(Pikeew pikeew! I got you! Nu-uh! I totally got you first!) 

In the past three years, Thiago Silva has been knocked out by Lyoto Machida, out-grappled by Rashad Evans, suspended from the UFC for attempting to mask his roid-filled urine after his fight with Brandon Vera, and out struck by Alexander Gustafsson. Needless to say, Silva is probably going to get axed if he doesn’t win big against Stanislav Nedkov at the pair’s upcoming duel at UFC on FUEL 6. The undefeated Nedkov has also spent more time on the shelf than off lately, battling injuries and visa issues for the better part of his two-year UFC career, but barring any last minute issues, these two will clash on November 10th in Cotai, Macau. And based on their finishing ratios, we’re fairly certain that this one will end inside of three rounds.

So in honor of the occasion, we’ve dug up Silva’s last official victory — which came over Keith Jardine via knockout (I know, you’re shocked too) at UFC 102 in August of 2009 — and placed it after the jump for your enjoyment. Because it is Halloween after all, and who won’t sleep better knowing that the scary monster in your closet can easily be felled with a solid left hook?

(Yes, Georges, your knees are fine, and you can still curtsy like a little princess, we get it.)

According to a new report by the Vancouver Sun, UFC 154: St. Pierre vs. Condit (November 17th, Montreal) is suffering from slow ticket sales, with large groups of seats available less than three weeks out from the show. Though the UFC still expects a capacity crowd at the Bell Centre, it’s a noticeable shift from the promotion’s four previous stops in Montreal, three of which set UFC attendance records. According to UFC Director of Canadian Operations Tom Wright, fans may be spooked by the UFC’s recent injury apocalypse, which absolutely destroyed their July stop in Calgary:

“There’s been many examples over the last several fights — UFC 151 and 149 in Calgary is a good example of it — where fighters got injured and there were changes to the card. I think there are fans who are saying, ‘You know what? I’m really excited about GSP‘s return and I love the fact that we’ve got (Martin) Kampmann versus (Johny) Hendricks in the co-main event, and we’ve got a bunch of Canadians on the card. But you know what? I bought my tickets 12 weeks out for Calgary and a whole bunch of things happened. I’m going to wait until it’s a little closer’…I absolutely think that you’re seeing that. I think you’re going to see that going forward.”

Sounds like a logical hypothesis to me. I’m not going to go as far as to call UFC 154′s supporting card garbage-ass, but you have to ask yourself — if, God forbid, either GSP or Carlos Condit suffered a freak injury at the eleventh hour, is the rest of the lineup strong enough to soldier on without them? The co-main event of Kampmann vs. Hendricks is solid enough to headline a FUEL or FX card, but would be a tough sell for a pay-per-view headliner at the Bell Centre. And outside of the top two fights, the biggest name on the main card is Mark Hominick, who is riding an agonizing three-fight losing streak, and facing the inconsistent (and not-particuarly-relevant) Pablo Garza.

(For all you high rollers out there, $5.99 gets you one of these signed with lipstick.) 

What in the hell is happening in the world of MMA? First we find out that Ken Shamrock will talk you into a living death for only $11.99 a minute, and now this noise.

Gentlemen, have you ever found yourself watching a Miesha Tate fight and thought, “You know what, that woman is a great fighter, I would love to show her my penis over the internet.” Well today is your lucky day, because a thread on the UG recently brought to light that the former Strikeforce bantamweight women’s champion has apparently launched a “members only” website, where just $4.99 a month (!!!!) gets you access to the following:

-Latest and up to date news
-Latest and up to date appearances and schedule
-Exclusive photos not found anywhere else
-Exclusive videos not found anywhere else
-Access to store for merchandise and memorbilia
-Contests available to fans only
-Be able to submit your picture with Miesha that will be permanently on her website
-Chance to Video Chat with Miesha herself (times and days TBD)
-Book 1 on 1 video chat
-See Marzia stream live from her phone  (coming soon)

Let’s see you top that, Carmen!

(Hey Frankie, you should invite Sanchez and Tebow to the fight. I’m pretty sure they’ll be free that weekend.)

The UFC’s traditional Super Bowl weekend blowout will feature at least one title belt up for grabs, as the featherweight championship match between Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar has been officially confirmed for UFC 156. Though the event was previously rumored to take place in Brazil in January, UFC 156 will actually be held February 2nd in Las Vegas, at a venue to be named later.

When the two fighters meet, it’ll be Aldo’s first Octagon appearance in more than year, as a pair of injuries have kept him out of the cage since his last title defense against Chad Mendes at UFC 142. It’ll also be Edgar’s first-ever UFC fight at featherweight. Will the former lightweight champ look stronger against an opponent closer to his own size, or will he be sacrificing the speed advantage that served him so well during his long stint at 155 pounds?

No other matchups have been formally announced for the UFC 156 card yet, though Rashad Evans vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira has been reported, while Josh Koscheck and Nick Diaz are apparently jockeying for a spot on the lineup as well.

(Let’s just say that their Chat Roulette session with fans quickly took a turn for the worse.)

When it was first announced that Jon Jones would be coaching the next season of The Ultimate Fighter opposite Chael Sonnen, then beating him into dust defending his light heavyweight strap against him at the season’s end, the general public reaction seemed to be that of bewilderment. Even those who were quick to defend the pairing didn’t have the cojones to claim that Sonnen had earned a title shot (because how could you), but rather that he stepped up when no one else would and it would make for great television so we should just all STFU. We have officially entered the Rollerball phase of the UFC, people. And although Sonnen made sure to break out the WWE trash-talk in the days following the announcement, if you are expecting all-out verbal warfare on next season’s TUF, you might want to start preparing yourself for disappointment.

Last night, Dana White, Jones, and Sonnen sat down for a 40 minute video chat with fans to answer questions about ranging from the upcoming season of the reality show to what Dana White thinks of Fedor, which was apparently asked by a fan who had been living underground for the past 3 years. After Dana was done berating anyone who had the gall to ask him anything other than how he would describe his perfect Sunday, he called in an uncharacteristically laid back and terrorist beard-free Jones, who was immediately asked how he viewed Sonnen now that the show had begun shooting. His response was surprising to say the least.

Full story and video after the jump. 

(Click chart for full-size version. And if you missed our first Databomb, click here.)

By Reed Kuhn, @Fightnomics

There’s lots of talk about what submissions work better than others in MMA. But we should at least agree that all submissions are not created equal. Some are easier to attempt, and some are easier to finish. But which ones are which?

Examining both the attempt and success rates for each submission type in the UFC since 2007 reveals that some of the most common submissions attempted are actually the hardest to finish. Notably, guillotine chokes and shoulder locks (like kimuras) have very low success rates — 14% and 6%, respectively — despite being attempted fairly frequently. And really, who taps to ankle locks these days? No one still holding a UFC roster spot, that’s who. Meanwhile, no submission is nearly as successful as the rear-naked choke, which results in a tap (or nap) 41% of the time.

So the next time a UFC fighter goes for a guillotine or ankle lock, and the overeager fan at the bar thinks it’s all over — quick! — bet him the next round that there’s an escape…and cheers.

For more on the science and stats of MMA, follow @Fightnomics on Twitter or on Facebook. See more MMA analytical research at www.fightnomics.com.

(Godspeed, you strange, beautiful warrior. / Photo via Heavy)

His gritty decision loss to Forrest Griffin at the first TUF Finale helped turn the UFC’s fortunes around, and his most recent fight against Anderson Silva saved UFC 153 from possible extinction. The American Psycho shed his blood for the good of the sport, and now he’s gone.

It was confirmed yesterday that Stephan Bonnar will be retiring from MMA following an 11-year career, including a 15-fight stretch in the UFC where he went 8-7. It’s likely that he’ll be remembered more for his defeats than his victories — besides the aforementioned losses to Griffin and Silva, Bonnar also has the dubious honor of being an early victim of Lyoto Machida, a member of Jon Jones’s spinning-back-elbow highlight reel, and the last person to be defeated by Mark Coleman (ouch).

Still, it was a joy to watch him compete, and when he won, it was a triumph. I know it sounds cliched and pandering to talk about “heart,” “warrior spirit,” and “never-say-die attitude” when you’re discussing a fighter who was never able to come near a title belt, but in Bonnar’s case, those terms genuinely apply. He was one of the good guys, and his generosity with fans even extended to two-bit MMA blogs like ours.

CagePotato.com would like to wish Stephan Bonnar the best of luck on his future endeavors, and thank him for the years of entertainment he’s given us in the UFC. Please share your favorite Stephan Bonnar moment in the comments section, and check out the full video of Bonnar vs. Griffin 1 after the jump.

(Don’t worry, we shall have our revenge on this murderous ocean.) 

While there’s little doubt that a lot of us East-Coasters are currently comparing scars in relation to Hurricane Sandy Vagina’s rampage through our respective towns (I spent most of my day bailing water out of my car here in Dorchester and my brother’s roof in Upstate NY was completely destroyed, in case you were wondering), if you are able to read this right now then you are likely much better off than UFC middleweight contender Chris Weidman. Because according to Ryan Bader’s Twitter account, Weidman’s New York City home was completely destroyed by the storm today:

Thankfully, no one from Weidman’s family was injured in the incident, which is unfortunately not the case for many families throughout the East coast. We here at CagePotato would like to extend our thoughts and prayers to the Weidman family and every family that is currently struggling to deal with the impact of Sandy, and also thank you readers for checking in on us when many of you probably have a lot more pertinent issues at hand.

Now head over to Chris Weidman’s Twitter and lend him your support, won’t you?

-J. Jones

(More frightening than anything you’ll see this Halloween. Gif courtesy of Zombie Prophet.) 

Although it was marginally overlooked in our weekend wrap-up of the event, you guys might have heard that Marius Zaromskis was nearly ground into a fine white powder by the fists of Andrey Koreshkov in their co-main event matchup at Bellator 78 this past weekend. Despite the fact that referee Jerry Poe was literally watching the action from the perfect angle, he apparently suffered a case of sudden onset blindness at the worst possible moment, allowing Koreshkov to reign down some 11 unanswered blows — which were each fight-ending power strikes in and of themselves — before calling a stop the fight. It made Josh Rosenthal’s stoppage of Chris Weidman vs. Mark Munoz look like Rick Fike’s stoppage of Aaron Riley vs. Shane Nelson 1. Word has it that even Steve Mazzagatti started screaming “Wake the fuck up ref!” at his television during the fight. Needless to say, people were pissed.

But we can rest assured for the time being, because Ohio Athletic Commission Executive Director Bernie Profato recently told BloodyElbow that the fight was “under review.” While we truly appreciate that notion on behalf of the fighters, we’re not exactly sure what potential punishments could arise from a review (although an attempted manslaughter charge for Poe seems appropriate) or how they could be carried out.

The problem is, we’ve seen these kinds of referee blunders go unpunished before — as will likely be the case in this instance — so it almost begs one to ask what exactly a referee has to do (or not do) in order to be held accountable for their decisions.

Daniel Sotomayor’s Fightin’ Dudes t-shirt may have fallen just short of the first place spot in our recent t-shirt design contest — but you can’t keep a good artist down. Daniel has put the shirt up for sale on RedBubble.com for the fair price of $26.18. The shirt comes in 21 different colors, in sizes ranging from small up to XXXL. You can also get it in hoodie or sticker form.

Buy it now, before Notre Dame sues us into a living death!

(Photo via MMAWeekly)

The UFC hasn’t yet made an official announcement, but several outlets are reporting that former Pride and UFC heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira and contender Fabricio Werdum are set to coach against one another on the next edition of TUF Brazil and then fight one another. The first season of TUF Brazil featured Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort as opposing coaches, and was a ratings success, although Belfort had to bow out of his beef-settling fight with Wandy due to a broken hand.

Brazil’s GloboEsporte reports that TUF Brazil will begin airing in March and that the two fighters have verbally agreed to take part as coaches. Nogueira and Werdum previously fought one another in the quarterfinals of PRIDE’s 2006 Openweight Grand Prix, with “Minotauro” earning a unanimous decision. Werdum is currently on a two-fight win streak in his latest stint in the UFC, with impressive victories over Roy Nelson and Mike Russow. Nogueira has lost three out of his last six fights but got back on the winning track this month at UFC 153 with a dominating submission win over Dave Herman.

- Elias Cepeda

In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been all about the inaugural World Series of Fighting event around here lately. We’ve snagged interviews with former UFC welterweight Josh Burkman, who is taking on fellow UFC vet Gerald Harris on the undercard, and world renowned badass/WSOF President Ray Sefo. In the meantime, we’ve been doing our best to undermine the legitimacy of the UFC, in turn allowing the WSOF to rise to MMA supremacy and grant us exclusive press passes for all future events.

And regardless of whether or not our preposterous pipe dream ever becomes a reality, we will be tuning in on Saturday to catch all the action. Sherdog will be hosting a live stream of the undercard starting at 8 pm. EST and the NBC Sports Network will be picking up the main card at 10 p.m. EST, so none of you should really have any excuse to miss this. On the off chance you still do, however, here are five of our attempts to convince you otherwise.

1. Shit is Stacked

At first glance, the above event poster looks like some kind of sick joke. You’ve got three UFC veterans — two of which are former UFC/WEC champions — in Andrei Arlovski, Miguel Torres, and Anthony Johnson, taking on three completely unknowns in Cole, Moraes, and Linderman. On the other hand, squash matches are the new black, so if it’s good enough for the UFC, why not WSOF?

(Last warning, Hector. If you grunt like that one more time we’re going to revoke your membership.)

In a new report about Eddie Alvarez’s impending free-agency, MMAFighting.com got Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney to share details of a similar situation in which his promotion got into a bidding war with the UFC. It happened six months ago with their former middleweight champ Hector Lombard, and in that case, it didn’t exactly work out for either party:

Lombard hit the open market, where he was immediately offered a lucrative deal with the UFC. Rebney said that contract, which according to him paid Lombard a $400,000 signing bonus, a $300,000 starting purse per fight and pay-per-view participation points, was cost-prohibitive from Bellator’s standpoint.

If the UFC came in with a similar offer for Alvarez, who is considered by most observers to be right around the top five lightweights in the world, it is believed that would make him the highest-paid 155-pounder in the UFC. On the other hand, Lombard’s debut in the UFC was considered a disappointment, as he lost a lackluster split-decision to Tim Boetsch. That development could cause the UFC to reconsider a big-money offer for another free agent.

(Full gallery is after the jump.)

The UFC revealed yesterday that its UFC on FUEL 6: Franklin vs. Le event (November 10th; Macau, China) will actually feature two guest ring girls. Joining Kang Ye-bin in the Octagon Girl pit will be Jessica Cambensy, aka Jessica C., a Chinese-Filipina-American model who originally hails from Chicago, and is currently based in Los Angeles. After kicking off her career at the age of 15, Jessica rose to prominence as a lingerie model in Hong Kong, and has also appeared in a couple movies. Check out more of our favorite Jessica Cambensy photos after the jump, and if you like what you see, be sure to follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

“Okay, so I’m making a living as a fake fighter. Things can only get better from here, right?”

If history is any indication, it’ll only be a matter of time before this headline becomes tragically outdated. Ken Shamrock has gone from taking lopsided beatdowns from Tito Ortiz, to taking them from the UFC’s lawyers, to accusations of juicing himself in order to get out fighting Kimbo Slice, to testing positive for steroids after beating up a fat guy, to submitting to leg-kicks from Pedro Rizzo, to beating up another fat guy with the help of an eye poke, to losing to Mike Bourke after his leg gave out while going backwards (seriously), to hitting a “heavyset” woman that he thought was a guy. The point I’m trying to make is that whenever things look like they can’t possibly get any worse for the guy, we see his name in the news and think to ourselves, “Yep, I really should have seen this coming.”

That being said, you know things aren’t exactly good for somebody when…you know what, I’ll just let this press release sent to Cagepotato.com yesterday explain:

Maryland, 29 th October 2012 [Author's Note: The date was wrong, so I figured things weren't exactly off to a promising start...] – UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock has announced the launch of his own fundraising chat line, allowing fans of the legendary icon to call him directly on his cell phone.

His service is part of growing micro-access phenomenon, whereby well-known public figures can connect anonymously by phone with their followers on a pay-per-minute basis.

(When the TUF producers decided to shoot Koscheck’s reaction to Two Girls One Cup, little did they know what traumatic psychological issues they would uncover.)

Say what you want about Josh Koscheck — seriously, do it now and in great detail — but if there’s one thing that male nurse hatin’ sumbitch isn’t, it’s afraid of a tough fight. His resume is easily one of the most impressive in the division and although he hasn’t been able to strike gold, he has more than earned his current status as a perennial contender. Sure, he has his shortcomings, but should we chastise a man just because he prefers his motorboats to be of the male ass variety rather than that of the female chest? For is the ass not but the chest of the South?

While you ponder those roundtable-worthy questions, consider the words of Dana White, who said in a recent interview that Nick Diaz would need a big win over a top guy at 170 before he would be considered back in the title picture. Being the remarkably generous company man that he is, Koscheck has apparently already agreed to play the role of stepping stone one last time (see Johny Hendricks, Thiago Alves), calling out Diaz over Twitter yesterday.

(Marcin Mencel vs. Mateusz Zawadzki at MMA Night of Champions on 10/27/12. Video props: MMANewsPL via MiddleEasy)

Okay, so maybe it’s not as funny as some of these, but I still LOL’d at the part where both guys were being stretchered out of the ring and the DJ decides to blast “We Are the Champions” in the arena. These Poles, they love their irony.

Previously: WTF?! Video of the Day: Double KO via Faulty Cage Door

(For the girl in the Spiderman costume, what happened later that night was the most humiliating experience of her life. For Jon Lovitz, it was just another champagne orgy. Photo via VegasNews)

UFC president Dana White — who, as we are legally obligated to tell you, has never bet on a UFC fight in his life, other than that friendly $100 cash wager he made on Manny Gamburyan vs. Thiago Tavares — has cut ties with The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, a longtime host-venue of TUF Finale events. In true Godfather style, it’s over an insult, related to his immense, well-documented love of gambling (which again, he’s never done on a UFC fight, except for that one time in January 2009).

Here’s the scoop, from swashbuckling shit-stirrer Norm Clarke of the Las Vegas Review Journal:

A falling-out with UFC president Dana White is the latest setback for the hard-hit Palms, sources confirmed Sunday.

The blowup occurred about six months ago when White, furious that his credit line was cut in half, pulled all UFC-related events from the Palms and has not returned…

(Props to Rodeo and bOredjOrd for the tip.)

Confidence is like nature’s bath salts. Using a combination of trickery, implied reasoning, and outright tomfoolery, confidence basically transports us back to the ignorant serenity of youth. It surpasses logic, the physical limitations of the human body, and the laws of nature to convince its host that anything is achievable through the pure power of will. And just like bath salts, confidence can have devastating effects on the body it occupies. Just ask Melvin Guillard. Or Tom Brady. Or Hitler. I’m not saying that Tom Brady is Hitler reincarnated, I’m just saying.

So rather than take pot shots at the wellspring of confidence you will meet in the video above, I would rather like to commend him for it, as misplaced as it may have been. Because I can assure you that none of us — not one  — has ever been as confident in our ourselves as this man, if even for the briefest second. Nick Diaz may have perfected the “Come at me, bro” pose in the octagon, but the motherfucker was never crazy enough to let one of his opponents tee off on him until he crumbled to the ground in a heap. This gentleman was so confident in his abilities that he knew he could get knocked the fuck out and still beat his opponent. Sure, the second half of his gameplan kind of fell apart, but still, respect. Your move, Anderson.

(And so, the dance of seduction continues…)

In the old days, we really wanted to see UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva fight welterweight kingpin Georges St. Pierre. Like, a lot. Both took turns demurring over the years and it has yet to happen, though Silva has more than warmed up to the idea.

But let’s face it — GSP vs. Silva is so 2010. After Silva has improbably continued his UFC reign of terror into a sixth year and second weight class, all we fickle observers want is for him to take on light-heavyweight champ Jon Jones. We may be a long way from that fight happening still, but the latest small step towards what could be the biggest fight in MMA history was taken recently (if rhetorically) by Jones during his media tour through Brazil.

“I respect [Silva] a lot,” Jones reportedly said to Brazilian outlet Correio Brazilienseour, via MMA Fighting. “As I said several times, I do not want to be the guy who beat Anderson, and do not want to be the guy who lost to him. Anderson is a great champion, I’m a great champion…I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not saying that the fight will not happen. It can happen. But it’s not something I’m chasing.”

(Photo via Sherdog.)

By Andreas Hale

It only made sense for Ray Sefo to start his own MMA promotion. Well, it only made sense once the stars aligned in a unique way that told him he’d better start an MMA promotion or else. You see, back when K-1 was falling apart, Sefo happened to do an interview where he discussed how much money the promotion owed him and the possibility of starting his own company. The thought ran through his mind heavy after the call. After all, he has put on a successful K-1 event in New Zealand, and he had a pretty good idea how to handle the business. So he decided to sleep on it.

The next morning, a wealthy friend of his named Sig Rogich gave him a call out of the blue and invited Sefo to breakfast so they could discuss something. Mind you, Rogich had never heard the interview from the night before.

“(Sig) said ‘What do you think about starting an MMA fighting league?’” Sefo says when reflecting on the origins of World Series of Fighting. “I looked at him and said ‘Are you kidding me? That’s exactly what I was going to talk to you about on Monday!’ It was just meant to be. The stars aligned for us and this was meant to happen.”

Plans were laid out, business was taken care of, and fighters were signed. November 3rd marks the inaugural fight night, which will emanate from the Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, and air on NBC Sports (formally Versus). It’s not your average rinky-dink startup operation, as WSoF 1 features a loaded card that includes the likes of Andrei Arlovski, Anthony Johnson, and Miguel Torres on the main card. While newer promotions may struggle to land talent, WSoF has had many of its fighters fall right into their lap. In particular, guys like Johnson and Torres had been cut by the UFC this year for weight issues but are still marquee names in the sport. Inking with WSoF made perfect sense for them, partly because of Sefo’s own background

“Many of them were up for it right away because of my involvement and with the understanding that I am a fighter becoming a promoter,” Sefo explains. “I understand what a fighter goes through to prepare for a fight. That appealed to a lot of the guys.”

Props: Zombie Cage Fighter

By CagePotato Contributer Jake “KillBurnDestroy” Richards

Let’s be real, no matter how trendy, no matter how played out, we all still fantasize about the zombie apocalypse on a daily basis. While there will always be the NRA member who has a weapons cache in their basement, some won’t be so fortunate. This one goes out to them.

HONORABLE MENTION- Running Away

UFC Hall of famer and rock hipster Randy Couture stopped by Spike’s MMA Uncensored television program recently and discussed a wide range of topics. Our favorites were when he talked about his former teammate Chael Sonnen fighting Jon Jones for the light heavyweight title, Alistair Overeem getting a title shot when he returns from his failed drug test suspension and the future of Strikeforce and, specifically, one of their lightweight prospects Ryan Couture.

Randy said that he was “not terribly surprised,” that Chael got the TUF coaching gig opposite Jones and a promised title shot. “This is a business and Chael Sonnen is going to bring it and hype up any single fight that he’s in.”

Couture also believes that Chael has a fighting chance against Jones, if he can employ the right game plan.

Yep.

When we last checked in on Drew Fickett, he had moved from Arizona to Florida to enter a rehabilitation facility, and celebrated his forty-two days of sobriety with a knockout loss to Jonatas Novaes at ShoFIGHT 20. Not to add insult to injury, but Fickett said before the fight that he was in very real danger danger of becoming homeless if he didn’t receive his win bonus as well. I wish I was here today to tell you that things have gotten better for him, but that’s not exactly the case.

Fickett met up with undefeated Grudge Training Center prospect Justin Gaethje at last weekend’s Rage in the Cage 163. I’d describe the fight for you, but that’d be a waste of time. Let’s just say that Gaethje is still undefeated, Fickett is now 1-6 in his last seven fights and I’m only writing about this fight because I have lost control of my life.

Video is after the jump.

When I managed to speak to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney after Bellator 69 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, he spoke very highly of welterweight prospect Andrey Koreshkov, who had just improved to 10-0 that evening.  The twenty-two year old Russian fighter earned a spot in this season’s welterweight tournament, where he would quietly improve to 11-0 at Bellator 74 with a unanimous decision over Jordan Smith. At last night’s Bellator 78, Koreshkov looked to make a name for himself against Marius Zaromskis in the tournament semifinals.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s talk about the main event of the evening. Former Bellator welterweight champion Lyman Good took the next step towards earning the title back with a second round TKO over Michail Tsarev, although he arguably could not have picked up a more unimpressive victory. This isn’t to say that Good looked bad up until that point -he didn’t – but because the stoppage was, frankly, cheap. Good accidentally poked Tsarev in the eye in the middle of the second round, causing Tsarev to turn to the referee looking for time out. It looked like the referee was about to call for a break in the action, but Lyman Good pounced on “The Lonely Wolf.” The TKO victory was awarded to Good shortly afterwards.

Video of the main event, as well as Koreshkov’s victory, is after the jump

(Whenever Rampage grabs his nuts in public, there will always be at least one man in the background, staring at his ass with an intense mixture of sadness and longing.)

Not that he ever had real evidence of the UFC trying to sabotage him as he’s implied many times — in between saying that the organization and Dana White saved his life, of course — but it is now official that the UFC does just about all it can to promote and give Quinton “Rampage” Jackson opportunities.

Jackson has publicly maintained that he wants to fight just one more time for the UFC because he hasn’t received enough respect from them or gotten match-ups that he likes. Even as he apparently readies to leave the organization he was light heavyweight champion of, it turns out that the UFC offered Jackson a role as team coach on TUF 17, opposite of Chael Sonnen, before they offered current champ Jon Jones the job, which he accepted. Jackson, of course, turned down the chance to coach TUF for a second time and to fight Sonnen at the end of the season.

“Forget TUF,” Jackson told MMAFighting.com yesterday. “I’m not interested in that.”

What, exactly, is Jackson interested in these days? Evidently not money, big fights or increased exposure? Oh yeah, Jackson has continually said that he wants “exciting” fighters.

“I don’t want to fight Chael. He’s the kind of fighter that I don’t want to fight. He’s a boring fighter that just wants to hump people.”

(Props: Aaron Tru/MMAPrime via MiddleEasy)

Okay. What in the actual fuck is going on on top of Tank Abbott‘s head in this video? And why does Aaron Tru spend a full six-minutes with the man without even mentioning it? We’re supposed to let this Peter Brady-looking monstrosity slide, just because Tank is an old badass who used to mock his opponents’ seizures during the Clinton administration?

Instead of hearing Tank’s opinions about Tito Ortiz, or what he thinks of modern MMA compared to old-school NHB — talk about pitching one down the middle, by the way — here’s what I’d like to know: Is the hair for a movie role or something? And how many nutria had to die in order to sew it together?

And as a final insult, Tru doesn’t even get beat up or drink bodily fluids at the end of the segment. Damn, dude…what’s the point?

(The third annual Halloween episode from our bros at MMAInsidetheCageTV, featuring the 100 greatest knockouts from their last 12 episodes. Skip to the 2:47 mark and enjoy the violence.)

- Cain Velasquez: Daniel Cormier Wants to Drop Down to 205 to Fight Jon Jones, And He’d Beat Him (MMAFighting)

- 7 MMA Fighters Who Need to Call It Quits (BleacherReport)

- Georges St-Pierre Admits His Fights Lack Entertainment (Fightline)

- Ugliest. Face-swap. Ever. (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- Fitness on the Fly: Powerful Knee Strikes (MensFitness)

- What the UFC Didn’t Tell the Public About Jeremy Stephens’s Arrest (FightOpinion)

- Dana White: Brock Lesnar Is Never Coming Back, Fedor Either (HeavyMMA)

- Who Doesn’t Like the Roy Nelson Action Figure? (TitoCouture)

- Nick Offerman Explains How to Grow a Mo’ (MadeMan)

- Gallery: Pro Athletes in Ridiculous Halloween Costumes (Complex)

- Meatloaf and Friends Serenade Mitt Romney With Extremely Awkward Singing (EgoTV)

- Celebrities Dressed as Wonder Woman (WorldWideInterweb)

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By Jared Jones

Unless you’ve been a close follower of the Utah MMA scene over the past few years, chances are that you’ve probably forgotten all about TUF 2 alum Josh Burkman. After a three fight skid saw him ousted from the UFC back in 2008, Burkman took over a year and a half off to recover from several injuries that could have ended any lesser man’s career, injuries Burkman admits in hindsight that he should have addressed much earlier. But if you were to ask Josh how the past few years have treated him, you’d think he was on top of the world.

I called Josh at approximately 5:15 p.m. EST yesterday. He was just stepping into his house after a long day of training for his November 3rd match against fellow UFC veteran Gerald Harris on the inaugural card of the Ray Sefo-run World Series of Fighting promotion. It’s a win that could very well propel “The People’s Warrior” back into the octagon for the first time in over four years, yet he doesn’t appear to be showing any signs of the pressure getting to him. I ask him how he’s doing. “Life is good,” he tells me, making sure to kiss his ten day old son as soon as he enters the house. From the get-go, I can tell that Josh is a much more open and laid back guy than some of the fighters I’ve dealt with in the past. But little did I know that before our conversation was over, we would discuss everything from his career comeback and newly found lease on life to his infamous in and out of the ring brawls with Jeremy Horn and Phil Baroni.

On November 17th in Montreal, Georges St. Pierre returns to the Octagon from his year-and-a-half layoff, and honestly, it couldn’t come soon enough. When St. Pierre and Carlos Condit meet for the UFC welterweight belt at UFC 154, it will have been a full three months since the last time the UFC put on a title fight that wasn’t a total mismatch. That drought of superfights has been one of the reasons why MMA has simply felt less exciting lately, but finally, things are picking up again, and I can’t freakin’ wait.

We’ve been thinking about GSP vs. Condit for a hell of a long time, and the anticipation has reached that saturation point where we just want this damn thing to be over by now. St. Pierre says his knee isn’t a weak link anymore, he’s 100%, he’s “back better than ever.” And it’s never a good idea to doubt such a fantastic and disciplined athlete. But still…a hungry and motivated Carlos Condit is the last guy you want to face when you’ve been out of the game so long.

Speaking of welterweights, Johny Hendricks and Martin Kampmann will be squaring off in the co-main event. (Kampmann scores the best point in the promo interview by promising to kick Hendricks in the beard.) Could an impressive performance put one of these guys next in line? And who will come out on top? Check out the extended trailer above and let us know what you think.