(Who’s the real draw tomorrow night? Photos courtesy of Esther Lin/Strikeforce)

Joe Riggs on tomorrow night’s Strikeforce women’s tournament, as quoted in a Strikeforce press release sent out last night: “It’s great. They are always exciting. I saw Miesha (Tate) fight up in Minnesota when I was up there fighting last year and she’s very exciting…That tournament style is hard. I’ve done it and it’s no picnic. You come out with just an hour’s rest a little banged up and you feel injuries you didn’t even know you had during the fight. My hat’s off to them."

Joe Riggs on women’s MMA, as quoted in an SB Nation interview published yesterday: "I don’t know what that girl [Sarah Kaufman] is talking about. She’s lucky to even be on TV…As long as they don’t say things like they don’t want to be on the Challengers card and they want to be main events than they’re good. We’re the show. The men are what people are here to see."

("Yeah, I was married before. For one day. Long story." Lots more bizarre photos at myspace.com/therealmikebrown)

A year ago, Mike Brown was the two-time defending featherweight champion of the WEC. Now, he’s a belt-less contender on a 1-2 skid, who most recently suffered a shocking first-round knockout at the hands of Manny Gamburyan. Once again, it’s time to rebuild. According to MMA Junkie, Brown will make his return at WEC 51: Aldo vs. Gamburyan (September 30th; Broomfield, Colorado) against Cole Province (6-1).

Province had a two-fight stint in the WEC in 2008-9, losing a decision to Diego Nunes, then winning a decision over Fredson Paixao — which was deemed a no-contest when Province popped for steroids. In June, Province returned to action at an event in Oklahoma City, where he scored a quick submission over Nick Masters. That was apparently enough to earn him a return ticket to the WEC. To summarize, former champion Mike Brown has to fight a 6-1 drug-cheat who’s never actually won in the WEC. In a way, we feel bad for both of them.

The addition of another WEC star adds even more firepower to a card that’s damn near PPV-worthy. The tentative lineup is after the jump…

(Stay still and let me hit you, you Kalib Starnes wannabe fight avoiding wuss.)

We haven’t seen or heard much from BJ Penn leading up to his UFC 118 rematch with Frankie Edgar, which either means he’s been humbled a bit from the loss or he’s too busy training to talk to the media.

Well, the former UFC lightweight champion jumped back into the limelight with a bang this week, quashing the notion that losing to Edgar knocked him down a peg or two.

In a promo video for the August 28 show, Penn said that Edgar’s corner helped persuade the judges that the New Jersey native won the fight and that Frankie did nothing but run from him for 25 minutes during their fight in Abu Dhabi at UFC 112 back in April.

"He’s running around. Just step up and fight. And then I see his whole team run and pick him up. All your boys put you on their shoulders and dance you around in front of the judges and try to steal the victory. I’m not gonna be a part of that," Penn said. Whatever, man. That’s the man you are. You’re the "ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPION?" Okay. I got you. It’s a joke."

(Talk of bruised ribs and doing god’s work in the cage don’t belong in a post-fight interview)

Watching Anderson Silva get dominated on the feet and the ground by Chael Sonnen for the better part of five rounds Saturday night at UFC 117, a large number of fans and pundits assumed out loud that the middleweight champion must be sick or injured. How else could he be outworked, outstruck and outgrappled by Sonnen for over 23 minutes of a championship bout?

It didn’t take long for Silva to nullify the praise Sonnen’s career defining performance was garnering him as he announced in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan that his own somewhat lethargic performance was a result of an injury, not Chael’s nearly perfectly executed game plan.

Besides the slick, yet last-ditch armbar-triangle combo he threw up and was able to catch Chael with in the dying seconds of the fifth round, Anderson really didn’t do a whole lot in the fight, but instead of praising Sonnen for contributing more than his half to their "Fight of the Night" awarded bout, he instead chalked it up to a rib injury he sustained in training more than a week prior to the fight.

(Click above for larger version. Four competitors, representing four continents. Miesha enjoys cake decorating. Maiju’s turn-ons include the right hook and rear-naked choke. Image courtesy of Strikeforce.)

MMA Junkie passes along word that the format for the 135-pound women’s tournament at Friday’s Strikeforce Challengers event has been tweaked by the Arizona State Boxing Commission, a longtime enemy of epicness. First off, the two first-round matchups — which, again, won’t be determined until tomorrow — will only consist of two 3-minute rounds, rather than the three 3′s that were originally announced. The ASBC has also nixed the idea of a "sudden victory" round, so to prevent the inevitable 19-19 draws, the judges will just call the fight for whoever they think won it, PRIDE-style. (Okay, so that part’s not so bad.) The final match will still consist of three 3-minute rounds.

Two of the tourney’s four participants have previous multi-fight GP experience. Miesha Tate made her pro debut at that infamous 2007 HOOKnSHOOT women’s tournament, where she spent 12 minutes winning a decision over Jan Finney before getting blasted out by Kaitlin Young in 30 seconds. Maiju Kujala last competed at an Upcoming Glory tourney in the Netherlands in March, where she submitted Akvile Vitkauskaite and outpointed Titiana van Polanen, in over 19 minutes of total fight time.

(Image courtesy of UFCFanExpo.com)

We already know a few of you will be attending the UFC Fan Expo in Boston on August 27-28, and hopefully stopping by CagePotato’s booth (#2017), where we’ll be giving away loads of t-shirts and gear and hanging out with our fans. The question is, who wants to get in for free? CagePotato has one extra exhibitor badge on hand, and we’d like to award it to one of our devoted readers. So if you live in the Boston area and you’d like to help us spread CP’s message of positivity, here’s what you’ll need to do:

– Record a video of yourself explaining why you should be selected as CagePotato’s 2010 SuperFan of the World. Please describe how CagePotato has changed your life (for the better), and the ways you would help promote our site at the UFC Fan Expo.
– Upload the video to Break.com by next Thursday (8/19) at midnight.
– When the video’s live, send the link to contest@cagepotato.com.
– Come back Friday the 20th to see who we’ve chosen.

We only expect two or three of you to actually go through with this, so really, your chances of winning are pretty damn good already. Any questions, let us know in the comments section. Good luck.

Related: Keep submitting your CagePotato desktop wallpapers for our Throwdown contest!

(Video courtesy YouTube/Sportsnet)

Don’t let the on-air smile and half-hearted chuckle fool you, UFC president Dana White doesn’t really think James Toney’s remarks about wanting to knock him out the next time he sees him are cute or endearing.

If you didn’t happen to catch the segment above broadcast on Rogers Sportsnet on the weekend with the luxury of subtitles, here’s what Toney said about Dana in an interview he did with BJPenn.com last week.

(Chuck Liddell and Heidi Northcott pose with what appears to be a wax figure of the dude who killed John Lennon. Photoprops: Fightlinker)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

– Opinion: Jon Fitch Has Earned His Title Shot (Watch Kalib Run)

– Randy Couture Isn’t Buying James Toney’s Tales of Gym Submissions (MMA Fighting)

– MMA Legend/Pop Star Genki Sudo Invades New York (MiddleEasy)

– King Mo: "I’m the Underdog Even Though I’m the Champ" (Five Ounces of Pain)

– Brock Lesnar & Mirko Cro Cop Recruit Pat Barry For Their Training Camps (MMA Convert)

– Top 10 Young Prospects in MMA (LowKick)

– Cain Velasquez Explains His "Brown Pride" Tattoo (MMA Scraps)

– Anderson Silva replaces Chael Sonnen as the world’s #1 middleweight following UFC 117. Wait, what? (FIGHT! Magazine)

– Bellator Fires Back, Counter-Sues UFC Over Jonathan Brookins’s Contract (Heavy.com/MMA)

– Reed Harris Previews WEC 50, Expects Brian Bowles to Return in November (Versus MMA Beat)

( UFC contract: $Millions,  30-day suspension: $0, Becoming a bigger heel than Josh Koscheck for sucker punching him after the bell: PRICELESS)

Paul Daley is lucky he didn’t sucker punch Josh Koscheck in Nashville.

Otherwise, he likely would have received a much heftier punishment for the May 8 infraction than the 30-day suspension the Quebec athletic commission — the Régie des Alcools des Courses et des Jeux (Regulators of Alcohol, Racing and Gaming) — sentenced him to in his absence at a hearing in the French-Canadian province today.

Sherdog’s Loretta Hunt is reporting that the suspension may not even affect the British welterweight who fought on the July 18 Impact Fighting Championships card where he submitted Daniel Acacio and who is slated to take on Jorge Masvidal at Shark Fights 13 on Sept. 11 — two days AFTER his suspension ends if it begins immediately.

(Don’t worry, Gina. We won’t let Cyborg on the set.)

It appears that Cris Cyborg may have taken more than just Gina Carano’s Strikeforce belt when she beat the woman many consider to be the most popular female mixed martial arts fighter of all time last August.

She may have taken her will to fight as well.

360 days have passed since her last bout and while the MMA community holds its collective breath waiting for an update on when (or if) Carano will fight again, her former trainer, coach and cornerman Randy Couture isn’t convinced she’ll ever compete again.

(Props: lookoutawhale via MMAMania)

He did it again: Between rounds in his fight against Rafael Dos Anjos at UFC 117, Clay Guida unleashed his trademark Carpenter Burp. Notice how Guida does his best to ensure that the cutman is spared the rancid yogurt-and-Red Bull scent that is surely blasting out of his g.i. tract. That’s a courteous man right there. The definitive compilation of Clay’s UFC-era burps is above; if you enjoy this sort of thing, then enjoy. It’s definitely more fun than watching Kendall Grove pull strips of flesh out of a staph wound, Cabin Fever-style.

After the jump: Jenny Yum ruins Lindsay "Amazon Barbie" Jones’s night with a spinning backfist, at a Tuff-N-Uff event on Friday.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog)

By CagePotato contributor Matt Kaplan

2003: 46-year-old Eugene Pettis has separated himself from gang life and is working to keep his family away from the violence that he ultimately could not escape. On November 13, he is stabbed three times in the chest and killed at a friend’s house across the street from his Milwaukee home.

2004-5: Eugene’s murder remains unsolved. His son Anthony turns his back on years of martial arts training and spirals out of control: “I was a lost cause,” he remembers.

2006: Anthony works his way back to martial arts, taking a job as a tae kwon do instructor at his brother’s academy. He is captivated by MMA and rededicates himself to competitive fighting.

2007: Anthony begins training with kickboxing legend Duke Roufus in November and wins his amateur MMA debut in 24 seconds on January 27, his 20th birthday. He wins his pro debut on December 1 in 36 seconds.

2009: Two days into a January vacation in Cancun, Mexico, Roufus calls Anthony (6-0) with the news that he’s been signed to a five-fight deal with the WEC and is scheduled to make his debut at WEC 40 in April. Vacation’s over.

2010: Anthony (9-1) is one of the WEC’s top lightweights. He’s finished Mike Campbell, Alex Karalexis, and Danny Castillo, and a win over Team Takedown’s Shane Roller at WEC 50 on August 18 could bring a title shot. On a hot August afternoon, Anthony Pettis talks to CagePotato.com about fighting, family, and food. Showtime, playa.

 
(Greg Jackson is once again in control of Diego’s leash.)

Either hell has frozen over or Diego Sanchez has finally realized that all of the stevia and "yes" cartwheels in the world aren’t going to replace top-tier trainers and training partners.

"The Nightmare" has apparently rejoined his  teammates at  Jackson’s MMA after a nearly three year absence from the gym he began training at as a teenager.

Here’s the announcement he tweeted this morning:

(Video courtesy PureFight)

When it was announced that Alan Belcher was forced to pull out of his headlining September 15 UFC Fight Night bout with Demian Maia due to a detached retina he suffered in training, the news was met with a collective, "That sucks. Hopefully when he heals up, the UFC will match them up again."

According to Belcher, he may never get the opportunity to fight Maia again, or anyone else for that matter.

In an interview he did with  PureFight this week, the 26-year-old Biloxi, Mississippi fighter who revealed that he suffered irreparable vision loss as a result of the freak injury said that there is a chance he may never fight again.

Belcher says that he won’t know the extent of the injury or the success of the surgery for at least a couple of months and only then will he be able to assess whether or not continuing to fight will be an option for him or if he will have to walk away from the sport he loves.

(Photo courtesy of MMAMania)

Stefan Struve isn’t a stranger to getting his face bloodied. His preliminary card match against Christian Morecraft at UFC 117 was no different, as the UFC newbie turned Struve’s lip into a busted, swollen mess during the lopsided first round. Like a champion, Struve fought back in the second and scored a brutal KO stoppage. The performance earned Stefan a spot in the ultra-exclusive ranks of the MMA Split Lip Hall of Fame. More notable members are after the jump…

(Can Miesha Tate smash through two fighters in the same night? Photo courtesy of Strikeforce.)

Look, we could talk about Silva and Sonnen all day, but there’s new business to attend to — namely, this is a huge week for women’s MMA. Thursday marks the premiere of Bellator’s third season, which will go down at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. In addition to appearances by Hector Lombard, Eddie Sanchez, and Yves Edwards, Bellator 24 will host two opening-round fights from their 115-pound women’s tournament: Megumi Fujii against late replacement Carla Esparza, and Jessica Aguilar vs. Lynn Alvarez. 

The following night, Strikeforce Challengers comes to the Dodge Theatre in Phoenix, featuring Miesha Tate, Carina Damm, Hitomi Akano, and Maiju Kujala in a one-night 135-pound tournament; first-round matchups will be determined at Thursday’s weigh-ins. If you’d like to enter some MMA FightPicker pools, please make it happen by tomorrow at fightpicker.cagepotato.com or apps.facebook.com/fightpicker. The full list of this week’s questions is after the jump…

("Screw you, society. Jail ain’t so bad after all.")

Considering I also picked Chael Sonnen to win Saturday night, I got an eerily similar empty feeling when I read War Machine’s latest "Big House Blog" and learned that my proclamation that he wouldn’t get through three weeks without getting into some kind of tomfoolery didn’t come to fruition.

I thought for sure that  alcohol+War Machine = spitbag and handcuffs, but apparently the fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver has matured behind bars and instead of scrapping anyone and everyone after consuming his IQ in Jagerbombs, he has taken to sipping his toilet wine while engaging in stimulating conversation with murderous Somalian Muslims.

Who knew jail would have such a good influence on War?

According to one of Anderson Silva’s jiu-jitsu coaches, Ramon Lemos, the UFC middleweight champion likely won’t fight again until March of 2011 as he will need time to heal from a "fractured rib" he sustained in the first round of his seventh title defense saturday night against Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 in Oakland, CA.

Ramos revealed the news to Fighters Only today.

"After the first round he said he broke his ribs. He said told me he could not breathe because of the rib. I told him to forget the rib and work the movement of legs and he would get the triangle… After the fight he went to the hospital and did an x-ray and the doctor said he did not break it, it was just a crack," Lemos recalled. "Anderson is expected to return in February or March." 

(Props: Spladdle)

See? That’s what James Irvin should have done. More memorable moments from UFC 117 continue after the jump, in convenient animated gif form…

(Video courtesy YouTube/GracieAcademy)

If you’ve never seen any of Rorian Gracie’s sons Rener and Ryron’s post-fight submission finish breakdowns, they are very informative whether you’re an armchair expert or a seasoned Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.

You’d assume that they would be biased towards the BJJ practitioners, but both of them are refreshingly honest in their analysis, giving props where props are due. Of course they’re going to give some props and shameless plugs to their academy, but if your great grandfather helped perfect a system of martial arts and your father helped co-found the UFC, you should get a pass.

Anyway, in their most recent edition of the Gracie Breakdown, the brothers discuss the Anderson Silva-Chael Sonnen bout from Saturday’s UFC 117 card and give some insight on the jiu-jitsu of both men.

“That’s who we are. If you don’t want it, don’t come out there. If you don’t want to be hit, don’t step on the field. When we step on the field, you’re going to be hit, and we’re going to hit you hard.” – Rashad Bobino possibly addressing his football opponents OR women who might go to a club he frequents called "The Field."

Remember in high school how great it was when a little guy who was fed up with being picked on went berserk on a much bigger bully and kicked his ass like Ralphie Parker did to Scut Farkus in A Christmas Story?

When Ralphie is former UFC lightweight contender Roger Huerta and Scut is a 240-pound former Texas Longhorn linebacker who sucker punched a woman in the face from behind, it ‘s no surprise that everyone is on the side of the little guy once again.

(Photo courtesy of allelbows)

After pulling off his miracle win against Chael Sonnen at UFC 117, Anderson Silva mentioned to Joe Rogan that he had hurt his ribs coming into the fight. Could that have played a factor in the extended beating that he endured before snatching that Hail Mary triangle-choke submission? Silva’s manager Ed Soares shared details to FightHype (via BloodyElbow):

"It was really close because the doctors didn’t want him to fight. He hurt his rib last Friday in sparring. He hurt it, but he didn’t think it was hurt that bad and then Sunday morning, I had about 13 missed calls in a matter of 25 minutes. They were all from Anderson and he was calling me to tell me he was in pain. He couldn’t breathe. I took him to the hospital and they X-Rayed each rib and they noticed that it was a bit swollen, but there was no fracture. They said it was bruised ribs, but the way he reacted when they touched it and how tender they were, they said it was in the muscle as well as the bruise. I’m not a doctor, but this is just what they told us. They prescribed some Ibuprofen 800 for him because it was so close to the fight, they couldn’t do any Vicodin.

(If there’s one thing that Junior hates, it’s the Safety Dance. Photo courtesy of MMAFighting.)

UFC 117 not only produced a dramatic night of fights, it also provided answers to a lot of burning questions. Here’s what we know, now that the dust has settled in Oakland. (Figuratively speaking. Obviously, there’s still a ton of dust floating around in Oakland.)

Junior Dos Santos Is Not Superhuman 
In round one, he did what we expected him to: beat Roy Nelson like a mulleted heavy-bag. But when Roy managed to survive the onslaught — massive props to Big Country, by the way — Dos Santos visibly slowed down and couldn’t inflict as much damage as he did in the opening frame. The fight didn’t bode well for JDS’s chances against the Lesnar/Velasquez winner. As we saw at UFC 116, Brock can take a brutal beating and come back for round 2 fresh as a daisy.

Matt Hughes Is Still a Threat
When Hughes suffered back-to-back losses to Georges St. Pierre (at UFC 79) and Thiago Alves (at UFC 85), it seemed that his days as a competitor were swirling down the drain. Hughes’s blanket-ish return performance against Matt Serra didn’t prove much, considering Serra’s injuries and ring rust, and his beatdown of Renzo Gracie in Abu Dhabi said more about the loser than the winner. But smashing Ricardo Almeida standing, then choking him out with a front headlock in the first round? That’s a huge feather in Hughes’s cap. This was not a "master’s division"-type fight; Almeida was a legitimate welterweight player, who was coming off his third consecutive win against Matt Brown at UFC 111. Hughes may be more interested in hunting than fighting at this point, but he’s a contender again. The question is: Which Gracie-associated fighter can he get next?

(Suddenly, Thiago felt overcome by déjà vu. He knew he had been here before. Where had it been? In a dream? In another life? Wait, give him a minute, it’ll come to him. PicProps: Tracy Lee/Yahoo Sports)

Jon Fitch emerged victorious over Thiago Alves last night at UFC 117 in a fight that – minus the funky up-kick stoppage – looked pretty much just like the pair’s first meeting from 2006. The decision win allegedly puts Fitch in line for a future 170-pound title shot; one everyone assumes will be a do-over of his 2008 loss to Georges St. Pierre. Of course, that’s assuming GSP hangs onto the belt in his scheduled December fight against Josh Koscheck … which will be a rematch of their first fight back in 2007.

What we’re trying to say here is, provided Koscheck doesn’t throw a giant wrench in things at the end-of-the-year show, don’t expect to see any new shit from the UFC welterweight division for the next, oh, six to eight months.

(The world’s "top pound-for-pound fighter" in the midst of proving his greatness at UFC 117. PicPops: Esther Lin/Fanhouse)

Whatever “demon effigy” Anderson Silva and Ed Soares really do worship, he certainly turned out to be the better God on Saturday night. If nothing else, Silva’s prayers were answered at UFC 117 when his Hail Mary triangle choke somehow found the mark around Chael Sonnen’s neck with a minute, 50 seconds left in a fight the challenger had dominated for four complete rounds. Sonnen kind of tapped, referee Josh Rosenthal kind of stopped the fight and Silva kind of proved he is still the best 185-pound fighter in the world. So much for the vengeful Christian God that Republican wrestlers from Oregon prance and dance in front of, we guess.

There will no doubt be more than a couple breathless accounts of Silva’s “miraculous comeback” in the MMA media during the next few days, but let’s make no mistake here: Anderson Silva’s greatness was not on display Saturday night. In fact, if the UFC’s so-called “performance-based bonuses” are actually in any way based on performance, Big DW should take that $120,000 he evenly split between the two main eventers for “Fight of the Night” and give about $90,000 of it to Sonnen. Because really, only one guy had the “fight of the night” at UFC 117. The other guy just sort of got lucky.

(Anderson Silva pretending not to know the English for, “Don’t be scared, homie.” PicProps: UFC.com)

Tonight, the climax to one of the greatest UFC storylines in recent memory plays out before our very eyes. Will Chael Sonnen’s ceaseless trash talk inspire Anderson Silva to rediscover his roots as a remorseless ass-kicker? If Sonnen pulls off the miraculous upset, will he finally admit that he’s just been fucking with us these past few months, or will he confirm that he actually is suffering from early-onset dementia brought on by years of getting punched in the head? And after weeks of solid build-up can UFC 117 provide an emotionally satisfying conclusion?

Answers to the above questions are for us to know and you to find out … with live results and commentary beginning at 10 p.m. EST/7 p.m. PST tonight. Be sure to hit refresh early and often to get the latest updates.

("All that punching and kicking is fine for some people. It just seems a little showy for my tastes." PicProps: MMALinker.com)

In some ways, you’ve really got to hand it to Chael Sonnen. Not only has the relentless torrent of bullshit that has spewed from his mouth during the last few months done a remarkable job rekindling the public’s interest in Anderson Silva, but it’s also distracted just about everybody from asking the one question that really matters about tonight’s UFC 117 main event: Does Sonnen have a chance in hell to actually win?

Answer: Yes, but he’s going to have to play it perfectly.

(Pittsburgh?!? Those country rubes wouldn’t even know what to *do* with big-city action like this. PicProps: The new UFC.com)

It appears that neither Josh Koscheck nor Georges St. Pierre will get his wish regarding the locale for the pair’s Dec. 11 welterweight title fight. Both guys had previously expressed desires to hold the bout – which we assume will become a “heated grudge match” just as soon as Koscheck gets down to business being really annoying on “TUF 12” – close to home. GSP wanted Montreal. Koscheck wanted Pittsburgh. After the UFC recently opened an office in Toronto, it seemed the company might try to use this fight as its entre into the Forbidden City.

But with MMA still locked out of Ontario (tolerant, forward-thinking Ontario) UFC President  Dana White told the Sun newspaper this week that Pittsburgh just didn’t feel quite big-time enough for a championship fight of this magnitude. Next stop, everyone’s favorite home-away-from-home: Las Vegas.

(Video courtesy YouTube/10thplanetjj.com)

- Chris Leben likely not fighting Vitor Belfort; says he was offered some opponents who wouldn’t help his career. (bloodyelbow)

- Win an Xbox Slim and a copy of Madden 2011 courtesy of one of our Break partners (filefront)

- Alves says UFC 117 weight cut was the easiest of his career *even though he was a 1/2 pound over* (mmafighting)

- How to hide your hangover at work (modernman)

- 8 alternative uses for beer (mademan)

- Belfort’s camp says expect a staredown at UFC 117 with Vitor and the winner of Silva-Sonnen to set up next championship bout (mmajunkie)

- LOST epilogue provides closure (screenjunkies)

- Did the UFC Photoshop this picture of James Toney? (middleeasy)

- 25 epic gangsta fails (Break)

- Want free UFC tickets? Serve your country (fightersonly)

- Are "futbol" cheerleaders the best cheerleaders? (thescoresreport)

- Ariel Helwani talks to Dana White (fightlinker)

- Hermione from Harry Potter grew up (holytaco)

- Is education the key to MMA reffing and judging? (mmaweekly)

- The 45 greatest upsets in MMA history (bleacherreport)

- Massive NHB brawl breaks out in the streets (nothingtoxic)