(“You know what else doesn’t work on me? Left hooks to the fa-DAMN IT!” / Photo via Inovafoto)

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is the oldest 36-year-old in the history of humanity. And while he came into his UFC 153 fight against Dave Herman as a more-than 2-1 favorite, he didn’t inspire much confidence at the weigh-ins, where he dragged his way up to the stage, shook Arianny Celeste‘s hand (perhaps mistaking her for Burt Watson?), used his brother to brace himself while taking off his wind pants, removed his shirt to reveal a noticeably soft midsection, then limped his way to the staredown.

As it turns out, there’s a reason why Big Nog may have looked even more decrepit than usual that weekend (via MMAConvert):

Former interim UFC heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira fought Dave Herman at UFC 153 with a fractured rib. Nogueira suffered the injury a week into training for the short notice bout with Herman in Brazil. “Fractured my rib three weeks ago on my right side,” said Nogueira, in an interview with SporTV. “I went to the doctor, took a local anesthetic to be able to train.”

(Rampage and Bisping might want to start running the things they are about to say out loud by more people than one another)

Let’s just dive right in, nation. UFC middleweight and all around centered and nice guy Michael Bisping recently spoke with MMA Junkie and had some pretty silly things to say. “I’m tired. I know I’ve got to wait my turn, but it’s pissing me off. I want to get my title shot, and if I keep beating guys, they’ll have no choice but to give it to me,” he told Junkie.

“I’m here, and I’m fighting the best guys. I want my shot.”

Bisping has undoubtedly fought some of the best fighters in the world, but he still doesn’t seem to realize that he needs to beat some of them in order to deserve a title shot. At present, ‘The Count’ has a brand new streak of exactly one, count em, one wins.

With the ratings of this season of The Ultimate Fighter in a tailspin, the UFC has quickly been announcing matchups for the season finale. Unlike previous seasons, it looks as though this season’s finale won’t feature many fights between the not-quite-worthy competitors from the show, as a total of eight fights between current UFC fighters have been announced for the finale. Which is good, because most of you reading this don’t know or care about anyone from this season of TUF 16 in the first place.

The two most recent fights booked for the TUF 16 Finale are a featherweight showdown between Jonathan Brookins and Dustin Poirier and a flyweight bout between Tim Elliott and Jared Papazian.

After winning five straight fights under the Zuffa banner, Dustin Poirier would suffer a fourth round D’arce choke loss to Chan Sung Jung at UFC on FUEL 2. Despite the loss, Poirier put on a Fight of the Night – and arguably Fight of the Year – worthy performance, proving that he’s still a contender in the featherweight division despite the loss to Jung. Meanwhile, things cannot possibly be going more differently for Jonathan Brookins. After defeating Michael Johnson by unanimous decision to win The Ultimate Fighter Season Twelve, Brookins would drop a unanimous decision to Erik Koch, knock out Vagner Rocha and most recently get choked out by Charles Oliveira at June’s TUF 15 finale.

Check after the jump for the full TUF 16 Finale fight card, as well as Chad Mendes’ next opponent.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Vale Tudo legend Rickson Gracie is partnering with a new MMA organization in Brazil, y’all, and he’s putting his own unique stamp on the format and rules. Some are new ideas, many are ones tried before and at least one is just kinda weird.

Our friends over at GracieMag have the full story on the new Mestre do Combate, debuting November 22nd. Below we have some of the highlights.

Teams - Rickson’s organization will use a team format of some sort, akin to what the now defunct IFL used.

Rounds - There will just be two, like in the old Pride non title bouts. The first round will be ten minutes and the second will be five.

Cannot be saved by the bell - So this is interesting. “Fighters will not have the luxury of being saved by the bell: if a submission hold is in place when the bell sounds, they will have to defend or tap out first for the fight to end,” GracieMag reports. What do you think of this rule, nation? I think its a compelling idea, even if it could lead to some messy and uneven arbitrary implementation.

Highlights from Clementi vs. Sarnavskiy

With no competition from the UFC last night (well, no real competition, at least), Bellator took to the Sovereign Center in Reading, Pennsylvania to make a statement with Bellator 77. The main card played host to the quarterfinals of this season’s lightweight tournament.

In the evening’s main event, 20-0 Russian lightweight Alexander Sarnavskiy made his Bellator debut against UFC veteran Rich Clementi. Despite his creative, diverse offense, Sarnavskiy struggled early against Clementi, almost succumbing to a rear-naked choke at the end of the first round. Although he would adjust to end up making the fight very close, in the end Clementi won by split-decision. With the victory, Rich Clementi improves to 45-21-1.

In the co-main event, WEC veteran Dave Jansen finished a very game Magomed Saadulaev with a standing arm-in guillotine forty-one seconds into the third round. After a close first round, Jansen spent the second round breaking down Saadulaev with his ground and pound. Video of the entire fight is available after the jump.

(Coors Light?! And here we thought Canadians were passionate about the quality of beer they drink.) 

A little over a year ago, Georges St. Pierre was riding high. He had defended his belt for the sixth straight time against Jake Shields at an event that both obliterated North American attendance records and satisfied his home country’s need for bloodshed without having to sacrifice his first born child, as is tradition. Although he was being bashed by some critics for his apparent lack of finishing power, “Rush” would quickly meet a challenger that would bring out the inner killer his fans had been waiting for since UFC 83. Needless to say, things were going well for old GSP.

And then he took an arrow to the knee.

Yes, after blowing out his ACL, the welterweight kingpin was forced out of action for so long that even his stand-in champion went missing in an apparent attempt to find him. In the time since we last saw St. Pierre, his beloved homeland of Canada eeked out a respectable 36th place in the Summer Olympics, celebrated the 60th anniversary of one of their biggest television programs, and even closed the book on one of the most bizarre crimes in the country’s history. So overall, it was a decent year for any Canadian not named Georges St. Pierre.

But come November 17th, all that will change for at least one man, as GSP is set to finally make his triumphant return to the cage at UFC 154. And to celebrate his return, we’ve decided to dig up the fight that started it all. It took place in January of 2002 in Montreal and pitted the future champ against future UFC/WEC bantamweight (sheesh) Ivan Menjivar in his professional debut.

Video after the jump. 

(“First you’re gonna need to buy a piss-goblet from GracieAcademy.com…” More brilliant animated satire from prebek.)

- Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen Is a Call From Boxing’s Playbook — And That’s OK (MMAFighting)

- Every Current Champ’s Worst UFC Fight (BleacherReport)

- Arianny’s new music video…I dare you to watch the whole thing. (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- Nick Newell and Dustin Poirier Join American Top Team (Sherdog)

- Miesha Tate Says It’s OK for a Man to Hit a Woman if Violently Provoked (BloodyElbow)

- Meet MMA Stunner Sarah Leann (BabesofMMA)

- What’s the Best Thing About Being an MMA Fighter? [VIDEO] (HeavyMMA)

- 5 Exercises That Can Help You Win Ninja Warrior (MadeMan)

- A-Rod’s Phone Number Stunt With Kyna Treacy Was an MLB Playoff Low (MensFitness)

- Honest Trailers: Paranormal Activity (ScreenJunkies)

- The 50 Best Video Games To Play While You’re Drinking (Complex)

- High School Player Boots 67-Yard Field Goal (EgoTV)

- Busty Girls With Dogs (WorldWideInterweb)

(It’s good to see that someone finally gave Starvin Marvin something to eat.) 

According to a tweet sent out by UFC Brazil, light heavyweight grappling whiz Phil Davis will be the man to replace Chael Sonnen against Forrest Griffin at UFC 155. When Sonnen passed over Griffin for a TUF coaching gig and light heavyweight title shot against Jon Jones, everyone from Stephan Bonnar to Antonio Rogerio Nogueira were being rumored as potential opponents for Griffin, who is coming off a unanimous decision victory over longtime rival Tito Ortiz in their trilogy match at UFC 148.

After coming up short in a tedious affair against Rashad Evans in the headlining match of UFC on FOX 2, Davis was looking to rebound against Wagner Prado at UFC on FOX 4, but an unfortunate eye poke resulted in an unsatisfying no-contest being declared. Davis and Prado met again at UFC 153, where Davis was able to secure a brilliant second round submission via anaconda choke victory. It was the same submission Davis used to defeat top light heavyweight prospect Alexander Gustafsson back at UFC 112 in April of 2010. If you’re keeping track, the current record for fighters who were the victims of a fight-ending eye poke in immediate rematches is now 1-3 (Scott Smith, Waachiim Spiritwolf, and Prado all came up short, with only Anthony Johnson managing to earn some revenge).

(SFL ring girls are the best ring girls.) 

Although it may not feature one of the enticing headliners that you’re used to, Super Fight League has shown in recent events that they can still deliver exciting matches and all the brutal knockouts you could ever ask for. So if you’re bored, playing hooky from work, or simply feel like killing some time at the office, why not check out some free fights? Super Fight League will be streaming their fifth event live from their Youtube channel starting in just a few short minutes, and luckily for you, your favorite MMA website will be doing the same. Featuring a slew of castmembers from SFL’s TUF counterpart – which you may or may not recall was a thing – this seven fight card will at the very minimum pull off something that Strikeforce hasn’t achieved in months: Holding an actual event. So there’s that.

Head after the jump to get in on the action, which goes down at 11:30 a.m. EST from the SFL arena in Mumbai.

(It’s the fight *business*, okay? It’s not the fight let’s-be-best-friends-and-attend-the-Paranormal-Activity-4-premiere-together-and-share-a-large-Sprite-and-”accidentally”-brush-hands-during-the-scary-parts.)

Could Anderson Silva be shifting his stance on a potential superfight with Jon Jones? In a new interview with SporTV, the Spider actually makes that match sound like a possibility for the first time, but only under specific circumstances — namely, if Jones accepts the fight first, and the fight is held at a catchweight, and his middleweight belt isn’t on the line. Still, that’s progress, right? Here’s Silva’s quote:

“People are talking about [a Silva/Jones superfight] so much that… I don’t have this ambition, this (fight) doesn’t motivate me, especially since they have other athletes in my team, such as Lil’ Nog, Maldonado, Feijao, Caldeirao (Wagner Prado), that are in his weight class. My weight class is 185, my belt is of that weight class. But people are talking so much about this, and we are employees of the UFC.

Of course, I could be saying that I don’t want it, but what if he goes out and accepts the money Dana is proposing for him to fight? It will be hard (not to accept it). It’s not the money that motivates me to fight, I fight because I like it. So, I don’t know. I wouldn’t like (to fight him). But if it’s going to happen, it would have to be at a catchweight. The belt shouldn’t be at play. I already have mine and I don’t want a belt to be left at the side.”

(This guy? A smoker? Impossible.)

Following his submission-of-the-night victory over Chris Clements at UFC 149, Matt Riddle tested positive for marijuana, according to a new report from MMAJunkie. The Calgary Combative Sports Commission suspended Riddle for 90 days retroactive to the July 21 event, which means the TUF 7 vet will be out of action until…well, today. Crisis averted.

For UFC fighters — most of whom don’t compete more than once every three months anyway — the 90-day suspension is more of a “hey bro, not cool” kind of gesture, rather than something that’s actually punitive; all it really prevented Riddle from doing was taking an ill-advised short-notice fight directly after his last appearance. Then again, the UFC still hasn’t scheduled his next fight, so maybe they’re going to make him stew for a bit. Riddle’s just lucky this happened in Canada rather than Nevada, or he could have been out of action for an entire year.

Of course, this raises an obvious question: If Riddle was smoking weed before his last fight, what kind of drugs was he on when he fought Sean Pierson? The LSD that Paulo Filho makes in his bathtub?

(Not pictured: Fabricio Werdum and Junior Dos Santos, merrily sharing a caipirinha.)

All of Roy Nelson‘s rabble-rousing about drug-testing has paid off…sort of. While Big Country has been campaigning to have his upcoming fight against Shane Carwin overseen by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA), it was confirmed today that the Nevada State Athletic Commission has informed both fighters that they’ll be subject to random testing at some point before their December 15th meeting at the TUF 16 Finale. The fighters will need to provide samples within 24 hours of request, and the results will be returned in approximately two weeks.

(Serious question: The NSAC is completely within its rights to randomly drug test fighters out of competition, so why is it necessary to inform those fighters that that’s what it intends to do? I’m just saying, if you were Nelson or Carwin, and you were, hypothetically, using steroids up until yesterday, and the NSAC calls you and says they’re going to randomly test you sometime in the next two months, wouldn’t that be your signal to stop using PEDs immediately and hope they’re out of your system by the time they ask for your piss?)

If you’ve been keeping up on this story, you know that Carwin’s camp had been against VADA’s involvement from the beginning, with Shane’s manager Jason Genet calling VADA an “opportunistic” organization with an “anti-Shane” bias, and questioning why an independent testing body is any better than the athletic commission testing currently in place for MMA fighters. “I’m questioning where the relevancy coming from,” Genet said earlier this week. “As a manager, it’s not that I wouldn’t agree with outside testing. I want to know what’s wrong with what’s currently taking place.”

Believe it or not, Potato Nation, but there was a brief moment in time when Chael Sonnen was supposed to rematch Forrest Griffin in his return to the light heavyweight division at UFC 155. You might not remember it due to the fact that upon announcing his change in weight class, Sonnen almost immediately skipped over Griffin to set his sights on Jon Jones, a decision that proved ultimately fruitful. Surprisingly, FoGriff seemed at least partially relieved not to be fighting that “boring” Sonnen fellow, but when he is made aware that he’s now been called out by Antonio “Lil’ Nog” Nogueira because of it, we imagine he’s going to wish he could still fight the middleweight wrestler with no KO power and poor submission defense who he has already beaten.

One thing you might recall is that Griffin and Nog were set to meet way back at UFC 114 before a shoulder injury forced the TUF 1 winner out of the contest. Griffin was replaced by Jason Brilz, who turned in one of the most respectable losses in UFC, nay, MMA history that night, coming up just short by way of split decision. Since then, Lil’ Nog has gone 1-2, dropping a pair of UD’s to wrestlers Ryan Bader and Phil Davis before beating the poop out of Tito Ortiz at UFC 140. Griffin is also coming off a win over “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” (I refuse to acknowledge this “People’s Champ” nonsense), albeit by another close decision in their trilogy-completing/Ortiz-retiring match at UFC 148.

(Props: fueltv)

Well this might be the most disturbing video-promo in UFC history. Here we have Rich Franklin and Cung Le — who are set to headline the UFC’s first China event on November 10th — spending a full minute talking about how great their opponent is. What the hell? Whatever happened to cartoonish, pro-wrestling style bravado? All of sudden, it’s not cool to insult your opponent’s fighting style, or vow to literally kill them?

I wonder if cultural factors are at work here. Keep in mind that I’m completely talking out of my ass, but maybe the local Chinese audience would be turned off by two fighters acting like conceited assholes, as we expect our fighters to act during pre-fight promos. That could be a stretch, but it’s worth noting that the promo also describes Le as a “kung fu master,” when his background is actually in Taekwondo, wrestling, and Sanda/Sanshou (which only has a loose connection to kung fu), so I think there might be a little pandering going on here.

And I’m going to let you in on another secret: Cung Le? Vietnamese, not Chinese. I’m just saying. Follow the money.

The current lineup for “UFC on FUEL TV 6: Franklin vs. Le” is after the jump.

(“OK guys, the winner gets an interim belt, the loser has to purchase a replica from Wal-Mart. I assure you that they both carry the exact same value.”) 

In a recent interview with Latin American online news network, UOL, bantamweight interim champion Renan Barao‘s coach, Andre Pederneiras, declared that Barao would not be defending his interim strap and instead would wait for Dominick Cruz to recover from the ACL injury that set up Barao vs. Urijah Faber at UFC 149. And before the MMA media could even begin to make the comparison to Carlos Condit, Pederneiras did it for us, stating:

[Barao] just won the title, he just fought. We will wait. Look how long the wait was for Condit and GSP to unify the belt?

Where Pederneiras was attempting to use the Condit comparison as a justification for Barao’s decision to essentially put the bantamweight division on hold for the time being, he unknowingly summed up the inherent pointlessness of the interim title in the first place.

As you are all aware, the interim title essentially serves as a placeholder for the division’s number one contender (at the time) in the absence of a champion. The problem being that, by declaring the number one contender to be “a champion” when they are anything but — and I mean this with all due respect to Condit and Barao — you are basically giving a contender a power that they have not rightfully earned: the power to pick and choose who they fight.

(Full audio from the call, via MMAFightingonSBN)

TUF 17 coaches Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen, along with UFC president Dana White and FX exec Chuck Saftler, hosted a media conference call yesterday in which they promoted the upcoming season and fielded questions from baffled reporters. It was a lively affair, marked by an unusually aggressive Jon Jones — Chael tends to bring that out of people — and some interesting revelations about the future of The Ultimate Fighter. Here are some highlights…

FX is moving TUF off Friday nights, and preparing for a war with Spike: “The show is going to move off of Friday nights,” Saftler said. “I can’t confirm the day right now, but it’s definitely moving off of Friday, it’s definitely moving to a weekday. There will be an announcement on that somewhere in the next 30 to 45 days. But I will say that Spike should watch their ass. Spike clearly has been dogging us for most of this year…by trying to create viewer confusion and scheduling old episodes against ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and trying to pass them off as new content. They’ll be off of the UFC game effective in January. They’re going to try to launch a new product, there’s going to try to launch their own reality show that competes with ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ or does a very similar thing with their Bellator product. We watched how they behaved, and we’re well aware of their behavior and how they’ve acted competitively…I’m not ready to commit to (scheduling TUF directly against the Bellator show on Spike), but we’re certainly going to be watching how they schedule, what they schedule and where they schedule.”

Jones vs. Sonnen “made sense,” according to Dana White: “Basically, we got the word when Jon went out and got his elbow checked, that he was out and couldn’t come back until April,” White explained. “So it made sense* for him to do The Ultimate Fighter. Why block up [the division]? Machida can fight. Dan Henderson can fight. Gustafsson and Shogun are going to fight in December. Everything will keep right on moving…These guys will both coach The Ultimate Fighter. They’ll fight when the season’s over, and then whoever’s next in line at 205 pounds can fight Jon Jones** next for the title.”

The Ranger Up crew are known for two things: making hilarious/awesome t-shirts and making hilarious/awesome/creepy videos starring either Tim Kennedy or Jorge Rivera. They’ve parodied everything from Monty Python to Katy Perry, but more often than not, their videos amount to little more than a dose of anti-Michael Bisping propganda. We would be quick to declare these videos an undeniable success had they not severely backfired on Bisping’s opponents in each instance, but they were at least moderately entertaining in failure nonetheless.

And today, Kennedy and the gang have decided to shift their focus from that of public humiliation to that of social responsibility. We’re talking about voting, people. It kicks ass. And regardless of your stance on the candidates at hand, the economy, gay rights, abortion, or having binders full of women, you should probably vote, because if you don’t, you could end up like the poor gentlemen above.

(Seen here: The one strike that didn’t land.) 

While we were all busy watching Eddie Alvarez head kick his way into the UFC at last weekend’s Bellator 76 event, it turns out that another just as devastating first round head kick knockout had taken place less than an hour beforehand, and in about 4 minutes less fight time. The matchup, which paired fellow featherweight prospects Mike Richman and Jeremy Spoon against one another, barely got under way before Big John had to step in and save Spoon’s ass from certain death. No, it was not because he suffered a gruesome in-ring injury, but rather because Richman decided to play Major Payne to Spoon’s Bam Bam Bigelow roughly twenty seconds into the fight.

Video after the jump. Catch it before it’s gone. 

(Photos courtesy of Chi-town MMAniacs)

If you missed part 1 of “The Travel Chronicles,” click here to catch up.

By Elias Cepeda

Warm Bones

I remember asking longtime heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko a question about his pre-fight routine once on a conference call. I’d heard rumors from people that had been around him backstage before fights that he didn’t warm up, but instead went from playing cards with his team to standing up and walking out to the ring to fight, cold.

If he didn’t warm up intensely before fighting this would have been further evidence of Fedor’s otherworldly talent. Getting one’s muscles, joints, ligaments, and tendons (to say nothing of one’s mind) warmed up before fighting by doing drills with your coaches that simulate fighting is considered the essential final preparation to competing.

It may seem strange to the uninitiated, but fighters ideally want to walk into the cage or ring already sweating so that they don’t start slowly or get injured from suddenly exerting themselves during the fight. When I posed the question to Fedor he chuckled before humbly demurring, as he often does.

No, it wasn’t quite like that, he said. He had to warm up like everyone else. Still, he didn’t offer specifics, and the people I knew still swore they didn’t see him do so much as a jumping jack before walking out and demolishing an opponent in total calm.

My coaches Said Hatim and Lyndon Viteri were taking no chances that I’d be capable of doing anything like Fedor, so they set to warm me up vigorously before my fight. I had just accepted a last-minute change of opponents about a half-hour before I was set to walk out to the United Combat League cage late last May.

I grappled with my cousin and teammate Gerardo, practicing moving from a front head lock to taking his back because Lyndon was sure that he would shoot in on me for a takedown. Said held Thai pads for me so that I could work my own jab-cross combo as well as countering his lead left jab.

I began to sweat and feel tired. But fatigue during warm-ups, even during the beginning of fights themselves, is a deception.

(Can professional Droog-style gang-fighting be far behind?)

For almost as long as MMA has existed, there have been scheming fight promoters trying to one-up normal cage-fighting with increasingly bizarre variations. We’ve seen three-man MMA, better known as “two guys beating the shit out of another guy.” We’ve seen tag-team MMA, which makes even less sense from a logistical perspective. We’ve seen Montana-style Motocross MMA, and the abomination known as XARM, and we’ve gleefully mocked their stupidity. If two men fighting each other isn’t exciting enough for you, you probably just need better cocaine.

The latest entry in this dignified line of MMA offshoots is two-on-two MMA, which will be part of the next Desert Rage Full Contact Fighting show, October 20th at the Paradise Casino in Yuma, Arizona. As fighter-turned-promoter Chance Farrar explained to MMAJunkie, “We started trying it in the gym, and it’s been successful. It’s nothing short of controlled chaos, but exciting. You can’t predict what’s going to happen…This fight does not last. That’s why I’m bringing it to Desert Rage. I think the fans want to see it.”

Here’s how it works: Weight classes are determined by a team’s collective weight. (Lightweight is 350 pounds and below; middleweight is 425 pounds and below; and heavyweight is 500 pounds and below.) Rounds will be five minutes each, with a one-minute rest period between each round, but there will be no limit to how many rounds a fight can go. No elbows or knees will be allowed.

Two referees will do their best to control the action. When a fighter is stopped by knockout, submission, or referee stoppage, a one-minute rest is called to give officials time to remove the eliminated fighter, before the fight is re-started. If an eliminated fighter is unable to leave the cage within the one-minute period, the other team wins by forfeit. The match ends when one side loses both fighters.

(“Cowboy” Cerrone and his travel guide Filipe found more than just solace in the caves of Mount Grenidor; they found each other.)

You may or may not be aware of this, but before the UFC decided to go the route of champ vs. troll, they actually had a coaching matchup in the works for TUF 17 that would have both made sense and likely been ignored by most of the population. That matchup was between streaking lightweight contender Donald Cerrone and former WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, two 155ers who are due for a title shot and truly despise one another. Unfortunately for them, the UFC decided to take things in a different direction. Fortunately for them, it appears as if they are still destined to throw down in the near future, because according to Cerrone in an interview with the appropriately titled MMAInterviews, half of the contract has already been signed.

I’m looking forward to that fight. Hopefully December we’re gonna get it, beginning of January. My side of the deal is signed. (I’m) just waiting on him while his shoulder is rehabbed. There’s been a lot of shit talking back and forth, so it’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be for the fans. I think it’s gonna be Fight of the Night for sure. He’s well-rounded. I think my wrestling is better than his but if we go to the ground he’s good on the ground, if we stay standing he’s good there. It’s gonna be a helluva fight. I’m packing a lunch. I’m ready for three rounds of hell. I’ll fight him on an undercard, I don’t care.

As you know, Pettis has been out of action since his beatdown of Joe Lauzon at UFC 144 mending multiple injuries, and just recently injured his shoulder in training, which likely affected the UFC’s decision to go with Bones vs. Sonnen. So the likelihood of this matchup taking place in 2012 is a longshot, but a headlining fight on a FOX or FX event in late January? Hell to the yes, Potato Nation.

(This fan-made hype video was first posted to YouTube on September 30th. Wow. CletusDamVan must have read The Secret.)

Ugh, you guys, I had the worst dream last night. I was at home, but it was actually the house I grew up in, you know? I was watching TV, and suddenly all the lights went out. Dana White walked in through the back door. He told me — and here’s the freaky part — that Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen would be coaching the next season of The Ultimate Fighter, and they’d actually be fighting for the light-heavyweight belt in April. I was like, “Why? Why are you doing this?” And he said, “Because I fucking hate you.” And when he said that, I realized it wasn’t Dana White, it was my own father. Then, my teeth started cracking and falling out one by one, and-OH MY GOD NO! AHHHHHHHH! THIS CAN’T HAPPEN! THIS CAN’T HAPPEN! [scene]

Look, we’re not alone in our utter distaste for this booking. Elsewhere on the Internet, pundits have called Jones vs. Sonnen (vs. TUF) a thinly-veiled money grab that reeks of desperation and sets a horrible precedent. But this matchup is now our reality, and we have to deal with reality on reality’s terms. Here’s a sample of the fallout and news updates that yesterday’s bombshell kicked up:

- Tweet of the Day, from Dan Henderson: “I guess I should just quit training to win fights and to be exciting for the fans and just go to shit talking school. @danawhite”. Dan and Chael might be bros from way back, but that clearly doesn’t make this news any easier for Hendo to swallow. It’s insulting, really. Henderson is still the most rightful challenger to Jones’s belt, but an ill-timed injury has apparently put him on the UFC’s “pay no mind” list. Don’t make us say it.

- More sour grapes: Of course, Sonnen’s new opportunity now leaves Forrest Griffin without an opponent; FoGriff was originally supposed to meet Sonnen at UFC 155 in December. As you can imagine, Griffin doesn’t seem too thrilled about this latest development either, telling Ariel Helwani, “I’m not mad at him. Why fight your way to the top when you can talk your way to the top? I’m actually happy I’m not fighting him anymore, because watching his fights was boring and tedious.” The hot new rumor is that Griffin could possibly face the recently-wrecked Stephan Bonnar instead. Fine, whatever.

- And now, the Chael Sonnen reaction video you’ve all been waiting for/dreading…

How’s your day going, Potato Nation? Could it use more ego-stroking, embellished ramblings, and conspiracy theories delivered in a raspy yet soothing undertone? Well luckily for you, none other than famed mixed martial arts instructor and former movie star Steven Seagal recently sat down for the longest interview of his career to do just that.

We’re not going to spoil the interview for you, but suffice it to say, it’s classic Seagal. Over the course of fifty minutes, Seagal not only claims that he has possibly killed someone or many someones in his life, but that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize that Al Gore received in 2007 (ironic), and knows the truth behind Brandon Lee’s death. Also, Above the Law was autobiographical.

I will say that again. This fucking film was AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL.

No more spoilers, just sit back and enjoy.

-J. Jones

(Let this be a lesson to all you up-and-coming fighters out there: Wearing a fake belt and talking trash on Twitter will do more for your career than legitimate wins ever will.) 

What the fucking fuck, you guys.

Look, we know that we’ve been all over The Ultimate Fighter’s ass lately, citing such complaints as their tired formula, lackluster fighters/fights, and steadily declining viewership. We also remember that when Chael Sonnen stepped in to face Jon Jones on a week’s notice, we were all for it. But when Dana White announced to the LA Times some minutes ago that Chael Sonnen and Jon Jones had been booked as opposing coaches for the next season of The Ultimate Fighter, with a title fight set for April 27th, our reaction was that of horror and revulsion.

This is madness, pure and simple. Let’s look past the fact that Chael Sonnen has not fought at light heavyweight since his UFC debut way back at UFC 55, or the fact that he was supposed to fight Forrest Griffin at UFC 155, or that he is just coming off a loss to Anderson Silva, or that there is at least one legitimate contender in line before him, or that Dana White just got through telling us that the winner of Shogun/Gustafsson would likely receive the next title shot. Actually, we can’t look past any of that. In no alternate universe does this matchup make sense.

(I know I’ve seen you on TV somewhere. Hillbilly Handfishin’? Duck Dynasty? Can you give me a hint?)

By George Shunick

Yes, I know we just called for a hiatus on these “TUF ratings are in the shitter” posts. And I know O Chan just finished explaining why, from a network perspective, selling ads on original programming like TUF is better than giving them away during a broadcast of Big Momma’s House 2, even if the raw numbers are declining. But still, guys. You need to hear this.

A week after season 16 of TUF scored its highest amount of viewers with 1,100,000 — thanks to a strong lead-in from the UFC on FX 5 broadcast — the show reached rock bottom and saw that number shrink to just 624,000 for episode 5. In other words, only 56.7% of last week’s viewers stuck around for the next episode. It’s the worst viewership tally in the show’s history, falling alarmingly short of the previous low-ratings record of 775,000 viewers. It’s gotten so ugly that BG’s prediction of 660,000 viewers representing the nadir of the season has already been shattered two weeks after he made it. Time to readjust our already-low expectations.

(Don Frye is holding a revolver. Your argument is invalid.) 

These days, Don Frye is less an MMA fighter, more a philosophizer on facial hair, poontang, and the keys to being an alpha male in every given situation that life presents. Don’t get us wrong, Frye will still lay the boots to any hooley-hoo punk-ass jabroni who’s asking for it at the drop of a hat, but thanks to our recent “Ask Don” mailbag column, we’ve been lucky enough to set Frye’s legendary MMA status aside and simply pry into his mind in the hopes that maybe some of it will rub off on our measly, pathetic lives. So check out his latest dose of sagacity below, make sure to leave your own questions in the comments section, and then visit DonFrye.com to buy some stuff that will instantly skyrocket your popularity with the ladies.

bgoldstein asks: Don, I heard you were doing some stunt-work recently for a movie. Like, you weren’t in the movie, you were just stunt-manning for some other actor. The fuck is up with that?

I enjoy stunt work. I am paid extra by the theatrical community to do the stunt work instead of acting work. Due to my extraordinary talent, all would forget about Brando, Olivier, and DeNiro when I am performing dialogue and emotions in front of the camera. Can you imagine Don Frye performing emotions in front of the camera? (Ed note: No. No I can not.) 

(Props: Bobby)

Yikes, is it October 16th already? That means today is the official deadline for our ongoing “Design CagePotato’s Next T-Shirt, Possibly Win a Hundred Bucks” contest! There’s still time to pull something out of your ass, so read the rules here, and send your entry to contest@cagepotato.com* when it’s done. We’ll reveal the finalists later this week. Stay tuned…

* We hear that some of you have had trouble with our contest e-mail bouncing back, and we apologize. If that address isn’t working for you, please shoot your designs to tips@cagepotato.com.

(See that there on the right? That’s Matt Hughes’s autograph. So this photo is relevant)

In a recent feature profile on him written by Iowa’s The Daily Gate, former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes says that he is “fully retired.” Hughes last fought in September of 2011, when he was knocked out by Josh Koscheck at UFC 135.

Up to this point, the farmer-fighter has resisted describing himself as retired even as Dana White suggested that he should call it a career. Currently working on his family farm and only occasionally training, Hughes says that he’s content in retirement because the UFC still “treats him well,” as they tend to do with their former champions in good standing.

“I’ve not announced my retirement, but right now it looks like I’m fully retired,” Hughes told the Gate’s Brad Cameron. “The UFC still treats me well so I can be retired. It’s just funny, when God puts you on a road, you don’t know where you are going. I have all the faith that he put me there, and I have to thank him from that.”

(“…unless it’s on short notice, in which case I’ll have to decline because it would be the worst decision of my career.” Pic Props: No Holds Barred)

By Jason Moles

The Ultimate Fighting Championship recently held its own version of Dana White’s “blocking spree,” as the official roster has been narrowed quite noticeably, leaving many to seek employment elsewhere. Over the past few weeks, a handful of fighters received their pink slips for refusing to take a fight on short notice, losing a fight taken on short notice, missing weight, and flat-out sucking. Although it’s been quite a while since we last did this, we feel it only necessary at this point in time to offer a few suggestions to the latest Zuffa casualties.

Dennis Hallman: If there’s one thing we’ll remember about Hallman, it’s his appearance in the Octagon wearing nothing but a Speedo and the gloves on his hands. The aging veteran (he’ll turn 37 in December) still has a few years before he’s eligible to receive those social security checks and will need to find a new gig to line his wallet. The timing couldn’t be better, really; as it turns out, Speedo needs a new PR guy. And to think you thought I was just grabbing low-hanging fruit. Psssh! Having a former UFC fighter with over 65 fights pushing your product will definitely put Speedo back on the map. He’ll tell consumers about the extra attention and unique propositions you’ll undoubtedly receive because of the confidence you exude. If he plays his cards right, maybe someone will pay him to just go away.

(“You got punched where? And by who? I’m not sure I understand.”) 

If anything, UFC 153 provided us with several entertaining moments to confirm what we already knew, or at least hoped, to be true:

1. This Anderson Silva guy is for real.
2. This Glover Texmexamerica guy is also for real. Look out Page.
3. Jon Fitch is in fact capable of entertaining a crowd. (fight it….fight it…)
4. This Jiu Jitsu stuff works.
5. Fabio Maldanado is the closest thing to a zombie this earth may ever witness.

That last lesson came at a price that Maldanado will likely pay down the line in terms of brain function, but who needs brains when you have to special order your underwear to hold your massive balls? And if there’s any country out there that appreciates as gritty a performance as Maldonado gave on Saturday, it’s Brazil. And while they rallied around fellow Brazilian Glover Teixeira’s solid performance against Maldonado, they were quick to support their fallen comrade as well.

So in an effort to support Maldonado’s incredible display of heart, fellow UFC 153 participants/Brazilians Anderson Silva and Antonio Nogueira (along with Lil Nog) paid Maldonado a visit in the hospital. Tears were spilled, laughs were shared, and we’re pretty sure at least one of them fired up the grill, so check out the pair of photos and let us know who you’d like to see Maldonado fight next now that his UFC future is safe for the moment.