Most ‘crimes’ in MMA take the form of inept judging and flagrant rule breaking, but this past year many professional fighters were caught up in activities that landed them inside of a very different sort of cage. Get ready for a trip down memory lane in our most depressing “booking roundup” of the year. Here’s your run down of 2011’s biggest arrests, convictions, acquittals, and sentencings.

(“Please don’t eat me….Please don’t eat me.”)

Hong Man Choi is in a bit of hot water with the police in his hometown of Gwangjin, Korea where he stands accused this week of assaulting a female customer at a pub he owns.

According to police reports, the 7-foot-2, 367-pound K-1 veteran punched a woman in her 20s in the head on Saturday after she refused to pay her tab, which she claimed was too high for what she consumed. After a brief argument over the inflated amount of her bill, Choi allegedly became incensed after the woman cursed at him and attacked her.

News of the booking was first reported by the Korea Times.

The South Korean fighter, who has not competed in two years since his DREAM 11 loss to Minowaman in October 2009, posted a message on his website denying punching the woman.

“She verbally insulted me. I just could not take it anymore. I just pushed her a little bit. I swear that I never punched her,’’ he wrote.

(“…everything else is virtually identical.”)

By Gary “Big Daddy” Goodridge

‘claymore’ asks: Of all your opponents in your fighting career, who smelled the worst?
I can’t say which opponent smelled the worst but I can tell you one thing that really grossed me out. One time, Tom “Big Cat” Erikson (wrestling coach at Purdue University) came to my house to help me train for a fight. Anybody who is a true fan of the sport knows that Tom Erikson was the biggest stud in the Pride heavyweight division for a long time. Since I knew striking and Tom knew wrestling, we became quick friends and training partners.

One day we were training and Tom grabbed me and put me in some kind of a hold. At the time, I had absolutely no wrestling skills so I had to fight the type of fight that Tom Erikson wanted to. The problem was that his chest came together and all of his sweat drained directly off his long chest hairs into my mouth. Tom thought that he had me in a good hold and he had no idea what was happening, so I could only watch the open faucet pour right into my mouth. It was the nastiest thing that I’ve ever experienced in my life. I ended up letting Tom go and throwing up; it felt like two mouthfuls of sweat had drained downed my throat. I know that didn’t answer the “who smelled the worst” question, but it was definitely the grossest thing that has ever happened to me.

‘bgoldstein’ asks: Who was the most intimidating fighter you’ve ever faced? Was it Fedor? It was Fedor, wasn’t it.

(If a regarded submission and kickboxing specialist like Butterbean thinks Pudz needs to round out his game, it must be true.)

It didn’t take long for Moosin USA promoter Eric "Butterbean" Esch to go into damage control when he saw his potential October 9 main event slip through his fingertips.

A day after Sherdog’s Loretta Hunt quashed Moosin executive Corey Fischer’s claim in a report by MMAFighting that the promotion was finalizing a marquee bout between Kimbo Slice and Mariusz Pudzianowski for the planned Chicago show, Butterbean has spun the situation in a press release sent out by the organization earlier today.

(Eat your heart out, Yamma.)

Well it appears that contrary to popular belief, Moosin MMA may not go the way of the Yamma, just yet.

MMAFighting is reporting that the promotion, which is co-owned and promoted by Eric"Butterbean" Esch and Corey Fischer is planning a second card tentatively scheduled for October 9 in Chicago, Illinois.

According to Fischer, the promotion is in the process of securing a number of main event fights for the card that could potentially include UFC cast-off Kimbo Slice squaring off against "World’s Strongest Man" Mariusz Pudzianowski as well as a battle of awkward gangly brawlers Tim Sylvia and Hong Man Choi.

(‘This guy’s totally rich or something, right? Right?’)

Wouldn’t you know it, the same day we dance on Tim Sylvia’s MMA grave, his name pops up in the news again, this time to say he may have either a very legitimate or very ridiculous fight in the works.  According to Sylvia’s manager, Monte Cox, Big Tim is in talks to head to Japan for a New Year’s Eve fight and Cox says he’s “pretty confident that he is going to fight there.”

What they don’t know is whether he’ll fight for Dream or Sengoku, but apparently Dream contractees Alistair Overeem and Hong Man Choi have both been discussed as possible opponents.  That means that he might get a real fight against the Strikeforce heavyweight champion (who, again, is avoiding fighting in the U.S. like he’s got some kind of Roman Polanski-esque legal troubles over here), or he’ll do the typical NYE freak show fight against Choi.  Those are two very different potential futures for Sylvia.  You’d hope that he would rather go the serious route if given the choice, but as we’ve seen in the past, Sylvia is not above taking a bout that makes no sense at all.

What do you say, would you rather see Sylvia in an absurd fight against Hong Man Choi, just to keep the New Year’s Eve tradition intact, or does Sylvia-Overeem really get your heart pumping?  Side question: if he does fight HMC, what are the odds that he joins Jose Canseco and Bobby Ologun on the “Techno Goliath’s” list of MMA victims?  Just saying, this is the guy who couldn’t close the deal with a hard-drinking strip club bartender on Blind Date,  so you better believe he knows how to screw up a sure thing.

(Props: YouTube.com/DREAM)

What do you do when you’re a broken-down Japanese MMA legend and you’ve been booked against an unknown American boxer in a meaningless exhibition? Make an absolute farce out of it, obviously. Check out Kazushi Sakuraba get his physical-comedy on during the DREAM.11 weigh-ins today (starting at the 0:59 mark). Despite the bizarre behavior, Rubin Williams was nice enough to shout out Saku as a "great champion," and referred to himself as a former world champion boxer, which may not be true. During a pre-fight interview, Williams told media that "I had a guy that was working with me on some MMA moves back in Detroit…As far as the ground game, I’ve been getting pretty good at it over the last year. So I’ll display what I’ve learned in the fight Tuesday." Yikes. Rubin, you may be able to pass guard on a training dummy, but that’s not going to help you against one of the best grapplers in the history of the sport. Don’t overthink it — just throw that overhand right and hope for a miracle.

After the jump: Full weigh-in results, and video of the Super Hulks hitting the scale. Nice t-shirt, Hong — was it laundry day?

(In the animal kingdom, playing dead can be considered an intelligent defense. In an MMA fight, not so much. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Yesterday’s event may have been low on spectacle, but DREAM plans to come back strong for their next show. Here’s what’s on the card for DREAM.11 (October 6th, Yokohama):

— The long-awaited rubber-match between Shinya Aoki and Joachim Hansen. The two top-ten lightweights first met at PRIDE Shockwave 2006, where Aoki took out Hellboy via gogoplata. But Hansen got revenge last July, scoring a brutal TKO over Aoki at DREAM’s lightweight GP finals. Hansen has been inactive since that fight, while Aoki has gone 4-1, earning victories over Eddie Alvarez and Vitor Ribeiro, with his only loss to Hayato Sakurai in an ill-advised welterweight match.

Shaq Wants to Fight Chuck Liddell and Hong Man Choi – Watch more Funny Videos
(Props: the6levels.com)

The chances of Shaquille O’Neal taking on Chuck Liddell in an MMA match? Still not very good. But it seems that Sweaty Shaq has another fighter in his sights these days: "The big boy that knocked out Jose Canseco." O’Neal has been training hard at The 6 Levels, and wants to avenge the reputation of American pro athletes by whupping Hong Man Choi after he retires from basketball in a year or two. We hope DREAM is still around by then to put this match together, because it sounds like the ultimate freak-fight. Shaq already has a way with trash-talking Asian opponents, and with Bob Sapp‘s star power fading, someone needs to fill the role of "huge crazy black guy who fights in Japan and beats up cardboard cutouts." Anyway, Shaq vs. HMC: Who takes it and how?

Ah, the freak show.  Where honest competition meets the insatiable human desire to see something weird, typically in Japan.  In light of the events at this week’s Dream "Super Hulk" tournament, we thought we’d take a look back and count down the ten craziest, most outlandish freak show fights in MMA history.  Some are bizarre enough to be fun.  Some are just horrible.  At least one is actually kind of good.  All are totally insane.  Enjoy.

#10: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Zuluzinho
Pride Shockwave 2005, 12/31/05

Zuluzinho (real name Wagner da Conceição Martins, which explains why he goes by Zuluzinho) got his shot at Fedor for two reasons: 1) he is the son of the now legendary Zulu, the Brazilian beast of a man who should be familiar to anyone who has seen “Choke,” and 2) because at 6’7” and nearly 400 pounds, he’s a big, scary-looking fat dude.  What he isn’t is quality competition for Fedor, and that’s why he got the fight on December 31.  Everyone knows Fedor loves to beat a freak’s ass to ring in the New Year, the bigger and freakier the better.  

Just in case there was any doubt that this was an almost criminal mismatch, Zuluzinho erased it by going down with the second punch thrown in the fight.  We like to think that as he was falling time slowed down like in the movies and Zuluzinho allowed himself to wonder just for a moment, ‘Is there a chance that the Pride matchmakers haven’t been taking me seriously?’

(You know, Jason, it would be nice if your junk transitioned to a renewable energy source. Photo courtesy of DreamOfficial.com)

The return of Kid Yamamoto. Light-heavyweights fighting super-heavyweights. Desperate baseball players possibly dying in the ring. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to see some crazy shit. DREAM.9 kicks off in a few minutes, and if you’re reading this live, God bless you. Round-by-round updates from the HDNet broadcast are after the jump; refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest. If there’s a long stretch of time where there’s no updates, it just means that I’ve fallen asleep. Let’s all hope that doesn’t happen.
 

(It was at that moment that Jose realized his life had become unmanageable. Photo courtesy of DreamOfficial.com)

DREAM.9 — which goes down tomorrow in Yokohama, and will be broadcast live on HDNet starting at 5 a.m. ET / 2 a.m. PT — is simply too epic for us not to liveblog. If you’ll be awake for some reason, swing by and find out how quickly/pathetically Jose Canseco gets his ass kicked by Hong Man Choi — as well as what happens with the rest of the Super Hulk Tournament opening round, the featherweight grand prix quarterfinals, and the Mayhem/Jacare middleweight title fight. If you’ll be sleeping like a normal person, just come over when you wake up and get caught up on all the insanity.

Weigh-in results are after the jump, courtesy of MMA Weekly.

(Don’t get used to it, buddy. By the way, those aren’t real tats — he’s wearing one of those queer-ass tattoo shirts. )

With his MMA debut coming in four days, you might be wondering what Jose Canseco has been doing to prepare for Hong Man Choi. After all, we’ve seen no photos or videos of him training at MMA camps, and he’s ignored every interview request from MMA news outlets (us included). It’s all a big mystery. Well, it seems like the real answer is the most logical one:

(Image courtesy of DreamOfficial.com)

Maybe the word "epic" is overused on the Internet. Certainly we’ve been guilty of using it vain when "totally sweet" would have sufficed. But I think "epic" really does apply to DREAM.9 (May 26th, Yokohama) which contains the quarterfinals of DREAM’s "Super Hulk Tournament" and Featherweight Grand Prix, as well as a great lightweight feature between Tatsuya Kawajiri and Gesias Cavalcante, and the middleweight title fight between Jason Miller and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza.

The show will be broadcast in North America on HDNet Tuesday morning at 5 a.m. ET/2 a.m. PT, and while I’m not really down with farmer’s hours, I might have to watch this one live (and maybe even liveblog it) — especially since it’ll also represent an emotional farewell to HDNet. Right, so DREAM.9′s official fight order will be…

(Props: The Garv)

The official UFC 100 promo video doesn’t need any heavy-handed voiceover to make its case as one of the best MMA events in recent memory.  It just runs down some perfunctory highlight clips to remind you of who all’s fighting, and then it steps back to let your imagination run wild.  Now all you need is a ton of money and no objection to dropping an obscene amount of cash on one sporting event, and you can experience it live.  You can also help whip your section of the arena into a chant that voices the will of the people.  If that kind of thing interests you.

After the jump, a highlight video that is pretty much the exact opposite of this promo.

(Photo courtesy of Kamipro via N.o.B.)

Faced with sub-par TV ratings, DREAM is responding by giving Japanese MMA fans what they need — complete and utter insanity. The lineup for DREAM.9 (May 26th, Yokohama, Japan) is already stacked with the quarterfinals for their featherweight GP, the middleweight title fight between Jason Miller and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, and a lightweight feature between Gesias Cavalcante and Tatsuya Kawajiri. But according to Nightmare of Battle, the event will also host the first round of DREAM’s new "Super Hulk Tournament – World Superman Championship" open-weight grand prix. Are you sitting down? Good. Because these matchups may shock you…

"Here we go. Bloggin’ again." So says Dana White after he and Lorenzo sell some snake oil to a group of Stanford Business students, telling them that their friendship is what has kept the UFC successful. Plus, it’s all about the ride. You can pretty much skip past 2:19-4:44, in which Lorenzo tells a convoluted shaggy dog story (literally/figuratively) which doesn’t really go anywhere. You can also skip through 4:45-6:00 in which Dana plays Pac-Man in his garage. Man, I can’t imagine what landed on the cutting-room floor this time around. Then, Dana’s daughter shows up in an Ed Hardy shirt (LOL, what a douchebag) and his son disses his baldness. A lot of family time, basically, ending with Dana and Lorenzo reunited and heading to Germany. In a way, this vlog entry is much like UFC 96 itself — only interesting if you’re a hardcore fan.

Below: Rejoice! Genghis Con has created a sequel to his groovy Fedor Emelianenko-based film The Last Russian Emperor. Chapter 2 focuses on Fedor’s last five victories (Hunt, Lindland, Choi, Sylvia, Arlovski), with some great behind-the-scenes footage peppered in. The exchange between Aleks and Andrei at the 6:13 mark FTW.

Wow.  Who would have thought that a) we’d ever see Mark Hunt get knocked out by something as simple as a left hook-straight right combo, b) in the opening seconds of a fight, and c) by a middleweight.  This is the guy who walked right through a Cro Cop high kick.  Hats off to Melvin Manhoef.  Maybe now he’ll get that fight with Kimbo Slice that he wants. 

More videos from Fields Dynamite 2008 after the jump.

(Now that I think about it, Kinnikuman would fit in perfectly with the TapouT crew.  Somebody get Punk-Ass to bring the bus around and pick him up.)

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you really want to bet on K-1 Dynamite 2008 tonight, which you probably won’t get to watch until tomorrow and which may or may not turn out to be a total shitstorm.  First, you’re a crazy son of a bitch, you know that?  Second, we got you covered.  Here are the best odds on the ‘net, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Joachim Hansen (+150) vs. Gesias Cavalcante (-105)
Kazushi Sakuraba (-125) vs. Kiyoshi Tamura (+120)
Eddie Alvarez (-105) vs. Shinya Aoki (+120)
Semmy Schilt (-531) vs. Siala Siliga (+450)
Hong Man Choi (+160) vs Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic (-155)
Daisuke Nakamura (-110) vs. Hideo Tokoro (+135)
Alistair Overeem (+270) vs. Badr Hari (-250)

Thoughts…

(Unless he’s using it as a part-time chicken coop, what does Cro Cop want with a cage these days anyway?)

Our buddy Robert at FreeFightVideos has a report that suggests a return to the UFC for Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic might be as simple as a win over Hong Man Choi on New Year’s Eve.  Cro Cop has apparently been dropping hints lately that the fight at K-1 Dynamite will “end one chapter and start another” in his career, and insists he’s not retiring.  So okay, maybe he just means he’ll end the injury-riddled, lackluster performance chapter and begin another kicking ass chapter in 2009, right?

But Cro Cop has been increasingly vague about his plans for 2009, and when Dana White appeared on the “Best Damn Sports Show,” he stated that, “if [Cro Cop] wins, he will definitely be welcomed back into the UFC."

As Robert points out, Cro Cop still keeps a cage in his training facility, though he wouldn’t seem to have any use for it if he plans to keep fighting in Japan. Maybe the thing is just a pain in the ass to take down, or maybe he plans to come back to the UFC for some unfinished business.

Either way, does it seem odd to anyone else that a fight with Hong Man Choi, of all people, is the deciding factor in Cro Cop’s UFC career?  Choi is not really an MMA fighter.  He’s a kickboxer, in the loosest sense of the word, but mainly he’s a sideshow attraction. 

Everyone mocked Fedor for even taking a fight with Choi, and now it’s the fight that determines Cro Cop’s readiness to reenter the Octagon?  Why not ask him to beat Alistair Overeem to prove himself?  Or beat…anyone else, really.  Anyone with actual MMA experience, who isn’t wearing a mask at the time of the fight.  Then again, where is he supposed to find an opponent like that on New Year’s Eve in Japan?

(Props: Sportal.vecernji.hr)

That tall son-of-a-bitch you see on the right is Franjo Arapovic, a former Croatian basketball star who scored silver medals at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. And he’s been brought in to replicate Hong Man Choi’s pituitary freakishness as Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic prepares for their showdown on New Year’s Eve. So how did he get the gig? As FreeFightVideos translates:

Fair enough, but I still think Cro Cop should have ponied up a little more money to hire Yao Ming. You can beat up Croatian basketball centers for months, but it won’t really prepare you for the sight of a seven-foot-tall Asian person.

Some rather-awesome pics of Cro Cop armbarring and head-kicking poor Franjo are after the jump. You know you wanna see that.

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.

(‘Do not mistake my kindness for weakness, my friend.’)

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic writes on his blog that he has signed the contract to make the rumored bout with Korean giant Hong Man Choi official.  It will be contested under MMA rules, not K-1 kickboxing rules, which is nice for Cro Cop, who is hoping to end this rough year on a high note:

I must say I’m happy with this opportunity to fight again in this year. This wasn’t the best year for me and I’m hoping that I’ll end it in a good spirit. I’m also happy to fight again in Japan at New Year’s Eve, which is always truly a fantastic experience.

[…]

Although I’m still having some difficulties with my old injuries there won’t be any excuses left in case of a bad result. I’ll handle this issues in January, but against Choi I’ll be ready and nothing will stop me this time. I’ll just do my best and end this year with a win hopefully. Then I’ll focus on 2009 and work on the further steps in my career.

You know something, it really has been a tough year for Cro Cop.  He’s struggled with injuries, got his testicles smashed by Overeem, had his training partner busted for being a serial armed robber, and then there’s that whole weirdo video game thing.  Fortunately, fighting a giant on New Year’s Eve is an old Croatian folk remedy guaranteed to bring good luck.  It works best if you also sleep with a virgin on the same night, though isn’t that the story with all Croatian folk remedies? 

But hold up, American fans, there’s a strong possibility we may not even get to see the big K-1 Dynamite show.  HDNet Fights CEO Andrew Simon tells MMA Fanhouse that since their contract is with K-1, and since Dynamite is not technically a K-1 show, it’s a bit of a tricky situation.  If HDNet isn’t showing it that means it may not air in the states at all.  Which would be, as the kids say, a total bummer.  Let’s hope they work something out.

(You call it: happy or sad?)

According to a new article translated into English for us by Robert from betwwx.com, Judo olympic gold medalist Satoshi Ishii says he is definitely getting into MMA, and he wants to fight Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and…Hong Man Choi?

Japan’s Olympic gold medallist Satoshi Ishii has quit judo to enter mixed martials arts. His ultimate goal is to fight the likes of Mirko Cro Cop and Hong Man Choi also known as the “Techno Goliath”.

The Reuters articles mistakenly nicknames Mirko Filipovic as the ‘Terminator’, although the Croatian fighter has not fought under that name but is widely known among fans as ‘Cro Cop’.

‘This is a new chapter in my life and I’ll have to now start from scratch or with a white belt. Mixed Martials Arts has the words best fighters and I wanted to face many of them even before I won my Judo gold medal . I want to get myself in good shape and want to face the best as soon as possible. There’s no need to hide. That’s is my goal.” Said the 21 year old Ishii.

Let’s say you’re Cro Cop and you hear this. Are you psyched for a potential big money fight with Japan’s most recent judo hero? Or are you blinded with rage at being mentioned alongside Hong Man Choi, as if the two of you are interchangeable? I have to think it’s the second one, but Cro Cop has baffled me before.

A couple of weeks ago, we lamented the fact that Hong Man Choi’s mandatory army service would take him out of the fight game for three years. The good news is, he failed a physical and will be sent back home. According to the report (which is translated here):

Choi submitted medical records indicating that his pituitary adenoma may compress his optic nerve and cause visual problems. His condition was deemed problematic for basic training and was discharged. It is likely that he was determined to be unfit for the next three months.

Choi will likely get a re-examination in which case he will “re-start” his duties, get an exemption, or be sent home for yet another physical at a later date, depending on the results…

As of now, it is quite likely that Choi may get an exemption since he has a clear reason and has all the necessary documents. Also, it has been reported that his vision has been deteriorating since last year. In an interview with My Daily, Choi was quoted as saying “I couldn’t see the right hook when I fought Mighty Mo.”

Choi’s pituitary adenoma was revealed to the media in June of last year through the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) right before Dynamite! USA. The CSAC deemed Choi unfit to compete and refused to issue him a fighter’s license.

Hong Man Choi was quoted as saying “It has been a fun two days and everyone was nice to me. I’m sorry that this happened.”

Man, we thought stapling papers for three years in an Army office would be bad; this optic nerve thing might end HMC’s fight career for good. Besides the fact that he was rejected in California, K-1 may not allow him to continue to fight anywhere for their organization with his visual handicap now public knowledge. Thank God he has his rap career to fall back on. And hey, if Yao Ming ever needs a stunt double…

(HMC: Sexual Napalm.)

Hey, how’s your news?

— Hong Man Choi is scheduled to report for mandatory Korean army service next Monday, which may take him out of fight competition for three years. Apparently, his size prohibits him from being a regular soldier, so he’ll be stuck writing parking tickets and working the Xerox machine at a district office. Or so they want you to think!

— A match between UFC lightweights Spencer Fisher (20-4, 5-3 UFC) and Jeremy Stephens (13-2, 2-1 UFC) has been booked for the Ultimate Fighter 7 finale (June 21st, Las Vegas). Fisher most recently dropped a decision to Frankie Edgar at UFC 78, while Stephens has won his lost two UFC bouts against Diego Saraiva and Cole Miller. This could be the fourth match on the TUF 7 finale card that doesn’t include the show’s castmembers, after the Diego Sanchez/Luigi Fioravanti headlining bout and rumored matches between Josh Burkman and Dustin Hazelett, and Marvin Eastman vs. Drew McFedries. Could this be an early signal that many of the show’s finalists didn’t turn out to be worthy of getting a spot on the finale show?

— WEC bantamweight prospect Manny Tapia (10-0-1) injured his knee during training, and has been forced to pull out of his June 1st title bout against champion Miguel Torres (32-1). Yoshiro Maeda (23-4-2) has reportedly agreed to fill in, and will challenge Torres for the belt. Maeda is a veteran of Pancrase and DEEP, and was Pacrase’s first featherweight champion.

— Former UFC middleweight Terry Martin won his professional boxing debut on Saturday, taking out Ricardo Upchurch by TKO in just 40 seconds; with the loss, Upchurch’s pro record drops to 0-2. Roy Jones Jr., you’re next.

(Just hangin’ around the house on a lazy Saturday.)

There’s been more than one message board in the MMA cyber world with posts claiming some pretty disappointing news. The rumor – and it is just that right now – is that DREAM officials are talking about Cro Cop fighting at DREAM 3…against Hong-Man Choi. The posters have been saying that the press in Japan are backing up these claims. Shit. That would suck more than enough ass.

If this shit happens, it won’t go to the mat unless HMC falls on top of Cro Cop like he did against Fedor. Neither guy has much by way of a ground game, so it’d probably amount to some low kicks to the Techno Goliath’s legs until he toppled. DREAM could certainly do better than this, but the Japanese seem insistant on making Hong-Man Choi an MMA star. Sure, it’s business and you need viewers. The ratings for DREAM 1 reportedly blew and HMC versus Crop Cop could bring in the Japanese viewers. Good for DREAM, bad for us.

Ratings aside, let’s hope this one doesn’t materialize and Cro Cop gets a solid test for his next fight. But if this is to be believed, I’m going to go drink myself into a coma. It is St. Patty’s Day afterall.

We didn’t write much about it in the liveblog because it was pretty much over before it began and it didn’t end any differently than anyone expected. But here’s the video evidence of the last great (?) fight of 2007. Pause the vid at the 1:29 mark for the best representation of the size difference. Fedor is just a toy that Hong is playing with. And vice-versa, of course…

Props to Nightmare of Battle for the Yarennoka! rule change rundown. The first round will be 10 minutes, compared to 5 minutes for the second round. No draws, three judges choose a winner if the fight goes the distance.

But the ones that really take some pepper off the event are the no soccer kicks and stomps to the head of a downed opponent rules. Knee strikes are allowed except for the Fedor Emelianenko/Hong-man Choi fight. Seems Japan is Americanizing the event and it blows. Sure, we can see MMA rules becoming more and more unified and they’re certainly more rigid than they were in the early 90′s, but the Japanese removing these two doesn’t make a ton of sense. Are kicks to the head and face stomping life threatening? Yes, and that’s what is so fantastic about them.

In other Yarennoka! news, ProElite.com reports:

ProElite.com (SamCaplan.ProElite.com) has learned from a well-placed source that the eighth and final bout for Yarennoka! in Japan on Dec. 31 is expected to feature Roman Zentsov vs. Mike Russow.  

ProElite.com has also learned from a separate source that Russow is also under consideration to fight on M-1 Global’s first card in the U.S.

The bout between Zentsov and Russow is expected to kick off HDNet’s coverage of the event, which will commence on Jan. 1 at 6 a.m. ET.

ProElite.com was also able to obtain a preliminary order of bouts on the card. It is as follows:

Fight 1: Roman Zentsov vs. Mike Russow

Fight 2: Makoto Takimoto vs. Murilo Bustamante

Fight 3: Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Luis Azeredo

Fight 4: Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Gilbert Melendez

Fight 5: Hayato Sakurai vs. Hidehiko Hasegawa

Fight 6: Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Kazuo Misaki

Fight 7: Shinya Aoki vs. TBD

Fight 8: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Hong-man Choi 

The fight addition could be a good boost for Russow’s career who will be fighting his sixth match this year, with only one loss. This will be a good platform for him to show what he has to offer, but Zentsov is a beast and had his seven fight win streak snapped back in July. He’ll be hungry.

Stick around for more Yarennoka! scoops this week.

Hong Man Choi…

…and Richard “Jaws” Kiel

(For the first installment of “S@B,” click here…)