Ariel Helwani with the monumental scoop:

(Highlights from Playboy model LaTasha Marzolla’s MMA debut. Props: PureFight.org)

Xavier Foupa-Pokam’s stint with the UFC was almost as short as his time spent upright against Drew McFedries at UFC 98.  After suffering his second straight loss in as many fights “Professor X” has been cut from the organization and set adrift on the sea of free agency.  It’s a shame, considering the promise he showed in his pre-UFC fights, but the first-round TKO loss to McFedries was all the UFC needed to see in order to decide he wasn’t ready for the big time just yet. 

Speaking of McFedries, he got himself in hot water with his Miletich camp teammates by claiming that none of them were supporting him in the run-up to his UFC 98 bout.  Pat Miletich says that’s absolutely untrue, and it sounds like McFedries either needs to do some public apologizing or else find himself a new place to train.  MFS is brutal enough without having those guys genuinely pissed off at you.

In other MMA news…

(On second thought, no, I wasn’t going to finish my sandwich. Please, by all means. Props to Esther Lin.)

Last night, Strikeforce sent out a roundup of quotes from a media conference call held yesterday, where Scott Smith, Andrei Arlovski, and Brett Rogers took questions about their upcoming matchups on June 6th. While Arlovski didn’t say much other than he was excited for the fight and he should have stuck to his gameplan against Fedor, "The Grim" stole the show, discussing everything from his preparation for Arlovski to Alistair Overeem acting like a fool. Here are some highlights:

What are your thoughts on being offered this big step up in opposition?
Rogers: Once I got the phone call and Arlovski was set in stone, I was excited. I remember watching this guy at a younger age and thinking, ‘man I get to take on someone like that?’ He’s an explosive guy; he likes to move around. It’s definitely going to be a challenge, but nothing I don’t think I can handle. He’s big, slimmer guy. He likes to move, he likes to be quick and move his hands. I’m kind of mellow with the fighting stance, so it’s definitely going to be me taking my time and controlling the fight.’’

("Pee-pee-pee" vs. "Wobble-Wobble": Who ya got!?)

Ho, baby. From a new press release sent out by Strikeforce:

The Fight Network (via FiveOunces) passes along these additional details:

Punch-Out Rap – Watch more Other Funny Stuff
(Props: Break via Screen Junkies)

25 years after Punch-Out!! first hit arcades, the beloved boxing series is having a bizarre rebirth via Internet videos. Two days ago, we saw the documentary style clip of Little Mac preparing to make his comeback — a viral ad for the title’s upcoming Wii relaunch. Now, there’s this completely-unrelated rap tribute to the game, which ScreenJunkies tells us is "the first installment in a series of old-school Nintendo-based music videos entitled ‘Gamerjamz’." Damn…I can’t wait for the Double Dragon tribute done in the style of DragonForce. (By the way, Gamerjamz, if you actually use that idea you have to credit me.)

And the Punch-Out!! love doesn’t stop there…

Pardon my language here, but what the fuck is Andrei Arlovski doing?  The man was once the UFC heavyweight champion, and now he’s doing skits on "The Jerry Springer Show" that look like they were written by a tenth-grade English class?  And not that it would have made any difference, but they couldn’t rehearse it once or twice just to work out some of the kinks?  It just seems too coincidental that Arlovski is sinking to these new lows at right around the same time he’s preparing to make his pro boxing debut.  This video settles it: boxing makes jackasses out of MMA fighters.  And since Freddie Roach makes boxers out of MMA fighters…you can draw your own conclusions about him.

After the jump, I talk ring girls, unnecessary nudity, and more with Fight! Magazine photographer Paul Thatcher, and Martin Kampmann shows us how they do over at Xtreme Couture.

(The war, she is hell.)

Here’s the explanation we were given to go along with this photo:

"Mixed Martial Arts star Andrei Arlovski is featured in the sequel of the iconic hit film UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. Stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren return as fight-to-the-death enemies in "Universal Soldier: A New Beginning."  The film has just wrapped principal photography.”

But between us, we think that’s all a clever cover story.  That’s what the government would like you to believe.  But look in those eyes.  See the despair?  See the anguish?  That’s a man who has grown disillusioned with the world of pro fighting and has traveled into the future to join some totally sweet army of motocross riders with machine guns who do battle with aliens or giant bugs or robots or something. 

At least that’s our take.  We’ll let you decide which explanation sounds more plausible.

(‘And what is deal with airline food? Is no good, am I right?’)

Want to hear something totally insane and probably not true?  That was a rhetorical question.  Of course you want to hear this.  According to a Croatian newspaper article translated for us by Robert of betwwx.com, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic’s next bout will be this July in an Affliction/Dream co-promotional event full of all kinds of fights that only sort of make sense.  

The article quotes Cro Cop as saying that he’d like to fight four times this year (he knows it’s already mid-April and he’s fought zero times so far this year, right?) and five times in 2010, so the credibility of this report seems strained to begin with.  But then the article declares that the “only certainty” is a Cro Cop-Alistair Overeem rematch on a July 20 Affliction/Dream co-promotion in Japan.  Also on that card, according to this report, will be Fedor Emelianenko taking on Jeff Monson and Josh Barnett facing off against Andrei Arlovski.

Whoa, let’s back up a second, Croatian newspaper.  Now who’s this Fedor guy anyway and what has he done to deserve a shot at "The Snowman"?

"Here we go. Bloggin’ again." So says Dana White after he and Lorenzo sell some snake oil to a group of Stanford Business students, telling them that their friendship is what has kept the UFC successful. Plus, it’s all about the ride. You can pretty much skip past 2:19-4:44, in which Lorenzo tells a convoluted shaggy dog story (literally/figuratively) which doesn’t really go anywhere. You can also skip through 4:45-6:00 in which Dana plays Pac-Man in his garage. Man, I can’t imagine what landed on the cutting-room floor this time around. Then, Dana’s daughter shows up in an Ed Hardy shirt (LOL, what a douchebag) and his son disses his baldness. A lot of family time, basically, ending with Dana and Lorenzo reunited and heading to Germany. In a way, this vlog entry is much like UFC 96 itself — only interesting if you’re a hardcore fan.

Below: Rejoice! Genghis Con has created a sequel to his groovy Fedor Emelianenko-based film The Last Russian Emperor. Chapter 2 focuses on Fedor’s last five victories (Hunt, Lindland, Choi, Sylvia, Arlovski), with some great behind-the-scenes footage peppered in. The exchange between Aleks and Andrei at the 6:13 mark FTW.

When Ariel Helwani informed us that he was leaving MMA Rated – once the go-to spot for video interviews that often became instant internet classics, now an anemic shell of a website – amid hard financial times, we naturally assumed that this meant our Canadian friend would soon be reduced to selling fake Nikes and knock-off Affliction shirts in Times Square.  Then he got the job working on “UFC Primetime” and it seemed like things might be all right until production shut down following UFC 94 and he was forced to get some sleep and go back on his all Ramen Noodles diet.

But lo and behold, “The Franchise” is back in business.  We’re pleased to tell you that Helwani is now beefing up the MMA coverage at Versus.com.  That’s right, as in the people who air the WEC events you enjoy so much.  In other words, Helwani is working for The Man.  The good news?  The Man pays well, and on time.

He tells us that Versus.com will be covering the MMA world as a whole and not just the WEC, and we’re encouraged by the fact that they hired a real MMA journalist for the job and not some punk-ass corporate lackey.  If you want to check out Helwani’s first effort – a recap of last night’s WEC – you can read it here.  

Congrats, Ariel.  The Potato Nation looks forward to reading your work until you are inevitably fired for stealing office supplies and sexually harassing interns.  Should be a fun three weeks.

From Round5MMA.com/blog via MMA Mania:

As decorative cubicle-toys go, this one is gonna be pretty gnarly. Check out the oversized head — which accentuates the oversized fangs and oversized power-beard — and those clublike fists. Of course, the real Andrei Arlovski is a little less impressive, which is probably for the best.

(Arlovski tries for the Dan Severn, sweat-soaked-grey-t-shirt look.)

Following his knockout loss to Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction: Day of Reckoning, Andrei Arlovski has signed with Golden Boy Promotions and will begin his career as a boxer, reports FightHype.com.  

You may recall that Arlovski’s trainer, Freddie Roach, said he’d like to see Arlovski take on heavyweight boxing champ Nikolai Valuev if he was victorious against Fedor.  Of course, he wasn’t, so maybe Valuev won’t be Arlovski’s first opponent, which is probably just as well.  But whoever he does face in the boxing ring, at least he won’t be tempted to try another flying knee.

If you’re Arlovski this move makes perfect sense right now.  Having lost to Fedor, there’s no immediately obvious opponent for him outside the UFC ranks.  He’s already beaten Ben Rothwell and Roy Nelson, Josh Barnett has the next shot at Fedor (though it won’t happen until the summer, at the earliest), so why not put on some bigger gloves and find out whether Roach really knows a boxing diamond in the rough when he sees it?

The upside for MMA fans is we get to see someone from our world match his skills against a real boxer.  We’ve all heard about how superior their striking is for so long, wouldn’t it be nice to find out the old-fashioned way?  Not to mention, this could actually get people to care about boxing’s heavyweight division again, at least for a little while. 

Dana White’s UFC 94 video blog, episode 2 – Watch more Free Videos

In the second episode of Dana White’s UFC 94 video blog we get a look inside the taping of “The Ultimate Fighter,” and encounter a man identified as Dana White Sr.  Could this really be the father of the UFC prez?  The brief look we get at their relationship seems contentious yet oddly loving enough.  After that it’s off to NYC for more Pinkberry (so no more Men’s Health cover shoots any time soon, then?) and another race through the city streets.  Oh, to be rich and loaded on sugar.  Nothing at all about GSP-Penn in this episode, by the way.

Andrei Arlovski comes home to Chicago and thanks his fans for their support after his loss, which he attributes to a stupid mistake.  His cameraman, playing the role of the enabling sycophant, insists it was just necessary risk-taking, but Andrei knows better.  He also tosses another jab at “pee-pee-pee taster” Tim Sylvia, because that always makes a man feel better when he’s down in the dumps.

(Is there any situation not improved by sound effects from Super Mario Bros.?  Props: MMA Scraps.)

Freddie Roach has figured out what went wrong for Andrei Arlovski on Saturday night.  It’s simple really.  Fighting the world’s best heavyweight proved too easy.  This bored Andrei, prompting him to try the flying knee that he was not awake long enough to finish:

"He made a young man’s mistake," Roach told MMAInsider backstage. "It was too easy for him. He was winning the fight handily I thought, controlling the fight like we planned. He got a little cocky, and he tried the flying knee from too far away, no setup, and he paid for it. … But Fedor swings hard, that’s his thing. He probably had his eyes closed, but he just got lucky, I think. If we had followed a more disciplined fight, and kept to the game plan, I think it was going to be easy."

I agree with Roach on one point: Arlovski did make a mistake.  As for the rest of his explanation, it’s just more evidence that Roach doesn’t understand the differences between MMA and boxing.  In the boxing world, a man who wins via one-punch knockout after landing fewer punches than his opponent until that point is almost always the beneficiary of a lucky punch.  Not so in MMA, especially when that man is Fedor.

You can say he got lucky.  You can accuse him of closing his eyes and hoping for the best.  But you can’t explain away his record.  Arlovski may have helped him out with that mental error, but a right hand like Fedor’s sure improves a man’s luck considerably.

(The t-shirt with short shorts hidden underneath is not a good look for anyone, I don’t care who you are.  Photo courtesy of NBC Sports.)

There was a lot to love and hate about Affliction’s second effort, from the free undercard on HDNet to the painfully moronic antics of  Scott Ferrall and Chuck Zito.  We’ve been crunching the numbers on every aspect of the event since it ended on Saturday night, and here’s what we came up with.

Fedor Emelianenko +312

The tough part about being Fedor is that it’s hard to do anything too impressive at this point.  Just winning isn’t enough.  As if sensing this, he went ahead and finished a top five heavyweight with a one-punch KO in the first round.  Now that’s sufficiently impressive.

Andrei Arlovski  -43

Let’s be honest: right up until he began feeling too good about himself and leapt into unconsciousness, Arlovski looked good.  His striking was sharp and accurate and fast, and he was using his reach well.  For about three minutes, he seemed like the better fighter.  And then…

Josh Barnett +30

Great, he pounded on a guy with no ground game for three rounds until said guy decided to quit.  Big deal.  This is exactly why this was a bad fight for Barnett.  There’s nothing for him to gain at this point by beating a guy like Yvel.  At least it clears the way for a fight with Fedor.  Assuming Affliction can hang around that long.

(Props: Keegan on the UG)

Affliction paid out a little over $3.3 million in disclosed fighter salaries for “Day of Reckoning,” pretty much guaranteeing that they’ll take a financial loss on this event, as we all expected.  Naturally, the payouts include several head-scratchers and jaw-droppers, including $1.5 million to Andrei Arlovski for his 3:14 KO loss to Fedor Emelianenko last night.  At least when you compare it with Tim Sylvia’s $800,000 loss in 0:36, it’s proportional.  Now someone explain to Mark Hunt where his $4 million is.

Here’s how the disclosed salaries broke down:

Fedor Emelianenko $300,000 (no win bonus)
Andre Arlovski $1,500,000 (win bonus would have been $250,000)
Josh Barnett $500,000 (no win bonus)
Gilbert Yvel $30,000 (win bonus would have been $9,300)
Vitor Belfort $200,000 (includes $80,000 win bonus)
Matt Lindland $225,000 (win bonus would have been $75,000)
Renato "Babalu" Sobral $90,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus)
Thierry Sokoudjou $50,000 (win bonus would have been $50,000)
Paul Buentello $90,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus)
Kiril Sidelnikov $10,000 (win bonus would have been $25,000)
Dan Lauzon $12,000 (no win bonus)
Bobby Green $4,000 (win bonus would have been $4,000)
Jay Hieron $45,000 (includes $25,000 win bonus)
Jason High $10,000 (win bonus would have been $5,000)
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira $150,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus) def. Vladimir Matyushenko $50,000 (win bonus would have been $30,000)
L.C. Davis $14,000 (includes $7,000 win bonus)
Bao Quach $7,000 (win bonus would have been $6,000)
Albert Rios $6,000 (includes $3,000 win bonus)
Antonio Duarte $3,000 (win bonus would have been $2,000)
Brett Cooper $10,000 (includes $5,000 win bonus)
Patrick Speight $2,000 (win bonus would have been $3,000)

Thoughts…

("Fedor, you hear of this ‘Stevia’? It melt 40 pounds of fat and six tumors from my uncle Wladimir’s body. I’m just saying." Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Quick prediction for tonight’s main event: During the pre-fight face-off, Fedor and Andrei will say "I must break you" to each other simultaneously, after which Fedor will quickly call "jinx," prohibiting Andrei from speaking until someone says his name, which won’t be until the afterparty. As for the fight itself, you already know how we stand on that. Anyway, the main card for Affliction’s second event is about to pop off. Results from the undercard, and round-by-round updates/commentary for the pay-per-view broadcast await you after the jump. TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL!

(Andrei looks ripped.  Fedor looks chubby.  Yep, everything went as expected at the Affliction weigh-ins.)

– Oh yeah, Fedor knows how to fight a good striker.  (USA Today)

– Donald Trump Jr. talks Dana White, UFC.  (MMA Payout)

– Mike Chiappetta tells MMA fans, ‘Yes, we can.’  (NBC Sports)

– One last look at Arlovski’s boxing skillz.  (MMA Fanhouse)

– Brit boxers don’t sweat the UFC, or so they say.  (The Sun)

– The New York Times goes from covering to lambasting MMA.  (NYT)

– Foot injury sidelines Mike Swick for at least three months.  (Five Ounces)

– "Fighting Chance" promises to be the oddest MMA movie yet.  (Al.com)

– Top 5 MMA spectator brawls.  (MMA Journalist)

– Who’s afraid of Mark Cuban?  Major League Baseball.  (Scores Report)

– "Notorious" is just aiiiight.  (Bullz-Eye.com)

– Inside the Taco: New Employees.  (Holy Taco)

– 13 insanely horrible local TV ads.  (Screen Junkies)

– Cop knocks protester out cold.  (Nothing Toxic)

(*slow clap* ‘Yes, yes, Mr. Emelianenko.  We are all very impressed with your accomplishments.  But now you must taste my pee-pee-pee.’)

All right, so we didn’t do all that well with our UFC 93 picks (I mean, we both beat the hell out of Perennial, though who didn’t?), but we’re loading up again for Affliction and hoping to beat our fairly dismal scores of 13 (BG) and 14 (BF) this time around.  

If you haven’t already, remember to add your picks to our Affliction: Day of Reckoning Pick-em Contest for your chance to win an autographed copy of L. Jon Wertheim’s Blood in the Cage.

Naturally, we’ll be liveblogging all the action Saturday night beginning at 9 pm ET, so make sure to come on back and join the party.  As a side note, we’re scratching the Dan Lauzon-Bobby Green bout from our pick-em contest on account of the late switch, so don’t even sweat it if you got your picks in before Chris Horodecki’s bulging disk cost him a chance to fight.  

Our picks are after the jump.

(Looks like Andrei’s the only thing standing between Fedor and another trip to the scary rollercoasters.  That is not a safe place to stand.)

Is it sad that this installment of Ben vs. Ben is forced to dwell on questions surrounding Affliction’s possible demise?  A little, but that’s life.  We can’t just pretend that they aren’t paying Andrei Arlovski roughly 20,000 t-shirts for an event that has no clear path to a profit…or does it?  That discussion and more awaits you below.

What are the odds that this is Affliction’s last show?

BF: -300.  In other words, 3-1 odds that we’ll never see another Affliction MMA event again.  I’m not happy about that, but if I’m being honest I have to look at how difficult it’s been for them to get a second show together, how much they’ll spend on it and how little of that will be recouped in ticket sales or pay-per-view revenue, and I can’t see how they justify another money pit of a show after this.

Of course, three has always been their magic number.  That’s how many shows they said they were committed to, and it would give them the chance to put on the Josh Barnett-Fedor Emelianenko fight they’ve obviously been angling for since the start.  But if Arlovski’s getting over a million bucks for this fight, imagine what it would cost to put on Barnett-Fedor alone, not to mention the rest of the card.  It would be an obvious money-loser, and even Affliction can’t bleed cash forever.  If they don’t pull out a miracle on Saturday night, they’re going to pack it in.

BG: I really hope nobody at Affliction has their fingers crossed and breath held for this miracle of which you speak. Between Margarito/Mosley and the UFC’s usual counter-programming and market saturation, Affliction won’t even be outperforming their first event in terms of ticket sales or pay-per-view buys. But I have to assume that they already know this. Maybe Atencio & Co. are bad at running an MMA organization, but they’re not childish enough to believe that money will literally fall out of the sky. And yet they sign Gegard Mousasi to fight in their third event, and announce they’ll be promoting four events a year with Golden Boy.

I’m not Affliction’s CFO, so I don’t know how much money the company is willing to lose on this MMA pursuit. But is it naïve to think that they wouldn’t be making these concrete plans if their future really depended on the financial performance of "Day of Reckoning"? Short answer: yes. Still, I’m going to set the odds for this one at a more generous -200. Now if I could just find a gambling site that offers a parlay bet on "Affliction won’t put on a third show" + "Tito Ortiz will never fight again," I could probably make a decent profit…

(Props: MMA Mania)

Above: Not only is Fedor Emelianenko a fighter (see the above video for verbal confirmation), he was also the subject of a New York Times profile yesterday. Maybe after Saturday night he’ll finally start getting some damn respect around here. Below: Everything you wanted to know about up-and-coming heavyweight Shane Carwin, courtesy of his newly-launched website, Shane-Carwin.com. After the jump: Tim Sylvia talks about how bad it has sucked to watch his ass getting kicked by Fedor in a seemingly endless loop in all of Affliction’s promotional videos. Also, he calls Andrei Arlovski a "douchebag" and "bad for the sport."

The big problem with this Fedor video blog is not that it’s an obvious rip-off of Dana White’s video blog (though it is), but rather that the subject – Fedor – does not speak enough English to really be an active participant.  He’s essentially a spectator, which means they have to fill time with way too much Jerry Millen, who has all the charm of a used car salesman on coke.  

This is one more example of the way Affliction always goes wrong when they try to do a shoddier version of what the UFC does.  Their strength with “Day of Reckoning” is the fight card itself.  They’ve got some great fights on there, and instead of playing that up in the days before the event, we get to watch Fedor and his priest Rasputin look sad while Jerry Millen screws around in a limo and Donald Trump name-drops his way through press conferences.

Please, no more.  Can’t we just focus on the fights?

(Think of it this way: if Gilbert asked to "borrow" money, would you consider that a good idea?  It’s the same with betting on him.)

Just in case picking the winners in our official Affliction Pick-em Contest isn’t enough action for you (after all, you don’t stand to lose anything except time and self-respect), you can also wager actual money on the proceedings thanks to the internet and the wonder of off-shore gambling.  Here are the best betting lines on the World Wide Web, thanks to BestFightOdds.com:

Fedor Emelianenko (-350) vs. Andrei Arlovski (+336)
Josh Barnett (-500) vs. Gilbert Yvel (+491)
Vitor Belfort (+160) vs. Matt Lindland (-160)
Renato Sobral (-155) vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (+125)
Chris Horodecki (-220) vs. Dan Lauzon (+180)
Paul Buentello (-200) vs. Kiril Sidellnikov (+160)
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (-110) vs. Vladimir Matyushenko (-120)
Jay Hieron (-275) vs. Jason High (+215)
Bao Quach (+160) vs. L.C. Davis (-200)
Albert Rios (+195) vs. Antonio Duarte (-245)
Brett Cooper (-200) vs. Patrick Speight (+160)

Thoughts…

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

We were all a little shocked when Affliction’s impressively bloated salaries were made public following their "Banned" show last July. But the word on the street was that the super-high payouts were more of a publicity stunt than a part of the actual business model, and several fighters were reportedly asked to take pay cuts for their next Affliction appearance. Well, it looks like at least one "Day of Reckoning" fighter will be taking in considerably more bread this time around. Yahoo! Sports has the scoop:

Assuming Affliction keeps half of each $44.95 pay-per-view purchase, Arlovski would need to pull in nearly 44,500 buys himself this Saturday to justify a million-dollar salary. Tom Atencio was adamant that "Banned" drew over 100,000 buys, which is impressive for a non-UFC event, but when your total fighter payroll is over $3 million, you’re kind of effing yourself in the A, financially speaking. Plus, Donald Trump Jr. gets his cut whether Affliction turns a profit or not. And Affliction’s partners/underminers in Golden Boy have already sold 17,000 seats to the Shane Mosley vs. Antonio Margarito boxing match in L.A. on the same night as "Day of Reckoning," which should steal a lot of spectators and media attention from Affliction. And of course, many MMA fans will be saving their money for "UFC 94: St. Pierre vs. Penn 2" on January 31st.

So yeah, a million bucks sounds about right.

If the purpose of Arlovski 360 is to get fans to relate to Andrei on a personal level, he loses a little bit of ground in the latest episode, as we’re introduced to the Pitbull’s personal chef, jeweler, flag-maker, and club-owner homeboys. One of his friends even delivers the line "Guys wanna be like Andrei, and girls wanna be with Andrei." Must be nice. Meanwhile, Fedor is probably making his own borscht, sewing his own flags, and sleeping with his wife exclusively. [*shudders*] Careful of that rock-star lifestyle, Andrei — you saw what it did to Chuck.

Below: Gilbert Yvel — generously described here as "a fairly controversial fighter with a bit of a checkered past" — is going to rely on his unpredictability to beat Josh Barnett at "Day of Reckoning," and the general consensus is that Barnett will try to stand and bang with him. Sounds like a crowd-pleasing strategy, as long as it doesn’t blow up in his face… 

Yep, Arlovski and Penn are still getting their Internet self-promotion on. Episode three of Arlovski 360: On the Road to Reckoning focuses on the Pitbull’s mental game, though the clip is really just a collection of people talking about how awesome Andrei is. Which is kind of ironic considering Loretta Hunt’s speech about how surrounding yourself with people who tell you how awesome you are is actually bad for your development. (The next episode is titled "The Entourage," which also doesn’t bode well.) Interesting fact: The Morgan Freeman-esque narrator in the Arlovski 360 series is Greg Hollimon, best known for his role as Principal Onyx Blackman in Strangers With Candy. Well, it was interesting to me, anyway.

Below: The intro to the sixth installment of The BJPenn.com Show, which kicks off with a recap of the first three fights in the Beatdown Challenge, visits the Prodigy in training, features the last Beatdown quarterfinal matchup between Chris "Red Bull" Willems and "Dirty" Dave Moreno, and introduces us to another "Pretty Wahine." Segments 2-5 of this episode can be found here. Is it annoying that you have to watch the episode in five separate clips? Yes it is. But BJPenn.com doesn’t play by your rules.

("Step 1: Kiss a picture of Manny Pacquiao every night before you go to bed." Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

From a new MMA Weekly interview with Andrei Arlovski‘s famed boxing coach, Freddie Roach:

Hear that, Tim Sylvia? Angles. If you think that Freddie’s "fight us like a man" line implies a lack of appreciation for MMA and its more subtle ground elements, you’d be correct. As he explains, “I think it’s boring. I saw one fight where the guy just laid on the other guy the whole fight and he won.” But Roach understands that Arlovski’s opponent could wind up scoring a victory on the canvas:

It must be nice to live in a world where you never have to worry about the armbar (I guess it’s called). But I don’t live in that world, and you don’t live in that world, and Andrei Arlovski sure as hell doesn’t live in that world. Can sharp boxing be enough to stave off Fedor’s Hydra-like attack? We’ll find out on the 24th, but my money’s still on the chubby guy.

UFC 92 Video Blog – Watch more free videos

Even though Dana White is a millionaire with fancy cars and a private jet to fly around in, no material object seems to bring him as much pleasure as that shock pen.  He’s still pulling the prank at UFC 92, even on “Rampage” Jackson, who just wants to relax at Octagonside after knocking Wanderlei Silva senseless.  Come on, Dana.  Time and a place, man.

Skip to the 5:37 mark and you can actually see Dana White beginning to realize that Steve Mazzagatti is not a good ref.  He’s less adamant about it than those around him, but that is not the way a man who’s happy about what he’s seeing chews gum.

After the jump, episode two of "Arlovski 360," in which boxing trainer Freddie Roach lays out the game plan that  he thinks will beat Fedor Emelianenko.  It seems…optimistic.

("And when can I meet famous retard Kevin James?" Props to BloodyElbow.)

A few more stories coming out of the Octagon this weekend…

— The UFC has begun exclusive contract negotiations with Olympic gold-medalist judoka Satoshi Ishii, who attended Saturday’s event. Said Dana White: "Satoshi Ishii has the potential to be very successful in mixed martial arts…we look forward to helping him with his training, his career, and his eventual debut in a professional fight." Ishii reportedly planned on starting his MMA training with Fedor Emelianenko’s Red Devil team in St. Petersburg, Russia, but White talked him out of it, and encouraged him to train at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas. White also suggested that the 238-pound Ishii drop down to light-heavyweight for his MMA debut.

— Following the kind-of-late stoppage of the Evans/Griffin fight, and the ludicrously late stoppage of the Kongo/Al-Turk fight, the UFC may no longer be requiring the services of referee Steve Mazzagatti.

— Though MMA fans are already clamoring for Evans vs. Jackson, Rampage would rather settle some business with Forrest Griffin first.

— At UFC 92′s post-event press conference, Dana White confirmed that Diego Sanchez vs. Joe Stevenson would indeed be the main event of UFC 95 (February 21st, London). Sorry, mates.

— Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is open to a fight against Randy Couture. “It would be a nice match,” Nogueira said. "He lost his last fight, but he is still a legend." Likewise, buddy.

— The UFC is looking to return to Chicago in July.

— Of all the fighters who have left the UFC, the only one that Dana White regrets losing is Andrei Arlovski. Could he be welcomed back if this Affliction thing doesn’t pan out?

Arlovski 360, Ep. 1 – Watch more free videos

From the moment this video declares Fedor-Arlovski to be the most anticipated heavyweight bout in MMA history, for the "undisputed" heavyweight title, you know what you’re getting into.  Still, the look of the video is impressive for a DIY internet effort.  It rips off all the cool things about the HBO 24/7 series, though since they spend the entire time pumping up Arlovski it reaches none of the emotional depth. 

Oh well.  It’s still the best promotional tool we’ve seen yet for this fight that’s just over a month away.  If Affliction’s not embarrassed by that, they should be.

After the jump, Frank Mir gets deep, plus a little something extra that you may hate me for, but it’s for your own good.