(The season three premiere of MMA Inside the Cage, featuring 12 killer knockouts from MMA events across the world, sent in by fans. Check it out and vote for your favorite right here.)

- Jon Jones Offers Up His Take On Saturday’s Light Heavyweight Bouts (Fightline)

- Nate Diaz Will Get the Next UFC Lightweight Title Shot (MMAJunkie)

- Dana White Thinks Matt Hughes, Forrest Griffin Should Retire (MMAFighting)

- UFC on Fox 4 Judo Chop: The Real Signature Moves of Lyoto Machida (BloodyElbow)

- Frankie Edgar’s 155 Reasons, Episode 1: ’155 Reasons In Defeat’ (HeavyMMA)

- “Great, another UFC ring girl with no ass.” (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- Dana White: ‘Maybe You Do Rashad vs Weidman and the Winner Gets a Title Shot’ (BleacherReport/MMA)

- Olympic Weightlifter Kendrick J. Farris Will Pump You Up (MadeMan)

- The Get Back Into Training Workout (MensFitness)

- 20 Cool Things Buried in Lava (EgoTV)

- If Celebrities Had Three Boobs… [GALLERY] (WorldWideInterweb)

- This Is the Coolest Volleyball Play We’ve Ever Seen (DeadSpin)

By Elias Cepeda 

Amid his national television appearances, eight wins in the UFC and record-setting submissions as a percentage of wins in the promotion, it might be hard to remember that Joe Lauzon is a regular guy who not too long ago worked a nine to five office job like lots of other Americans. Shortly after he graduated from college in 2006 with a computer science degree Lauzon got a shot in the UFC and the storyline for the Massachusetts native typically went like this: Smart college kid is fighting, for some reason.

Lauzon was supposed to be an opponent in his UFC debut, nothing more, for the returning former lightweight champion Jens Pulver. Instead, he stopped the legend in the first round and six years later “Baby Joe” is still at the top of the sport – fighting on this weekend’s UFC on FOX 4 card against former WEC lightweight champ Jamie Varner.

The twenty eight year old is as surprised as anyone.

“I never expected it to go this far,” Lauzon says, speaking of the mixed martial arts career that he began back in high school. “I thought I’d get to do it for a year or so, maybe two years. Maybe I’d make a little bit of money and then I’d have to get back to working a real job. Now I’m dreading going back to a real job,” Lauzon laughs.

(Little did we know that this man would be the spark that rekindled a long extinguished flame.) 

A few weeks ago, we brought back the always entertaining caption contest, and even went as far as to claim that we would be bringing back the “Comment of the Week” as well. We might have just been riding the wave of enthusiasm at the time (or the aftereffects of huffing duster), but we almost completely forgot about our aforementioned promise to take you guys fishing, so to speak, and left you sitting on the curb with only your own sadness as a companion.

In either case, after determining what we thought were the funniest captions of said contest, you all responded in the dickish intelligent, kneejerk well thought-out fashion that has become the standard for CagePotato readers. Being that you guys are apparently way more capable of determining what is funny and what isn’t than we are (and probably run your own ultra successful comedic MMA blog when your not jet setting across the country as well) we decided to switch things up for the return of the comment of the week, and have handed over the power to you.

After the jump you will find your list of nominees, with links to each article for context, and a poll to decide on the true winner for the week. The winner for each week will be decided the following Monday and receive whatever shirt we have in stock (this week it’s a “Pull No Punches” Tee), so make sure to get your votes in ASAP, and make any possible arguments you can in the comments section.

And the nominees are…

It’s a good day, ladies and gentlemen — adult film star and MMA fanatic Carmen Valentina has returned to CagePotato.com to answer more of your questions and underwear-requests. If this is your first introduction to Ms. Valentina, believe us when we tell you that she is awesome. This is how awesome she is:

(Props to Francesca Le and Puma Swede for helping Carmen put together the greatest CagePotato shout-out video since Kimbo Slice.)

And now onto the latest installment of Ask Carmen. Enjoy, and be sure to follow Carmen on twitter @ClubCarmenXXX.

SocraticMethod asks: Fuck, marry, kill: Brock Lesnar, Mike Goldberg, Cris Cyborg

I would probably just kill myself and end the misery, but if I had to choose it would be: Marry Mike Goldberg (although hearing him say “Here we go!” every time before sex would get annoying), I might fuck Brock Lesnar and then whisper in his ear, “Cain Velasquez does it better” once it was over, and then kill Cris Cyborg, Scarface-chainsaw style.

Chri534 asks: We all know about how BJ Penn can put his legs behind his head without using his hands. Can you do the same, or maybe top him in some way? (With video/photo evidence, of course.)

I’ve always wondered how BJ Penn got his nickname, it makes sense now! To be honest I am really not that flexible (photo evidence below), but I am flexible enough where it counts.

(* Sylvia’s physique subject to change.)

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. News broke this morning that heavyweight arch-rivals Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia — who previously faced each other in three UFC title fights in 2005-2006, with Sylvia winning the last two — will fight for the fourth time at ONE FC: Pride of a Nation, August 31st in Manila. Arlovski was originally slated to fight Australian bruiser Soa “The Hulk” Palelei at the event, but as Palelei tweeted to us earlier today, ONE FC wouldn’t let him fight unless he signed a five-fight contract. And as everybody knows, a Hulk needs his freedom.

Though both the Pitbull and the Maine-iac endured their share of setbacks during their post-UFC careers, both men are currently riding win streaks. Arlovski scored back-to-back knockouts of Ray Lopez and Travis Fulton while competing in ProElite last year, while Sylvia has won his last three bouts, most recently a 12-second TKO of Randy Smith. And while you might see this match as a relatively meaningless nostalgia fight, for Arlovski it’s still very, very real. As he said earlier this year:

“I would love to fight pee-pee taste…I beat him once and he beat me twice and it’s personal. He’s the only person in the word I really want to fight; really, really fight, it’d be a nasty fight. I don’t want to talk about what would happen in the fight, he’s a piece of shit and I’d just try to kick his blah blah blah.”

Will Arlovski even the score? Will Timmy take another step toward the UFC comeback that continues to elude him? Let us know what you think in the comments section, and re-watch their first two fights after the jump…

They see me trollinnnnnn’. They hatinnnnnn’. Props: Sherdog.

Those of you who have been clinging to the notion that Anderson Silva’s manager Jorge Guimaraes would change his mind about Chris Weidman being an “amateur kid” can officially let that ship sail. Ariel Helwani caught up with Guimaraes yesterday, and even though he clarified that the “amateur kids” comment was a translation error, he still does not see any value in an Anderson Silva vs. Chris Weidman fight for the time being. Via MMAFighting:

When specifically asked about the “amateur kids” comment:

JG: Well, there was a little lack of communication. I spoke to Tatame Magazine in Brazil and it got lost in translation. I have a lot of respect for Weidman. He’s a great fighter, but what I meant is that the fight doesn’t make sense. He has nine fights – impressive fights – but it’s half of the number of fights that Anderson has in the UFC. I think he’s just a little not ripe enough, but it’s up to the organization to tell [us] who is a good opponent for Anderson.

Check after the jump for the full quote and interview

(When Mendez refused to kiss Koscheck’s boo-boo and make it all better, a rivalry had officially been started.) 

There are few things that are simply a given in the MMA world, and they are:

1. The ref cam is fucking awesome.

2. People will always hate Jon Jones, regardless of how great a fighter he is.

3. Bruce Buffer is fucking awesome.

4. Octagon > Ring (THIS IS NOT UP FOR DEBATE.)

5. Pat Barry and everyone he knows or comes into contact with is fucking awesome.

6. Knees to the head of a downed opponent and soccer kicks should be allowed.

7. Michael Bisping and Josh Koscheck are *not* awesome.

With that in mind, take a look at this video, in which Kos has a casual conversation with friend and former training partner Jon Fitch, and discusses the beef with former camp American Kickboxing Academy (specifically, coach Javier Mendez) that he apparently just can’t let go of. In the video, he admits that he hopes AKA “burns to the ground” with “maybe one person” in it. Hint: Mendez is the person he’s hoping for. To be fair, Koscheck also openly admits to being a D-I-C-K dick, so at least he’s willing to man up about that whole issue.

See Javier’s response, courtesy of MMAFighting, after the jump.

(RagePotato: Using the sleekest technology possible to combine MMA and stupid internet trends since 2007.) 

Not many of us expected Brazilian up-and-comer Charles “do Bronx” Oliveira to absolutely manhandle TUF 12 winner Jonathan Brookins in the fashion he did at the TUF 15 Finale. Sure, Brookins’ head movement and general striking stance most closely resembles a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robot when his block has been knocked off, but Oliveira’s performance, which improved his featherweight record to 2-0, was truly a coming out party for a fighter who already had a considerable amount of hype behind him. Given the circumstances, it’s all the more appropriate (not to mention exciting) that Oliveira has been booked to take on fellow ever-rising featherweight Cub Swanson at UFC 152, which goes down on September 22nd at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Canada. Swanson has looked nothing short of spectacular lately, blistering George Roop and Ross Pearson in consecutive bouts at UFC on FOX 2 and UFC on FX 4.

After falling to the secret death-touch taught to Demian Maia by Sensei Seagal at UFC 148, Dong Hyun Kim is set to return to action against the always dangerous but struggling Paulo Thiago at UFC on FUEL 6, which will make for the UFC’s first ever trip to China on November 10th from the Cotai Arena in Cotai, Macau. Thiago last performed a dead-on impression of a cadaver in his bout with Siyar Bahadurzada at UFC on FUEL 2 (his first career loss via KO) and has dropped three of his last four bouts, so look for him to try and end things impressively against Kim because his career may be on the line.

And in heavyweight booking news…

(Harrison [top] grapples with Gemma Gibbons of Great Britain during the gold medal match earlier today. Photo props: SFGate)

Without throwing around too many spoilers, it’s been a monster of a day for American women at the 2012 Olympics. And for martial arts fans, it’s a historic one, as women’s 78kg competitor Kayla Harrison became the first American athlete ever to win a gold medal in judo. She’s just the second American woman to medal at the Olympics, following Strikeforce champ Ronda Rousey (her former training partner), who took bronze in 2008. Women’s 57kg competitor Marti Malloy also won a bronze on Monday, making the 2012 London games the first Olympics since 1998 in which the USA has earned two medals in judo.

Harrison, who entered this year’s competition ranked fourth in the world, reached the finals by defeating Vera Moskalyuk (Russia), Abigel Joo (Hungary), and world-ranked #1 Mayra Aguiar (Brazil), all by ippon. She faced Great Britain’s Gemma Gibbons in the gold-medal match, and won 2-0 on a pair of yukos. In your face, world.

After the jump: A Boston Globe video-profile on Harrison’s life and training, and a TV-shot video of the end of her finals match against Gibbons.

UFC president Dana White and the four headliners for Saturday’s UFC on FOX 4 event — Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Brandon Vera, Lyoto Machida, and Ryan Bader — will be in attendance today for the “Shogun vs. Vera” press conference in Los Angeles; you can watch it live in the player after the jump beginning at 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT. We expect each man to make a perfectly logical and well-reasoned argument why he should be the next light-heavyweight title-contender. Personally, I think Jon Jones should just go down the row elbowing each fighter in the nose at full strength, and the last guy to start crying earns the shot. But what do I know — I’m just an unappreciated promotional visionary.

(When Zuffa purchased the UFC, Dana White actually had hair. There is no punchline, just a fact worth mentioning.)

By Nathan Smith

I have purchased pay per views from the Ultimate Fighting Championship since 1994, where I was welcomed to the sport with Pat Smith turning the face of Scott Morris into a Manwich at UFC 2: No Way Out. It was like heroin after that – I was addicted. Since then, I estimate that I have shelled out well over $5000 on PPVs alone, much less another sizeable chunk of change on tickets to live events and the obligatory UFC merchandise (who can live without the life-sized GSP cardboard cut-out – NOT ME).

Throughout that time I have been an advocate of MMA to the uninformed masses that I’ve encountered at watering holes across this great land. For every, “That UFC shit is just a legalized bar fight” comment, I would swoop in like Dogwelder to defend the UFC and its competitors. It was almost a grass roots effort by the early UFC supporters to educate the ignorant and let them know that this is a real sport filled with unbelievably talented athletes. The edification continues today as many intelligent fans try to shun the perceived stigma that we are a bunch of tatted-up dudes wearing flat-billed TAPOUT hats and driving small-penis-compensating monster trucks while applying ring worm ointment to our wounds.

Then there was the figure-head, the fearless leader that was taking all the media scrutiny head-on and paving the way while holding up his middle finger to the man. After the ZUFFA purchase, Dana White was a perfect fit during the infancy of the UFC’s push towards legitimacy. Adopting rules and weight classes and marketing the shit out of the product culminated in a 7 year deal with FOX and its affiliates. Now the UFC is on the precipice of its fourth nationally televised FOX card and the ratings have plummeted from 5.7 million during UFC on FOX 1 (Cain Velasquez VS Junior Dos Santos) to 2.4 million during UFC on FOX 3 (Nate Diaz VS Jim Miller).

I don’t think it is a coincidence that viewership and PPV buys are down. I have always been a staunch supporter of the brand and even I, a die hard fan, am starting to see chinks in the UFC armor. The reasons have been dissected on CP with various posts but I believe that this is just the beginning of problems for the UFC unless some changes are made pronto. I am not saying that the UFC is in the toilet but as the organization has grown in stature from eviscerating the competition, a standard evolution needs to happen.

So with that in mind, here are five ways that the UFC can move from their current plateau all the way to the mountain top.

(Props: CRE)

When two drunk jackasses swing haymakers at each other in front of a nightclub, it’s a street fight. When a redneck with a tattoo of a backbone down his back throws multiple spinning wheel-kicks, knees from the clinch, and what appears to a Superman punch (1:13 mark) during a personal dispute, it’s something different. It’s something we like to call…MMA in the Wild.

To summarize, beefy dude in the tank top has allegedly been sending inappropriate messages to shirtless guy’s girlfriend on the Facebook. Shirtless guy intercepts the messages, and then, posing as his own girlfriend, he continues the conversation just to gather more evidence, I guess, and not because he actually enjoys posing as a girl on Facebook. So, shirtless dude posses up with some of his bros (just in case things get out of hand) and confronts tank top dude on a porch, whose denials are not well-received. As it turns out, tank top dude has a hell of a chin, but it isn’t much of a “fight,” per se.

In the end, shirtless guy is unable to secure the stoppage he was looking for, but he has clearly made a statement to the rest of the redneck lightweight porch-fighting division. You can bet that “Say Goodnight!” guy was watching this scrap with great interest.

(“Stuffing the referee’s arm up his own asshole, is Jackson.” — Mike Goldberg)

We’ve seen the ref-cam gimmick during old PRIDE and Strikeforce events — sometimes it was awesome, sometimes it made us want to barf from motion sickness — but for the first time this Saturday, the UFC will be adding the third-man perspective to its UFC on FOX: Shogun vs. Vera broadcast. Here’s the rundown, from a FOX press release sent out yesterday:

As a pioneer in production innovation, FOX Sports has used unique camera views like Catcher Cam, Diamond Cam and Gopher Cam to bring viewers closer to the excitement of the sports they love. Saturday night at the Staples Center in in Los Angeles is no different as the network brings UFC fans to a place they’ve never been — inside the Octagon, within inches of the fighters battling in the cage.

Ref Cam makes its broadcast and UFC debut Saturday, Aug. 4 (8:00-10:00 PM ET), from the Staples Center bringing fans a new perspective to the two-hour quadruple-header.

Similar in size to the latest evolution of Diamond Cam, Ref Cam is a small, lightweight, wireless high definition, radio frequency transmission camera showing the point of view of the only other person inside the Octagon with the fighters. During Saturday’s broadcast, the lens will be placed at the top button of the referee’s shirt. The power-source, a long-life lithium ion battery and the transmitter are worn as a light chest vest under the referee’s shirt. Developed by Inertia Unlimited, it was first used earlier this summer during HBO’s broadcast of Amir Kahn vs. Danny Garcia fight and received very positive reviews from production and viewers.

(Little did Stitch know that the worst was yet to come…)

When I was growing up, I was one fearless son of a bitch. This ignorance of one’s mortality that is present in most adolescent boys, combined with a rubbery yet somehow fragile bone structure, led to horrifying injury after horrifying injury. When I was ten, my older brother shattered my collarbone reenacting The People’s Elbow that he had just seen on TV, an injury that has limited my ability to enjoy any Dwayne Johnson vehicle to this day. Two years before that, while reenacting the ending of King Kong vs. Godzilla, my skull was split open by a rock that my younger brother threw just a little too low. Add in more than a half dozen soccer-related broken toes, a dislocated knee and shoulder, and torn hamstring/broken ankle combination that made me yelp like a little bitch with every single step I took in the weeks afterward, and you have a shortened but accurate profile of the kind of damage my body has been through in the short 23 years I have been on this earth.

I’ve seen some injuries is what I’m saying.

But clearly, the various afflictions I have suffered pale in comparison to the twenty or so fighters who were scheduled to compete this summer, only to be struck down by an injury curse the likes of which this sport has yet to see. One of the men who actually managed to compete this summer was former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le, whose nose alone has seen rougher times than most multiple war veterans. After picking up his first UFC win over Patrick Cote at UFC 148, Le apparently injured his foot during some training-related exercise, and decided to videotape himself undergoing an ancient Chinese process (no, not Calgon) in order to help mend his wounded foot.

Video after the jump. For real this time. 

If a botched call is generally known as a “Mazzagati,” then this referee just earned the Pornstache Lifetime Achievement Award for this epic flub. Passed along to us by none other than KarmaAteMyCat, the above video depicts what may be the worst referee blunder in the history of MMA. Sound impossible? Prepare to have your puny minds blown.

The event was Warrior Nation XFA III. The day was April 20th. In a preliminary 135 lb contest, Justin Kristie made his amateur debut against fellow rookie David Baxter. You can watch most of the first round if you’d like, but we recommend that you skip to the 4:13 mark, where, with ten seconds remaining, Kristie locks in a tight triangle. Baxter either throws some open palm strikes, or in our opinion, appears to tap with five seconds remaining. The ref doesn’t react, a pattern that will become disturbingly apparent in the very near future, so Kristie promptly chokes Baxter the fuck out as the bell sounds.

This is where things take a turn into the truly bizarre.

(Props: facebook.com/StrikeforceMixedMartialArts. Click for larger versions.)

Between verbally assaulting Kim Kardashian, dissing Michael Phelps/swimmers in general, getting in some mitt-work with Carmen Electra, and threatening to make Steven Seagal shit his pants again, it’s impressive that tabloid darling Ronda Rousey would even have time to promote her next Strikeforce title defense against Sarah Kaufman, which goes down August 18th in San Diego. Nevertheless, Strikeforce recently released these photos of their golden girl, which were taken during the same shoot for their glossy “Rousey vs. Kaufman” promo commercial.

Look, we at CagePotato will welcome any photos of Ronda Rousey wearing a black latex bodysuit with open minds and open hearts. Let’s just hope she’s spending as much time in the gym as she is in front of the camera, because as Brandon Vera so tragically demonstrated, believing your own hype is the quickest way to get knocked off your perch.

After the jump: Ronda Rousey hosts an entire episode of TMZ, because that’s what she does now.

(Alessio prays for forgiveness (and another shot) after coming up short in a snoozer against Shane Roller at UFC 148.) 

We don’t mean to disrespect a grizzled veteran of the sport like John Alessio, but simply put, if you are shocked to learn that “The Natural” was released from the UFC following an 0-2 stint in the octagon, you are either John Alessio or Lloyd Christmas. Having compiled an 0-5 lifetime record in the promotion, Alessio not only received one of the most undeserved title shots of all time under the Zuffa banner, but will live in CagePotato infamy for his placement amongst the “50 Worst Fighters in UFC History” and “The Ten Most Ironic Nicknames in MMA”. While he might be upset to learn of his placement on one of those lists, the other was more or less just a means of wasting time on our part.

Based purely on comparative success in other promotions, Alessio was/is basically the Canadian version of Jorge Santiago — a man capable of crushing 95% of the fighters he faces outside of the promotion, but one who simply couldn’t put it together under the bright lights — scoring impressive wins over fellow UFC veterans Chris Clements, War Machine, and Sean Pierson among others. Of his five losses, four came by way of unanimous decision, against superior strikers (Thiago Alves, Diego Sanchez), superior grapplers (Mark Bocek, Shane Roller) and superior superiors (Pat Militech). In an interview with MMAJunkie, Alessio discussed how his most recent loss to Roller was the hardest to swallow:

 I’m super upset. I worked so long and so hard to get back, and the UFC always puts all this pressure on you about being exciting, so I tried to change my style up to be crowd-pleasing. But then I get an opponent in my last fight, where he just chose to hold me down to win the fight, and it’s just depressing that that gets rewarded when all they talk about is exciting fights.

I really thought that I’d be spending more than a couple of months of 2012 in the UFC. I thought I’d get one more shot. I don’t know where I should go or what my options are.

Though we are sure that Alessio will find success wherever he lands, his hope of getting a win in the UFC before he retires is a long shot at best at this point in his career. The 33 year-old Xtreme Couture products record currently stands at 34-16.

A tribute to Alessio’s finest UFC moments is after the jump. 

(“Now, Demian! Use the muscle-spasm death touch that I taught you!”)

Demian Maia‘s welterweight debut at UFC 148 was over before it really began, thanks to a poorly timed muscle spasm suffered by Dong Hyun Kim. But the former middleweight title contender will be getting another chance to make an impression against Rick Story. Their bout is scheduled to take place at UFC 153 (October 13th, Rio de Janeiro), a card that is quickly stacking up with top Brazilian talent. Story recently outpointed newcomer Brock Jardine at UFC on FX: Maynard vs. Guida, which snapped a two-fight losing streak against Charlie Brenneman and Martin Kampmann.

Speaking of Brenneman, “The Spaniard” has booked his return fight after being choked out by Erick Silva in June. He’ll be appearing at UFC 151: Jones vs. Henderson (September 1st, Las Vegas) against TUF 11 competitor — and former Crocodile Hunter bodyguard — Kyle Noke, who is coming off of two losses at middleweight and will be making his welterweight debut.

In other booking news…

(Who wants to be #8?? / Image via Sportsnet.ca)

By Ben Goldstein

In case you haven’t been paying attention — or simply refuse to believe it — the next UFC light-heavyweight title contender will be selected from a crop of four guys who have previously been destroyed by current champion Jon Jones. And I mean destroyed. Obviously, the lucky challenger could wind up taking on Dan Henderson instead, but we’re still talking about a quartet of fighters who have already proven that they’re somewhat less than belt-worthy.

Does the weak contender pool at light-heavyweight represent a low-water mark for UFC title challengers? Hardly. Even if the shot goes to Brandon Vera — a guy who has gone 1-2 with one no-contest in his last four fights — he’d be coming in with a win over a legend like Shogun, which is nothing to sneeze at. So let’s put all this criticism into perspective, and take a look at seven guys who really didn’t deserve a UFC title fight when one was handed to them…

TANK ABBOTT
Fought Maurice Smith for the heavyweight title @ UFC 15, 10/17/97

In Tank’s defense, he was coming in on short-notice as an injury replacement for Dan Severn — but still, you’d think the UFC could hustle up a more legitimate challenger for their heavyweight belt. After all, we’re not talking about the Tank Abbott of 1995 who was knocking dudes out then mocking their seizures. We’re talking about the Tank Abbott of 1997 who had already been exposed as hopelessly one-dimensional, and had lost his last two fights against Vitor Belfort and Don Frye. Coincidentally, Belfort was on the UFC 15 card as well, in a heavyweight title eliminator against Randy Couture — and if either of those guys were drafted for the main event in Tank’s place, we might not have been subjected to the sad sight of Abbott stumbling around and wheezing after eight minutes of battle, too exhausted to defend leg kicks.