t be bothered to move his head out of the way of a punch? DW is right; it’s time for “The Hammer” to hang it up. You don’t want to become another Ken Shamrock, Mark.

("Sorry I screwed up your pools, guys. LOL, no I’m not!" Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

Between Chael Sonnen‘s domination of Nate Marquardt and Paulo Thiago picking up the Sub of the Night over Mike Swick, UFC 109 threw some serious curveballs at us. Most people who participated in MMA FightPicker this week whiffed hard at those curveballs. But some of you dinged ‘em out the park. After the first official week of FightPicker play, we’d like to shout out the current point-leaders:

1) Ciarán Parnell: 350 PotatoChips
2) Andrew Palmer: 255 PotatoChips
3) OctoAbortion: 250 PotatoChips

Please, Ciarán, e-mail us at feedback@cagepotato.com and tell us how exactly you have a hundred-point lead on the next closest competitor, this early in the game. There might be a free t-shirt in it for you.

And now for the shameless gloating part of this post. After BG and BF went head-to-head in a Palooka Pool, I (BG) am proud to say my picks were on-point enough to tie for first-place (!!!), while dickface over there tied for fourth. The other winners of Palooka Pool 30 #173 were: nine one siccness, Steve Rowbotham, James Cowley, Michael Aitken, GSPs Swollen Elbow and Torn Groin and Tim Prothero. Take an e-bow, fellas. And I should mention that there was one genius in the pool named James Berberich who managed to get every question wrong. I feel sorry for your mother, bro.

For those who fell short with their UFC 109 picks, you just have to dust yourself off and get back on the horse. Here’s what’s going on in FightPicker this week…

(Serra’s recent training with striking coach Brad Ferro is already paying dividends. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

The UFC handed out $1,184,000 in disclosed salaries and bonuses for Saturday night’s show, with Randy Couture and Matt Serra‘s $200,000+ checks leading the pack. Check out the numbers below, and keep in mind that the figures don’t include additional income from sponsorships, undisclosed locker room bonuses, and cuts of the pay-per-view (Couture), or deductions for taxes, insurance, licensing fees, and monthly Life Alert payments (Coleman).

Randy Couture: $250,000 (no win bonus)
def. Mark Coleman: $60,000

Chael Sonnen: $124,000 (includes $32,000 win bonus, $60,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
def. Nate Marquardt: $105,000 (includes $60,000 Fight of the Night bonus)

Paulo Thiago: $90,000 (includes $15,000 win bonus, $60,000 Submission of the Night bonus)
def. Mike Swick: $43,000

(Chael Sonnen explains that it’s the Ultimate *Fighting* Championship, not the Ultimate Mitt-Hitting, High-Altitude Training, Flipping a Tire Around, Screaming the Word "Yes" Championship. Props: MMA Fighting)

Following an expectation-exceeding night of action at UFC 109, the UFC handed out $60,000 pay-bumps to the following competitors:

Fight of the Night: Chael Sonnen and Nate Marquardt, for their bloody 15-minute grind, in which Sonnen survived a nasty choke attempt in the third round to secure the decision victory and earn a middleweight title shot.

Knockout of the Night: Matt Serra, for beating down Frank Trigg and proving that his hands are always dangerous, even if they’re on the end of very short arms.

Submission of the Night: Paulo Thiago, for putting Mike Swick to sleep with a D’Arce choke after knocking him to the mat in the second round of their fight. Thiago: 2, AKA: 1.

In other news…

(Couture vs. Coleman: this one’s for all the Geritol. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

What do you get when you roust two old fighters from their rocking chairs and toss them into the cage for a fight that would have been so awesome ten years ago that your head would have exploded at the mere idea of it?  We have no idea, but we can’t wait to find out, just like we can’t wait to see what happens when Chael Sonnen finally has to stop talking crazy long enough to step in there with Nate Marquardt. 

UFC 109 is coming at you from the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas tonight, beginning with some preliminary action on Spike TV at 9 pm EST.  Keep it locked right here for all the live results and insightful commentary you can stand, some of which will be completely obscured by unfortunate typos in the heat of the moment.  As long as you’re here, might as well introduce yourself in the comments section and begin making obscure film/music/pop culture references that are only funny to you.  Huzzah!

Hey you guys, Chris Tuchscherer is not fat…

(Melvin Guillard dips his toe in the videoblogging waters prior to UFC 109.)

- It look less than a week of filming for Liddell to hate Tito again. (The Rumble)

- Mark Coleman trying to right some wrongs. (Cagewriter)

- Jon Fitch to rematch Thiago Alves at UFC 111. (MMA Fighting)

- UFC 109 preview and predictions. (Heavy)

- Mike Swick discusses his best-of-three match Paulo Thiago. (Fight Magazine)

- "UFC Undisputed 2010" makes some gameplay improvements. (MMA Mania)

- Pat Barry vs. Gary Goodridge in a K-1 bout from 2007. (MMA Scraps)

- Wisconsin becomes 43rd state to sanction MMA. (MMA Payout)

- Has MMA taken over your life? (Bleacher Report)

- UFC 109 might be the most experiential sports event this weekend. (Huffington Post)

- USC lands 13 year-old quarterback. (Scores Report)

- One in five people afflicted with the "unfitness gene." (Asylum)

- Hoosiers: A movie about being a man. (Ask Men)

- Super Bowl bingo drinking game. (Holy Taco)

- 18 awesome David Caruso memes. (Screen Junkies)

- New Jersey grandma disgusted by "Jersey Shore." (Break)

- Beer Tour: Denver. (Made Man)

- You may be infected with Danica Fever. (All Left Turns)

- Shark, alligator, man: the food chain in action. (Nothing Toxic)

(Couture vs. Coleman hype video by Genghis Con. Respect your elders, son.)

ATTENTION, POTATO NATION: It’s Friday afternoon, which means there’s still time to join MMA FightPicker and submit your predictions for tomorrow night’s UFC 109 card. For the thousands of players who have already signed up, we thank you, and we want you to know that we’ll be battling alongside you. In fact, BF and BG have both joined "Palooka Pool 30 #173" in an effort to determine a house champion. (Ed. note: The loser of this challenge will have to get a tattoo on his ass that says "Ben owns this. Not me, the other Ben.") So please join a FightPicker pool if you haven’t already, then take a look at how we’re answering the questions this week…

1. Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman at UFC 109: Who will win?
BF: Randy Couture. If Couture can only beat one type of fighter on the UFC roster, it’s the type that Coleman happens to be: old, a little bit slow, and too dependent on his wrestling ability.
BG: Randy Couture. Couture is the master of the gameplan. Coleman drives around Vegas for two days with his low-fuel light on because he’s always late to practice, and runs out of gas on the 215 even though he "put that little extra in there" to begin with. Difference in mental preparation, is what I’m saying.

2. Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman: Who will score the first takedown?
BF: Randy Couture. This is a little tougher to call, because sometimes the first takedown is determined in part by who’s gunning for takedowns right out of the gate, which should be Coleman. I still think Couture can stifle him until he’s ready to work for something out of the clinch, maybe early in the second round.
BG: Randy Couture. Ditto to all that. You might see these two guys try to prove a point by slugging for a couple rounds, but the Natural will eventually put Coleman on his back from the clinch.

3. Nate Marquardt vs. Chael Sonnen: Who will win?
BF: Nate Marquardt. Chael Sonnen says he doesn’t know what tools he has to beat Marquardt with. It might be the most sensible thing he’s said in weeks.
BG: Nate Marquardt. Okay, agreeing with you is starting to get very boring. I’d better start making some ridiculous picks to liven things up around here…

(‘Oh, all the free kittens are gone? That’s cool. You might want to take that ad out of the paper. Just, you know, so somebody like me doesn’t get his hopes up only to have them crushed and ground into a fine, depressing powder. But whatever.’)

If somehow you didn’t know who Chael Sonnen was before this week, chances are you do now.  He’s spent the run-up to his fight with Nate Marquardt at UFC 109 making inflammatory statements about almost everyone but his opponent.  I spoke to Sonnen for this SI.com feature on Saturday night’s bout, and as expected it turned out to be an interesting conversation.  Here, for your enjoyment, are selected outtakes from that talk.

Lately you’ve been making waves with your comments about Anderson Silva, saying he actually speaks perfect English but hates the media too much to talk to them. I guess I’m wondering, if it’s not a ploy to get attention, why go after Anderson now?

I didn’t really say anything about Anderson. All I said is what you said there, and that’s no big deal. Once I destroy Nate Marquardt in a few days I will set my sights on him and I will really let it go. Believe me, when I sink my teeth into this guy, those comments aren’t going to seem like anything. I was making a very fair observation. Anderson Silva speaks English. Any time the media comes around he has such disdain for you guys that it’s ‘se habla Espanol.’ He doesn’t have to talk to the media, and in fact he refuses to, and yet the media goes out and strokes his ego and puts him on the cover of everything. It’s the craziest thing I’ve seen.

(This can mean only one of two things: either the UFC is putting on a main event between two MMA dinosaurs, or it’s ‘makeover your dad’ week on "The Ellen Degeneres Show." Photo courtesy of Combat Lifesyle’s presser gallery.)

So who’s going to win the old-timer’s main event bout at UFC 109? Which undercard fighter is most likely to join the ranks of the unemployed after this weekend? Why is my Toyota making that weird sound? At least two of these important questions will be answered in this installment of Ben vs. Ben. Read on to find out which remains a mystery.

There’s some crazy talk that the winner of Randy Couture-Mark Coleman could be in the running for a title shot. Do you have any interest in seeing that? If not, what would you recommend as a next step for the winner and the loser?

BF: If by “in the running,” you mean well behind the winner of Rampage Jackson-Rashad Evans and somewhere just in front of the winner of Tito Ortiz-Chuck Liddell, then sure. In other words, the elderly survivor here is not completely out of the picture. At least not until he is forced to win at least one more fight, at which point he’ll be knocked right out of the picture once again.

(Props: Fightlinker)

Universal Soldier: Regeneration hit DVD shelves this week, with Andrei Arlovski in the role of "NGU," the lead bad guy. Apparently, MMA veteran Mike Pyle is in the film as well, and winds up getting dead’ed in a fight scene with the Pitbull — which begs the question, if Arlovski had that blade on him the whole time, why didn’t he use it right away? Do Universal Soldiers operate by a strange code of honor when it comes to hand-to-hand combat? And when you call a Universal Soldier a "fucking prick" when one is about to kill you, is there any chance that it will hurt its android-feelings, or is it pretty much an empty gesture at that point? We’re assuming that watching the movie will answer these questions, and many others. Amazon.com’s glowing review of the film calls Regeneration "a rare sequel that far outstrips the original," and credits the realism of the fight scenes to director John Hyams, who was also responsible for the must-see 2003 documentary The Smashing Machine.

(Looks like somebody forgot to "put that little extra in there."  Photo courtesy of The Sun.)

Now that we’ve relaunched our t-shirt giveaways, it’s like a hot load of reeking chum has been tossed into the water with you blood-crazed commenting-sharks. Y’all brought it hard this week, until we really didn’t want it anymore, and we were just waiting for you to finish so we could get some sleep. (So to speak.) Moving on…

mynameisalsoben on "Mark Coleman Has Been Going Through Some Times, Brother":
C’mon we shouldn’t be surprised here…Mark’s always been known to have a small gas tank.

mma samurai on "Herschel Walker’s MMA Debut Has Only Emboldened Jose Canseco":
What’s Canseco talking about? Cyborg is the real bad boy of sports.

Viva Hate on "Completely Unnecessary Rematch Alert: Wes Sims vs. Tim Sylvia II":
Loser needs to retire and the winner needs to retire.

And finally, the audience award for Comment of the Week:

steampunk22 on "The New York Times Attempts to Find Out Why Jesus Didn’t Tap":
Why am I not surprised? The church has been trying to tap young boys for the last thousand years!

If your name has been called, please e-mail feedback@cagepotato.com with your real name, address, and shirt size, and we’ll get a CagePotato Devil Horns shirt out to you soon. (Disclaimer: CagePotato.com’s definition of "soon" may be very different from your own.)

(Former internet brawler vs. former NFL bench-sitter. Who ya got?)

UFC head honcho Dana White got down to business with reporters after today’s UFC 109 press conference and told them, among other things, that Kimbo Slice‘s next opponent will indeed be fellow TUF 10 contestant Matt Mitrione.  According to White, the fight is going down at UFC 113 in Montreal, and you know what that means, right?  The Miami Pound Machine is finally going international, playa!

From where I sit, which is on my front porch whittling away at a stick and keeping an eye on those no good neighborhood kids, it’s a matchup that makes sense.  It pits Slice against another foe who can throw them things, so to speak, and hopefully without any weird catchweight stuff to try and tip the scales in his favor.  It also lends him the appearance of fighting a credible UFC heavyweight, because at least Mitrione was on TV acting crazy quite a bit and is coming off an impressive KO win over Marcus Jones on the finale.  The fact that it was his first professional fight and now he gets Kimbo, well, what did you expect?  They aren’t feeding ‘Ferg to the wolves until they’re sure he’s served his purpose.

Speaking of guys who have served their purpose but continue to hang around, DW spoke about Tito Ortiz‘s claim that Chuck Liddell had recently licked alcoholism thanks to an intervention by White himself.  You’d better sit down for this one, because it sounds as if Tito might have been fudging the truth just a bit:

(‘Screw this, baby. Let’s go to IHOP.’)

You’d think Cesar Gracie – head trainer/enabler to Nick and Nate Diaz – would have enough head cases in his life to keep himself busy. Either that’s not true, or else perhaps he’s developed a taste for difficult students, because now he is actively courting Jose Canseco. Silly us, we hoped it was just an empty, impulsive gesture when team members put out a video of them in a diner inviting Canseco to come on down and learn how to fight. But now the Gracie squad says it has reached an agreement to train Canseco for a fight with Herschel Walker “should that matchup happen.”

Hopefully that matchup won’t happen, and as a result Nick Diaz will not have to face a crisis of conscience for helping Canseco in his efforts to demean MMA for his own financial gain.  Why the Gracie team wants anything to do with him is a mystery in itself.  Unless they’re not getting a big enough piece of Diaz’s six-figure payday and are dealing with a dire financial situation, you’d think they’d want to stay away from a guy who has proved so toxic to everything he touches.

(This is why you should always wear a helmet when doing yes cartwheels.)

After his run at the UFC’s lightweight title ended in bloody failure, Diego Sanchez has decided to recommit himself to his most successful weight class. On Tuesday, the Nightmare confirmed via Twitter that he is indeed returning to welterweight, and will be taking on undefeated British prospect John Hathaway at UFC 114 (May 29th; Las Vegas). Sporting a 12-0 overall record, Hathaway made his Octagon debut last January with a first-round TKO over Thomas Egan, and followed it up with unanimous decision wins over Rick Story and Paul Taylor. The kid’s got moxie, but he’s never fought anybody on Sanchez’s level. Our advice? Try to do exactly what BJ Penn did.

UFC 114 is tentatively being headlined by the long-delayed grudge match between Rashad Evans and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. Other rumored fights on the card include:

—Forrest Griffin vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueria, which was originally slated for UFC 113 in Montreal, but has apparently been pushed back three weeks.

— Todd Duffee vs. Mike Russow; both fighters are looking to pick up their second wins in the UFC. Due to a back injury suffered in November, Duffee hasn’t competed since his seven-second knockout of Tim Hague at UFC 102. Russow also made his UFC debut at #102, earning a unanimous decision over Justin McCully.

You may not know this if you are not an American, or if you are a shut-in who reads nothing but MMA news and advice columns on the internet, but the Super Bowl is this Sunday.  It’s the one weekend where even non-football fans pretend to be interested in the game so they can gain access to a bunch of high-calorie snacks that they did not prepare.  Statistically, it’s also a great weekend to get a DUI, be involved in a domestic violence situation, or throw up.  Bonus points if you hit the trifecta.

But if you’re looking for expert predictions on Sunday’s game, don’t ask a bunch of MMA fighters.  Many of them can’t be bothered with pro sports that don’t involve sanctioned face-punching, and others are Brazilian or British or some other damn thing, which means they are barely even aware of the existence of the NFL.  Still, watching Demian Maia do his best to understand the situation is charming in a way.  Watching Frank Trigg pretend that he’s co-hosting the pre-game show definitely is not.  

Instead of trying to figure out who will win, you should probably focus your energy on deciding what to do this Sunday while your UFC 109 hangover is wearing off.  To that end, our friends at Holy Taco have devised a helpful flowchart for you to consult.  And if you need help getting pumped for some serious binge eating, the boys at Greg Jackson’s gym have got you covered after the jump.

Things to love about Steve Cofield‘s interview with Mark Coleman, in no particular order:

– The way Coleman describes a car accident in which he skidded through the intersection and went up on "the medium."

– That he says he’s been living in the Palace Station of late and dreads leaving because of all the stuff he has to pack up, making him the first person in history to put off a move from the Palace Station to the Manadalay Bay.

– That when Coleman finishes telling his story about running out of gas on the 215 freeway and Cofield asks if he’s ever had something similar happen before he responds, "Well, hell yeah."

(Rolles Gracie vs. Sam Holloway, 9/20/07)

A quick look at the four fresh talents who will be hunting for success in the Eight-Sided Shape on Saturday night…

PHIL DAVIS (LHW)
Experience: 4-0 record (3 wins by first-round stoppage) in various regional leagues. Last competed in June ’09, choking out David Baggett at a UCFC event in Pittsburgh.
Will be fighting: Brian Stann (8-2, 2-1 UFC)
Lowdown: They call him "Mr. Wonderful." A four-time All-American and 2008 Division I National Wrestling Champion for Penn State, Davis began his MMA education with Greg Jackson before moving to San Diego, where he now works out with Brandon Vera at the Alliance Training Center. His fighting mentality was instilled in him from an early age, as he had to scrap with his two older brothers for two available seats at their family’s dinner table. By the age of 12, Davis was “eating dinner almost every night.” [Ed. note: Wow, that's kind of fucked up.] Davis thinks it’s pretty cool that Brian Boitano gets roses thrown at him after his performances, and would like that to happen for him someday.

RONNYS TORRES (LW)
Experience: 14-1 record (12 wins by stoppage), with all fights taking place in Brazilian leagues including Shooto Brazil and Jungle Fight.
Will be fighting: Melvin Guillard (22-8-1 with 1 no-contest, 5-4 UFC)
Lowdown: Due to a series of injuries, Torres has been out of action since September 2008, when he scored a first-round submission over Eliene Silva at Jungle Fight 11; Torres was originally supposed to face Guillard last April.  The Nova Uniao prospect with the oddly-pluralized first name has had to cut over 30 pounds to make the lightweight limit. He plans on making his cage-entrance to gospel music. "It is step by step that I will arrive to the top," Torres says. "I only ask that God illuminates me."