Videos - Page 11

As one could tell from the opening moments of The Ultimate Fighter 17 premiere a couple weeks back, some drastic improvements have been made to the long neglected reality show. The sleek production, the lack of fabricated drama, the fight quality — nearly everything audiences were demanding over the past few seasons seems to have improved for the time being and has been reflected in the show’s much improved ratings.

And tonight’s episode, featuring a showdown between the highly touted Uriah Hall (Team Sonnen) and the all but completely overlooked Adam Cella (Team Jones), promises to deliver not only one of the most violent KO’s in the show’s history, but in the history of the sport. That is according to noted TUF hypeman and occasional UFC president Dana White, of course.

So in order to do a little TUF-hyping of our own (I know right? WHAT YEAR IS THIS?!), we’ve thrown a preview of tonight’s episode above for you all to check out. And indeed, if the audience’s reaction is any indication, then someone is going down in a big way during the night’s main event. Unfortunately for you spoilerphobes, if you freeze frame the video around the 45 second mark, you can see that the fighter strapped to the stretcher appears to be of the African American persuasion. A bit of intentional misleading by the TUF production team, or a massive upset in the making? And more importantly, how many of you Taters will be tuning in to find out?

After the jump: A little more video hype, featuring a sneak peak of Ronda Rousey’s special on Real Sports, which airs February 19th on HBO. Liz Carmouche’s special, on the other hand, will be airing tonight on Lifetime After Dark in the form of a 30-second trailer during the network’s coveted 3 a.m. spot. We kid, we kid; Liz didn’t get a special.

(Because of its needlessly tall dimensions — you’ll see — we’ve placed the video after the jump.)

Because it has been over three years since Gina Carano has fought, we don’t hear from the former “Face of Women’s MMA” as often as we’d like to, but the fighter-turned-actress was in New Orleans for the Super Bowl over the weekend, and filmed a rare interview with SB Nation in which she tried to clear up whether or not she is actually retired from MMA and what she thinks about the elusive Ronda Rousey vs. “Cyborg” Santos mega-bout.

On being called a current fighter, Carano drew an important distinction. “I haven’t fought in three years and right now I’m focusing on films…that’s what my focus is,” she explained. “I think that if your focus is fighting, then you’re a fighter and that’s not my focus right now.”

“Conviction” wouldn’t close the door on her ever fighting again, however. “You can’t say that.”

“I wake up every morning and I surprise myself. I wake up to a new me. I still train.”

She last sparred about two weeks ago, in fact, and “felt really good.”

Carano went on to say that Rousey deserves the hype and attention, and also called shenanigans on Santos claim that she’d be facing certain death if she were to cut down to 135 pounds — the prerequisite for her fighting Rousey, according to UFC President Dana White. Carano doesn’t believe that Uncle Dana is being unfair to “Cyborg” by making the former 145 pound champ drop down to 135 in order to fight in the UFC and, potentially, against Rousey.

“I don’t think so…she made it down there a lot easier than I made it down there. That’s for Cyborg to figure out,” Gina said.

Wow. We all knew that the fallout from Randy Couture’s deal with Bellator would be swift and harsh, but if Dana White’s words during the UFC 156 post-fight media scrum were any indication, the UFC HOFer might find himself SOL (Author’s note: I get paid by the acrostic) when his son makes his promotional debut as well.

But before we get into that, lets talk about what went down during the UFC 156 post-fight press conference first (video above). Following his parlay-destroying victory over Alistair Overeem earlier in the evening, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva was not afraid to add insult to injury when questioned on his strategy heading into the third round, stating almost matter-of-factly that Overeem lacked heart:

I work a lot in the gym and I had a good strategy, because we know Overeem [doesn't] have good cardio and no heart. When he punches, he’s a lion, but when [you] punch him, he’s a cat, you know? 

That’s right, Antonio freaking Silva just used the power of metaphor in English to call Ubereem a pussy. Might I direct you to this Scanners gif?

For obvious reasons, Dana White remained noncommittal to the idea of a Silva/Velasquez rematch, but simply stated that he “wouldn’t be opposed to that.” While it’s a decent idea in theory considering Silva’s most recent win, putting a guy who got taken down by Overeem on multiple occasions against the best wrestler in the division — one who practically killed Silva when they first fought, by the way — does not exactly scream “necessary matchup.” Then again, crazier things have happened in heavyweight rematches.

Now, let’s move on to Dana White pretty much banishing Randy Couture from all future UFC events…

(Props: mmagenius2 via MiddleEasy)

Okay, this is funny. You know how Chuck Liddell‘s body involuntarily convulses whenever he’s watching a fight that’s important to him? Well, it happened again during the UFC on FOX 6 match between his longtime rival Quinton Jackson and his longtime training partner Glover Teixeira. But don’t watch Chuck — watch his fiance Heidi Northcott, who spazzes out right along with him. At 0:35-0:37, it’s almost like she’s doing an impression of Chuck Liddell’s trademark spectator-stroke. In fact, the sheer over-the-top-ness of it makes me wonder if Heidi is actually in on the joke, and this whole thing is just a performance for our amusement. Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time that these two have tried to pull a fast one on us.

Highlights of Jacoby’s run through the tournament via Chris Gregory

To say that UFC veteran Dustin Jacoby was a gigantic underdog heading into last night’s Road for Glory USA tournament overstates the obvious. A victim of the UFC’s “0-2, sucks to be you” policy, Jacoby was stepping in for injured heavyweight boxer Manuel Quezada with less than two days to prepare for what would be his professional kickboxing debut. Combined with the fact that Jacoby’s first matchup was against ISKA Heavyweight Champion Randy “Boom Boom” Blake (who you may remember as the guy who cheap-shotted Cro Cop last October), the expectations for Jacoby were pretty damn low.

For the majority of Jacoby’s fight against Randy Blake, Jacoby performed exactly as expected. Blake outworked him throughout the fight, effectively chopping away at Jacoby with leg kicks. But in the third round, Dustin Jacoby let his hands go, realizing that he needed a knockout to advance in the tournament. After stunning Blake with a left hook, Jacoby tagged him with a right cross that caused the referee to stop the fight.

(While Arianny was surely impressed by Ubereem’s physique, Chandella quickly remarked that she had seen greater stallions than Alistair when put out to pasture earlier that afternoon.) 

Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar, Alistair Overeem, and the rest of the 22 fighters set to compete on tomorrow night’s UFC 156: Aldo vs. Edgar card are scheduled to hit the scales LIVE from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas starting at 7 p.m. EST. You know what that means, so join us after the jump to catch all of the weigh-in action. My predictions: Volkmann gets booed, Arianny gets wooed, and Yves Edwards deviates from his usual bag of KC Masterpiece for a tube of Pringles that shoots out a fake snake when he offers a chip to opponent Isaac Vallie-Flagg. Then he turns to his crew of frat bros and yells “Freshman!” before proceeding to paddle the ever-loving shit of the UFC newbie, because it is NOT OK to be a UFC newbie.

Since she was fired from UFC ring girl duty in 2009, Edith LaBelle has popped up here and there, in appearances as rare and glorious as Bigfoot sightings. Frankly, we miss the little knucklehead.

Luckily, the geniuses at MMA Candy — who previously brought us “this chick with the huge cans will teach you how to pass guard” and “why does that blonde girl have the gun from Predator?” — have gotten some quality time with the curvaceous French-Canadian. Watch as Edith and her lovely assistant take us through some kimura transitions that you can turn into finishing moves, as long as your partner isn’t putting up much of a fight.

Check out one more video after the jump, and follow Edith on twitter and Facebook.

We’re just four days away from the UFC 156 featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar, and as usual, we’d like to get your opinion on the matter. But we’re going to try something a little different this time: Our new bros at Squabbler have set up that nifty little “CagePotato Debate Zone” widget you see above. Click on my face* to hear my super-brief prediction for Aldo vs. Edgar, and if you disagree, you can record a response by clicking the orange “Let’s Squabble” button. One we get a few solid entries in the mix, you’ll be able to vote on the best one. Just keep in mind that if anybody out-votes my entry, I will shut down this entire goddamned website. Some ground-rules…

- You only have 15 seconds to make your argument, so maybe give it some thought before you start babbling. Fortunately, you can re-record your response as many times as you want before submitting it.

- The widget will be live until Saturday at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. The best entry before then will score a CagePotato t-shirt.

- Please, no male nudity. Or at the very least, tasteful male nudity.

Let us know what you think, and follow Squabbler on Twitter @Squabbler!

* Jesus, couldn’t they have picked a better screen-shot? Honestly, I don’t always look like I’ve just huffed a bag of paint. And do I really sound like that? Ugggggghhh.

Once considered the #1 flyweight in the world, Ian McCall‘s stint in the Octagon has resulted in a goofy draw against Demetrious Johnson, followed by a non-goofy unanimous decision loss to Demetrious Johnson. If McCall wants to avoid the “UFC bust” label, he’ll need a fantastic showing this Saturday when he faces Joseph Benavidez on the UFC 156 main card. But judging from this new video profile from MMASucka, you have to wonder if his head’s in the right place. As Uncle Creepy puts it:

“Been going through a lot on a personal note. It’ll all unfold sooner or later, but at least I have the gym, that’s my happy place at the moment. So as much drama as I’ve been dealing with at the moment, I have this place to make me happy, and at least I’m focused here…It’s all home stuff. I don’t live at home anymore, I’m separated, probably getting a divorce. Just stuff like that…I just want to get this [fight] over with, and be free and just be happy, finally — that’s how I look at it, get in there and I can be happy — and get it over with so I can fix my life.”

A man’s upper lip is one of the clearest signifiers of his emotional state, and as I see it, McCall’s lopsided moustache in the video is itself a symbol of the opposing forces that are pulling him off the straight path towards success; it’s a sign that he’s neglecting what’s important, not just in his grooming habits, but in his life. Or maybe, his moustache is a psychological anchor, tethering him to the old ways that have blocked him in the past. Indeed, you guys. Indeed.

Previously:
- Tito Ortiz and Jenna Jameson Have Been Going Through Some Rough Times, You Guys
- Mark Coleman Has Been Going Through Some Times, Brother
- CagePotato Ban: The Phrase ‘You Guys’ in Headlines, You Guys

(Props: YouTube.com/UFC)

UFC 156 goes down this coming Saturday in Las Vegas, featuring the featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar, Alistair Overeem‘s return against Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, Rashad Evans vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, and a whole mess of supporting talent. Check out the extended trailer above, and ask yourself the following…

- How likely is it that Edgar will become the third UFC fighter in history (after Randy Couture and BJ Penn) to become a UFC champion in a second weight division?

- Is anybody buying the idea that Bigfoot’s size and power will be a challenge for Overeem?

- What would Rashad Evans need to do, hypothetically, to convince you that he deserves another crack at Jon Jones?

- The UFC injury curse has been eerily quiet lately, with very few withdrawals of marquee fighters over the past two months. So, were Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta justified in throwing those virgins into the volcano?

And now that we have your attention, you might as well watch this stuff too…