“What’s that screeching noise? Sounds like a train coming to a sudden halt…”

Remember when we all thought that Hector Lombard was the X factor of the UFC middleweight division? And we pegged the middleweight who hadn’t lost a fight since 2006 a 4-1 favorite to wallop Tim Boetsch at UFC 149? And we thought he would go on to give Anderson Silva his toughest test to date? Oh man, those were some good times, right?

As far as Hector Lombard is concerned, not so fast. Three weeks after his dreadful performance at UFC 149, the Cuban middleweight has released a statement on his Facebook page. Presumably after meeting with his social media consultant, Tito Ortiz, Lombard claims that he was just too damn injured to have been fighting, bro. I know, put on your shocked faces.

Via His Official Facebook Page:

(And if enough of you follow him on Twitter, he will fight this dog to the death on live television.) 

Talk about an odd method of motivation. UFC President Dana White has long lamented over the extra baggage UFC heavyweight Roy Nelson has been carrying around over the course of his career, and it appeared to have some impact, as Nelson showed up at a slim and trim 246 pounds for his most recent UFC 143 battle with Fabricio Werdum. Though the results were less than successful, it seemed as if “Big Country” had actually begun to make a commitment to shedding the unnecessary pounds that were holding him back from being a truly elite fighter. After his loss to Werdum, many were calling for the rotund Burger King enthusiast to consider a drop to light heavyweight, regardless of how long it took. Though it would undoubtedly be a mountainous task, it would ultimately benefit Nelson, who is a mere 3-3 as a heavyweight in his UFC career.

Well according to Roy, we won’t be seeing him even attempt the cut unless he gets a few more people to “like” him on Facebook. In a recent interview with BloodyElbow, Nelson managed to set aside his order of baby back ribs long enough to make a pledge to transform his body, but if and only if he added 100,000 friends/likes/whogivesafucks to his profile:

The reason is my friend and I had a discussion about what was better? I think twitter just because of use and for fans interaction, but Facebook is 20x bigger. So we decided to bet. I said if it so easy and great I should be able add 100K fans in 2 weeks because I have that on twitter. Facebook is bigger and better so this should be easy. Right?

Bet is I will try to get to 205 if I can add 100k to Facebook.com/RoyNelsonUFC in two weeks. I love to win bets. Plus he will have to give me a part in his next movie.

(You don’t get to 10,000 friends without making a few enemies. / Images courtesy of 5thRound, Playboy.)

All month, it’s been taunting me — watching the fan count on our Facebook page creep slowly, steadily toward 10,000.  At the time of this writing, we’re sitting at 9,977 fans, just a stone’s throw away from the Promised Land. Well I’m not going to let this affect my sleep any longer. We’re passing 10,000 fans today, damn it, with or without you bastards.

If you’re reading this now and you have a Facebook account, but aren’t a follower of facebook.com/CagePotato for some reason, please head there and “Like” our page. It’ll keep you up-to-date with all the top stories on CagePotato, and provide you with bonus content that we didn’t have room for on the site.

Plus, it’ll give you another outlet to share feedback, post your own links and photos, and complain about our captcha system — all at no cost to you. So please, do us a favor, just this once. Thank you.

Even if you can’t make your way out to Toronto for the UFC Fan Expo, you can still be part of the “Free CagePotato” movement. For the next month or so, we’re going to be giving away a bunch of the brand-new tees you see above. If you want one, there are a couple of ways to do it…

1. The Twitter Way: Send a tweet of support to @danawhite that includes the hashtag #freecagepotato. (The message must be a positive one. No verbal abuse, please.) Every weekday, we’ll pick our favorite one and hook that person up with a shirt.

2. The Facebook Way: Take a picture of yourself posing with “Free CagePotato” written on a hand-made sign (kind of like the one after the jump) or on your own body (keep it clean, people). Then, upload it to our Facebook wall. We’ll collect our favorites at some point in the future, post them on the site, and award them all t-shirts.

(Hold on to your asses: Jason “Coked Out Steve Carell” Reinhardt vows to make it chaotic for Tiequan Zhang. Props: YouTube.com/UFC)

Directly before this Saturday’s pay-per-view broadcast of UFC 127: Penn vs. Fitch, you’ll be able to watch five of the event’s seven prelim fights absolutely free of charge — assuming you use Facebook and your cable package includes the ION network. The action begins at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET on Facebook.com/UFC, which will feature a live stream of Anthony Perosh vs. Tom Blackledge and Jason Reinhardt vs. Tiequan Zhang.

Then at 6 p.m. PT / 9 p.m. ET, the fights move to Ion Television for a live broadcast of Nick Ring vs. Riki Fukuda, James Te-Huna vs. Alexander Gustafsson, and Ross Pearson vs. Spencer Fisher.

At this point, the only bouts that won’t be guaranteed TV time are Mark Hunt vs. Chris Tuchscherer and Maciej Jewtuszko vs. Curt Warburton — and since either of those fights could end in a short, violent stoppage, you may see them pop up in the pay-per-view broadcast. The complete lineup of UFC 127 is after the jump.

(Click the image above to watch some Yamamoto vs. Johnson video hype courtesy of the UFC’s Facebook page. Kid describes his UFC debut as both "cool" and "fun." What can we say, the dude knows how to cut a promo.)

Just like they did with the ‘Fight for the Troops 2′ prelims, the UFC has responded to popular demand by hooking fans up with an additional UFC 126 preliminary bout on their Facebook page this Saturday. The bantamweight scrap between Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto and Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson will air live at 8:25 p.m. ET / 5:25 p.m. PT at Facebook.com/UFC. (Just click on the "Live Video" tab.) UFC prez Dana White will also be hosting a chat on the page starting at 8 p.m.

After the Kid vs. Mouse appetizer, Spike TV will air two more crowd-pleasing preliminary matches (Michihiro Omigawa vs. Chad Mendes, Donald Cerrone vs. Paul Kelly) at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT, leading into the ‘Silva vs. Belfort’ pay-per-view broadcast. Be sure to come back to CagePotato.com for live results all night. S’gonna be a good one…

The UFC announced today that it will be streaming two of Saturday nights Fight for the Troops preliminary bouts free online. The only catch is you have to "like" the promotion on Facebook to be able to watch the fights.

Facebookers (or Facebooksters, or whatever the kids who use the social media service are calling themselves these days) will be able to watch Alaskan guillotine master and one of Friday’s three Bum Rush Radio Show guests Cody McKenzie take on Yves Edwards as well as Mike Guymon square off with DaMarques Johnson on a small, laggy video window on the UFC’s fan page.

Either Dana White followed Bono’s lead and scooped up some Facebook shares before filing his 2010 taxes, or The Baldfather is hoping the move will finally garner him more friends than Justin Bieber. It’s likely killing him that a little punk who dresses just like him with hair like that gets more tail than a member in good standing of The Smashers Club.

(Cool! We’ve always wanted to meet Cheick! / Image courtesy of Facebook.com/Real.Cheick.Kongo)

Sometimes when you’re writing an MMA opinion blog, you forget that the fighters you occasionally talk shit about are real people, with real feelings, who would really beat the crap out of you if they found out where you lived. Case in point: Cheick Kongo, who didn’t appreciate a certain article I recently posted about him. Cheick joins Dana White in the growing list of UFC-folks who won’t be inviting me to any parties in the near future.

So Cheick, if you’re reading this and you want some justice, please don’t resort to violence. Instead, come onto our radio show next week so you can defend yourself and explain why you aren’t a dirty fighter. If you’re available, contact us through our site or Facebook page, and we’ll set up a time that’s convenient. Hope to hear from you soon…

(BG)

Happy hump-day, Potato Nation. We have a couple of important MMA FightPicker-related announcements to make this morning. First off, FightPicker now has a fan page on Facebook, where you can get updates on the game, chat with other players, and make your weekly picks. Do us a solid and become a fan, okay?
 
Secondly, and more importantly: The first FightPicker prize pools are now open for business! If you go to the Open Pools page you’ll see three new pool categories at the top. Here’s how they’re set up…

iPod Touch Pool Unlimited: Buy-in is 250 PotatoChips. There is no player limit to the pool, so your odds of winning decrease with every new person that enters. The winner of the pool* will take home an iPod Touch. (Street value: $199)
iPod Touch Pool 25: Buy-in is 500 PotatoChips**, but your odds of winning are greater because we’re capping the entries at 25 players. Once this pool fills up, we’ll start another 25-person pool, repeating as necessary. The winner of each 25-person pool will score an iPod Touch.
iPod Touch Pool 10: Buy-in is 1,200 PotatoChips; entries are capped at 10 players, so your odds of winning are pretty damn favorable. Once this pool fills up, we’ll start another 10-person pool. The winner of each 10-person pool will score an iPod Touch.

* To prevent ties, we’ve added a tie-breaker question to these pools, so make sure to answer it if you enter one of them. If there’s still a tie even after the tie-breaker question is factored in, the prize will go the first-place-scorer who entered the pool earliest.

** By now, some of you are wondering how the hell you can enter these pools with your miserable stake of 34 PotatoChips or whatever you have left at this point. Well, if you really want an iPod Touch and you feel confident in your picking abilities, you can purchase chips here. Throw in a few bucks (which supports the site, by the way) and you’ll be good to go. Or, spend the day filling out surveys, whichever’s easier.

Questions, comments, concerns? Holler at us in the comments section, and please enter a UFC 110 pool this week if you haven’t already. Good luck!

(Do it for the Hammer, the Terror, and Bones.)

With the vote to lift the ban on MMA in New York State imminent (or so we hear), our NY state assemblyman friend Rob Walker has taken to Facebook to drum up some more support. In the mission statement for his newly-launched group "Support Mixed Martial Arts in New York State," Walker writes the following:

(Image courtesy of BloodyElbow) 

Despite rumors that BJ Penn was considering retirement directly before or after his brutal, slippery loss against Georges St. Pierre on Saturday, BJ Penn has updated his Facebook page with a message that he’ll "for sure" be facing Kenny Florian in his next fight, possibly in June. (This follows a previous Facebook comment where Penn wrote "gsp was a bit greased but that takes nothin away from him at all he was the better guy!") Florian last fought at UFC 91 in November, where he scored a first-round submission victory over Joe Stevenson. So, he’ll have to make a choice that’s now all-too-familiar — take a long layoff and wait for BJ to be ready in the summer, or risk his #1 contender status with another place-holder bout.

And just to keep you up to speed on "Lubegate"…

Yeah, Brock Lesnar and I are friends on Facebook.  We’re also both friends with Fedor Emelianenko, and probably a lot of people we went to high school with who we were never friends with in real life, but that’s Facebook, isn’t it?  The point here is, check out Brock’s status.  If nothing else, this thing that claims to be his Facebook page thinks he is now officially fighting Frank Mir at UFC 98 in May, as previous rumors have suggested.

Fortunately, Brock has helpful friends like Paul Wallin there, who livens all of our days with a cute little Mir-is-a-pussy joke that’s straight out of eighth grade.  Real nice.  Nothing says, "I have no actual experience with women or their genitalia" quite like that old classic.

And don’t worry, one of Brock’s other Facebook friends has already warned him to beware of the "angle lock."  Hear that, Mir?  Looks like someone just gave away your whole game plan.  Now what?