Announcement

(From left to right: Elias in writer-mode, Elias in beast-mode.)

You probably know Elias Cepeda as the respected MMA journalist and cuckhold-punker who has been regularly posting on CagePotato lately in Mike Russell’s absence. What you may not know is that Elias actually fights competitively. After making it through a couple of smokers with his ass intact, Elias will be fighting in his first official MMA match tonight at United Combat League’s debut show in Merrionette Park, Illinois.

I know it would mean the world to Elias to have the support of the Potato Nation at his back, and the good news is, you can cheer him on no matter where you live. The event will be streamed live on Facebook.com/unitedcombatleague, starting with Elias’s match against John Reid Glenn Evans at 7:30 p.m. CST. Please watch if you can, and share your suggestions for Elias’s fighter-nickname in the comments section.

For more information about the event — including ticket info — visit UCLMMA.com. 

I’m not touching this one. *Innocently whistles* *Walks Away* Props to reader Johnnyozone22 for the tip.

This doesn’t look good, folks. Initially reported by TMZ.com and confirmed by Josh Gross, UFC Light-Heavyweight champion Jon Jones has been arrested in Binghamton, New York on DUI charges after totaling his Bentley. From TMZ:

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ … Jones was involved in an accident at around 5:00 AM in Binghamton, NY. We’re told the car — which Jones crashed into a pole — was totaled and cops arrested Jones on the scene for DUI.

According to our sources, Jones was taken into custody by Broome County Sheriff and bailed out a few hours later … by his mom. Jones is from nearby Ithaca.

Fortunately for Jones, it appears that he only suffered minor injuries, and it does not appear that anyone else was injured from this accident. It is unclear whether or not there were any passengers in the car at the time of the accident.

(Wear it like a champion. Or at the very least, like a #1 contender.)

Y’know, it would have been helpful last week if we knew that Jung vs. Poirier was going to be a five-round fight. (Serves me right for trusting the word of a fly-by-night MMA fan-blog.) Though we got a wide variety of guesses in our TrauMMA/No Mas fight-picking contest, none of you guessed that the fight would go to the championship rounds, probably because you didn’t know that it was even a possibility.

Nevertheless, the two closest picks belonged to spidey811 (“Zombie def. Poirier via Anaconda Choke at 3:54 in Round 3 [Submission of the Night]“) and topdog (“Jung def Poirier via submission (RNC) @ 3:23 of rd 3 [Submission of the night]“) — who will both be getting the new Korean Zombie t-shirt from TrauMMA Combat Apparel.

Honorable mention goes to Freddyboiiiii, who predicted a second-round submission win for Jung, and correctly guessed that the fight would pick up the Submission of the Night and Fight of the Night bonuses. That’s good enough for a CagePotato t-shirt, I think. If your name has been called, please send your real name, shirt size, and address to contest@cagepotato.com, and we’ll send out your prizes ASAP. Thanks again to TrauMMA for the hookup!

(Shirt image via TrauMMACombat.com)

In honor of Chan Sung Jung‘s upcoming fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC on FUEL 3 on Tuesday, TrauMMA Combat Apparel has released a brand-new “Korean Zombie” t-shirt that you can buy right here for $29.99. But we know that thirty bucks is hard to come by in this economy, so how ’bout we give you a chance to win one for free?

You know how this works: Submit your prediction for the Zombie vs. Poirier main event in the comments section below by Monday night at midnight ET, including the winner, method of victory, and time/round of stoppage (if applicable). No need to include judges’ scores if you’re predicting a decision, but for the purposes of a tie-breaker, please include which end-of-night bonus you think the fight will win, if you think it’ll be bonus-worthy. Your entry should look like this…

Jung def. Poirier via split-decision [Fight of the Night]
or
Poirier def. Jung via submission (triangle choke), 3:54 of round 2 [Submission of the Night]
or
Jung def. Poirier via TKO, 1:59 of round 3 [no bonus]

And there’s just one more twist…

(“You break my high-score on Frogger? I break *you*.”)

We’re going to do something a little different for this week’s installment of the CagePotato Roundtable. Instead of listening to us blowhards pontificate, we’re going to let you guys run the show. The topic is: “What was the most memorable fight you’ve ever been in?”

It could be your first schoolyard scrap, a wild bar brawl when you were old enough to know better, or your first/greatest experience with sanctioned competition. Maybe a simple Halloween visit to Denny’s ended with you having to throw a chair at a bitch. Maybe you insulted Bas Rutten’s wife a few years back and have walked with a limp ever since. As long as your story is entertaining, we’d love to hear it.

Send your stories to tips@cagepotato.com by this Thursday night at midnight ET. We’ll pick a handful of the best ones and run ‘em on Friday. Please let us know if you don’t want us to print your names; we know some of you have outstanding warrants. Thanks guys!

(Remember when this happened? Yup. It was kinda awesome)

We’ve known for some time now that Dan Henderson will get the next chance to dethrone young phenom 205 pound UFC champ Jon Jones, and now we have an idea of when that will happen. “On Thursday afternoon, UFC president Dana White said that the organization was targeting an early September date for the UFC light-heavyweight champion’s next title defense, likely on Labor Day weekend,” MMA Fighting’s Mike Chiappetta reports.

“The UFC currently has no September 1 show on its official schedule, but if and when it gets added, future Hall of Famer Dan Henderson is on deck in the challenger’s role.”

Details and bad-ass highlight videos after the jump.

In 1993, the UFC made history by holding its first event at the old McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado. Now, the UFC will celebrate its 150th numbered event (Technically not, but play along) with a return to The Mile-High City on August 11. Tickets for the event, which takes place at The Pepsi Center, will go on sale June 15.

Headlining the event will be a lightweight title fight between champion Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar, who lost the title to Henderson by unanimous decision at UFC 144. It’s an odd time to announce this fight, as Dana White has been adamant about having Frankie Edgar drop to featherweight. Not to mention that just days ago, Edgar seemed to be teasing a fight with Jose Aldo.

But in a way, an immediate rematch for Edgar only seems fair, considering that Edgar had to give out two immediate rematches while he was the lightweight champion.

(And you had to pay your own medical bills, too? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

Thanks to everybody who entered our Safe caption contest! After carefully considering 132 of your entries today, and ranking them by the volume of my laughter, we have an obvious winner that will be picking up four movie passes to Safe (which hits theaters this Friday, April 27th). But a lot of you were throwing down nuggets of comedy gold, so let’s start off with some honorable mentions…

The12ozCurls: This is the picture next to the word “DICKNAILED” in the dictionary

Tyr: Note to self: Never wear a CagePotato t-shirt to a UFC expo.
[Ed. note: Exceptions can be made if you're enormous, or heavily-armed.]

albyvader: He just escaped from Tom Cruise’s basement.

Smitty: photographer: “Ok now lean back on both hands…show me sexy…show me painful sexy.”

JTBlock: “So let’s call it a draw and both go home. No? Damnit.”

RSparrow: Step 1: Youtube “Mad World” Step 2: Stare at picture
[Ed. note: Yep, that works. Not as well as cueing up "Cool It Now" and staring at this gif, but it works.]

LOKI: And the sad part is none of us will ever know this poor shlub’s name or even care.

And the winner is…

(Props: YouTube.com/TrashTalkinKids)

The wait is finally over. After keeping you guys on pins and needles for like a full month, we have a winner in our Urijah Faber t-shirt design contest with Punch Buddies. Watch the stunning conclusion above, in which Urijah, Stephan Bonnar, and Rachelle Leah take the finalists out to the desert and eliminate the losers one by one in the most hardcore way possible.

When the dust settles, they’re left with two designs that they can’t decide between — so Punch Buddies is producing both of them. Since the surfing California Kid shirt was created by one of PB’s own artists, our congrats really go to CagePotato reader Peter Starwalt, who went all the way with his beach/shark-themed design. Congrats, man! Your design is going to be on an actual MMA t-shirt, and you might actually see Faber wearing it someday! We’ll be dropping you a line shortly, because your wild ride is only getting started.

Also: Remember when I said we had a surprise for everybody whose design was featured in this contest? Well check it out: Urijah printed out and signed all your designs, and I’ll be sending them out to you guys over the next couple weeks. Keep an eye on your inboxes; we’ll be in touch.

(Photo courtesy of Heavy.com)

Alistair Overeem has finally broken his silence on his failed drug screening earlier this month. Here’s what the UFC heavyweight contender had to say in a release distributed this morning by Authentic Sports Management:

“To my friends and fans,

I am deeply saddened to announce that on Friday, April 20, I respectfully withdrew from the May 26 event so that I can request a continuance until my situation with the Nevada State Athletic Commission is resolved.

I cannot express how sorry I am to the Commission, Junior Dos Santos, the fans, the owners and employees of the UFC, my friends and family and anyone else who this has affected.

I absolutely do not believe in, nor do I use performance-enhancing drugs. I am a clean fighter and I will do whatever it takes to prove this to everyone.