(Seagal, seen here donning various items of clothing he had stolen from the cubbies of children he cared so dearly for.) 

Somewhere between Hard to Kill and Cockpuncher, Steven Seagal experienced a Christ-like resurrection of his career using only the power of audacity and the “free member for life” coupon to Old Country Buffet he had secured through a sponsorship deal in 1989. Seemingly overnight, the aging sensei emerged from a bargain bin of straight-to-DVD cop films (which to be fair, is a game he’ll never truly leave behind) and gut-bustingly awful musical endeavors to become the personal mentor of the pound-for-pound greatest fighter in the world, inventor of the front kick, and a “respected” member of the law enforcement community. Like the Phoenix who rose out of the Arby’s wrappers of its former self, Seagal was able to successfully come back from the dead and reconnect with semi-fame. And he is not letting go this time.

Take the events of this past weekend, for instance, in which Seagal was able to use said fame to join forces with the Maricopa County Police Department and assemble a posse (his words, not mine) of school shooting response specialists. Because if anyone knows how to react to a real life crisis situation, it’s the guy who has made a career terribly pretending to react to fake ones.

After the jump: A video snippet of this hilariously misguided endeavor, featuring paintball warfare, some misplaced picketing, and a surprising lack of firing range goggles*.

(As long as Stallone keeps making "The Expendables" sequels like he did with Rocky and Rambo, Randy will  have years of work ahead of him.)

Well, it looks like Randy Couture really is planning to walk away from fighting *for good* in favor of a movie career. 

The UFC Hall-of-Famer and the promotion’s former heavyweight and light heavyweight champ spoke with John O’Regan from Fighters Only over the weekend while in London to corner Mike Pyle for his UFC 121 fight with John Hathaway and he said that it’s likely that his days of fighting are behind him.

“I don’t know what is gonna happen on the fight front. I have had my wars, done my thing. I’ve been having fun, I can still fight, but I am not sure I want to make another run at the title or anything like that," Couture explained. “I enjoy the sport, I enjoy fighting, but its probably time to move on."

I’m not sure if retiring coming off of a win to James Toney is the way I’d want to go out, but I’m not a professional fighter with a storied MMA career like Randy, so what do I know?

(“I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.” PicProps: Connect.in.com)

The simple fact that MMA Fighting.com got stuck talking to Randy Couture’s attorney/manager this week instead of the man himself is probably very telling about what’s going on in Couture’s world these days. Most fighters can barely scrape it together to hire a halfway-legitimate agent or manger (again, just having your girlfriend do it doesn’t count), while “The Natural” is able to dispatch this guy Sam Spira, who we assume has graduated not only from college but then took the LSAT, then graduated from law school, then passed the bar in Nevada. When you consider the sad truth that a lot of fighters don’t even know a lawyer – and no, War Machine, your public defender doesn’t qualify — that’s pretty pimp.

Especially if you can send him out to handle the media obligations you don’t want to do yourself. Hence, we actually kind of believe Spira when he tells AOL on Wednesday that it’s sort of 50-50 whether the 47-year-old Couture will be too busy and too famous trying to balance his new career as an actor (and entertaining "other opportunities") ever to compete in MMA again.

(I’m not sure if I can pull off a playing a brash, cocky hoodlum, but I’ll give it a shot.)

Now when people talk about the "Michael Bisping soap opera," there’s a good chance they’ll be talking about a television show, not the drama the perpetual smack-talker usually creates leading up to his UFC bouts. 

The 31-year-old Cyprus-born Liverpudlian revealed during The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani today that he will play a gangster on an unnamed British daytime drama.

"I’m expecting to get a lot of grief from the Internet," Bisping told Helwani. "It’s not a novel soap opera, it’s a daytime soap opera. I play a bit of a bad guy."

(Who could forget Roger’s haunting performance as Edward Wooferhands? Image courtesy of Orion Car Audio.)

Shocking news from Sherdog: UFC lightweight star Roger Huerta has turned down a five-fight contract extension in order to pursue a career in acting and modeling. "El Matador" has one more fight on his current contract, which he plans to fulfill sometime this year, and may eventually return to the UFC. But for the time being, his interests lie elsewhere:

(Props: UGO.com’s movie blog)

Behold, a first look at Rich Franklin in the much-anticipated action film Cyborg Soldier. As near as I can figure, the film is about a cyborg soldier who has to help Kelly Kapowski save Zach Morris from the evil Mr. Belding, who is also a cyborg.

Unfortunately, the trailer only shows us brief glimpses of Ace’s acting skillz, but based on those glimpses I think it’s fair to say that he won’t be abandoning the fight game to do Henry V any time soon. It doesn’t help to play opposite Kelly Kapowski, who as we all know is one of the great talents of our time, nor does it help to play a cyborg, which is a tough, tough role. And how does Rich communicate his cyborgness in this film? By keeping his movements stilted and his face expressionless. Acting!

The DVD drops on October 7, and we’ll be the ones sleeping on the loading dock at Wal-Mart so we can be the first to get a copy. Rumor has it that the sequel, coming out in the spring, co-stars Anderson Silva and is entitled “Death of Cyborg Soldier.”

Set the DVRs, folks: On Thursday, November 20, UFC light-heavyweight Forrest Griffin will make his acting debut on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as a fighter who becomes a suspect in the death of a teenage girl. Playing the role of his fiancee is none other than Coco, the heavily ass-implanted real-life wife of SVU castmember Ice-T. A preview clip has made it online, and we’ve posted it below. If Griffin’s entire performance is as thrilling as that “I LOVE YOU BABY, WOOOOOO!” line, we’d say Randy Couture better watch his back…

By the way, is Coco wearing an Octagon-shaped necklace? Man, these writers don’t miss a single detail!