(“I’ve always wanted your autograph.” Alistair Overeem signs his new UFC contract in Lorenzo Fertitta’s office. Props: bawzzzz)

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…

- Alistair Overeem Was Offered Immediate Title Shot Before Accepting Brock Lesnar Fight (MMA Fighting)

- UFC 135: Matt Hughes vs Josh Koscheck official for Sept. 24 in Denver (MMA Mania)

- Top 10 Worked Shoot-Fights in Japanese Pro Wrestling (TheFightNerd)

- MMA Comedy Gold: Interviewer ‘Skippy’ (AKA Ed Bassmaster) Discusses UFC 133 Experience, Shouts Out CagePotato (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

- American Top Team Offering a Year of All-Expenses-Paid Training for Middleweights and Above (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto Meets Octagon Newbie Darren Uyenoyama at UFC on FOX 1 (5thRound)

- WWE Network coming in 2012 (MMA Payout)

- Dan Henderson Wants Jones vs. Rampage Winner, Says Rashad Evans Can Wait (LowKick)

- Your Cubicle Desperately Needs a Foot-Tall ‘MMA Alien’ Collectible (MiddleEasy)

- Lorenzo Fertitta on UFC Fighter Salaries: “All These Keyboard Warriors Have no Idea What They’re Talking About” (FightOpinion)

- Book Review: Stitch Duran’s ‘From the Fields to the Garden’ (MMA Convert)

- Ariel Helwani’s Official MMA Rankings (NBC Sports MMA)

(Yeah, Putin’s gonna get a big kick out of that, buddy. / Photo via hookedonmma)

Nursing a three-fight losing streak following his shockingly unsuccessful run in Strikeforce, Fedor Emelianenko will reportedly return to action against heavyweight veteran Jeff Monson on November 12th in Russia. Monson announced the matchup last night on Twitter, adding that the fight will be promoted by M-1 Global and there will be a press conference on September 16th. (“Putin will be there. Gonna try and get pic with him in my ‘Communist’ t-shirt.”)

Following his unsuccessful UFC title challenge against Tim Sylvia in November 2006, Monson left the UFC to pursue a bout with Emelianenko for BodogFIGHT. Though the match was scheduled for March 2007, negotiations fell apart and Emelianenko wound up fighting Matt Lindland instead.

(The UFC’s second Toronto card is coming together nicely.)

Keeping with it’s latest trend of beating reporters to the punch when it comes to breaking news of fight bookings, the UFC announced that a pair of welterweight bouts have been added to UFC 140 on December 10 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto today, via UFC.com.

British Columbia-born wunderkind Rory “Ares” MacDonald (12-1) will take on “Hairrow” stylist and cartwheel-kick aficionado Brian “The White Anderson Silva”  Ebersole (48-14-1, 1 NC) on the card, while former CagePotato TUF 11 guest blogger Rich “The Raging Bull” Attonito (10-4) will see action against durable Toronto-based fighter Claude “The Prince” Patrick (14-1).

According to former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes he has accepted the challenge of Josh Koscheck to face him in the place of his original UFC 135 opponent Diego Sanchez, who pulled out of the bout due to a broken hand. The only problem is, the UFC brass haven’t decided whether they want to see “Country Breakfast” possibly have his lights and his career turned out by Kos or have Bob Arum telling Dana, “I told you so!” until the day he dies (some time soon by the looks of it) thanks to a potential 15-minute wrestlefuck session with Jon Fitch.

Either way, Hughes is fighting on September 24, so at least there’s that.

(“U mad, bro?” Photo via MMATKO)

Look, you can’t trust Nick Diaz — but you can always trust Nick Diaz to be Nick Diaz. The Winnipeg Free Press has the story:

Challenger Nick Diaz was a no-show Tuesday so welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre was left to plug their UFC 137 showdown on his own.

The UFC offered no reason for Diaz’s absence in Toronto but the former Strikeforce champion is no fan of such media events…

“I don’t know why he did not show up. Maybe he has personal issues, I have no idea,” St-Pierre said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “I know they bought two flights (tickets) for him and he didn’t show up. I have no idea. I can’t talk about it because I don’t know what’s going on in his life. Hopefully he’ll be OK and I’ll see him in the cage.”

According to a new LA Times report, a heavyweight superfight between former UFC champion Brock Lesnar and former Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem has been booked to headline the UFC’s end-of-year show, December 30th in Las Vegas. The winner of the five-round feature will likely be the next in line to challenge for the UFC heavyweight title against the winner of Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos.

Overeem reportedly finalized his contract with the UFC earlier today. As he told the Times: ”Brock is a big name, a dangerous guy, and this is a dream matchup. Brock’s a big guy, an exciting wrestler with his takedowns. I want to see this fight myself. Overall, I’m a different fighter. A striker, athletic, big. These are going to be two big trucks going at it on a collision course.”

(Video courtesy of YouTube/GroundandPoundTV1)

Wanderlei Silva was in Germany recently where he conducted a seminar in Frankfurt and was interviewed by GroundandPoundTV. The former PRIDE star says that in spite of a growing opinion that he should probably walk away from the sport following his most recent knockout loss to Chris Leben at UFC 132 in July, he ain’t goin’ out like that as he owes it to his fans to retire out with his head held hight, not held by the referee as he comes to.

“I rushed. I [was] so excited  to be back to fighting and in the co-main event that I did something wrong at the start of the fight. But it happens. I need to come back to training. I hear a lot of guys talking, ‘I gonna retire…gonna retire.’ I can’t retire. Not after that fight. Maybe if I won I could retire, but I can’t retire now. I’m gonna go back to fight for sure and I hope I give a good show for my fans. I’m gonna talk to [Dana White], but he’s so busy right now. We’re gonna talk soon, but for sure, it’s not the last [fight]. After my career, I can’t have one last fight in my career like that. I want to make one fight. I want to announce when I’m gonna retire and I wanna make one big party for my fans. I have a lot of fans that have been been following me for more than ten years. I look at them and they’re like men who some are 25 years old and they say, ‘Man, I’ve saw you since I was a little kid.’ It’s for that kind of guy that I fight.”

Bellator is really stepping up their game with these promo videos. VidProps: BellatorMMA/YouTube

Well this is interesting: following in the pioneering steps of the UFC, Bellator is announcing that they will begin streaming the undercard fights on the series of tubes known as the internet.

That’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is who they’re partnering with: Spike. Yep, those guys.

According to a press release sent to the CagePotato Desk for Serious Journalism, You Guys (not actually a real place), the undercard fights will go live on Spike.com at 7pm ET as a lead-in for the main card broadcasts on MTV2 starting at 9pm. As we reported last week, the main cards will also be broadcast in HD on EPIX, which we personally confirmed is a extant channel that wasn’t made up by some Viacom dude with a stupid-long job title.

The press release included a quote from some Viacom dude (Executive Vice President, Digital Entertainment, MTV Networks Entertainment Group), a guy by the name of Erik Flannigan:

“Fight fans have been coming to our site for years for great mixed martial arts clips and information,” said Flannigan. “Now we are thrilled to provide them with action-packed live fighting each week.”

(Arona’s finally ready to put down the surfboard.)

Ricardo Arona has been pledging a return to action pretty much every year since his last bout in 2009 against Marvin Eastman at Bitetti Combat 4, but has failed to deliver on the promise. According to the former Rings middleweight champion and former PRIDE standout, by “this year” he actually meant “next year,” meaning 2012. If the world doesn’t end like some whack jobs believe it will, Arona says we can expect to see him make his triumphant return.

In an interview he did recently with Globo, “The Brazilian Tiger” says the reason he’s had to push back his MMA return was that life got in the way, but that he’s had no shortage of offers from promotions.

“I went back to prepare myself physically and to finish building a training center in my house in Niterói. It’s pretty big and full. I want to return early next year. First I want to be ready to compete in anything, God willing,” Arona explains. “My goal is to do that, no doubt. I received an invitation from Strikeforce and several national events, but did not close anything. I’m hoping to be ready to return.”

VidProps: KravMagaDesoto/YouTube

You know, we were really hesitant to post this at first. Here we have video of a fighter that has clearly spent about the same amount of time in training as the “Say Goodnight” guys, fighting in public, in front of a paying crowd, no less, and she’s being recorded. She’s clearly out of her depth, and dangerously overmatched. It is, quite frankly, a spectacle, and it’s probably bad for the sport, right?

That’s when we realized that we woke up cranky and crabby and possibly some other c-words. (Plus, it’s already shown up in every combat sports forum on the interwebs.)

While yes, the fighter is overmatched and could be hurt as a result, safety and professionalism win the day, as her opponent and the referee do a good job of ending the fight as soon as it becomes apparent that Mrs Butterbean has no defensive skills. (Or offensive skills. Really, not much in the way of skills on this lady at all.)

With those concerns assuaged, what we’re left with is some very amusing video of a fighter who reacts to an MMA fight like she’s being attacked by a hive of Tropical Rapist Bees intent on removing her clothing and stinging her repeatedly on the face and gut. Her striking is so bad it would still be ineffective if she had cybernetic hands dipped in glue and glass. And then set on fire.

CagePotato has been unable to confirm that the unnamed fighter thanked her trainer, Greg Stott, after the official announcement of her loss. Actually, we’ve been unable to find any info about this fight at all, and Krava Maga Desoto hasn’t shared any info with us. Perhaps it’s better for all involved if she just remains anonymous.

[RX]

(“…In situations that the Planeteers cannot resolve alone, they can combine their powers to summon ‘Prime Sakuraba‘, a magical entity who possesses all of their powers magnified.” / Photo via BloodyElbow)

The UFC held a press conference earlier today in Tokyo, formally announcing their plans to host an event at the Saitama Super Arena on February 26th, 2012. No matchups were announced, but Japanese stars including Yushin Okami, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Takanori Gomi, Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, Hatsu Hioki, and Michihiro Omigawa were all mentioned as likely participants. Former PRIDE stars like Wanderlei Silva, Mirko Cro Cop, Quinton Jackson and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira are also possibilities.

Though the UFC held four events in Japan from 1997-2000, this will be the first Japanese show organized by the UFC while under Zuffa ownership. The prelims will begin at 10 a.m. local time (with the main card starting at noon) so that the event can be broadcast live at the usual time slot for North American viewers. It’s not clear yet whether UFC Japan 2012 will be a pay-per-view or “Fight Night” card, and no details were given regarding the event’s local broadcast plans.

Following a recorded video message from Dana White at the press conference, Zuffa LLC Asia Executive Vice President and Managing Director Mark Fischer addressed the media in attendance, saying:

(Listen to the first thing that Diego says in this video. Is it just me, or is the dude starting to sound like Kevin from ‘The Office’?)

Less than three weeks before his scheduled meeting with Matt Hughes at UFC 135: Jones vs. Rampage (September 24th, Denver), Diego Sanchez was pulled from the event yesterday due to a broken hand suffered in training. Coming off back-to-back decision victories over Paulo Thiago and Martin Kampmann — both of which netted him Fight of the Night awards — Sanchez released a statement explaining just how bummed he is:

“I am heartbroken that I have to inform MMA fans that I cannot fight Matt Hughes at UFC 135 later this month. I have never physically felt more prepared to compete than I felt for this fight, which makes this even more painful for me. While I do not know right now when I will return, I want to assure all of the fans out there that I will be back in the Octagon as soon as I am 100-percent healthy.”

But in the distance, a savior appears…

Warrior hits theaters this Friday, and as you already know, I thought it was a damn good time. Somehow, bjjireland was able to lurk behind the cameras during filming, and got some amazing footage of the movie-making process. For example, these behind-the-scenes videos highlight the fact that co-stars Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton did all their own stunts for the MMA fight scenes, and have the scars to prove it. Also, neither one of them is from the United States, and yet both of them did passable American accents, which is admirable in itself.

The never-before-seen footage continues after the jump, with director Gavin O’Connor helping his actors find their emotional motivation in the midst of a cage-fight. Very cool stuff.

(“Can’t….stop….giggling.”)

According to UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, he injured his shoulder while sparring with Junior dos Santos prior to his UFC 134 bout with Yushin Okami and was put on painkillers for the injury. Silva revealed to the Brazilian magazine Veja that he was in pain the day of the bout and that he took some painkillers to ensure he could fight, but says that unlike guys like Bas Rutten and Karo Parisyan who failed to reveal their use of analgesics to their respective athletic commissions prior to bouts, he did tell the group in charge of overseeing the event that he took the unnamed drug prior to the bout.

“A month before the fight I injured my shoulder while training with Junior dos Santos and I was feeling a lot of pain in Rio. I had to take some medicine and warn the athletic commission about it. I’ve talked to my doctors. I had an MRI and then I started feeling pains in my shoulder but the doctors let me go and said it was not that serious,” Silva says. “It’s a small injury, but I guess it’s on the [rotator] cuff and bothers me. I’ll rest for a while and get healed.”

(Full gallery is after the jump.)

Ashley Nicole Arthur is a 25-year-old model and ring girl from San Antonio, Texas, who has held round-cards for King of Kombat and Bellator. Her list of non-MMA credits include multiple appearances for Playboy (just Google it), as well as promotional work for our beloved Fleshlight. Ashley currently works as a commercial real estate agent while studying business at University of the Incarnate Word. Check out 12 of our favorite Ashley Nicole Arthur photos below…

“It’s cool, bro. The UFC offers accident insurance now.”

Sometimes, we like to pretend that our articles actually influence the UFC’s decision making. The other day, when we gave the UFC some friendly advice concerning their debut on Fox, we suggested that the UFC should probably schedule more than one fight. Having the support of a network like Fox and only displaying one fight, no matter how epic, is like buying a hooker just to hold hands with during Shark Night 3D. So when the UFC announced the addition of Cub Swanson vs. Ricardo Lamas to this card, our first thought was “The UFC was simply doing what they always do by announcing the main event before they announce supporting fights”. But we still feel pretty good about ourselves.

The fight potentially marks Cub Swanson’s UFC debut. As you may remember, Cub Swanson was set to make his UFC debut against Erik Koch twice, but was injured both times and forced to withdraw. Cub Swanson also holds the distinction of being the first fighter to utilize the UFC’s accident-insurance, after a knee to the face during a sparring session resulted in a broken jaw, as well as orbital, nasal and cheek fractures. Swanson’s last fight was a FOTN winning split decision over Mackens Semerzier at WEC 52. Meanwhile, Lamas is coming off of a TKO victory over Matt Grice at UFC Live on Versus: Kongo vs. Barry. His fight against Grice also marked his featherweight debut.

Knockout videos are a dime a dozen, particularly in the unforgiving sport of Muay Thai. What makes this one stand out is the anomaly of a one armed man delivering the final blow. As it turns out, this is no anomaly; this is Baxter Humby.

Humby’s right arm was amputated following a complication at birth, and rather than accepting that he’d never play recreational sports he pushed himself to excel at the professional level. “The One Armed Bandit” competed internationally as a member of Canada’s National Track Team. Having trained in the martial arts as a youth, Humby made the questionable decision to embark on a career as a professional fighter and soundly answered those who doubted his resolve.

Baxter has won over 15 kickboxing and muay thai titles, including: Canadian Super Welterweight Kickboxing Champion, IMTC World Middleweight Champion, IKBA International Kickboxing Champion, and IKKC USA Kickboxing Champion. The above first round knockout over Zidov Domenik took place Friday night at the Muaythai Premier League “Stars and Stripes” event. Humby successfully defended his WMC Intercontinental Championship.

We know Hector, Anderson’s voice is nothing short of heavenly.

For all the crap the UFC has gotten for their purchase of Strikeforce back in March, this week’s events have surely helped prove that a small, upstart promotion, though unable to compete with the UFC, can still put on a successful show. On Saturday, the second installment of the Australian Fighting Championships went down. Despite the fact that that the card was full of relatively unknown fighters, it managed to be incredibly entertaining none the less.

The main event featured a couple of familiar faces in Bellator middleweight champion Hector Lombard and TUF 7 finalist Jesse Taylor. Though the fight did not end via Lombard’s typically brutal KO, it saw the Cuban-born Aussie fend off most of “JT Money’s” takedowns in the first round and answer with a brutal onslaught of elbows. The end came shortly into the second round. On a reversal of a Taylor single leg, Lombard secured a heel hook, forcing the TUF alum to tap and halting his five fight win streak. When asked the inevitable question regarding Anderson Silva in his post fight interview, Lombard was rather frank about how the fight would go down. “I wouldn’t be frightened of him,” he stated, “I would go in there to take the head off.” Reports have yet to confirm whether or not Lombard has been spending time at the Frank Mir School of Trash Talk.

But Lombard’s finish was not even the most impressive heel hook of the night, which went to Polish up and comer Marcin Held. Held managed to pull off a spinning inside heel hook on Hawaiian Kaleo Kwan within the opening minute of the fight. Also on the card, former UFC and Pride heavyweight Soa Palelei scored a quick knockout of Son Hai Suk just 28 seconds into the bout. Palelei is perhaps best known for his epic brawl with Eddie Sanches back at UFC 79, which he has gone 4-1 since.

Full results–and a video from the fight–are after the jump.

Cosmo Alexandre could pan out to be a very exciting addition to Bellator’s roster

Yesterday, Liverkick.com passed along a report that Bellator has signed accomplished Muay Thai kickboxer Cosmo Alexandre to compete in their lightweight division. Fighting mostly at 160 and 170 pounds, Cosmo has compiled a 40-14-1 kickboxing record over the past seven years, as well as a 2-0 professional boxing record. As for his mixed martial arts experience, the Brazilian currently has none in the form of professional fights. Alexandre trains out of Imperial Athletics, whose notable fighters include Rashad Evans, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and Jorge Santiago.

Intriguing signing, to say the least. It is certainly consistent with Bjorn Rebney’s model for developing fighters. Cosmo Alexandre is an unknown name to the American MMA fan that could essentially develop into Bellator’s version of Donald Cerrone: An elite striker who isn’t a fish out of water on the ground. Yet while Cosmo Alexandre may be able to translate his elite striking pedigree and strong camp into a successful MMA career, it is just as likely that he may be Bellator’s version of Ray Sefo: The world class kickboxer who gets caught in submissions that most of the white belts at your gym would feel embarrassed for succumbing to. Bellator’s lightweight division (and welterweight division, if he decides he’s more comfortable at 170) is stacked with good grapplers. While it helps to have Rashad Evans as a training partner, Alexandre is going to find himself getting taken down often due to the lack of fighters willing to stand and trade with him. If he doesn’t have good enough jiu jitsu to mount some offense off of his back, or at least avoid submission attempts, we may be in store for some pretty dissappointing fights. I’ll pause for you to make your own “It’s cool, he’s Brazilian” jokes.

Highlights from his Muay Thai career after the jump.

I’m looking, but I don’t see one ounce I’d be willing to part with.

It looks like Dana White is getting his wish. Following his first round KO loss to Vitor Belfort at UFC 133, Yoshihiro Akiyama will be making the cut to 170lbs. Like any professional model, “Sexiyama” knows that thin is in, and after dropping three straight in the Middleweight division the judoka hopes to reignite his career as a welterweight.

Akiyama strutted into the Octogon sporting a 12-1 (2 no contests) record in Japan, but he hasn’t fared too well in the UFC. After snatching a split decision win over Alan Belcher, he fell victim to a last minute Chris Leben triangle, was outpointed by Michael Bisping, and dropped cold by “The Phenom”. Although he has lined his pockets with an additional $135k thanks to three “Fight of the Night” bonuses, at some point you’ve got to pick up a ‘W’ if you want to keep fighting under the bright lights…generally speaking.

Guess who didn’t get the “Bring your big gold belt” memo.    PicProps: onefc.com

OK, first:  if you didn’t manage to wrangle your ass out of bed this morning to log on and watch ONE FC’s inaugural event, you can still catch all the fights for free at Sherdog:

Eduard Folayang vs A Sol Kwon
Yoshiyuki Yoshida vs Phil Baroni
Mitch Chilson vs Eric Kelly
Gregor Gracie vs Seok Mo Kim
Andy Wang vs Zorobabel Moreira

Under card

Eddie Ng vs Yuan Chun Bo
Radeem Rahman vs Susovan Ghosh
Vuyisile Colossa vs Ma Xing Yu
Daniel Mashamaite vs Yodsanan Sityodong
Soo Chul Kim vs Leandro Issa

Watch em, then come in and we’ll talk.  Or you can just come in and we’ll tell you about it.

(Video bought to you by Zombie Prophet, of course)

On the list of “9 Questions You Should Never Ask in an MMA Interview”, it comes in at number one. At first it seems like a win-win situation to spar with a professional fighter. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to test your skill against an idol; you get some entertaining footage; and, most importantly, no one expects you to actually win so there should be no pressure. Unfortunately, no one expects you to perform a Lesnaresque pirouette after every half-hearted love tap, either.

All joking aside, hats off to this dude for gloving up, taking some abuse, and filming it all in higher quality than 90% of the professional organizations out there. You’ve got to admire someone foolhardy enough to spend five minutes locked in a cage with Martin Kampmann, even if he isn’t really trying…at all. This reporter may be getting knocked down and tossed around, but he’s got a smile on his face right up until the final seconds of the match when he gets choked unconscious. What a story he’ll have a story to tell his mustachioed grand children one day.

No matter how many times young Dana White reminded him, Gary Shaw always found himself having the same conversation.

Alright boys, we’ve finally managed to ink a possibly sport changing deal here. I know we’re all excited, but let us not forget that this opportunity to shine can quickly become a bigger disaster than The Green Lantern. I’m looking at you, HEAT, you nearly screwed us all. But this time, we’ve got the fights, my God do we got the fights, to back up all our talk. So, do we want to be winners or losers?! Do we want to change the face of MMA, or kick dirt in its eyes?! Well then, here’s how we do it!!

(Video courtesy of Zombie Prophet)

Two months after his arrest following a domestic disturbance in his home, Brett Rogers is ready to face the public. On last night’s episode of Inside MMA, “The Grim” sat down with Ron Kruck to discuss the case and announce his upcoming bout. Rogers will step into a Dakota County District Court on September 13^th to face felony charges of third degree assault, terroristic threats, and harassment and stalking. The now-happy couple seems ready to move on with their lives.

Brett Rogers: “I was told not to go in to details. The situation that occurred, it happened, and it was more of a misunderstanding when I look at it. The papers can write whatever [ed. note: Awesome! Thanks, Brett]. But we still are going through the legal process.”

Tiuana Rogers: “We’d just rather move forward and be positive.”

In keeping with the ‘staying positive’ them, Rogers’ attorney likes their chances as they head into court.

- Top 10 Colleges with the hottest girls (TheRugged)

- 10 predictions for the 2011 NFL season (Bullz-Eye)

- LOL clip of the day: Oprah/screaming goat mash-up (TuVez)

- 25 photos of girls with balls in their mouths (SuperBooyah)

- The 5 best ‘Dating on Demand’ videos (HolyTaco)

- Stann believes he could be the first man to KO Sonnen (BleacherReport)

- If movie hotels were reviewed on Trip Advisor (ScreenJunkies)

- Video: Foods for the moods with Bucky Larson (MadeMan)

- 22 baseball players who just got drilled (ClutchMTV)

- Classic conditioning of college roommate (Break)

- Nickelback: not the answer to the NHL’s depression problem (WithLeather)

- Fighters Only  MMA Awards Finalists Named (MMAJunkie)

- All of Call of Duty XP’s hijinks and dirty details, front and center (Guyism)

- Video of the day: Tom Cruise gets a letter from an Aussie (FilmDrunk)

(Win, lose or draw, Davis comes to fight.)

Warrior One (W-1) MMA has added a new co-main event to its U.S. debut event on October 15, which is set for the Bank United Center at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.

According to W-1 President Jack Bateman, a welterweight scrap between The Ultimate Fighter alumni Marcus “The Irish Hand Grenade” Davis (19-8) and Chuck “Cold Steel O’Neil (8-4) will replace a previously revealed middleweight bout between Valdir “BBMonster” Araujo (8-2) and Bellator veteran Mike “El Gringo Diablo” Bernhard (9-2), which has been scraped due to injury. Bateman informed CagePotato.com of the bout this afternoon.

Remember: *this* is the guy that the middleweights are competing to fight. Hector Lombard knocked Vitale down twice with one punch. VidProps: BellatorMMA/YouTube

So anybody notice that I mentioned Bellator yesterday?  You did?   And you didn’t comment about how splendiferous Bellator is, and how much you like watching the fights, and in general how witty and good looking we are here at CagePotato?
Well that’s just rude.  I’m inclined to not even bother running down the other two tourneys planned for this season.  Really, it’s like you don’t care.

Oh, alright.  Come on in and we’ll have coffee and talk.  But no staying over.

Chael Sonnen is like bad sci-fi movie; you spend hours thinking “is this really going on?” only to have the rug pulled out from underneath your feet in the final act when the film tells you “It was all in your head the entire time.”

So goes his appearance on MMA Live yesterday. During a recap of the main event of UFC 134, in which Anderson Silva made Yushin Okami (a.k.a the man Sonnen had stated Silva had been ducking ever since his “loss” to back in 2006) look like a child lost in a nightmare, Sonnen flipped the switch quicker than that batshit crazy dude in The Green Mile. Speaking of, did you know THAT’S the guy who gotten all that attention for marrying that 16 year old prostitute or whatever?  All I’m saying is, the best actors often aren’t acting at all.

(“Let’s try to make this thing last at least one round, deal?”)

UFC president Dana White announced during a conference call today that a heavyweight championship bout between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos will be the only bout on the promotion’s inaugural one-hout broadcast on Fox November 12. The heavily-anticipated bout, which was rumored to be the capper for UFC 139 a week later in San Jose, was instead moved to the Fox show and will now be the UFC’s landmark first fight on network television. The promotion is confident that it could do for them what Griffin vs. Bonnar I at the TUF 1 finale did for the sport back in 2006.

Continuing the trend of mind boggling losses to the MMA world, multiple reports have confirmed that veteran King of the Cage announcer and radio personality Christopher “Big Poppa” Schnake passed away Monday, just days after announcing for King of the Cage: Kingpin on Saturday night. The news was broken by Schnake’s close friend and business partner “Victory Jay”.

Reports say that “Big Poppa” pulled over at a rest stop on his drive home and passed away in his car. According to Jay, Schnake had mentioned that he needed to “get his diabetes under control” in a phone conversation shortly after collapsing mid show at “Kingpin”, but that his death was shocking nonetheless.