(Ariel Helwani chats with Dana White, who says Carwin and Lesnar will face off on July 3 for the real heavyweight championship belt.)

Impressive performances at UFC 111 were worth an extra $65,000 to a few lucky fighters on Saturday night. Kurt Pellegrino nabbed the Submission of the Night bonus for his rear naked choke finish of Fabricio Camoes. Shane Carwin pocketed the Knockout of the Night bonus for battering Frank Mir into a surreal dream state, and prelim fighters Jared Hamman and Rodney Wallace got the nod for Fight of the Night after their three-round slobberknocker that resulted in a decision win for Hamman. Other notes to come out of UFC 111:

- Rousimar Palhares says he’s “really sorry” for injuring Tomasz Drwal’s knee by holding on to that heel hook, but the apology isn’t good enough for the state of New Jersey. The local commission issued Palhares a 90-day suspension for not letting go of the submission more promptly.

(He’s not here to make friends, people.)

Following up on appearances by Georges St. Pierre and Frank Mir, SportsCenter also spoke with UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar to get his thoughts on the Carwin-Mir interim title fight at UFC 111 this weekend. MMAFighting.com passes along some quotes from his appearance and, I know this is going to sound weird, but he was actually kind of a jerk about a few things.

On Saturday night’s fight:
"That was a business decision that the UFC had to make. Really, that belt is a make-believe belt to satisfy the company and to satisfy the people in the heavyweight division. I’m still the heavyweight champion."

(Video courtesy of ESPN.com)

You want to know how focused Georges St. Pierre is for his fight with Dan Hardy at UFC 111? Not only is he not even considering the possibility of a life that continues beyond this Saturday night, he hasn’t even bothered to pay attention to the passage of time.  He still thinks it’s January.  God knows what year he might believe we’re living in.  Doesn’t matter.  He’s only thinking about finishing Hardy and making it a "clean" victory.  Whether they’re fighting for gasoline and life credits in some futuristic hellscape, or whether they’ve traveled back to a time when Hardy’s post-fight wounds will be treated by a series of magic spells — the point is, GSP doesn’t care.  All he knows is he’s got a job to do on Saturday, playa.  Wouldn’t want to be Hardy right now, sitting around his hotel room and looking at the calendar like some chump.

After the jump, Frank Mir talks about Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin (who ESPN lists as 6’5"), and can’t help but get that old smirk on his face when the death threat comments get brought up.

(Video courtesy of Fight Magazine)

Yep, that’s what he said alright.  Right there at the 1:48 mark:

"I’m one of the most dangerous people in the world.  I’m a 280-pound guy who’s been training in martial arts since he was four years old, I don’t go anywhere without a gun and a knife, but I do that for my own self-protection.  I do that because I’m a martial artist and I enjoy being able to protect those who are not able to protect themselves."

Basically what I’m hearing is that Frank Mir is a vigilante, ready to fight the forces of evil that would seek to prey upon the weak journalists of the world.  You know, forces of evil like Brock Lesnar.  I don’t know whether to be creeped out or reassured.  Maybe a little of both.  I do have to wonder though, if he’s got that gun on him all the time, why also carry a knife around?  Is that just in case he encounters a ninety-pound weakling who’s being bullied by a package he can’t get open?

(Don’t do it, Paul! Think of all the impressionable German children! Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

Those wacky Germans are at it again, Potato Nation. It wasn’t enough that the UFC had to put up with all manor of ill-informed, reactionary nonsense when they held their first event in Germany last summer. Oh, no. Now they’ve been banned from German TV for the “unacceptable” level of violence in their broadcasts. Since the UFC has been broadcasting on German sports television channel DSF for roughly a year, it seems odd that they’d be banned only now, especially when their programming is completely unchanged. That’s pretty much the exact position of UFC UK president Marshall Zelaznik, who told Sherdog.com:

“The Bavarian state office for new media has approved UFC programming on DSF twice on separate occasions in the past,” said Zelaznik. “That is why we deem the sudden ban unusual as the content of our programming has not changed. We have also had a commission for youth protection in the media review the situation and they deemed the broadcast legal if televised after 11 p.m.”

So what’s Germany’s problem with MMA, you ask? Well, aside from a vague belief that it will somehow damage the minds of their youth, they also seem really hung up on the whole ‘hitting a man when he’s down’ thing. In its statement explaining the UFC ban, the BLM (which, in German, apparently stands for Bavarian state office for new media) cited certain “breach of taboos” such as “punching a downed opponent.” Also, remember that article from Der Spiegel describing the Brock Lesnar-Randy Couture bout:

Damn these Raw Vegas jokers, they make you sit through more than seven minutes of video before they finally get to the good stuff.  Fortunately, the payoff in this particular video comes in the form of Frank Mir giving his approval to the popular ‘Lesnar is to Mir as Moby Dick is to Captain Ahab’ analogy on the grounds that Brock Lesnar is big, white, and a dick.  Get it?  Like the book that you totally didn’t read but have learned about purely from pop culture references? 

Well, take our word for it that it’s actually a pretty sweet little burn by Mir, who insists that his Lesnar death threats were just a savvy way of keeping his name in the news.  Do we believe that?  Maybe not, but none of that is going to matter unless he can get past Shane Carwin.

(Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine)

If you thought Frank Mir‘s apology on UFC.com for his remarks about Brock Lesnar didn’t sound like it came entirely from a place of sorrow deep within his heart, congratulations, you’re a tough one to fool.  I spoke with Mir yesterday for this SI.com column and he confirmed that, even after he was called in to the UFC offices and chided for the comment, he still didn’t really understand what the big deal was:

"When I got called in and they told me, ‘Listen man, this is an issue,’ I kind of had a smirk on my face the whole time," says Mir, who was quoted in a public apology for the remark on the UFC’s Web site earlier this week. "I was like, you’re kidding, right? This is a joke, right? I’ve heard people say that this is to the death. I’ve heard people say about an opponent, ‘I’m going to kill him.’ I heard Brock say he was going to put his hand up my rear end to pull out a horseshoe. I didn’t hear anyone get too upset about that."

(Brock Lesnar might be worth killing, but Kongo? He’s barely worth an assault charge. Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

In the wake of Frank Mir’s apology for saying that he’d like to kill Brock Lesnar in the Octagon, many people have paused to take a step back and recall that Mir isn’t the first person to invoke death when speaking about a former opponent. For instance, there’s B.J. Penn, who told Sean Sherk he was dead and later assured Georges St. Pierre that they’d be fighting to the death. There’s also Lesnar himself who, as Zak Woods points out, actually said he wanted to “murder” Mir at UFC 100. And yet no apology followed. No public outcry. So what’s the difference?

Some would say it’s the specificity of Mir’s remark. Not only did he detail exactly how he wanted Lesnar to die (something about a broken neck), he also said he wanted Lesnar to be the first person to die from “Octagon-related injuries.” You could argue that it was Mir’s attention to detail that got him in trouble, but then again, Lesnar said murder. As in, the type of killing that is always a crime. That’s why there’s a word to differentiate it from kiliing in self-defense, or an accident, or war, or an execution. Everyone from the Romans to the Victorians to the dudes poking one another’s eyes out in the Code of Hammurabi generally agreed that murder is bad and should be avoided.

So why no outrage or forced apology?

(‘And that stuff about your mother? Man, I downloaded those jokes off the internet. I’ve never even seen a picture of your mom, but I’m sure she’s a really nice lady who totally doesn’t have sex for money. At least not, you know, in a direct exchange.’

In case you haven’t heard, Frank Mir got himself into hot water recently when he went slightly out of his mind and said that he would like to kill Brock Lesnar in the Octagon. That might not sound like a big deal at first, but the problem is that he didn’t say it in the ‘Dude, you’re totally dead’ kind of way that B.J. Penn did. He said it in the extremely detailed and very literal way, as in, “I want to break [Lesnar’s] neck in the ring. I want him to be the first person that dies to Octagon-related injuries."

Yeah, you can see why that might be a problem for the organization trying to get regulated as a legitimate, non-lethal sport. Today the UFC issued a statement on its website that included a quote from Dana White, who said he was “disappointed” with Mir’s comments, adding:

“He’s been talked to, he regrets what he said, and he won’t be saying anything like that again.”

Naturally, Mir himself also had to make nice:

(Props: LesnarMMA)

Like those helpful little video clips you sometimes see on Al-Jazeera or North Korean state television, Brock Lesnar‘s YouTube channel just put out some footage of a somewhat-healthy-looking Lesnar getting back into the swing of training, with the added claim that the formerly ailing UFC heavyweight champ is "ready to give Frank Mir another mauling, or to knock out Shane Carwin." Obviously he’s still in recovery mode — his punches and knees are thrown at a fraction of full strength, and this may be the first time we’ve seen him look fatigued in the gym — but at least he’s out of bed and heading in the right direction. Look closely at the 0:34 mark, and you’ll notice Chris Tuchscherer telling one of his campmates about this chick who just broke up with him over text message, that heartless bitch.

The mere fact that he name checks Roy Nelson in this video is enough to support our suspicion that Jim Rome is an MMA fan, but a Brock Lesnar fan he certainly is not. Of all the possible reasons why that might be the case, Rome’s current issue with Lesnar seems to be that he was not sufficiently humbled by his brush with diverticulosis. It really seems to bug Rome that Lesnar could come so close to seeing his career ended and still come back firing pro wrestling-style one-liners at potential opponents. As if this isn’t the Lesnar we’ve all come to know and, if not love, then at least live with. As if a little hole in his stomach would be enough to turn him into Mr. Congeniality.

This is the same Lesnar who described his recovery as a miracle brought about by the power of his own mind. The antibiotics and dietary changes probably helped too, but that doesn’t sound as cool.

(It’s all fun and games until you piss off a Canadian. Have we learned nothing from Alanis Morissette’s "Jagged Little Pill" album?)

Brock Lesnar refused to name the hospital in Canada where he received care that he likened to “a third-world country,” but it turns out he doesn’t need to. The CEO of the regional health authority in Brandon, Manitoba has done it for him, and she’s none too pleased with Lesnar’s description of the facilities. Carmel Olson told the Globe and Mail (tip via CP reader Organ Donor) that she took “real exception” to Lesnar’s third-world country remark, and suggested that maybe Lesnar freaked out a little too soon and didn’t give her staff the chance to go to work:

“The attending physician was very qualified and very respected,” she said. “He’s been in the business for more than 30 years. And he has the skills to diagnose a condition such as diverticulitis without a CT scan. …We have checked this particular health record and we are quite confident that the correct diagnosis was given and the best course of treatment offered. We have state-of-art equipment here. We are hardly a one-horse operation.”

Lesnar wasn’t satisfied. He checked himself out and had his wife drive him back to the U.S. in what he describes as a harrowing 100 mph drive that “saved [his] life.” Olson suggested maybe he had another reason for fleeing in her parting shot, adding, “maybe he didn’t like the bill.”

(Props: Cagewriter)

Not surprisingly, Brock Lesnar‘s dismissive comments about the Canadian health care system riled some people up today, prompting reporters to push him on exactly what went wrong when he was hospitalized in hockey country.  On a UFC conference call following his ESPN appearance, Lesnar said it wasn’t all Canada’s fault, but likened the care he received to "a third-world country," and praised the U.S. system as "a little radical, but we’ve got the best doctors in the world."

The way Lesnar sees it, our system doesn’t need reforming because it is totally kick-ass — an assessment that probably feels pretty accurate when you’re a millionaire at the Mayo Clinic.  True, as recently as 2007 medical bills accounted for 62% of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. (and, of those, 78% had health insurance), but Lesnar is about as far from the poorhouse as anybody in the state of Minnesota, so obviously that’s not his concern.  He needed the best care money could buy, so he needed to be in a place where money could buy it.

As some of our friends on Twitter have kindly pointed out, it’s a little unfair for him to compare some small facility in Canada to one of the best medical facilities anywhere in the world.  But Lesnar isn’t trying to bash Canada.  He just wants us Americans to know that reforming a system where we spend more than any other country in the world, and yet ranked 19th among 19 developed countries when it comes to avoiding preventable deaths is completely unnecessary.  Need proof?  Well, Lesnar will be back in the Octagon this summer, won’t he?

After the jump, Lesnar’s full "Sportscenter" appearance, in case you missed it.

(Nice try diverticulosis, but no dice.)

Canadian socialized medicine may have tried to kill Brock Lesnar or at least end his career, but after an agonizing few weeks the big man "healed [him]self" and will return this summer to face the winner of the Shane Carwin-Frank Mir fight.  This is what we learned during Lesnar’s appearance on "Sportscenter" today. 

Sitting beside Dana White and wearing a t-shirt laden with all the usual sponsors (Fusion Ammo, Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches, etc.), Lesnar explained the entirety of his long medical odyssey from an early misdiagnosis to a collapse in Canada that left him at the mercy of lousy Canuck doctors, to his return to the U.S. where good old American doctors prepared to put him under the knife to fix his diverticulosis, which would have cursed him with a colostomy bag and ended his career.  But, after laying for days on end in the hospital and losing forty pounds, he went to get a second opinion, which also called for surgery. 

Lesnar went home, returned to the gym and put some weight back on, and when he came back to the hospital on January 5 it was, "a miracle; they were dumbfounded.  They couldn’t find any signs of any problems in my stomach."

(This may be your best chance yet to hear the phrase ‘pencil-necked geek’ said aloud on ESPN.)

Change of plans, Potato Nation.  Remember that press conference this week where Dana White said Brock Lesnar would be in attendance to fill us in on his health status and future fighting prospects?  Yeah, that’s not happening anymore.  Instead he’ll be appearing on Wednesday’s edition of "Sportscenter" on ESPN, where he’ll probably do the bare minimum in terms of answering questions while also making it very clear that this was not his idea.  Lesnar’s scheduled to appear at 11 am EST, but if we’ve learned anything by sitting around in hotel rooms and watching ESPN in a constant loop, it’s that you’ll probably be able to catch it throughout the day, just like you’ll probably be really sick of all the clever one-liners about last night’s NBA games by noon. 

The real question is, will Brock actually tell us something worth hearing in this interview?  Or is he going to continue to act like his condition is a state secret that must not be discussed?

With all the people popping up to assure us that UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar is feeling better and getting back in the gym, we’re forced to conclude that one of two things is going on: 1) Lesnar has been dead for several months now and there is a vast conspiracy to keep the world from learning the truth, or 2) his health situation is really not as bad as once feared.  We can’t rule out option #1 yet, just like we can’t say with any degree of certainty that "Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" isn’t the best movie ever made, since we haven’t seen it for ourselves.  But what we can do is ask the people who would know better than us, and the more of them who come forward to say that Brock will be back soon, the more we tend to think it’s true. 

This still leaves us wondering why Lesnar has insisted on keeping quiet for so long, as well as why he asked Dana White not to say anything but apparently made no such request of his own coaches.  Or who knows, maybe he did.  Maybe they’re just smart enough to know that since Lesnar doesn’t have the internet, he won’t ever find out that they put his name in the streets on "MMA Live."  If does find out, though, oh man.  His reaction will make this seem tame by comparison…

Well look who’s getting name-checked on "Inside MMA."  Ron Kruck references our story on Brock Lesnar’s ongoing health issues before cutting to Randy Couture, who says he’s spoken with Lesnar and things are looking up for the big man.  If we can believe Couture (and he doesn’t seem the like the type to just make stuff up — that’s Tito Ortiz’s game), Lesnar is already back in the gym and ought to be Octagon-ready by this spring.  We should probably treat this with the same healthy skepticism we had for "Comprido" Medeiros’ assurance that everything was going to be just fine, but at least it’s encouraging news.

Once again though, we can’t help but wonder what’s with all the secrecy.  If Lesnar really is back in the gym and beating the hell out of poor Chris Tuchscherer again, why wouldn’t he be cool with the world knowing that?  Is this all part of an attempt to fake his own death just to get out of paying taxes?  That’s it, isn’t it?  That sly son of a bitch. 

(Something that could make both these men smile? It could only be one thing: Arby’s roast beef sandwich!)

In all fairness, Dana White said that this would be the week he’d find out how serious Brock Lesnar‘s medical condition really is.  He didn’t necessarily say it would be the week he told the rest of us what he learned.  MMAFighting.com had a little text message convo with DW today, and when asked what Lesnar’s status was the UFC prez replied: "Brock asked me not to talk about it.  I have to respect that."

And so the mystery lives on.  How long will Lesnar be out?  Will he ever fight again?  Why is it so important to him that no one know anything at all about his illness?  Is Lesnar actually a malfunctioning cyborg super soldier, making this a matter of national security requiring the utmost secrecy?  These questions must remain, for the time being, unanswered.  All we know is, if the diagnosis was that he’d be up and cracking skulls within a few months, like his jiu-jitsu coach previously claimed, there probably wouldn’t be a need for all this shucking and jiving. 

You couple White’s reticence with the cryptic missive on Lesnar’s Facebook page, and there’s not much reason for optimism.  We might as well get used to life without Lesnar, at least for the foreseeable future.

(Photo courtesy of TheSun)

From a recent post on Brock Lesnar‘s official Facebook page:

NEW UPDATE!! Brock has had more problems (we can’t say what they are) and he could be out all of this year if things don’t get better. Brock wants to thank all of his fans for their support and for the nice messages so thanks guys.

Though we’ve yet to see the official update that we were promised this week, let this be your advance warning that Lesnar won’t be returning this summer. In other unconfirmed news…

— SI’s Josh Gross hears that Frankie Edgar will get the next shot at BJ Penn’s lightweight belt in April, regardless of Gray Maynard‘s performance against Nate Diaz at UFC Fight Night 20 on Monday. Edgar (11-1, 6-1 UFC), most recently submitted Matt Veach at the TUF 10 finale, holds wins over Sean Sherk, Hermes Franca, and Tyson Griffin, and previously lost a decision to Maynard in April 2008.

— According to MMA Live host Jon Anik, a match between knockout artist Paul Daley and perennial top contender Josh Koscheck is being discussed for May or June. Between Daley’s recent destructions of Martin Kampmann and Dustin Hazelett, and Koscheck’s wins over Frank Trigg and Anthony Johnson, both guys have a lot of heat behind them right now. Feels like a #1 welterweight contender fight to us…

(From left to right: Focused, calm, stoic, and sleepy.)

To the unfamiliar, the above poster simply shows four shirtless white guys with eerily similar expressions. To us, it’s cause for celebration. As previously reported, UFC 111 (March 27, Newark) will be the first UFC event since #100 to feature two separate title fights on the same card; coincidentally, Georges St. Pierre and Frank Mir were part of that event as well. Tickets go on sale to Fight Club members this Thursday, newsletter subscribers on Friday, and to the general public on Saturday.

In a related story, Brock Lesnar‘s health status will be updated this week, which means we’ll soon find out whether he’ll be coming back this summer to fight the winner of Mir/Carwin, or if his career will be on ice for even longer — like, permanently. So basically, here are the possibilities we’re looking at, from most atractive to least attractive:

(Props: YouTube.com/K1 via MMA Fighting)

K-1 recently uploaded some choice highlights from their MMA library onto their YouTube page, featuring early fights from current superstars like Brock Lesnar, BJ Penn, and Lyoto Machida. Above is Lesnar’s pro MMA debut against Min Soo Kim, which went down at Dynamite!! USA in June ’07. Odds are, you’ve watched this fight before — though it’s still worth a look if you’ve never seen the head-clashing faceoff and the fight’s aftermath, in which Lesnar triumphantly stalked around the cage while Kim was slowly brought back to life.

After the jump: Kazushi Sakuraba‘s rematch with Royce Gracie at Dynamite!! USA, BJ Penn’s grudge match with Renzo Gracie at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2005 in Hawaii, and Lyoto Machida’s fourth pro fight against Michael McDonald at K-1 Beast 2004.

MMA had more than its share of unforgettable moments this year — though many of them were unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. With 2009 drawing to a close, we’ve collected and ranked the year’s lowlights. Now let’s never speak of these things ever again…

#9: The "Hello Japan!" incident at DREAM.7 (3/8/09)

Fighting in the Saitama Super Arena must be an incredible experience. There you are, surrounded by 20,000 eerily quiet Japanese people who all seem to appreciate the intricacies of the sport. During his match against submission wizard Shinya Aoki at DREAM.7, American journeyman David Gardner tried to honor the occasion by waving to the crowd and saying "Hello Japan!" The problem was, Aoki had his back at the time, and as soon as Gardner’s hand went up, Aoki whipped his arm under Gardner’s neck and sunk in a rear-naked choke. "Oh my God it is so dumb," Bas Rutten lamented in the broadcast booth. Dumb is an understatement. Even "Wouldn’t Get Up From Butt Scoot" is a more respectable way to lose a fight. Way to represent the Red, White & Blue, Dave.

#8: Chuck Liddell dances with the stars (9/21/09-10/13/09)

When Dana White temporarily retired Chuck Liddell following his knockout loss to Mauricio Rua at UFC 97, few could have guessed that the Iceman’s next move would be an appearance on a dance-competition show that no red-blooded MMA fan in their right mind would ever watch. Liddell joined the ninth season of Dancing With the Stars with no formal dance training to speak of, and despite his best efforts he didn’t fool any of the judges, who called him everything from "graceless" to "gentle neanderthal." After four weeks of low scores and fruity costumes, Liddell was sent packing. On the bright side, Chuck expanded his fanbase on network television, outlasted fellow competitor Tom DeLay, and probably wound up banging his redheaded dance partner. Still, Tito Ortiz’s stint on Celebrity Apprentice now seems like the most badass thing in the world by comparison.

Let’s just hope nothing amazing happens in the next two weeks. Major props to AllElbows, Sherdog, and The Las Vegas Sun.

#14. Frank Shamrock and Nick Diaz display their vastly different personal styles at a Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz press conference.

#13: The final resting place of BJJ godfather Helio Gracie.

#12: "Stop trying to hit me and hit me!" Anderson Silva stays juuuuust out of reach against Forrest Griffin at UFC 101.

(Keep an eye out for the James Toney workout tape, in stores now.  Makes a perfect Christmas gift for people you hate.)

Don’t ask us why, but former boxing great James Toney has got it in his head that he wants to fight in the UFC. Maybe he’s just that blissfully unaware of the full compliment of skills it takes to compete at that level of MMA. Maybe he’s punch-drunk and is not in complete control of what comes out of his mouth. Maybe he’s just in dire need of some attention/money. Whatever the root cause is, he tried to bolster his case while attending UFC 107 in Memphis last weekend, and it sounds like he didn’t quite make the stellar impression that he seems to believe he did:

“I met up with Dana. He was cool and said we could do business. We exchanged numbers and I texted him all night, ‘Don’t forget chicken shit!’ But I was sitting behind Chuck Liddell and I could tell he was uncomfortable with my presence. …I think I can break records with the UFC. I would fight Kimbo Slice, Chuck Liddell, or Randy Couture. Brock Lesnar, too. He could get it and we would do a ton of buys.”

("Why does this happen every time I drink tequila?")

With Brock Lesnar’s return date still uncertain, it looks like the UFC will dust off their interim heavyweight title for one more ride. Multiple sources report that a fight between Frank Mir and Shane Carwin is in the works for UFC 111 (March 27th, Newark), with the winner earning the UFC’s interim belt. Both fighters have been very open to the bout; Carwin recently wrote on his blog that Mir "is a LEGEND of the sport and I would be honored to fight him," while Mir described a potential fight against Carwin as a "phenomenal matchup," and Carwin as "a better version" of Brock Lesnar. Well Merry Christmas, boys, because you got your wish.

Though Mir was already mentally preparing for a future clash with a heavy-handed powerhouse wrestler, Carwin must now start game-planning for a submission expert with rapidly-improving boxing skills. Carwin also has ring-rust working against him. An entire year will have passed since his last appaearance against Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 96; Mir has fought twice in that period, and his confidence-boosting choke-out of Cheick Kongo at UFC 107 will be fresh in his mind. Is the Engineer of Pain fighting an uphill battle here, or will Mir just be a speed-bump on Carwin’s path to the title?

UFC 111 is scheduled to be headlined by the welterweight title fight between Georges St. Pierre and Dan Hardy, and will also feature the return of Thiago Alves.

(‘Thanks for the workout, chummmmmmmp.’ Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

Because the MMA gods would never be content to allow the UFC’s heavyweight division be both intriguing and problem-free, Brock Lesnar’s illness just happens to have coincided with a number of potential challengers rising up all at once. You’ve got Shane Carwin, who was originally slated for the next shot at Lesnar. You’ve got Cain Velasquez, who’s been running through everyone the UFC puts in front of him. And after UFC 107 on Saturday night you’ve got Frank Mir, who would like to smugly point out that he almost knocked out and then submitted a guy who Velasquez couldn’t finish. You know, just saying.

With Lesnar’s future still uncertain, what will become of these three able heavyweight contenders? If you ask Carwin, he’ll tell you that he wouldn’t mind fighting Mir while all this other stuff gets sorted out:

A win like Frank had last night surely propels him to share the top of the division with Nog, Cain and myself. If beating Kongo was enough to propel Cain to number two contender status, destroying Kongo might edge Cain out. What is more compelling is that Mir made it our of that fight injury free so not only is he at the top of the division he is likely ready to fight sooner then later.

(Oh, masturbation punches, how we’ve missed you… / Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

According to Heavy.com, Brock Lesnar is back on his feet after a nasty case of diverticulitis, and the UFC is targeting July as a potential return date for the heavyweight champ; Lesnar’s long-delayed bout against Shane Carwin  could headline the UFC’s first show in Boston.

Well, that’s their hope, anyway. Though Lesnar is indeed recovering, his trainer Greg Nelson told MMA Weekly that he’s not sure when Brock will be able to start training again — and he’s definitely not sure when he’ll be healthy enough to fight. Right now, Lesnar is simply healing up in a pissed-off fashion. Said Nelson: "Mentally, he wants to get back in there. He wants to jump in. You get a guy like that who’s used to being able to do whatever and moving around and train, throw hay around, whatever he wants to do, then you’re stuck inside your house…that’s tough. Mentally, it’s tough."

And it’s not just tough on Lesnar. Frank Mir has become so obsessed with the idea of beating Lesnar in a rubber match that the news of Brock’s illness put the zap on his brain: “When he got sick it screwed up my training because he was such a driving force for me," Mir told the Las Vegas Sun. "I went into a depression for two to three days where I didn’t go to the gym, I got sick — I drove myself insane thinking we may possibly not fight again. I couldn’t live with that.” Our advice to Frank? Live with it. You have a big fight in two days. Losing to a guy who you’ve talked nothing but trash about, now that’s something you wouldn’t want to live with.

According to Brock Lesnar‘s jiu-jitsu coach, Rodrigo "Comprido" Medeiros, the big man is healing up after his surgery and will "be fighting again within six months."  That means Lesnar-Carwin could take place this spring, and there will be no need for an interim title or any other such nonsense.  Great, right?  Only maybe we should consider the possibility, however minor, that "Comprido" is substituting blind optimism for medical knowledge.

If we can believe what Dana White says, Lesnar had a hole in his intestine that was leaking stuff into his stomach.  I’m no more a doctor than I am a jiu-jitsu world champion, but that sounds like the kind of thing that could sideline a man for a little while.  Even if the surgery was completely successful in repairing the problems, Lesnar will probably need to rest for a little while before returning to the kind of intense training that might prepare him for a title defense. 

In other words, let’s take this six month promise with a grain of salt.  While it’s believable that Lesnar may heal much faster than your average mortal, it’s also possible that he might need more time to put this behind him and get in shape to defend a heavyweight championship.  Especially after what those Canadian doctors did to him. 

(He feared no man.  Canadian doctors?  Well, that’s a different story. Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine)

Free health care might work just fine for most Canadians.  If Georges St. Pierre discovers a bizarre rash after his post-fight debauchery or Alanis Morissette decides to pop out a kid, it’s no problem.  But their system of caring for the sick and injured without driving them into bankruptcy just isn’t up to dealing with the big problems of a big man, particularly not when that big man is as much of a red-blooded American as Brock Lesnar.  According to what Lesnar’s chiropractor, Larry Novotny, told a local news affiliate in Alexandria, Minn., Lesnar’s current health problems really started heading downhill while vacationing in Canada, the land of free medicine and wonderfully polite death panels.  I think you know who he’s going to blame.

Said Novotny: "His symptoms became severe while in Canada, which because of their health care system, made it difficult to manage.  At this point it’s a possibility that it could jeopardize his career." 

Okay, Novotny.  Fair enough.  But you’re forgetting to mention that it didn’t cost him a penny.  Still a good deal for the money, no?

And so the Brock Lesnar illness saga continues.  According to Dana White’s Twitter, the UFC heavyweight champ is out of "minor surgery" and beginning to feel better.  Since the surgery was presumably designed to help deal with a bacterial infection in his intestinal tract, it’s hard to imagine that there could anything too minor about it.   Where I come from, wisdom tooth extraction = minor, anything having to do with intestines = major.

At least the surgery sounds like it went well and now White can finally get out of Bismarck.  Meanwhile, every other fighter in the UFC is forced to ask himself, what would it take for Dana to come visit me in a place like North Dakota?  The answer, of course, depends on who you are.  Georges St. Pierre?  Probably wouldn’t take much more than a mild heart attack.  Tito Ortiz?  There’d better be some exposed brain matter involved.  Kendall Grove?  Unless aliens show up and declare him their emperor for life, DW isn’t even getting out of bed.