CagePotato Roundtable is a new recurring column in which the CagePotato writing staff (and some of our friends) share their opinions on an MMA-related topic, and hopefully inspire some discussion among our readers as well. For the inaugural installment, we took inspiration from Joe Rogan’s enthusiastic crowning of last weekend’s Tim Boetch vs. Yushin Okami fight as “the greatest comeback in the history of the UFC.” That’s debatable, to say the least — but isn’t everything? So what *was* the greatest comeback fight in MMA history?

Seth Falvo
When Joe Rogan first called The Barbarian’s victory the greatest comeback in UFC history, my first thought was “Come on, Joe, are you seriously the only MMA fan who hasn’t seen Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Bob Sapp?” That comeback exposed Sapp for the overhyped freak that he was while establishing the legend of Big Nog and his ability to come from behind to win fights. Hell, we at Cagepotato consider it to be the best freak show fight to ever come out of Japan. But in fairness to Joe Rogan, that fight didn’t take place in the UFC. So my second thought was “Come on, Joe, are you seriously the only UFC fan who hasn’t seen Mike Russow vs. Todd Duffee?”

What makes this comeback so great was the fact that Todd Duffee and Mike Russow were essentially photo negatives of each other. Before this fight, Duffee was destined to be the next big thing in the UFC’s heavyweight division, having just tied the record for the fastest knockout in UFC history in his promotional debut against Tim Hague. Duffee was on the cover of Muscle & Fitness, the poster boy for Muscletech and seemingly in every men’s magazine on the planet — no matter how loosely the content was related to sports. Meanwhile, Russow was quietly coming off of a unanimous decision victory over Justin McCully in his UFC debut and had more fat in his left bicep than Todd Duffee had in his entire body. Everything about this fight seemed like it was a squash match.

(Radach and Lopes will step in with just nine days notice.)

With heavyweight Herschel Walker forced out of his planned December 4 Strikeforce bout with WEC veteran Scott Carson due to a deep cut he sustained training with Daniel Cormier on Friday, a light heavyweight scrap between usual middleweights Lucas Lopes and Benji Radach has been put together at the last minute to help fill in the dwindling Henderson vs. Babalu fight card.

Earlier in the week yet-to-be matched up Jesse Finney, who was originally slated to face Scott Smith before "Hands of Steel" was instead matched up with Strikeforce newcomer Paul Daley, was forced to bow out of the event due to an eye injury.

Sources close to the situation told CagePotato.com Thursday that Lopes (19-10), who is one of Finney’s training partners and holds a win over UFC standout Thiago Alves, has agreed to face Radach on the card. Radach (20-5), whose record includes wins over Murilo Rua and Gerald Harris, hasn’t fought since being knocked out by Smith last year, but he is a crafty veteran Lopes would regret taking lightly. 

Another source we spoke to informed us that Strikeforce was unable to find a suitable opponent in time for Carson, so the 4-1 veteran whose return to MMA after a nine-year absence in June was spoiled by a first round knock out by Lorenz Larkin.

("Your perpetually-scowling welterweight with great jiu-jitsu, cardio, and trash-talk has died of dysentery.")

For over a month, we’ve been wondering who EA Sports will be able to recruit for its upcoming MMA video game — especially after Dana White’s proclamation that any fighter who signs with the competing title will be dead to him. But now that reports are starting to trickle out, let’s run it down…

— In a recent interview with MMA Wordwide, UFC/IFL/Strikeforce vet Benji Radach says that he starts work on the game next month, and will be in it along with Randy Couture and Fedor Emelianenko.

— Emelianenko’s involvement was confirmed by a press release distributed by mixfight.ru, which also named Gegard Mousasi as a participant.

(Fence grab is at 10:18, the alleged illegal blow comes at 17:25. Props: MMA Share.)

Benji Radach has filed a formal appeal with the California State Athletic Commission through his agent, Ken Pavia, challenging his TKO loss to Scott Smith on the April 11 Strikeforce show in San Jose, California.  We contacted Radach earlier today to get him to explain, in his own words, why he’s appealing the loss and what he hopes to accomplish.  Here’s what he had to say.

CagePotato.com: If you could Benji, sum up for me the main points outlined in your appeal.

Benji Radach: There are two main points.  One, in the second round I had him in a guillotine, choking the piss out of him, and I thought I was just going to choke him unconscious.  But he grabbed the fence and used it to pull us into a scramble and get out of the choke, which is illegal.  

(Step 1: Do work. Step 2: Receive bread. Photo courtesy of this set on Sherdog.)

The California State Athletic Commission has released payout figures for Saturday’s Strikeforce event, with headliner Frank Shamrock taking home a full 58% of the $633,445 disclosed payroll. And it looks like Strikeforce had to severely underpay a few of its fighters to make up for F-Sham’s hefty purse. Also, they don’t seem to like round numbers. The salaries are below, with some thoughts after the jump…

MAIN CARD FIGHTERS
– Frank Shamrock: $369,790
– Scott Smith: $49,940 (includes $25,000 win bonus)
– Gilbert Melendez: $49,890 (no win bonus)
– Nick Diaz: $39,950 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
– Brett Rogers: $39,940 (includes $20,000 win bonus)
– Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos: $18,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
– Benji Radach: $16,940
– Rodrigo Damm: $9,190
– Ron "Abongo" Humphries: $3,205
– Hitomi Akano: $1,450 (doesn’t include undisclosed extra cash from 11th-hour negotiations)

PRELIMINARY CARD FIGHTERS
– Luke Rockhold: $6,000 (includes $3,000 win bonus) def. Buck Meredith $1,540
– Eric Lawson $9,950 (includes $2,000 win bonus) def. Waylon Kennell $1,950
– Raul Castillo $6,890 (includes $3,500 win bonus) def. Brandon Michaels $1,500
– James Terry $3,940 (includes $2,000 win bonus) def. Zak Bucia $1,500
– Shingo Kohara $940 (no win bonus) def. Jeremy Tavares $940

(Alas, Shamrock’s pleas for Diaz to "mellow out" were all in vain.  Photo courtesy of SI.com)

Strikeforce’s first offering on Showtime yielded some pleasant surprises and some totally unpleasant non-surprises.  We turn now to the arbitrary numerical ranking system of the Potato Index to tell us who’s up and who’s down after this weekend.  Giddyup.

Nick Diaz +123
His biggest win in years proves that Diaz is a true main event fighter who deserves to be taken seriously.  He beat a slower, but still capable Shamrock in every aspect of the game, and even helped him up afterwards.  Now we await the results of his drug test.  Please Nick, tell us you didn’t screw that part up.

Frank Shamrock -68
“The Legend” showed a lot of heart, but not a whole lot of skill or endurance.  Maybe those surgeries and his advancing years are taking more of a toll than he let on, or maybe Diaz really is that good of a boxer.  Either way, if Shamrock can’t do better in the rematch with Cung Le he should seriously consider calling it a career.

(Nick Diaz vs. Frank Shamrock, round 1)

(Nick Diaz vs. Frank Shamrock, round 2)

("Y’know, I used to box a little myself. Say, do you party?" Photo courtesy of this great set on allelbows.)

If not for Cris Cyborg’s woman-problems fiasco, last night’s Strikeforce show would have been an unequivocal success. There were memorable knockouts, brilliant performances (we take back every bad thing we ever said about you, Nick), and one fight (Smith vs. Radach) that will probably make year-end lists as one of the best matches of 2009. Here are some of the stories coming out of the event…

— "Shamrock vs. Diaz" pulled in 15,211 fans for an estimated live gate of $750,000. Said Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker: "We scaled the tickets back for the economy to make it affordable…We tried to be considerate and make it affordable for everybody. Would we like to scale (up) the prices and bring in more revenue? There will be a time for that. We’ll keep building it."

— In the post-event press conference, Coker stated that he’d like to put together the much-anticipated bout between Gina Carano and Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos for Strikeforce’s August event, and said it would be for "our first Strikeforce female title belt." As for the ongoing contract talks with Gina Carano, Coker said, "We’re currently negotiating the final touches of this contract. Hopefully we’ll get it to bed here in the next two weeks or a week. I think we’re very close."

— Also during the press-conference, recent Strikeforce signee Fabricio Werdum said that he’d like to be a future opponent for Alistair Overeem; Werdum previously submitted Overeem via kimura at PRIDE Total Elimination Absolute in May 2006. Said Werdum: "I’m going to take the other arm home. And then the third time it’s going to be hard to fight with no arms at all." Overlooked once again, Brett Rogers said "Before everybody walks away, I mean I wouldn’t mind fighting Overeem. That would be nice right there." Awww, of course it would, big guy!

(Someone should tell Nick that in some cultures they consider that an insult.)

As Strikeforce’s Showtime debut closes in on us and we prepare to get our liveblog on (that’s right, so remember to stop on by tomorrow night) it’s time to debate the hell out of the merits of this fight card, its resemblance to a Zombie EliteXC here on Zombie Jesus weekend, and more.  Here it is, your Ben vs. Ben…

Is Diaz/Shamrock a completely meaningless, just-for-the-hell-of-it bout?  If so, does it matter, or do you need something more to get excited about it?  Who wins this, anyway?

BF: Of course it’s a meaningless fight.  I mean, it’s being contested at 179 pounds.  That’s not even a round number, let alone a weight class.  It’s not as if this is a fight to settle some longstanding grudge (unless you count the grudge Frank Shamrock has against anyone unwilling to admit that he’s the greatest fighter ever, or the grudge Nick Diaz has against the world).  It’s certainly not a fight to sort out the contenders from the pretenders in the 179-pound division.  Naw son, this is just for kicks.

Does it matter to me?  Not in this case.  It may be fighting for the sake of fighting, but it’s such a weirdly compelling match-up that I don’t care.  Diaz and Shamrock are always fun to watch, and they’re both absolutely insane in very different ways.  So why not make them fight each other?  It’s not as if either one of them is climbing to the top of any division at this point.

As for who’s going to win, the fact that I have to think about it a little only makes me more interested in seeing it.  Five years ago this is Shamrock’s fight all the way, but the ravages of age, as they say.  I’ll still take Shamrock via decision, based mostly on superior size and strength, but also based on his notorious in-fight antics, which will bait Diaz into fighting a stupid fight.  Not that that’s especially hard.

BG: I’m thinking the fight will end in a draw after Shamrock and Diaz spend fifteen minutes with their arms in the air, each trying to lure the other one into hitting them in the face. On the real though, yeah, probably Shamrock by decision, or a late TKO stoppage that Diaz will immediately complain about. It’ll be a much less nuanced fight than it could be. Both of these guys prefer to stand and bang, so that’s what’s going to happen. The deciding factor will be power, which Shamrock has and Diaz lacks.

(‘Look what I found in the dumpster behind Jake Shields’ apartment!  Honestly, the things some people throw away.’)

The Gambling Addiction Enabler isn’t going to jerk your chain here, after last week’s dismal performance he considered giving it up.  He went to a couple meetings, listened to those quitters down at Gambler’s Anonymous whining about the houses and cars and marriages they’d lost because of their compulsive betting.  He even thought about taking up a less destructive hobby, like tennis or pornography. 

Then he thought about you, the members of the Potato Nation who depend on him for his reckless and often unsound gambling advice, and who live vicariously through his wins and his losses.  Dear readers, he decided he simply couldn’t let you down.  That’s how much he cares about you/is willing to use you as a justification.  And besides, if his wife really loved him she wouldn’t ask him to change, right?

Odds for the main card of this weekend’s Strikeforce event come courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Frank Shamrock (-165) vs. Nick Diaz (+145)
Benji Radach (-165) vs. Scott Smith (+145)
Gilbert Melendez (-315) vs. Rodrigo Damm (+275)
“Cyborg” Santos (-455) vs. Hitomi Akano (+375)
Brett Rogers (-440) vs. Abongo Humphrey (+360)

Thoughts…

(Benji Radach goes in for the kill against Murilo "Ninja" Rua at EliteXC: Heat last October. Photo courtesy of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.)

From a new press release distributed by Strikeforce:

This won’t be the first time that a Strikeforce event has been broadcast on Showtime; Shamrock vs. Le aired live on the premium cable channel last March, and Shamrock vs. Baroni aired on Showtime PPV in June 2007. But now it looks like Strikeforce will be airing fight cards with the same frequency as the UFC — particularly when you include the quarterly specials on CBS, as has been reported — and that’s a significant step forward.

According to FiveOuncesofPain, one of the fights that will featured in the April 11th event will be a bout between Scott Smith and Benji Radach. Smith was featured twice in EliteXC’s live events on CBS, both times in unsuccessful efforts to claim Robbie Lawler’s middleweight title. (Their first fight was ruled a no-contest after Smith received an unintentional eye-poke in the third round that ended the match.) Somehow, Smith was able to extricate himself from his EliteXC contract after Pro Elite closed its doors, and last competed for Strikeforce in November, scoring a 24-second knockout over Terry Martin. Radach last competed at EliteXC: Heat in October, where he knocked out Murilo Rua in the second round.

Former Strikeforce middleweight champ Frank Shamrock and current Strikeforce lightweight champ Josh Thomson are also rumored to be on the card.

(What bonus?)

Benji Radach led off the CBS portion of Elite XC: Heat with an exciting second-round knockout of “Ninja” Rua, but says he was never informed by Elite XC officials before the bout that there was even the possibility of a ‘knockout of the night’ bonus, as Seth Petruzelli says he received for felling Kimbo Slice.

“No, not at all,” Radach said, when asked whether Elite XC officials ever mentioned knockout, submission, or fight of the night bonuses, before or after the event. “I wish there was a bonus because I think my fight was really exciting, maybe fight of the night or knockout of the night. But nope, I never heard anything.”

This contradicts Petruzelli’s claim that Elite XC mentioned the post-fight bonuses before the event, which caused him to stand and strike with Kimbo in the hopes of notching the knockout of the night.

That clarification came after Petruzelli seemed to suggest, during a radio interview with Monsters in the Morning, that he’d been paid extra by Elite XC to keep the fight with Kimbo standing. Petruzelli then said the extra money was simply for a knockout bonus, and was for the same amount as the submission of the night and fight of the night bonuses.

There’s been as of yet no word from Elite XC on which fighters received these other bonuses, just as there has been little mention of these bonuses in past Elite XC events.

Update: Elite XC’s Jeremy Lappen tells Josh Gross that some fighter contracts have KO bonuses built into them and some don’t. Submission bonuses, however, are a myth in Elite XC:

“We’re just trying to create exciting fights,” Lappen said, doing some spinning of his own. “Fast-paced energy fights. It’s just something we’ve always done.”

EliteXC, it seems, does not view submissions, widely thought of as the most technical aspect of MMA, as an overly important portion of an exciting fight.

“We don’t give submission bonuses,” Lappen said. But Petruzelli “knew a knockout bonus was possible before the fight.”

Elite XC’s Jared Shaw takes a little shot at yours truly in this MMA Rated interview, calling me Ben “UFC” Fowlkes, which I suppose is an implication that I’m pro-UFC and anti-Elite XC, although I like to think that my record as an equal opportunity critic speaks for itself. If an organization does dumb things, it’s my job to point it out. If one organization does more dumb things than others, they’re going to receive more criticism. That’s just how it works. If it makes me a hater, I can live with that. But since when do we all have to like everything?

$kala says he just wants some love for his fighters, not himself. Fair enough, Jared. You do have some good fighters in your organization. Guys like Jake Shields, Robbie Lawler, Wilson Reis, Nick Diaz, and “Ninja” Rua, just to name a few. These are all fighters that I enjoy watching. But your fighters aren’t what you’ve been criticized for, and I think you know it.

Let’s take the event you’ve got this Saturday, for example. On the undercard you’ve got a few interesting scraps between guys like Paul Daley and Jake Shields, Benji Radach and “Ninja” Rua, and a sweet little co-promotional joint between Affliction fighters Andrei Arlovski and Roy Nelson (nice work scoring that, by the way, whether you had anything to do with it or not).

But your main event features a 3-0 fighter in Kimbo Slice, who has yet to face an opponent coming off a win, taking on a forty-four-year-old legend of the sport who hasn’t won a fight or even made it out of the first round in over four years. And that’s your main event.

(What, no odds on whether Gina will make weight?)

If betting odds are any indication of how competitive MMA bouts will turn out to be, expect a lot of one-sided blowouts on Elite XC’s CBS offering this Saturday night. Not that it’s any surprise, really. In fact, with five fights crammed into a two-hour time slot CBS is going to need some quick beatdowns if they don’t want to run way over and have to cut into precious local news time. In any event, Best Fight Odds supplies the most gambler-friendly betting lines for ‘Elite XC: Heat,’ and they break down like this:

Kimbo Slice (-325) vs. Ken Shamrock (+329)
Jake Shields (-550) vs. Paul Daley (+524)
Gina Carano (-550) vs. Kelly Kobald (+525)
Ninja Rua (-196) vs. Benji Radach (+210)
Andrei Arlovski (-428) vs. Roy Nelson (+385)

Some thoughts…

After battling a series of bizarre and career-threatening injuries, Benji Radach ran up an impressive winning streak in the IFL. He beat mostly mid-level fighters like Ryan McGivern and Gerald Harris, but he did it convincingly and in exciting fashion. Then he got TKO’d by Matt Horwich in his last fight. Apparently that was enough for the UFC to decide to pass on him when it came time to bid on IFL free agents after the company’s collapse. In an interview with Sam Caplan, Radach can’t seem to make sense of why MMA’s biggest organization wouldn’t want to sign a guy who’s coming of a loss and has a history of injuries:

“The UFC actually never pursued anything. I actually gave them the option at first (to negotiate) by letting them know I was interested in fighting for the UFC again. But they said I needed to win a fight before I could be a part of the UFC. That really was kind of retarded from my point of view. If there’s a good fighter out there, then you want to grab that good fighter. It doesn’t make a difference if he goes out there and beats a nobody and then gets a win and comes back in. It’s just really stupid. Why is it important that I go out and smash somebody just to get a win rather than fight a top guy in your organization?”

On one hand, Radach has a point. He could go to one of the smaller shows and knock out a guy no one has ever heard of, and it wouldn’t prove anything (aside from perhaps silencing lingering doubts as to his durability). On the other hand, if you want to fight for the UFC, why not go ahead and do that?

- ESPN Radio’s Ball Park Frank talks with Randy Couture about a number of topics in this video (props to Steve Cofield), but perhaps most interesting is Couture’s assessment of Kimbo Slice‘s upcoming match with Ken Shamrock. As Couture astutely points out (around the 2:55 mark), a quick KO of Shamrock does more to affirm his over-the-hill status than it does to prove Kimbo’s worth as an MMA fighter. At the same time, if Kimbo goes back and forth with Shamrock will that only serve to prove that he’s not the fighter “Buzz” Berry is? Best case scenario for Kimbo is he looks good, Shamrock looks good, Kimbo wins via late KO. That’s also the least plausible scenario.

- Travis Lutter tells MMA Rated there is absolutely no truth to rumors he might be headed back to the UFC. Though it was originally reported that he might face Joe Doerksen in the Octagon, Lutter says neither he nor UFC matchmaker Joe Silva knew where the rumor came from, which means it’s back to the small time for Lutter. He did have a prediction for the Anderson Silva-Patrick Cote bout, though: “Cote is going to get murdered.” Come on, Travis, don’t sugar coat it.

- CBS executives say they will show five fights from ‘Elite XC: Heat’ on Saturday, even if it will probably cause them to run over the allotted two-hour space. Some fans wondered whether CBS had cut “Ninja” Rua-Benji Radach from the broadcast when the bout wasn’t mentioned in recent promos, but Executive VP Kelly Kahl says the fight is still on and will lead off the CBS portion of the card. That means Elite XC will have to keep its general dicking around to a minimum and still hope for a couple quick finishes to keep from going over. It’s something you’ll want to keep in mind if you’re planning on DVR-ing this sucker.

(Murilo Rua and a devoted fan. Picture courtesy of Sherdog.)

— Murilo “Ninja” Rua, brother of UFC light-heavyweight Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and the former EliteXC middleweight champion, will face IFL standout Benji Radach at EliteXC’s October 4th card on CBS. Radach hasn’t fought since his loss to Matt Horwich at the IFL World Grand Prix Finals last December, while Rua is coming off a first-round TKO victory over Tony Bonello at EliteXC: The Return of the King in June. It will be the first in a three-fight EliteXC contract for the American Top Team trained Radach.

— Speaking of Shogun, the older Rua brother’s rumored match with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is looking more likely.

— And speaking of the EliteXC middleweight title, a rematch between belt-holder Robbie Lawler and Joey Villasenor is nearly a done deal for EliteXC’s November 8th card on Showtime. Lawler and Villasenor previously met at PRIDE 32 in October ’06, where Lawler won via flying knee KO in just 22 seconds.

— Matt Lindland’s next Affliction fight will be against UFC/BodogFight/Strikeforce vet Trevor Prangley, at “Day of Reckoning” on October 11th in Las Vegas. It’s been a long layoff for Prangley, who hasn’t competed since Strikeforce’s “Four Men Enter, One Man Survives” middleweight tournament last November, where he defeated Falaniko Vitale then lost to Jorge Santiago.

— Former IFL middleweight champ Dan Miller will make his UFC debut at UFC Fight Night 15 (September 17th, Omaha) against Rob Kimmons, who most recently choked out Rob Yundt at the TUF 7 finale in June.

The IFL announced this morning that Xtreme Couture middleweight contender Benji Radach has pulled out of the IFL’s 2008 season opener in Las Vegas on February 29th due to injury. Replacing him in the scheduled bout against World Class Fight Center’s Leopoldo Serao is a face that’s familiar to many — particularly Michael Bisping’s fists. Radach’s Xtreme Couture camp-mate Josh “Bring the Pain” Haynes, who competed as a light heavyweight on the third season of The Ultimate Fighter, will be stepping in to make his IFL debut as a 185-pounder. Haynes, who sports a Ken/Tank-esque 2-6 record in his last 8 professional fights, was optimistic about his chances against Brazilian submission-artist Serao:

“It’s a style matchup. You’ve got a jiu-jitsu guy coming in to face a standup striker and a brawler, and it’s just going to be one of those classic, who-can-impose their will kind of fights. This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I think this kid will come to bang and if he stands in front of me he’ll go to sleep. I love the opportunity and I love the matchup.”

Following his loss to Michael Bisping at the TUF 3 finale, Haynes lost a decision to Rory Singer, was knocked out by Luke Cummo, and was dropped from the UFC. His last fight was a knockout loss to Cedric Marks at XCF Battlegrounds in November. Now, for your viewing displeasure, we present Haynes’s fight against Singer, as narrated by some punk-ass 12-year-old: