("…but you know me, I never like to look past my opponents.")

As we mentioned over the weekend, UFC hype-magnet Jon Jones is likely to take on fellow light-heavyweight rising star Ryan Bader early next year. You’d think Bones would be psyched to rumble with the undefeated TUF 8 winner, in a fight that could potentially produce a title contender at 205 pounds, or at the very least establish a pecking order in the division. As it turns out, he’s not too impressed with the matchup, telling Inside MMA:

"I’m actually really sick of fighting this type of style. Matt Hamill, Matyushenko, Jake O’Brien…they all have that similar kind of style. Their main focus is that double leg dive and [they have] sub-par boxing…I’m ready to fight some strikers, I’m ready to fight some south paws, I’m ready to really mix it up…I’m trying to secure a respect level with my wrestling. I’m sure Ryan Bader, the advantage he’ll have going in is to be the better wrestler and I’m going to try and prove the UFC wrong again."

(Coulda been worse, I guess…)

Just two months after bouncing out of the UFC following his third-straight loss at UFC Live: Jones vs. Matyushenko, notoriously cursed striker James Irvin began his climb back to the big leagues at a Rebel Fights event in Roseville, California, on Saturday. As you’ll see in the video after the jump, it must have been a humbling experience from the get-go. Instead of a deafening, appropriately lit arena, Irvin squared off with a dude named Angel DeAnda for the entertainment of a couple hundred folks in a cinder-blocked space that was as small as it was bright.

It would have been especially depressing if Irvin lost — and he was a ball-hair away of doing just that. DeAnda starts the fight bombing out on Irvin with left hooks, but is floored by a patented Sandman Superman Punch. DeAnda pops back up, quickly scores a knockdown of his own, and starts pouring on the pain from the top. Check the vid’s 1:35 mark to see just how close Josh Rosenthal was to stopping the fight; he basically changes his mind at the last possible moment, which allows Irvin to get his bearings, work his way up, and put the stamp on DeAnda. 

(Guess who’s coming to dinner? PicProps: Cagewriter)

A bit of a slow weekend for those of us out there with more refined tastes, as the K-1 World Grand Prix 2010 Final 16 pretty much dominated the scene. If striking is your bag, you’ll probably dig the video after the jump of some guy named Gago Drago knocking out some guy named Su Hawn Lee at that event. Pretty good scrap, there. On the MMA front, reports are all but confirming Jon Jones vs. Ryan Bader will happen early next year and that after UFC 125 Antonio McKee might have to go to church and pray for the eternal soul of Jacob Volkmann.

Also after the jump, one more K-1 knockout, a short clip of Tim Hague handling Travis Wiuff at AMMA 5 north of the border, Arianny Celeste talks to an extremely creepy-voiced dude from MMA Digest, Evan Dunham shows off his scars and — in honor of his signing — a quick flashback to some of McKee’s best work.

(There’s nothing quite like a photo that adheres strictly to the rule of thirds. PicProps: Composta.net)

If you can forget for a moment that the Strikeforce heavyweight title is back on a lengthy hiatus while Alistair Overeem indulges himself by fighting in the K-1 World Grand Prix, then you have to admire his performance last night in the round of 16. Though Overeem’s opponent Ben Edwards came into their bout with what can only charitably be described as a “man on the street build,” we understand he’s something of a respected veteran in punch-and-kick circles, so that makes Overeem’s tidy first round destruction of him kind of impressive, I guess.

For those of you who can stomach the barbarism of two guys punching each other with those puffy weights taped over their fists, the video is after the jump. Seriously though, people, why can’t we all just wear open-fingered, four-ounce gloves like civilized human beings?

(“What the fuck did you just say?” PicProps: Showtime)

Looks like the intrepid journalists at Strikeforce Films had to go to the gym and pull a shirtless Nick Diaz out of a training session in order to actually get him on the record about his upcoming rematch with KJ Noons. This after Diaz no-showed the company’s media conference call on Tuesday, leaving Noons to answer everybody’s questions all by his lonesome. Maybe that was for the best actually, since the last time Strikeforce tried to put Diaz onto a conference call he was so “sleepy” he didn’t really know what was going on. Or Maybe the Diaz Bros are finally starting to realize that talking to the media shouldn’t be their main thing, given how much stupid shit they constantly say whenever they get the chance. No wait, sorry, they’re still totally into doing that.

Anyway, the result of SF Films’ effort is after the jump, and it’s pretty much what you would expect: Diaz continues act like he thinks of himself as a normal, happy-go-lucky guy who just can’t believe that all these assholes keep fucking with him.

(Video courtesy YouTube/Fight!Mag)

- Sonnen says he took pity on Silva’s injured ribs (fighthubtv)

-A chat with David Cross (bullz-eye)

- UFC tweets of the week (ufc)

- Every little step with Mike Tyson and Wayne Brady (funnyordie)

- K-1 Grand Prix final 16 preview and predicitions (mmafighting)

- "Girl Directions" music video (break)

- BJJ champ vouches for Rolles Gracie’s promotion of Rashad Evans to black belt (tatame)

- How bar fights start (mademan)

- Mark Hominick fought Leonard Garcia with a broken hand (mmajunkie)

- 7 reasons the lingerie football league is better than the NFL (holytaco)

- Dana White says Anderson is a pain in the ass, but still the best (csncalif)

- Human Target actress Emmanuelle Vaugier (screenjunkies)

- Top 5 trash talkers in the UFC (bleacherreport)

-10 things learned from UFC 119 (scoresreport)

- WTF is wrong with this guy? (doubleviking)

(Bellator: the only place where chicks who like to bang are respected.)

By ReX “Dude, Big Ups to the 90s” Richardson

Chances are very good that you missed at least one good fight card last night. If you neglected to tune in to Versus for WEC 51, you are likely still kicking yourself in the balls for not watching a card that was ludicrously stacked (and lived up to expectations). If you forgot about the Bellator Fighting Championships in all the excitement, you passed on some pretty fun stuff there, too: of eight fights, only one went to decision. The women’s division was on showcase last night with two semifinal bouts, seasoned with a double handful of the kind of hungry fighters who tend to knock the piss out of one another.

Follow me past the jump, because let’s face it, at this time of day you’re just killing time until the weekend anyway. I’ll let you know where I stand on the judges’ controversy. **dramatic music**

("I’m sorry, Jenny, but my heart belongs to another.")

Great work in the comments section this week, you guys. There were a few lines in particular that we felt were worthy of recognition — and CagePotato t-shirts — but we have to warn you, some of this stuff gets a little blue. So tell your kids to leave the room, and read on…

("A new job, and a place to crash for the night? This is too good to be true!")

In late May, Kim Couture caught a domestic violence charge after an argument with her personal assistant turned violent; she’s due in court today to answer the charges. Well, it took four months, but MMANewsLeak finally got their sticky little hands on the police report, which sheds more light on the bizarre situation. As we already knew, Couture and her P.A. first got into an argument at the UFC Fan Expo in Las Vegas. Here’s what happened next…

The victim left Mandalay Bay in a separate vehicle and went to Ms. Couture’s home where the victim had been living for approximately 3 weeks. The victim intended to retrieve her belongings and move out of Ms. Couture’s home before Ms. Couture returned home in order to avoid another confrontation.

As the victim was packing her belongings and preparing to move out, Ms. Couture arrived at the house she shared with the victim. Ms. Couture then went to the victims’ room and once inside the victims’ room, Ms. Couture allegedly blocked the door preventing the victim from leaving and then engaged in a heated argument with the victim, which subsequently led to Ms. Couture knocking/pushing the victim onto the bed. It is alleged that Ms. Couture then began choking and shaking the victim.

(Props to Yahoo’s Maggie Hendricks and the Dog’s Jordan Breen for the public Twitter convo that turned us on to the unadulterated awesomeness of Senegalese wrestling. Vid: YouTube/mbourencouleurs)

This just in from the CagePotato Fashion Desk: What’s the hottest trend for fall? Foreign people wrestling on exotic, faraway shores. Don’t believe us? Behold the above video, where two dudes in their underwear wrestle in the grass in a packed soccer stadium somewhere in Senegal. Do we have any idea what’s going on here? No. Do we know who these guys are or understand the rules? No. Does any of that matter? Absolutely not. When the guy allegedly named Papa Sow jacks up the guy named Paul Maurice with an insane Randleman-on-Fedor-style slam, that’s a language everyone understands.  Or maybe it’s Maurice who does the slamming, who cares?

When Papa Sow –– or Maurice — responds to the victory by sprinting across the turf into the arms of his crew while the crowd absolutely loses its fucking mind? That’s pretty awesome too.  Honestly though, those guys need some T-shirts with their area code printed on them if they want to be taken seriously as a fighter’s entourage. Be sure to stick around to the 1:40 mark for the slow-mo, back-and-forth replays of the takedown while the announce team breaks it all down. We assume whichever one is the Senegalese Joe Rogan is probably saying the guy in the black trunks should’ve used more leg kicks.

After the jump, a trailer for a (we think) legit documentary about what happens when a bunch of Bolivian peasant women stop being polite … and start a professional wrestling federation.

(Video courtesy Vimeo/TheReem)

Our favorite web documentary series, The Reem, is back with another episode to help you waste a bit of your Friday.

In the latest offering of the show, which chronicles Alistair Overeem’s fighting career, training and personal life, we follow "The Demolition Man" to Thailand where he prepares for his upcoming K-1 bout tomorrow night.

 
(Hopefully Vitor can channel Chael Sonnen for the pre-fight press, or else this fight will have to sell itself.)

Well it looks like the UFC’s too good to be true double-title bout New Year’s card was indeed, too good to be true.

According to Vitor Belfort, his showdown with UFC middleweight champion, Anderson Silva won’t be on the card, and will instead happen a month later on Saturday, February 5 on the eve of the SuperBowl.

He tweeted the news last night.

(On the bright side, that pig was offered an immediate rematch in Arizona. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com)

Between Jose Aldo’s latest title defense/demolition, the off-the-chain Cerrone vs. Varner rematch, George Roop’s KO of the Year candidate, and the other violent stoppages from Torres and Zhang, last night’s WEC event delivered the goods. (LOL @ any poor bastard who decided to watch Bellator instead!) Here’s some things you might want to know with Aldo vs. Gamburyan in the books…

— $10,000 bonuses were handed out to the following fighters: George Roop (Knockout of the Night) for being the first guy to finish the Korean Zombie, which he did with a perfectly placed LHK; Miguel Torres (Submission of the Night) for beating Charlie Valencia to the mat and finishing him with a RNC; and Donald Cerrone/Jamie Varner for their three-round co-headlining battle that was totally OMFG.

Because we love you — not in a weird way, but in a totally manly Cro Cop/Pat Barry bro-grab sort of way — we wanted to ask for your help. You guys have made us one of the biggest MMA destinations on the Internet, and over the next few months we’re going to be doing some remodeling around here to give things a facelift. One of the ways we’d like to collect your thoughts and feedback is through the Break Media panel. As part of the panel, Break also does other surveys throughout the year about random stuff like what types of video games you play, booze you drink, movies you watch, etc., and they offer some pretty sweet prizes to participants; in the past it has been stuff like iPods and Apple TVs. You’ll also have the opportunity to build up rewards points for music downloads and Break Media swag, including CagePotato t-shirts. (Yep, no more of this needing to be clever b.s.) So in the words of Winston Wolf — pretty please with sugar on top, join the f*cking panel, and win some cool stuff. We owe you one.

Note: Registration takes about five minutes and you’ll be asked for some personal information, which is used to ensure you are who you say you are, and for the purpose of incentive fulfillment. You can check out the complete privacy policy here. If you have any problems with registration, let us know in the comments section.