(For some reason, we can’t watch this fight without first playing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” on loop for a good 3 hours.) 

Sad news for those of you who were still clinging to the fragile hope that it was only a matter of time before Fedor Emelianenko would rise from the ashes of mediocrity that he seems to have entrenched himself in lately. In a recent interview with Russian publication Rianovosti, “The Last Emperor” candidly spoke about his future in MMA, and claimed that it might be coming to an end after his fight with fellow legend Pedro Rizzo, which is set to transpire on June 21st in St. Petersberg. True to form, Fedor was not one to elaborate when discussing the possibility of retirement.

I think it’s time to call it a day. This fight may be my last one. 

So there you have it. God is dead, there will be no Christmas this year, and Fedor f’ing Emelianenko is never going to fight an opponent that stands a chance of beating him ever again. And this is in no way an insult to Rizzo, it’s just that, well, if Gilbert Yvel was able to do this to him, just imagine what Fedor will do. Now combine that with the fact that Rizzo has not fought since nearly crippling the human punching bag that is Ken Shamrock back in July of 2010, and you have the makings for another brutal KO win on Emelianenko’s record over an opponent that no one wants to see get knocked out again.

But Emelianenko was nothing but considerate when discussing his opponent, as has become the standard with a true gentlemen like Fedor:

I have been learning from Pedro’s fights and have a lot of respect for him. He is a fighter of a great maturity, beating many of the strongest.

There’s no denying that in his prime, Rizzo was one of the most feared strikers in the sport, and deserves a boatload of respect for his accomplishments as a mixed martial artist. But come June 21st, we might see two illustrious careers come to an end. One via retirement, and the other via death.

-J. Jones

(Props: serpreg via MiddleEasy)

The Glorious Sweater of Absolute Victory was more than a beloved Internet meme — it was a JoBu-esque talisman, embodying Fedor Emelianenko‘s supernatural talent as a fighter, and leading to his eventual downfall when he turned his back on it. Fedor first began wearing the GSoAV non-stop in 2009, then abruptly stopped before his losing streak in Strikeforce, which is too eerie to be a coincidence. Though he tried to appease the sweater by wearing it again before his July 2011 fight against Dan Henderson, it spitefully withheld its powers, teaching Fedor a painful but valuable lesson about loyalty.

But after another extended hiatus, the GSoAV re-appeared (magically?) before Fedor’s first-round knockout of Satoshi Ishii last December. It’s back again in this new footage, which proves that Fedor isn’t leaving his upcoming fight against Pedro Rizzo to chance.

(Props: David T. Cho)

Being an MMA fan ain’t easy sometimes. Hyped-up fights turn out to be snorefests, scandals damage the sport’s legitimacy, incredible parlay bets get wrecked by incompetent judging, forcing us to explain to our kids once again that Santa Claus most have lost our address this year. On today’s CagePotato Roundtable, we’re discussing the fights and moments that made us want to give up on MMA entirely and follow [*shudder*] baseball for a while. Let us know your own lowest fan-moment in the comments section, and if you have a topic for a future Roundtable column, send it it to tips@cagepotato.com.

Seth Falvo

It’s crazy how life goes full circle: When I was ten years old, Doug Flutie was my favorite NFL player. I begged my dad to buy me Flutie Flakes for breakfast, so that I too could grow up and be a successful, albeit undersized quarterback for a small market football team. My dad refused, which explains why I’m now a writer (You’re welcome, Andrew Luck). After all, I was too young to remember the real Doug Flutie, the Heisman Trophy winning Boston College quarterback who helped make the USFL somewhat relevant. Flutie may have still been a talented quarterback — especially for his age — but he had clearly lost a step by the time I started watching football.

Thirteen years later I was on the phone with my dad, talking about one of the most lopsided fights he had ever seen. I spent the entire conversation trying to convince him that the small, pudgy guy he just watched get destroyed by a no-name oddity was at one point the most dangerous fighter on the planet. As you may have guessed, I’m specifically referring to Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva. But really, Fedor’s entire Strikeforce run can be summed up the exact same way. Perhaps Fedor was too old, perhaps the heavyweight division had simply caught up to him, or perhaps it was a combination of the two. But one thing is clear: By the time that Fedor made his way to Strikeforce, he was no longer the untouchable fighter that he had once been.

Even in his lone victory, a second round knockout against Brett Rogers, he was arguably losing the fight before connecting with the fight ending right hand. And Brett Rogers is no Apollo Creed; he’s barely a pimple on the ass of Vodka Drunkenski. He’s a gatekeeper in every sense of the word — just legitimate enough for EliteXC to have kept him away from a “prime” Kimbo Slice, but not legitimate enough to pose any threat of beating a true contender. We had all the warning signs that Fedor was going to be a bust signing after this fight, yet we chose to ignore them because hey, he won, right?

(Matt Serra: MMA’s patron saint of lost causes.)

With tomorrow night’s UFC 145 main event slated as a 4-1 squash match, the CP gang is talking upsets for today’s installment of the CagePotato Roundtable. If you have a topic-suggestion for a future Roundtable column, please send it to tips@cagepotato.com, and share your own MMA-upset testimonials in the comments section…

Doug “ReX13″ Richardson

This wasn’t a hard decision for me: My personal “greatest upset” would have to be Fabricio Werdum vs. Fedor Emelianenko.

While I normally disagree with that crazy fanboy (hey Sodak) explaining to me how Fedor is an intelligent machine, sent back in time to destroy craniums and assassinate Andrei Arlovski, I completely wrote off Werdum here. Like, no way a guy who hung out in Minotauro Nogueira’s guard for six days is going to get tapped by a dude who calls himself “Go Horse” and smiles like this, right? So yeah, I gave him no chance of pulling out a victory. I could be on tape somewhere saying that he had no chance, in an obnoxiously opinionated manner. I may also be credited with one of the worst predictions in CP history.

So yeah, that one stung a little bit.

(In Brazilian culture, the “Easter Bunny” is two men, one small and one large, covered in body hair and scars. / Photo via SporTV)

It’s not Rolles Gracie, it’s not Bobby Lashley, and it’s not Todd Duffee. According to a tweet sent out today by M-1 Global Director of Operations Evgeni Kogan, Fedor Emelianenko‘s opponent at the June 21st M-1 event at the Ice Palace in St. Petersburg will instead be three-time UFC heavyweight title contender Pedro Rizzo. Please, try to control your excitement.

A free-agent who’s been out of the elite circuit of MMA competition for years, Rizzo didn’t compete at all last year, partly due to an arm injury. Still, he’s riding a three-fight win streak dating back to September 2009, with victories over Jeff Monson, Gary Goodridge, and Ken Shamrock. Meanwhile, Fedor picked-up back-to-back wins over Monson and Satoshi Ishii late last year, which followed his disastrous 1-3 run in Strikeforce.

On one hand, Rizzo feels like a hand-picked opponent for Fedor. On the other hand, there aren’t many better options outside of the Zuffa umbrella. Anybody looking forward to this one?

(That look in Chuck’s eyes — we know it well. / Full gallery is after the jump.)

Since our 25 Most Awkward Photos in MMA History gallery was such a big success, and because we could all use some stupid fun on a Friday afternoon, we decided to put together a GIF-based sequel. Enjoy the uncomfortable hilarity, and if we left out any of your favorites, please post some links in the comments section. Have a great weekend, Potato Nation!

(Just so you know, Rolles is the one on the bottom.) 

Sad news for those of you who were still clinging to the insane hope that Fedor Emelianenko would be the man to challenge Junior Dos Santos for the UFC Heavyweight title –all six of you– as the rumor currently circulating the MMA blogosphere has “The Last Emperor’s” potential opponent bar set a little…lower. Go figure.

Yes, according to none other than Rolles Gracie himself, via his Twitter, it looks like the other member of the Gracie clan to go one-and-done in the UFC is currently negotiating with M-1 Global to put the fight together this summer, stating:

 Where there is smoke there is fire. My manager is under negotiation with M1. We’re really close to make this fight against Fedor to happen.

Don’t get too excited, Rolles, we all know how tasking the typical M-1 negotiation can be.

(Try as they might, Coleman’s corner simply was not equipped to stop the swelling around his eye between rounds)

None of us who watched it could ever forget when former UFC and Pride champion Mark Coleman embraced his sobbing daughters in the ring after losing to Fedor Emelianenko in 2006 and reassured them that “daddy was alright.” Turns out, neither have his daughters. But, according to one of them, it wasn’t nearly the terrifying experience that we all assumed it to be.

“It was so fun out there…I don’t regret it at all,” Coleman’s daughter said during an interview for an HDNet Fights segment on her dad, which you can check out after the jump.

Coleman was also interviewed, and teared up when talking about the moment and the criticism that he received for it. The idea that he had in some way traumatized his daughters by bringing them to the fight — then introducing them to the man who beat him up — is still hard for Coleman to swallow. “Being a dad was the most important thing to me in the world,” he said.

(Sapp’s most recent effort attempt ”showing” against James Thompson. How do you know it’s a Bob Sapp joint? Because the introductions are twice as long as the fight.) 

In the difficult economic times that we are currently experiencing, Bob Sapp’s continual ability to stay employed as a “fighter” is nothing short of inspiring. And by inspiring, we mean infuriating. The man has fought nine times in the past three years, totaling just over fifteen minutes of ring time. There is not a doubt in any of our minds that the time he spent training for those fights was less than half of that. He has lost all but one of those contests, and word has it that the one man he defeated committed Sepukku shortly thereafter. Yet he continues to get work. He lost his last fight by submission due to (fake) leg injury, and tapped out to approximately two punches thrown by a BJJ expert in the fight before that. Yet he continues to get work.

Perhaps it is a sign, like the popularity of Jersey Shore or Nicki Minaj, that our culture has truly done a 180 in terms of what we consider worthy of our attention. Where in days past, it was a person’s abilities that brought them into the public eye, it seems now more than ever that we as a society are fixated with people who lack any discernable talent whatsoever.

Bob Sapp is living, breathing proof of this phenomenon.

Thankfully, it looks as if Sapp may finally be forced to take on a fighter who could make him reconsider his line of work altogether; someone who could possibly knock Sapp out cold before he gets the chance to call it quits. That man is none other than UFC veteran Soa Palelei, who is scheduled to take on Sapp at Cage Fighting Championships 21 on April 20th.

If there is a God, he will not allow Bob Sapp to walk away from this fight completely intact.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/HDNet)

- 10 Ways to Gain Muscle (Men’s Fitness)

- PEDs in MMA: Amid TRT Controversy, A Hidden Danger (MMA Fighting)

- Ultimate Treadmills Fail Compilation (Worldwide Interweb)

- Infographoc: The Cost of Don Draper’s Life Today (Made Man)

- Indonesian 8-Year-Old Smokes a Pack a Day (Turd Ferguson Blog)

- An Incomplete Guide to Michael Bay’s Ridiculousness (Screen Junkies)

- Nick Offerman’s Amazing Workshop (BREAK)

- Lindsay Lohan’s Lawyer Plagiarized Her Dumb Lawsuit (Film Drunk)

- Who Said It, Don Draper or Tupac Shakur? (Clutch MTV)

- Fedor Likely Headed to Super Fight League Next (Fighters Only)

- Wand: I’m From the Streets and Vitor Lives In Disneyland (Bleacher Report)

- A Cure For Baldness, Man Boobs, And Other Dude Problems (Holy Taco)

- Five Questions Stemming From the Broncos’ Signing of Peyton Manning (Scores Report)

Bellator vet Blagoi Ivanov has been placed in a medically induced coma in the intensive care unit of the Bulgarian hospital he has been recovering in since being stabbed more than six weeks ago in his homeland.

This according to a press release by the hospital, sent out today.

Doctors are planning to start hemodialysis on Ivanov soon in an attempt to save his kidneys from further damage. His breathing is being assisted by a respirator and he is being pumped full of a steady supply of antibiotics to ward off infection.

There’s no word on whether or not his physicians expect him to fully recover from the attack.

(“Now insult my mother and tell me you want to slap her on the ass and make her cook you some borscht.”)

With today’s fighting landscape where we see teammates competing against one another like Gokan Saki fighting Golden Glory training partner Alistair Overeem in K-1 and Carlos Condit preparing to take on Team Jackson stablemate Georges St-Pierre, you’d think that brothers competing in a combat sambo match wouldn’t be a big deal.

Apparently Fedor Emelianenko disagrees.

The former PRIDE and WAMMA heavyweight champion competed in his beloved Russian mat sport last month and when he found himself paired with younger brother Aleksander in the heavyweight final, the fix was in.

Instead of squaring off, Alecks, who is a four-time Sambo champ, embraced Fedor, allowing himself to be thrown and submitted by his brother with an armbar, in what looked more like a demo than a bout.

The brief display made Bob Sapp look like a gamer.

Undefeated Heavyweight and Bellator veteran Blagoi Ivanov is reportedly clinging to life in a Bulgarian hospital after being stabbed in the heart early Sunday morning. The former Sambo champion was attending the after party of a boxing tournament when he and his two friends were attacked by a group of eight men carrying guns and knives. The reasoning behind this altercation has yet to be determined, but police have already made several arrests of those believed to be involved in the incident.

Although his friends were able to walk away from the incident with minor injuries, Ivanov was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital following the incident when it was determined that the knife blade, which entered through his armpit, had penetrated his heart. The six hour surgery that followed was successful, but the next 48 hours are critical in determining the fate of the 25 year old, according to inside sources.

(Wings, lions and heraldry? That combo would make a nice MMA shirt.)

India’s new MMA promotion, Super Fight League announced today the signing of a trio of MMA vets.

According to a release, former UFC heavyweight Todd Duffee, former Bodog middleweight champion Trevor Prangley and M-1 veteran Baga Agaev all agreed to four-fight deals with the fledgling promotion.

(Big stakes for both fighters if this one happens.)

We’ll preface this story with the disclaimer that it’s simply a rumor at this point, but word on the street is that Todd Duffee may be the next opponent in line for Fedor Emelianenko.

According to a post on Fedor’s official website, “The Last Emperor” has been taking some time off to  nurse a thigh injury and likely won’t fight until the summer against a “former UFC legend.” Sure it’s a stretch to say that Duffee is a UFC legend, but remember that these are those Crazy Russians talking and what else are they going to advertise him as, the ripped dude that got knocked out by that flabby Mike Russow guy?

You read that correctly. Russia…has water parks. Not only do they get to have Sambo, awesome sweaters, and The Dude’s favorite beverage, but now they have waterparks as well. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE LAND OF SNOW AND SORROW GOD DAMN IT.

We have no clue where this video came from, or what the true purpose of it is, but we’d be lying if we said that Piterland doesn’t look like the bees knees, and apparently former PRIDE Heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko and his daughter Masha agree. We are still waiting to hear who “The Last Emperor’s” next opponent will be, but rumors have ranged everywhere from Bobby Lashley in a MMA match to Brock Lesnar in a pro wrestling bout, so who the hell knows? What we do know is that the next man to fight Fedor might want to reconsider if he values his health whatsoever. Poor Ishii.

What’s that you say? You want to see a MMA fighter humiliate and dance around his opponent ala Silva/Leites/Maia/anyone before brutally kicking them in the face? Well we’ve got just the video awaiting your viewership after the jump.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/FromRussiaWithLois)

Growing up, I always laughed at douchebags who would pick a fight with a much smaller guy, only to learn the hard way  that they shouldn’t have. I imagine a few of Anderson Silva’s tormenters experienced a bit of this poetic justice in the 80s for making fun of his Kid N’ Play hairdo and knockoff Reebok Pumps.

(We’re not the only ones who see a woman in a bear suit in the background, right?)

It’s a new week, Potato Nation, and with it brings change. I, for one, will be shedding the DangadaDang “nom de plume” if you will, in favor of my actual name from now on. Will the writing be any gooder? Perhaps, but for every change, something must stay the same, as they say. And in the ever changing landscape that is the current MMA scene, it’s comforting to know that we can count on the stability of at least one thing: Fedor Emelianenko‘s desire to toss around Asian men he outweighs by a good 70 pounds. You get caught with your hand in the (fortune) cookie jar once, it’s forgivable. You get caught twice, and you’re moving into full blown fetish territory, Mr. Emelianenko.

Yes, the former PRIDE heavyweight champion recently appeared on the South Korean TV show, “Star King,” to reenact the end of the Tim Boetsch/David Heath scrap with the help of fast rising featherweight contender Chan Sung Jung. Aside from being a reminder of how much better Asian television shows are than ours (oh MXC, where hast thou gone?), the sparring session is at the minimum a silver lining in the storm cloud of disappointment that was the second UFC on Fox broadcast. Like we said, it’s a new day, and let’s just shed the memory of last weekend’s main card with a good old fashioned freak show exhibition to start the work week, shall we?

Join us after the jump for the glorious video, but for the love of God, turn off your speakers before you do so. If you’ve ever ordered take out from P.F. Chang’s, then you are familiar with the chaos that awaits you.

It was on this day three years ago that Affliction held its second and final MMA event, “Day of Reckoning” in Anaheim California. It’s not that the event did poorly at the box office or that it didn’t feature great fights, because the show took in $1.5 million and with names like Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Vitor Belfort, Matt Lindland, and Josh Barnett, the line-up rivals any UFC card today. The problem was that the owners of the company tried to pay fighters whatever their asking price because they were friends with most of them, having sponsored them for years.

Case in point, when you are paying Tim Sylvia $800,000 to get KO’ed by Fedor (who only netted $300,000 for the feat), you may need a new business model.

The event, whose main event was broadcast as a pay-per-view with the undercard shown on HDNet,  featured some exciting fights and some dramatic finishes by Emelianenko, Belfort, Barnett and Nogueira.

(“Ha ha ha. But seriously, though? OJ did that shit.”)

After going 2-0 last year following his upset loss to Chad Griggs in Strikeforce, Bobby Lashley is still moving forward with his cage-fighting career. In fact, the former WWE star is weighing some very attractive options right now. One possible scenario is a contract with Bellator, whose heavyweight division is desperate for some star power. And then there’s this (via FightersOnly):

Lashley also spoke about the possibility of a fight with the legendary Fedor Emelianenko. “The guy’s got a tremendous amount of fights under his belt… I’d like to fight him.”

According to Lashley, Fedor’s managers are currently looking for the Russian MMA veteran’s next opponent, and his name is on the list of potential matchups. “I’m going to throw everything at him that I can. Of course, my wrestling’s there, I don’t give a damn what he’s doing. I’d put my wrestling up there with almost anyone right now.”

(“What the hell did you put in my Bud Light?”)

According to Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Antonio Inoki’s Inoki Genome Federation is trying to put together a pro wrestling bout between recently retired former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar and former PRIDE and WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko.

The chances of the one-off fake fight happening are slim-to-none considering Brock mentioned that one of the main reasons he retired was to spend more time with his family after his pair of diverticulitis scares the past two years. Travelling to Japan likely isn’t high on his list of family vacations.

(Pat Barry lets a seven-year-old haul off on his face for four minutes. This is basically what I imagine Pat’s sparring sessions with Brock Lesnar looked like. Props: LIAM_B)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere…

- Tito Ortiz Says His Final MMA Fight Will Take Place in July, Possibly Against Forrest Griffin (MiddleEasy)

- Lyoto Machida Undergoes Successful Surgery, Calls Out Chael Sonnen (MMA Fighting)

- Jim Ross: Brock Lesnar Returning to the WWE Simply Isn’t Happening (MMA Mania)

- Top 10 Best Fights From the UFC in 2011 (The Fight Nerd)

- Luke Rockhold: Keith Jardine Does Not Deserve a Title Shot (Lowkick.Blitzcorner.com)

- FightLine Exclusive Interview With Karo Parisyan (FightLine)

- Michael Schiavello Rips Fedor Emelianenko and M-1 Global for ‘Diva’ Behavior (5th Round)

- UFC 143: Diaz vs. Condit Gets UFC Primetime Treatment (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Strikeforce: Robbie Lawler’s 10 Greatest Fights (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

- Five Big Items of Fallout From MMA’s Two NYE Shows (Fight Opinion)

- UFC for XBox Live a Dud in Debut (MMA Payout)

- A Viking Send-Off for Brock Lesnar (MMA Convert)

(Video courtesy of YouTube/chokeouttv)

I’ve you’ve ever told an off-color joke only to realize that the person you’re telling it to is standing in front of his 83-year-old grandmother, you’re going to appreciate this video.

Fabricio Werdum thinks he’s being witty when he sees Fedor and his entourage in the elevator at the hotel prior to Strikeforce’s last event in New Jersey and lets them know that he knows a few greetings the Russian group will understand. “Vai Cavalo” goes on to explain that he lived in Croatia for a stretch and while he was there he picked up some of the country’s Slavic native tongue — a dialect that closely resembles Russian.

Spoilers after the jump, along with the Fedor/Ishii fight, the Sylvia/Le Banner “fight,” and the bantamweight tournament final match between Bibiano Fernandes and Antonio Banuelos.

(Will Lesnar vs. Overeem bash out a place on the list, or will it inevitably fall short of the hype?)

Between Junior Dos Santos’s knee injury, Strikeforce phasing out their heavyweight division in 2012, and the general lack of UFC heavyweight fights lately (just three in their last five events, to be exact), it seems like MMA’s big-man scene is in hibernation mode.

But starting with Friday night’s UFC 141 main event of Brock Lesnar vs. Alistair Overeem — promoted as the “biggest” fight of the year — and continuing on to Josh Barnett vs. Daniel Cormier in March, the action among 265′ers is about to start heating up. With that mind, we decided to pay tribute to the greatest and most important heavyweight MMA fights from this past year. Enjoy, and let us know if we left out any of your favorites…

#6. DANIEL CORMIER vs. ANTONIO SILVA
Strikeforce World Grand Prix: Barnett vs. Kharitonov, 9/10/11

What happened: The smaller man fought like a giant. Cormier landed his punches at will and easily shrugged off Silva’s attempts to take the fight to the ground. Entering the tournament as an alternate, Cormier punched his ticket to the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix finals with a hook/uppercut combo that stiffened the Brazilian Frankenstein.
What we learned: Undersized doesn’t always mean outgunned — and a big chin doesn’t always mean a strong chin.

It’s official: Satoshi Ishii is a dead man walking. Don’t call it a comeback, but Fedor Emelianenko was spotted on his return flight home from Holland donning none other than the Glorious Sweater of Absolute Victory, or as MMA Mania calls it, The Ultimate Sweater of Destruction. I’m not going to lie to you, Potato Nation, I had to paste that name directly from their article, because as I tried to type it, it was as if some otherworldly force took over my body, choked me within an inch of my life, and then forced me to smash the ice cream cone I was eating into my face. Weird.

The sweater, which was retired amidst an undercover attempt by the Russian government to assassinate “The Last Emperor” and use its powers to bring on a new Ice Age, has been the sole factor in Emelianenko’s recent three fight skid, which saw him submitted by Fabricio Werdum before being TKO’ed by Antonio Silva and Dan Henderson. After a recent, secret shift in the Russian power paradigm, Emelianenko told CagePotato in an exclusive and possibly fake interview that he feels safe to wear the sweater again, and looks forward to going on another 30 fight win streak that will culminate in a “two man enter, one man leaves” match against Dan Severn.

(Anderson Silva: Like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and America’s Best Dance Crew, all rolled into one. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com. Check out the full gallery after the jump.)

As we enter the last week of 2011, join us in celebrating the year’s most memorable images — from tense face-offs to action shots, ring girl pin-ups to gnarly post-fight injuries, and other assorted insanity. If we’ve left out any of your favorite MMA photos from the past year, drop us a link in the comments section. Enjoy…

(Photo courtesy of Scott Hirano. For more from this gallery, click here.)

By Anton Gurevich

A week away from his encounter with Fedor Emelianenko at Fight For Japan: Genki Desu Ka Omisoka 2011, it seems like not many people are giving 2008 Olympic Games Gold Medalist Satoshi Ishii a chance to get his hand raised at the Saitama Super Arena. After all, Ishii will be entering just his seventh professional MMA bout, as he currently holds a record of 4-1-1.

However, Ishii’s career decisions speak for themselves. The 25-year-old Judo phenom left his comfort zone in Japan to pursue a full-time Mixed Martial Arts career in the U.S. Ishii become a student of the game by training under Muay Thai extraordinaire Ed Buckley, and touring between some of the most famous gyms on the west coast.

Ishii could easily be labeled one of the most high-profile martial artists currently competing in the sport. The fight with Fedor could serve as a turning point for the decorated Judoka, who has set himself a clear goal of becoming one of the best MMA fighters on the planet. It’s an opportunity Satoshi Ishii will take full advantage of, especially when fighting on his home turf in Japan.

We had an opportunity to speak to Satoshi Ishii, who shared his thoughts about the December 31st date with “The Last Emperor,” and his preparations coming up to the fight…

Read the interview with Ishii on Lowkick.blitzcorner.com

(What? Was Zuluzinho not ready for a rematch?) 

Fresh off a unanimous decision victory over Jeff Monson that snapped the only multiple fight losing streak of his career, word has just broke that Fedor Emelianenko will be fighting in Japan for the first time since his armbar victory over Hong Man Choi at Yarennoka – New Years Eve 2007. As luck would have it, “The Last Emperor” will be fighting on New Years Eve once again, this time under the DREAM banner and against 2008 Olympic gold medal winning Judo practitioner Satoshi Ishii.

Not exactly the freak show bout that Japan (and Fedor) have been known to dabble in, but to call it a mismatch would be somewhat of an understatement. After winning the gold medal in Beijing, China over three years ago, Ishii has built up a 4-1-1 MMA record, with wins over the likes of Ikuhisa Minowa and former K1 great Jerome Le Banner, but has not fought since his draw with pill popper and occasional fighter Paulo Filho back in September. Ishii’s lone loss came in his MMA debut at the hands of fellow Judoka gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida.

As co-host of the Opie & Anthony radio show on SiriusXM, comedian Jim Norton has become the designated punching bag for visiting MMA stars. He’s been choked, he’s been kicked, he’s had his foot twisted 180 degrees by Brock Lesnar. And considering what a sick, depraved bastard Norton is, you have to wonder if he enjoys it on some level. Here’s everything we could collect from Jim Norton’s MMA-related body of work. All videos courtesy of opieradio.

Guest: BJ Penn, 4/14/10
Technique: Armbar
In Jim’s words: “That is fuckin’ horrible…Besides the fact that your arm is ready to be ripped out, it puts pressure on your fuckin’ — it stretches you both ways, I didn’t realize it did that.”