(Look at Brock hiding out up there so he doesn’t get hit. Art really does imitate life.)

Sometimes the best highlights and promos are the ones made by fans of the sport. Promotions tend to tell you what they think you should be excited about whereas fans just seem to know what is exciting.

Case in point, the UFC 141: Overeem vs. Lesnar trailer below from our friends who produce “The Reem” documentary series. If you saw the latest episode of the show, you’ve already seen this spot, but it’s worth re-watching even if you have.

It’s a toss-up whether this fight or the upcoming championship bout between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez on Fox is the more heavily anticipated heavyweight tilt, but no matter which one you’re most looking forward to, this video should get you pumped for Overeem vs. Lesnar, or horsemeat vs. beef jerky as we like to call it.

Check it out after the jump.

As I watched Pat Barry fall victim to yet another submission at the spider legs of Stefan Struve during UFC Live: Cruz vs. Johnson this past Saturday, my stomach began to take on the feeling that I hadn’t known since I watched A Serbian Film for the second time. I knew what was going to happen, but deep in my atheist soul I hoped…no, prayed, that things would somehow change. And like a 7-Eleven cashier in Compton, I found myself on the wrong end of the barrel yet again.

Thankfully, the powers at be have likely given Barry another chance. And since we all know “HD” is an avid Cagepotato Fan, I figured I’d let the master of all things MMA/street fighting, Bas Rutten, give us a little tutorial on how to escape a triangle choke. It may not be as flashy as power-bombing your way out, but it’s a hell of a lot more effective.

Being the Renaissance man that “El Guapo” is, he manages to make a complex maneuver seem as simple as four steps:

(“Look at me damn it.  I said I’m sorry. I even sent you a brownie basket.”)

Somebody should have warned Lyoto Machida that playing hardball with Dana White never ends well.

Now, either the UFC is teaching him a lesson for wanting “Anderson Silva Money” for stepping in on short notice to face Rashad Evans at UFC 133 or they want to save the Japanese-Brazilian fighter for its February 26 return to Japan. Either way, Lyoto, who only fought once in 2011 at UFC 129 in April, won’t even be making Strikeforce Challengers money the rest of the year. Lucky for him he has the Knockout of the Night bonus he got for retiring Randy Couture and knocking out his tooth.

(Props: 4z4r3th via Willin. Fight starts at the 1:09 mark.)

In his 12 fights under the UFC and WEC banners, Chael Sonnen has won seven fights by unanimous decision and lost the rest by triangle choke or triangle/armbar. You have to respect that level of consistency. But believe it or not, the mouthy middleweight also has ten stoppage victories on his record from appearances in non-Zuffa promotions.

Exhibit A: Sonnen once grappled the shit out of fellow WEC/UFC vet Tim McKenzie at a Bodog Fight event in February 2007, scoring a takedown and sinking a brabo choke in just 13 seconds. Even Royce Gracie himself was giving Chael props after the performance. (And hey, nice pull with that Asian girlfriend, buddy!)

Previously:
- Bizarro World Technique Video of the Day: Omoplata from Guard by Chael Sonnen
- MMA Video Tribute: Six Amazingly Rare Occurrences

(Pat tried to take that thing down and landed directly in a guillotine. Props: @hypeordie)

It’s official: A good personality + the willingness to stand-and-bang = job security in the UFC. Following Pat Barry‘s second-round triangle/armbar loss to Stefan Struve at Saturday’s “UFC Live: Cruz vs. Johnson” show, UFC president Dana White was asked about the heavyweight striker’s future in the company, to which DW replied:

“We like guys like that, we like guys that are exciting and guys that come out and fight. I don’t know, Pat’s a guy that we do like. He’s one of the guys that always brings it. He’s like, a lot of people were saying “you’re cutting Dan Hardy,” Dan Hardy comes to fight and always puts on wars. I like the Arturo Gatti type fighters. I like the guys who always bring it. And that’s what this is about. When you’re a fight fan you tune in to see fights and I like guys who do it.”

(Props: BellatorMMA)

For those of you who had better things to do on Saturday, Bellator put together this helpful video recap of their Season Five heavyweight tournament quarterfinals. And for a card full of relatively obscure big-men, the show wasn’t half bad.

Ron Sparks (8-0) continued his rise towards relevancy with an 84-second knockout of Mark Holata. Sparks also happens to be one of those dudes with his own last name tattooed on his stomach, but we won’t hold it against him. Speaking of stoppages, Blagoi Ivanov (5-0, 1 no contest) also kept his unbeaten record, smashing Zak Jensen standing then putting him to a sleep in the second round with a guillotine choke.

This is the face one makes when he realizes that Cyborg Santos is now his most marketable champion.

Some of you may have been surprised when you read that the UFC has apparently called Bigfoot Silva up to the majors. Not only was he coming off of a loss, but there were better fighters out there for the UFC to call up. Well, don’t worry. The UFC has called up arguably Strikeforce’s best fighter, lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, according to a report on MMAJunkie.com. Melendez was scheduled to defend his title against Jorge Masvidal on December 17, but it is yet to be seen how this announcement will affect that. So yeah, don’t worry about the UFC not calling up Strikeforce’s best, most deserving fighters. Unless you love Strikeforce and don’t want to see it go under. Then by all means keep panicking.

The date of his UFC debut, as well as his opponent, has yet to be determined. However, according to the aforementioned report there is the possibility that Gilbert Melendez will get an immediate title shot. If that’s the case, I can’t really make sense out of that. Nick Diaz getting an immediate title shot made sense, given that Georges St. Pierre essentially cleaned out the welterweight division. However, the lightweight division is arguably the UFC’s strongest, deepest weight class. There are already plenty of contenders for the winner of the upcoming rubber match between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard. Then again, there’s also the possibility that the Donovan McNabb will lead the Minnesota Vikings to the Super Bowl, so let’s not read too much into what’s possible.

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

Dana White breaks the news around the six minute mark. Props to NBCsports.com for the video.

When the news first broke that the UFC was going to hold an event in Japan on the same day as an event in Las Vegas in 2012, many of us were confused as to how this was going to work. Some of us pictured a Flintstones-esque scenario where Dana White and Burt Watson frantically try to be in two places at once, leading to various shenanigans. Even though specifics are still up in the air at this point, last night Dana White cleared the air a bit with how the UFC intends on handling the situation.

According to Dana White, the UFC event in Japan will take place on February 26, while the PPV card in Las Vegas will take place on February 25. Due to time zone differences, the plan is that the UFC Japan card will air live for free (presumably on Fox) immediately before the PPV broadcast in Las Vegas. So for those of you who guessed that that was going to happen, feel free to gloat in the comments section.

After weeks of height-related gags, Struve still wasn’t done rubbing his length advantage in Barry’s face. (Photo: Tracy Lee via Yahoo Sports!)

Sandwiched between two marquee UFC cards, last night’s UFC Live flew under the promotional radar. It’s understandable that Zuffa would focus more on two stacked pay per view cards than a Versus broadcast, but in a time when fights are hyped for months only to fall short when the bell rings, it’s rare to see a card that delivers so much action from Facebook to the main event. Add to the mix that there was gold on the line and the lack of promotion for this event is borderline criminal. Only two fights on the card were decided by the judges—though just as many were decided by the referees—and either of them could have earned FOTN honors. We’ve got a lot to cover, so hunker down.

First off, I’d like to welcome back an old friend. Elbows, we’d nearly forgotten about you, but last night you were ushered back into society like the queen of a violent debutant ball. Bored with simply working on teeth, “The Dentist” performed a full-facial extraction via elbow on Keith Wisniewski during the Facebook broadcast. Cut stoppages aren’t my favorite, but these ‘bows we’re seeing from the clinch are brutal, damage inflicting blows that you’ve got to stop before they stop you, and I like them. Speaking of which…

You ever get really lazy while liveblogging and decide to just use a picture of the fighters in the main event and offer nothing clever in the caption? Yeah, me neither. Props: Pennyjomma.net

You know why you’re here. You know what to expect. Let’s just jump right into this. Also, weekend editor Seth Falvo is handling tonight’s liveblog duties, so please direct all of your hateful comments at him. And hit “refresh” early and often.

Have you ever been watching an MMA fight and found yourself thinking, “Yeah, this is cool and all, but I wonder what it would be like if these dudes were strapped to a cocktail table and had zero training”? Well, today is your lucky day. Freshly resurrected from the MMA graveyard is “XARM”.

XARM is the brainchild of Art Davie, one of the the UFC’s original co-founders. In its first incarnation, XARM nearly usurped MMA as the next “evolution of combat sports” before abruptly calling it quits, but now the ‘extreme arm wrestling’ league has returned and is poised to take over once again.

Amazingly, they’ve found backing by experienced television producers.

Video streaming by Ustream
Aside from Upstream, props to Ironforgesiron.com

Truly great works of art often take multiple views to fully understand, and a few more to fully appreciate. In that way, this video is kind of like a forgotten masterpiece. Except that it’s absolutely nothing like art in any way, shape or form, and more like an argument I don’t fully understand.

From what I’ve managed to gather, Rampage Jackson isn’t the only light heavyweight in the UFC with snitching issues. Rashad Evans was apparently the only person on Earth to know about “fuckin’ Melissa”, and now people are butt hurt that everyone knows. For what it’s worth, my totally uninformed opinion is leading me to believe that Rashad is as guilty as former Executive Vice President of MusclePharm Leonard Amenta was (i.e. not at all). Come on, you tell only one person about Melissa and chose to pick Rashad Evans? But I digress. There’s a much needed break in the action at the 1:13 mark before the argument resumes at the 3:20 mark.

(Video via MMANuts.com)

A few short days ago Dave Herman was yanked from his upcoming bout against Mike Russow following a failed drug test, and before the smoke had cleared a lively debate had sparked between our readers about marijuana’s place in the sport. We thought we’d hashed it all out and come to an understanding, but now Rodrigo “Comprido” Medeiros has weighed in on the matter with a very special PSA. According to the heavily decorated BJJ champion, those of you who lobbied in favor of mixing grass and grappling are stupid and suffer from low self-esteem. To be fair, Comprido, pretty much everyone here at the Potato Nation is stupid and suffers from low self-esteem; it’s kind of our “thing”.

“[I] just want to make this very clear: Eddie Bravo is an idiot. Ok? Using drugs don’t improve the performance of a fighter. If you want to build your self-confidence, you’re going to do sports, do martial arts, but never use drugs.”

There’s more buzz-kill after the jump.

(Props to MMAWeekly.com) 

Before you even ask, yes, Anthony Johnson did make weight, and he seemed about as excited to do so as any fighter I’ve ever seen. Joe Rogan informed us that the Struve/Barry fight is “the biggest height discrepancy for a UFC fight ever.” If there was a category for stare-down of the year, I’m pretty sure theirs would be the front runner.

All fighters made weight except for Byron Bloodworth, who weighed in at 138 lbs. and was originally given 2 hours to drop the necessary 2 pounds for his bout with Mike Easton. The decision was quickly reversed and Byron was allowed to keep the additional weight without penalty for coming in as such a late replacement. Check out the full weigh in results after the jump.

-Danga