Following up reports last week of Zuffa selling a chunk of the UFC to Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UFC has publicly released some information on the sale. First, the official statement via UFC.com:

Dana White followed up the announcement with a Q&A on UFC.com to put it all into layman’s terms for the fans. Some highlights:

(Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta chill with Sheikh Tahnoon during a recent boar hunting trip. Photos courtesy of twitter.com/danawhite.)

And here we thought Dana White was just visiting Abu Dhabi to set up a monster fight card and spring Lee Murray out of jail. FiveOuncesofPain has broken the wild and developing story that after a few months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the UFC has sold a piece of its empire to Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, son of former United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and founder of the world-famous Abu Dhabi Combat Club. MMA Payout estimates that Sheikh Tahnoon now owns approximately 10% of the UFC, and the proceeds of the sale will likely go towards regaining control of Station Casinos.

According to the original report, the deal was brokered with the help of Renzo Gracie, who happens to be Sheikh Tahnoon’s BJJ instructor; Tahnoon is a black belt under Renzo. The sale has massive implications, but without an official statement from the UFC, there isn’t much more we can tell you. Either Sheikh Tahnoon becomes instrumental in helping the UFC become a truly global operation, or he creates a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation, leading to counter-productive infighting and unfortunate ring girl choices. What’s clear is that Tahnoon has money and passion to spare. Let’s see how this thing plays out.

(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.

(A harmless group of dudes enjoying some brews on a Saturday afternoon? Or a VAST CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY??? Photo courtesy of thedraftbarandgrille.com)

Watching pirated feeds of MMA pay-per-view events may seem like a cost-effective alternative to actually spending money on them. But no free ride lasts forever. According to a new story in The Vancouver Sun, the UFC plans to roll out an assault on those who distribute and consume unauthorized content. Said Lorenzo Fertitta during a recent referendum on Internet piracy: “The piracy of live sporting events is illegal, it kills jobs, and it threatens the expansion of US based companies. The UFC is potentially losing millions of dollars a year from piracy.” During UFC 106, Zuffa’s anti-piracy team counted 271 illegal streams of the event with over 140,000 viewers.

Though the UFC isn’t ruling out lawsuits against individual users, stream-hosting websites like Justin.tv will likely be the biggest targets of the new crackdown. "When people start going to jail, people will stop doing it,” Dana White said. “It’s going to be a battle, but I’m ready to (expletive) fight. We’re gonna go after them, we’re gonna go after them hard, and we’re gonna hurt ‘em.”

Unfortunately, someone’s gotta be the first guy to get kicked in the nuts, and those nuts belong to the kind of friendly neighborhood bar where everybody knows your name…

(Props: Uppercut Magazine, via CP contributor Elias Cepeda.)

I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.  Here’s UFC president Dana White sitting down and having what appears to be a serious conversation about James Toney fighting in the UFC.  I realize that’s what he said he was going to do after Toney ambushed him at the UFC 108 post-fight press conference, but I guess I just assumed that it would be one of those meetings where he professes a vague interest and then never calls Toney back.  Sort of like what the people at Paramount keep doing to me when I pitch them my script about the dog who learns to fly a plane so he can go find the family that left him for dead in the animal shelter, and then murder them all in their sleep.  It’s a fun summer romp.

DW is asking all the right questions here — can Toney wrestle? does he have any takedown defense aside from an unshakable conviction that he won’t ever end up on the ground? is he familiar with what getting kicked in the leg feels like?  Call me crazy, but when Toney says he knows all about the "front kick, back kick, side check kick, all of that," I’m not 100% convinced.

(James Toney: the worst-case scenario of Thomas Jefferson’s dream.)

…he’d like to put your mind at ease in this interview with FightHype.com:

“They talking about ground game? That don’t mean nothing to me dog. Number one, I ain’t going to allow none of them boys to lay on top of me like a lil’ fag, you know what I’m saying? I ain’t going to the ground; that ain’t happening, you know what I’m saying?

…I know a lot of them thinking they would fuck me up and they gonna shoot in on me and all of that, but I ain’t going to the ground; that ain’t happening. I got one of the best mixed martial arts trainers in the world, which is my daddy. You know what I’m saying? He is one of the original death fighters. They fought to the death like in them movies, but it’s a matter of time. I will be ready to go.”

You know how when you’re a kid and your parents tell you things that might be exaggerations of the truth, or even just outright lies, and they don’t see any harm in it as long as it makes for a good bedtime story and gets you to go to sleep so they can have ten peaceful minutes alone at night to sip brandy and stare out at the driveway?  It’s possible that James Toney‘s dad took things a little too far with his yarns about fighting to the death, like in them movies.

(Ariel Helwani gets his interview time with Dana White rudely interrupted.)

The entertaining little mating dance between Dana White and James Toney may have finally reached the point where a decision is inevitable. After Toney materialized in Las Vegas this weekend to call out DW yet again, it ought to be clear enough that he isn’t going to get bored and lose interest all on his own. Partly that’s because Toney probably doesn’t have a whole lot else going on in his life, but partly it’s because, whatever you think of his abilities as a fighter, dude is persistent.

If White doubted that before, he doesn’t after Toney appeared like a mumbling angel on his shoulder this weekend. It’s time to either set the guy up with a fight or else stop letting him into these damn press conferences.

Since option number two is obviously no fun, I vote for option number one. Toney may be a 41-year-old, semi-brokedown former boxing great. His best years, along with his days of speaking clearly and coherently, may be behind him. If he were signing on to fight for another MMA organization, White would be quick to cite all that as evidence that his competitors don’t respect the sport or its fans.

(Props: Sherdog)

No longer a free agent, MMA living legend Dan Henderson is slated to challenge Jake Shields for Strikeforce’s middleweight belt at the organization’s next CBS card in April. Dana White may take full responsibility for Hendo’s exit from the UFC, but according to Henderson in the video interview above, the signing was the best thing for him, really: "The opportunity to fight on CBS is huge…and you just don’t get that elsewhere. To have the opportunities to still be able to fight the top guys in the world, that was one of my main concerns, and they have that here as well. There’s no red tape to go through with sponsorships. Clinch Gear‘s not banned from the organization. I’m just happy all the way around."

Responding to White’s recent claims that he’s permanently "done" with Henderson, Dan was his usual respectful self: "I think the fans know Dana White. Personally, as far as our relationship, he’s still gonna be alright with me, but business-wise maybe he has to put on a certain front for certain things. And either way I’ll say that he’s still fat and he needs to diet down a little bit. I’ve been telling him for a long time. Hes spending a lot of money on expanding those suits."

As for his next opponent, Henderson described Jake Shields as "bigger than me…I think he does cut quite a bit of weight to get to ’85" — which seems like an odd claim based on information he probably made up. And sure, it’s no Henderson vs. Silva II, or even Henderson vs. Marquardt, but whaddya gonna do: "I don’t know how excited the fans are gonna be about that fight," Henderson said. "But I think it’s a good matchup and I’m excited about it."

(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.”

We knew this was coming.  Talking with Fanhouse’s Ariel Helwani, UFC president Dana White confirms that Houston Alexander does not have a future in the UFC after his dismal performance against Kimbo Slice at last weekend’s TUF 10 Finale.  Hardly surprising, right?  Alexander had already been run out of the UFC once, and was only brought back because he seemed like a beatable opponent for Kimbo (which he was) with a modicum of name value.  He lost, he looked bad doing it, and so he’s fired again.  Everything here is going according to script.

But remember when Roy Nelson jokingly referred to himself as the UFC’s official suckmeter?  Remember when he said that he was going to be the guy who, if you couldn’t beat him, it meant you didn’t belong in the UFC?  You thinking what I’m thinking here, dog?    

(Dan also took his stapler and three boxes of ballpoint pens from the supply closet. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)

Dana White has never been one to lose a fight gracefully. Now that Dan Henderson has scampered off to rival fight club Strikeforce, it’s time for DW to start telling everybody what a farce Hendo is. As White explained to MMA Fanhouse:

(Dan doesn’t usually pick up hitchhikers, but you got such a pretty mouth…)

After months of speculation from the media and a healthy dose of smack talk from Dana White, Dan Henderson has finally signed a multi-fight deal with Strikeforce, reports MMA Fanhouse.  There’s no word yet when he’ll make his official debut in the organization, or whether he’ll compete primarily as a middleweight or a light heavyweight, but at least one thing is for certain — that chubby British kid who demanded that DW resign Hendo is going to be pissed.

Now that we know where Henderson is going to compete, it’s time to play matchmaker.  Say you’re Strikeforce’s Scott Coker.  You’ve just signed one of the best middleweights in the world, so you could toss him in the mix with guys like Jake Shields, Robbie Lawler, "Mayhem" Miller, Cung Le, so on and so forth.  Or, you might decide that you’ve got enough talent at 185 pounds, and shuffle him into your light heavyweight class so that Gegard Mousasi finally has someone worthwhile to fight. 

There are positives and negatives to either decision, but the pressure’s on.  The board members want answers and the Captain is tired of defending your crazy antics to the Comissioner.  You’ve gotta make the call and make it soon.  So what do you do, hot shot?  What do you do!?

(Props: MMA Fanhouse)

At the post-fight press conference following the TUF 10 Finale, Kimbo Slice was as pleased as you could reasonably expect considering he’d just narrowly scratched out a victory against a guy who all but refused to fight him. Though fans and pundits expected Slice and Houston Alexander to put on a one-round war — a backyard brawl brought to the Octagon — we instead got Minowaman vs. Zuluzinho part 2. "We were prepared for somewhat of his attacks, but I wasn’t prepared for the ring-riding that he did," Kimbo said. Still, he wasn’t going to let Alexander bait him into making a mistake:

The Dana White video blog has once again reared its head to give us a glimpse of the fight night happenings surrounding UFC 106.  Mostly it’s a lot of DW wandering around, shaking hands, going back to the locker room and asking fighters if they’re ready to go (there’s only one right answer to that question), then congratulating the winners and consoling the losers afterwards.  At the 6:55 mark Dana has an uncomfortable encounter with Tito Ortiz and Jenna Jameson, who insists, "He got robbed," even as White tries to avoid looking at her as best as he can.  The whole conversation proves once again that Ortiz’s bitching and complaining never stops — it never even takes a breather.  Josh Koscheck, as you might imagine, is less than sympathetic.

If all this bores you, just skip to the end to see Ariel Helwani get some extended camera time, this time wisely wearing a shirt not made out of bathrobe material.  Chris Horodecki speaking up, plus an entertaining little fight, await you after the jump.

(Scorecard image courtesy of BSurely. Click to enlarge.)

UFC 106′s Griffin/Ortiz rematch was a tricky one to judge, not just because the first two rounds were fairly even, but because it was contested both on the feet and on the ground — and as we’ve seen many times in the past, MMA judges can have vastly different opinions on the relative value of each aspect of a fight. In the end, Glenn Trowbridge saw it 29-28 for Tito Ortiz, while Marcos Rosales had it 29-28 for Griffin. The deciding vote was cast by a guy named Lester Griffin, who, from his angle, witnessed a one-sided shellacking. His 30-27 score for Forrest Griffin was later described as "crazy," "outrageous," and "insane" by Dana White. Lester was the only judge who scored round 1 for Forrest, and (along with Rosales) credited the second frame to Forrest as well, which is arguably an even more controversial choice.

So who is this guy? As jkd4200 pointed out, Lester Griffin is known to some as "Surf Dog," an original member of the full-contact stick-fighting collective Dog Brothers. Warning: What you’re about to see may shock you…

(‘Best eva!’ just doesn’t have the same ring of authority when you say it through a bunch of gauze.)

Dana White posted this picture of a battered Phil Baroni to his Twitter account today, remarking "Phil baroni sent me this today and said ‘welcome back to the ufc’ phil is tough as nails!"  True, but he might also be a tough-as-nails fighter who’s worried about losing his job, hence the subtle reminder that he endured this beatdown for the UFC’s benefit, while only pocketing $25,000 for his trouble. 

If you needed a reminder that fighting other people in a cage was a tough way to make a living, this ought to do it.  Baroni has been in the sport for nearly a decade, and, after taxes, training costs, and management, he comes away with not even enough money to buy a new Toyota Camry.  That’s ironic considering that he now looks like someone who’s been in a pretty bad car accident.  Let’s hope his sponsors came through for him.  Let’s also hope that he’s been putting some of that money away for his retirement, which might be right around the corner.

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. 

(Props: twitter.com/danawhite)

Look, everybody knows that Karo Parisyan is a very troubled young man. But we’re still shocked by the now-emerging news that Parisyan has pulled out of a fight at the last minute for the second time in his UFC career, directly following his nine-month suspension for the use of unapproved meds. Judging from his tweets, it’s obvious that UFC prez Dana White has had enough of Karo’s bullshit, and we may never see the Heat inside of the Octagon ever again. As for Parisyan’s "laundry list of excuses" for canceling his UFC 106 meeting with Dustin Hazelett, MMA Weekly presents one explanation:

However, Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer’s side of the story is quite a bit different. As he told Sherdog:

(Enjoy your long winter breaks, boys.  Try to lay off the Christmas chocolates.)

According to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports, the UFC is spreading the word that May 1 will bring the much-anticipated and very necessary rematch between UFC light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua in Montreal.  That also happens to be May Day, so maybe Machida and Rua will celebrate by leading their fellow UFC workers in a bloody revolution against the bourgeoisie oppressors in the Zuffa front office.  More likely though, they’ll just fight each other for a whole lot of money in front of a packed audience of Quebecois.  

Sure, May is kind of a long time to wait for this rematch, and by then we may have forgotten how heated we were about the controversy surrounding the decision, but after going five hard rounds these guys need some time off before they begin another training camp.  Plus, if the UFC waits long enough, maybe the light heavyweight division will sort itself out and an obvious challenger will appear.  Or maybe by then "Rampage" Jackson will be filming an "A-Team" sequel, Rashad Evans will have joined the cast of "The Real World," and Tito Ortiz will be directing porn movies under the name Rod Poundington.  The way the UFC’s luck has been lately, it’s not really that far-fetched. 

It’s the week of UFC 106, but coming off a trip across the pond for last weekend’s show, Dana White doesn’t feel like he has enough material for a new video blog.  Fortunately for him, his personal videographer never uploaded the fight night footage from UFC 104 in Los Angeles, so why not just put that on the internet and call it good?  Things are going smoothly at first.  DW presses the flesh with some celebrities, talks to some fighters in the locker rooms, passes by ace interviewer and hopelessly unfashionable friend of the Potato Ariel Helwani (is that a flannel shirt? is it 1994?) at the 5:15 mark.  But when he watches refereee Steve Mazzagatti’s oddly-timed stoppage in the Cain Velasquez-Ben Rothwell fight, that’s when White loses his cool just a bit.

"Mazzagatti will fuck up any fight," White says directly into the camera.  "The worst referee in the history of fighting.  Period.  I don’t care if there was a fight back in the old days, okay, the Stone Age.  Mazzagatti is the worst referee ever.  The guy has no business watching mixed martial arts, let alone refereeing it."

White then visited both Velasquez and Rothwell to make sure they both knew what a terrible referee Mazzagatti was, and after that he presumably called Mazzagatti’s children to let them know that their father is a failure.  That part must have been edited out.

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.

("…so I said, ‘Incurable disease? My God, what’s the *good* news?’ And the doctor says, ‘We’re going to name it after you.’")

From the Associated Press:

The Brock Lesnar illness saga seems to get more severe every time Dana White discusses it.  This weekend the UFC president categorized it as "very serious," but not life-threatening.  According to new quotes from DW on TMZ.com today, it’s serious enough that Lesnar’s career could possibly be in jeopardy.  White apparently told TMZ that Lesnar has been hospitalized ever since he collapsed during what was supposed to be a relaxing trip to Canada last week, and he may now need "major surgery" to deal with an intestinal disorder.  Again White ruled out cancer and HIV while saying that he couldn’t get specific about the problem, but any time you’re so sick that people will only say what diseases you don’t have, it’s not encouraging.  As far as his future in the Octagon, White said, "There’s a possibility Lesnar will never fight again."

The TMZ report stands in contrast to one on MMA Weekly, which quotes a source within Lesnar’s camp that downplays that severity of the illness, referring to it as, "just some complications with his illness and he had to be hospitalized for antibiotics."  

We hope that characterization is more accurate.  At the moment, the only thing that seems to be clear is that Lesnar is sick.  How sick, and for how long, is still in question.  Just the same, thoughts, prayers, whatever it is that you do, now might be a good time for it.  Feel better, big guy.

(Props: Smoogy on this epic UG thread.)

Just as Pop Idol spawned American Idol, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? launched Oh, lucky man!, the UFC wants to turn its Ultimate Fighter property into a global franchise. As Dana White told MMA Junkie following UFC 105, international versions of TUF will begin production in seven or eight countries early next year:

All fighters successfully made weight for UFC 105 in Manchester.  That makes for a positive, though boring story, so we’ll just have to content ourselves with the latest installment of Dana White’s video blog.  It seems DW is entertaining himself in England by looking at a mixture of art and oddities, all in the same afternoon.  The things you can do when you’re a rich fight promoter with a love of high-brow culture and freaky weird stuff. 

The highlight here may be White’s face time with fans, some of whom grill him with questions about Strikeforce and Gina Carano.  At about the 5:07 mark we see the world’s biggest Dan Henderson fan, who tells Dana in no uncertain terms, "Sign Hendo back.  He’s the best fighter in the world, sign him back."  That does not sound like a request, Mr. White.  That’s an in-your-face demand.  Pay Henderson his "obscene" amount of money, or face that kid’s chubby wrath.

Full weigh-in results are after the jump.

(Conspicuously absent from this boxing training montage? Anyone seriously trying to hit him back.)

Big news, Potato Nation.  I was just clicking around Twitter, you know, waiting for my Hot Pocket to cook and reading every inane thought that pops into War Machine’s head, when I saw that Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco has formally challenged Anderson Silva to a fight in the UFC and Dana White, presumably after doing a thorough check with Silva’s management, accepted the offer.  Boom!  January 2nd, UFC 108 in Las Vegas, Chad Ochocinco vs. Anderson Silva for the middleweight strap.  Done deal.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  This seems just a little far-fetched.  I mean, isn’t Silva too hurt to fight in January?  And not only does Ochocinco not have any professional MMA fights, much less a contract with the UFC, but the Bengals actually have their last game of the season the very next day at the New York Jets.  How’s he going to swing that?  The answer is, I don’t know and I don’t care.  It must be true because it was on freaking Twitter, the most trusted source of information/self-absorbed sentence fragments of our time. 

According to Ochocinco, he’s "dead serious" and has "a good chance at winning against Silva."  And why not?  One of the world’s best pound-for-pound fighters, if not the best, facing an NFL wide receiver who’s never fought professionally, sounds like a totally serious, not at all absurd, fight of the year candidate to me.  I just wonder how current UFC 108 headliners Cain Velasquez, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Rashad Evans, and Thiago Silva are going to feel when they see this:

(Photo courtesy of FightMagazine.com, where total Midwest mark Neal Taflinger makes the case for more MMA shows in the Midwest. Weird.)

Sometimes – not often, but every once in a while – I really wish Dana White would change up his script just a little bit.  Nothing drastic.  He doesn’t have to call Shinya Aoki the world’s best lightweight or insist that there’s plenty of room for all promotions under the big tent of MMA.  But maybe just once he could offer a reaction to a competitor’s event that isn’t painfully predictable.  For instance, he could say that he enjoyed it, or even that he just totally forgot it was on.  You know, get passive-aggressive instead of aggressive-aggressive for a change. 

It may happen one day, but today is not that day.  When asked by the L.A. Times what he thought of Strikeforce, their ratings, and Fedor Emelianenko, it was like somebody had just pulled DW’s string:

“CBS would be out of their mind to put that rinky-dink [Strikeforce] . . . on the air again . . . and without that backing, [promoters] won’t have the money to pay [Emelianenko]. …The guy just got his face smashed in by Brett Rogers. Do you know what Brock or Frank Mir and Cain Velasquez would do to Brett Rogers?  It’s time to bring this guy [Fedor] in, to see Brock Lesnar smash his head.”

Okay, maybe some explanation is in order…

Cagepotato.com Interviews Dana White – Watch more Funny Videos

The last time Cage Potato sent one of our wily female correspondents to interview a UFC star, it very nearly ended in a sexual assault.  But undaunted, we decided to try again when we heard Dana White would be at the recent “Ultimate Fighter” tryouts, and fortunately for our enthusiastic young interviewer DW is no “Rampage” Jackson.  In this exclusive video interview the UFC prez calls accusations that the UFC gave Kimbo Slice preferential treatment a “crock of shit,” saying that Kimbo had his manager present at his TUF fight, which he claims isn’t necessarily all that special, but no entourage and certainly no phone calls home.  White blames it all on Roy Nelson, but “Big Country isn’t the only one singing that song.  As for his remarks about TUF not being over till it’s over, well, I think we all know what that means: Poppa Slice is going to get to bang again, eventually.

All this, plus commentary on UFC 104, Junie Browning’s departure from the UFC, and what prompted Jackson’s supposed retirement from the UFC in this exclusive video interview.  Enjoy.

Well, this is terrible news.  According to Yahoo! Sports, Brock Lesnar has pulled out of his heavyweight title defense at UFC 106 due to an illness that has sidelined him for "more than three-and-a-half weeks."  Lesnar reportedly told Dana White that he’s never been this sick before, but White, who is not in any way a medical doctor, says he does not believe it’s the Swine Flu, though the Yahoo! article doesn’t say what prompted that diagnosis. 

Judging by Shane Carwin’s Twitter, he heard the news from the MMA media and still hasn’t received any official confirmation from the UFC.  There’s no word yet on exactly how the UFC will reshuffle the lineup for UFC 106, or when Lesnar might be ready to make that title defense.  Right now, all we have is a sick heavyweight champ and a disappointed challenger.  This is why you have to wash your hands, people.  Especially after handling dead woodland creatures or sharing shotguns with strangers.