If Affliction’s Fedor Emelianenko-Andrei Arlovski main event at “Day of Reckoning” this Saturday doesn’t draw as well as expected, you certainly can’t blame a lack of video hype.  Above is a preview for what is being billed as a documentary called “Fedor: Baddest Man on the Planet,” which will air on Fox Sports Net Tuesday night.  It’s important to note that this was put together by the people from M-1, so don’t expect a warts-and-all look at Emelianenko.  More like a really long commercial or an extended version of the "Arlovski 360" hype videos.  Speaking of which…

…here’s the latest installment, in which “The Pitbull” explains his plan to “fight like lightweight.”  We also get to hear more people talk about how great Arlovski is, how hard he trains, etc.  This is the fifth episode.  We get it.  He trains hard.  He’s a good fighter.  It’s not as if it becomes more true the more people you can find who are willing to say it on camera.

After the jump, Gilbert Yvel explains to “Inside MMA” why he punched that referee.  The short version?  It was wrong, but the ref was a dick.

(From The Telegraph via MMA Scraps)

The Telegraph was in Mark Coleman‘s dressing room following his tough loss to Mauricio Rua on Saturday, and videotaped him experiencing all five Stages of Grief. Watch as the Hammer goes from shocked and despondent to furious at his corner ("I couldn’t hear how much time’s left! Scream it!") to blaming himself for not staying on his feet ("It’s my own fault…it’s my own goddamned [expletives]") to spitting blood into a bucket, which could possibly be interpreted as "acceptance." Of course, his post-fight vent-session doesn’t compare to the level of rage he had after taking his first loss to Fedor Emelianenko at PRIDE Total Elimination 2004. In case you haven’t seen it before, video of that incident is after the jump; audio NSFW.

("Step 1: Kiss a picture of Manny Pacquiao every night before you go to bed." Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

From a new MMA Weekly interview with Andrei Arlovski‘s famed boxing coach, Freddie Roach:

Hear that, Tim Sylvia? Angles. If you think that Freddie’s "fight us like a man" line implies a lack of appreciation for MMA and its more subtle ground elements, you’d be correct. As he explains, “I think it’s boring. I saw one fight where the guy just laid on the other guy the whole fight and he won.” But Roach understands that Arlovski’s opponent could wind up scoring a victory on the canvas:

It must be nice to live in a world where you never have to worry about the armbar (I guess it’s called). But I don’t live in that world, and you don’t live in that world, and Andrei Arlovski sure as hell doesn’t live in that world. Can sharp boxing be enough to stave off Fedor’s Hydra-like attack? We’ll find out on the 24th, but my money’s still on the chubby guy.

(Photo courtesy of Fight Sport.)

Now that an eventful 2008 is in the books, Alistair Overeem tells DreamFighters.com that he plans to take a little rest, go on vacation, and maybe even swing on over the Ireland to catch UFC 93 on January 17th.  Lest you think it’s purely a sight-seeing trip, the Dutch fighter says his management team has been in talks with the UFC and Affliction, and Overeem says he’s up for fighting everyone from Fedor Emelianenko to Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir.  

After seeing a very bulky Overeem destroy Badr Hari on New Year’s Eve, we can’t deny that we’d like to see him added to the UFC’s heavyweight stable.  Even signing with Affliction would offer him a fresh list of opponents and probably a nice paycheck, though who knows for how long.  But you put a guy like Overeem into the UFC’s heavyweight division and suddenly you have a lot of interesting match-ups on the horizon, and they’d be particularly helpful in the UFC’s European expansion attempts.

Overeem isn’t the only one thinking about stepping into the Octagon, however, as his old rival Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic says he’ll likely retire in 2009, and would like to have one more fight in the UFC before he does.

#5: Affliction: Banned, 7/19/08

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog)

Sure, the pacing was a little shaky, and the picture quality for the pay-per-view broadcast was kind of dark, and apparently some of you don’t think that Megadeth’s Rust in Peace is one of the most kickass records ever released. But you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Affliction’s debut MMA show gave us a supernova of heavyweight star power, featuring Fedor Emelianenko’s 36-second destruction of Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski’s beatdown of Ben Rothwell, and Josh Barnett’s redemptive KO of Pedro Rizzo; elsewhere on the card, we got to see Matt Lindland, Babalu Sobral, Vitor Belfort and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in action. The organization has since turned into a bit of a shit-show, but with Banned, they gave us nearly everything we could have hoped for.

#4: UFC 87: Seek and Destroy, 8/9/08

(Photo courtesy of ESPN)

The UFC’s visit to Minneapolis proved the following…
— Brock Lesnar is an absolute beast. His takedowns can’t be stopped, and his punches tend to break facial bones. He will mock you after he beats you.
— Kenny Florian is a fantastic fighter, and worthy of a title shot; Roger Huerta maybe had a little more hype than substance.
— Demian Maia is one of the most talented submission specialists in MMA, in any organization, in any weight class. His choke-out of Jason MacDonald gave him his third-consecutive Submission of the Night bonus.
— Ben Saunders might actually be a contender one day.
— Jon Jones is athletic and explosive. I’m sorry, but the clichés are true sometimes.
— Jon Fitch is one tough son-of-a-bitch.
— If you’re fighting Georges St. Pierre, tough ain’t enough.

10. Ricardo Almeida guillotines Rob Yundt (2/2/08)
After almost four years away from the game Ricardo Almeida returned at UFC 81 to take on Alaska’s Rob Yundt.  The Gracie fighter wasted no time getting it to the mat and when Yundt tried to reverse postions he locked in a guillotine choke with one arm inside.  Yundt thought he’d just slam his way out, but Almeida wasn’t having it.  He used the momentum to flip Yundt over and then finished the choke from the top position at the 1:08 mark.  Smooth, bra.

9. Yoshiyuki Yoshida chokes out War Machine (5/24/08)

Japan’s Yoshiyuki Yoshida made his UFC debut at UFC 84 against the man then known as Jon Koppenhaver.  Yoshida locked up an anaconda choke less than a minute into the first and Koppenhaver, alpha male that he is, declined to tap and instead took a pleasant little nap.  Okay, so it’s only a technical submission, and not the fanciest finish you’ll ever see, but damn was it satisfying.  War (or Mr. Machine, as he’s known down at the bank) would later get chucked from the UFC for making stupid comments about Evan Tanner’s death and for refusing a fight with Brandon Wolff.  Yoshida would go on to get knocked into a Zen-like peacefulness by Josh Koscheck.

8. B.J. Penn squeezes the juice out of Joe Stevenson (1/19/08)

Arlovski 360, Ep. 1 – Watch more free videos

From the moment this video declares Fedor-Arlovski to be the most anticipated heavyweight bout in MMA history, for the "undisputed" heavyweight title, you know what you’re getting into.  Still, the look of the video is impressive for a DIY internet effort.  It rips off all the cool things about the HBO 24/7 series, though since they spend the entire time pumping up Arlovski it reaches none of the emotional depth. 

Oh well.  It’s still the best promotional tool we’ve seen yet for this fight that’s just over a month away.  If Affliction’s not embarrassed by that, they should be.

After the jump, Frank Mir gets deep, plus a little something extra that you may hate me for, but it’s for your own good.

(Dave Kaplan cleans up on "The Singing Bee’s" Girl Power Night.  No joke.  The money line: "You’re making me nervous, Fatone!" Thanks to reader bpd for this.)

- Inside MMA previews Arlovski/Fedor. (MMA Scraps)

- Wagnney Fabiano in no hurry to get WEC belt. (Tatame)

- Phil Baroni wants back in the UFC.  Good luck, bro. (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Joe Rogan’s "Fight For The Troops" rant is pretty right on. (Fightlinker)

- Satoshi Ishii celebrates his birthday. (Suki MMA)

- Hong Man Choi not worried about midget Cro Cop. (Fighters Only)

- Dodgeball, Xtreme Couture style. (Xtreme Couture)

- If alcohol labels were more realistic. (Holy Taco)

- Goodbye Sparks, you will be missed. (Wall Street Fighter)

- The weirdest Jeff Goldblum moments are really weird. (Screen Junkies)

- Cop hits deer at 75 mph, and it goes flying. (Nothing Toxic)

Damn, is it Friday already? Well, you know what time it is. (No, not peanut butter jelly time.) It’s time to give away some t-shirts to some of our LOLiest commenters. This week’s winners:

Dangada Dang on "Michael Bisping Voted the Coolest Bloke in the U.K.":
Bisping makes a good point as the last person to get him on the ground was Abu Dhabi world champion Chris Leben.

Old, Bald and Irish on "No Ortiz Announcement at Today’s Presser":
All this "Affliction: DEATHWATCH (TM)" is making me nuts. Ya know when you see something horrible happen, like a car crash, and everything is in slow motion? That’s what following Affliction is like. Except, you’ve already seen the crash and you can’t peel your eyes away from the slo-mo sight of the mangled girls body ejecting through the front windshield as her $95 Affliction t-shirt gets sheared away from her skinless naked body as it sloooooowly rips on the broken glass while her pulverized bloody carcass gets forcefully expelled from the flaming vehicle.

Kinda like that…

…except Fedor is standing there on a street corner witnessing the whole thing with an emotionless expression on his face and an ice cream cone in each hand.
[Ed. note: Suck on that, Kadumel!]

milo bling on "Randy Couture Joins Cast of Stallone’s ‘The Expendables’":
if someone invited me to see this, i wouldn’t show up. but i guess it wouldn’t really matter.
[Ed. note: You had to be there.]

If you’ve been shouted out, please send your name, address, and size to feedback@cagepotato.com to claim your CagePotato Hall of Fame t-shirt. Fuuuuuuuun!

(There may be only one man on earth who can make the Santa hat look cool.)

I don’t want much this holiday season.  Well, besides that Red Ryder BB Gun I ask for every year.  And a pony.  But there are some fights I’d like to see in 2009, and while I don’t think that mall Santa I tried to talk to is going to be any help (let’s just say it got heated and we both said some things we didn’t really mean), I’m holding out hope that the powers that be will hear my pleas and make some of these happen.  

Here’s my wish list of ten fights for 2009.  Some are very likely.  Some are just barely feasible.  But I tried to stay away from the downright impossible, hence the absence of Fedor vs. The Highlander.  Feel free to let me know all about what’s on your list in the comments section:

1. Anderson Silva vs. Georges St. Pierre: Whether GSP beats Penn or not (magic eight ball says, “all signs point to yes,”) this has the potential to be the UFC’s biggest superfight ever.  They have precious few opportunities to settle pound-for-pound debates, but this is their best shot.  If MMA becomes legal in New York this year, as it probably will, this fight could do a Jay-Z and sell out the Garden in a day.

2. B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian: Perhaps no fighter in the UFC has improved so much by sheer force of will as KenFlo.  Penn is the lightweight champ, and he deserves to be, which is why I really wish he’d stop chasing fights in other weight classes and set his sights on defending that title.  Winning a belt is great, but defending it is how you cement your status as a dominant champ.  Penn probably beats Florian in a tough fight, but there’s only one way to find out.

3. Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett: If he beats Arlovski, this is the only realistically possible bout for Fedor that would still be compelling.  I know they’re friends and all, but Affliction is starting to feel like a narrowing path leading only to this fight.  Hopefully all parties concerned – Affliction, Barnett, Fedor, Fedor’s management team – can hold it together long enough to make it happen.

(Photo courtesy of AfflictionClothing.com/DayofReckoning)

The online betting site 5Dimes was the first to put up odds for Affliction: Day of Reckoning’s main event, now offering a +325 underdog line for the Pitbull, and -475 for the Last Emperor; in other words, bet $100 on Andrei to win $375, bet $475 on Fedor to win $100. Apparently the line was first established at +400/-600, but it started to even out as money began flooding in for Arlovski. (According to BestFightOdds, BetCris‘s numbers are slightly more generous, and they’re already offering odds for the Josh Barnett/Gilbert Yvel match.) If you feel like taking a risk on the Pitbull, you may want to act soon, since your potential profit could decrease as Arlovski fans continue to drop cash on him.

Personally, I feel that betting against Fedor is always a bad move — even if Arlovski’s been hard at work, taking detailed notes. But 5Dimes and BetCris are also offering a far more interesting wager: Georges St. Pierre vs. BJ Penn at UFC 94. Though 5Dimes set the line at -245/+175 on Monday with Penn as the underdog, the numbers have already shrunk down to -210/+160, meaning that bets are coming down solidly on the Prodigy. If you think GSP has the edge here, definitely keep an eye on the odds to see if they go any lower for him.

Semi-related: Andrei Arlovski now refers to Tim Sylvia as "Pee Pee Taste." Brilliant.

(Props: Bloody Elbow)

If you feel like you didn’t get to hear enough about the awful-looking Kevin James film "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" during the Ultimate Fighter Finale, check out his appearance at the Spike TV Video Game Awards.  This sketch — which is every bit as cringe-inducing as the interview was and as the movie will undoubtedly be — clearly took about five minutes to write, including bathroom and coke breaks.  When they couldn’t figure out how to end it some genius came up with the idea to have Rampage come out and howl.  Problem solved.  I know Rampage and Kevin James are bros, but I feel like one is having a bad influence on the other here.

After the jump, Gary Goodridge’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, and more.

No matter what Andrei Arlovski was writing down in that video, he’s probably better off taking some of your suggestions. Out of the hundreds of entries we slogged through, here are the top five, which all earn their authors subscriptions to Fight! Magazine:

Ted Nutmeg: Dear Diary,
Well, it happened again today. It seems like every time I turn around some guy is pounding a pussy that I went through two years ago.

Shagen: "Try to do something in the first 36 seconds."

CrushCo: i? F????! ??tt?? ??ty? soo?.

Lysol: "Tell Seth Petruzelli not to make plans on the 24th."

Xian67: http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5765/notepadtransvn7.jpg

If your name has been called, please send your real names and addresses to feedback@cagepotato.com and we’ll get those subscriptions hooked right up for ya. Good times! As for the rest of you, cheer up by gawking at the lovely ladies in Fight!’s Girl Search finals. That always makes us feel better.

(‘Poor bastard never stood a chance.’)

Frank Mir says it’s important for a fighter to be honest with himself.  Judging from his conversation with Michael David Smith at MMA Fanhouse, however, it seems more like he thinks it’s important to be honest with himself some of the time, when it’s convenient to do so.

Despite the fact that Mir’s bout with Brock Lesnar seemed to be going against him in the early minutes, he’s positive that he’d win a rematch.  Really positive:

"Brock Lesnar will never be able to beat me because he has no submission skills," Mir told me. "What’s he going to do, knock me out? No one has never knocked me cold. What’s he going to do, arm bar me? No way. He is powerful. He is big. But martial arts isn’t filled with guys from the NFL. Lesnar had to grab the cage not to get taken down by Randy Couture, who’s 220 pounds. Lesnar isn’t the phenom that everyone makes him out to be. He started at 30. Have you ever seen a boxer start at 30 and become a world champion?"

I’m not sure what Mir means by “no one has never knocked me cold,” but a quick look at his record reveals three TKO losses.  One of them was in 2006 against Brandon Vera, who hasn’t won a fight by TKO since.  Another was to jiu-jitsu specialist Marcio “Pe de Pano” Cruz, which Mir describes as his “pussiest moment.”

But whenever Mir talks about Nogueira and his chances in that fight, it really doesn’t sound like he’s quite as confident.

(‘Pay no attention to my brother. He is idiot.’ Photo courtesy of afightgallery.com)

Aleks and Fedor Emelianenko don’t seem to have the warmest of sibling relationships.  They don’t train together, don’t speak especially well of one another, and when they were both at the Affliction press conference in July they barely acknowledged one another’s presence.  It’s tempting to blame this on the fact that both of them often appear to be emotionless cyborgs, but then you see that picture of Fedor happily eating two ice cream cones at once, and damn if it doesn’t just melt your heart.  

But Aleks is taking issue with some comments his brother made to a Russian newspaper, where Fedor suggested that his little bro lacks a serious work ethic, even going so far as to claim that as kids, “Aleksander looked for adventures on his rear end…I wouldn’t come out of the gym.”

Aleks, as you might imagine, disagrees:

Last week, Aleks was interviewed by the same newspaper and Fedor “is definitely not correct on that. I don’t know why [he] said that. Probably was overcome by some ambitions.

“My brother sometimes gets overwhelmed. He says something stupid, and then he’s sorry about it afterwards.”

Something tells me Fedor is not terribly sorry about those remarks.  As for him being "overcome by some ambitions," perhaps that’s what Aleks has been telling himself all these years when Fedor’s in the gym becoming the world’s best heavyweight, and he’s been off doing…whatever it is that Aleks does besides getting tattoos.

(Props: thepitbullarlovski)

You may have already seen this video when it started making the rounds last week, but above is a clip of Andrei Arlovski taking notes on some of Fedor Emelianenko‘s fights in preparation for their scheduled bout next month at "Day of Reckoning." What he’s writing, of course, is never revealed. So here’s our challenge to you: Give the vid a look and tell us what the Pitbull is jotting down at the 0:50-0:56 mark. The five (5) funniest/most creative entries win one-year subscriptions to Fight! Magazine, which is pretty much the best MMA mag ever. Leave your entries in the comments section below and feel feel to enter multiple times. Contest ends Wednesday night at midnight ET; the winner will be announced on Thursday. Good luck.

(Hey, if he can do it to Captain Planet…)

Huge news for followers of competitive grappling — the Abu Dhabi Combat Club has announced that Fedor Emelianenko and DREAM middleweight champ Gegard Mousasi have been confirmed as participants for the 2009 ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship:

Fedor Emelianenko, after conquering the World of MMA, wants to show the World he is also the best Submission Grappler in the World. Fedor want to make history and expand on the pioneer spirit of what Mark Kerr did in the late 90′s when he was the Champion of Pride and became the weight and Absolute Champion of ADCC and went on to defend his title in the Superfights for 2 editions.

Mousassi, the winner of the 2008 Dream Middleweight Grand Prix where he defeated former World ABJJ Absolute and ADCC middleweight Champion Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza in the final, also wants to test his ground skills against the top names in Submission Grappling. This sets up some humongous possible match-ups such as a re-match with “Jacare” or facing current ADCC Middleweight Champion and rising U.F.C. star Demian Maia.

(‘It would be pleasure to hurt hand on your face very much.’)

Fedor Emelianenko broke his silence about his Combat Sambo loss this past weekend, telling Dave Meltzer that it’s no biggie. Sambo’s just something he does for shits and giggles. MMA is what he does for money:

“My Bulgarian opponent wasn’t a surprise,” said Emelianenko through an interpreter. “I always understand there could be the possibility of losing a bout. My opponent was European champion in combat sambo. But for me, sambo is a hobby. I enjoy participating in the sport, but it’s a different sport. It’s a sport scored based on throws and being taken to the ground. That’s happened to me in MMA with [Kazuyuki] Fujita and [Antonio Rodrigo] Nogueira. It’s not my occupation or my work, which is MMA. I think the result would be different under MMA rules.”

It’s not quite ‘Oh, Snap!’ worthy, but in Fedor terms that’s about as close to shit-talking as he usually likes to get. He makes a valid point, though. Sambo isn’t a real fight, and anyway he lost on points. Word has it that he flew in from Thailand not long before the match, and a source who spoke to Fedor at the actual event tells Cage Potato that the Russian doesn’t really seem too excited about Sambo these days, and may be doing it more out of patriotic obligation than anything else.

In other words, don’t get your hopes up, Andrei Arlovski. Fedor hasn’t fallen off just yet.

(Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

M-1 Vice President Jerry Millen released a lengthy statement to the media last night congratulating Randy Couture for his return to competition as well as Brock Lesnar for his UFC heavyweight championship win, while lambasting the UFC for marketing their fighters as the best in the world — when clearly it’s M-1′s own fighter, Fedor Emelianenko, who should hold that distinction. And there’s no secret who Fedor wants to take on next to prove it:

Couture and WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko had publicly acknowledged a desire to fight each other multiple times over the course of the past year. While M-1 and Fedor remain interested in a match against Couture, we would also like to publicly state for the record that we would welcome a superfight between Fedor and Lesnar that would be held as a co-promoted event between the UFC, M-1, and Affliction Entertainment.

We’ve invited the media to speak with us today to not only make it clear we would welcome a Fedor vs. Lesnar matchup, but to act in a preemptive fashion to address the possibility that UFC officials will try and position Lesnar as the number one heavyweight in the world, much like they have tried to use a marketing ploy to brand Anderson Silva as the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

In the past, UFC president Dana White and Zuffa, LLC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta have tried to claim that Fedor was “overrated” and that his “record was irrelevant.” They make these claims in spite of the fact that Fedor holds career victories over UFC champions past and present. While we have tremendous respect for the contributions Mr. Fertitta and Dana have made to this sport, we do not believe they are sincere in their statements.

(Props: Bloody Elbow)

Here’s a short preview clip of Virtual Mike and Joe discussing Brock Lesnar in the upcoming UFC 2009 Undisputed video game. For more sample clips of Lesnar, click here. A promo video for UFC 93: Franklin vs. Henderson is below, and grainy, hand-held footage of Fedor Emelianenko’s Sambo loss to Blagoi Ivanov awaits you after the jump.

(Props: Fightlinker)

(Would it kill the Sambo guys to put on some pants?)

Fedor Emelianenko actually lost a fight this weekend. Sort of. Competing in the World Combat Sambo Championships, Fedor lost on points (8-5) in the semi-finals to Bulgarian Blagoi Ivanov, who went on to win the gold medal. Fedor won the bronze after his opponent in the third-place match conceded without a fight. So…does this mean he’s no longer the world’s best heavyweight?

No. Of course it doesn’t mean that. Jesus, it’s just Sambo. Would you calm down? In case you’re wondering whether this Ivanov character is some preternatural fighting genius who’s set to take over the world, he probably isn’t. Fedor beat him earlier this year at the Russian Federation President’s Cup. It just so happens that Ivanov got his revenge this time, and you could make a strong case that Fedor’s been distracted by running around filming movies and hawking Affliction in the past few months.

Fighters Only floated a rumor that Affliction had already signed Ivanov to a contract, but MMA Rated has talked to VP Tom Atencio and he says it isn’t true. The way things go in Affliction, someone else in the company may very well contradict that statement tomorrow.

Long story short: Sambo isn’t MMA, so this isn’t a sign that Fedor is washed up. It is, however, wonderfully ironic when you consider that Fedor’s burning desire to continue to do Sambo was part of his problem with the restrictive UFC contract. Just think, it could have been him beating Randy Couture this weekend. At least then he wouldn’t have had to fight that mean old Bulgarian guy.

(Image courtesy of InsanityWeTrust.net)

Josh Gross at SI reports that Showtime Sports will be responsible for producing and distributing Affliction’s “Day of Reckoning” pay-per-view card on January 24th; an official announcement will come Monday. Showtime Sports produced all the ShoXC and EliteXC broadcasts on the premium cable channel, as well as the EliteXC events on CBS and the Strikeforce/EliteXC co-promoted “Shamrock vs. Baroni” pay-per-view in June 2007. So, expect a step up in quality from the bad lighting, bizarre camera angles, and poor pacing that plagued Affliction’s “Banned” show in July.

“Day of Reckoning” is still headlined by Fedor Emelianenko defending his WAMMA heavyweight championship belt against Andrei Arlovski. Gross also confirmed the addition of three other bouts: First, Matt Lindland and Renato “Babalu” Sobral will meet in a middleweight match on the main card; both fighters won decisions at “Banned,” with Lindland getting the better of Fabio Nascimento and Sobral edging out Mike Whitehead. [Ed. note: FiveOunces is reporting that the match will be contested at light-heavyweight.]

(‘Come on, Brock. What did we talk about? A little foundation is fine, but you go piling it on like this and it just makes you look desperate.’)

If you don’t like seeing Brock Lesnar in the UFC, and if you didn’t enjoy his appearance on E:60, you’re really not going to like this.

Maybe you hoped Dana White would give up on the former WWE star if he fails to beat Randy Couture. Maybe you just hoped he and his enormous traps would get stuck in a doorway somewhere in a remote part of Minnesota and he’d never be heard from again. Unfortunately for you, the second scenario is starting to sound more plausible than the first. Judging by Dana White’s remarks to The Sun, he seems to be absolutely smitten with Lesnar:

“It’s such an interesting fight because Couture is so good at coming up with plans for finding weaknesses in guys’ games and exposing them. But Lesnar’s such a different animal, this guy is so big, so strong and so fast at that weight it’s just phenomenal.

“For what he lacks in technique and knowledge, he makes up for in size, speed and power. Lesnar could go on to be the best heavyweight and the longest-reigning heavyweight – who knows what could happen with him.”

Who knows, indeed. He could go down in history as the greatest MMA fighter who ever lived. He could beat every heavyweight in the world, then travel into space to defeat intergalactic heavyweights. Instead of dying like a mortal man he could ascend to heaven on a winged white steed while angels sing a glorious song that churns the seas into a golden froth. Man, I have got to stop doing peyote in the afternoon.

The point is, it seems a little premature to get so worked up about a guy who’s 2-1 and has a bad habit of quitting stuff to go do other stuff, right? And then you hear this little afterthought thrown in there:

Fedor will return – Watch more free videos

Just a few weeks ago during the EliteXC on CBS broadcast Affliction promised us that Fedor would return. When and against who, that was left to the wondrous power of our imaginations. Now some of the specifics have been filled in with this new promotional video, which advertises a date (Jan. 24) and a firm opponent (Andrei Arlovski).

They appear to still be calling this event “Day of Reckoning,” just as they called it when it was supposed to in Las Vegas earlier this month. Given all the trouble they’ve been having, the title could turn out to be sadly appropriate. The official event website lists only Fedor and Arlovski on the fight card, but includes pictures of Vladimir Matyushenko, Josh Barnett, Renato Sobral, Matt Lindland, Vitor Belfort, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Chris Horodecki, and Jay Hieron. Not sure if that’s meant as implication that they’ll all be added to the card, or whether they just had some space to fill at the bottom of the page.

Now that they have an official date and a main event, we can probably expect them to announce something completely different next week.

(Say something about the pants. I wish you would.)

The relationship between Affliction and the MMA organization/Fedor Emelianenko rental company known as M-1 has always been somewhat sketchy. M-1 gets to make pointless speeches at Affliction pressers with no explanation as to why, they put their ads all over the arena during Afflicton’s July event, and generally seemed to have a hand in anything Fedor-related that Affliction even attempted. Now, apparently, the partnership is official:

“We’re basically just solidifying our relationship,” Affliction vice president Tom Atencio told MMAWeekly.com of the Russian promotion. “We work well with them. They’re one of the few companies we’ve worked with that if they say they’re going to do something, they do it. They’ve stood behind us, especially with negotiations with the UFC.”

This is part of what Affliction is planning to announce at tomorrow’s Trump Tower press conference in NYC. Another part is their involvement in the “Fighting Fedor” reality series. When will this show air, on what channel, and will there be anyone remotely credible in the running to fight Fedor? Hopefully that will all be answered at tomorrow’s press conference, though we can tell you right now that the answer to the last question is no.

The new deal between Affliction and M-1, however, should finally put to rest any notion of Fedor fighting Randy Couture in the near future. M-1′s Raimond Joost said there was no real possibility of Fedor signing a deal with the UFC, and as long as the UFC has Couture (which should be a healthy portion of his remaining shelf life as a fighter) you know they aren’t about to loan him out to the competition. So basically, take whatever remaining hope you had of ever seeing that fight and bury it somewhere deep inside yourself along with your suppressed rage and childhood dreams of happiness.

(Don’t go getting soft on us, Babyface.)

For a guy who seems like he’s getting screwed by his employer, Josh Barnett sure is keeping cool about it. First he had his fight with Andrei Arlovski put in jeopardy when Affliction decided they couldn’t pull off their October “Day of Reckoning” event in Las Vegas. Then, a few weeks later, they announce that Arlovski will be fighting on this Saturday’s Elite XC card (and will be paid well to do it), but he’ll face Roy Nelson instead of Barnett. And why? Barnett says he never turned the fight down, but Atencio says he “couldn’t get a hold of him.”

Barnett was cagey while telling his side of the story to MMA Weekly, but it sounds as if there’s something else going on here than just a simple case of miscommunication:

“I was disappointed, yes. That was supposed to be my fight. We talked about it at some point prior to going to Japan, and I found out that I didn’t get the fight while in Japan. I continued to work on some business there, especially after I found out I wasn’t getting the fight.”

Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t sound like a guy who just missed a phone call. It could be that Nelson comes a lot cheaper than “The Baby-Faced Assassin”, who has said repeatedly that he is not interested in fighting at a discounted rate.

In any event, whatever is going on between Barnett and Affliction seems to have implications beyond just this Elite XC co-promotion, as Barnett confirmed in no uncertain terms that he won’t be fighting Fedor in January.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Life in the Affliction offices must be a little like being married to an alcoholic. They seem to be making progress, taking steps in the right direction, and then you look out the window and see them passed out naked in the neighbor’s yard and realize it was all just a pleasant illusion. Affliction’s latest setback has to do with the main event for their second offering, which is maybe on January 24 or maybe not, depending on who you talk to.

While new acquisition Gegard Mousasi claimed it would be Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett in Affliction II, Barnett’s manager tells USA Today, “It is unlikely that Josh and Fedor will fight within the next few months.”

Affliction VP Tom Atencio also said that no fights have been confirmed for the event. It could be that they’re waiting to see how Andrei Arlovski does against Roy Nelson in his big network TV moment on Saturday night. If Arlovski steals the spotlight on Elite XC: Heat, it would make sense for Affliction to put him in the main event against Fedor right away to try and capitalize on that increased exposure.

They’ve got to figure out some way to make it pay, because according to Dave Meltzer Arlovski is poised to haul in seven figures if he beats Nelson this weekend, and Affliction is footing the bill. It’s great for Affliction to get their stuff on CBS, but Arlovski better be wearing several layers of Affliction t-shirts to make this little venture seem worthwhile.

(Can a WAMMA belt be far behind? Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Though most casual MMA fans had never heard his name until this year, Gegard Mousasi (24-2-1) made his presence known in a big way during DREAM’s recent middleweight grand prix, cutting through highly regarded fighters Denis Kang, Melvin Manhoef, and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza to win the championship. Now he’s widely acknowledged as one of the best middleweights in the world — which is why we were hoping he’d be signed by the UFC to add some extra heat to their 185-pound division, and maybe challenge Anderson Silva for the belt one day. All that shit will have to wait, unfortunately, because it looks like Affliction got to him first. As he told Fighters Only Magazine:

“I’m going to train with Fedor in preparation for Affliction in January. I think it is Fedor against Josh Barnett and they want me to fight Vitor Belfort.”

Mousasi is part of the Red Devil International team and he shares a manager with Fedor in the shape of Vadim Finkelstein…

Affliction has yet to reveal a line-up for its January event but Vitor Belfort has told Brazil’s Tatame magazine that he has been contacted and offered a fight.

If Mousasi continues to perform like he has over the last two years, he should have no trouble whipping Belfort, Matt Lindland, and whoever else Affliction has under contract at 185. And now he’s training with Fedor too? Forget about it.

Mousasi’s claim that Emelianenko will skip straight to a fight with Barnett in January — foregoing the Arlovski/Barnett eliminator match altogether — is also interesting, but as with all rumors related to Fedor and fight-booking, we’ll believe it two weeks after it happens.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

(‘Bring me your tired, your freaks, your outmatched fools. I fight them on eve of the new year, yes?’)

The official Dream website has posted an interview they conducted with Fedor Emelianenko, but unfortunately for me it’s all transcribed in squiggly lines that I can make neither heads nor tails of. Good thing Suki came along to translate it, otherwise we might have missed this:

- Japanese fans are expected to see you fight in NYE in Japan again.

I want to fight in Japan again; however, I cannot control everything. God knows what will happen. Whether I fight or not in NYE depends on a negotiation between my manager and DREAM.

Perhaps Fedor is just blowing smoke here to keep his Japanese public happy, but that’s a very different story than the one Tom Atencio is telling. He claims to have verification from Fedor’s management that he absolutely, positively will not fight on New Year’s Eve. So, assuming Fedor is not consciously lying in this Dream interview, this means:

1) Fedor’s management is willing to rent him out to the highest bidder, regardless of whether they’ve already committed him to fight elsewhere.

2) Fedor’s management doesn’t necessarily tell Fedor everything that’s going on.

3) There are some nuances being lost in translation.

The first option seems plausible because, well, Fedor is managed by crazy Russians, according Dana White. The second option is also not too unrealistic, for the same crazy Russian reasons. Option three is especially possible since Fedor’s comments had to go from Russian to Japanese to English. In other words, yeah, we don’t know what the hell is really going on. Which probably puts us in the same boat as Fedor.

(Sorry, bro. Not this year.)

Poor Fedor. All he wants to do is fight some weird, mostly meaningless bout on New Year’s Eve every year. But all these damn contracts keep getting in the way. It’s almost as if people want the world’s top-ranked heavyweight to only fight top-ranked contenders. Fascists.

Affliction VP Tom Atencio told me yesterday that he has good reason to believe that all the talk about Fedor fighting in Japan this NYE is just idle chatter. Said Atencio:

He is not going to [fight on New Year's Eve]. We have a contract with Fedor. We have a great relationship with Fedor. I just spoke with the guys from M-1 Global and they assured me that he’s not fighting so wherever that came from is beyond me. There are a lot of rumors in this industry and a lot of speculation, but I was told through the partnership that we have that Fedor is definitely not fighting on New Year’s Eve.

Where it came from, obviously, was Fedor’s comments at Dream.6. But Atencio seems certain that the next time “The Russian Last Emperor” gets in the ring, it will be under the Affliction banner. As for when that might be, the details there are a little hazier.