(Make no mistake — when Edgar’s at his best, he’s capable of losing a close decision to any fighter in the world. Photo via Getty Images)

UFC 162: Silva vs. Weidman is turning out to be a can’t-miss showcase for featherweight talent. With Ricardo Lamas vs. Chan Sung Jung already on the lineup, the UFC has just added two more big-name 145-pound scraps to the July 6th card in Las Vegas…

- Frankie Edgar vs. Charles Oliveira: Following his unsuccessful title challenge against Jose Aldo — which gave Edgar his third decision loss in a row — “The Answer” returns to the featherweight division to face dangerous grappler Charles Oliveira. Though Oliveira hasn’t competed since his knockout loss to Cub Swanson at UFC 152, his two previous fights resulted in submission victories over Jonathan Brookins and Eric Wisely. It’s a logical rebound fight for Edgar, and a huge opportunity for Oliveira.

- Cub Swanson vs. Dennis Siver: Speaking of Swanson, the Jackson’s MMA product is red-hot lately, with four straight victories in the UFC (three by KO/TKO). Fresh off his recent decision win over Dustin Poirier, Swanson will try to add to his streak against the hard-striking Dennis Siver, who is 2-0 since dropping to featherweight, with decision wins over Diego Nunes and Nam Phan.

In other notable UFC 162 news…

(And to think, if Joe had done the same thing to Andy Dick, the world might have been spared the AIDS epidemic.) 

Do you remember the first time you came across that video of Joe Rogan teaching Georges St. Pierre the art of the spinning back kick? If so, you probably recall watching Rogan obliterate those heavy bags and quietly pondering to yourself, “My God, how many lives Rogan has claimed with that kick in the past?” And while we can’t attest to the exact number of trophy skulls lining the walls of Rogan’s humble abode, we can now confirm that there is at least one, which has likely been converted into a bubbler in the time since.

A video of Rogan in his Taekwondo heyday has been rounding MMA blogs for the past few days now, so in order to help distract you from the realization that your favorite sport is an absolute joke, we’ve thrown it after the jump. It is approximately 20 seconds long, features one strike, and may or may not cause you to shit your pants out of empathy for the poor bastard whose intestines are utterly annihilated with little more than a swivel of Rogan’s hips.

(The best part about having palm trees tattooed across your waistline, you ask? Endless cocoNUT jokes.)

A bit of mixed news for fans of the featherweight division, as word just broke that Dennis Siver has been forced to withdraw from his UFC on FUEL 7 bout with Cub Swanson for undisclosed reasons. The good news: stepping in for Siver will be Dustin Poirier, an exciting slugger who has picked up end of the night bonuses in two out of his last three contests. Although Poirier doesn’t exactly match the ridiculous offensive output of Siver, you can bet the ranch that this fight will net another bonus for at least one of these gentlemen when all is said and done.

A fellow top contender, Poirier recently bounced back into the win column by beating TUF 12 winner Jonathan Brookins into damn near retirement. Swanson, on the other hand, has been on an absolute killing spree in his last three bouts, finishing George Roop, Ross Pearson, and Charles Oliveira with punches inside the first two rounds. In fact, before Siver dropped out, Swanson stated on his Twitter account that the fight was being lobbied as the potential number 1 contender matchup at 145. Meanwhile, Chan-Sung Jung has apparently fallen off the face of the earth.

After the jump: Full fight videos of Poirier vs. Brookins and Swanson vs. Oliveira, which we secured through completely legal means. We swear. Just don’t tell anyone you got them from us, OK?

(“Seems like oooooold times…” / Photo via allelbows)

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- Gegard Mousasi and the Frustration of ‘Overrated’ (MMAFighting)

- King Mo Lawal Has Boxing Clause in His Contract, Would Like a Fight With Kimbo Slice (BloodyElbow)

- Cub Swanson Says Fight With Dennis Siver Is #1 Featherweight Contender Match (Fightline)

- The 50 Dirtiest Athletes in Sports History (Complex)

- Review: Brian J. D’Souza’s “Pound for Pound” MMA book Is Top-Class Reading (FightOpinion)

- Photo of the day: Ed O’Neill chokes out Royce Gracie on the set of ‘Modern Family’ (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- Steven Seagal Owns a Bullet-Proof Kimono. This Is Not a Joke. (FilmDrunk)

- If You’ve Never Seen American Psycho, This Rory MacDonald Comic Will Not Make Sense (MiddleEasy)

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(Photo via UFC.com)

Two scary injuries in one day? It looks like The Curse That Shall Not Be Named has awoken from its brief slumber.

The UFC’s latest injury victim is featherweight Eddie Yagin, who was hospitalized on Sunday for swelling around his brain, and will be unable to fight Dennis Siver at UFC on Fox 5: Henderson vs Diaz (December 8th, Seattle). MMAWeekly has the details:

The problem started on Saturday after a usual day of training, Yagin’s manager, Jason House, told MMAWeekly.com on Tuesday.

“He came home after practice, had a headache, started to vomit whatever liquids he drank and then decided to go to the ER the next day,” said House, adding that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred in training. Yagin hadn’t been knocked out or suffered from any particularly hard blows or anything of the sort.

For an event that was to be headlined by two of the sports all-time greats, and a supporting cast that was pretty much garbage-ass, it’s disappointing that tonight you have no PPV to watch, no excuse to spend even more time at Hooters, and no good reason not to attend the wedding your girlfriend has been nagging you about going to. But if you thought that was going to stop us from milking this thing for everything its got, you are severely wrong, my friend.

Taking the reigns tonight is longtime CagePotato contributor/Twitter pseudo celebrity Jason Moles. This card will either be a smashing success thanks to the main event or a failure of epic proportions thanks to everything else. Stick around, insult him in the comments section, and be sure to tell all of your friends about the only UFC 151 liveblog on the internet (EVER!) can be found. Now let’s get to it.

(Koscheck doesn’t like curly blonde wigs for the same reason that Jon Jones doesn’t like fake UFC belts. It’s like, bro, you didn’t put in the work, okay? / Photo via Sherdog)

You can’t keep a good man down — or a bad one, either. Coming off his split-decision loss to Johny Hendricks in May, welterweight contender Josh Koscheck will try to bounce back against Jake Ellenberger in the co-main event of UFC 151: Jones vs. Henderson, September 1st in Las Vegas. Ellenberger is also coming off a defeat — his leave-from-ahead* knockout loss to Martin Kampmann at the TUF 15 Finale — which followed a six-fight win streak, including victories over Jake Shields and Diego Sanchez. So which top 170-pounder is going to wake up the next morning with two straight losses?

Koscheck hasn’t started talking trash to Ellenberger on twitter yet, but he did recently call you a sissy and pat his hair on the back. In other notable UFC 151 booking news…

(Just call him Jon “Bjönes” Jones. / Photo courtesy of Josh Hedges)

By Jack Saladino

With the UFC’s Swedish debut in the books, it’s time for us to make Joe Silva‘s life easier and suggest the next matchups for a few of the notable fighters coming out of UFC on FUEL: Silva vs. Gustafsson. Read on, and let us know if you agree or disagree with these picks…

Alexander Gustafsson: Rocking Thiago Silva early, Gustafsson was able to pick apart the aggressive Brazilian with an array of uber-accurate strikes to coast his way to a UD victory, and cement his position as a top-tier light-heavyweight. Can you say title eliminator? Gustafsson vs. Dan Henderson sounds good to me. I know Dan is waiting for his guaranteed title shot, but Jon Jones and Rashad Evans both have a history of post-fight injuries, and to assume that the winner will be healthy after their title fight might be unrealistic. So unless Hendo doesn’t mind a year-long break to challenge the title-holder, a battle against the Mauler could be the next best thing.

Thiago Silva: Silva’s suspension gave him a year off to think about what he’s done and rehab a plethora of injuries that have kept him performing at less than 100%. Judging by his performance on Saturday, his comeback still has a long way to go. Though Silva could use a fight against a UFC newcomer to rebound in the 205-pound division, I’d give him a good dose of reality and slate him against Phil Davis, who’s coming off his own loss to Rashad Evans. Two big, well-known scrappers with a lot to lose — promoting this one should be a no-brainer.

(Apparently Corassani treats tapping the same way he deals with flipping to the wrong page of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Novel. Gif via ZombieProphet at IronForgesIron.)

This should come as no surprise, but none other than TUF 14 alum and all around jackwagon Akira Corassani has been booked to take on British striker Jason Young at the UFC’s inaugural trip to Sweden for its second UFC on FUEL event. Corassani, a Swedish born (the streets, specifically) Muay Thai striker, has trained with the likes of Siyar Bahadurzada, Frankie Edgar, and Eddie Alvarez, and made a name for himself on this past season of The Ultimate Fighter, bringing a combination of power punches and Jersey Shore-like swagger to the house before being choked into wonderland by eventual runner-up Dennis Bermudez in the semifinals.

Young, who has dropped a couple of close decisions to Dustin Poirier and Michihiro Omigawa in his octagon run, will likely be fighting for his job when he takes on Corassani. A word to the wise Jason: steer clear of the leg-locks on this one.

UFC 137 goes down tomorrow night at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada, and one fight that we feel is being criminally overlooked (televised on Spike or not) is the lightweight match-up between Dennis Siver and Donald Cerrone. Now, where both men are known for their elite striking game, its is Siver who has made his name off of the spinning back kick/turning side kick, picking up victories over Nate Mohr and Paul Kelly at UFC 93 and 105, respectively. Cerrone has stated that he feels the spinning back kick is Siver’s only weapon, and whether or not you agree with him (I don’t), you have to admit that it is one awesome weapon.

 
(Not yet………………………………..getting warmer…….)

UFC 137 is just around the bend, and since the lineup has made more changes than a MTV awards show host, we figured we’d lay out the current odds before something else horrible happens. So, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com, check out the sweetest lines available, along with our time tested advice below.

PPV Main Card
B.J. Penn (-115) vs. Nick Diaz (-105)
Matt Mitrione (-135) vs. Cheick Kongo (+115)
Roy Nelson (-290) vs. Mirko Filipovic (+245)
Hatsu Hioki (-330) vs. George Roop (+270)
There is no line yet available for the recently bumped up Tavares/Jacoby fight.

Spike TV Prelims
Donald Cerrone (-225) vs. Dennis Siver (+185)
Tyson Griffin (-290) vs. Bart Palaszewski (+245)

The undercard odds have yet to be released as well, but we only bet big here, so forgeddaboutit!

The Main Event:

(Although he will never be able to replace “The Coach” Stout says he knows he will have to find new trainers to work with eventually.)

UFC lightweight Sam Stout appeared on Mauro Ranallo’s The MMA Show podcast yesterday and the longtime Team Tompkins fighter revealed his reason for bowing out of his upcoming UFC 137 bout with Dennis Siver in October.

As expected, Stout says he’s still grieving the loss of his longtime trainer, mentor, best friend and brother-in-law, Shawn Tompkins who passed away suddenly earlier this month and has not decided where or with whom he will train with, but the decision, which will take a lot of soul searching to make, won’t be his alone to make.

“Shawn has been my coach since I got into the sport. I’ve never had a fight, dating back to my kickboxing career…I’ve never had a fight, without him training me for it and without him being in my corner…I’m not one of these guys who’s jumped around from coach to coach over the years and trained with lots of people,” he says. “He’s taught me really everything I know about mixed martial arts. And not only that, he was a lot more than that to me. He was a brother and a trusted friend and confidant and really, my mentor. Definitely the most influential person in my life. I’m going to have to wait for the dust to settle a little bit before I’m ready to get back in there and figure out what I’m going to do in terms of coaching. I’m really just unsure of what I’m going to do right now.We’ve discussed it and you’re going to see some changes being made to the team, but we don’t think Shawn would have wanted us to all go join other teams. He would have wanted us to stick together.”

(Should be a decent scrap.)

MMAJunkie is reporting that Donald Cerrone (16-3) has agreed to step in for Sam Stout against Dennis Siver (19-7) at UFC 137 October 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

Although it is unclear whether or not Stout is injured, it could simply be a case of the Canadian lightweight standout needing more time to deal with the sudden passing of his best friend, brother-in-law, mentor and trainer Shawn Tompkins earlier this month before fighting his first bout without “The Coach” in his corner.

Do this again some time? Sure…

The bookings just keep coming in. The UFC has announced yet another fight for an already stacked UFC 136 card, as well as a pair of very interesting fights to UFC 137. Who said Sundays are for resting?

The UFC has announced that former WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis and Jeremy Stephens have agreed to fight at UFC 136. Anthony Pettis is looking to rebound from a loss in his UFC debut, where he was on the wrong end of a unanimous decision to Clay Guida at The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale in June. That fight was less than exhilarating, but by no means due to a lack of effort from the dynamic lightweight. Meanwhile, Jeremy Stephens is riding a two fight win streak into the cage, with wins over Danny Downes at The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale and Marcus Davis at UFC 125, earning him Knockout of the Night honors. The craziest part of this booking? Due to the stacked nature of this card, it’s currently listed on the prelims. Yeah, UFC 136 is shaping up to be an outstanding card.

Check after the jump for the latest additions to UFC 137, as well as current fight cards for both events.

(After three days of utter confusion, Arianny finally realizes what ‘Chocolate Al’ means. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle. For more photos from this album, click here.)

As you make plans for your various drunken 4th of July celebrations, keep in mind that some of the men you see tonight may be too injured to grill burgers on Monday. Appreciate their sacrifice, ladies and gentlemen. Now then, who wants to see some dudes get kicked in the head and choked unconcious?

Manning the liveblog duties for this evening is CagePotato rising star Jason Moles, who will be providing round-by-round updates from the UFC 132 pay-per-view card beginning at 9 p.m. ET. Travel past the jump to join our little liveblog party, and refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest. Thanks for being here, and may God bless this great nation.

For George Sotiropulos, the past four months since his disappointing UFC 127 loss to Dennis Siver have been about finding a balance in his life between training and all of the extrinsic factors that prevented him from focusing fully on it. According to G-Sots, who has been noticeably absent from the limelight since the fight, he has set the wheels of change in motion to ensure that he isn’t being stretched too thin and that he continues to improve as a fighter and as a person.

We caught up with the UFC lightweight contender recently and spoke with him at length about the fight with Siver, the factors that he feels contributed to the first “real” loss on his record and the steps he’s taken to make sure he makes the best of the learning experience to ensure that he doesn’t make the same mistakes twice inside and outside of the Octagon.

Check out the extensive interview after the jump.

(Hit refresh early and often to stay, uh, abreast of the latest updates … Pic: CombatLifestyle)

In the main event of UFC 127 tonight, a laidback vegan ragamuffin fights a bloodthirsty Hawaiian cannibal to determine some sort of vague No. 1 contender status for a welterweight title which could soon be very much in flux. Will Jon Fitch’s strategy of nonviolence win the day? Or will the night end with BJ Penn licking Fitch’s green, iron-deficient blood off his gloves? Either way, will it ultimately mean anything? There’s really only one way to find out: Sit somewhere thousands of miles from the show’s point of origin and follow this website’s second-hand textual analysis of the high definition moving pictures we’ll be watching on the TV. If that doesn’t work, well, try Twitter or something.

Also, imagine our pleasant surprise this afternoon when we discovered our ridiculously inclusive satellite package actually does carry the Ion Network. In light of that, we’ll probably be posting short-ish recaps of the three televised prelims beginning at 9 p.m. EST. When the PPV itself kicks off an hour later, we’ll be live with updates and uninterrupted snark for the duration. Thanks in advance for your attention in this matter …

(There’s this weird bald due who follows me everywhere including the dressing room of the gym. He’s behind me, isn’t he?)

We had the opportunity to speak with George Sotiropoulos back in December about his upcoming UFC 127 bout with Dennis Siver for an episode of The Bum Rush Radio Show and we touched on a number of topics, from his place in the UFC’s lightweight title picture to 10th Planet detractors and everything in between.

Check out what the fast-rising Australian lightweight contender had to say after the jump.

(Siver demonstrating his ground prowess against CP’s homeboy, Jess “The Joker” Liaudin.)

Often when hyping an upcoming bout or angling for a title shot, fighters will oversell their skill sets and inflate their accomplishments, so it’s no surprise that a middle of the pack UFC lightweight like Dennis Siver would follow suit, especially when his next bout is against a guy like George Sotiropoulos, who is likely one or two wins away from a title shot.

Siver did an interview recently with Tapology and said that he is planning on choking out the decorated Aussie BJJ black belt if their UFC 127 bout hits the mat — a lofty endeavor, considering G-Sots has never been finished in his MMA career and has notched eight of his 14 wins via submission. Siver, on the other hand is 7-4 when his fights finish on the mat and has never faced a grappler of Sotiropoulos’ caliber.

(Props: MMA TKO…again)

When we heard that Dennis Siver received UFC 105′s Knockout of the Night bonus instead of Andre Winner, who appeared to have seriously affected Roli Delgado’s future consumption of solid foods with that blistering right hand, we were a little taken aback.  But okay, we thought, in all fairness, we hadn’t seen Siver’s knockout.  Winner’s was clearly a brainstem adjustor of the first class variety, but maybe, just maybe, Siver’s was so spectacular that it made Winner look like he’d barely squeaked by.  It’s possible, right?

Get ‘em while they last…

(Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Justin McCully)

(Melvin Guillard vs. Dennis Siver)

The official judges’ tallies, from Dave Meltzer via Fightlinker:

Adalaide Byrd
Round 1: 10-9 Griffin
Round 2: 10-8 Griffin
Round 3: 10-9 Griffin
Round 4: 10-9 Jackson
Round 5: 10-9 Jackson

Nelson Hamilton
Round 1: 10-9 Jackson
Round 2: 10-8 Griffin
Round 3: 10-9 Griffin
Round 4: 10-9 Jackson
Round 5: 10-9 Griffin

Roy Silbert
Round 1: 10-9 Griffin
Round 2: 10-9 Griffin
Round 3: 10-9 Griffin
Round 4: 10-9 Jackson
Round 5: 10-9 Griffin

Personally, I don’t agree that Rampage was “robbed” in this decision whatsoever — I think Griffin clearly controlled rounds 1, 2, and 5 — but for all three judges to give round 3 to the challenger is very questionable; Rampage found his distance in that round and started landing his lead-fisted punch combos. But then again, all three judges gave round 4 to Jackson, which I saw as a very close frame that could have been scored for Griffin due to his triangle attempt, which came within a ball-hair of finishing the fight. I’m sure the argument will rage on, but there’s one thing we can all agree on: These judges are totally incompetent. Where’s Cecil Peoples when you need him?

As if there was any doubt, Rampage vs. Forrest won UFC 86′s Fight of the Night bonus, with both headliners picking up $60,000 for their event-saving performance. As mentioned earlier, Knockout of the Night went to Melvin Guillard for his 36-second destruction of Dennis Siver, and Submission of the Night went to Cole Miller for choking out Jorge Gurgel; those bonuses were also worth $60k. Full payout info to come as soon as we have it…