(Don’t worry, Leonard, the worst is over!) 

It’s been a rough couple of years for Leonard Garcia to say the least. Sure, he was able to remain employed with the UFC despite five straight losses, but Garcia isn’t the type of guy to take his job, let alone a losing streak, lightly. At least, he wasn’t. But somewhere along the line, Garcia became stagnant, he became complacent. He knew all the ins and outs of Team Jackson — one of the highest-acclaimed martial arts gyms in the world — yet he didn’t seem to be progressing as a fighter in the slightest.

But all of that changed when he was finally released from his Zuffa contract following a lackluster decision loss to Cody McKenzie at UFC 159 last month. Realizing that a change was not only necessary, but critical if he were to ever attempt a third run in the UFC, the 33-year old recently told MMAFighting that phase two (phase 3?) of his career will start with a new training camp and a new organization:

I’m going to go out to Team Alpha Male for a little while. My cousin (Ed note: Like, actual cousin or like how Donald Cerrone is “your brother?”) Duane Ludwig is out there, and I talked it over with Greg (Jackson). Greg said, ‘Yeah, the problem is guys that can take you down and hold you down.’ And now I’m going to go to a whole team of guys who are really, really good at that.

Just being the new guy in the room is going to help me a lot, because it’s something different. It’s a style I’ve never seen. Their style is unfamiliar to me. I don’t know all their tricks like I do at Jackson’s. Like, we know each other so well at Jackson’s, and I think that’s caused me to become flat.

I talked it over with both camps and they’re both okay with it. I feel like this is a move that should’ve been a long time ago, but it takes situations like this to make it happen.

Team Alpha Male consists of several of Garcia’s former WEC cohorts; Urijah Faber, Joseph Benavidez, Chad Mendes — who have all either held titles or fought for them in their WEC or UFC careers, often both. The move is undoubtedly a sound idea for Garcia, and the ultra-aggressive yet cardio-heavy style Team Alpha Male has become known for should meld with him nicely.

As for the organization Garcia will likely call home next? The answer might surprise you.

(And this is the face he will make after he does.) 

Since being released from the UFC following his second positive test for marijuana in his past three fights, TUF 7 alum Matt Riddle has been doing his damnedest to burn every last bridge that might possibly connect him to the organization he has literally built his entire professional MMA career in. And while Riddle succeeded in raising some interesting questions regarding the UFC’s policy of hiring and firing fighters during his recent interview on The MMA Hour, he also succeeded in completely sabotaging any potential of a return trip to the sport’s highest promotion, which according to him, is something he would prefer:

What I see happening is, a year or two from now the UFC calls me back after I’ve won probably like five or six fights, hopefully. And I’ll probably, at the time, say, ‘No.’ Because I really don’t like the direction they’re taking the company. They’re firing high-level talent so they can have lower level talent just scrap, and they’d rather have a brawl than a good technical fight. I think that’s going to be their downfall, because the fans are getting more educated. They’re getting smarter, and they don’t want to just see a slugfest and two retarded guys with brain damage bleeding everywhere.

Dana White’s response was expectantly blunt. Get it? Blunt? Be honest, that pun is so great you’d probably beat your kids in a fit of jealous rage if you weren’t so goddamn stoned.

Much more from this interview after the jump. 

(Nice job, Jason, you’ve gone and gotten yourself fired again, you idiot. Calm down, just calm down…you’ve talked your way out of worse than this, you just gotta think. How to stay relevant, how to stay relevant…OK, it has to be something REALLY out there, you know, something that will totally live up to your zany personality and at the least get you another pilot on MTV…fucking Bisping and his fire extinguishers ruined everything for us…come on, we’ve got to FOCUS!!….Wait…fire extinguishers…….Mayhem, you cheeky bastard, you’ve done it again.) 

Update: Miller’s booking photo is now at the bottom of this post, via TMZ. He looks pretty good, considering.

Well this is surprising.

Just days after urging Dana White to commit suicide, dubbing himself “A warrior for peace and ultimate fighter for justice” and bragging about how he was “happier than I have ever been,” it appears that TUF 14 coach and Bully Beatdown host Jason Miller has been arrested. Again. In a church in Mission Viejo. Naked.

Apparently Miller’s newfound “energy” is fueled by either bath salts or peyote and a touch of the crazy. In either case, we fail to see how this defines putting said energy into “the right things.” Here’s what went down according to TMZ:

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ, the O.C. Sheriff’s Office received a call early this morning from the Mission Hills Church in Mission Viejo about a possible burglary in progress.

When the deputies arrived, we’re told they found the first and second floors covered in white fire extinguisher spray. Cops say the place was also trashed — scattered CDs, books, and broken pictures.

When officers reached the second floor, we’re told they found Miller naked on some couch — totally awake and coherent.  It’s unclear if Miller was under the influence.

A note to all you haters of Michael Bisping: “The Count” doesn’t always prank you, but when he does, it emotionally traumatizes you for life. And Mayhem just got Scott Tenorman’d.

“A job, a job, my kingdom for a job!”

Let’s face it: being a professional fighter is pretty much the coolest job on earth. Even if you never get to wear gold, you can party like a rockstar and make a decent living, not to mention the benefits–oh the benefits. Few of us will ever know the pleasure of punching our coworkers in the face—in fact it’s generally frowned upon—and for that I am eternally jealous. But in the corporate world we live and die by a universally accepted code of conduct that one can follow to stay on the straight and narrow. For the professional ass-kicker, the guidelines are less concretely defined. As evidenced by an increase in pink-slips for cage-unrelated activities, mixed martial artists are not issued the same employee handbooks as their 9-5 brethren. With that in mind, here are a few axioms from the office that may prove handy for our leather-throwing friends as they walk the fine line between living large and unemployment.

This is now even less likely to ever get televised, while Caged is a real show. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Antonio McKee is now officially a free agent. After missing weight by an inexcusable seven pounds for his title defense against Brian Cobb last night- resulting in the fight being changed to a three round non-title affair and McKee forfeiting twenty percent of his purse- McKee was released from his MFC contract. And yes, Antonio McKee defeated Brian Cobb by unanimous decision last night in his last appearance (possibly) under the MFC banner.

For those of you still reading, Brian Cobb also missed weight for the evening’s co-main event. Brian Cobb came in a whopping half pound overweight, resulting in promoter Mark Pavelich telling him that it was now “win or go home” for him as well. Despite taking the third round from a clearly exhausted McKee, Cobb came up short and was subsequently released from the promotion. It would have been interesting to see how the championship rounds would have played out, you know, if both men actually made weight and all.

“Listen, I know we’ve had our moments, but before you make your list just hear me out…” (Photo: Gossiboocrew.com)

We’re only a few hours into the new year, but unless your head hit the pillow just as the ball dropped, you’ve probably already carried some of your bad habits with you into 2012. We are creatures of habit, and change doesn’t come naturally to us. If it did, we wouldn’t make such a big production out of our ‘New Year’s Resolutions’. The sport of mixed martial arts and its fans are no different. Here’s a quick look at some of the bad habits we’ve picked up and poor decisions we’ve made over the past 12-months. Let’s hope we can leave them behind in yesteryear.

(Video: NBC Sports)

Ten days ago today, Marloes Coenen hopped out of the shower to the sounds of a ringing phone and the shocking news that she, Valentijn Overeem, and John Olav Einemo would be joining teammate Alistair Overeem in the unemployment line. For the record, I’m not entirely sure about the shower part, but that’s how I like to envision it going down. Just as the whole he said/they said battle between Dana White and Team Golden Glory seemed to be heating up, the Pinkberry smudged door to the Zuffa offices may be creeping back open to the Netherlands-based team.

Dana White broke Ariel Helwani off a few minutes of his precious time to talk about a myriad of subjects, most interesting of which was his reaction to Golden Glory manager Bas Boon‘s public desire to meet all of Zuffa’s concerns, including direct payments to fighters and an exclusive contract with Alistair Overeem: “Well that’s awesome. If that’s the true story and that’s what he said, sounds like we can make a deal then…If Bas Boon is saying that this is the way we can do it, then we can absolutely, positively make a deal and we can get this ball rolling again.”

Though he appeared willing to move beyond whatever was behind the mass-firing, Dana didn’t relent from his position that the cuts were simply a matter of different business practices between the parties and nothing more: “I don’t give a shit what they tweet, what they take pictures of, or what they say, they fucking know exactly how it worked and we would not do it that way.”

After the jump, it turns out that Overeem has not been officially released by Strikeforce after all.

Well, it looks like another The Ultimate Fighter winner has been fired by the UFC.

MMAFighting reports that TUF 2 winner Joe “Daddy” Stevenson has been released by Zuffa following his fourth straight loss in a row to Javier Vazquez at UFC Live: Kongo vs. Barry on June 26. With the firing, Stevenson, who is 8-8 in 16 UFC fights joins just three other TUF  winners — Travis Lutter (season 4), Kendall Grove (season 3) and Efrain Escudero (season 8), to be released by the promotion.

It’s not really a surprise, given the UFC’s three-strike policy that he’s been let go. What is a surprise is that they actually gave him an extra chance to turn things around.

(“A Chippendale is one of them roided-up nude dancers wif the bow ties. Funny, innit?” – Photo courtesy Getty Images)

Add Dan Hardy to the list of Nate Marquardt detractors alongside fighters like BJ Penn and Chael Sonnen (ironic?) who don’t buy the former UFC middleweight’s claims that he needs testosterone replacement therapy to compete. Hardy spoke with ESPN.com recently and touched on Marquardt’s recent firing by the UFC for his HRT debacle, and the former welterweight contender questioned the legitimacy of “The Great’s” affliction.

“What is he, 31 or 32? I don’t want to kick a man when he’s down but what’s he doing needing testosterone therapy anyway at that age? I’m not that far behind him and I certainly don’t need any! The thing that annoyed me is that he has tested positive for nandrolone in the past, people are aware of that, and now he’s saying he needs Hormone Replacement,” Hardy points out. “Maybe he wouldn’t have needed Hormone Replacement if he hadn’t been using something in the first place. On the bright side, he’ll always have a job as a Chippendale.”

(The exact moment Tito’s fighting career jumped the shark.)

It’s amazing that with the UFC’s longtime policy of cutting fighters who lose three fights in a row, that Tito Ortiz, who is 0-3-1 in his past four fights hasn’t been fired yet. One would assume that “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” was being kept around because of his past merits and pay-per-view sales, but apparently his job isn’t as secure as we assumed.

According to Ortiz, the UFC was ready to let him go after his UFC 121 loss to Matt Hamill, but instead urged the former UFC light heavyweight champion to follow in the footsteps of longtime nemesis Chuck Liddell and retire to save them the trouble of sending him to the unemployment line. Tito says he basically begged Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta for one more kick at the cat and they begrudgingly agreed, throwing him in against a young lion in Ryan Bader at UFC 132.

“Dana White and Joe Silva [the UFC's matchmaker] told me they wanted me to retire, but I knew I still had the fight inside me.  I pretty much begged for my job, to show how much I want to fight, but I still have it in my heart to compete, to fight,” he told the UK Telegraph. I told them I want to still fight against the top guys, I want to put on a show. I’ve just turned 36, but when they put me against the top guys, I think I can still compete.”

(It looks like child and actor labor laws finally bit Zuffa in the ass.)

What a difference a year can make in the life of a fighter.

In the past 365 days, Chris Horodecki (16-3)  rebounded from his WEC highlight reel knockout loss to Anthony Njokuani to win two in a row against Danny Downes and Ed Ratcliffe. The wins earned the former IFL posterboy a step up in competition — namely former number one WEC lightweight contender Donald Cerrone.

Following a disappointing showing against "Cowboy" earlier this month, "The Polish Hammer" has now been dropped by Zuffa and will not be joining his Team Tompkins stablemate Sam Stout in the UFC as part of the WEC merger. 

"One door closes and another one opens," the 23-year-old Canadian told MMAjunkie today. "I’ll be back sooner than later. [I'll] get back in it. We’ll get a couple fights and do what we do."

Joining Horodecki on the unemployment line to start 2011 will be former WEC lightweight champ Jamie Varner (16-5, 2NC) who was also dropped by the Vegas-based promotion today following his less-than-stellar compilation of three losses and one draw in 2010.

(Well, it looks like the UFC just lost its anorexic hipster fanbase.)

Reports surfaced today that lightweight Dustin Hazelett has been released by the UFC and CagePotato.com has since been able to substantiate the story with sources close to the Cincinnati-based fighter.

Although he is a respectable .500 in the Octagon, a third straight loss by Hazelett in the form of a first round submission to Canadian grappling standout Mark Bocek at UFC 124 earlier this month pretty much signed the release papers of the Louisa, Kentucky native.

Known for his seemingly impossible submissions — many of which earned him Submission of the Night honors, Hazelett will look to rack up a hand full of victories in regional promotions to earn himself another shot with the UFC in 2011. Competition next year will likely be greater considering the amalgamation of the WEC’s lightweight division with the UFC’s, so it may take more than a few wins over a few unseasoned opponents for McLovin to make it back to the Octagon.

("So if you lose two in a row, you’re still OK, right?")

Despite logging a tough split decision loss to Dan Miller at UFC 124, Joe Doerksen yesterday had insult added to the injury of losing in front of his fellow Canadians in Montreal Saturday night when he was informed by the UFC that he was being let go by the promotion.

Fiveouncesofpain was first to report the New Bothwell, Manitoba native’s firing.

The loss was Doerksen’s second in a row since handing Tom Lawlor his second loss in a row in his Octagon return at UFC 113. He was submitted in his last bout at UFC 119 by C.B. Dollaway.

 
(You’ll still always be "The Kimbo Killer" to me, Seth.)

It looks like the post-UFC 122 cuts just keep coming. 

Five Ounces of Pain is reporting that Seth Petruzelli has been dropped by the UFC after being finished for the second time in as many fights in his most recent stint in the Octagon.

30-year-old Petruzelli (12-6 MMA, 0-4 UFC), who lost by TKO to Karlos Vemola at the event in Oberhausen, Germany 10 days ago and was also submitted  by Ricardo Romera at UFC 116 in July in his first fight back since being dropped by the promotion originally in 2007 joins fellow UFC 122 losers Peter Sobotta and Goran Reljic on the unemployement line. Both fighters were also given their pink slips by the promotion because of their respective three-fight losing skids.

(Goodbye sweet princes. We hardly knew you.)

It looks like UFC 122 fighters Peter Sobotta and Goran Reljic are the latest casualties of the UFC’s new lose three fights in a row and you’re out policy.

Sources close to the situation revealed to CagePotato.com Thursday that Sobotta has joined Reljic (who fiveouncesofpain.com reported was fired by the Zuffa-owned promotion yesterday) on the unemployment line.

Both fighters lost their fights on Saturday night in Oberhausen, Germany, bringing their losing streaks to three apiece and prompting the UFC to release them.

Sabotta dropped unanimous decisions to Paul Taylor and TUF 9 winner James Wilks before losing in the same manner to TUF 7 winner, Amir Sadollah in his last bout in the Octagon.

Reljic’s UFC career was also spoiled by a trio of TUF vets including season 7 runner-up CB Dollaway and season 3 winner Kendall Grove. The loss to the latter prompted the Croation fighter to move back up to light heavyweight for his last fight with season 8 semi-finalist Krzysztof Soszynski, which he lost by unanimous decision on Saturday.

The 26-year-old won Fight of the Night honors in 2008 in his UFC debut in which he defeated Wilson Gouveia by TKO at UFC 84.

(Who’s getting shit-canned in the UK this weekend? We have a few ideas.)

Looking down the card of UFC 120, you can’t help but notice the large contingent of fighters whose Octagon careers are hinging on their performances on Saturday.

By our calculations, there are no less than eight fighters who really need a win in London this weekend.

The fighters in question are listed after the jump.

(Denial, anger, bargaining, plyometrics – Duffee has been through it all. PicProps: Sherdog)

It’s been almost a month and if you’re still having trouble wrapping your head around how Todd Duffee managed to get himself fired from the UFC after just one kind of fluky loss, you’re not alone. Duffee doesn’t seem to know exactly what to make of it, either. We’ve heard rumors of him faking injuries, turning down fights and having an all around piss-poor attitude, but the actual facts of the situation are still murky at best. One thing we know is true, however: At this point Duffee seems legitimately bummed about it. In a new article from Old Dad over on MMA Fighting, Duffee (and a few others) discuss the hard realities of getting fired from the only job they’ve ever really wanted. This MMA can be a pretty harsh mistress, fellas.  

 
(Look out, "The Manic Hispanic" is off his meds again.)

You might not have noticed this – and no one would blame you if you didn’t – but way down on the bottom of tomorrow night’s “UFC Fight For The Troops” card is a wacky little match-up between Justin “The Insane 1” McCully and Eddie “The Manic Hispanic” Sanchez.  And I swear to you I am not making those nicknames up. 

Neither of these guys has set the UFC heavyweight division on fire, with Sanchez going 3-2 and McCully going 1-1 in the organization.  Considering that they’re both about as marketable as mud gum, in addition to being two heavyweights who can’t even get on the televised portion of Wednesday night Spike TV card, I smell a good old-fashioned loser-gets-fired match. 

What’s weird is, they may not even realize it. Our friends at Fightlinker kicked themselves for missing this article on McCully, wherein he talks as if he’s just one or two victories away from a title shot.  He even tries to tell himself that coming in and fighting first Antoni Hardonk and then Gabriel Gonzaga was “probably the two toughest fights I’ve ever seen anybody have in the UFC.”

Sanchez similarly told UFC.com that he hopes to be in title contention by the middle of 2009.  Which means at some point between now and then he’d have to jump ahead of guys like Shane Carwin and Cain Velasquez and, hell, even Cheick Kongo.

I’m not saying it can’t happen for one of these guys, but they can’t both be contenders.  Whoever loses here is going to have a really hard time justifying his continued employment.  The only question is, who’s it gonna be?

(He’s the one getting his ass kicked.)

Looks like the UFC was serious about that whole shedding dead weight thing: Travis Lutter has made history as the first Ultimate Fighter winner to get his contract shredded. Lutter made the announcement yesterday via a MySpace blog entry, which was later confirmed by FightTicker.com. The blog entry suggests that Lutter might have hit the bottle directly after getting the bad news:

I have been released from my UFC Contract.

Friday afternnon I was told by my manager that UFC matchmaker Joe Silza had left my him a message on his phone that I had been released from my UFC contract because of my 2 losses in a row.

And that’s it. At the time of this writing, the post had accumulated eight “kudos.”

Lutter made his Octagon debut at UFC 50 (10/22/04) with a knockout victory over Marvin Eastman, but lost his next two UFC matches against Matt Lindland and Trevor Prangley. After winning a couple of matches outside the Octagon, Lutter was chosen for The Ultimate Fighter 4 (“The Comeback”), where he defeated fellow middleweights Scott Smith and Pete Sell before submitting Patrick Côté via armbar in the final. But Lutter’s been skating on thin ice since he failed to make weight for his championship match against Anderson Silva at UFC 67, causing the card’s main event to be downgraded to an absolutely pointless non-title fight.

The last straw turned out to be his disappointing performance against Rich Franklin at UFC 83, where Lutter was so gassed by the second round that he barely had the energy to get to his feet after Franklin shook out of a leglock attempt. Following the loss, Lutter did an anger-venting interview with FightTicker where he notably said, “fans of this sport just suck…I definitely don’t fight for those people.” Lutter had four fights left on his contract.

The question is, who will get the ax next? So far, the UFC’s roster cuts are following a simple, cold logic: Boring fighting style + one or two losses + nobody likes you = fired. The most obvious upcoming win-or-leave matchup that comes to mind is Evan Tanner vs. Kendall Grove, which headlines the TUF 7 finale on June 21st. Tanner looked like a shell of his former self in his loss to Yushin Okami at UFC 82, and his personal stability is still a question mark; another loss for Grove would make it an unacceptable three in a row. But it would be very surprising if more cuts didn’t take place before that. Any predictions?

All things must pass. And so it went with Tito Ortiz, who found himself on the business end of a “y’fiyahd” last night on Celebrity Apprentice. Coerced into leading Team Empresario by Omarosa (who knew the next losing project manager would likely get pink-slipped), Ortiz had to develop a four-page ad spread for Dove Yogurt Bodywash or some shit, with Omarosa, Trace Adkins, and Stephen Baldwin as his associates. Unfortunately, Ortiz was a bit lost on how to approach the challenge, and Baldwin stepped in as the team’s de-facto leader, organizing a photo shoot that saw Trace seducing a hot model in a desert. It turned out surprisingly well, but Ortiz was a shifty, stammering mess when he was called on to present their work to a trio of Dove executives. Here’s one line from his pitch:

“Of course we used Trace, the reason why we used Trace is the demographics that we did have were from ladies ranging from the age of 20, or excuse me, 30 to 59, which, uh, most country folk ladies that would love Trace’s, uh…y’know, kinda push the product exactly.”

And such as. He also pronounced perfect (adj.) as per-FECT, and risque as RISK-ay. In the end, the Dove execs picked Team Hydra’s advertorial, which featured Carol Alt taking a bath and getting bitten, Marv Albert-style, by a male model. Thus, Ortiz was on the chopping block. And though Omarosa was called out for dodging a challenge that fit into her area of expertise (marketing, not washing), and Baldwin was criticized for being an overbearing prick who was directly responsible for their losing concept, the buck stopped at the project manager, and Tito was dunzo.

But Trump was so impressed with Ortiz’s performance on the show that he gave the HBBB $50,000 anyway for his charity. He called Tito “really special” and “the best there is,” which is strange because Ortiz honestly didn’t do that well on the show; he never got a chance to show off his leadership skills or business acumen, and only lasted as long as he did by hiding behind the greater failures of others. It reminded me of that SNL sketch “The Sinatra Group” where Frank Sinatra (Phil Hartman) tells 2 Live Crew’s Luther Campbell (Chris Rock) “you don’t need to work blue, kid, you got talent,” and Rock is like “no, I really don’t.” I wish that video didn’t cut off in the middle so you could actually see what I’m talking about.

“Issue #4: Milli Vanilli, what is this faggot crap?” Classic.