Florida

Thanks to your brilliant nominations, we’ve selected the 15 best spots in North America to watch MMA events with a drink in your hand. All of these places have been sent official CagePotato banners to hang during fight nights, so if you swing by and see one, pat yourself on the back, because you made that happen. So which watering holes made the cut? And are any of them *not* famous for their wings? Read on, Potato Nation.

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HUMPERDINK’S
700 Six Flags Dr.; Arlington, Texas
Located about a half-mile from Rangers Ballpark and the soon-to-be-opened new Cowboys stadium, Humperdinks is revered by Dallas-area sports fanatics, and as long as the home teams aren’t playing, Dink’s is all about their cage-fighting. Besides the fact that every UFC event is shown and there’s never a cover, the restaurant’s main selling point is the 16 varieties of beer that are brewed on the premises, which you can actually buy kegs of to take home with you. We suggest pairing their Total Disorder Porter with a big hearty fight like Lesnar vs. Mir II, and the seasonal Raspberry Blonde with something lighter and more technical like Penn vs. Florian.
Our readers say: “The girls are always hot (it’s Texas, did you expect anything different?) and the bouncers are big enough to make you think twice about throwing that haymaker you saw on the show.” — kadumel

EL GUAPO CANTINA
7250 Melrose Ave.; Los Angeles, California
Laid back sports bars are something of a rarity in Hollywood, but lo and behold, there’s El Guapo Cantina right on Melrose, showing UFC fights for a modest five-dollar cover.  The place gets packed on fight nights, so getting there early is a good idea, and while you’re there you might as well eat a steak quesadilla.  They’ve also staffed their team of waitresses with aspiring actresses (it is Hollywood), which means that even if they can’t remember what you ordered they’re still easy on the eyes and can probably cry on cue.
Good to know: El Guapo features semi-regular beer pong tournaments.  Judging from the standings published on their website, they’re pretty serious about it too.  Consider yourself warned.

PUNCHERS SPORTS BAR
421 Third St.; Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Pretty much everything you need to know about Punchers you can learn from their signature drink – The Donkey Punch.  Beyond that, they’re friends of the local MMA scene and have largely designed this downtown bar for hosting fight-viewing parties.  There’s even a punching bag in the bar.  Things can get a little rowdy, but you better keep it level during the fights.  They don’t play around once that gladiator intro starts up.
Good to know: Every week they offer the Tuesday Triathlon, which is comprised of shuffleboard, pool, and the punching bag.  Winner gets a $100 bar tab.  Losers get sad.

(This must be what Bizarro World Ross Clifton looks like.)

Forget about the Ken Shamrock-Tank Abbott bout that you’ve been positively salivating over, because Bloody Elbow says Shamrock will get beaten up by former pro wrestler Bobby Lashley at Roy Jones Jr.’s “March Badness” event in Pensacola, Florida first.  Looks like you'll have to wait a little longer for your dream fight, MMA fan who is stuck in 1996.

Lashley has only one pro fight so far, which might be reason enough for Shamrock -- who is still riding high after his victory over morbidly obese tomato can Ross Clifton -- to think he has a chance.

But does he really have a shot?  Of course not.  Lashley may be a newcomer to MMA, but he was a national wrestling champion in college.  In addition to that, he’s also a superb athlete and is not really old, slow, and suffering visible effects from years of beatings.  In other words, he has several crucial advantages over Shamrock.

('Crank my neck all you want...I still say...a strategy that involves nationalizing banks...is untenable...over a long period of time.')

Now here’s a rare positive story coming out of the strange place where economic disaster and martial arts training meet.  The Gracie Barra gym in Clearwater, Florida is offering free classes to people who have recently lost their jobs.  As a way to ease the stress of the unemployed and keep them from killing themselves and their families, owner Eduardo de Lima will let you train for free for six months or until you get a job, whichever comes first:

"I always said to my students, 'If you lose your job, just come in anyway.' It's more important for them to work out, because it releases the stress of life," said De Lima, 40, who's been teaching jiu-jitsu for 16 years. "When (people) get stressed from money problems, they do dumb things," he said, citing the Los Angeles man who recently shot his family and then himself after losing his job.

Stress relief, huh?  I guess that’s one explanation behind this free jiu-jitsu offer.  Another explanation might be that de Lima is training an army of the economically disenfranchised.  Think about it: they’re desperate, angry, and have nothing to lose.  They also don’t have to go to work, so they can train pretty much all day.

Sure, it sounds crazy now.  But we’ll see whose crazy in six months when de Lima and his legions sweep through Washington D.C. and then Wall Street, taking over the country and its financial institutions via armbars and rear naked chokes.  Viva la jiu-jitsu revolution!  Free gi's for everyone!

(Ah, the good old days...)

New rules regarding cornermen and the application of Vaseline will be on display at tonight’s UFC Fight Night 17, and they're thought to be permanent.  If anybody doesn’t like it they have George St. Pierre’s crew to blame.  

MMA Weekly reports that the UFC has decreed “that cornermen associated with the fighters will no longer be allowed to handle the Vaseline used in between rounds to treat and prevent cuts.”  Instead, the UFC will provide a cut man to each corner, and he’ll be the only one allowed to apply Vaseline or work on a cut.  

Since only two people are allowed in the Octagon at a time, one of a fighter’s trainers has to stay out if they need the UFC-sanctioned cut man to do his work.  And since you pretty much always want to put Vaseline on your fighter’s face between rounds, the effect of this new rule will probably be to limit corners to one trainer inside the cage.

Two things on this new rule...

(If Tank was allowed to use his fearsome jiu-jitsu, it would have been a totally different story. Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly.)

When it was first announced that the Florida State Boxing Commission would not be investigating EliteXC's alleged fight-fixing attempt, it seemed like the scandal would quietly be swept under the rug. But the public/media outcry has become too loud to ignore, and ESPN.com is reporting that the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation — which oversees the FSBC — will open a preliminary investigation into the legality of Seth Petruzelli's "knockout bonus":

"While the Department of Business and Professional Regulation doesn't have any reason to believe there was a problem with the Slice-Petruzelli fight, given the interest in it, the Department has begun a preliminary investigation to thoroughly review the circumstances of the fight," said Jennifer Meale, Communications Director for the DBPR.

Responding to this new development, EliteXC Head of Operations Jeremy Lappen continued to deny that the promotion acted inappropriately in any way:

"We offered Seth Petruzelli a knockout bonus, a submission bonus and "fight of the night" bonus. If we were trying to influence the fight, why would we do that?"

Oh, so now Seth was offered a submission bonus too? This is the first we've heard about that one, and of course, it directly contradicts what Petruzelli originally said. ("They didn't want me to take him down.") Former EliteXC boss Gary Shaw isn't helping their case either. Speaking to the L.A. Times, $kala's dad said...