(And when I say “bitch,” I mean it in the politest sense of the word possible.)

*takes a seat in rocking chair, lights up corn cob pipe*

You know, kids, there used to be a time when words like “retirement,” “marriage,” and “my totally real dead girlfriend” used to mean something. Perhaps it was just a simpler time back then, but when a man (or a woman that had somehow shoehorned her way into an office environment) gathered his co-employees around and announced that he was hanging it up, it was meant to be permanent. Bill Russell never came back. Vince Lombardi never came back. Pete Maravich tried to come back and dropped dead on the spot. Retirement was supposed to be a one way street, paved with early bird discounts, cheap medications, and eventually death. Sweet, sweet death. But then Muhammed Ali had to go and ruin everything.

*sets down pipe to chase Jehovah’s Witnesses down sidewalk*

In the past couple years, we’ve seen such notable fighters as Jamie Varner, Matt Hamill, and Chris Lytle announce their retirement from MMA. Of those three, the first two have already returned to the sport, and the latter has suggested that he would fight again under the right circumstances. And now, you can add UFC Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz to the list of fighters who feel they might have called it a career a bit early. In an interview with BloodyElbow, Ortiz stated that he would be open to the idea of coming out of retirement, but only once all of the injuries that have plagued his MMA career since ever were finally dealt with:

Right now, I’m only four weeks out of neck surgery, and then I have to get the ACL surgery. I still need to recover from that before I start thinking about anything, and if I’ll compete again. You never know, I may come out of retirement. It’s all about how my body recovers.

(“Thanks Jay. Joining me now backstage is none other than…uh…wait a minute. You’re Anderson Silva’s son, right?”)

If you’ve been watching the NFL playoffs on FOX over the last couple weekends, you’ve surely noticed the frequent UFC promos throughout the broadcasts hyping a “World Title Fight” on January 26th between “Johnson and Dodson.” At no point is the word “flyweight” ever mentioned — because that would be a turnoff to casual fans, I guess? — and in most of the live promos I’ve seen, Demetrious Johnson and John Dodson‘s first names aren’t even included. Basically, they’re hoping that the mere promise of a “title fight” will be enough to lure some football fans into tuning in this Saturday night, even if those viewers have no idea who the headliners are, or what belt they’ll be fighting for specifically.

By sticking to the ironclad rule that a title fight will always get headlining-priority no matter who else is fighting on the card — a policy that previously drew some fan-criticism when Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche was given the UFC 157 main event spot over Dan Henderson vs. Lyoto Machida — the UFC has painted themselves into a corner. Johnson and Dodson simply aren’t as well-known, marketable, or admired as some of the other fighters competing at UFC on FOX 6, namely Quinton Jackson, Donald Cerrone, and Anthony Pettis.

It’s a problem, because TV ratings and buyrates are so closely tied to who’s headlining each event. Instead of perhaps making Rampage vs. Teixeira or Cerrone vs. Pettis the headliner, the UFC is choosing to keep things vague (“world title fight!” “Johnson!”) and hope for the best. We’ll see if that proves to be the right decision, or if the ratings will plunge compared to the strong showing of UFC on FOX 5. I know the UFC wants to pump up its budding flyweight division, but I can’t help wondering if they’re doing themselves a disservice when there’s so little heat around that weight class. Could they re-consider their “championship fight always gets the main event” policy down the road?

Since I’ve been thinking about this lately, I’ve decided to present my own rundown of which fights I’m actually looking forward to this weekend. If you see things differently, please hurl some abuse at me in the comments section. Let’s begin…

(Takes one to know one, we guess.) 

I’m pretty sure the amount of irony present in the whole Chael Sonnen/Lance Armstrong beef is giving me cancer. Here you have an MMA fighter on PED’s who called out a cyclist of all people for using PED’s just weeks before said MMA fighter was busted for PED’s. Then, said MMA fighter denied that he ever claimed the cyclist was on PED’s, only to come out years later demanding a personal apology from the cyclist, who it turns out was actually on PED’s all the while. It was an act that required a huge set of balls to commit to, yet was pulled off by a guy whose balls are apparently so small that he needs testosterone injections just to survive, again, because he used PED’s in the past. “Pot, meet kettle,” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

In either case, Sonnen recently appeared on his favorite venue for trolling the MMA world, The Jim Rome Show, and picked up where he left off in regards to the now disgraced cyclist, even delving into how Armstrong had threatened to sue him for his statements at one point:

Why are they calling him a bully? That’s what I can’t wrap my mind brain around. Lance is a dweeb, the only thing he’s missing is the tape on the glasses and the high water pants. That guy couldn’t get respect at the local Honky Tonk in my hometown. He threatened to sue me so I threatened to kick his ass and the whole thing went away.

Read More DIGG THIS

(Aw yeah. Get ready for some Internet street-justice.)

Rick Hawn‘s lightweight title challenge against Michael Chandler last week at Bellator 85 didn’t go so well. Chandler was able to put the decorated judoka on his back with relative ease, before finishing him with a rear-naked choke in round two. But as disappointing as the loss was for Hawn, it paled in comparison to what came next. As Hawn revealed on twitter last night, “one of my main sponsors from my fight canceled his check cuz he wasnt happy with the outcome or my performance…A lawsuit is pending so I cannot comment on who it is just yet but stay tuned.”

I think we can all agree that a company that stiffs one of its sponsored MMA fighters because he lost should be immediately banned from the sport. But what makes this story sink to another level of scumbaggery is that the sponsor is actually defending the non-payment as a wise business decision. Here’s what the still-unnamed floor-turd had to say in an e-mail purportedly sent to our old friend Mike Russell:

“At this point, a stop payment has been placed on check which cannot be cashed or deposited now. I will not comment on Rick and his fight. That is not my place. But what I will tell you is this: I took a huge chance with him. TV exposure was great…but it only holds weight if he wins or puts on a good show. Neither happened. At the end of the day…not one sole (sp) will run to [my] store and buy product because they [saw my logo and saw] Rick loose (sp) the fight. I’ve made it my career and business to know what nets a return on investment for the brand…and this is the number 1 reason why I DO NOT hand out money or product to fighters.”

(Fight week, barf week. Props: YouTube.com/UFC)

Answer: Nobody. Not even you. Watching this video might seem like a good idea at the time, but once that scalpel goes in at the 5:18 mark and they start separating the damn thing from its hinges, you’ll be like, “nah, it’s cool. I paid way too much for that McMuffin to lose it now.”

The good news is, Dana White‘s surgery for Meniere’s Disease last week — in which a plastic tube was inserted into his left ear, which will allow excess fluid to drain — was a success, although the procedure won’t cure the condition completely. The UFC president will be back in action this weekend at UFC on FOX 6: Johnson vs. Dodson, as will commentator Mike Goldberg, who is returning from an upper respiratory infection.

(We blame you for this mess, TUF 15. In fact, we’re going to blame you for a lot of things moving forward, so just get used to it.)

Great news, Potato Nation! If you thought having the average UFC card spread across three channels on different networks and a social networking device to boot wasn’t complicated enough, it has recently been announced that not only will FX be cancelling all of their sports programming going forward, but the FUEL and SPEED networks will be transformed into sports-based FOX networks to compensate for this change. Those expecting to catch a night of free fights in the future without an Arabic scroll, the flame of Anor, and the ability to answer the bridge troll’s questions three should prepare themselves accordingly. The news was passed along earlier today by Sports Media Watch:

News Corporation will convert the Fuel cable network into general sports channel ‘Fox Sports 2′ this August, Sports Business Journal reported Monday. The launch of Fox Sports 2 will coincide with the conversion of Speed Channel to Fox Sports 1.

Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 will be the chief outlets for News Corp. sports programming. FX, which aired college football coverage the past two seasons and previously televised baseball and NASCAR, will no longer carry sporting events. Fox Soccer is expected to be converted into a general entertainment channel.

(Photo via vip.abril.com.br. Click for full-size version.)

Following their recent trend of using local ring girl talent for international events, the UFC hired a pair of Brazilian models to add eye candy to this weekend’s UFC on FX 7 card — Camila Rodrigues de Oliveira (who barely exists on the Internet, unfortunately) and Aline Franzoi, a 20-year-old from Guarulhos who hosts some sort of weird kids’ show called Hora Da Festa. We decided to round up some of Aline’s best photos, which we’ve arranged in the gallery after the jump. Enjoy, and see lots more of Aline on her Facebook page.

(Props: YouTube.com/fueltv. Skip to the 0:51 mark for the violence.)

Khabib Nurmagomedov‘s first-round knockout of Thiago Tavares at Saturday’s UFC on FX 7: Belfort vs. Bisping immediately joined Melendez vs. Kawajiri and Miocic vs. Del Rosario in the pantheon of vicious elbows-from-above MMA finishes. The win also upped Nurmagomedov’s career record to a remarkable 19-0, and represented his third straight win in the Octagon. It’s clear that the Russian Sambo/Judo ace has the potential to make a serious impact in the UFC’s lightweight division. So who should he face next? Well, he’s got an opinion about that.

After the fight, FUEL TV’s Heidi Androl talked to “The Eagle” about his ball-busting t-shirt at the weigh-ins and his training at American Kickboxing Academy. Nurmagomedov also mentioned that he really wants to face Nate Diaz in his next fight. It was a smart bit of post-fight matchmaking, as a meeting with Diaz could give Nurmagomedov the exposure that he’ll need to break into the title mix.

On the other hand, Diaz might not want to face a relative newcomer without much name value. (As with the frequently-ducked Glover Teixeira, there just isn’t much upside to fighting a dangerous, non-star like Nurmagomedov.) Though I’m sure Diaz vs. Nurmagomedov would be an entertaining scrap, I wouldn’t be surprised if the UFC books Khabib against another mid-level opponent before letting him in the cage with Top 5-caliber competition. Any other ideas on who Nurmagomedov should take on next?

Let’s make two things clear from the beginning: Vitor Belfort is an amazing fighter, and an equally terrible trash talker. He demonstrated both of these things on Saturday night, with both his brilliant finish of Michael Bisping and his callout of Jon Jones immediately afterwards.

Of course, Jon Jones is a little busy at the moment, getting ready for Chael Sonnen and all. Belfort addresses this by asking Dana White to “Take that clown away” so he could have his rematch with Jones instead of having Bones fight Sonnen in the spring.

No one is here to say that Belfort can’t beat Sonnen in the cage – especially at light-heavyweight – but “The Phenom” doesn’t exactly live up to his nickname when it comes to trash talking. Even though I wouldn’t count Belfort’s post-fight interview as a callout of Chael Sonnen, the clown comment definitely left a sour taste in his mouth. Sonnen wasted no time responding to Belfort’s comments, using his commentary gig on the post-event FUEL TV broadcast to issue the following statements:

(Now that we’ve settled our differences, Michael, I’d like to tell you about a friend of mine)

By Elias Cepeda

If Michael Bisping’s trash-talking mouth didn’t write checks that his fists couldn’t cash so often it’s very likely he’d be known as a British MMA pioneer with incredible work ethic and who improved greatly over the course of his career. Instead, Bisping has done his darndest to mask his real accomplishments by playing up imagined ones.

He’s campaigned, with his mouth, for a title shot for years despite losing to every top-tier fighter he’s faced and being gifted wins over less than top-tier ones. Coming into Saturday’s fight against Vitor Belfort in Sao Paulo Brazil, UFC President Dana White said that Bisping would earn a title shot against Anderson Silva with a win.

At that point, Bisping had a one fight win “streak.” Before that win, a decision against Brian Stann last September that could have easily been scored instead for Stann, Bisping lost to Chael Sonnen – who’s twice been beaten by Silva. Not long before that, Bisping walked away with a win against Jorge Rivera in a fight that he should have, in fact, lost by disqualification for his blatant and repeated fouls. His break-out UFC fight was a ludicrously bad decision win over Matt Hamill.

Every time the UFC has pushed Bisping into a fight with a fighter he’d given no indication he should be in the ring with, he’s lost. He’s said it is his destiny to be a world champion and insulted almost everyone else in his division, yet Bisping has lost to every fighter that had been or would go on to be a world champion that he’s faced.

Rashad Evans, Wanderlei Silva, Dan Henderson and now, Vitor Belfort. Bisping’s win streak is back down to zero after getting TKO’d by Belfort in the second round of their main event Saturday.

Hopefully the talk of him getting a title shot any time soon has also been knocked out.