By Elias Cepeda

Roy Nelson made history last night at UFC 161. No, he didn’t become just the second man in UFC history to score four consecutive first round knockout wins as I’m sure he hoped he would.

According to UFC President Dana White, “Big Country”, with the help of Stipe Miocic, instead set a record that is incredibly detrimental to his own health.“Roy Nelson broke a UFC record tonight: 437 significant strikes absorbed without being knocked out.  It’s a new UFC record,” White said.

We originally reported that number based on White’s statement. So did many other outlets, including MMA Weekly, Yahoo! Sports and MMA Fighting. A look over at FightMetric, the official statisticians for the UFC, however, reveals that Nelson absorbed only 106 strikes from Miocic.

White was probably using hyperbole to underscore a couple points about Nelson – how tough he is, how badly he got beaten, etc. – but it is telling that his 400 + strikes number didn’t strike many in the media as too far off.

Miocic knocked Nelson around that badly. And we’ve seen it happen before to the outspoken heavyweight.

Nelson probably should have taken a contract extension deal when it was offered to him by the UFC. He probably should not have fought Miocic just six weeks after his prior fight, a win over Cheick Kongo, and Nelson definitely shouldn’t be fighting in the heavyweight division.

Folks who respect and admire Nelson have been calling for the morbidly obese fighter to drop down to light heavyweight for years.

Forget all that.

Nelson has the height and frame of a tall lightweight or normal welterweight fighter. But instead of living a healthy lifestyle and fighting at, say, 170 pounds, the man has often had trouble of making the heavyweight limit of 265 pounds.

Roy Nelson clearly has a problem, and it isn’t just the fact that he can’t ever seem to be more than a punching bag any time he fights a top heavyweight – though it is related. The charismatic and gifted fighter has a consumption problem.

(And with a snap of his fingers, Homeless Santa vanished from our lives, leaving behind only the crumpled wrapper of the Carolina BBQ Tendercrisp we had left for him on the armoire.)

It wouldn’t exactly be earth-shattering news to tell you that Dana White is not a fan of Roy “Big Country” Nelson. In fact, the President of the UFC has stated exactly that to pretty much anyone who will listen, time after time after “he’s a f*cking idiot.”

The fact that Nelson was one-half of the coaching duo at least partly responsible for the worst season of TUF in recent memory (at least ratings wise), surely doesn’t increase his stock in the eyes of The Baldfather, but with “Big Country” knocking out contenders left and right, it’d be insane to let him slip through your fingers, right? Well, according to DW, Nelson’s bout with Stipe Miocic at UFC 161 this weekend may be his last in the UFC:

UFC President Dana White used the contract circumstances as a way to explain the pairing of Nelson and Miocic, which looked odd when announced five weeks ago.

The fighters were headed in different directions. Nelson had just defeated Cheick Kongo and ascended to No. 5 in the heavyweight rankings two months ago while Miocic was coming off the first loss of his career and hadn’t fought in nine months.

Slated to fight newcomer Soa Palelei on the preliminary card, Miocic found himself promoted into the Nelson bout on late notice. It was a necessary move, according to White, because of the terms of Nelson’s contract.

“He’s on the last fight of his deal and we owe him a fight,” White said. “He’s not giving us any extensions.”

White reported that the UFC offered Nelson an extension that he turned down, prompting the boss to blast the fighter by referring to him as “the smartest guy on Earth” and “a (expletive) genius.” 

By Elias Cepeda

The past week or so has been an exciting one for fans of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. It’s also been a little bit of a worrisome one as well.

Jackson has gushed about his new deal with Bellator and the TNA Impact professional wrestling organization. He says he’ll only be asked to fight when he wants to, that he’s excited to finally get to try out a long-time love of his — pro wrasslin’ — and that the Viacom family that owns Bellator might create opportunities for him on television and in movies, through their Paramount pictures movie house.

Jackson left the UFC earlier this year, not just on a three-fight losing streak, but also embittered by what he felt was poor treatment from the organization. Likening promoter/fighter relationships to that of personal, romantic ones, Jackson told CagePotato last week, “…me and Bellator, we tongue kissing right now, baby.”

The fan in me has a soft spot for Jackson. Like many of you, I’ve watched him fight for over a decade. He’s always done so with courage and in exciting fashion. Back in the day, “Rampage” may have also been the most accessible top fighter in the world. There was a time where he set up a phone line specifically for fans. He made the number public and waited for calls. When they came in, he’d pick up whenever he was available, and chat with whoever wanted to talk to him.

Not a whole lot to dislike about a guy like that, right? So, if Jackson has found a new, better situation for himself, where he feels happy, no one can begrudge him that.

The thing is, we’ve seen this situation play out before with the fighter. Being enamored with an organization before ultimately souring on them, and feeling rejected and disrespected when it was all over. While with Pride, Jackson often seemed quite happy. He defended the Japanese promotion in public and compared it favorably to its competitor at the time, the UFC.

By the time the UFC signed Jackson, however, he acted as if it was a life-saving event. I remember speaking with Jackson near the end of his Pride tenure and again shortly after he’d signed with the UFC.

At that time, Jackson didn’t only express satisfaction with his new UFC contract, he spoke of Dana White as if he were a personal friend who had saved him and done him a favor. Six or so years later, Jackson and White routinely trash each other publicly.

During a media conference call last week, Jackson said that Bellator promoter Bjorn Rebney is a guy who “gets it,” and is the type of boss he’s been waiting for his entire career. Jackson says that things are different this time around.

(Liddell’s decision to retire involved sober discussions with those closest to him)

Our favorite corporate Zuffa desk jockey, Chuck Liddell, recently fielded questions in Brazil from fans and discussed his decision to retire in 2010. At that time, the former light heavyweight champion had lost three straight, all by TKO or KO, and five out of his last six fights.

UFC President, and Liddell’s one-time manager, Dana White publicly said that the legend should retire and since that time, it has been widely assumed and reported that White coerced or talked The Iceman into hanging up his gloves. However, Liddell told fans that when he met with White in the fall of 2010, he’d already decided on his own to quit.

“I talked to my family, my coaches, and then I went to Dana,” Liddell recounted for fans. “I talked to Dana. Dana and I actually went to dinner, and he thought I was going to ask him to fight again. I came to dinner, and I said, ‘You know what? I’m done.’ He was relieved.”

“I asked him to just hold off for about three months and give me some time to get adjusted to it before I have to talk to people about it because it was a hard decision for me,” Liddell went on.

While the decision to stop competing professionally was a tough one for the fighter, he says that he realizes that leaving when he did and not sustaining more damage was the right thing to do. ”I love fighting, and I didn’t want to stop, but it was the right decision at the time between my coaches and my family,” Chuck said.

According to fight business uber reporter Dave Meltzer, the UFC is considering making a super fight between middleweight champion Anderson Silva and light heavyweight champion Jon Jones happen this fall in Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Texas. Of course, Silva would have to beat Chris Weidman this July and come out relatively unscathed for the super fight to remain viable and Jones himself would have to of healed from his grisly toe injury.

After a recent visit to the doctor, it looks like Jones could be healthy in time for a super fight. More on that later in the post. First, the scuttlebutt.

“There is an idea floating around to try and put on the biggest show in company history at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas this fall,” Meltzer reports in his Wrestling Observer newsletter.

“The idea would be to have Silva vs. Jon Jones and Velasquez vs. Dos Santos at the stadium, in October, at the same time as the state fair of Texas, perhaps on 10/12 or 10/19. That much is known to be at least something talked about. With Madison Square Garden seeming more and more unlikely for November, this show could be billed as UFC 20th anniversary show, with the idea of trying to repeat the success of UFC 100.”

Now that it’s been confirmed that Miesha Tate will be replacing the injured Cat Zingano on the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter, the UFC has hustled together a hype video with Tate and Ronda Rousey trading compliments, with just a dash of hostility. Some highlights…

Rousey: “I’ve always respected Miesha as a fighter, and I’ve always respected her as an athlete. How we feel personally has nothing really to do with that. In fact I’ve said it within the same sentence, that I think that she’s entirely legit, but I don’t really feel bad about hitting her.”

Tate: “Ronda, obviously, is a phenomenal fighter, she’s undefeated…as a person, I don’t think she’s quite as stellar.”

Rousey: “I’m actually honored to be coaching opposed her on this show, and I think that this is really what was fated to happen, and I’m really lucky to have a rival like her. If I didn’t have her around, I would suffer.”

Tate: “We have our definite disagreements, but I give her credit for what she’s done and where she’s got in the sport of women’s MMA. Without her, I don’t think we’d be as far so I do value that. But at the same time, I feel like I’m right on her heels, and I want what she has.”

Some of you may already be looking forward to the entertaining level of tension that the Ronda/Miesha pairing will create on the show, to which I’d reply — wasn’t Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen supposed to be WILD and CRAZY as well? And all I remember from that season was Chael delivering some speech about how a group of guys were asked to walk a plank on the ground, and they all did it with no problem, and then the plank was raised up in the air, and nobody would do it, but it was the same action, it’s just that the environment had changed, or something? Come on, somebody has to know what I’m talking about.

Bottom line: The only way to guarantee drama on TUF 18 is to cast this lady as an assistant coach.

(Sooooo…any big plans for this weekend? / Check out lots more “That’s Enough Internet For Today” pictures at WorldWideInterweb)

Gina Carano Talks Fighting, Fast & Furious 6 (MadeMan)

Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson Trade Shots on Twitter (BleacherReport)

More Women’s MMA Fighters Accuse Manager Atchley of Misconduct; Atchley Continues Denials (BloodyElbow)

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20 Models in Really Awkward Poses (EgoTV)

(Thursday’s media scrum with Dana White, via MMA Heat)

Just a couple days after floating the possibility that middleweight champion Anderson Silva and light-heavyweight king Jon Jones could meet in a super fight within the year, UFC President Dana White gave the media another tantalizingly qualified statement pertaining to the matchup.

“[Jones and I] talked [Wednesday],” White told assembled media during a scrum Thursday after the UFC 160 press conference. ”His thing is, he says he feels great and the toe’s healing good. But the problem was that ligament. That ligament popped. Anywhere you tear a ligament, blood flow helps the thing repair itself and heal, and you don’t get a lot of blood flow at the toe.”

Jones injured his toe in his successful title defense over Chael Sonnen last month. He is currently in Russia but White says that when Jones returns, he’ll get an MRI to get a sense of how soon his toe might be ready for training and fighting again.

“Who knows – this thing could be six weeks, or it could be six months,” White said. “It’s a pain in the ass. It’s always some crazy little thing. He’s in Russia, and when he gets back he’s getting an MRI done on his toe again.”

Suffice it to say, if you aren’t aware of all the downright despicable practices The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 has pulled over the years in regards to the UFC and MMA in general, you’ve probably been living in the dark. Operating under a thinly-veiled “concern” for the conduct of UFC fighters and a need to protect our children from the potty mouth of Dana White, the CU — often backed by one or more anti-women’s violence groups — has been the driving force behind the anti-MMA movement in New York. The fact that their continuous harassment of the UFC and laughable (not to mention libelous) smear campaigns have only hurt the economy of the state they are trying to “protect” is an irony that has apparently been lost on them.

In either case, it appears that the UFC has grown tired of seeing so many websites backed by the CU — websites that, like the CU itself, operate under a false front — popping up over the years, and has launched their own counter-website, TheTruthAboutCulinary226.com. The website aims to both expose the Culinary Union for the dissembling moralists that they truly are in addition to uncovering just how poorly the organization is managing its own member’s funds:

The Culinary Union has targeted Station Casinos because the company refuses to agree to a “card check” process whereby the Culinary Union may become the representative of its employees without being elected as such through a secret ballot election. Rather than simply following the secret ballot election process that U.S. federal law provides, the Culinary Union’s management has instead waged a dishonest campaign to pressure Station Casinos to capitulate to its demands. As part of that campaign, the Culinary Union has been engaging in harassment tactics that target all of the business interests of the Fertittas, including Station Casinos and the UFC. 

The Culinary Union has criticized Zuffa for making political contributions of $231,650 in 2012.  However, in 2012, UNITE HERE itself spent almost 5 ½ times more than Zuffa on cash disbursements for political activities and lobbying, totaling $1,252,676. Additionally, UNITE HERE paid a total of $1,158,598 to “consultants” in 2011.

Tonight, at 9:30pm EST on Fuel TV, a taped sit-down interview with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva will premiere. As often as we get to see the champ knock heads around inside the cage, we don’t often get longer, in-depth interviews with him, and certainly not in English.

Karyn Bryant‘s interview with Silva tonight looks to be in English and promises to be in-depth — hopefully much more so than the fun stuff shown in the teaser video above. We’re certainly not complaining any time we get to hear Anderson’s high-pitched jokes in English, however.

Silva says, without much explanation, that he’s the “black Dana White,” for one. Silva manages to get his back-handed barbs in, per usual, and it’s a good time.

“Sometimes Dana [is] cranky. ‘Come on man, smile!’” Silva says.

“I have my problems for Dana but I love him.”

Awww.

Anderson has love for his favorite punching bag, Chael Sonnen as well — although he and his family have given up hope that Sonnen will show up to Silva’s house for that barbecue the Spider invited him to.

“No go,” said a disappointed Silva when asked if Chael ever came by to grub up with his clan. “No go. I wait for Chael for long, long time. My wife talk to me, ‘hey, Chael no come?’ [I told her] ‘No baby. Baby, no.’”

See more of Anderson Silva’s sensitive side revealed tonight on Fuel TV.

- Elias Cepeda