By Cage Potato correspondent Brian Dermody

The look on Frankie Edgar’s face said it all the second Bruce Buffer broke the news that his UFC 125 bout with Gray Maynard had ended in a stalemate.

Having just endured the worst beating of his life in a single round of MMA before roaring back to win more rounds, but earn the same amount of points than Maynard in the eyes of *some* of the judges (and most pundits and fans), he knew he was going to have to go to war again with "The Bully."

Edgar walked away from the bout with a nasal fracture, a few bruises and a bad taste in his mouth, considering Maynard, who took a unanimous decision the first time the pair met in 2008, was still up one fight to none.

On the mend and with a May 28 UFC 130 date in Las Vegas penciled in for the do-over, Edgar sat down with New York-based Cage Potato correspondent Brian Dermody to chat about a variety of topics including his last fight, immediate rematches, the contenders to his belt and oblivious reporters.

Check out what "The Answer" had to say after the jump.

(“I’m telling you man, we’ll get our own place. I’m thinking bunk beds, bean bag chairs, black light posters and all the soda we can drink. Whaddaya say?” PicProps: Flickr)

Well, we can’t see how this could possibly be good news approximately 15 days out from the biggest fight of his life, but Vitor Belfort has 86’ed trainer Shawn Tompkins in favor of a return to Xtreme Couture, according to a conversation between the coach himself and Mauro Ranallo this week. If we’ve got the timeline straight, Belfort was at Xtreme Couture to begin with, but went with Tompkins when he splintered off to start his own team. Now, as he so often does, Belfort is reversing his position.

Tompkins sounds a little peeved about the split and we gotta believe the differences were pretty irreconcilable to prompt “The Phenom” (who, let’s face it, has always seemed a little flighty) to decamp so close to his scheduled middleweight title fight against Anderson Silva on Feb. 5. After the jump, a short-ish transcript of Ranallo’s and Tompkins’ talk, courtesy Fight Opinion …

(Now smile and tell everyone I’m the TUF coach and that it was an easy decision to make.)

By Cage Potato contributor Jason Moles

The second Dana White announced that Brock Lesnar would be taking the reins of one of next season’s The Ultimate Fighter teams, it seems that everyone with a keyboard immediately began furiously typing out their manifestos explaining why, in their "professional opinion" the  former UFC heavyweight champ will suck as a coach.

Well, not everyone agrees with the popular assertion that the ironically seemingly reluctant UFC star who owned the camera while cashing paychecks from the WWE will sink the TUF ship.

We may not necessarily agree with White’s opinion that anyone who thinks it’s possible that Brock might not deliver as a coach is basically a stupid f*cking idiot, as he so eloquently inferred MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani was for asking about the plausibility during a press conference last week, but we are part of the minority who think it may not be so bad.

Check out contributor Jason Moles’ breakdown of why Brock will do TUF some good after the jump.

(VidProps: YouTube/PellegrinoMMA)

Not to pull back the curtain too much, Nation, but there’s been a lot of talk behind the scenes lately about CP branching out into a new webshow.  Well, consider the open casting call for hosts officially closed now that we’ve seen Kenny Florian and Kurt Pellegrino doing … whatever it is they’re doing here. All we know is that Pellegrino looks pretty snazzy in that suit jacket (not to mention that finely coiffed hair) and Florian’s vamping alter-ego is approximately 100 times more entertaining than the average MMA fighter’s real personality. We assume that when Chael Sonnen said fighters spend a few hours a day working out and have the rest of their lives to choose between screwing around and positively contributing to society committing crimes, this is what he meant. Personally, we’ll take screwing around. You had us at “Don’t talk back to me,” KenFlo.  

(The photo above was paper-clipped to the front of M-1′s memo to tournament participants that drug testing will be mandatory for the GP. Subtle.)

When Dana White’s favorite Crazy Russian, Vadim Finkelstein speaks, the MMA world listens, mostly just because he usually has a lot of bizarre demands to make.

In a recent interview the head of M-1 did with Russian sports news site Sports.ru, Finkelstein touched on a lot of topics including the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix, Fedor’s contract status and his recent statement he made about mandatory drug testing in the later rounds of the tournament.

Check out what Vad-Fink had to say after the jump.

(If you don’t know the backstory on this one, Krazy Horse claims to have knocked Wand out back stage at a PRIDE Bushido event, which led to him later being choked out by Cris Marcello -VidProps MegaSlim7)

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…

- Ring Girls Round-Up: Nikki Chang (LowKick)

– FEG President Foresees Death of K-1 and DREAM (MMA Fighting)

– DaMarques Johnson Interview (MiddleEasy)

– Big Nog’ Says JDS Will KO Brock (MMAConvert)

– Teammates Look to Point Featherweights in Right Direction (Versus MMA Beat)

– Cain Velasquez Back Training After Successful Shoulder Surgery (FiveOuncesofPain)

– 5 of the Scariest Knockouts Ever (MMAScraps)

– UFC Champ Frankie Edgar FINALLY Favored to Win a Fight (5thRound)

– The 8 Heavyweights Bellator Needs To Sign (FightMagazine)

– Roop Talks Fighting Teammate Hominick at UFC Fight For the Troops II  (SBNation.com/MMA)

The UFC announced today that it will be streaming two of Saturday nights Fight for the Troops preliminary bouts free online. The only catch is you have to "like" the promotion on Facebook to be able to watch the fights.

Facebookers (or Facebooksters, or whatever the kids who use the social media service are calling themselves these days) will be able to watch Alaskan guillotine master and one of Friday’s three Bum Rush Radio Show guests Cody McKenzie take on Yves Edwards as well as Mike Guymon square off with DaMarques Johnson on a small, laggy video window on the UFC’s fan page.

Either Dana White followed Bono’s lead and scooped up some Facebook shares before filing his 2010 taxes, or The Baldfather is hoping the move will finally garner him more friends than Justin Bieber. It’s likely killing him that a little punk who dresses just like him with hair like that gets more tail than a member in good standing of The Smashers Club.

Addiction can make the toughest S.O.B. as powerless as this guy. While many MMA fighters have had their lives and careers derailed by drugs and alcohol, some were strong enough to find treatment and pull their lives out of the tailspin. Here’s our tribute to five of them…

LYLE BEERBOHM

Drug of choice: methamphetamines
Rock bottom moment: Wandering around the streets looking for a place to sleep after he had burned his bridges with everybody in his life. When he landed in the Washington State Penitentiary for 18 months for drug-related felonies after six years of shooting meth, nobody in his family came to visit him.
Recovery: While in the joint, Beerbohm began watching The Ultimate Fighter and became inspired to fight for a living; he’d already had to physically defend himself in prison a few times. "Fancy Pants" joined an MMA gym the day he got out, and won his first amateur fight eight days later. Beerbohm is currently 16-0 as a pro, and will take on Pat Healy in the main event of Strikeforce Challengers 14 next month.

COURT McGEE

Drug of choice: Alcohol, cocaine, heroin, meth, etc.
Rock bottom moment: McGee began abusing drugs after falling in with the wrong crowd after high school, and was once pronounced dead following a heroin overdose. In 2006, McGee had managed to stay sober for five months. In order to test his willpower, he took a trip to Las Vegas and decided to order just one drink. He woke up four days later in Iowa, not wearing any pants.
Recovery: McGee has been sober since April 16, 2006, two weeks after the Vegas/Iowa incident. He began training in MMA and rebuilding relationships with his family, which helped restore order to his life. "Crusher" came out of nowhere to win TUF 11 last June, and submitted Ryan Jensen in his follow-up fight at UFC 121. 

(Rebney’s thinning patience with Coker showed in this recent Twitter posting.)

By CagePotato contributor S.C. Michaelson

CHICAGO — With the recent announcement from Strikeforce that it will put on a 2011 heavyweight grand prix tournament, the MMA community has been abuzz with excitement and intrigue. Many analysts predict that a successful tournament could be the catalyst to Strikeforce becoming more of a major player in today’s market. However, not everyone is as excited about the prospect of the proposed tournament — enter Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney.

"Tournament schmurnament," spat Rebney. "Hello, does anybody remember what Bellator is? Our whole company is based around tournaments. Hell, we just had a heavyweight tournament last year!"

(“Think of this next right hand as my way of thanking you for the opportunity and expressing what an honor it was to meet with you here this evening.” PicProps: Las Vegas Sun)

OK, so maybe “calls out” is a little bit strong in reference to Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre, but the American-Hero-turned-mediocre-light-heavyweight-turned-newly-minted-middlweight-comer certainly didn’t shy away from candidly assessing his skills against both the UFC 185-pound and 170-pound champions while also mentioning his desire to fight Wanderlei Silva and Michael Bisping during a recent interview with the UK Telegraph. Read on to hear Brian Stann’s respectful, but classicly fighter-centric take of most of the rest of the middleweight division, and beyond. Also, be warned that we took the liberty of changing the British English spellings back to ’Merican, for obvious reasons.

Reasons like the Revolutionary War.

"Hopefully, my next fight will be Wanderlei Silva, who is obviously a legend in the sport, and it would be an honor to fight your guy from the UK, Michael Bisping, an amazing fighter who has truly distinguished himself in the weight class …” Stann tells the Telegraph’s Gareth Davies. “He has proved himself to be an exciting, all-round fighter and has the ranking. Guys like Michael Bisping and Wanderlei have what I want in the sport — the respect and the rankings, and that’s where I want to be.”

(Video courtesy YouTube/ARK1988LAB)

You would think that if one were to interview 15 MMA experts, at least one would have a differing opinion than the rest.

Apparently this isn’t the case in Brazil, where pretty much everyone believes that Anderson Silva is going to beat Vitor Belfort.

Although a few of the 15 Brazilian experts Tatame recently asked about their predictions for the fight added the disclaimers that, "anything could happen" and that "Vitor is a tough opponent," not one of them chose "The Phenom" to win the bout, even with his recent revelation that Jesus will be his cornerman for the fight.

Check out the 15 ways the 15 experts think Silva is going to beat Belfort after the jump.

("Five…five dolla…five dolla, foot rong." [Ed. note: I sincerely apologize for that awful caption.] / Photo courtesy of sportsnavi.)

His MMA career? Dead in the water. His boxing comeback? Who knows. But the Miami Pound Machine gotta eat. And so, Kimbo Slice has reportedly agreed to perform at an IGF pro wrestling tournament on February 5th in Fukuoka, Japan. His opponent will be Shinichi "Wakakirin" Suzukawa, the marijuana-scandalized sumo wrestler who allegedly went off the script against Mark Coleman last year. (Wakakirin was also supposed to wrestle Bob Sapp at Dynamite!! 2010, but Frankenhood pulled out at the last moment like the professional he is.) And before you ask, yes, Josh Barnett will be part of the tourney as well. 

Note to Kimbo: If you "win" your first match, Antonio Inoki may want to slap the shit out of you in front of everybody. I know, if that happened on a street-corner in Perrine, he would be as dead as yesterday’s chicken. (That’s something that people say, right?) As it turns out, the slapping is actually a sign of respect and well-wishing. Please inform your crew.

(Video courtesy of Comcast Sportsnet)

Shane Carwin appeared on Comcast Sportsnet’s Fight Fix recently to expound on the tidbit revealed by Fedor Emelianenko during the Strikeforce conference call last week that he was planning on training with the former UFC interim heavyweight champ in the near future. According to Carwin, his management reached out to the former PRIDE heavyweight champion to try to set up a pairing between the heavyweight superpowers.
Carwin explained that besides the obvious, the reason why he instigated talks with The Last Emperor’s camp were Fedor’s humility, faith in God and family values.

As far as his recovery from his neck injury, Carwin says that he is on track to get off the bench for a planned main event bout in June at UFC 131, but says that no opponent has been named as of the time of the interview. 

Hopefully if he does ever end up training with Fedor for the bout, he records it so we can see how he fares.

(Props: KahL1One)

Not just a badass highlight reel editor and part-time cartoonist, Kahleem Poole has put a lot of effort into promoting New York’s MMA scene, which is often overlooked due to the bullshit political climate in this state. Here’s the latest installment of Kahl’s "MMA in NY" series, which focuses on Evolution Muay Thai and Ultimate Gym. Shameless plug time: Evolution is the gym where I (BG) personally train, so I was incredibly excited to see how well this episode turned out; it’s awesome to see folks like Brandon Levi, Rene Driefuss, and Angela Hill start to get the recognition they deserve. If you live in New York City and you’re interested in taking up Muay Thai or BJJ, you should really come by sometime and say hello…

("Yeah, I’ll take the soki soba, an Asahi, and 25mg of the…uh…you know…the usual." Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

We know what you’re thinking: Strikeforce’s 2011 Heavyweight Tournament isn’t nearly chaotic enough as it is, and it would be great if some of the fights were held in different countries like Canada and Japan. Basically, more moving parts is what they need, right? Scott Coker totally agrees with you. The Strikeforce CEO recently appeared on MMAJunkie.com Radio where he revealed that newly open-for-business Ontario, Canada, and Tokyo, Japan are both being considered as host sites for future fights in the HWGP.

"This is a world grand-prix tournament, which means we might not just be in the United States," Coker said. "This thing could be traveling."

(Matt Hammill, when will you ever learn?)

Besides being a useful resource for hawking your old furniture and buying (likely stolen) used video game consoles, Craigslist is known as a portal for freaks looking to fulfill their bizarre fantasies with perfect strangers.

It turns out that the site also has a strong contingency of MMA fans who use the online service to solicit training partners, pay-per-view watching buddies and much, much worse. 

We took on the painstaking, and extremely disturbing (seriously…some boxes can’t be unopened…) task of searching through countless personal ads using combinations of the names of promotions, submissions and fighting disciplines as keywords to come up with our list of the 25 strangest ads we could before having to tap out.

Check out the 25 most eyebrow-raising posts we discovered after the jump:

(Photo via MMAFightGirls)

England’s most beloved MMA ring girl — and 2010 Potato Award Winner — Rhian Sugden will be back in action at BAMMA 5, February 26th at Manchester’s MEN Arena. We just came across this photo and felt compelled to share it. You can now proceed with your day.

Previously: Hot Potato: Rhian Sugden

Video courtesy TMZ. Josh Barnett Does Karaoke – Watch more Funny Videos

Recently signed Strikeforce heavyweight Josh Barnett may be way too busy to attend his next California State Athletic Commission license reinstatement hearing in February, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time to belt out a few karaoke tunes.

Judging by the video above that was taken of Barnett last week at a bar in Los Angeles, it’s probably safe to say that the Babyfaced Assassin won’t be releasing an album anytime soon, but if he does, he might want to consider hiring a better hype man.

(I guess you had to be there. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)

Originally slated to go down this month, the long-awaited (at least by us) rubber match between middleweights Jason Miller and Tim Kennedy is now expected for Strikeforce: Columbus, which takes place March 5th at the Nationwide Arena. It’s great news for Kennedy, who has been ducked by everybody in the universe since his decision loss to Ronaldo Souza in August. Miller has won his last two fights, scoring a first-round TKO over local yokel Tim Stout at Strikeforce: Nashville last April, and choking out creaky legend Kazushi Sakuraba at DREAM.16 in September.

For the second year in a row, the UFC has decided not to hold an event during the annual Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, and Strikeforce is swooping in to take full advantage. Along with Miller/Kennedy, the event is rumored to feature Rafael Cavalcante vs. Dan Henderson in the main event, a 135-pound women’s title fight between Marloes Coenen and Miesha Tate, the possible return of Paul Daley, and maybe (maybe!) even Werdum vs. Overeem. 

Speaking of Jason Miller, did you know that he once fought a 360-pound man at an Icon Sport event, and held onto a choke for so long that even Babalu Sobral would be disgusted? I just learned that over the weekend, and I’m still confused. Video proof after the jump…

(Sure, he looks like a bum, but he’s got a golden radio voice. PicProps: SBNation)

More good stuff out on Sunday from MMA Fighting Japanese correspondent Daniel Herbertson, who debuts a new weekly, notebook-style feature chock full of overseas news tidbits. Item No. 1? According to D-Herb – citing those ever-present “sources close to the fighter” — Dream lightweight champion and notorious a-hole Shinya Aoki is considering hanging up the fingerless gloves after his embarrassing knockout loss to Yuichiro "Jienotsu" Nagashima at K-1 Dynatmite!!! 2010 on New Year’s Eve.

You’ll remember this bout as the “special rules” contest that alternated a three-minute kickboxing round followed by a five-minute round under Dream rules. You know, kind of like they do it on “Bully Beatdown.” You’ll also recall that Aoki clearly came out with a game plan to just fuck around during round one, waste as much time as possible with copious rule-breaking and rely on the impotent Japanese referee to not penalize him for it. It was a strategy that worked like clockwork until the opening bell of round two, when Nagashima knocked him stiff with a knee as he shot in for a takedown. On this side of the Pacific, it seemed like an obvious case of karma being a complete bitch. At home, it doesn’t sound like Aoki is taking it too well.

(No hard feelings? PicProps: AvantguardBJJ)

Shameless plug: Our man Pat Barry will appear on next week’s episode of the Bum Rush podcast and our interview with him – which taped yesterday – is reportedly pretty awesome. If you’re not already listening to the show (wait, you’re not already listening to the show???) next week would be a good time to buy a ticket for the Bum Rush express. Seriously, get on that shit.

But we digress, Barry also talked to some other “media outlets” this week about his upcoming fight with Joey Beltran at Fight for the Troops 2 next Saturday and the results are typically entertaining. Case in point: Barry’s interview with MMA Weekly, where it becomes clear that he’s been studying a lot of film to get ready for Beltran. George Romero films, mostly.

(PicProps: MMAConvert)

On a personal note, we’d like nothing more than to see Jens Pulver at the top of the heap when it’s all said and done. Though we admit we’ve never met him, Pulver has always seemed like one of MMA’s truly stand-up guys. Exciting in the cage, straightforward and honest (maybe to a fault) outside of it, it’s hard not to root for him. It’s also been difficult to watch him slump through the last few years of his rapidly fading MMA career, including establishing his current six-fight losing streak and dropping eight of his last nine bouts overall. It’s that innate likability that additionally makes it downright heartbreaking to read Pulver’s latest interview with MMA Fighting.com on Saturday, where the aging former UFC champion indicates he’s just going to press on with his career until he “gets it right.”

"I’m trying to put ‘Lil’ Evil’ to bed, if that makes sense, so I can retire the right way, and so I can be done the right way,” Pulver says. “I can’t go out the way I’ve gone. Not from being a world champion to losing six fights in a row. I want to give it one more shot."

(Video courtesy YouTube/robalicious415)

- Arctic laser popcorn (doubleviking)

 - Rory MacDonald vs. Nate Diaz slated for UFC 129 in Toronto (mmafighting)

- MMA Supremacy review (gamefront)

– SBNation kills off WatchKalibRun, MMA4Real and Boxing Bulletin (watchkalibrun)

- Spiderman vs. Captain America (therugged)

– Watch Diego Sanchez’s first ammy fight (middleeasy)

- How social media has changed our lives (bullz-eye)

– Belforts says he’s not going to dance around Silva (thegarv)

- 10 things you lose when you commit (askmen)

- Milwaukee quietly declares yesterday Anthony Pettis day (fightlinker)

- 11 boxing rappers and vice versa (mademan)

- Falcao out of UFC On Versus III (mmaweekly)

- America’s homeless got talent (tuvez)

- Edgar-Maynard III penciled in for UFC 130 (sherdog)

- Cameron Diaz talks Green Hornet biology (break)

- Lowered expectations: Anderson Silva wants to fight Bisping in the UK(espn)

(Props: NYPost via Fightlinker)

After UFC officials swung through New York yesterday to hype up their commitment to bring MMA to New York state, local media outlets were forced once again to confront the question: "What’s Mixed Martial Arts, anyway? It’s that human-dogfighting stuff where you get to hit each other in the balls, right?" Seriously, listen to the opening narration in this New York Post news feature. At the 1:04 mark, Frankie Edgar specifically explains that groin-shots are illegal in MMA, but I guess that wasn’t enough to convince the person writing copy for this report. Unless the reporter was referring to leg kicks…but come on, how much credit do you really want to give these people?

My favorite part of the video is when they give equal time to people who support MMA, and people who have no fucking idea what it is. "I know that what they’re trying to say is that, what they want to do is put two different styles together," says the time-traveler who just arrived here from the year 1993. I guess you can’t claim to be unbiased unless you give voice to the informed and the ignorant…

(Video courtesy YouTube/nathanmarquardt)

It looks like Rashad Evans has taken a page out of number one UFC lightweight contender Gray Maynard’s training manual to get ready for his upcoming light heavyweight  championship bout with Mauricio "Shogun" Rua.