(Guess who’s coming to dinner? PicProps: Cagewriter)

A bit of a slow weekend for those of us out there with more refined tastes, as the K-1 World Grand Prix 2010 Final 16 pretty much dominated the scene. If striking is your bag, you’ll probably dig the video after the jump of some guy named Gago Drago knocking out some guy named Su Hawn Lee at that event. Pretty good scrap, there. On the MMA front, reports are all but confirming Jon Jones vs. Ryan Bader will happen early next year and that after UFC 125 Antonio McKee might have to go to church and pray for the eternal soul of Jacob Volkmann.

Also after the jump, one more K-1 knockout, a short clip of Tim Hague handling Travis Wiuff at AMMA 5 north of the border, Arianny Celeste talks to an extremely creepy-voiced dude from MMA Digest, Evan Dunham shows off his scars and — in honor of his signing — a quick flashback to some of McKee’s best work.

(Video courtesy YouTube/UFC)

The UFC released the latest episode of its Ultimate Insider series today featuring some behind the scenes footage of UFC 119 and an exclusive interview with light heavyweight champion, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua.

In addition to the Joe Rogan conducted Q&A session with Rua, in this edition of the series Frank Mir tries to excuse explain his lackluster UFC 119 performance against Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic and the rest of the time is filled with clips of the latest UFC gym grand opening that was attended by UFC president Dana White and a few other less famous stars like Chuck Liddell, BJ Penn, Vitor Belfort and UI host, Arianny Celeste.

(We know that expression. Looks like somebody needs a James Toney upset to hit their $42,500 parlay bet. Check out more exclusive photos at FightMagazine.com’s UFC 118 photo gallery.)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

– After Perfect Performance at UFC 118, More Tests Await Edgar (Versus MMA Beat)

– Kenny Florian Says Dana White Is ‘Dead Wrong’ About Him ‘Choking In Big Fights’ (MMA Convert)

- Wanderlei Silva Recovering, Hoping for February Return vs. Leben or Belfort (MMA Fighting)

– Roger Huerta vs. Eddie Alvarez set for non-title fight at Bellator 33 (Heavy.com/MMA)

– Mark "The Smashing Machine" Kerr now sells cars in Scottsdale, Arizona. (MiddleEasy)

– Fan Opinon: Top 10 Personalities in MMA (LowKick)

– Tito Ortiz and Shaquille O’Neal face off at the UFC Fan Expo in Boston (Watch Kalib Run)

– Brett Rogers to Return Against Ruben "Warpath" Villareal Next Month in Halifax (Five Ounces of Pain)

– If Don Frye Says You Should Watch Shark Fights, You Should (MMA Scraps)

(Your prayers have been answered, Potato Nation)

(Video courtesy UFC.com)

Taking a page out of Jay Glazer and Randy Couture’s MMAAthletics playbook,  the UFC has begun producing a weekly web show, aptly dubbed "Ultimate Insider."

The video above is the first episode of the Joe Rogan and Arianny Celeste hosted show, which although it doesn’t have the obvious feel of an infomercial that MMAAthletics (which, not by coincidence, shares its name with a Couture-Glazer P90-X-like fitness program) is a pretty slick little production overall.

Between the ring girls, apparel models, television hosts, and the lady-fighters themselves, MMA is a damn fine sport to follow if you appreciate beautiful women. (And my God, do we ever.) So we figured, why not throw together our favorite females from all corners of the fight game and see how they stack up against each other? Enjoy the pics, and let us know how you’d rank ‘em in the comments section. And if you like this list, Digg it!

#12) MIESHA TATE

Hot Contender: Spending her high school years on the boys’ wrestling team gave Miesha Tate the grit she needed to fight in cages for a living. These days, "Takedown Tate" is one of the top-ten 135-pound female fighters in the world, and the combination of her nasty ground-and-pound and natural sex appeal has made her a rising star. You can see Miesha in action next month at Strikeforce Challengers 7 as she takes on Zoila Frausto. 

#11) LAURA CELESTE

Hot East Coast Girl: A native of Staten Island, Laura is a local legend among MMA fans in New York and New Jersey thanks to her ring-girl appearances for fight clubs like Ring of Combat and Asylum Fight League. As a professional hot chick, she has tremendous upside; let’s hope this exciting prospect gets her shot at the majors sooner rather than later.

(Dammit, that’s the same leather bikini I just put on. One of us is going to have to change, because I am not going to look like an idiot at the Microtel Inn pool. Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

Now that Logan Stanton’s career as a UFC Octagon girl is firmly in the rearview mirror, she no longer has to smile and play nice when people ask about the experience. It’s like that time I got fired from Old Navy for my political views (and for stealing a bunch of cargo shorts) – once you get that last paycheck, you can tell the whole mall about how Steve used to peep in the dressing rooms at teenage girls before he became assistant manager and started thinking he was too good for everyone.

Stanton’s version of recent events seems to be that she was never really that into being an Octagon girl anyway, and the UFC is a company that will fire anyone at any time if the mood strikes them. Even the girls’ beloved “Octagon mom,” Leslie Hedges, got let go recently, which Stanton said didn’t surprise her because “the UFC really has no loyalty to anyone.”

(Arianny Celeste self-shot bikini pics: The reason why Twitter was invented. Photo courtesy of twitpic.com/photos/ariannyceleste.)

There was a time when you had to be a well-connected MMA journalist to keep tabs on where fighters were training and who their next opponents would be. Now you can do what we do — stay in bed with your laptop all day and follow them on Twitter. We call that progress. In case you’re not as tweet-obsessed as us, or if you’re simply too old to understand what the social-networking site is — ‘sup, dad — here’s what to do: Start an account, follow twitter.com/cagepotatomma, then start adding the pages below, which represent the 25 most informative and entertaining MMA-related Twitter feeds currently in operation. Your life will change in ways you never expected. And so, in alphabetical order…

twitter.com/allelbows
Bio: "mma shooter"
Known for her artfully crafted action shots and revealing portraiture, Esther Lin might be the greatest MMA photographer working today. Lately she’s been juggling gigs for MMAFighting, Strikeforce and Showtime, and the best of her work can always be found on her website, allelbows.com. Follow Esther’s tweets for photo updates and observations from her life behind the lens.
Sample tweet: "Fighters Are Dirty: the toilet in my hotel photoshoot room has pee all over it! Guys! Lift up the seat or aim better!"

twitter.com/amirmma
Bio: "Winner of The Ultimate Fighter 7"
It turns out that Amir Sadollah‘s awkward brand of ultra-dry humor is perfectly suited to short bursts of 140 characters or less. Like most UFC fighters, he spends a lot of time tweeting about publicity appearances and food. Unlike most UFC fighters, he somehow manages to make it all genuinely entertaining.
Sample tweet: "Yes Macs are expensive. But you can’t get a virus with them so I save money on condoms."

twitter.com/AriannyCeleste
Bio: "im not that cool. lover not a fighter."
Thanks to Twitter, stalking hot chicks has never been easier! UFC ring-girl goddess Arianny Celeste takes the guesswork out of our unhealthy obsession with her by generously sharing details about where she is, who she’s with, and what she’s doing, pretty much at all times. Also: Bikini pics and bikini pics and bikini pics. Why go anywhere else?
Sample tweet: "http://twitpic.com/112o0r – On my way 2 see an agency. Hope they like me, if not I’ll kick them in the groin area n give em stank eye."

(‘Aw shucks, you guys. If I had known my hotness was going to be honored I’d have remembered to wear a shirt.’)

It may be a new year, but Gina Carano has apparently only gotten more physically attractive since 2009.  AskMen.com came out with their ‘Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2010‘ list, and "Crush" moved up five spots from #73 last year to #68 this year, putting her ahead of starlets like Angelina Jolie (#88) and Jessica Simpson (#82), and just behind Izabel Goulart (#67), whoever that is.  The point is, Gina’s star is still on the rise.  It’s like my grandfather always said, ‘Good things happen when you take your clothes off on the cover of ESPN the Magazine.’

But Carano isn’t the only woman from the MMA world to grace the list.  UFC ring girl Arianny Celeste broke into the double-digits to nab the 98th spot overall.  Officially, that means she’s hotter than Jamie-Lynn Sigler (#99) from "Entourage," but not quite as hot as porn star/sort-of-mainstream actress Sasha Grey (#97). 

But hey, 98?  That’s, you know, good and all.  Nothing to be ashamed of there, Arianny.  We’re sure all the kids and that one dude’s prom will be impressed.  Unless that French chick from "Amelie," who came in at #93, shows up.  They see her and hear that accent, forget about it.  The boys will line up to pour her a glass of punch and you’ll end up slow-dancing with the creepy P.E. teacher who smells like coffee and old newspapers.  Don’t think it can’t happen. 

(Cue melancholy Forrest Gump theme music.)

Some tragic news coming in from MMA Madness:

Well this blows. With no other information to work off of at this time, we’ll just assume that Arianny became jealous that her alpha-chick status was being threatened by the two newcomers, and went into them-or-me mode during contract negotiations. I know it’s not very responsible to make up rumors out of whole cloth, but goddammnit, Logan and Natasha are gone — gone, you guys — and the last thing I’m feeling right now is responsible. More to come; for now, let’s remember the good times…

– Exclusive Interview: UFC Octagon Girl Logan Stanton
– Photos: Octagon Girl Logan Stanton in Fight! Magazine
– And the UFC’s New Octagon Girl Is…
– Pics: UFC Ring Girl Natasha Wicks Goes ‘Au Natural’
– Hot Potatoes: UFC Releases New Octagon Girl Photos
– The Strangest Thing Happened to Me at the Raw Vegas UFC 106 Afterparty

Photo courtesy of Satio Photography via MMA Fight Girls. Two more great ones after the jump…

(Props: UFC.com via MMA Fight Girls)

Candid, self-shot tweetphotos are nice and all, but sometimes you just need the touch of a professional photographer. The UFC recently released a new batch of high-quality Octagon Girl photos for your viewing pleasure, and they’re just the thing to get you through another miserable hump-day. Lots more pics after the jump; you can see the rest right here.

(Might as well face it, she’s addicted to blood. Photo courtesy of twitter.com/ariannyceleste)

Now that our post-Halloween hangovers have almost completely subsided, it’s time to present the finalists for our MMA costume contest. Take a look at the best submissions after the jump, and please select your favorite costume via the poll on the right. Remember: $175 in MMA Warehouse gift cards are on the line, so vote thoughtfully.

(Just to get you in the holiday spirit: Forrest Griffin as Supergirl, Seth Petruzelli as Kimbo Slice, Mauricio Rua as Fred Flintstone with Wanderlei Silva as a drunken gladiator, Arianny Celeste as a sexy schoolgirl, and three fat guys as the TapouT crew.)

Check this out, Potato Nation. Halloween is just two weeks from now, which means you’re probably scrambling to come up with a clever costume. But we all know that the streets are going to be jam-packed with Zombie Obamas and Pedobears. So we’re looking for your best MMA-themed Halloween costumes. They could be faithful renditions of well-known fighters, or references to more obscure moments in the sport. The only requirements are that they’re related to MMA in some way, and that they make us LOMFAO.

Come up with a unique concept, cobble it together using whatever you can steal from Party City*, and e-mail a photo of yourself to feedback@cagepotato.com. The winner will get a super-awesome prize package, the contents of which cannot be revealed at this time because we’re not sure what it’ll be yet. But trust us, it’ll be absolutely spooktacular. Here’s the thing, though: You must submit your entries by Thursday, 10/29, so that we can post the finalists on Friday. In other words, you won’t actually have to go out in public wearing your costume if you don’t want to, which is great news if you’re planning to dress up as Brock Lesnar’s Tattoo. Holler in the comments section if you have any questions, and good luck!

* Shoplifting is in no way endorsed by CagePotato.com or Break Media, but we all know times are tough, and we don’t expect anybody to drop a lot of cash on this contest when the return on investment could turn out to be an autographed 8×10 of Tim Sylvia.

(Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

MMA Fanhouse has confirmed that Edith Labelle — you know, the large-chested Octagon Girl who’s not Arianny or Logan — won’t be holding round cards and blowing kisses to the camera during UFC broadcasts anymore. Her manager was quoted as saying "Something happened, but at this time, I can only confirm that Edith no longer works for the UFC." Considering the rumors that swirled around Amber Nichole Miller‘s departure, that "something" could be nothing, or that something could be something; feel free to speculate wildly in the comments section below. Edith will be officially replaced by Maxim Octagon Girl Search winner Natasha Wicks at UFC 101 tomorrow night in Philadelphia.

Edith Labelle (born June 30, 1982), aka Edith Larente, made her debut as a UFC Octagon Girl in November 2007, but was released by the company after falling ill at UFC 100 in July 2009. Hailing from Mont-Laurier, Quebec, Edith Labelle worked as a semi-nude model before joining the UFC, and was best known as "Anabelle" from FlashyBabes.com. Outside of her appearance in a low-budget sci-fi movie in 2009, we have no idea what Edith’s been up to since leaving the UFC.

Check out more hot MMA ring girls…
Brittney Palmer
Chandella Powell
Maria Kanellis

(Props: DreamPrideVictory)

In this excerpt from Lyoto Machida‘s "Karate for Mixed Martial Arts" instructional DVD set, the Dragon demonstrates one of the techniques that make him so elusive: the step-fake/counterpunch. Then, he shows us how to set up a knee-pick takedown after intercepting a jab. Order today, and receive a bonus DVD which covers eyebrow grooming and alternative nutrition.

(Arianny Celeste and Matt Leinart mimic emotions together.)

If you’ve ever thought that a radio hosting gig was your key to scoring chicks, then you’ve obviously never met Steve Cofield.  But if you want to try it out anyway, while also getting close to UFC Octagon girl Arianny Celeste in order to dazzle her with your smooth voice and razor wit, this is your chance.  Cofield is hyping a charity auction to host an hour of radio with Arianny, Dana White, Chuck Liddell, or a bunch of other MMA stars on ESPN 1100 in Vegas.  The proceeds from this auction and radiothon go to benefit the cancer foundation The Caring Place, so it’s all for a good cause.  

The best part though, is that this could finally be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for to make an impression on Arianny (or Chuck Liddell, if you are a chick who has somehow not already slept with Chuck Liddell).  Just in case you win the auction, here’s our step-by-step instructions for wooing Arianny during your hour of radio time together:

After 200+ entries, we’re proud to announce the winners in this week’s caption contest. Are you sitting down?

In first place, winning Greg Jackson/Kelly Crigger‘s new book The Stand Up Game is Geriatric Peon:
Example of dating rule number 1: If you want to know what the daughter looks like when she is older just look at the mother.

In second place, winning Ranger Up’s Team Sityodtong t-shirt is PauloThiagoSilva:
Goldberg: "Fabio with the clinch."
Rogan: "Yeah, this is NOT where Arianny wants to be."

And our runners-up, winning the soon-to-be outdated "Hall of Fame" t-shirt are…

Richard Tucker: "You know, Arianny, you and me aren’t that different. We both care about our appearance, and we’ve both fucked Josh Burkman."

Jugger: "There might have been a small amount of Vaseline applied, but it didn’t change the outcome."

Horror Fighter: The Dream freak show matches keep getting stranger and stranger.

If your name has been called, please e-mail your commenter name, real name, address, and shirt-size (if applicable) to feedback@cagepotato.com. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Sup, gang. Before you leave your offices (or worksites, or highway underpasses) today for the big Independence Day weekend, we just wanted to remind you not to sleep on our ongoing contests…

— Competition is heating up in this week’s Arianny/Fabio caption contest. There are already some strong front-runners, but if you have any flashes of brilliance by tomorrow at noon ET, you could steal it. Prizes include Greg Jackson’s new book The Stand Up Game, a great new Sityodtong t-shirt from Ranger Up, and our leftover "Hall of Fame" tees.

— If you haven’t entered your UFC 100 picks for our Lyoto Machida "Karate for MMA" pick-off contest, wake the eff up. The best picker will learn the deadly art of Machida Karate via his new 5-DVD instructional set from Victory Belt. Please get in your entries by July 10th.

(Props: twitpic.com/photos/ariannyceleste)

I know what you’re thinking: That’s just too much sexyness for me to handle; I must turn off my computer for a while and walk around the block until my head clears. And Fabio knows you’re thinking that too, and he’s cool with it.

Apparently, the above image was shot during an infomercial-taping for Fabio’s Healthy Planet Protein System, and since we just came into the possession of some very cool prizes, we’re using it as the basis of a caption contest this week.

First up, we’ve got a signed copy of Greg Jackson and Kelly Crigger‘s new book for Victory Belt, The Stand-Up Game, in which Jackson shares his arsenal of striking techniques and methods for developing game-plans; the book even includes a chapter on street-fighting. Also, we have Ranger Up‘s new Team Sityodtong tribute tee to give away. If you haven’t checked out RU’s shirts before, do yourself a favor.

Please submit your captions to the above picture in the comments section below by noon ET on Friday. The best one will get the book, the second best one will get the shirt, and any other runners-up that we deem worthy will get the Hall of Fame. Cool? Well, get goin’.

(Just killing time between fights at UFC 99. I hear Mike Goldberg spends his down time at events in the exact same way.)

So you thought Twitter was only useful in keeping the world up to date on the civil strife inside Iran?  Not so, my friends.  It can also be used to post pictures of yourself in your capacity as a “professional hot chick," and nobody, but nobody, does that better than Arianny Celeste.  We’ll say this for Arianny’s twitter account: even if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can be pretty damn sure of what you’re going to find. 

After the jump, some of Arianny’s finest moments in the delicate art of taking pictures of herself and then posting them to the internet for no real reason.  Isn’t it nice to know that one social networking site can serve the interests of democracy and gawking at attractive women in bikinis all at once?  What an exciting time to be alive.

(Photos courtesy of YRB via MMAFightGirls. Click all pics for larger versions.)

“I fought it; it’s a label. If you are going to label me, label me as Gina Carano. Right now, I am just going to keep doing my thing, and if you want to call me this or that it’s fine. I know I am recognized, and I feel confident about the things I have done in the sport so far. I could stop today and show my kids someday, ‘Look at what I did.’ I’m not going to buy into the pressure…you’re like something one second and nothing the next second. I can’t put my value or weight in any of it.”
— Gina Carano on being called "the face of women’s MMA." Check out the rest of YRB Magazine‘s new profile on Gina here.

After the jump, we do some more stalking of Arianny Celeste’s twitpic account…

(Sure, when I try to take photos of the Octagon Girls getting dressed it’s "creepy," but when Arianny does the same thing it’s fun and whimsical. It figures. Photo courtesy of MissAriannyCeleste.com)

You might remember a while back when we posted UFC Octagon girl Arianny Celeste’s profile video for the Maxim “Hometown Hotties” competition and she mentioned her aspirations to be a rock/pop singer.  Intrepid Cage Potato reader Maxwell discovered that Arianny now has her own MySpace music page, which has, as of this writing, all of two songs on it.

I’d say rock/pop is a fair description of the genre.   Her songs are about on par with the cookie-cutter stuff you hear on the radio, though she doesn’t quite hit all the notes at times, so maybe they should add a little of that T-Pain effect to smooth it out.  As Maxwell points out, her song “Superficial” seems, shall we say, heavily “influenced” by this Avril Lavigne joint.

Arianny would be the first to make a successful jump from Octagon girl to pop sensation, and there’s probably a good reason you don’t see much crossover between those careers.  For one, they appeal to different demographics.  Dudes may ogle ring girls and buy magazines with pictures of them, but those same dudes are probably not buying Avril Lavigne CD’s (except the guys at Fightlinker, who like anything Canadian, even Alan Thicke).  But hey, she’s off to a good start with the MySpace music page.  They don’t let just anyone put their music on the internet.

(It was either this or another picture of Bader. Photos courtesy of twitpic.com/photos/ariannyceleste.)

— TUF 8 winner Ryan Bader may have suffered serious knee damage during his unanimous decision win over Carmelo Marrero on Wednesday. As Bader told MMA Weekly, "The doctor said I blew my MCL out and maybe the ACL…One of the first takedowns, I was passing from half-guard trying to pass to side control and I just heard my knee pop, which isn’t a big deal because they pop every once in a while. I stood back up and I felt that it was really, really loose. It didn’t really do too much as far as impeding me in the fight or anything like that, but it was starting to swell up a little bit. Hopefully the ACL is fine. I don’t really want to deal with that." In a worst-case scenario, the injury would require surgery and a long recovery period.

— Bader’s Arizona Combat Sports teammate Steve Steinbeiss was reportedly paid his to-show money as well as his win bonus for Wednesday’s event, even though his opponent Ryan Jensen was yanked from the fight following a positive test for Adderall.

— I think I got up to take a piss during this particular commercial break, but during a Burger King-sponsored/Amir Sadollah-hosted segment in the season premierewww.cagepotato.com/tuf-91-quick-recap-team-uk-gets-its-elite-8, TUF 9Forrest Griffin confirmed that he’ll be coming back to face Thiago Silva at UFC 101 (August 8th, Philadelphia). Griffin hasn’t fought since his UFC 92 title fight against Rashad Evans in December, in which he lost his belt and broke his hand. Sadollah also revealed that he’ll be making his first post-TUF appearance (as a welterweight) at the August event, though an opponent was not named.

(Props: MMA Videos)

Above is Octagon Girl Arianny Celeste’s video profile for the Maxim “Hometown Hotties” contest.  She was a finalist but, sadly, she didn’t win.  Top ten ain’t bad, though, especially when it seems like she should kind of be ineligible for a ‘hot girls next door’ type contest when she is, in fact, a professional hot girl (a really hot professional hot girl), as Joe Rogan likes to point out.  

As we learn in this video, Arianny isn’t afraid to hit a bitch, she wants to record some “rock/pop” songs in the future, and she would like to see herself in film.  There’s also a bizarre little segment where she gets out of a pool dripping wet, which is a good start, and then proceeds to pour a bottle of water on herself.  Seems like someone got the order wrong in their list of things for hot girls in bikinis to do, but we can’t really complain about the end result.

After the jump, the rarely-seen fourth Octagon girl.

(Props: MMAFightGirls)

Remember Ozzy Osbourne’s nerdy, chubby son Jack? Well he’s still a little nerdy and chubby, but he’s also pretty serious about Muay Thai these days. The video above shows Jack discussing his experiences training at Fairtex Bangplee; highlights from his successful Muay Thai debut can be seen here. When the latest retarded Osbourne-family TV spinoff meets its merciful end, maybe Jack can produce a celebrity-MMA competition show. Someone’s gotta be tough enough to beat Bonaduce…

Below: Arianny Celeste, possibly after a Sunday morning wake-and-bake session, makes some breakfast in boots. Watch out, Giada De Laurentiis — someone’s gunning for your job.

(Props: TheGarv)

After the jump: The trailer for Tyson, a soon-to-be-released documentary about the rise and fall of the boxing legend/cautionary tale. (No children were eaten in the making of this film.)

Apologies if you’ve seen these photos before, but they were new to us. Props to F-Listed (via Holy Taco) and MissAriannyCeleste.com.

(Nothing like a photo shoot in someone’s backyard in Simi Valley to make you feel like you’ve really arrived.)

Tremendous props to Fightlinker for this find.  Not to be outdone by the semi-nude pictures of Arianny Celeste that hit the internet this week, former UFC Octagon girl and Diego Sanchez ex-girlfriend Ali Sonoma has a charming little layout of her own at the absolutely not safe for work (even if you work at a strip club) website, Girls of Desire, via some other site called Next Door Models.

So why is Ali in her bikini on a porn site?  Are there more pictures that are just as barely tasteful but without the bikini?  Are times really that hard for a girl who once proudly carried the UFC’s Octagonal round signs?  Is this the kind of future Logan Stanton has to look forward to?

These are the questions we just don’t have answers for right now.  What we do have, after the jump, are more pictures.  Let’s call these kind of safe work, assuming the people you work with are cool with you looking at a woman’s ass in a thong.  And if they aren’t, just quit right now.  You deserve better.