(Props: fueltv)

…and I’m not talking about that lame-ass Christian Bale movie. Ian McCall‘s greatest victory has come against a drug addiction that previously resulted in arrests, motorcycle accidents, and a near-death experience during a fateful tattooing session. Now, he has more to fight for than a UFC flyweight title shot. “I’ve now become a husband and a father,” he says. “That stuff has just added to the fire where now I can’t screw up.” And so, we have one more reason to be sort-of interested in tonight’s UFC on FX 3 card. Any of y’all plan on watching?

After the jump: Ariel Helwani interviews McCall and Demetrious Johnson following yesterday’s weigh-ins. To be honest, the most interesting part of the video is Ariel’s jacket. Lookin’ slick, my dude.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Following career setbacks due to alcohol and steroids, a one-year suspension due to unapproved painkillers was the last thing that Chris Leben needed in his life. But in a recent appearance on MMAFighting.com’s The MMA Hour, Leben spoke publicly for the first time since the incident last November, saying that getting caught following his loss to Mark Munoz at UFC 138 was the best thing to ever happen to him:

“I’ve battled drugs and alcohol. I’ve battled with those for my entire life. I’ve had an issue with being addicted to painkillers for years now. I had some issues with my camp and it was almost a cry for help. I knew I was going to get caught and I just didn’t care at the time. I’m extremely embarrassed, I feel like I let down the UFC, but at the same time I think getting caught is probably the best thing to ever happen to me. The UFC has been unbelievable, they sent me to a rehab facility and they really took care of me.”

As Leben tells it, he had hoped to go cold-turkey off the painkillers before the fight, but his addiction was too powerful:

(“I don’t want to die. But I’m not afraid to. Because what’s left, man? What do you do when they quit chanting your name?” Props: ESPN via willvojtisek)

As the WWF’s “Razor Ramon” in the early 1990s, Scott Hall was one of pro-wrestling‘s biggest stars — a Scarface-inspired bad guy known for his ever-present toothpick, gold chains, and hilarious promos. But in recent years, he’s become better known for his personal deterioration, which culminated in an utterly tragic headlining appearance at a Massachusetts wrestling show in April, two days after having a seizure. Though comparisons to Mickey Rourke’s character in The Wrestler are easy to make, the real-life story of Scott Hall is much darker.

Last night, ESPN’s E:60 profiled Scott Hall’s path from wrestling mega-success to his subsequent battles with addiction and his questionable decision to mentor his son Cody to follow in his footsteps. We don’t go near pro-wrestling very often on this site, but I thought this was heart-wrenching stuff, and worth sharing.

Let’s remember Scott in happier times. After the jump: Razor Ramon’s five greatest WWF video vignettes…

(Video courtesy of YouTube/Cyberplex)

Last week Porto do Vale Tudo published an interview with Paulo Filho in which the troubled former WEC middleweight champion denied reports that he was dangerously addicted to Rohypnol again and in hopeless financial debt. According to Filho, his friend Rodrigo Riscada, whom he lived with for the better part of the last five months and who was acting as his manager, has yet to pay him the money he received for his last two bouts and is spreading lies about his addiction and financial woes, which Paulo says are simply untrue.

Riscada responded to the interview this week and revealed that Filho’s issues are serious and if left untreated could lead to his untimely death.

According to Riscada, Filho is taking upwards of 60 roofies per day and on top of the potentially lethal dosage of GHB, he is injecting four vials of the veterinary steroid potenai daily as well.

(Riscada and Filho before their falling out.)

Although Filho says he’s clean, Riscada paints a different picture of sleeping on the floor beside Paulo’s bed and hiding his stash from the embattled fighter to make sure he wasn’t sneaking off to use drugs.

(Props: UnivisionNews1)

Usually we only bring up boxing when it involves Floyd Mayweather Jr. getting arrested or sued or talking shit about MMA. But we wanted to pass along Oscar De La Hoya‘s bombshell new interview with Univision, in which the boxing legend discusses the personal demons that have haunted him over the past few years. After entering treatment at the Betty Ford Center in May, De La Hoya is now three months’ sober, and in the process of rebuilding his life. Some highlights from the interview:

On his lowest point: ”Rock bottom was recently, within a couple of years. Just thinking, ‘Is my life was even worth it?’ I don’t have the strength, I don’t have the courage to take my own life, but I was thinking about it.”

On substance abuse: ”There were drugs. My drug of choice was cocaine and alcohol. Cocaine was recent, in the last two years, last two-and-a-half years. And I depended more on the alcohol than the cocaine. It took me to a place where I felt safe. It took me to a place where I felt like if nobody can say anything to me. It took me to a place where I can reach out and just grab my mom, who passed away when I was younger. I was dependent on those drugs.”

(Parisyan says although his demons are behind him, they’ll always be chasing him. PicProps: Sherdog)

Karo Parisyan is ready to turn the page.

With the last chapter of his life and his career behind him, the 28-year-old who overcame a highly publicized battle with painkiller abuse and anxiety is hoping that the headlines about his personal and professional struggles the past three years will eventually become footnotes in his life story rather than the main subject.

“When I put my life story out about all of the sh*t I’ve been through and everything that’s happened to me, even my parents will be like, ‘Oh my God,’ when they read it. They don’t even know the half of it.”

Page one of the new chapter of Parisyan’s story starts Thursday night in London, Ontario when he squares off with highly regarded Canadian welterweight Ryan Ford at MMA Live 1 and he says the main difference this time around is that he’s writing the story for himself and not for others like he’s been doing his whole life.

“I’ve been through hell and I’m still on the way back home. I hope people can understand and not judge me for the mistakes I made. I’m doing this for myself. I’m tired of worrying about this person or that person. My family always has my back, but I need to look after myself. I want to get out there and do this for me so I can feel good about myself again. I used to think a lot about what everybody thought about me and now I don’t care. I’ve been training since I was eight years old and competing as long as I can remember and I got burnt out,” Parisyan recalls. “I let the pressure get to me. I had the pressure of representing my friends, my family, Armenians, judo etc…etc. What I realize now is that except your age, what goes up must come down, so you need to not let every little thing get to you because that’s when the pressure will eat at you until you break.”

(McCullough with squeeze Lexxi Tyler, via MySpace.  You might remember her from a couple blue movies she’s been in, such as "Boobs of Hazzard," "Muff Bumpers 5," and "Rack Em."  All actual titles.)

According to MMA Weekly’s Insider Blog, the WEC’s Rob McCullough is going to be out of action for a while, as he’s going on the next season of VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab” to get his sex addiction looked at.  How ’bout that?

Apparently McCullough had surgery on the hand that he broke in his snoozer of a bout with Marcus Hicks at WEC 39, and since he has to take some time off anyway he might as well see if he can achieve his two lifelong goals of being on a reality show and putting an end to his compulsive fornicating all at once.  That’s called making efficient use of your time.

Depending on the source, this may just be part of the third season of the popular “Celebrity Rehab” show that seeks to exploit the substance abuse problems of kind of famous people for ratings, or it may be a spin-off of that show devoted entirely to sex addiction, which would be the perfect place for McCullough to meet chicks now that he and porn star Lexxi Tyler are reportedly no longer dating. (Edit: okay, so they’re still dating, and possibly engaged. Who can tell with porn stars?  I mean, when you think about it?) 

Now begins the great debate as to which MMA fighter made out better in the porn actress dating pool: Rob McCullough or Tito Ortiz?  McCullough managed not to get his porn star girlfriend pregnant (we hope), while Ortiz landed one who was more, um…I guess the word I’m looking for here is “prolific.”  Some comparison photos are after the jump to better aid the discourse.

One thing we weren’t aware of when we were posting that story about ex-UFC champ Ricco Rodriguez auctioning off his championship belt is that Rodriguez will reportedly be appearing in a new VH1 series called Celebrity Rehab, in which Loveline host and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky guides a group of down-and-out ex-celebrities (and the term is being used very loosely here, even for VH1′s standards) through an arduous recovery process. Ricco Rodriguez, who was suspended by the CSAC in 2006 for testing positive for cocaine and marijuana following a local MMA event in Bakersfield, will be appearing alongside actor Daniel Baldwin, former pro wrestler Joanie “Chyna” Lauer, porn star and one-time gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey, actress and Flavor Flav-paramour Brigitte Nielsen, and five other faded pop culture figures; the show debuts on January 10th.

So, first off, we’d like to take back what we said about Rodriguez’s situation not being as sad as when Corey Haim tried to auction off his teeth and hair; this is possibly sadder. Haim can get a wig and dentures to replace his hair and teeth (and hopefully he has by now), but Rodriguez will never get another championship belt. Plus, the fact that he’s an addict sheds some doubt on this claim that he’ll be using the money to open up a new MMA school. If you’ve ever watched Intervention (or, you know, dealt with addicts in real life), you’d know that any monetary windfalls usually wind up feeding the monkey, no matter how many promises are made otherwise.

We’d also like to say that Dr. Drew is a God among men and we cannot fucking wait for this show to start. It’s everything that Celebrity Apprentice should be!

UPDATE: With four days left in the auction, there are still no bids for Rodriguez’s belt.