(Video courtesy YouTube/TheReem.com)

The clip above is from Alistair Overeem’s forthcoming documentary. The film itself looks decent and seems like it’s going to be interesting. I’m just hoping that Ubereem hasn’t decided to drop his "Demolition Man" monicker in favor of the lesser-used, ambiguously gay nickname, "The Reem."

He should ask UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar about the importance of choosing nicknames wisely. Only recently have fans and pundits forgotten that he actually began his MMA career fighting under the nickname "The Big Pink Pounder."

(Not only do yo’ breff stank, I bet you don’t even know what a best boy does, fool.)

In a recent interview with Bisping.tv, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson says that taking the role of B.A. Baracus in the film remake of the A-Team had nothing to do with avoiding a planned post-TUF 7 showdown with Rashad Evans, like many suggested and that he hasn’t gone "Hollywood." 

“I still want to clear [something] up…some of my fans don’t understand why I didn’t fight Rashad in the beginning. I don’t think…the fans that don’t understand now, I don’t think they’ll ever understand. Just because I’m a fighter, doesn’t mean I can’t do other things. I just want my fans to know…no matter what, even though I haven’t been in the cage for a while…people think that I went Hollywood, people always got negative stuff to say. People always underestimate me. I’ve been in this game for a while; I just think it’s funny. I’m just gonna go out there and do my job. I wanna knock Rashad out as quick as possible and get on with my career." 

(Jay Silva and Chris Leben show off their top-of-the-food-chain striking at UFC Fight Night 20. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

By DL “It’s Latin for Warrior” Richardson

After news broke Friday that former top-10 middleweight Paulo Filho was possibly flaking out on his Bellator 18 fight against Hector Lombard, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney replied that his people were in contact with Filho’s people and everyone’s duckies were in a row. Filho’s story had been that he would not receive a visa in time to travel to the US for the event, and indicated that the problem was either with Bellator officials or his own management, but had nothing to do with him. He was actually kinda bummed about it, poor guy, telling GracieMag: “I’m really upset because I’ve been training a lot. I did everything just right; I don’t know what to say.”

Despite Bellator’s official line that everything is fine, and everyone should just be cool, like a couple of little Fonzies, rumors are circulating that Paulo will be replaced by 5-3 fellow Brazilian Jay Silva. Silva, who went 0-2 in the UFC against CB Dollaway and Chris Leben, was apparently Bellator’s backup just in case something happened. Like a volcano. Or Filho going all batshit crazy.

Bellator’s press agents were not immediately available for comment.

UPDATE, 12:48 p.m. ET: Rebney has confirmed the news. And so, Bellator 18′s "SuperFight" is downgraded to an "OkayFight." At least we still have the featherweight semis to look forward to.

(Rua vs. Jackson, PRIDE Total Elimination, 4/23/05)

Randy Couture may be itching for a title shot against Mauricio Rua, but thankfully, logic will prevail in the light-heavyweight division. Dana White confirmed yesterday that the winner of the Quinton Jackson vs. Rashad Evans headliner at UFC 114 (May 29th, Las Vegas) will get the first crack at Shogun’s belt. If Rampage can pull off a victory in his comeback fight — his first appearance since beating Keith Jardine 14 months ago then "quitting" the UFC to film The A-Team — it would set up a rematch with Rua, who beat the crap out of him five years ago in PRIDE.

Related: In an interview with Sherdog before UFC 113, Rua gave his thoughts on another 205-pound star who he might have to tangle with at some point — Jon Jones. "He is a great young fighter, too damn good, and he’s coming with everything in our division," Rua said. "He is very good in wrestling. I think he and Cain Velasquez are the two guys with the best wrestling in MMA today, together with Georges St. Pierre. He’s a very good wrestler, very dangerous. He’s a guy who will give a lot of people trouble." Will Rua be able to avoid the Light-Heavyweight Title Hot Potato Curse™ long enough to battle Bones for the belt one day?

(William Phelps Eno would be rolling in his grave if he knew he could have trademarked the shape of the stop sign he invented.)

You would think that with all of the bad press they’ve had in the past few weeks from the ludicrous delay in granting David Loiseau’s license for UFC 113 and the fallout from the Paul Daley sucker punch at one of their sanctioned events that the Régie des Alcools des Courses et des Jeux (RACJ) would want to stay under the radar for a while.

You’d be wrong.

("God, I hope he didn’t drink out of my water bottle before I sat down.")

Michael Bisping was asked today by MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani to give his thoughts  on fellow UK fighter Paul Daley’s post-UFC 113 attack of opponent Josh Koscheck and let’s just say that "The Count" was much less supportive of his countryman than expected.

"What can I say? It was one of the stupidest things that I have ever seen. Paul’s a very talented young man, he’s got a bright future ahead of him and he was getting his UFC career off to a fantastic start and it’s a shame to see a few seconds of madness ruin such a great potential career," Bisping told Helwani. "But this is a professional sport and we’re professional sportsman, you can’t act like that. I, myself, have done years and years of interviews and things like that, talking about how we’re not thugs, we’re professional athletes, we’re martial artists. Behavior like that just plays into stereotypes. It’s just a bit of a shame, really."

(Dos Santos knocked out Stefan Struve in 54 seconds. Nelson knocked out Struve in 39 seconds. It’ll be a stretch, but we’re confident that the UFC can somehow twist that into a "grudge match" angle.)

According to a report published this morning on MMA Junkie, a heavyweight tilt between Junior Dos Santos and Roy Nelson is being targeted for UFC 117 (August 7th, Oakland). Nelson was previously slated to fight Cheick Kongo at UFC 116 in July, but Kongo won’t be able to make that date because of a back injury, and since Dos Santos had been stuck in a holding pattern without an opponent, it seems that the UFC will have Cigano and Big Country square off against each other. Dos Santos has already stated that he’d be down to fight the TUF 10 winner, and Nelson would also welcome the matchup:

"That might be a fight that might happen. I’m hoping, all you can do is hope…If you think about who’s out there fighting for the belt, or getting ready to fight for the belt it would be Brock (Lesnar) of course and Shane (Carwin), and then right underneath them it’s Dos Santos and Velasquez. So those are the four guys I’m looking for that can kind of catapult me right into belt contention."

(Heavyweights and generic metal-riffs, baby. If this doesn’t get you amped up, then YOU’RE A PUSSY! YEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! Props: shosports)

Though he made a valiant effort in his FightPicker Head-to-Head debut — correctly predicting that Shogun would win by stoppage, Joe Doerksen would score an upset over Tom Lawlor, and Sam Stout would pick up another Fight of the Night bonus — Mike Russell’s excessive love of his Canadian countrymen (and Paul Daley for some reason) proved to be his undoing, as he was edged out by BG, 8-6. Not that getting eight out 13 pool-questions right is anything to brag about. (Aaron Rampey is LOL’ing at our sorry asses right now.) But hey, it was a tough card to predict, with some very surprising outcomes. Did any of you run the table and get every question right?

If you came out ahead this week, why not take your PotatoChip surplus and go extra-big for the current pools, which focus on Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery. Featuring the heavyweight championship fight between Alistair Overeem and Brett Rogers, the event goes down this Saturday at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, and will be broadcast live on Showtime starting at 9 p.m. ET. We’ve also included a few questions related to Shine III: Worlds Collide, which is headlined by former boxing champ Ricardo Mayorga taking on Din Thomas. Check out the questions after the jump and pick well, my friends…

(Video courtesy Sherdog.com)

According to new UFC light heavyweight kingpin Mauricio "Shogun" Rua’s manager, a man who held the title twice in the past is gunning for the next shot at his fighter’s strap. 

Marcelo Alonso told Sherdog.com’s Andy Cotterill that Randy Couture could be Shogun’s first test as champion, contingent on the fact that he doesn’t get caught by a KO shot by UFC newcomer and former boxing champ James Toney when the pair clash at UFC 118 in August.
 

(Shogun quietly killing all fighters’ future use of lame excuses why they didn’t perform in important fights)

One story that has been buried by the Paul Daley sucker punch debacle is that newly-crowned UFC light heavyweight champion Mauricio "Shogun" Rua went under the surgeon’s knife for an emergency appendectomy just seven weeks ago. The estimated recovery time for the procedure is between four and six weeks, but knowing that the most important fight of his life against Lyoto Machida was rapidly approaching, Rua returned to light training just two weeks after surgery and hard sparring after four.

In spite of his abridged training camp, Shogun made quick work of Machida, stopping the previously unbeaten and reputedly invincible former champion in 3:35 of the opening frame of their second official meeting Saturday night at UFC 113 in Montreal.

(Props: WatchKalibRun)

It wasn’t shown on Saturday night’s pay-per-view broadcast, but Jason MacDonald‘s return to the Octagon at UFC 113 didn’t exactly go as planned. Midway through the first round of their prelim fight, John Salter scored a takedown against MacDonald, whose left leg snapped underneath him in horrifying, Joe Theismann-esque fashion. The result? A broken tibia and fibula, and a dislocated ankle. Get well soon, Jason. "The Athlete"’s overall UFC record dropped to 5-6 following the TKO loss via injury, while Salter picked up his first UFC win. And as you can see, he was pretty damn pleased with himself.

MacDonald wasn’t the only fighter who left Montreal busted up. Patrick Cote broke his right hand in his losing effort against Alan Belcher — a terribly unfortunate outcome for a guy who was already coming back from a year-and-a-half of injury inactivity.

(How Sakuraba earned his nickname. Props: Jermac2009)

It looks like DREAM will try to borrow some heat from an old Pride-era rivalry to build up its next show. The leading Japanese fight club held a press conference earlier today at Kazushi Sakuraba‘s Laughter7 gym in Tokyo, where it was announced that Sakuraba would return later this month at DREAM.14 (May 29th, Saitama), against Ralek Gracie. The son of UFC co-founder Rorion Gracie and third-eldest grandson of Helio Gracie, Ralek is an instructor at the Gracie Academy Headquarters in Torrance, and is 2-0 as an MMA competitor; he holds wins over Katsuyori Shibata and Alavutdin Gadzhiyev, both by first-round armbar. 

In Sakuraba, Ralek will be facing his family’s most well-known nemesis. During his legendary run in Pride, Saku went 4-0 against the Gracie clan, submitting Royler and Renzo, scoring a decision over Ryan, and making Royce quit after 90 minutes of fighting at the 2000 Grand Prix Finals. (Sakuraba lost a 2007 rematch with Royce at K-1 Dynamite!! USA by decision, though the UFC pioneer tested positive for steroids after the match.) Sakuraba has won his last two fights in DREAM — a first-round kimura over boxer Rubin Williams, and a first-round kneebar against Zelg Galesic, which he secured after taking an ungodly amount of punishment. 

DREAM.14′s current lineup and videos of Ralek’s two MMA fights are after the jump…

(Photo courtesy Esther Lin/Fanhouse)

Recently unemployed fighter Paul "Semtex" Daley released the following statement Sunday evening through the UK-based Telegraph newspaper, apologizing for his post-fight attack of opponent Josh Koscheck at Saturday night’s UFC 113 event in Montreal, Quebec:

(Props: MMAFighting)

Even in victory, Josh Koscheck managed to officially become one of the greatest MMA heels of all time on Saturday night, first with his apparent acting job following Paul Daley‘s illegal knee attempt, and then with his kiss-off to the Montreal crowd, vowing that the Penguins would defeat the Canadiens in the NHL Eastern Conference semi-finals, and that he would whoop their beloved GSP when they meet later this year.

In this post-fight interview with Ariel Helwani, Koscheck explains that his emotions got the better of him, and he’s sorry for his behavior during and after the fight. Just kidding! Instead, Kos makes a number of bold statements, few of which will endear him to the fans:

(Video of the Daley/Koscheck cheap shot, courtesy of LynchTheGrynch; sorry about those first eight seconds, guys.)

In case you missed the press conference, the big news coming out of UFC 113‘s post-event aftermath is that Paul Daley and Kimbo Slice have been released from the UFC. Daley suffered his first loss in the Octagon after being smothered by Josh Koscheck for three rounds in their co-headlining bout last night, then followed it up by slugging Kos after the bell (see above). As Dana White explained to reporters, the poor decision earned Daley a permanent ban from the UFC:

As for Kimbo, his lopsided loss to rookie TUF 10 vet Matt Mitrione was enough to seal his fate. But unlike Daley, White has nothing but respect for the former YouTube brawler:

Remember to check out the live post-fight presser here at around 1:00am EST. The player is after the jump. 

(Canadian Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg will be calling the action from Quebec) 

UFC 112 is live tonight from La Belle Province and we’ll be starting round-by-round updates starting at 10pm EST.

As much as people complained about it from the get-go, the card is pretty damn good. I’m predicting that a lot of the lower profile guys are going to steal the show tonight and some of the bigger name guys are going to disappoint. 

Regardles of who wins, who loses and whose FightPicker picks shock Potato Nation and makes them a giant among men, this should be one of the better shows we’ve seen in a while

A lot of questions will finally be answered in Montreal tonight, like:

Who wins the Machida-Rua do over? 
Will Koscheck really try to stand with Daley?
and 
Will Kimbo eat Meathead with his bread? 

Get on your Canadian tuxedos, grab a bottle of Molson and refresh often; it’s time, eh.

(The best part of having a million dollar bill on your person at all times? No more ATM fees.)

By DL Richardson

File it under “W” for “We Knew This Shit Would Happen”: GracieMag.com is reporting that Pride standout turned crazy man Paulo Filho will not be able to compete at next week’s Bellator 18 show. Filho was scheduled to face current Bellator middleweight champ Hector Lombard in a non-title SuperFight, which was, on paper at least, an intriguing matchup — much more compelling than last night’s Alvarez-Neer spanking. Filho, who lists his turn-ons as “Pitbulls, tattoos, and tattoos of pitbulls,” told GracieMag that some kind of administrative snafu was to blame for his failure to secure a visa: “It seems the event took too long in sending out the letter I needed to present at the consulate and I’m not sure but it could be there was some kind of failure on the part of my managers. So, I won’t get my visa in time.”

Now, the Bellator guys have done a remarkable job of reacting to fighter travel problems once already this season: When the Icelandic volcano apocalypse prevented welterweight “Judo” Jim Wallhead from traveling to the US to participate in the tournament, Rebney quickly substituted Ryan Thomas, who’d lost by a controversial referee stoppage to Ben Askren. Ryan Thomas won, setting up a rematch with Askren in the semifinals. Whether they’ll be able to work similar magic this quickly remains to be seen, but if they manage to pull a good replacement out of their asses, it will rival anything Toby Imada does for “Submission of the Year.”

(Kimbo Slice works the pads in preparation for UFC 113 and talks about Meathead being a Meathead. Props: YouTube.com/UFC) 

Bas Rutten travels to the Far East to learn the secret of the Seven Crane Kick. There were no survivors. (Tokyo Five)

UFC Preview Show With Pat Barry (MMAFighting)

Dana White vows to make up for UFC 112 with the fans (MMAJunkie)

Brazilians Weigh in on Machida-Rua II (Tatame)

UFC Lightweight Champ, Frankie Edgar Dogged by Win (TorontoSun)

UFC 113 MMA Live Special (Sherdog)

Silva to vacate title and move to 205 if he beats Sonnen and Belfort 
(MMAJunkie)

DFW’s UFC 113 video blog #1 (YouTube/UFC)

World’s Strongest Man Wins at KSW 13 (MMAFighting)

Paul Taylor Out, Canadian Newcomer  Holst in Against Gunderson at TUF 11 Finale (MMAJunkie)

Beatles-Zombie movie in the works (ScreenJunkies)

10 Indie Awesome Comedies You Missed (MadeMan)

25 Worst Moms Ever (HolyTaco)

Model Denise Milani (Chickipedia)

Nascar Skydiver Crashes (AllLeftTurns)

British Political Hopeful Beats Up Hoodlums on the Campaign Trail (NothingToxic)

Asylum Round-Up: Naked News and Bizarre Piercings (Asylum)

Jack Nicholson Bitches Out a Ref (ScoresReport)

(I have to admit, when Goldstein suggested we do black and white portraits wearing our UFC-watching outfits for our FightPicker column I was skeptical, but I think it works.)

The UFC returns to Montreal Saturday, and for the third time in as many years I’m at home, four hours away in Ontario watching the pay-per-view on TV. *sigh* Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Anyway, I’ll be live here Saturday night with up-to-the-minute updates and observations of the fights, while BG throws on his ascot and monocle and hits up his local sports bar, dry martini in hand, to wax poetic about the card and why Kimbo IS NOT the best fighter in MMA with the pro-TUF Affliction-wearing crowd.

With out further adieu, I give you the inaugural Ben vs. Mike (or the “new Ben” or “not Ben” or “inferior Ben,” or whatever pseudonym floats your boat) FightPicker Head-to-Head: UFC 113 Edition.

(We’re assuming he couldn’t find a big enough cross to do Kimo Leopoldo. Top pic courtesy of seandiesel.)

The rumors are true, folks. Not only will the winner of tomorrow night’s welterweight co-headliner between Josh Koscheck and Paul Daley earn a shot at Georges St. Pierre’s belt, but that fighter will also get to do a tour of duty opposite GSP on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter. Dana White confirmed the news today before the UFC 113 weigh-ins at the Bell Centre in Montreal. TUF 12 will begin filming in a few weeks, and is slated to premiere on September 15th. 

As for the results of today’s weigh-ins, the numbers are after the jump. No real surprises, although the weight differences in both heavyweight bouts were close to 30 pounds. Plus, Tom Lawlor showed up to the weigh-ins as Dan Severn, following previous weigh-in tributes to Just Bleed Guy and Harold Howard.

(Have a nice trip, see you this summer. Photo courtesy of MMAFighting.com)

Props to BloodyElbow for tipping us off on the early betting lines for UFC 118 (August 29th, Boston), in which former champ BJ Penn has been pegged as a minus-365 favorite over new champ Frankie Edgar, while "The Answer" is still a sizable underdog at plus-285. Going into their first fight at UFC 112, the line was -675/+552 in Penn’s favor, meaning that Edgar’s chances have been upgraded from "snowball’s chance in hell" to "snowball’s chance in Phoenix."

We haven’t seen a champion come in as such a significant underdog since Serra vs. St. Pierre II. The question is: Is it justified? Oddsmakers are masters of tapping into public sentiment about a matchup, and preying on bettors’ emotions. Basically, they want you to put your money on Edgar with the hopes that you’ll triple your investment, so that they can collect it all when the Old BJ shows up and cleans house. But when the betting line starts to drift too far away from reality, they run the risk of getting burned.

Just a friendly reminder that you can watch the weigh-ins here at 4:00pm EST as long as the stream has been ironed out since yesterday’s press conference debacle.

Video player after the jump.

(Hopefully the judges can decide who won, not just who didn’t lose enough this time around.)

According to Mauricio Rua’s muay thai trainer, Andre "Dida" Amade, they are expecting Lyoto Machida to take the fight to the ground to avoid taking the amount of damage he took from Shogun the last time the two met.

In an interview with Sherdog, Amade, who imitated Machida’s karate style for sparring sessions with his fighter throughout his camp in Brazil, says he and the rest of Shogun’s coaches are betting the farm that Lyoto will rely heavily on his black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu to ensure he retains his title.

“For Lyoto it is not very good to stay standing. He knows that his karate is not going to defeat muay Thai. In my coach’s opinion, he will want to work his jiu-jitsu with Shogun. I think he will not fight muay Thai because he saw that in the last fight he was badly hurt and was not effective. So I think he will want to work his jiu-jitsu. We already have the strategy to beat Machida. In [the last] fight, we used a strategy for Shogun to kill Machida’s game and our tactics worked,” Amade said. “We just had not counted on the judges. Shogun is hungry for this fight, and we are already feeling the taste of the belt. Shogun shows in each training session the desire to beat Machida. I do not want to be in Machida’s shoes because Shogun will take this belt with his kicks.” ”

(Video courtesy YouTube/UFC.com)

Okay, I made the quote up, but this short clip of K-Ferg talking about all of the bodily fluids and waste products he’s going to beat out of "Meathead" Saturday night is an instant classic.

After watching the clip at the press conference yesterday, Lyoto Machida’s dad raised a glass of piss and toasted Kimbo’s prediction. According to manager Ed Soares, the senior Machida is purported to have said, "I’ll drink to that," but Shogun’s translator informs us that the translation was not correct.

He revealed that he actually said something to the effect of, "I am interested to know what the sap of a black oak tastes like. Will the athletic commission be handing out samples of the leftover specimens?"

(Well, he certainly has his mother‘s cheekbones. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)

Adding to the long list of horrible stuff that has happened to him in his career, James Irvin‘s last fight at UFC of Versus: Vera vs. Jones was an utter disaster. The Sandman looked painfully emaciated in his first attempt at middleweight, and crumpled to the mat after taking an eye-punch from Alessio Sakara. It was the fourth time in his last five appearances that Irvin has ended a fight on the mat writhing in pain or otherwise immobilized. (See also: Anderson Silva slicing him up, his blown out ACL/MCL against Thiago Silva, and the DQ victory via illegal knee he endured against Luis Cane.) Truly, the Octagon has become a dangerous place for James Irvin. Unfortunately, quitting doesn’t seem to be an option.

Despite the fact that he hasn’t won a fight in over two years, MMA Weekly is reporting that Irvin will get one last shot to redeem himself at UFC on Versus 2 (August 1st, Salt Lake City). Irvin will be heading back up to 205 — thank God — to face Igor Pokrajac, the Cro Cop disciple who has gone 0-2 in the Octagon, dropping fights to Vladimir Matyushenko and James "Hey, Tuna" Te-Huna. Obviously, it’s a must-win for both guys, though if Irvin can make it through the fight without any serious injuries, you have to consider that a victory in itself.

Related: UFC on Versus 2 will also host a middleweight contest between Yushin Okami and Mark Munoz. Rebounding from his UFC 104 loss to Chael Sonnen, Okami turned in one of the most impressive performances of his career when he beat down Lucio Linhares at "Florian vs. Gomi" in March. Munoz is a perfect 3-0 at middleweight, and most recently scored a TKO over Kendall Grove in UFC 112′s Fight of the Night.

(The end of the Alvarez/Neer fight, via YouTube.com/BellatorMMA.)

By DL “Tank Abbot” Richardson

Some of Bellator’s biggest names were on the card last night at the Citi Performing Arts Center, for the first-ever major MMA show in Boston. Two semi-final matchups for the lightweight tourney were on tap, plus a 160-pound SuperFight between Eddie Alvarez and Josh Neer, and a heavyweight exhibition featuring one of Brock Lesnar‘s training dummies partners. But not everything went as planned. A full rundown of Bellator 17 is after the jump. Prepare yourselves — some crazy shit went down…

(Kos Ross is not impressed by your picture.)

Fan-made Photoshop contest to pick a new hairdo for Josh Koscheck: FREE

Kinko’s glossy color copy of winning entry (pictured below): $1

Look on Koscheck’s face when he is presented with the photo: PRICELESS

(Photo courtesy of twitter.com/danawhite)

Here’s another reason to pay attention to the fights this weekend: At today’s UFC 113 press conference, Dana White confirmed that the winner of the co-headlining bout between Josh Koscheck and Paul Daley will be the next challenger to Georges St. Pierre‘s welterweight belt.

I’d actually be interested to see how Koscheck does in a rematch with GSP. He has the wrestling skills to stuff a takedown here and there, and his hands are more powerful than the champ’s. As long as he doesn’t focus on taking St. Pierre down like he did during their first fight in 2007 — and failing, and failing, and failing — he could keep things competitive. But my God, if Daley wins? Be prepared for the 25-minute sequel to GSP vs. Hardy that nobody asked for. Here’s the irony: Paul Daley really does have one-punch knockout power; he’s everything that the UFC hyped up/exaggerated Dan Hardy to be. The problem is, Semtex is notoriously weak on the ground, and GSP would have no trouble putting him there. We already know how this story goes, and no amount of hyperbolic promotion is going to change the outcome.

It hasn’t been officially confirmed that the Koscheck/Daley winner will coach TUF 12 opposite GSP, but rumors are pointing in that direction, and both fighters would be open to the opportunity.

Random thought: Jake Shields‘s first match in the UFC (fingers crossed) should be Paulo Thiago, and that match should produce a title contender. Discuss.

(Richie Two Times poses with Ol’ Glue-Head. Photo courtesy of the Rich Attonito Fan Page on Facebook.)

In the latest installment of his TUF 11 guest-blog, Team Liddell’s Rich Attonito tells you everything you need to know about hot tubs, cold pools, Chuck’s pre-dodgeball jitters, and the baffling result of last night’s fight. Enjoy.

With Team Liddell up 4-1 on Team Ortiz, we start to see some doubt arising from Tito’s squad. Kyacey felt like Kris may have been over-trained leading up to his fight. McCray seemed to gas-out in the second and third rounds, which raised some concern. Kris’s wind may have failed him, but his toughness carried him through. I haven’t seen a guy take punches like that since Vinny the Chin, the Long Island legend from YouTube.

I remember over-training being a concern in my mind going into the show. If you run your body down too much and don’t give it enough recovery time, you’ll begin to physically break down and become more susceptible to injury. I knew that both coaches would push their teams hard, which is perfectly fine because that’s what we are there for. But the lack of time in between training sessions to rest and the intensity that had to be continuously maintained, day in and day out, was definitely a cause of concern for many people. Trusting the coaches and their methodology of training and experience was critical in this setting.

To combat the effects of hard training and soreness, at night when the practices were finished for the day, everyone would jump into the pool at the house. The pool was pretty much as cold as any ice bath you could take. It was so cold it would burn when you got in. It was tougher for some guys then for others. McCray and Tavares would swim around no problem like they were in an eighty degree pool at a country club. I remember one time Kris was doing the backstroke across the pool and spitting water out of his mouth. Brad would often dive off of the hot tub and into the pool doing can-openers, suicides, and cannonballs. It wouldn’t take long before the rest of the guys starting joining in.