(The UFC Fighter Summit has a storybook ending. Congrats, Janitor.)

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…

- BJ Penn and Jake Shields Want to Fight Each Other (LowKick)

- Shane Carwin’s Cardio Under Microscope at UFC 131 (NBC Sports MMA)

- Rashad Evans Explains His Nightclub Altercation With Jon Jones; Insists ‘Bones’ Ducked Him (MMA Mania)

- Mac Danzig Out of Next Month’s Anticipated Clash With Donald Cerrone, Vagner Rocha to Replace (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Matt Mitrione: If Ortiz Is Still Upset After Confrontation, ‘Then We Can Scrap’ (MMA Fighting)

- Your Favorite Hooters Girl to Serve Ring Cards at ‘UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber II’ (5thRound)

- This Will Be the Strangest Seven-Second Knockout You Will See This Year (MiddleEasy)

- Mark Coleman ‘Would Drop Everything’ To Fight Herschel Walker (MMA Convert)

- Video: Hector Lombard Gets Pissed at Reporter After Bellator 44 (TheFightNerd)

- Going Medieval: MMA’s 20 Worst Beatdowns (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

By CagePotato contributor, Jason Moles

(Garth DeFelice could have been a contender if it weren’t for that bum hip.)

Imagine for a moment that it’s a hot July morning. You wake up in your McMansion located in a gated community or on a private road. You step into a bathroom, which appears to have been transplanted from a magazine, and take a shower. After you’re dressed, it’s time to have a modest breakfast consisting of no less than four eggs, three slices of bacon, three sausage links, a stack of hotcakes so scrumptious Paul Bunyan would be jealous, and all the freshly squeezed orange juice a man could want. Once you’ve had your fill, you hop in your Lamborghini and head to work… at BestBuy, or maybe it’s Staples. Oops, almost forgot; you went to college so you may have landed a comfortable desk job.

Yes sir, instead of heading to two-a-days at the stadium preparing for the upcoming season on the gridiron, you’re playing the role of the stiff with a 9-5’er to make ends meet. Hey man, it is after all “straight cash, homey” and every hour worked in that inglorious soul-crusher known as work is another chance to elude the repo man.

Do you know who you are? You are an American football player who used to play in the NFL. Since the lockout, things just haven’t been the same. We know it’s all about the Benjamins and all (unless your name is Herschel Walker), so here are a few, possibly former NFL players who might actually have a chance in MMA, unlike Jonnie Morton.

("I thought you said you were Mr. Cyborg?") 

Here we are with Strikeforce’s first major event of the 2011, or as we like to call it, their first shot at fucking up the good things they did last year.

Although rumor has it Gus Johnson won’t be in the broadcast booth tonight, he promises that he’ll bring his MMA-retarded rhetoric back in time for the first round of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix in February, despite the fact that HDNet has announced Michael Shiavello and Bas Rutten will be added to the announce team — at least for the prelims.

With no GuJo to screw up the broadcast and no feuds brewing between the Diaz’s and opponents they’ll likely never face, there’s a pretty good chance that this event could go off with out a hitch. The only thing that could knock this ship off course would be for Cyborg to upset Diaz and for Lawler to knock out Jacare.

And for the record, we WANT Strikeforce to succeed more than we want to see Justin Bieber fall down a flight of stairs, it’s just that they haven’t exactly given us a lot of indicators that they’re ready to go head-to-head with Zuffa’s Evil Empire (Just kidding, Dana. Ben doesn’t want to get fucked again.)

Let’s get this thing going. Spoilers after the jump. Refresh often.

By Cage Potato contributor S.C. Michaelson

(Hmm..Guess they ran out of space for Cyborg and Gracie on the poster.)

Saturday’s Strikeforce event is the promotion’s first non-Challengers event of 2011. Unfortunately, it’s been toiling in the shadows of the much-anticipated Heavyweight Grand Prix and hasn’t received much in the way of coverage. There are quite a few reasons to tune in this weekend.

Here are five big ones.

Herschel Walker, Genetic Freak
Though only a novice in the game of mixed martial arts, Hershel Walker is no stranger to high levels of competition. His athletic accolades read like a novel. College football Heisman trophy winner, All-Pro NFL running back, track and field star, black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Olympic bobsledder. Yes, Olympic bobsledder. And after all of this, Walker decides to throw his hat into the cage and try MMA. Did I mention he’s 48? Now, in MMA that may not seem special as we have our own version of a 48-year old wonder in Randy Couture, but Couture looks every year of 48. Walker, on the other hand, could pass for a man in his early 30s and has the physique that men in their athletic primes dream to attain. Herschel Walker, at 48, might be the greatest physical specimen to step foot in an MMA ring or cage…ever.

(Apologies if the vid takes awhile to load. You try squeezing all of Walker’s BS in to a simple embed code. VidProps: Shoot Media)

We’ve been pretty studiously ignoring Herschel Walker since his bout with Scott Carson got postponed back in November. Somewhere along the way we just got tired of the guy’s running patter. Even last week when the mainstream media grabbed hold of his offhand comment about trying to make a comeback to the NFL when he turns 50 and trumpeted it from the rooftops like it was some kind of actual news, we turned a deaf ear. For our money, 48-year-old dude wants to fight? No big deal. He’s semi-famous, so we gotta put him on the main card? We get it. For real though, the fact that Strikeforce has to go out and sign no-name opponents for the express purpose of getting beat up by Herschel Walker in 220-pound catchweight fights pretty much says it all about the legitimacy of his MMA career.

However, this latest video from the good people at Shoot Media – who in all honesty do pretty great work – sparked our interest. Mostly because it successfully falls in line with the standard Rich-Athlete-Makes-Sacrifices-to-Pursue-his-True-Passion clichés while still giving us a nod and a wink about what an odd, odd man we’re dealing with here. Among other dubious claims made in this vid, Walker says he was just a fat kid with a speech impediment from small town Georgia that no one thought would amount to squat. You know, until it turned out he was one of the greatest natural athletes of all time, rushed for over 3,000 yards in high school, became a national prep scholar-athlete of the year and went on to become maybe the greatest college running back in history. Still, those early years were pretty touch-and-go.

(Video courtesy YouTube/TheNewYorkBadAss)

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…

- If Stann can’t get Wand, he’ll settle for Bisping or Belfort  (LowKick)

– Five lessons we learned for UFC Fight for the Troops II (Versus MMA Beat)

Herschel Walker: ’This is not a gimmick for me. This is life.’  (FiveOuncesofPain)

– Ricco Rodriguez to begin his road back to the UFC against James McSweeney at BAMMA 5 (MiddleEasy)

- A tribute to Chuck Liddell (WMMMALC newcomers ProFighting-Fans)

– Watch Hatsu Hioki choke Mark Hominick unconscious (MMAScraps)

– Tito Ortiz prepared to resume career outside UFC when if he loses to Lil’ Nog’ (5thRound)

– Both UFC and Strikeforce planning 2011 events in Japan (MMAConvert)

– In poll of favorite sports, MMA is overlooked (MMAFighting)

– M-1 Global signs UFC vet Vinny Magalhaes (FightMagazine)

– Elimination round for TUF 13 nixed by UFC and Spike (SBNation/MMA)

(It’s the kind of moment that makes you wish competitive judo used the same commentator as NBA Jam. Photoprops: AlumniRoundup.com)

Rhadi Ferguson — four-time Judo national champion, 2004 Olympic Judo competitor, BJJ black belt, American Top Team strength-and-conditioning coach, Doctor of education, and cousin of Kimbo Slice — is about to make his televised MMA debut. After picking up two first-round TKO victories this year in southern regional leagues, Ferguson has been signed to the Strikeforce light-heavyweight roster, and will make his first appearance on the main card of Strikeforce Challengers: Woodley vs. Saffiedine, January 7th in Nashville. His opponent will be 1-0 Canadian rookie Ion Cherdivara, whose list of credentials isn’t nearly as long as Dr. Rhadi’s.

(Radach and Lopes will step in with just nine days notice.)

With heavyweight Herschel Walker forced out of his planned December 4 Strikeforce bout with WEC veteran Scott Carson due to a deep cut he sustained training with Daniel Cormier on Friday, a light heavyweight scrap between usual middleweights Lucas Lopes and Benji Radach has been put together at the last minute to help fill in the dwindling Henderson vs. Babalu fight card.

Earlier in the week yet-to-be matched up Jesse Finney, who was originally slated to face Scott Smith before "Hands of Steel" was instead matched up with Strikeforce newcomer Paul Daley, was forced to bow out of the event due to an eye injury.

Sources close to the situation told CagePotato.com Thursday that Lopes (19-10), who is one of Finney’s training partners and holds a win over UFC standout Thiago Alves, has agreed to face Radach on the card. Radach (20-5), whose record includes wins over Murilo Rua and Gerald Harris, hasn’t fought since being knocked out by Smith last year, but he is a crafty veteran Lopes would regret taking lightly. 

Another source we spoke to informed us that Strikeforce was unable to find a suitable opponent in time for Carson, so the 4-1 veteran whose return to MMA after a nine-year absence in June was spoiled by a first round knock out by Lorenz Larkin.

("I asked Scott Coker to find me a couple of cans, but this is ridiculous." Hi-yo! Rimshot! Goddamn it, I’m really sorry about that one, you guys … PicProps: CombatLifestyle)

So, let me get this straight: Herschel Walker’s opponent at next month’s Strikeforce show is a 40-year-old light heavyweight who took 10 years off from fighting to nurse a back injury and then in June got knocked out in the first round of his “comeback” fight at an event called “MEZ Sports” in Los Angeles? Well, that’s just super.

Look, I’ve got no beef at all with this dude Scott Carson. Frankly, if you’re an unknown fighter who gets offered the chance to take on a celebrity like Walker on the televised portion of a Strikeforce card, you pretty much have to take that deal. Hell, you might even win. Suffice it to say, however, that none of Carson’s previous five fights can be found on YouTube – probably because most of them occurred before YouTube was invented – and a Google search for his image only turns up a bunch of pictures of  the goalkeeper for West Bromwich Albion. So I have to ask: What are we really doing here, Strikeforce?  What do we hope to accomplish with this, besides the possibility of netting two or three minutes of airtime from Jim Rome or Colin Cowherd the week of the fight? I mean c’mon, even Kimbo Slice had the decency to fight people we’d sort of heard of before.

(Give Cofield credit, he isn’t afraid to just put it out there and say, ‘Why are you doing this?’ in the tone of a man trying to talk some sense into his alcoholic cousin.)

Sometimes I wonder if Jose Canseco is one of the dumbest former pro athletes out there, or if he is so brilliant that he merely seems dumb to those of us who can’t fully grasp the depth of his wisdom. Listening to the guy explain why we have wars and how those wars are just the large scale version of the petty criticism we perpetrate against one another on a daily basis, I could feel my mind slowing being blown into millions of tiny pieces. Then he said that Herschel Walker’s insistence on not fighting him was a “negotiating ploy,” and I was forced to completely disregard my theory of Canseco as an unappreciated genius.

You see, unlike Canseco, Walker is not desperate for cash and attention. The guy donated his Strikeforce payday to a church. Typically, guys who are fighting for charity do not engage in negotiating ploys to drive their price tag up. If they wanted their charity to have more money, they’d just give it to them personally. If they didn’t have that kind of money to give, they probably wouldn’t be fighting for charity.

Is any of this getting through, Jose? Are you even still reading? You became distracted by a dog with a puffy tail midway through the first paragraph, didn’t you? You know what, just forget it. You keep after Herschel Walker. After all, you’ve been doing this longer than him.

(‘Screw this, baby. Let’s go to IHOP.’)

You’d think Cesar Gracie – head trainer/enabler to Nick and Nate Diaz – would have enough head cases in his life to keep himself busy. Either that’s not true, or else perhaps he’s developed a taste for difficult students, because now he is actively courting Jose Canseco. Silly us, we hoped it was just an empty, impulsive gesture when team members put out a video of them in a diner inviting Canseco to come on down and learn how to fight. But now the Gracie squad says it has reached an agreement to train Canseco for a fight with Herschel Walker “should that matchup happen.”

Hopefully that matchup won’t happen, and as a result Nick Diaz will not have to face a crisis of conscience for helping Canseco in his efforts to demean MMA for his own financial gain.  Why the Gracie team wants anything to do with him is a mystery in itself.  Unless they’re not getting a big enough piece of Diaz’s six-figure payday and are dealing with a dire financial situation, you’d think they’d want to stay away from a guy who has proved so toxic to everything he touches.

("Cyborg" Santos proves that a female fighter can stop a punch just as good as a male one, and for less money too. Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

While the rest of the nation might be slowly inching toward gender equality in the workplace, in MMA a woman still does a man’s job for pennies on the dollar. At least, that’s the situation for women not named Gina Carano, which is to say it’s the situation for all the women actively pursuing an MMA career at the moment. This, among other lessons, becomes clear once we take a good hard look at the official payouts from Saturday night’s Strikeforce event.

Nick Diaz: $100,000 (no win bonus)
def. Marius Zaromskis: $30,000

Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos: $35,000 ($15,000 win bonus and $5,000 "championship" bonus)
def. Marloes Coenen: $2,000

Herschel Walker: $600 (no win bonus)
def. Greg Nagy: $5,000

(Talk that shit now, "Nurse Jackie."  Photo courtesy of AllElbows.com)

Strikeforce: Miami drew 517,000 viewers on Showtime this past Saturday night, proving that there are some benefits to putting well-known but largely untested fighters in against outmatched opponents. The numbers may not have been quite as good as the 576,000 viewers who tuned in to see Gina Carano and “Cyborg” Santos go at it back in August, but it was still a marked improvement from the 341,000 that watched the last Strikeforce offering on Showtime in December.

So what made the big difference this time? Was it Herschel Walker’s appeal to the common sports fan? Bobby Lashley’s drawing power among pro wrestling fanboys? The mere presence of Wes Sims, one of MMA’s tallest fighters? There’s no way to know for sure, but we’re going to go ahead and speculate that it was some combination of all three, plus all the people who have sold Nick Diaz weed at some point in the past.

The one somber note to all this is that once again the replay of a UFC event – this time UFC 107 – beat Strikeforce in terms of sheer numbers. Spike TV pulled in 2.2 million viewers with B.J. Penn and Diego Sanchez, though of course they did have the advantage of being available in roughly eight times as many homes. Still, over half-a-million people on a premium cable network in lean economic times is nothing to be ashamed of.  Now if they could only work in some kind of vampire-related storyline they might really draw huge audiences.  Your time to shine, Stephen Quadros.

(After this offer, Canseco tweeted that he’s looking for a tanning salon and 24-hour gym to endorse. Seriously.)

It turns out that there is a good reason why MMA shouldn’t let retired athletes from other sports climb into the cage for a little career rejuvenation, and that reason is named Jose Canseco. Something about seeing Herschel Walker stop Greg Nagy with vicious strikes to the armpit at Strikeforce: Miami made the former pro baseball player/steroid abuser/attention whore think that this is his invitation to once again make a mockery of our fine sport with his helpless flailing.

We’re not going to ask why Canseco would refer to himself as “the bad Boy of the Sports industry,” despite not really being in the sports industry anymore. We’re also not going to ask how he chooses which words to capitalize, if in fact he is making choices at all and not simply mashing the keyboard with the end of a mop and hoping for the best. Instead we’re just going to say, no thanks. Put the notion out of your head right now, because no one is interested in a Canseco-Walker celebrity shit-show. I mean, even if he were to decide to actually prepare for a fight, what idiots would invite him to train with them?

Oh, wait…

("Nice flower-tattoo, cupcake. I just got a tattoo of the Virgin Mary being ripped apart by pitbulls, directly on my asshole." / Photo courtesy of Strikeforce. More pics are below, including one of an alarmingly fat Wes Sims.)

Tonight’s Strikeforce event at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida (aka "Miami") has such a fantastic mix of high-level MMA and can’t-look-away freak shows. On the top of the card you’ve got Nick Diaz battling for Strikeforce’s vacant welterweight title against head-kickin’ rising star Marius Zaromskis, while 145-pound lady-champ Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos makes her first belt defense against Dutch submission artist Marloes Coenen. On the other end of the card, 47-year-old former football star Herschel Walker will kick off his cage-fighting career against Greg Nagy, while Wes Sims — who owns the physique of a 47-year-old — will do his best to avoid getting squashed by pro-wrestler Bobby Lashley. And somewhere in-between, Robbie "Brawler" Lawler and Melvin "Man-Hoof" Manhoef will launch leather at each other until one of them can no longer intelligently defend himself. If you’re not excited for this card, then you probably don’t use words like "excited" in general. Live results from the Showtime broadcast will be piling up after the jump, starting at 10 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

Update: Dubus22 wins the t-shirt! Please send your name, address, and size to feedback@cagepotato.com.

(Finally, someone to ask Herschel Walker the hard-hitting questions, like how do you deal with a spontaneous erection in the middle of math class? Photo courtesy of All Elbows.)

The main card fighters all managed to make weight today for Saturday night’s Strikeforce: Miami event, though we did find out that if Herschel Walker plans on making a serious go of it in MMA, he might want to consider a drop to light heavyweight.  Not that there’s no market at all for a 214-pound heavyweight, but it is quickly disappearing. 

The boys on the undercard did have a few minor glitches, with some coming in heavy and some laboring under paperwork problems, but as long as "Cyborg" Santos avoided female trouble we have to term this one a complete success.  Don’t forget that we’ll be liveblogging the entire Showtime broadcast, so come back here on Saturday night to get your fill of commentary, live results, and what passes for wit around these parts.  Full weigh-in results are below.

Nick Diaz (169.5) vs. Marius Zaromskis (169)
Cristiane Santos (144.5) vs. Marloes Coenen (143.75)
Bobby Lashley (252.25) vs. Wes Sims (258.25)
Melvin Manhoef (185.75) vs. Robbie Lawler (185.75)
Herschel Walker (214.25) vs. Greg Nagy (210.5)
Jay Hieron (170.25) vs. Joe Riggs (170.5)

January has been a slow month for those of us who thrive on the thrill that comes with losing large sums of money on MMA fights. But fortunately we’re going out with a bang this weekend thanks to Strikeforce: Miami, which brings us a loaded fight card on Showtime and provides the opportunity to make reckless decisions that will haunt us for years to come. The good news is, with the launch of our brand new MMA FightPicker game, you can now get all the fun that comes with predicting fights against your CP brethren, but without the threat of getting your thumbs broken when you can’t pay up. You’re welcome.

Odds for Saturday night’s Strikeforce event come to us from BestFightOdds.com:

Nick Diaz (-220) vs. Marius Zaromskis (+222)
Cris “Cyborg” Santos (-550) vs. Marloes Coenen (+461)
Robbie Lawler (+160) vs. Melvin Manhoef (-175)
Herschel Walker (-325) vs. Greg Nagy (+250)
Jay Hieron (-264) vs. Joe Riggs (+275)

The breakdown…

(Props: Fight Magazine)

Ever since former NFL player and Dissociative Identity Disorder sufferer Herschel Walker announced his intention to become an MMA fighter, the question that still follows him is, why? Why does a guy who’s 47 years old want to start a whole new career in a sport where hungry young bucks will be lining up to make a name for themselves by thumping on his skull? Most of the time in MMA, the answer to this question lies somewhere in the intersection of a desperate financial situation and a longing for attention. But Walker says he’s motivated by neither. He just wants to show everyone that with a lot of hard work, you can do anything.

In this case, ‘anything’ includes beating a 1-1 fighter who oddsmakers have pegged as a +250 underdog. Even Greg Nagy’s trainer isn’t so hot on his chances to beat Walker, who is, by all accounts, a very athletic, extremely hard-working gym rat. This raises the question, what will it really prove for Walker to win this fight? Is beating a handpicked opponent everyone expects him to dominate really going to prove that anything is possible?

Grizzled old-timer Don Frye says letting guys like Walker jump into the sport like this keeps people from taking MMA seriously, whereas Walker will tell you that it’s an inspirational story for all the kids out there.  The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.  It’s nice to see a man chasing his dream at an age when most guys have taken to wearing fanny packs and calling the cops to complain about suspicious-looking teenagers, but it’s also not going to shock the world if Walker beats someone who was more or less brought in to lose.

I spoke to Mike Swick this week for an SI.com article on his attempt to get back in the title picture after the loss to Dan Hardy.  While Swick admits he lost the fight, he says he can’t accept that Hardy might be the better fighter, and wants a rematch somewhere down the line to prove it.  When asked if Hardy deserves the shot at GSP after winning the decision at UFC 105, Swick joined Nate Marquardt, Rory Markham, and a chorus of other observers in saying absolutely not:

"The thing about this sport is, there are so many variables that go into it. He did beat me. And if I would have won then I would have been the No. 1 contender, so you can look at it that way. But just because he won that fight, I don’t think that means he deserves a title shot. He’s only had three fights in the UFC and he’s only had one finish. He hasn’t had the same road that a lot of the top welterweights in the UFC have. Even though he beat me, I have to say he doesn’t deserve it. If he thinks he does, I’m sorry, but he’s wrong."

I also talked to Swick about the newest addition at the American Kickboxing Academy, Herschel Walker.  It’s one thing for Strikeforce and their employees to insist that he has what it takes to hang with the pros, but what has the longtime AKA fighter seen from him in the gym?

(Greg Nagy, previously known as ‘TBA’.)

If you search the internet in an attempt to learn something about Greg Nagy, you will learn that he’s either a professor of Classics at Harvard who knows everything there is to know about archaic Greek poetry, or else he’s the 1-1 heavyweight tapped to face former NFL player Herschel Walker in his MMA debut at Strikeforce: Miami.  We’re more interested in the second guy, though all we know about him so far is that he started his pro career in 2009 and is coming off a loss.  In other words, Strikeforce isn’t bringing him in because they necessarily think he has a bright future in their heavyweight division.

Talking to MMAFighting.com, Nagy recited the typical here-to-make-a-name-for-myself script, but it was the comments from his trainer, Roland Sarria, the man who recommended him for this fight, that were more telling:

"They’re roughly the same size so I thought it was a good fit," said Sarria, who also runs the Rage in the Cage Training Center where Nagy trains. "You can’t put [Walker] in with Fedor [Emelianenko], right? Greg is 1-1, he’s a good-looking kid. I’d say he’s a bit more advanced than Herschel, but not by much. I thought it was a good matchup."

The above clip from an old episode of The George Michael Sports Machine (R.I.P.) shows Herschel Walker calling out heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson, for pretty much the same reasons he’s trying MMA these days: Because it’s there, and because he’s a little bit nuts. Dissociative Identity Disorder aside, Walker is one of the most eccentric characters in pro sports. While plugging his upcoming Strikeforce: Miami fight against Greg Nagy during an appearance on the Howard Stern Show yesterday morning, Walker revealed the following:

— For over 20 years, he’s only been eating one meal a day, which he takes at night. He doesn’t eat meat, which is ironic because he owns a very successful chicken-distribution company.

— He sleeps three or four hours a night.

— He has played Russian Roulette over six times; he thought of it as a "competition."

(Props: YouTube.com/strikeforcefilms)

You know you’re a big deal when Frank Shamrock is handling color commentary for your striking drills. Herschel Walker‘s MMA debut is slated for next month, and even though his opponent is still TBA, Strikeforce decided to shoot some footage of the former football star working out at American Kickboxing Academy to prove that he can hit pads without injuring himself. Of course, this tells us nothing about the ground skills that he may or may not be picking up, but hey, those roundhouse kicks look pretty sharp for a 47-year-old. Tickets for Strikeforce: Miami go on sale to the general public tomorrow at Ticketmaster; as of now, no matchups have been officially announced, so purchase at your own risk.

(Photo courtesy of Esther Lin.)

It’s a fact of life in the world of MMA: when it comes to getting big paydays in a hurry, fame trumps skill every time. We saw it with Kimbo Slice, who made half a million to dollars to lose to a mid-level fighter in the weight class below him. We saw it with Brock Lesnar, who debuted in the UFC with just one pro fight to his credit and made $250,000 in guaranteed show money. But we also see it in small ways, such as Kim Couture’s $10,000 take for her losing effort in Strikeforce Challengers last Friday. By comparison, Kerry Vera, who starched Couture in the first round, made four grand to show and another four to win. Main eventer Tyrone Woodley made $3,500 and $3,500. His losing counterpart in that bout? He took home just $2,500.

So how is it that a 1-2 fighter who has yet to prove that she has the skills to warrant an appearance on TV can pocket the biggest check of the night on a card that features several more experienced up-and-comers? Simple. She shares a famous person’s last name, which makes her kind of famous. Sort of.

(Photo courtesy of ajc.com. Tie courtesy of Elton John.)

Heisman Trophy winner, two-time NFL Pro Bowl selection, Olympic bobsledder, Dissociative Identity Disorder sufferer, Celebrity Apprentice contestant, Tae Kwon Do black belt, and American Kickboxing Academy student Herschel Walker will make his MMA debut on January 30th at a Strikeforce event to be held at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. The news was announced yesterday via press release, though Walker’s opponent has yet to be named. The only other match tied to the card at this point is Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos‘s 145-pound title defense against Marloes Coenen.

As Dana White pondered when Walker’s Strikeforce signing was first announced: "Which athletic commission is going to let this guy fight? Who the fuck are they going to find to fight Herschel Walker? A guy in a wheelchair?” We now know the answer to the first question is "Florida," the state that previously signed off on Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock at the same venue last October. As for Dana’s other hypotheticals, we hope that Herschel Walker’s opponent has some kind of disability, considering that Walker has only been training in MMA since last month, and it wouldn’t really be fair to make him fight a guy who has both fighting experience and the use of all of his limbs. I mean, if Strikeforce really wants to put Walker against Fedor Emelianenko in the spring, they’d better give him a beatable first opponent.

(Walker’s steely focus is unwavering even — nay, *especially* — while giving his autograph to a pair of boobs. More HW pics at Combat Lifestyle.)

We still don’t know whether former NFL running back Herschel Walker can fight, but at least his appearance on ESPN’s “First Take” proved that he can talk as crazy a game as anyone in MMA, with the possible exception of Dan Quinn.  During an appearance to talk about his recent signing with Strikeforce, the 47-year-old Heisman Trophy winner challenged Dana White to a charity bout, expressed an interest in fighting Brock Lesnar, and said it would be no problem for him to beat up all the heavyweights on this season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”  Yep, that pretty much covers all the bases.  Someone’s done their MMA trash-talking homework: 

"Dana always tells people to put their money where their mouth is. I tell Dana if he thinks I’m so old, why doesn’t he step in the ring with me? He’s been practicing (MMA) as well. So maybe Dana and I can give all the money to charity. …I’ll put dimes to donuts, all the heavyweights on his show right now, I will beat.  That’s pretty easy to say.”

I gotta admit, I’m impressed.  It’s one thing to call out another fighter or promoter.  But to call out an entire reality show’s worth of fighters at once, and to say that it would be easy to beat them all down, despite the fact that you’ve never had a pro MMA fight?  Look out, Quinn.  If Herschel gets a camera to mount on his steering wheel, your days of being MMA’s undisputed nutcase may be at an end.

(The old arms-crossed staredown. That’s how they used to settle disputes in the Old West. At least before they discovered the practice of shooting each other.)

You knew it was only a matter of time.  To Dana White, signing a 47-year-old former NFL player to your roster of MMA fighters is like sending a skinny, fake-breasted, dolled-up blonde chick over to talk Chuck Liddell in a nightclub.  The response is predictable.  Talking with Fanhouse’s Mike Chiapetta, White started off a little slow this time, calling the signing simply “ridiculous,” instead of opting for the more vehement “fucking ridiculous,” that we’ve come to expect.  But don’t worry, he didn’t stop there:

"People think we’re anti-competition? We’re anti-dumb competition. Doing stupid things like this, putting a 50-year-old guy in the Octagon for the first time, and then going out there putting out press releases like it’s a big deal because you signed a 50-year-old Herschel Walker? Are you serious? …Strikeforce is a small, little, regional show.  The geniuses over at Showtime, these guys are the most arrogant, cocky, pompous jackasses I’ve ever met in my whole life. … Which athletic commission is going to let this guy fight?  Who the fuck are they going to find to fight Herschel Walker? A guy in a wheelchair?”

Now we await White’s apology to the American Association of People with Disabilities, wherein he takes the opportunity to say that he totally believes there are some guys in wheelchairs who could beat Walker in an MMA fight.  But White also lambasted the move as “disrespectful to the sport,” which seems like grounds enough for us to ask, does he have a point, or is he just saying what Dana White says when a competitor does anything?