It’s been quite a while since we first penned our “What Your Favorite Fighter Says About You” lists and a lot has changed in the time since. While some of our choices are even more relevant now than they were when the list was originally published, most of them seem either inaccurate or simply out of date in light of current circumstances. Knowing what we know now, we’ve decided to update our list to align with today’s MMA landscape. Enjoy. 

CONOR MCGREGOR

You know a lotta tings and don’t take no shit from nobody. Your style is only outmatched by your swagger, which you often describe as “crisp perfection.” You are either Irish, or tell everyone you know that you are despite being as Irish as the average Redskins fan is Cherokee. While not exactly being a paranoid schizophrenic, you think that everyone else in a given room is either afraid of you or trying to violently harm you. You’re relatively new to MMA and have never actually trained, but your bar brawling expertise has led you to claim that you could defeat any top 5 fighter in your weight class with one good punch. Your favorite flower is the daisy because you can take its head clean off.

Favorite Fight: McGregor vs. Brimage

Less than a month removed from the Monday Night War that pitted Fight Night 50 against Bellator 123 (and saw the former emerge victorious by razor thin split-decision), the UFC and Bellator are set to go at it again. Sort of.

After finally being granted a release from his much-maligned former promotion thanks to the generous nature of Scott Coker, Eddie Alvarez was almost immediately signed by the UFC and booked to face Donald Cerrone at UFC 178 this weekend. But being that kindness is usually considered a sign of weakness in the fight game, the folks over at Viacom weren’t just going to let Alvarez slip away without *some* form of punishment, which in this case equates to counter-programming his UFC 178 co-main event fight with a 90-minute tribute to Alvarez on Spike TV.

According to MMAJunkie, “Eddie Alvarez: Free on Spike” will air at 10 p.m. ET/PT, a.k.a the same time Saturday’s UFC 178 main card kicks off on pay-per-view. (Ed note: The amount of evil finger-twiddling Coker must be doing in his secret underground lair right now…)

Irish featherweight Conor McGregor is unquestionably the best talker in the UFC. That’s an indisputable truth in the post-Chael era, and it becomes even more apparent when you watch McGregor’s segment of the new “Countdown to UFC 178″ preview special. But it turns out that new lightweight acquisition Eddie Alvarez is a quote factory himself, so we decided to pick out his (and the other featured fighters’) best lines from the show, for your education and enjoyment.

Videos and quotes continue after the jump. UFC 178: Johnson vs. Cariaso goes down this Saturday in Las Vegas. Get pumped.

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“Although fans might not know who I am, I’m willing to bet every fighter in this division knows who I am.” — Eddie Alvarez

“There’s a lot of really talented guys at 155, whether it’s jiu-jitsu, really talented wrestlers, really talented strikers. But then there’s fighters. That’s what I’m good at. There’s no one better at giving damage and taking damage than myself.” — Alvarez

“I used to wonder why I always do all these crazy things, like what’s the purpose? Why do I want to jump off buildings and swing from ropes and ride four-wheelers and wakeboarding and do everything crazy? ‘Cause it gives you this feeling, like this scared feeling, you know? That same feeling is the same feeling you get right before you walk out to a cage. I’m searching for that feeling and there it is, every time I fight, it’s like the scariest feeling in the entire world.” — Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone

It’s been quite a while since we first penned our list of “The Ten Greatest Finishing Moves in MMA“ and a lot has changed in the time since. While some of our choices are even more relevant now than they were when the list was originally published in April of 2011, most of them seem either inaccurate or simply out of date in light of current circumstances. Knowing what we know now, we’ve decided to update our list to align with today’s MMA landscape. Enjoy. 

#10 – Matt Mitrione‘s Football Tackle

Matt Mitrione has evolved into quite the knockout artist since his time on TUF 10, and it’s easy to see why: He’s incredibly light on his feet for a man his size and is easily one of the most purely violent punchers in the heavyweight division. All the man named “Meathead” needed was a little refinement, go figure. That being said, two of Meathead’s last three KO victories have come less by any sort of striking technique and more by a football-style collision of two giant dudes (phrasing). His 19-second finish of Philip De Fries at UFC on FUEL 9 was the first knockout to come by way of hip thrust in UFC History and his recent win over Derrick Lewis at Fight Night 50 looked like something between a forearm shiver and a

In any case, it’s obvious that Mitrione’s professional football past has largely aided his MMA present, and we hope to one day see him score the KO via Goldberg Spear he has been working towards for years now.

(*And* he’s a nacho stealer? When did you go so wrong, Cowboy?!!)

You gotta feel for Bobby Green right about now. In the past month, “King” has been scheduled for two different fights at UFC 178 — first against former Strikeforce title challenger Jorge Masvidal and then against Donald Cerrone in the evening’s co-main event, only to have both cancelled on short notice. The Masvidal fight was scrapped in favor of the Cerrone fight, which was then scrapped when Eddie Alvarez signed with the UFC and was subsequently booked against Cerrone. As a result, Green has now found himself without a dance partner for UFC 178.

It’d be easy to understand Green’s frustrations, given the likely massive paychecks he is missing out on for not being “high-profile” enough. Whether or not these frustrations played a part in his interview with The MMA Hour yesterday, during which he accused Cerrone of racist comments and inappropriate behavior with several female fans during a recent UFC Fan Expo, remains to be seen. Still though, Green held nothing back when discussing the behavior of his short-lived opponent:

He just said some racist stuff. He said stuff like, random racist stuff like ‘we gotta check him, we gotta check him, you know how black people like to steal.’ I’m like ‘what the,’ and I’m getting hot in front of thousands of people, all these people are here for the signing and they’re going ‘ohhhh’ and ‘ooooh’ and ‘ahhh.

He was groping every woman in his line to do his signing. He’s groping these women. They’ve got husbands, they’ve got fiancees, they’ve got boyfriends, I’m like, that’s messed up man, just because this guy’s a nerd and he can’t do anything to you, you’re going to do this to him. Girlfriend’s cute, Donald Cerrone, picks her up, grabs her ass, starts grabbing on there and stuff and he’s like “I’m Donald Cerrone.” I’m like, ‘you’re going to piss somebody off, you get the wrong person they’re going to get pissed.’ He’s like, ‘what are they going to do to me, I’ll knock them out.’ I’m like what the? This guy’s full of himself.

Read More DIGG THIS

(Photo via Ryan Loco)

Eddie Alvarez is a free man. According to a press release sent out by Bellator this afternoon, the promotion has granted the lightweight star his unconditional release, after a rocky history of contract disputes, lawsuits and reconciliations dating back to late 2012. In the end, Bellator president Scott Coker didn’t want to keep Eddie around if he didn’t want to be there. Check out the official statement below:

Newport Beach, Calif. (August 19, 2014) – Bellator President Scott Coker has released a statement regarding Eddie Alvarez:

“We’ve granted Eddie his unconditional release. Eddie is free to explore the free agent market, we hold no matching rights, and we wish him the best in the future. We sat down with Eddie and his team a few times, and it became pretty clear early on that he just wasn’t interested in fighting for Bellator in the future. We want guys in this organization that want to be here, and after the history Eddie and the former regime had here at Bellator, we decided to move on. We wish Eddie the absolute best of luck with whatever is next for him. It’s a new chapter for everyone involved.”

Eddie Alvarez has also released a statement:

(Ready? He was *born* ready. / Photo via @CowboyCerrone)

In an attempt to add a little more sizzle to the deflated UFC 178 lineup, a lightweight match between perennial crowd-pleaser Donald Cerrone and streaking contender Bobby Green has been booked as the new co-main event for the September 27th “Johnson vs. Cariaso” pay-per-view. UFC officials confirmed the match last night.

Cerrone, who was rumored to fight Eddie Alvarez at the event after being momentarily booked to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov, has finished his last four opponents in the Octagon — earning $50,000 performance bonuses for each victory. “Cowboy” most recently knocked out Jim Miller in a wild two-rounder at UFC Fight Night 45 last month.

Green is a perfect 4-0 in the UFC since transferring from Strikeforce, and is riding an eight-fight win streak overall. The “hood” practitioner is coming off a split-decision victory against Josh Thomson at UFC on FOX 12, a fight we’ll mostly remember for how talkative he was.

Bobby Green was originally booked to face twitter-rival Jorge Masvidal at UFC 178, but in light of the new arrangement, Masvidal will face off against James Krause. I know, this is all getting confusing, so we’ve put the current UFC 178 lineup after the jump. It’s still pretty stacked, actually, even though the main event is only like the sixth-most interesting fight on the card.

(You know, I was a little concerned about the idea of standard fighter uniforms in the UFC…until this very moment. Photo via Eddie’s Instagram.)

We don’t mean to jump the gun here, but multiple sources are confirming that Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez is in talks to face Donald Cerrone at the already stacked UFC 178 card in September. To repeat: UFC 178. Eddie Alvarez. Donald f*cking Cer-ro-ne.

This potential meeting of top lightweights is heavily dependent, of course, on whether or not the UFC is able to acquire Alvarez from Bellator, as he is still under contract with his much maligned promotion. But Scott Coker is no Bjorn Rebney, and Alvarez is no Gina Carano, so expect to hear the official word of Alvarez’s signing any day now.

(Video related. / Self-props: The CP tumblr)

UPDATE: “20 minutes after Khabib-Cerrone fight was signed, Khabib blew his knee out and the fight is off UFC 178 card” — Kevin Iole. WHY MUST YOU MOCK US, GOD???

Feel free to stop reading at this point. An amazing fight was booked, and we were struck down for our hubris. End of story.

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According to a tweet by semi-retired MMA journalist Mike Chiappetta, lightweight gunslinger Donald Cerrone and Dagestani bear-wrestler Khabib Nurmagomedov will face off at UFC 178: Jones vs. Gustafsson 2, September 27th in Las Vegas.

Not only is it a fantastic matchup, it could potentially produce a title contender, as both men are currently hovering around the top of the 155-pound division. Cerrone’s knockout of Jim Miller on Wednesday was his fourth-straight victory, with all wins by stoppage (and all wins earning him a performance bonus).

Nurmagomedov is a perfect 6-0 in the UFC, and 22-0 (!) overall. He most recently out-pointed Rafael Dos Anjos in April, then decided to take the summer off due to Ramadan. After Cerrone’s win over Miller, Nurmy tweeted out the following:

(Props: UFC on FOX)

If you didn’t tune in to UFC Fight Night 45: Cerrone vs. Miller last night, slap yourself in the face. The Atlantic City event was chock full of wild battles, debilitating body shots, and freakish hematomas, and every fight on the main card ended by stoppage — all at the low, low price of $0.00 (assuming you have basic cable).

Headliner Donald Cerrone became the fifth UFC fighter in history to earn ten performance bonuses, thanks to his second-round knockout of Jim Miller, which netted him a $50,000 bump for Performance of the Night. Fun fact: Cerrone has earned $610,000 in bonus money during his three-and-a-half-year UFC career…and counting. Check out highlights from Cerrone vs. Miller in the video above. At the 0:38-0:41 mark, Jim Miller tries to recreate Scott Smith vs. Pete Sell and fails. But man, that would have been awesome.

Fight of the Night went to the John Lineker vs. Alptekin Ozkilic flyweight feature, which Lineker won by TKO with nine seconds remaining in the fight. Highlights from that match are after the jump, along with footage from Edson Barboza‘s body-kick TKO of Evan Dunham, Joe Proctor’s gritty win over Justin Salas, and Rick Story‘s squash match submission against Leonardo Mafra.