(What’s more interesting to you — Donald Cerrone‘s wakeboarding career, or Tracy Lee‘s chest? / Video via AlienwareChannel)

- Stephan Bonnar Feels He Can ‘Shock the World’ at UFC 153 (MMAFighting)

- EXCLUSIVE: UFC On Fuel 5 Fight Night Photo Gallery (HeavyMMA)

- Anderson Silva Won’t Stay at Light-Heavyweight, Doesn’t Want to Fight Jon Jones (Fightline)

- Whatever the lady on the left is doing, I want her job. (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- Ronda Rousey Won’t Fight at 145 Due to Trust Issues With Drug Testing (BloodyElbow)

- Dana White Opens Up About His Only Regret — His Offensive Tirade From 2009 (MMAWeekly)

- MMA: Inside the Cage 114: “Faber Stifles the Count” (MMA:ITC)

- 30 Minutes to 3-D Shoulders (MensFitness)

- Beef of the Day: Mitt Romney vs. LeVar Burton (Complex)

- The 50 Weirdest Engagement Portraits Of All Time (WorldWideInterweb)

- Chefs of Anarchy Episode 1: Pig’s Head Dumplings (MadeMan)

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When Frank Mir got injured and had to pull out of his scheduled fight with Strikeforce champion Daniel Cormier for their scheduled November 3rd fight Dana White asked UFC heavyweight Matt Mitrione to fill in for Mir. On Saturday White told reporters that Mitrione had turned down the fight and that he was not happy about it.

“It fucking makes me sick,” White said, according MMA Junkie. “Listen, you don’t want big opportunities, I hear you. I get it, then. All I can say is, I guess he doesn’t want big opportunities. I get it. Duly noted.”

White went on to say that Mitrione’s decision to just continue to train for his already scheduled December 29th against Phil De Fries was “fucking insane.”

“It makes no sense to me, and it’s insane. I’m a little bummed out by it. We’ll figure it out. Yeah, [Mitrione has already got a fight booked]. He said, ‘I’ll just take that one.’”

(White pictured with his crossed fingers out of the frame)

UFC President Dana White does not like MMA trainer Greg Jackson. At all.

He’s also been vocal and degrading in expressing his distaste for the New Mexico coach over the years. From blaming Jackson for fighters’ performances that were less than titillating to White to, more recently, calling Jackson a “sport killer” after his charge Jon Jones turned down a last minute replacement fight with Chael Sonnen at UFC 151, Uncle Dana routinely blasts Jackson.

Those days are over, though, according to White. After yesterday’s UFC on FX event White told assembled media that during a meeting with Jones prior to his title defense before UFC 152, President and Champion struck a deal wherein White would stop insulting Jackson and his camp.

“I sat down with Jon Jones and we talked, I made a deal with Jon,” White said. “I’m not going to say anything about Greg Jackson [anymore].”

(“Ronda, do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong body? Like, maybe your real gender isn’t the one that everybody sees? Oh. Okay. No, I don’t either, I was just asking. Hey, look, Pinkberry.”)

You can tell when UFC president Dana White is excited, because he swears slightly more than he usually does. Here’s what he had to say last week about his recent platonic play-date with Ronda Rousey (via MMAFighting):

“I took Ronda Rousey to the Sons of Anarchy premiere the other day. And you know how Hollywood premieres are with (expletive) people lined up and down the streets. You got the red carpet. So we pull up and you got all the Sons guys, and all the celebrities that are there from FX TV shows. We got out of the car and the whole (expletive) place started screaming ‘Ronda, Ronda, Ronda,’ like (expletive) crazy. Like a (expletive) Kardashian got out of the car. I was like holy (expletive) (expletive) this girl is right there.

“She’s a (expletive) unique individual. She’s like a Diaz brother. She really is. Inside like a (expletive) dude trapped in this beautiful body. The reason I got interested in women’s MMA is because of her…everyone is like it’s cause she’s good-looking and ‘Dana blah-blah.’ Gina Carano is good-looking too. She’s very pretty. There’s (expletive) something different about Ronda Rousey.

(During international expansion negotiations, UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta lets his pecs and arms do the talking.)

MMA Junkie has an interesting item up on their site from UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta where the owner/executive discusses the organization’s expansion into India. If you’re anything like this writer, your initial reaction to the news that the UFC was looking to break into the sub-continent nation with The Ultimate Fighter: India was, “Yeah, that’s a huge market! What with all their people, and such. Wait, do they like MMA in India? Are there Indian MMA fighters?”

Perhaps you’re much more worldly and cultured than I (more than likely) and didn’t think that. But in the Junkie article, Fertitta admits that the UFC is starting from scratch in India. He just believes that there are cultural forces and trends that might make Indians of a certain age very receptive to MMA and the UFC.

“It’s a market we think has a lot of potential, but we are literally starting from ground zero,” Fertitta said. “People (there) really don’t know anything about this sport or the UFC.”

Meh.

Perhaps you are part of the ever-diminishing group of people who chose to watch The Ultimate Fighter on a Friday night before going into town on a taxi, having a couple of drugs, having dinner, having a threesome, going home again, having a shower, going out again, more drugs, more threesomes – basically living the rock n’ roll lifestyle of the 18-34 year olds that this show targets. Or perhaps you are straight edge, in which case TUF serves as a warm-up for your night of  Mr. Pibb (or some other beverage, if you enjoy missing all the cool things), lines of Pixy Stix and threesomes. You know, standard practice.

If you tuned in during the first episode, the good news is that you were treated to a night of actual fights instead of drunken arguments, disturbing pranks and more of the stuff you hate about the show. Sure, we still had multiple dudes entering the cage sporting Tatanka/Jorgensen hawks, but not everyone can pull off a normal haircut, I guess.

Right off the bat things get awkward between Dana White and Roy Nelson. Before the fights, Big Country informs the fighters that it’s important to entertain the fans, but winning should be their main priority. Dana White lets Shane Carwin address the UFC hopefuls before he tells the fighters how wrong Roy Nelson is for saying that. That moment probably would have been pretty effective in building interest in the Roy Nelson vs. Dana White storyline if Dana White hasn’t been telling everyone who will listen how fed up he is with Big Country.

As for the actual fights, we’ve got results after the jump, including team selections.

(He’s just jolly. Who could begrudge him that outlook?)

Since tonight marks the premiere of TUF 16, coached by UFC heavyweights Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin, and featuring Uncle Dana on backup vocals, it seems like a good time to round up all the vitriol spewed at Nelson by Carwin and White, as well as preview all the drama to come. In recent interviews, both Shane and the Baldfather spoke about their distaste for Big Boy Roy.

Carwin is succinct in telling Bleacher Report, ”I hate [Nelson]. I dislike him. I hate him as a person. That’s just it.”

Apparently, Shane feels that Roy poses as a hardworking blue-collar guy, but instead spends most of his time complaining. “He always has an excuse for everything. He claims to be this average, normal guy and that’s who he tries to reach too, the blue-collar workers,” Carwin tells BR.

“Well, that’s me. That’s where I came from. I was the one working at 15 years old and working concrete in construction, working at meat packing plants, throwing boxes and things like that. He hasn’t had a job in his life. This is the only thing he has ever done. He’s the farthest thing from a blue-collar worker that he claims to be.”

While Carwin chastises Nelson for not doing enough chores around the family farm as a kid, White has his own reasons for criticizing the more rotund TUF coach:

(Machida has a lot riding on this fight: A UFC title shot, the respect of Brazil’s fans, and a chance to one day sit on the Cool Guy Bench.)

The UFC’s light-heavyweight title picture has become quite a twisted web over the last few weeks. When Dan Henderson blew out his knee before his scheduled title challenge against Jon Jones at UFC 151 (R.I.P.), the call went out to Lyoto Machida to meet Jones at UFC 152, since the Dragon was officially next in line. But then Machida declined the offer, and yada yada yada, we now have an aging middleweight looking to shock the world next weekend.

So does that mean that Henderson keeps his spot at the front of the 205-pound contender-line when he heals up? Not exactly. According to a new report from Dave Meltzer on MMAFighting, UFC president Dana White now intends to have Hendo and Machida fight each other to determine the true #1 LHW contender. The planned booking seems to be motivated at least partly by anger. As Meltzer writes:

(Fighter escapes power-bomb to land big knockout on neckbearded savage, via MMA: Inside the Cage.)

- Dana White Goes Off Again on Jon Jones, Greg Jackson (MMAFighting)

- Contracts, How Do They Work? The Bellator Story (BloodyElbow)

- UFC 153 Timetable: How The Rio Card Recovered From Devastation (HeavyMMA)

- Matt Lindland Discusses His Future, Fedor Emelianenko, Fallout With the UFC, And More (Fightline)

- Woman vs. Workout: Model Lauren Berlingeri Learns the MMA Basics With Louis Gaudinot (YouTube.com/3V)

- Must…resist…horsemeat joke… (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- A Female MMA Fighter Will Be a Character in the Upcoming ‘Dead or Alive 5′ Game (MiddleEasy)

- The 25 Fittest Football Players (MensFitness)

- The 50 Most Brutal Hits in NFL History (Complex)

- Movie Supercut Video: Animals Covering Their Eyes With Their Paws (FilmDrunk)

- The 50 Coolest Kids in the History of the Internet (WorldWideInterweb)

- How to Fight With Your Wife (MadeMan)

- 20 Extremely Remote Landmarks (EgoTV)

(It was on this night that Dana realized: No matter how many f-bombs you can get away with in public, one n-bomb will still get you shot.)

As difficult as it is to be a poster-designer for the UFC these days, it seems that it is even more trying to be a fan of the promotion in general, especially one who actually purchases tickets and pay-per-views (chumps). Main events, co-main events, and entire cards are being switcherooed, discombobulated, kerfluffled, skip-skopped, skallywagged, and outright cancelled seemingly willy-nilly, and the constant change of pace is clearly taking its toll on UFC fans around the world.

Realizing the mounting frustration that has taken over our already acrimonious audience, we’ve tried to coax you away from this harsh, unforgiving world of news and enchant you with fancy knockouts, hot chicks, and pot-shots at Jose Canseco to make it all better. Basically, we’ve rubbed some ‘tussin on your open, festering wounds, but as Sam Peebles will tell you, no amount of Bull’s Eye Red Licorice will make up for the fact that you were raped in the library bushes as a child.

…

I forgot where I was going with that analogy, but here’s a supercut of Dana White’s best f-bombs to help get you through this topsy-turvy day in MMA.

(We can pay for your elbow surgery, Rampage, but the UFC’s insurance policy does not cover gonorrhea.) 

In the past few years, we have seen former light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson turn from a Ricardo Arona-powerbombing, Chuck Liddell-stomping, Southern California freeway-racing SOB into a tirelessly complaining, terrible rapping, transsexual raping shell of his former self. His ongoing war with the UFC and their insistence on giving him “boring fights” has grown tired to even the biggest Rampage fan at this point, and regardless of how hard he has tried to convince us that “big fights” are waiting for him outside of the UFC, most of us just assumed that once he got the tar beat out of him by Glover Teixeira at UFC 153, he would abandon MMA altogether, star in a series of direct-to-DVD films in the vein of Blood and Bone, and fade into obscurity until 2025, when he will be arrested for binging on 5 hour energy drinks, stripping down to his birthday suit, and destroying a magazine kiosk in New York City because “my neighbors demon-possessed dog told me to.” Or something like that.

In either case, it seemed as if we would finally reach the light at the end of the figurative tunnel at UFC 153, and could bid Jackson adieu once and for all. Because clearly, his passion for the sport had dwindled beyond the point of return.

Well, my friends, Dana White just dropped a bombshell on Twitter, and not even Sly Stallone can get us out of this tunnel:

Rampage is hurt and out of UFC 153 RIO. SUCKS!!!!!!

You can almost feel the apathy in White’s tweet.

Ariel Helwani confirmed that Jackson suffered an elbow injury, and that the UFC is currently looking for a replacement opponent for Teixeira.

We will keep you informed as things transpire.

-J. Jones

(Props: ricomix3000 via BloodyElbow)

It’s cool, we can say that about UFC president Dana White because he says it himself in this video. Of course, if we also said that Dana was “hunched over like a bridge-troll,” well that would just be hurtful and inappropriate.

So here’s Dana posing with his favorite female fighter Ronda Rousey at a premiere for the new season of the FX biker drama Sons of Anarchy. I’ll say one thing about DW: Whenever he does a photo-op with an attractive woman, he doesn’t act like a hover-handing sissy. He leans in and grabs a piece. Best perk of the job, if you ask me.

(Often misunderstood and unappreciated.)

By Elias Cepeda

UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has been derided as immature, arrogant and selfish for much of his career, especially since turning down a short-notice replacement fight against Chael Sonnen at UFC 151 after Dan Henderson dropped out due to injury. But in a recent interview with the Associated Press, Jones sounded calm, collected and measured, especially in comparison to organization president Dana White‘s comments on the situation, as he spoke about what he’s learned. He also publicly criticized White for the first time, which probably won’t help his reputation among the fans who already despise him.

“I had to do what’s right for myself by turning down that fight, Dana had to do what was right for himself by putting the blame on everyone else except for himself,” Jones told Dan Gelston of the AP. “The lesson to be learned is, at the end of the day, you have to protect yourself and your family.”

Jones told the AP that he has not yet spoken with his boss about the comments, but appears to have had his eyes opened to how quickly UFC brass and fans can turn on him. ”I think in the future, this can make me and Dana even better off,” Jones said. ”For him to get out how he felt about me in that situation, it will help me look at things more business-oriented. A lot of good can come out of it. Fighters can learn the lesson of doing what’s best for themselves and not feeling like puppets. I think the UFC has learned a lesson of making sure they stay loyal to the fans and give them full cards.”

We still don’t know if we’ll get a super fight between welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre and middleweight champion Anderson Silva one day, but at least it seems that UFC President Dana White is on our side with this thing. “I think we’re pretty close,” White told Ariel Helwani on Fuel TV’s UFC Tonight. “I mean if Georges St. Pierre beats [Carlos] Condit, that could be the next fight.”

In other words, St. Pierre vs. Condit isn’t “meaningless” after all. And if GSP vs. Anderson does happen, White told Helwani that it would likely be held at a 180-pound catch weight.

“At one point it sounded like Anderson wanted to go to 170 and take Georges’ welterweight title,” White said. “That was what he was talking at one point. Then it was 180 as a catchweight, because Georges doesn’t want to go to 185, he’s going to stay at ’70. He said if ‘I had to make the move to go to ’85, I’d have to stay at ’85.’ We figured that a 180-pound catchweight makes sense.”

Sounds good to us, and Silva has seemed to do everything he could to signal that he wants that fight (from insulting the entire middleweight division to expressing a willingness to drop down in weight) but there’s a lot standing in the way of that dream match-up from happening. First of all, Condit could beat St. Pierre in November.

(Great, so now he’s swagger-jacking Isaac the Bartender?)

If you can put down your haterade and suspend your disdain for just a bit today, we suggest listening to UFC light heavyweight Jon Jones discuss his decision to not fight Chael Sonnen on short notice at UFC 151, in a full-length interview with The MMA Hour. The full interview is after the jump.

Having had a week to reflect on it, and despite all the criticism that has come his way since he “murdered” this weekend’s scheduled event, Jones does not regret his choice to not fight Sonnen. “I actually think it was a really smart personal career decision,” the champ said.

Jones said that immediately after he got the offer he assembled all of his coaches to get their opinions. Jones said that while they all told him that they had “no doubt” that the light-heavyweight champ could win a fight against Sonnen, they also let it be known that the trash-talking middleweight was a totally different fighter than his original UFC 151 opponent Dan Henderson.

“They honestly believed I could win the fight. They also said, ‘I want you to be aware of the fact that you prepared for a complete opposite style.’”

(What a nice-looking young man.)

UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones spends a lot of time on twitter. These days, it takes a lot of guts for him to do so.

When would be-challenger Dan Henderson pulled out of his scheduled UFC 151 engagement with the champ and Jones turned down a short-notice replacement fight with Chael Sonnen, Jones was thrown under the bus by UFC President Dana White and fighters and fans alike joined in on the hate-a-thon, bashing Jones in interviews and on twitter. Jones has been all over the map since then.

First, he sequestered himself away with no comments, then he was defensive. Eventually he was apologetic. Last night he jokingly set on blaming Henderson on Twitter for their not fighting last night as he had planned.

When a fan tweeted Saturday that thanks to Jones, “he had no plans tonight,” Jones retorted with a Hemingway reference. “Thanks to the old man and his knee I don’t either,” Jones replied.

Our friends at With Leather just put together an incredible/awful collection of cheesy WWF promo photos from the late ’80s and early ’90s, and as we were browsing through some of these gems while drinking our coffee this morning, we couldn’t escape the eerie feeling that we’ve seen these faces elsewhere. The same snarling mugs, the same wacky personas — it’s obvious that some of our favorite MMA fighters owe a debt to these guys. So follow us back to pro wrestling‘s golden age, and allow us to make some startling comparisons.

Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart was the original…
Hillbilly Jim was the original…
Legion of Doom were the original…
Junk Yard Dog was the original…
Ultimate Warrior was the original…
The Honky Tonk Man was the original…
Tatanka was the original…
Big Boss Man was the original…
George “The Animal” Steele was the original…

(“Okay, new plan. We change our names, cross the border into Mexico, and open a bar on a nice beach somewhere. Nobody ever has to know about what happened here. Twenty years from now, we’ll be laughing about it.”)

If you’re one of the last remaining Jon Jones supporters on Earth, it must seem that we’re just piling on at this point — like we wake up every morning searching for new ways to drag down the UFC light-heavyweight champ and steal his swag. But honestly, this stuff finds us. And as much as I’d rather spend my time on more relevant MMA coverage, I just can’t let this one go. Here’s an unbelievable detail from a new Wrestling Observer article, passed along by BloodyElbow:

Jones was very upset after Chael began calling him out and mocking him on Twitter, going as far as to contact [UFC president Dana] White and ask him to tell Chael to stop.

Let’s just state the obvious, here — this is the kind of thing a child would do. And it’s the last thing Jones needs at a moment when many MMA fans already view him as a coward for the way he wouldn’t accept a fight against Sonnen on short notice. (Once again, Chael’s ability to get inside a rival’s head is astounding, and he just picked up a boatload of new ammunition for their inevitable fight. And yes, Jones vs. Sonnen will happen someday. Dana dislikes Jones too much and loves money too much for it not to happen.)

Meanwhile on the UG, Joe Rogan made a post trying to put the recent Jon Jones hate-orgy into perspective:

(Five minutes later, Lesnar whipped up a fabulous vulture shit salad and the two feasted for days. Photo props go to the UG.)

Here’s what you need to know: a UGer by the screenname hmb recently reached out to UFC President Dana White and asked whether or not The Baldfather thought he could sign Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor Emelianenko in the near future. Improbable, we know. But being a man of the people, DW actually responded to the anonymous question with a question of his own:

Is this the fight u guys want to see? Post a thread asking if people want to see this fight.

Although the likelihood of this pairing ever coming to fruition is beyond implausible, the response was an overwhelming “yes.” And since the popular subject on CP today seems to be fantasy matchups and whether or not we’d actually want to see them, why not partake in a little more needless speculation?

We’ve added a poll after the jump to gauge your level of excitement for this potential match. Vote if you’d like to, and feel free to argue over who would win and how in the comments section. Seriously, we love it when you argue.

(“My advice would be to find a nice cave somewhere and go into hiding for three days. When you come out, they’ll worship you.”)

According to our latest homepage poll, a full 49% of you believe that Jon Jones deserves most of the blame for UFC 151′s abrupt cancellation, compared to just 27% for UFC president Dana White, the guy who actually canceled the event. Public opinion of Jones has gone from bad to irredeemably awful in the last week, and the apology he posted on twitter this weekend probably won’t help much:

“Carrying the cross for my company’s decision. If someone has to take the blame, I will accept full responsibility for the way UFC 151 was canceled. I want to sincerely apologize to all the other athletes/fans who’s time and money was waisted. [sic] I feel terrible about the way that was handled.”

Okay, so we’re just assuming that Jones is comparing himself to Jesus in that first sentence; he could also be comparing himself to Kimo Leopoldo. But considering that there’s already a conception of Jones as a person whose holier-than-thou attitude doesn’t match his behavior, all Jesus-based self-references should probably be avoided for the time being. It’s the kind of thing a publicist would tell Jones, if he still had one.

Pictured: Their approximate reactions to finding out “garbage-ass” was a real phrase.

One week ago, Ben published an article voicing concerns over how weak UFC 151′s main card was. But it was cool, because Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson was going to be such an awesome fight. Two days ago, Jones vs. Henderson was scrapped and UFC 151 was canceled. [Ed. note: Damn, two days? Feels like we've been covering this forever.] Even though most of us acknowledged that the cancellation of the event was at least partially due to the garbage-assness of pretty much the entire card, we were too busy talking about Jon Jones ducking Chael Sonnen/Sonnen attempting to troll his way into an immediate title shot (depending on which side of the fence you’re on) to really delve into the issue. But now that the UFC has started to transplant the canceled UFC 151 fights to other cards, it’s time to take a closer look at that issue for a moment.

The bouts from UFC 151 are quickly being rescheduled for different cards, with UFC on FX 5 taking a significant chunk of them. As we covered in yesterday’s link dump, UFC 151′s planned co-main event, Jake Ellenberger vs. Jay Hieron, will now be the co-main event of UFC On FX 5. This won’t be the only fight from UFC 151′s main card that will now be padding UFC on FX 5 – Dennis Hallman vs. Thiago Tavares, Danny Castillo vs. Michael Johnson and Shane Roller vs. Jacob Volkmann will be moved to this card as well. UFC on Fuel TV 6 will now be featuring fights between bantamweights Takeya Mizugaki and Jeff Hougland and flyweights John Lineker and Yasuhiro Urushitani, while Kyle Noke and Charlie Brenneman will do the man dance on the undercard of UFC 152.

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s worth mentioning that absolutely none of these fights – three of which were on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 151, mind you – have made it to the main card of an upcoming pay-per-view. Now I understand that financially, most fighters who were expecting a paycheck on September 1 simply can’t afford to wait until November’s UFC 154 to fight again. But that’s not the issue: The issue is that the UFC could afford to move pay-per-view quality fights *makes this hand gesture* to free television in the first place.

(“Vitor, my brother, you must take this fight for me. I have, how you say, too much pussy.”)

Remember how badly Lyoto Machida wanted a rematch with Jon Jones? Well, he didn’t want it badly enough to fight Jones on a month’s notice. In the latest chapter of the UFC’s most bizarre storyline of 2012, it was revealed late last night by MMAFighting that Machida decided he needed more time to prepare for another title fight against the light-heavyweight champ, and has turned down the opportunity. Machida had briefly been scheduled to face Jones at UFC 152 on September 22nd. (Yes, we’re calling it UFC 152 again. “UFC 151 will be remembered as the event Jon Jones and Greg Jackson murdered,” according to UFC president Dana White.)

The UFC’s next choice for Jones’s opponent was, logically, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, who also “won impressively” at UFC on FOX 4. But as Lance Pugmire of the LA Times tweeted, Shogun also turned down the fight. Unbelievable. And so, Dana’s hate list grows larger by the day.

But look, on the horizon…a savior. For some reason, middleweight contender Vitor Belfort was offered the chance to fight Jones at UFC 152, which he happily accepted. Said Belfort: “Where a lot of guys are acting like divas I think this is a big challenge for any fighter. I have all the respect for Jones. That’s why you can’t miss this competition. I will not let no one down. I come from the times of Carlson Gracie. He lives inside of me.” Belfort was originally slated to fight Alan Belcher at UFC 153 in Rio.

(Suddenly, the decision to sponsor this guy seems like not so great of an idea.) 

Boy oh boy, have the events of this afternoon trapped everyone in a glass case of emotion or what? We’re going to forgo the typical “aftermath” aspect of this…aftermath, because suffice it to say, you are already aware of what has gone down. Looking ahead, it appears Jon Jones will be facing Lyoto Machida (again) at UFC 152 in Toronto (again). It also appears that all of the claims that “Lyoto TOTALLY won a round against Bones, you guys” — as if he, you know, didn’t get sliced open and choked unconscious shortly thereafter — have had some effect on the bookies. At least for now.

BestFightOdds currently has Jones listed between -475 and -485 for his rematch with “The Dragon,” which is actually not as bad (for Machida, at least) as the -600 Jones was listed at when these two first squared off. Who knows how far that number will sway in the next few weeks, but we’re guessing it will only increase in Jones’ favor as time passes.

But that’s not the story here. The real story is that, due to the cancellation of UFC 151, a lot of fighters are getting royally screwed. Sure, the UFC could reimburse them with their show money (as if they’re not losing a shitload of it already), but these fighters rely on sponsorship money to truly put them in the green. That money has seemingly dissapeared, and man are they pissed about it. After all, when you only fight a few times a year (at best) for next-to-nothing, missing a fight can have serious financial consequences. And the poor saps who will now be missing another paycheck are letting Jones have it on Twitter.

The best responses are after the jump. 

(WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S NO FOAMING OF THE MOUTH ALLOWED IN THIS ARENA?!)

You might recall that in the immediate aftermath of Ronda Rousey’s win over Sarah Kaufman last weekend, “Rowdy” called out former women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg. Unlike past Strikeforce events, Cyborg was not allowed to enter the ring and cause a full-fledged riot for our entertainment, and in fact was actually removed from her seat in the audience before the fight even started.

Why, you ask? Well, it turns out that the California State Athletic Commission has a rule declaring that any fighter under a current suspension is not allowed inside to be at a professional mixed martial arts event. Cyborg shared your current confusion while she was being removed form the audience, telling Tatame in a recent interview:

I watched all fights but on the last one, Ronda’s, a woman working on the event came to tell me I had to leave because the commission doesn’t accept suspended athletes on the shows. My manager talked to the guys at the commission and there’s really a law that says that.

I was upset for the way they treated me. They could’ve pulled me on a corner and told me, not in front of the fans. I was taking pictures and they interrupted me, saying I had to go. It was very disrespectful. I believe a champion deserves to be treated with respect. Everyone knows an athlete’s life isn’t easy, so all fighters deserve respect. When I was in Brazil I watched UFC and there was no problem.

An odd rule indeed, made all the more unusual by the fact that the commission decided to wait until the main event to inform Cyborg that she wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place, which is the equivalent of letting a homeless man wander into your dinner party uninvited and waiting until the nightcap to kick him out.

More news on the Cyborg/Rousey match is after the jump.

(Realizing his impending doom, Chael signaled to his wife that her weekly sandwich quota would be doubling in the near future.) 

When it was originally announced that Chael Sonnen would be returning to the light heavyweight division to face Forrest Griffin at UFC 155, we took it as a classic case of a fighter changing weight classes in order to save his career. He had come up short in both his title shots at middleweight, and as Josh Koscheck would tell you if he was aware of it, the chances of any 0-2 fighter receiving a third shot against the same champion is next to impossible. And being that Chael fraking Sonnen is not a man who fights anything but marquee fights these days, his chances to make waves at 205 were clearly better than his chances at 185. The fact that he could barely even make the announcement without drawing Jon Jones into a Twitter war only confirms Sonnen’s devious intentions.

And as is usually the case, Chael was successful in drawing us out of the woodwork to throw his name in with the phrase “title shot,” whether it was in agreement or bitter disapproval of the idea. Because Sonnen is like the entire cast of a heist movie packed into one person when it comes to hustling in the MMA game, capable of releasing more red herrings, smoke signals, and false MacGuffins than Ocean’s Eleven through Thirteen combined. Hell, I immediately launched into a vast conspiracy theory in which Sonnen became the number one contender and Jones possibly faked injury in order to set up a fight between them down the line.

But I live in a world of paranoia, delusion, and fear. One that apparently many of you are living in as well, because in a recent appearance on Las Vegas’ “Dave and Mahoney” show, Dana White addressed the concerns that a lot of us are sharing, another undeserved title shot for Sonnen.

Dana’s remarks are after the jump. 

(Today, the Modern Methodist Church of Southern Viejo. Tommorow, THE WORLD.)

After spending a two-day stint in Orange County jail, complete with psychological evaluations and all, it appears that Jason “Mayhem” Miller has been released after posting the required $20,000 bail earlier today.

Living up to his nickname, Miller was responsible for what will likely become one of the most notorious arrests in MMA History when he was found naked inside a Mission Viejo church Tuesday, which he had both vandalized and sprayed with a fire extinguisher. Oddly enough, officers on the scene stated that Miller seemed to be completely coherent when he was discovered, and are currently awaiting a toxicology report to determine if he was under any mind altering substances at the time the crime was committed. Given the quick turnaround time, we’d guess that he was either on hippie crack or an epic dosage of whip-its.

Dana White, a.k.a the man who broke Mayhem’s heart and unknowingly caused all of this, has yet to comment on Miller’s arrest. Luckily, we’ve done it for him:

I tell you, this f*cking guy, with his f*cking f*ggy pink boas and boom boxes and dance moves and Japanese schoolgirls. He really needs a f*cking clue. It’s bad enough that he lost to f*cking Launchpad McQuack in his last performance, but now he goes out and pulls this sh*t. That’s all I gotta say, except f*ck you, f*ck Josh Gross, and f*ck Fedor. Dana out!

Word has it Mayhem is now accepting requests for birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, art gallery openings, or whatever event you would be willing to shuttle him to through his Facebook page. We’re not sure what it is he will do once he gets there, but you can rest assured that it will not be boring.

-J. Jones

(Beneath that skin-tight cat suit lies a quiet, innocent girl who just wants some alone time. And beneath her lies a limb-destroying human bear trap.)

Have you ever wondered what it must be like behind-the-scenes of a staredown for a fight promo? Surely the tension must be insurmountable, with members of each fighter’s crew present on set to separate the two between each take. Well, if the latest Showtime episode of All Access: Ronda Rousey is any indication, the fighters actually choose to discuss how bad they smell to one another, all the while trying to remain serious while the camera is rolling.

Challenger Sarah Kaufman is the first to break the ice, declaring that her “left armpit smells,” whereas Ronda admits that she probably smells “like leprosy” as a result of her catsuit-clad antics she participated in just moments before. We know, we know, you all just went from six to midnight.

Anyway, so begins the second episode of All Access, which delves further into the training strategies of both the champion and the challenger. Where Rousey is content to hit the pads with Richard Perez in between sessions at Team Cesar Gracie, Kaufman prefers to just bang on the drum kit a little and punch bitches in the face. An interesting, if not unorthodox strategy.

And things get really interesting around the six-minute mark, where Ronda receives the first copies of her ESPN “The Body” Issue. Even she seems impressed by her own hotness, as well as the fact that ESPN showed far more butt than she expected (Author’s note: Thanks guys, it’s good to know all those “incentives” we sent you were not in vain.) 

Full video after the jump. 

(Frankie Edgar vs. Dominick Cruz for the UFC bantamweight title, with special guest referee Michael Vick. Dare we dream? | Photo via the best communications director in MMA)

For years, everyone from UFC President Dana White to fans of former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar have called for “The Answer” to drop down to a more natural competition weight of 145 pounds because he’s so much smaller than just about everyone he’s faced in the Octagon. To this point, Edgar has only seemed to be annoyed at the suggestion — after all, he clearly has no problem competing with the relative behemoths at lightweight — but now even his team seems to be saying he should drop down…to bantamweight.

You read that correctly (or maybe you didn’t, we really can’t vouch for either your vision or literacy, so get off our back, ok?): Edgar’s boxing coach and The World’s Strongest Man Mark Henry says that he’d like to see Edgar, who he says walks around at just 157-159 pounds, instead campaign at 135 pounds:

“Me personally, I’d like to see Frankie for like a year to take a rest on his back and his body to fight people at 135 to do what everybody in the whole MMA community is [doing] and suck him down to nothing, looking like their death the day of the weigh-in and fight people that weigh as much as him,” Henry said while a guest on the SiriusXM Fight Club radio show Monday.

(Oh, you said you have a *flaggy* tattoo? I must have misheard you.) 

By Nathan Smith

During a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Dana White said, “Globally, we’re already bigger than the NFL.” From a global stand point that may be true, but in the Pulp Fiction-esque United States, the NFL is still Marsellus Wallace. The UFC may never gain the notoriety that the NFL has in America but stand-out fighters continue to ink major product endorsement deals. Anderson Silva (Burger King, Budweiser), Georges St. Pierre (Gatorade, UnderArmor) and Jon Jones (Nike) are paving the way to success for future mixed martial artists. Although big-time corporate sponsorship for fighters is in its infancy, the other major professional sports leagues have seen their athletes gain almost as much notoriety outside the lines as within.

The UFC was purchased by Zuffa just over a decade ago and has been charging towards global domination ever since. Sure, the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL (well, maybe not the NHL) playoffs and championship contests annihilate the UFC ratings-wise but the premier MMA organization is gaining at a rapid pace. Take into account the combined several hundred years of history the 4 “major” professional leagues hold and it is glaringly apparent that the UFC and its stars are closing the gap like a fat dude towards a parked Roach Coach.

Comparing the UFC’s ratings and popularity with the aforementioned leagues is somewhat asinine and it would not be fair or rational to compare athletes from other sports with UFC fighters – but you have visited Cagepotato.com. We have never been accused of being fair or rational and matching fighters with their counterparts from around the world of other sporting organizations seemed as logical as a booze-filled headset.

Anderson Silva and Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan has become the benchmark to which all athletes are measured, although the comparisons have transcended far beyond the realm of athletics. Any activity or event draws comparisons to #23 (or #45 whatever). From Ken Jennings being the Michael Jordan of Jeopardy, to Joey Chestnut being the Michael Jordan of gluttony or Peter North being the Michael Jordan of male climax volume, Jordan is synonymous with superiority. In every single poll taken in the last decade regarding the “Top 100 NBA players in History” the battle is for #2 through #100. Michael Jordan is considered the greatest of all time in his medium (and I am not talking about minor league baseball).  Anderson Silva, with his perfect 15-0 record and 10 consecutive title defenses in the UFC, has done things that may never be accomplished again in the history of mixed martial arts. Some day a fighter may come along (if he hasn’t already *foreshadowing*) and surpass Silva’s records but until his numbers fall, Anderson Silva is the Michael Jordan of MMA – period.

(Dana White only has three looks: The “Life is Good”, The “Bouncer”, and the “Fuck You and the Horse You Crushed With Your Obesity”, displayed here.) 

If there of any of you left who haven’t grown tired of the, for lack of a better word, tiresome formula that The Ultimate Fighter has devolved into over the years, which is to say, fighters argue–>training montage–>coaches argue–>fighters argue–>actual fight, then boy do we have good news for you. Not only are you going to be treated to the verbal back-and-forth of one Roy Nelson and one Shane Carwin throughout the season, you are more than likely going to see “Big Country” and UFC President Dana White at each others throats as well, as both men have basically been taking a fat steaming dump on the others chests via various MMA media outlets lately. Metaphorically, of course.

TUF 16, which is set to debut on September 14th on FX (yep, that’s a Friday), will showcase 32 welterweights attempting to battle their way to the next interim championship of the world, but it seems the real firefight will be between Nelson and White, who just can’t seem to get along on anything. Take for instance, the TUF 10 winner’s recent interview with MMAJunkie, where he basically calls Dana a lying wannabe fighter:

[The onset tension is] probably because he wants to be a fighter, and he’s not. I think we were talking about coaching or something like that, and [White's] not a coach. There’s an understanding of being a fighter, and I don’t think he understands. 

I’m always at the back of the bus when it comes to the UFC. I’m just trying to further MMA to the next level, hold journalism up to higher standards, holding fights to higher standards, holding promotions to higher standards, holding athletic commissions to higher standards, and even holding the fans to higher standards. 

You never know with Dana. Dana will tell you guys one thing, and then five minutes later tell you another. Last week, ‘Shogun’ and Brandon Vera were fighting for the title, and now all of the sudden, Machida and Ryan Bader are, too. Next thing you know, he’s going to say Randy Couture gets the next title shot when he comes back.