(Video courtesy of YouTube/MMAHeat)

Somebody needs to send Eric Shanks a few links to some mixed martial arts website comment sections and message boards where the topic of Gus Johnson’s MMA commentary skills are being discussed. If they did, the FOX Sports Media Group President and Co-COO might think long and hard about having captain eyeshadow do the UFC’s pre and post-fight shows like he told MMA H.E.A.T’s Karyn Bryant he’s looking into doing.

This could call for a petition.

(“Maybe he was born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline.”)

One overlooked scenario from today’s blockbuster announcement that Fox Networks has signed a seven year broadcast deal with the UFC is that Gus Johnson may somehow be involved in its UFC coverage.

Fox recently inked the sometimes MMA commentator to a multi-year commentary deal that will see the veteran football and basketball play-by-play man call a variety of Pacific-12 football and basketball games, the Cotton Bowl and football games on the Big Ten Network, which is also partly owned by Fox. He will also call about 30 BTN basketball games as well as some yet-to-be-determined college basketball games on either Fox or FX.

Hopefully for the sake of the majority of MMA fans who came to loathe the much-maligned Renzo Gracie BJJ blue belt’s oblivious Strikeforce commentary, his other duties will keep his made-up mug off of the UFC-related broadcasts, that are said to include pre and post-fight shows and a weekly or daily UFC magazine-type series.

(Guy on the Right just got some competition. Props: Facebook.com/BigfootSilva)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

- Gus Johnson Signs With Fox but Stays With Showtime for MMA and Boxing (MMA Fighting)

- Maiquel Falcao Cut From UFC for ‘Legal Problems’ (5thRound)

- Dana White Stresses Personal Finance Management At 2011 Fighter Summit (MMA Convert)

- Jonathan Brookins out, Danny Downes in Against Jeremy Stephens at TUF 13 Finale (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Anthony Johnson Responds to Ben Askren Calling him a ‘Coward’ (MiddleEasy)

- Director Kahleem Poole-Tejada Talks About ‘New York MMA’ documentary (TheFightNerd)

- Exclusive Interview: Ninja Rua Expects a War Against Tom Watson at BAMMA 6 (LowKick)

- Management Break-Up Splits Jon Jones, Rashad Evans (NBC Sports MMA)

- Anderson Silva and the 10 Best Southpaws in MMA (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

(Sometimes purple lipstick happens in MMA commentating.)

According to a Sports Illustrated report, MMA’s most maligned play-by-play commentator Gus Johnson is leaving CBS to work for Fox.

Not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that the UFC bought Strikeforce and UFC president Dana White has made no secret of the fact that he doesn’t care for Johnson’s fight calling abilities and as such it seemed unlikely that GuJo would be included in their vision of business as usual .

Well, apparently our Free CagePotato campaign finally broke through the seemingly impenetrable armor around Dana White’s heart that only a handful of people including Stephan Bonnar, Forrest Griffin and Chuck Liddell have been able to breach.

“Konichiwa, bitches!”

There are a lot of things we’ve come to know about Dana White over the years. He loves his Pink Berry. He relieves stress by pulling mediocre pranks on his subordinates. He’s an astute, cut throat businessman. And he holds a grudge like a mother fucker. It’s these last two traits that we’ll be examining at this time. With the UFC’s latest acquisition, Dana is in the position of working directly with many of the folks he’s either banned from the UFC or burned bridges with when attempts to work with them didn’t pan out. Aside from the recent legal quandary surrounding Roy Nelson’s employment, Zuffa has proven through aggressive litigation and hard ball negotiation that they know their way around a contract. This makes it very likely that Dana will do just as he says in honoring all current Strikeforce related contracts.

But virtually all contracts come to an end at some point, and when Strikeforce’s agreements reach their expiration date it’s a whole new ballgame. Some Strikeforce staples, such as open, non-exclusive contracts and event co-promotion are sure to disappear. The same is certain for many of the organization’s familiar faces, both in front of the camera and in the cage. Despite Dana’s vindictive nature, he didn’t get where he is today by letting hard feelings get in the way of good business. Let’s take a closer look at who’s on the chopping block when the legal obligations dissolve and Dana is wielding the axe.

(Somehow, “Ostentatious Jacket of Crushing Defeat” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. PicProps: Strikeforce)

If Saturday night truly turns out to be Fedor Emelianenko’s swan song in mixed martial arts, the saddest part will be that we had to watch him go out on a live Strikeforce broadcast that can only be described as a terrible abortion. I mean, holy shit that was bad. From Gus Johnson showing up dressed as a beautiful woman to the horribly awkward interviews with Fedor/Gina Carano to the dreadfully anticlimactic end to the main event to the announce team desperately trying to close the show ad-libbing about Sergei Kharitonov – “He looked like a young Fedor!” Johnson said (Editor’s note: No, he didn’t) — it pretty much couldn’t have been any worse. And that doesn’t even begin to consider the fact that Emelianenko lost to a guy who just almost lost to Mike Kyle.

Even still, we’re going to avoid going full-on, tearful retrospective for a bit here. Though the man himself hinted that “maybe it’s time to leave” during his postfight interview it could have just been the initial depression and lingering effects of so many blows to the head talking. Give Fedor some time to get back to the Sport Palace and whip up on some pre-pubescent sambo white belts – and let Vadim Finkelstein start dropping hints about how that mortgage ain’t gonna pay itself – and it’s possible we could see “The Last Emperor” take at least one more bite of the MMA apple. No matter what though, we’ve likely witnessed the last of him as a top heavyweight, maybe even as a relevant one. For a lot of us, that’s a frightening reality, but one we must confront. Here are 10 questions that come immediately to mind about about our Fedor-less future …

(The winner of the tournament will take home a case of Rockstar Energy Drink and one of each item from the summer collection of Gus Johnson’s new clothing line.)

Scott Coker made a somewhat surprising announcement today during the promotion’s conference call ahead of its heavyweight grand prix that left a few on the call scratching their heads.

According to the Strikeforce president, the first round bouts of the tournament will consist of three rounds, meaning that the Overeem-Werdum bout will not be a title fight. In fact, Coker went on to explain that only the tournament final will be five rounds, but even if Alistair is one of the contestants of that match, it will be a non-title affair.

Coker, who didn’t say what the prize for winning the tournament would be, blamed the change in the planned format on the various host city commissions who he says refused to sanction five-round non-title bouts. According to Coker, "It wouldn’t have been fair to make some of the guys fight five rounds and the others only fight three," which is why they decided to put the belt on the shelf until the tournament is over.

(Video courtesy YouTube/DimeMagazine)

If you aren’t on the cusp of sports fashion like we are, you probably haven’t heard the news that Strikeforce commentator Gus Johnson has recently started his own clothing line, called "Rise and Fire," after the football and basketball play-by-play man’s oft-used signature catchphrase.

In the video above, GuJo talks about why he started the company and his aspirations to make Rise and Fire the next FuBu or Roca Wear.

Somehow, with designs like this one that looks like it was lifted from a Santa Cruz skateboard, we have our doubts.

Since Gus is our homie who sometimes calls us late at night to discuss his work problems, we thought we’d offer him a few design suggestions that would appeal to the MMA crowd.

Check them out after the jump.

(The signs were everywhere, including Jake’s FB and MySpace pages. How did we miss them?)

In an interview with All Headline News today, UFC president Dana White asserted that Strikeforce middleweight champ Jake Shields will be on his way to the Octagon sooner than later. Shields technically has one fight remaining on his SF contract, but it will likely expire before he has the opportunity to fulfill the obligation. White is confident that Shields, who definitely exited the promotion on a high note Saturday night with his dominant win over former PRIDE champion and UFC castaway Dan Henderson, will not be long testing free agent waters.

Although the wheels to add the 31-year-old Californian to the UFC’s stacked welterweight roster are not yet in motion, as soon as Strikeforce exercises its rights to re-sign Shields (something White is confident will likely not happen) he says the UFC will make an offer to the Cesar Gracie black belt.

“Jake Shields is definitely going to leave Strikeforce and he’s definitely coming to the UFC," White told AHN’s Shawn Krest.

(Alas, Shamrock’s pleas for Diaz to "mellow out" were all in vain.  Photo courtesy of SI.com)

Strikeforce’s first offering on Showtime yielded some pleasant surprises and some totally unpleasant non-surprises.  We turn now to the arbitrary numerical ranking system of the Potato Index to tell us who’s up and who’s down after this weekend.  Giddyup.

Nick Diaz +123
His biggest win in years proves that Diaz is a true main event fighter who deserves to be taken seriously.  He beat a slower, but still capable Shamrock in every aspect of the game, and even helped him up afterwards.  Now we await the results of his drug test.  Please Nick, tell us you didn’t screw that part up.

Frank Shamrock -68
“The Legend” showed a lot of heart, but not a whole lot of skill or endurance.  Maybe those surgeries and his advancing years are taking more of a toll than he let on, or maybe Diaz really is that good of a boxer.  Either way, if Shamrock can’t do better in the rematch with Cung Le he should seriously consider calling it a career.

(Someone should tell Nick that in some cultures they consider that an insult.)

As Strikeforce’s Showtime debut closes in on us and we prepare to get our liveblog on (that’s right, so remember to stop on by tomorrow night) it’s time to debate the hell out of the merits of this fight card, its resemblance to a Zombie EliteXC here on Zombie Jesus weekend, and more.  Here it is, your Ben vs. Ben…

Is Diaz/Shamrock a completely meaningless, just-for-the-hell-of-it bout?  If so, does it matter, or do you need something more to get excited about it?  Who wins this, anyway?

BF: Of course it’s a meaningless fight.  I mean, it’s being contested at 179 pounds.  That’s not even a round number, let alone a weight class.  It’s not as if this is a fight to settle some longstanding grudge (unless you count the grudge Frank Shamrock has against anyone unwilling to admit that he’s the greatest fighter ever, or the grudge Nick Diaz has against the world).  It’s certainly not a fight to sort out the contenders from the pretenders in the 179-pound division.  Naw son, this is just for kicks.

Does it matter to me?  Not in this case.  It may be fighting for the sake of fighting, but it’s such a weirdly compelling match-up that I don’t care.  Diaz and Shamrock are always fun to watch, and they’re both absolutely insane in very different ways.  So why not make them fight each other?  It’s not as if either one of them is climbing to the top of any division at this point.

As for who’s going to win, the fact that I have to think about it a little only makes me more interested in seeing it.  Five years ago this is Shamrock’s fight all the way, but the ravages of age, as they say.  I’ll still take Shamrock via decision, based mostly on superior size and strength, but also based on his notorious in-fight antics, which will bait Diaz into fighting a stupid fight.  Not that that’s especially hard.

BG: I’m thinking the fight will end in a draw after Shamrock and Diaz spend fifteen minutes with their arms in the air, each trying to lure the other one into hitting them in the face. On the real though, yeah, probably Shamrock by decision, or a late TKO stoppage that Diaz will immediately complain about. It’ll be a much less nuanced fight than it could be. Both of these guys prefer to stand and bang, so that’s what’s going to happen. The deciding factor will be power, which Shamrock has and Diaz lacks.

(Props: MMA Mania)

Skip to the 0:56 mark for this personal statement:

“There’s certain things I can’t do, I’m not going to do.  If someone tells me to do it I’m not going to do it.  I’m going to do what I want to do and that’s why I fight.  I want to do what I want to do.  I want to fight.  That’s what I want to do.  They’d say, ‘Hey, why didn’t you do your work, Nick?’ in class or school or whatever.  ‘Why don’t you do your homework?’  And I’m like, I don’t wanna.  I couldn’t figure out why, I just can tell you right now I don’t wanna.  I’m not going to.  And then when I found out what I wanted to do was I wanted to train jiu-jitsu.  That’s what I want to do.  I wanted to tap people out and train jiu-jitsu.  ‘What do you want to do?’  I want to fight.  That’s what I want to do so that’s what I’m going to do.”

A rare moment of lucidity from Nick Diaz in this old Showtime promo for one of his ShoXC fights gives us the clearest insight yet into his motivations.  I feel like I went to school with a few Nick Diaz’s.  Only instead of becoming famous pro fighters they ended up working at Chili’s, and not the good Chili’s by the movie theater where the girls from the community college all worked.  I’m talking about the bad Chili’s by the freeway where the used car salesmen drank on their lunch breaks.  Not pretty.  If only they’d done their homework.

After the jump, a little something to prepare you for the enthusiasm-over-substance approach of announcer Gus Johnson, who’ll be on the mic for Showtime on Saturday.

#10: Frank Trigg‘s stunned disbelief
Affliction: Banned, 7/19/08

It’s not that Trigg’s reaction when Fedor started landing bombs on Tim was inappropriate; in fact, this was pretty much how we reacted during the fight. But when you’re being paid actual money to give insightful commentary about a sporting event, the viewers at home deserve a little better than "OH! OH-HO! OH-HO! OH-HO-NO-HO! OH!" Especially when you consider that this is a recurring trend with Trigg — when crazy shit goes down, the eloquence-train flies off the tracks, so to speak.

#9: Mike Goldberg tells us how precise Anderson Silva‘s precision is

The answer: Really. It’s really precise. Man, sometimes Mike is better off keeping his mouth shut until it’s time to ask Joe Rogan whether or not a fighter’s arm is in trouble. By the way, if you can watch that video for all ten minutes, we’ll send you a t-shirt.

#8: Kimbo Slice fails third-grade geography 
K-1′s World Grand Prix 2008 Final, 12/6/08

(Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a working video of this moment. Hopefully this Esther Lin/Lolcats mashup will be sufficient.)

Okay, give Kimbo a break. The man was extremely jet-lagged, and he clearly meant "the prefecture of Japan known as Kanagawa, which has Yokohama as its capital, where we are right now." It’s not like he asked co-commentator Michael Schiavello what the fuck up with all the Chinese people in the building. That would have been embarrassing. And speaking of which…