(Remember when this happened? Yup. It was kinda awesome)

We’ve known for some time now that Dan Henderson will get the next chance to dethrone young phenom 205 pound UFC champ Jon Jones, and now we have an idea of when that will happen. “On Thursday afternoon, UFC president Dana White said that the organization was targeting an early September date for the UFC light-heavyweight champion’s next title defense, likely on Labor Day weekend,” MMA Fighting’s Mike Chiappetta reports.

“The UFC currently has no September 1 show on its official schedule, but if and when it gets added, future Hall of Famer Dan Henderson is on deck in the challenger’s role.”

Details and bad-ass highlight videos after the jump.

By Elias Cepeda

Mike Rio vs. Andy Ogle seems like a good enough fight for this week’s contest, but the Brit goes further in predicting what it will be like. “It’s going to be a very attractive fight,” Ogle jokes. “It’s going to be a sexy fight.”

But before we can get to that, we are shown Team Cruz’ Sam Sicilia being comforted in his locker room by Mike Chiesa, who is on Faber’s team but is Sam’s best friend from back home. Sam finished last week’s fight much stronger than Chris Saunders and its almost a crime that the fight didn’t go a third round.

In an interview, Sam is clearly devastated but hits the right note. “I’d rather lose that fight than have a killer day in sales,” he says.

That really is what The Ultimate Fighter is about for these guys – they are fighting to be able to spend their lives doing something they love.

Coaches’ Challenge

In past years we’ve seen TUF coaches compete for cash against one another in bowling and ping pong. This year turns out to be a tad different – Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz are competing at firing hand guns, rifles and grenade launches.

Yes, really.

(Sadly, the fight between Penn and Jon Fitch was ruled a draw and the puppy was left without a home)

UFC President Dana White continues to say that future hall of famer BJ Penn will indeed return to the Octagon, despite Penn’s coyness. But Thursday, White provided more details to MMA Junkie on what weight the pound for pound great will fight at, and revealed that Penn declined a bout with Strikeforce champ Gilbert Melendez.

“I tried to do [Melendez vs. Penn], but it was at the time when B.J. was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not fighting for a while,’” White told Junkie.

Apparently, he didn’t say if that match up would have meant Penn going to Strikeforce or Melendez going to the UFC.

UFC President Dana White says that Bellator import, Hector Lombard, might just get a middleweight title shot if he beats Brian Stann in his UFC debut. “When you talk about cleaning out a division, there’s always another guy who comes up, even for a guy like Anderson…We just brought in Lombard. (If) Lombard beats Stann. … that (title) fight makes sense,” Sergio Non reports White as saying, for USA Today.

And, oh yeah, Stann vs. Lombard will headline UFC on Fox 4, according to MMA Fighting ace Mike Chiappetta. When a fan asked Chiappetta, via twitter, if the fight was set to be the main event for Fox’ fourth UFC installment, he replied in the affirmative.

(Pictured above: Nate Diaz and a pre-beard Johny Hendricks.) 

Yesterday, the UFC and FOX held an open media conference call, which featured UFC President Dana White, middleweight contender and FOX analyst Brian Stann, and Fox Sports Media Group Co-President Eric Shanks taking questions prior to this weekend’s UFC on FOX event. Among the questions to come up was one regarding the likelihood of the Nate Diaz/Jim Miller winner receiving the next title shot at 155 pounds. True to form, Dana White did not beat around the bush, declaring that to be true for at least half of the participants involved:

Should Diaz win, Diaz is definitely getting a title shot. Should Miller win, Miller’s probably going to be a fight or two away.

White when on to state that the same applied for Johny Hendricks should he get past Josh Koscheck on Saturday, whereas our boy Fraggle would have to get a couple more wins under his belt. Considering that both Koscheck and Miller recently suffered losses to the current champions of their respective weight classes (twice over if your Koscheck), this seems to make sense.

(Urijah’s lowest moment as an MMA fan? One can only ponder…)

This weekend, the UFC will make its glorious return to the only network that can bash gay rights and advertise Glee within the same half hour. We’re talking about FOX, of course. Featuring Jim Miller vs. Nate Diaz in a probable number one lightweight contender bout, a grudge match between Josh Koscheck and Johny Hendricks (because every fight with Kos is inherently a grudge match), a fight that will more than likely require the use of a stretcher, and a heavyweight sure-to-be-slugfest between Pat Barry and Lavar Johnson, it’s looking like UFC on FOX 3 has the potential to erase the memories of a rather forgettable second event and a rather brief first one. Not that we were complaining, because free fights are free fights.

And to get us hyped for the event, Dana White recently released one of his patented Danavlogs in which he catches Urijah Faber ogling over himself while on the set of TUF 15. It makes TOTAL SENSE if you don’t think about it. We gotta admit though, watching The Baldfather giggle like a school girl at Urijah’s expense makes us long for the days of his shock pen pranks that we came to know and love. [*looks over shoulder nostalgically and sighs*] 

Check out the video after the jump. 

By Elias Cepeda

If Team Cruz’ Sam Sicilia was freaking out over the pressure of being a #2 pick, it may have intensified this week as he was set to face the last pick overall, Chris Saunders. At least Sam had an extra world champion along to help him prepare.

Dominick Cruz brought in Strikeforce 135 pound champion Ronda Rousey to the UFC training center to teach his team some of her devastating Judo techniques. Ronda admits to being nervous about going in to teach the guys but they all seem receptive, as they should be, to learning from the champ – even though she’s a girl.

Oh yeah, Chris Tickle says that Ronda damn near broke his ribs while demonstrating a throw on him. The chick is rough, for sure.

Dana White allows the fighters to watch Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans at the TUF mansion and Ronda joins them. Once more, her nervousness proves unfounded.

“There are going to be a lot of guys to fend off at once,” she laughs while being hot.

Radio show host Jim Rome had the dubious honor yesterday of informing UFC President Dana White of the Nevada State Athletic Commission‘s denial of a license for heavyweight Alistair Overeem and their ruling that he would not be allowed to reapply for nine months. White responded by saying he assumed Overeem would have gotten a more severe punishment and that he is unsure if Alistair will still have a job with the UFC.

“I thought he would get a year. Easily a year,” White said. “I’m not a fan at all. You’re not going to hear me today on your radio show defending Alistair Overeem. Believe me.”

Luckily for Alistair, White has brought back plenty of guys who have failed drug tests or otherwise violated the law. Hell, Alistair has already failed a drug test so he might be a felony away from receiving a title shot when and if he returns. But for Overeem to blow it so epically when so much was on the line? That might be unforgivable.

“I know he lied to me,” White told Rome. “I don’t like it…if they’ll sit in front of you and lie to your face, [they're] not the kind of guys I want to do business with.”

Check out audio from Rome’s interview with Uncle Dana after the jump.

(My qualifications? HERE’S my stinking qualifications!)

It looks like we’ll have to start drafting up new t-shirts to falsely promise you guys, because according to a recent interview with MMAFighting, UFC President Dana White was rather frank about his desire for both former light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz and former lightweight and welterweight champion B.J. Penn to be placed in the UFC Hall of Fame in the near future. Though the jury is still out on whether or not Penn will return to the octagon following his hasty retirement in the aftermath of UFC 137, DW had nothing but positives to say about “The Prodigy” when asked on the possibility of his placement in the HOF:

Definitely. The thing about B.J. Penn is that what he brought to the lightweight division, there was a point in time when we first bought this company when people thought guys in the lighter weight divisions couldn’t be stars and couldn’t see pay-per-views and couldn’t cross over. B.J. Penn was definitely that first crossover guy for us. He’ll be back. It’s tough, when there are 16,000 people in the arena chanting your name, it’s tough to walk away from that. B.J. Penn is a fighter. You hear some of these guys, and Tito was one of these guys, he said he wanted to be famous. B.J. Penn is a fighter.

So there you have it, Penn will join long-time rival Matt Hughes, as well as Randy Couture, Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, Mark Coleman, Royce Gracie, Chuck Liddell, and Tapout co-founder Charles “Mask” Lewis in that deluxe octagon in the sky. After a pair of unsuccessful title bids at 155, Penn won the welterweight title in his welterweight debut by defeating the then untouchable Hughes by first round rear-naked choke at UFC 46. Penn would vacate the UFC shortly thereafter, citing a lack of challenging fights, and would not taste UFC gold again until beating the ever-loving shit out of Joe Stevenson at UFC 80 to claim the vacant lightweight strap. He would defend the belt three times until being upended by Frankie Edgar at UFC 112.

When addressing the possibility of Tito Ortiz joining those illustrious ranks, White did not shy away from the pair’s well-documented rocky history, and in fact stated that, in retrospect, it helped make the UFC what it is today.

Hear more from The Baldfather after the jump. 

(He only points at the ones he loves. / Photo via Sherdog)

According to an Oglobo report (translated by FightersOnly), a 75-minute backstage argument between Dana White and Anderson Silva is what led to the hour-long delay of Tuesday’s “Silva vs. Sonnen” press conference in Rio. The short version: Silva initially refused to fight anywhere other than Brazil, owing to his desire to beat Chael Sonnen‘s ass in front of his countrymen. Eventually, dollars spoke louder than words. Now here’s the long version:

Anderson Silva didn’t lash out publicly at Dana White when the UFC president declared he wanted to move the rematch with Chael Sonnen to Las Vegas, USA — but on the quiet he was very upset. It took the UFC president 75 minutes to convince him to fight Chael Sonnen in Las Vegas instead of Rio de Janeiro and this was the reason for the press conference delay yesterday, reports Gustavo Noblat of OGlobo.com.

The talk was heated — initially Anderson refused to change the venue of what could be the rematch of the century…The upcoming confrontation was set to occur at Stadium Engenhao in Rio, and would have been the biggest show of UFC history with 80 thousand tickets to be sold. But the date coincided with international events in the city and White alleged Rio would not have the infrastructure to hold the fighting event.

The champion was frustrated and insisted on fighting in Brazil. Anderson told Dana that Sonnen had been disrespectful with him, his family and all the Brazilian. “He deserves to taught a lesson here, I owe this to my people”, repeated Silva. But Dana was adamant. “If there is no way to make the event in a stadium, it has to be in Las Vegas,” said the company president.

(We know Liddell has been training hard with other top talent, but a comeback probably wouldn’t be prudent)

It would be easy to call Chuck Liddell nuts for thinking he has a chance at beating current light heavyweight king Jon Jones at this point in his life, as he implies in a recent interview with Fuel TV (video after the jump). Simply going by “MMA math” alone, the former 205-pound ruler finished his career losing five out his last six fights, and three of those losses came against guys (Shogun, Rashad and Rampage) who were easily handled by Bones in subsequent matches.

“The only thing that would make me even think about coming back is if they gave me a shot at the title,” Liddell told Ariel Helwani. “So, we’ll see.” Well, hopefully we won’t see. You don’t have to be a neurologist to understand that a comeback fight against the world’s top-ranked light-heavyweight would put Chuck’s long-suffering brain in grave danger.

That said, we won’t mock retired fighters for retaining some of the same qualities that we loved about them when they were active. Over the course of Liddell’s 12-year career, the former college wrestler probably faced only three guys that he would not have been able to out-wrestle and win in safe, if boring fashion. Yet, the Iceman had so much guts, bravado, and love for the battle itself that he instead chose to slug it out almost all of the time. As a result, MMA fans got to witness some of the most exciting knockouts in the sport’s history — first with Liddell on the winning end, and then with him in the more painful role of victim.

(Don’t worry, Frankie, there will be plenty more where that came from.) 

We know, we know, Frankie Edgar has already convinced Dana White to give him his rematch with newly crowned champ Ben Henderson sometime this summer, but hear us out. DW stated at the Silva/Sonnen II press conference earlier today that the UFC was looking for a way to move UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo from his bout against a to-be-determined opponent at UFC 149 to UFC 147. Combine that notion with the fact that White has long been rallying for Edgar to drop to 145 for an immediate title shot, and things start to get interesting, Potato Nation. Very interesting.

Take this tidbit from Edgar’s interview with MMAFighting, for instance, in which he says that the drop to 145 is “inevitable”, especially if Aldo’s name comes up:

We’ll see what the future holds, but I think it’s inevitable that I’ll eventually get down there. I just don’t know when. I’m all about fighting big fights, and fighting the best guys, and Jose Aldo’s one of them. We’ll see where it’s at, whether it’s at 145 or 155.

Considering that Edgar has never even shown a slight interest in dropping to 145, that’s all the confirmation we’re going to need. Start making your picks, ’cause this shit is going down.

More from the interview awaits you after the jump. 

Last week we showed you a BJ Penn video interview from Karyn Bryant in which the former champion vaguely spoke about his future, saying he had no plans to fight but refusing to say the word “retire.” However, according to UFC president Dana White, Penn told him that same week in Stockholm that he would in fact fight again.

“I heard some sh_t that he said he was going to retire and all this stuff,” White said. “[BJ] was like, ‘Nah, I’m going to fight again,’” MMA Fighting reports.

So there you have it. Despite saying that he was “done,” after losing to Nick Diaz last October, BJ will scrap again, according to his boss. I suppose we all figured as much, considering how much Penn loves fighting and how much money he makes doing it.

But the question is, who would BJ fight? Penn has only won one bout in his last five, albeit all against very top competition. At lightweight, the 33 year-old has seemed to have lost a bit of of quickness and reaction time — which is death in the lighter weight classes, and specifically for astalking counter-puncher like Penn. At welterweight, Penn is forced to pack on 15 pounds of unnecessary bulk, which has always been unfair but his crazy talent still allowed him to be successful there.

By Elias Cepeda

(UFC welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre [right] and fan contest winner future champion Rory MacDonald)

Ok, let’s get right to the cheddar – the UFC 145 fight bonuses, which UFC President Dana White announced during the post-event presser (video of entire press conference below). It always warms the heart when the fighters who get the big bonus checks are not the big stars, and that’s what happened at UFC 145.

Ben Rothwell, Travis Browne, Mark Hominick and Eddie Yagin all earned an extra $65,000 for their efforts Saturday night in Atlanta, GA. Rothwell got the KO of the night for his come-from-behind stoppage of Brendan Schaub. Browne got the night’s only submission but it was still a good one – forcing Chad Griggs to tap out to an arm triangle choke.

Eddie Yagin and Mark Hominick both took home fight of the night honors for their back and forth war. Yagin also took home the win bonus for earning the split-decision win over the former featherweight #1 contender.

The Immortal beats The Karate Kid and GSP-lite continues to impress

Matt Brown took a little steam out of the home town Karate Kid Stephen Thompson with a unanimous decision win. Thompson burst onto the UFC scene with a nifty lead leg KO at UFC 143. Brown has a toughness that his win to loss ratio doesn’t necessarily reveal, and a win over a top prospect like Thompson helps “The Immortal” get back on the slow climb up in the welterweight division.

Staying in the welterweight division for a moment, Rory MacDonald continued to prove that he is the division’s brightest young star

Why yes, I do like Huey Lewis and The News… Props: Las Vegas Sun

The speculation has officially ended. After ruling out Frank Mir, Cain Velasquez and Mark Hunt as potential replacements for Alistair Overeem to fight heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos at UFC 146, Dana White has officially announced his pick. Late last night, Dana White sent out a tweet confirming that Overeem’s replacement will be none other than…Frank Mir.

Huh. How about that?

While we’re all sure that there’s a reasonable explanation for Alistair Overeem’s suspiciously high 14:1 testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio, the UFC aren’t taking any chances. Rather than waiting for Overeem to meet with the Nevada State Athletic Commission on Tuesday, “The Demolition Man” has been removed from the card entirely. Draw your own conclusions.

(Apparently Lesnar was the only one who wasn’t a fan of Anderson Silva’s nude pictorial.) 

Adhering to its usual formula and taking a look back at the locker room footage from the previous event, the newest edition of UFC President Dana White’s infamous vlog features an up close and personal look at the poor bastards who came up short at UFC on FUEL: Gustafsson vs. Silva. And Brian Stann. He’s simply too nice to not be around at all times.

After DW’s regular introduction, we are treated to the woeful words of Damacio Page, Damarques Johnson, and Thiago Silva, who all insist that they are “fine.” We know what that really means. But worse than “The Angel of Death,” worse even than “Darkness,” is the silent sorrow of Paulo Thiago, who stares on in disbelief when re-watching the final moments of his first round KO loss to Siyar Bahadurzada. Thiago has now lost three of his last four UFC contests, despite having the most badass day job of any UFC fighter ever. Chin up, Paulo, we know you’ll be back with a vengeance.

Check out the video after the jump. 

On Saturday, we published a post about the UFC’s sponsorship of Jon Jones for his upcoming fight against Rashad Evans, which included a satirical caption about UFC president Dana White betting money on the fight. The caption was intended to be a joke, and we were confident that it would interpreted that way by our readers. Earlier today, we received a press release announcing that the UFC and Dana White are demanding a retraction “regarding certain false and defamatory statements attributed to UFC® President, Dana White.” As the release stated:

“The claim that Mr. White would financially wager on the outcome of a UFC® event is outrageous in the extreme. Indeed, in the verified complaint we are presently preparing for Mr. White’s signature upon his return from Abu Dhabi, Mr. White expressly states under oath that at no time in the history of his association with the UFC® has he ever financially wagered on the outcome of a UFC® event.”

CagePotato doesn’t contest any part of this request; we hereby retract the line in question, which has since been removed from our site. Again, the caption wasn’t published with any malicious intent whatsoever, but we understand that Dana White’s reputation would be harmed if our readers actually believed that he bets on the UFC’s matches. Once again, Dana White does not bet on his own fights, and he never has. We apologize for any misunderstanding the caption may have caused.

(Always the craftiest of the Cabbage Patch Kids, “Funky” would wait until nap time to pounce upon his enemies.) 

Although Ben Askren may be the king of Bellator’s welterweight division for the time being, he certainly isn’t earning any new fans inside or outside of the cage, and in fact is likely losing them in droves. On the heels of yet another tepid, albeit title-retaining performance against Douglas Lima at Bellator 64, Askren returned to his day job as the most successful Serta mattress salesman in the world and decided to start shit-stirring with UFC President Dana White.

It started when DW stated at the UFC on FUEL post-fight press conference that it would be “impossible” to administer random drug tests to the over three hundred members of the UFC’s current roster. The general public’s initial response to the notion was that of skepticism. While it would be incredibly difficult to perform random drug tests on fighters based all over the planet, it would not be impossible, and would help avoid situations like the Alistair Overeem/UFC 146 calamity that the UFC currently finds themselves facing.

Apparently not impressed with White’s view on the matter, Askren took to Twitter and let his feelings be known:

@Benaskren
The USOC random tests Olympic athletes in all sports. Dana saying testing his fighters would be impossible is a bold faced lie.

Who knew that the most significant blow Askren ever threw would be to that of his own career?

(Think cell phones are hard to operate now, Dana? Just wait until you try to use ones with Hindi and Mandarin keypads.)

On the heels of breaking into another new country and the ratings success of The Ultimate Fighter‘s first international version, UFC President Dana White is open to launching regional titles for the promotion. “The bottom line is as we start kicking off all these ‘Ultimate Fighters’ in other countries, it’s going to open up the floodgates for a lot more fighters, and guys are going to need a lot more experience,” MMA Junkie reports White as saying after Saturday’s event in Sweden.

“We talked about [regional champions],” he continued. “We talked about rankings — just like boxing, guys ranked in other countries. So you end up being ranked. I don’t know. You have UFC champions, and then you have guys that are ranked in different countries. It absolutely makes sense. In the big picture, long-term, it absolutely makes perfect sense.”

By Elias Cepeda

(U.N.’s revenge: Anderson Silva knew he shouldn’t have cozied up to John Bolton so publicly back in the late nineties)

Just over two months away from when it was supposed to happen, the year’s most anticipated MMA bout does not yet have a time and place locked in stone, according to UFC President Dana White. Middleweight champion Anderson Silva and #1 contender Chael Sonnen were supposed to square off in a rematch of their 2010 thriller at UFC 147 in Rio de Janiero on June 23rd but at Saturday’s post UFC in Sweden event press conference White revealed that a conference of the United Nations scheduled in Rio the same week may force the fight promotion to move their event.

“The problem down in Rio right now is they’re having a big United Nations convention down there, so there’s some stuff going on. We’re working through it trying to figure this whole thing out,” White said to the assembled media.

The U.N. conference was announced after the UFC first announced their intentions to hold an event in Rio on June 23rd, and will draw tens of thousands of visitors to the city, in addition to heads of state. White says that he’s essentially being told that Rio ain’t big enough for the both of the UFC and U.N.

It’s still real to us, damn it. Props to @ZeusJupiterMMAO

Pay attention, Tim Sylvia: It turns out that a Twitter campaign, no matter how popular, is not the best way to manipulate Dana White.

Even though we here at Cagepotato have known this to be true for a while, we still couldn’t help but get behind #RallyForMarkHunt. The online campaign to have “Super Samoan” fill in for Overeem at UFC 146 quickly took off among tech-savvy MMA fans, and even gained the approval of UFC color commentator Joe Rogan. For a second there, it looked as though the unlikely challenger would actually be getting a shot at ‘Cigano’; especially when Dana White announced that former champions Frank Mir and Cain Velasquez were not being considered but was silent about Mark Hunt.

Well, you can now officially stop getting your hopes up. At the post-event press conference for UFC on FUEL 2, Dana White issued the following statement about the online rally (as transcribed by BJPenn.com):

(We know, Joe, this fight would blow our minds too.) 

Now that Alistair Overeem’s botched drug test has officially thrown UFC 146 and the heavyweight division into a state of anarchy, everyone from Frank Mir to, believe it or not, Fedor Emelianenko, have been rumored as The Reem’s potential replacements for the May 26th showdown with current champion Junior Dos Santos. But one campaign that would have made 90 percent of the MMA world piss their pants with laughter as little as a year ago is really starting to gain some steam. We’re talking, of course, about #RallyforMarkHunt.

Yes, it seems the iron jawed, soft spoken “Super Samoan” has captured the hearts of MMA fans around the world, who have in turn organized a Twitter campaign to have Hunt fill in for Overeem despite already being booked to take on Stefan Struve at the same event. Perhaps it is our love for a good old fashioned Cinderella story that has been the driving force behind a movement rivaling Occupy Wall Street in terms of actual demands met, or perhaps it is simply Hunt’s legendary status with the hardcore (re: true) fans of combat sports. In either case, UFC color commentator Joe Rogan has officially drank the Kool-Aid, posting the following message on The UG:

There are some wise people on this board, and I support this movement.

Style wise that might be the most exciting match up. Either way, even if Hunt doesn’t replace the reem I would still love to see this matchup down the road, especially considering how good Hunt looked against Kongo.

Has anyone started a twitter bomb campaign for this?

By Elias Cepeda

(Come on NSAC, can’t we talk this out?)

Alistair Overeem may have failed his recent surprise drug test, but it appears that he isn’t giving up on challenging heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos at UFC 146 on May 26th. He has requested a hearing with the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) and has been given a hearing date of April 24th, little more than a month before he hopes to still vie for the UFC belt.

After testing positive for elevated testosterone levels in late March in Nevada, Overeem had the option of asking the state’s athletic commission to test the second sample they took from him during their test, as well as the option of deciding to apply for a license in the state at a hearing.

More on Overeem’s options and the UFC’s plans after the jump.

By Elias Cepeda

After the normal celebrating and gloating from last week’s winning Faber team, attention is turned to this week’s matchup of Team Cruz’ Jeremy Larsen and Team Faber’s Mike Chiesa. Remember when a few weeks back Mike’s father died just after seeing him fight and win on national television, and we learned that Mike and Sam Sicilia are best friends and training partners back home.

Well, on this year’s TUF, the two lightweights have found themselves on opposing teams, but are trying to find a balance between not betraying their team and not betraying one another. They call themselves “Team purple,” as in a combination of Faber’s blue team and Cruz’ red team. That’s adorable. Really.

(Be warned, Dana, Barnett only comes as a package deal.) 

Well, you can add Josh Barnett to the small list of people that Dana White has said will never fight in the UFC again, but will now likely fight in the UFC again. Money does strange things to people, doesn’t it?

Believe it or not, the man who once offered to urinate in DW’s mouth for a steroid test, and stated that he believed “a trained monkey” could do the UFC President’s job will almost definitely be getting a call from the UFC if he is able to walk away victorious from his upcoming Strikeforce Heavyweight tournament final match with Daniel Cormier on May 19th. Here’s what The Baldfather had to say:

The way that Showtime wants to do it is when that fight finally happens, whoever wins it, they wanna do another fight on Showtime, so that guy would probably come to the UFC. We’ll see what happens, you know? Josh and I have been playing nice with each other for a little while, since he got into the UFC. It’s more than just, ‘Does he win? Does he do this?’ You gotta be able to come to terms with the guy and be able to deal with him. If he wins the fight, I can’t see why he wouldn’t come here, unless we weren’t able to make a deal with him.

(Here’s to the continued documentation of corporate Presidents and hot girl celebrities getting drunk. Photo via @danawhite)

As we all know by now, yesterday was not a good day for UFC President Dana White. Thankfully, The Dana was able to spin the potential UFC 146 disaster into twitter gold last night, with a little help from comedian/actor/swimsuit improver Olivia Munn.

“Me and my buddy @Oliviamunn are having a blast 2 nite no matter how shitty my day was!!!!!!!” Dana tweeted around midnight.

And from the above photo, it appeared that White and Munn did indeed imbibe merrily. Some of our other favorite tweets from Dana, Olivia, and their followers are below:

(A rose for every bridge you have burned, Mr. White.) 

It looks like soccer players and fans alike have joined the growing legion of people that loathe, or at least don’t take kindly to Dana White’s opinion. For those keeping track, the list includes women, homosexuals, Fedor Emelianenko fans, hardcore PRIDE and WEC fans, SpikeTV, the Internet, and the state of Oklahoma, among others. It’s like they say: to make an omelet, you have to break enough eggs to make that same omelet five times over.

Before we get to the challenge issued by former MLS Defender of the Year Jimmy Conrad, let’s do a little backtracking. It all started when White, in his infinite wisdom, stated at the Calgary press conference that the sport of soccer was basically a talentless bunch of nonsense that anyone with basic motor skills could perform. If that wasn’t bad enough, he then declared that he had beaten David Beckham in a game of horse soccer and that Pele was a fraud before farting into the microphone and storming off. Surely this wouldn’t piss off any fans of the biggest sport on the mother effing planet, right?

WRONG.

After hearing these comments, Conrad emerged with the fire of a thousand suns in his eyes and challenged DW to put his foot somewhere else than his mouth for once. The following ultimatum was made while Conrad masked a rage that would turn a lump of coal into a blood diamond between his buttcheeks:

Why would a tough guy like you feel so threatened by soccer that you needed to go off on it unprovoked? Is it maybe because you know the one thing any three-year-old can do is fight? Hell, mine spent a whole year fighting me. But that shouldn’t threaten you. I’m pretty you could hype a fight between two three-year-olds and make it the biggest thing since the “Thrilla in Manilla.” But you wouldn’t do that, would you? Because you know that three-year-olds don’t understand the techniques, or tactics, or subtleties of your sport. Well, same goes for ours…. Here’s what I’m going to do. Because I like you, I’m going to give you the opportunity to join me and a few friends for a game of soccer. Since you believe playing soccer requires no talent, I’m sure you’ll be the star. Unless you’re scared.

Check out a video of the challenge after the jump.

(Wait, now I’m fighting who?) 

Maybe it’s because we’ve been burned many, many times before, but we’re not exactly sold on Dana White’s recent claims that the upcoming TUF 15 Finale headlining match between Martin Kampmann and Jake Ellenberger will be for the next title shot. You see, “number one contender” is a term that is so loosely used and abused by the Zuffa brass these days that it might as well be Rampage Jackson.

But be that as it may, a press release sent out by the UFC this morning, quoting the almighty DW nonetheless, has stated that the victor of Kampmann/Ellenberger will indeed get the winner of Condit/GSP, whenever the hell that happens:

The welterweight division is stacked and Jake Ellenberger and Martin Kampmann are going to fight for the chance to earn a title shot. They will headline the season finale of TUF Live on FX to crown the next Ultimate Fighter. There’s a lot at stake for the guys competing on this card at the Palms.

You see how they did that? “For the chance to earn a title shot,” is about as brilliant a non-commitment as we’ve ever seen. Dan Henderson would be impressed by such a classic Dana White misdirection, and would undoubtedly have a better response than the one you are about to read. But if you feel tricked, hoodwinked, or even bamboozled by such a statement, then you’re not alone. We’re not going to take it anymore, and are calling shenanigans on this right now before things get out of hand. Here’s why.

(Has Lesnar decided to return to the quiet and dignified life of professional wrestling?)

Earlier this weekend there were rumors that former UFC heavyweight champion — and before that, former WWE champion — Brock Lesnar had signed a new deal with the WWE and would be making an appearance at their annual pay-per-view centerpiece WrestleMania yesterday. Lesnar never actually showed up on the broadcast, and the rumors of his re-signing with the WWE are still just that, but they come from about as reliable a rumor-mill as there is in the business, Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer (via MMAMania):

“Brock Lesnar has arrived in Miami and arrived with security and a large group of people shielding him from everyone. This is the going story, but not confirmed, that Lesnar has signed a one year deal and will work a more than Undertaker and less than Goldberg type of schedule.”

What they mean is that Lesnar would not be driving all over the country in a rental car five days a week, working show after show like most people on the WWE roster. That’s good, since Lesnar first left the WWE because he didn’t want to have to maintain the brutal grind of a pro wrestler’s life, no matter how well it paid.

(Fact: Don Frye charged each of these women a ZJ for this photo.)

For all the “creative” insults and red-blooded rants Chael Sonnen is able to come up with out of the blue, he will never hold a candle to the crass, old timey anecdotes of Don Frye. The man has more bravado than a Sherman tank full of other Sherman tanks, more wisdom than a Tibetan monk achieving Buddhahood, and would fight his own mother in your basement for a shot of Jack Daniels if you asked him correctly. He makes the Brawny man look like a metrosexual, and orders grilled bison when your mother takes him to that hip new Vegan restaurant in town. Matter of fact, Frye’s masculinity has grown so powerful that it even manifested itself in the greatest television character of all time: Ron fucking Swanson.

So you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that, during a recent interview with Sherdog’s “Savage Dog Show,” Frye was unrelenting in his mockery of everyone from Dana White to Brock Lesnar, unleashing a hellstorm of one liners that will surely make you feel like less of a man for not even having the gonads to dream them up.

First, let’s start with Frye’s assessment of the current UFC fighter pay scale:

Oh my God, it’s a crime. It’s a crime. You see some of these guys only getting two or three or six thousand dollars and you’ve got Dana bragging about having 30 Ferraris. Come on. You have a sponsor and he charges a sponsor what, a hundred and fifty grand to have your stuff on the fighter? That’s money he’s stealing from the fighter. Then he goes and he pays them two or three thousand dollars. That’s crazy.

Join us after the jump for more from the interview. Don’t worry, it only gets better.