(Will brawl for food.)

Now that Strikeforce is getting its Pro Elite ducks in a row, we’re all wondering what, if anything, they’ll decide to do with Kimbo Slice.  He was an undeniable draw for EliteXC, but he also came with a hefty price tag that was maybe, just maybe, not justified by his performance in the cage, particularly in his last fight against Seth Petruzelli.

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker seems sympathetic to the plight of the internet brawler, but perhaps not so much that he’s willing to keep paying him the six-figure salary Pro Elite did:

“I think that if you look back at the past, he could have been built up to have the fights that he needed to face the Seth Petruzellis of the world and be successful, but he wasn’t given the opportunity,” said Coker. “When I look at Kimbo, I don’t look at it as his fault. He was in a ‘no win’ situation.”

Kimbo’s manager, “Icey” Mike Imber, indicated that while he wasn’t enthusiastic about a pay-cut for his fighter, he’d consider it rather than keep him out of action indefinitely.  But one thing’s for sure, Bas Rutten will not be training Slice.  Ever.

I talked to Jon Jones for this week’s SI.com column, in which he discusses what it was like growing up with two brothers who both now play defensive line at Syracuse (with the eldest headed soon to the NFL) and how he learned to strike by watching YouTube videos:

The gym I train at is a really small gym, a lot of wrestlers, so I didn’t have a striking coach until this last fight.  I had to teach myself how to strike.  I would study a lot of videos on YouTube, or go to different websites where I could watch old Pride fights.  I just became obsessed with MMA and watched videos over and over again.  I learned the moves and took them to practice and started using them.  Before I knew it I was considered a pretty good striker. 

YouTube videos can really teach you a lot.  It depends how you search for them.  If you look really hard, you can find videos of seminars from some of the best fighters in the world.  It’s just a matter of taking them seriously.  You have the Bas Rutten’s and the Anderson Silva DVD’s, but you can find most of that stuff on the internet for free, so that’s what I was doing.  I was basically teaching myself with them.  Now I can honestly say I’ve been taught by some of the best teachers in the world because I’ve watched some of the greatest seminars online. 

Obviously, Jones is a freakish athlete who can simply do things other people can’t, such as watch YouTube videos and then beat up UFC veterans.  But what struck me was his humility and obsession with improving as a fighter.  Check this quote, for example, on what went through his mind after the UFC offered him the fight with Bonnar:

(Joe Lauzon, pictured here with his spirit animal.  Photo courtesy of MySpace.)

Judging by his feud with Hermes Franca on the UG, Joe Lauzon is a nice enough guy until you say something about his brother.  That’s a line you probably shouldn’t cross with him apparently, and once you do you’ve made yourself an instant enemy.

In our exclusive interview Lauzon talks about how the bad blood erupted on the UG, just how pissed off he really was, and what he thinks of Jeremy Stephens’ plan to break his will at UFC Fight Night 17 this Saturday.

CagePotato.com: So how serious was this beef with Hermes Franca?

It was serious on my end.  I take it personally when he comes at my brother like that.  Basically, he hurt his knee and couldn’t fight, so I said how sorry I was to hear it, hope he heals up, best of luck, all that, and maybe we can fight somewhere down the line.  

And then he starts calling me “the luckiest motherfucker alive,” saying that after he saw how much my brother sucks he couldn’t wait to fight me, stuff that’s just completely uncalled for.  I’m saying, ‘sorry to hear about your knee,’ and he’s saying, ‘you suck.’  That’s just complete trash.

Do you think he might have been joking, like a lot of people suggested?

I don’t think so.  He called me the luckiest motherfucker alive.  I just ignored that, whatever.  I signed my post Joe “The Luckiest Motherfucker Alive” Lauzon, and let it go.  I didn’t say anything after that.  Totally let it go.  Then he comes back talking about how much my brother sucks, and it wasn’t a joking kind of thing.  If you’re joking, you don’t say stuff about someone’s family like that, just so direct.  That’s just not something you do.  

(Photo courtesy of Zimbio.com.)

We called up Joe Rogan earlier this week hoping to shoot the bull about tomorrow’s UFC card. Instead, we got a full education about humanity’s impending peak point, the thievery of war, Ashton Kutcher, and psychedelic Internet dance-porn. But that’s how it goes with Joe, whether you’re listening to his stand-up comedy CDs or watching him explain things to Mike Goldberg during UFC broadcasts — not only are you entertained, but you actually feel smarter afterwards. Of course, he did run down the GSP/Penn matchup for us, as well as share stories about his early days with the UFC and fill us in on his upcoming comedy special. So read on and be enlightened…

***

CAGEPOTATO.COM: I saw on your website that you did some standup gigs in Austin, Texas last weekend. How would you compare the Austin crowd to the Dublin crowd you played to the week before?
JOE ROGAN: They’re both great in different ways. Ireland is a lot like England — they really appreciate American standup comedy over there. I don’t know what it is about American comedy and the U.K., but it seems to work. I’ve even met a few American expatriates who live over there and do standup. But Dublin was great, and the fans in Austin are always awesome — it’s one of my favorite places ever.

Out of curiosity, is it possible to score good weed in Ireland?
Not good weed. No. You can get passable weed. Unfortunately for the Irish, marijuana is just as illegal as heroin or cocaine or anything else. I believe the way they prosecute it is by how much the drug is worth, rather than how dangerous or harmful to society it is.

I just got your last comedy CD Shiny Happy Jihad, and in the liner notes it says “All together in 2012.” What’s going to happen in 2012?
That’s like the million dollar question, right there. Who knows what’s going to happen. I’m not a scientist, or an archeologist, or a futurist, so for me it’s more fun than anything. But the idea behind it, according to people who take it very seriously, whether they’re the people who decipher the Mayan calendar, or the Terrence McKennas of the world — there’s a guy named Terrence McKenna who actually created a mathematical algorithm that predicted what he called “waves of novelty,” meaning human innovation throughout time and history, and he believed that what we do as human beings, as far as creating new things like the wheel or matches or the Internet, that what we’re doing is part of a mathematical program. Meaning that we are doing something that you can actually track with mathematics. And his algorithm showed that human innovation is pre-destined. It’s just what we do, like bees make beehives, ants make anthills — human beings make technology. We change our environment, we alter things. And that eventually we were going to reach a peak point, or a point of what they call “ultimate novelty,” and that this is going to be a moment where something is invented, something happens, that changes the world as we know it.

Watch Jon Fitch On His UFC 94 Bout on RawVegas.tv

This video from MMA Fix relates some of Jon Fitch’s experience on "Mythbusters" and his work on a documentary about his preparation for Georges St. Pierre, but what’s interesting is when the talk turns to Fitch’s spot on the dark portion of UFC 94 for his bout with Akihiro Gono.  

Naturally, he plays it down, says he’s only thinking about the fight and doesn’t harbor any ill feelings towards Dana White for the video game licensing debacle and this ensuing punishment.  You know, all the things he really has to say in this situation.  But we aren’t buying it.

No matter what he says, Fitch has to realize how absurd it is for him to be on the undercard here.  He was a title contender a few months back, and now he’s pushed to the untelevised portion of the event while Jon Jones-Stephan Bonnar makes the broadcast.  It’s insanity.  What’s more, it’s childish.  Didn’t the UFC get the point across when they fired him for a day?  

We’re hoping that this is just holdover anger from Dana White that has dissipated by now, and that after Lyoto Machida surprises everyone with a twenty-second knockout victory they’ll use some of that extra time to show Fitch-Gono.

Programming Reminder: The final episode of “UFC Primetime” airs tonight, so set your DVRs, tell your girlfriend you won’t make it over to watch “Top Chef," do whatever you gotta do.

“Who knew that not sleeping and not eating could mess with your mental state?” says “Rampage” Jackson in this post-guilty plea interview with the OC Register.  

If you had asked me that question before this incident, my answer would have been: everybody.  Everybody on the face of the earth knows that not sleeping and not eating will cause you both physical and mental problems, up to and including death.  After seeing this video, however, I realize I would have been wrong to say that, because at least one person had to find out the hard way.

In this video from Bad Boy, "Shogun" Rua gets his train on in preparation for his bout with Mark Coleman at UFC 93 next weekend.  At least in the gym, this looks more like the old Shogun we all knew and loved, the Grand Theft Title-era Shogun, if you will.  Now we just have to wait and see if that transfers into the Octagon after so much time off.

(Honestly, what’s not to love?)

During today’s media conference call for UFC 93 the talk inevitably turned to the perceived stakes of the Dan Henderson-Rich Franklin bout on January 17 and whether the winner would really end up as a coach opposite Michael Bisping on season nine of The Ultimate Fighter, as has been discussed.  The answer, it seems, is that nobody knows for sure.  But Rich Franklin sure didn’t sound excited about the idea:

"I have not personally spoken to Dana, the UFC or any of the production people about the show," Franklin said. "Six weeks in Vegas, I’ve gotten to the point where I could care less for staying in Vegas for that period of time. It’s time away from my family and time away from doing the things I can do to make money. The show doesn’t pay very well. … But anything the UFC asks me to do, I’m always on board for."

Franklin also pointed out the absurdity of taking two former middleweights, like he and Henderson, and having them fight at light heavyweight to see who will take on Bisping at middleweight.  But Franklin’s main gripe seems to be that coaching the show isn’t such a good deal for a fighter – and he would know, seeing as he’s done it before. 

But is coaching the show really that bad?  So it doesn’t pay much (how much is not much, anyway?  Ten grand for six weeks?  Less?  More?), and it keeps Franklin from other lucrative opportunities, such as making movies with former Saved By The Bell stars, but it is publicity and the chance to build back up to a big main event bout.  That’s all good stuff, right? 

(Yeah, that’s a dragon on his t-shirt. Go ahead and say something and get your ass whipped right here in baggage claim.)

Rashad Evans is a unique case among UFC fighters.  He’s undefeated, a former Ultimate Fighter winner, and now stands one victory away from claiming UFC gold.  And yet he’s still far from a fan favorite, despite his recent brutal knockout of Chuck Liddell and his rise through the light heavyweight ranks.

With his title shot just a few days away, Evans talks with us about dealing with the criticism, gameplanning for Forrest Griffin, and yes, even the Greg Jackson camp nipple tweak.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for talking with us, Rashad.  Now that fight night is closing in, how has your training camp been?

Training has been good.  I feel really strong and I’ve had a great camp.  I’ve had guys like James McSweeney, Georges St. Pierre, Nate Marquardt, Joey Villasenor and lots of others in here helping me.  With guys like that you can’t help but have a good training camp.

Your fight with Forrest is being billed as the explosive athlete (you), against the hard worker (Forrest).  What do you think of that characterization?

I can see how people would say that, yeah.  But I think there’s aspects of both those things in each of us.  I think I might be a little better natural athlete, but he can also be a real explosive fighter.  And it’s not like I don’t work hard, either.  I’m not going in there with any expectations of him in that regard.  He’s the champ right now, and you don’t get to be the champ if you’re not a good, explosive fighter.

(Photo courtesy of NBC Sports.)

The first meeting between Kevin Burns and Anthony “Rumble” Johnson was marred by an accidental eye poke that halted the bout midway through the third round.  It was an unsatisfying end for both men, as Johnson would need surgery for a damaged retina and Burns found himself with a victory that he couldn’t really enjoy.

As the two prepare for a rematch to settle the score at Saturday night’s "Ultimate Fighter Finale," Burns talks with us about his decision to fight with the injured hand, his perspective on the eye pokes, and what he thinks of the attention the strange bout has brought upon himself and Johnson.

Check back later today for an interview with Johnson, who gives his often very different perspective on the events of that night.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for talking with me, Kevin.  Coming into this rematch, how do you mentally approach a fight like this, under these strange circumstances?

Mentally I’m approaching it like I would any other fight.  I’ve been in the cage with Anthony so I kind of know what to expect, I know what he’s going to bring to the table.  Other than from a game plan prospective, I’m not approaching it any differently.  Now I can utilize all of my standup skills.  Now that my hand’s 100% I can actually throw a left jab, a left hook, things that I haven’t been able to do.  That may make things a little different for him, but it will be good for me.

Tell me about the situation with the hand.  What happened to it?

I broke my hand three times in sixteen months.  The bone wasn’t completely fused, but if it was any other person doing normal things, not doing what we do, you probably wouldn’t notice it.  I can lift weights, I can do pretty much anything, with the exception of hitting something solid.  If I had hit something solid at that point, I had about a 95% chance that the bone would have fractured back through and I would have been back to square one.  

So instead of delaying my fighting career I decided to take a page out of Bas Rutten’s book in the old Pancrase days in Japan and use palm strikes.  They did it successfully, so I figured why can’t I?  I threw a lot of successful palm strikes earlier in the fight.  I couldn’t throw a closed jab, so I had to use that.  Unfortunately my finger went into his eye in that last palm strike that I threw in the third round.

The one in the third round ended it, but it seemed like there were several other pokes leading up to that one.  Where you aware of those, and did you feel it when it happened the last time?

(‘Pay no attention to my brother. He is idiot.’ Photo courtesy of afightgallery.com)

Aleks and Fedor Emelianenko don’t seem to have the warmest of sibling relationships.  They don’t train together, don’t speak especially well of one another, and when they were both at the Affliction press conference in July they barely acknowledged one another’s presence.  It’s tempting to blame this on the fact that both of them often appear to be emotionless cyborgs, but then you see that picture of Fedor happily eating two ice cream cones at once, and damn if it doesn’t just melt your heart.  

But Aleks is taking issue with some comments his brother made to a Russian newspaper, where Fedor suggested that his little bro lacks a serious work ethic, even going so far as to claim that as kids, “Aleksander looked for adventures on his rear end…I wouldn’t come out of the gym.”

Aleks, as you might imagine, disagrees:

Last week, Aleks was interviewed by the same newspaper and Fedor “is definitely not correct on that. I don’t know why [he] said that. Probably was overcome by some ambitions.

“My brother sometimes gets overwhelmed. He says something stupid, and then he’s sorry about it afterwards.”

Something tells me Fedor is not terribly sorry about those remarks.  As for him being "overcome by some ambitions," perhaps that’s what Aleks has been telling himself all these years when Fedor’s in the gym becoming the world’s best heavyweight, and he’s been off doing…whatever it is that Aleks does besides getting tattoos.

(One of several great WEC action shots from NBC Sports.)

- California’s drug-testing system is fixed already. (MMA Weekly)

- Chuck Liddell doing work with American Top Team, son. (Fighters Only)

- Josh Koscheck talks Yoshida bout. (CBS Sportsline)

- King of the Cage takes a swipe at Zuffa over Booyaa ban. (MMA Payout)

- British boxers exchange barbs over MMA. (The Sun)

- NBC goes Cung Le crazy this Saturday night. (MMA Mania)

- Diary of a madman who decides to train with Matt Hughes and the rest of the HIT Squad. (NewBreedFighters.tv)

- Flowchart guide to losing your virginity. (Holy Taco)

- Michael Bay’s Amazon wish list. (Screen Junkies)

- Street corner executive search. (Wall Street Fighter)

- Incredible diving basketball shot wins game. (Nothing Toxic)

This afternoon I got a chance to meet up with The Ultimate Fighter 8 lightweight finalist Phillipe "The Filipino Assassin" Nover at Fighthouse in New York City. (Coincidentally, this is the gym where I’ve been taking Muay Thai lessons for the last two months. So yeah, I guess you could say I’m pretty badass.) Anyway, Nover was cool enough to chat with me about his match-up with Efrain Escudero at the TUF 8 finale next Saturday, working as a registered nurse, living without bathroom privacy as a reality TV star, and his official prediction for Bader vs. Vinny; he also had a special shout-out for his Filipino fans. Later, he hit pads and rolled with a couple guys from his Team Insight crew, and tried to stay loose despite the fact that we were surrounded by a bunch of dudes with sniper rifles and one guy who was, no shit, wearing a terrorist-style dynamite vest (proof at the end of the video). Never a dull moment at Fighthouse. Thanks to Spike TV for the invite.

(BG)

Gina Carano Interview – Watch more free videos

Our good friend Ariel Helwani of MMA Rated was kind enough to supply us with these exclusive video interviews that he conducted over the weekend. Above the lovely Gina Carano discusses her future, why she can’t run off to the WEC just yet even if Dana White decides he’d like her to, and what exactly was going on between her and Tonya Evinger in those infamous photographs we all enjoyed so much.

Randy Couture Interview – Watch more free videos

Randy Couture talks about his loss to Brock Lesnar, whether he’d consider heading back down to light heavyweight to get away from such beasts, and what’s next for “The Natural.”

After the jump, movie star Cung Le…

(When this man talks, you listen. Occasionally you even understand.)

I called The Ultimate Fighter’s Al “Stankie” Stankiewicz for an interview and ended up getting a motivational speech. He can’t help it. That’s just what he does. As Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s eccentric old boxing coach, “Stankie” caught our eye early on this season with his antics, and as rumors filtered out about things he did off camera, we knew this was someone we wanted to talk to. Turns out the rumors are all true, but they don’t begin to tell the whole story.

We talked with “Stankie” recently to find out who he is and how he came to be standing next to Big Nog, going on semi-coherent rants about sardines. What we learned is that from working undercover during the Watts Riots, to training Oscar de la Hoya for the Olympics, here is a man who has lead an interesting life. And he was more than happy to tell us about it, in his own roundabout way.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for talking with us “Stankie.” I’ve read some about your background, but is it true that you were a cop in Los Angeles before becoming a boxer?

I joined the department in August of 1962. I came from back east, I went to college at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. I came out to California just to see the California girls and to surf. What happened was, it was so beautiful I fell in love with it. It was October and there was Rafer Johnson, the decathlon champion, playing volleyball with Wilt Chamberlain down in Santa Monica. I called home and talked to my sister and told her about seeing these two superstars on the beach playing volleyball, and she knew what a jock I was and how big that was for me. And she said, “Al, it’s twenty degrees below zero here and we’re having a blizzard.” That’s the point where I told her, “Sis, I love you, but I’m never coming back.”

I got a job selling shoes at first. I was twenty years old. I fell in love with almost every girl who came into the place. It was 1962 and jobs were kind of scarce. There was this big advertisement that said, “Join the LAPD! Be part of the thin blue line! $650 a month.” And in 1962, that was big money. So I went down to city hall and took the test. For the psych test there was a Rorschach ink blot test. I had gone to college and written a paper on that thing, so I knew what to say. If you looked at it and said you saw two dogs fucking underneath a tree with blood all over it, you know, you’d be in trouble. So I got through and suddenly I was a cop.

(“The Fast Lane, Episode 002″: Con’s personal favorite.)

Loyal readers of CagePotato know that we’re rabid fans of Genghis Con, the MMA highlight-video virtuoso whose films are marked by rare footage, unconventional song choices, and clever approaches to their subjects. We got in touch with Con to lift the mask from his shadowy persona and find out how he does it. If you’re unfamiliar with Con’s work, go here. Everyone else, read on…

***

So who the hell are you, anyway?
My name is Isaac Kesington — you can call me Ike. I’m 23 years old and I live in Georgia. I work at AT&T, doing office work, basically.

Why “Genghis Con”? Where did that name come from?
Well, I produce rap music too — I do beats and stuff like that — and that was my producer name before I started messing with MMA videos, so I just transferred it over.

When did you first start following MMA?
I think 2001. My friend kept talking about Tank Abbott, and how nobody could beat this guy, so I started watching the UFC with him and I rented a couple DVDs and just got hooked from there.

What inspired you to start making MMA videos?
I used to watch everybody’s highlight videos on the Internet, like Boondock’s, and I admired them for what they were doing. I hit up Boondock one time and he told me what program I could use to start editing videos, and I just started making them, about two-and-a-half years ago.

What was the first video you made?
It was a video about Zelg Galesic. It’s like two minutes long, and it’s pretty rough.

Kind of an obscure choice for your first compilation. Why Galesic?
Well I used to watch Cage Rage and I liked all the fighters, like him, Melvin Manhoef, JZ Calvancanti — those were the first three videos that I did. I just wanted to use smaller fighters that didn’t have a lot of videos out on the net.

(Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

The Ultimate Fighter’s Rolando Delgado got his moment in the spotlight on last night’s show, taking on Junie Browning in a three-round split decision loss. In this exclusive Cage Potato interview, Delgado tells us what it was like to battle Lexington, Kentucky’s most outspoken representative, weighs in on Frank Mir and “Minotauro” Nogueira, and gives us a glimpse of what’s to come.

Now that you’ve seen the show and your fight, what are your thoughts?

Man, it’s painful to watch Frank Mir try and call me out on the show. I was definitely not looking forward to that, more than any other part of the show. Overall I thought it was a good show, it made for good TV. The fight was a fun fight. I definitely could have done better and Junie could have done better. You always have a lot of regrets when you don’t fight to your full potential. But overall it was a good experience.

So what’s the story with the black belt? How did that come up and how did it get to be such an issue? They just didn’t believe you really had a black belt?

Yeah, but I want to note that these were all guys who weren’t training with me. These were all blue team guys. I never trained with any of them. They didn’t interview anyone from my team. It was a little nerve-wracking. I’m not used to people questioning my integrity like that. It’s one thing if you say, ‘I don’t think you’re a good black belt.’ That’s a matter of opinion. But to say that I don’t have one, I thought that was very disrespectful.

Luckily I actually taped my black belt testing and it’s on Google Videos, so you can see it for yourself. I’m not someone who makes up stories and it’s not like I’ve just popped up on the scene. I’ve competed at every level. I competed as a blue belt in the late nineties, I did it as a purple belt, did it as a brown belt. I’ve done no-gi tournaments since I’ve gotten my black belt. I won NAGA twice. It’s not like I just popped on the scene.

Seeing Frank Mir question you and seeing him tell Junie to take you out, it kind of seemed like Frank had it out for you or thought you didn’t belong there. What did you make of that?

Junie Allen Browning interview – Watch more free videos

Just in case you thought Junie Allen Browning was putting on an act for The Ultimate Fighter, here’s some video evidence that at the very least it is a consistent act. Here’s Junie (known at the time as Allen) and his brother Rob appearing on something called “Insight 2 Sports” back in their AFL days. After watching this, I can honestly say that I feel like I have gained some insight, although I’m not so sure it is insight 2 sports so much as it is insight 2 the strange interior world of Junie Browning.

The constant bragging, the fight-picking, the ‘born to lose’ attitude in his darker moments. Junie, let me ask you something. Would you say that you’ve never felt quite good enough? Like maybe, when you’re in a restaurant and you hear people laughing across the room, your first thought is that they must be laughing at you? And then your second thought is that you should probably go over there and beat them all up?

I do like hearing Junie’s brother Rob lay out his plans for the future, though. First he talks about being in college like he’s serving a prison sentence, then says that all he wants to do is teach school, coach sports, and pay the bills with his fight purses. Of course, this all comes after we’ve seen him do his stripper fight entrance, which I can only describe as unsettling.

(The glory before the fall. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

TUF 8 lightweight Shane Nelson was eliminated from competition on last night’s “Ultimate Fighter,” but not before a night of drinking with Junie Allen Browning turned into a near expulsion for the two. Now Nelson talks with CagePotato.com and reflects on the drunken debauchery, the rivalry with Efrain Escudero, and some of the antics of his blonde friend that he saw for the first time in last night’s episode.

CagePotato: Now that you’ve seen it on TV, what did you think of the way the situation with you and Junie was portrayed? Was that how you remember it?

Nelson: Yeah, it was pretty much what it seems on TV. Basically we were watching the pay-per-view, we decided to have a couple of drinks, we had one too many drinks, and then things got out of control from there. What they didn’t show and which I thought they would show, was the next morning when I woke up I went to Delgado and Efrain and I apologized to them and we all put everything behind us. I’m surprised that they left that part out of the show.

Did Dana White come and talk to you guys the very next night after it happened?

Yeah, Dana White came and talked to us the very next night, but the fight wasn’t the next day after Dana talked to us. The fight was about five days after that whole night. So it wasn’t like the drinking still had an effect on me in the fight.

What was going through your mind when Dana showed up?

Oh, we thought we were gone. Junie and I both thought we were getting kicked off the show, because when we first got there the producers stressed that we weren’t allowed to touch anyone or anything like that, and we both crossed that line. I pushed two people and Junie took a swing at a few people, so we both thought we were going home for sure.

So how did things start between you and Efrain?

Well, we were watching the fights and, I’m from B.J. [Penn]’s school, and they all knew that. So we were watching the pay-per-view and common courtesy, you know, if you make comments about my coach, you know it’s going to bother me. He was cheering for Sean Sherk, which is fine, but some of the comments he made while he was cheering for him got under my skin and that’s how me and him got into it.

(Just another day in the organization for Jared Shaw. Props: Steve Cofield.)

The Kimbo Slice fairy tale is over now. At least it ought to be. The “street certified” brawler got himself knocked out in fourteen seconds by a guy who calls himself a “part-time fighter.” A guy who isn’t in the same weight class and isn’t thought of as anything more than a mediocre also-ran in the weight class he normally calls home. To call this a worst case scenario for Elite XC is putting it too mildly. This is an absolute disaster. Which means, of course, that they will now try to convince us that it is not.

Announcer Mauro Ranallo got that ball rolling almost immediately after the fight by suggesting that this should be considered a “mulligan” for Kimbo, since he didn’t plan on fighting Petruzelli. Do we dare mention that Petruzelli also didn’t plan on fighting Kimbo, a heavyweight, in the main event? Apparently not. Instead we start playing up the predictable Rocky Balboa angle, forgetting for the moment that Rocky fought Apollo Creed, the world champion. Unlike Kimbo, the fictional Apollo was both style and substance, and he didn’t go down to a tentative jab.

This is the point where Elite XC makes excuses for Kimbo and tells us that a star is born in Petruzelli. Just watch Jared Shaw working from this script in his interview with Ariel Helwani and see if you don’t find yourself feeling a little sorry for him. His cringe-worthy performance includes transparent lies such as, “it’s just another day in the organization,” and “(Pertruzelli) is a very promotable guy; everybody in this sport is promotable,” and my personal favorite, “we’re gathering all our other nuts.”

This, from the same guy who could be seen having a total meltdown at cageside while Kimbo was getting pounded out on live network TV.

The person who seemed least bothered by last night’s events was Kimbo Slice himself. He hyped his after-party in the post-fight interview and showed up forty-five minutes late to the press conference, where he interrupted Elite XC Head of Operations Jeremy Lappen and made a very brief statement, laughing about his swollen eye, and then disappeared again.

(Man, I just hope Ken’s HMO is going to cover this.)

Yesterday’s press conference for Elite XC: Heat provided all the requisite photo ops and pre-packaged quotes. We get to hear every fighter talk about what a great opportunity this is, how much they love Elite XC, etc. But what every good press conference has to have is a quote that just plain doesn’t make sense. Thankfully, Kimbo Slice obliged:

“Ken’s fighting in Florida, which is no place for an old man. I’m mentally prepared and ready to do it and represent the crib. It’s going to be ‘305’ (his area code) all day.”

Really? Florida’s no place for an old man? Perhaps what he meant to say was, Florida is the place for an old man. Senior citizens make up 16.8% of the population there (don’t say you never learn anything on Cage Potato). If anything, Florida is the perfect place for a fighter of advanced age such as Shamrock. He can catch an early bird dinner before the fight, then maybe enjoy some shuffleboard after the bout is over. When he finally comes to, that is.

Speaking of Shamrock, you didn’t think you were going to have a press conference without him putting his public speaking gifts into action, did you?

MMA Rated’s Ariel Helwani is live on the scene of Elite XC: Heat and managed to score interviews with some of the principle players in Saturday night’s event. Above, Kimbo Slice explains why he had to turn his phone off so he could fully focus on battering his senior citizen opponent.

Once more Kimbo makes his case as a populist fighter based on shopping at the same stores normal people shop at. Of course, he shops there with the hundreds of thousands of dollars he made for beating up substandard opponents, and he may or may not be wearing shoes with his picture on them. So there is that minor difference.

Ariel also spoke with Kelly Kobald — who very politely explains her desire to make Gina Carano the “broken, bruised, and bloody face of women’s MMA,” — as well as Gina Carano herself, who seems to genuinely like Ariel for some bizarre reason. Just proves she has poor taste in men. First Kit Cope, now Ariel Helwani? Gina, why do you do this to yourself?

Check it out after the jump.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

Things that you have to love about this Ken Shamrock video:

1) He doesn’t blame you for thinking he’s washed up based on his last few fights.
2) He continually refers to the sport as “the MMA,” just like your father might.
3) He apparently trains exclusively in slow motion with a piano tinkling in the background.

All kidding aside, this video makes me both excited and sad for Shamrock’s fight with Kimbo Slice on Saturday. The man’s will is still there but the flesh is, well, not. He’s doing a great job of crafting a narrative (around the 11:00 mark he starts talking about Kimbo, and at 14:15 he explains that Kimbo “is walking into my sport, and he hasn’t earned the right to be there.”), which has always been one of the things Shamrock does well.

But after what we’ve seen from him in recent years there’s just no reason to think he’s going to go out there and beat Kimbo. There is every reason to think that one of the sport’s pioneers is going to go out there and lose badly and it’s going to be a damn shame to see.

Who knows, though. He seems acutely aware of why Elite XC brought him in, and maybe he will indeed “completely blow up their party” on Saturday night. If he does I hope the CBS cameramen have the good sense to pan to Jared Shaw immediately afterwards. That look on his face? It will be the ‘That son of a bitch just blew up my party,’ look.

Oftentimes it’s easy, not to mention fun, to bash mainstream media coverage of MMA. They mispronounce oma plata or some such nonsense and the hardcore fans are all over them. But you have to hand it to ESPN, they did their homework on this Randy Couture-UFC situation. They don’t just give in to the media blitz for UFC 91, they hit Randy with his own words regarding his original gripe with the organization and go right after the real story: did anything get resolved between Couture and the UFC, or did he just cave?

Couture does the same delicate dance around this question that he did in yesterday’s media call, which is to say he makes vague assurances that his concerns have been addressed, while also insinuating that he just wants to fight again before he’s too old and poor from protracted legal battles.

Fair enough.

In this video interview with CBS, Rampage Jackson discusses some of the wacky goings-on in his mind around the time of his arrest, and does his best to explain it. You see, he didn’t think he was God. He thought he was a God. That is, until the police took the opportunity to be total jerks to him, thus reminding him that he was indeed mortal. Because a God wouldn’t have taken no lip off no cops.

It’s somewhat reassuring to see that there was a type of logical process at work in Rampage’s mind — God is his father, he is God’s son, so he must also, through hereditary processes, be a God himself. That actually makes some degree of sense in a Grecian myth kind of way. Think Zeus and Hercules and all that. And if Hercules were alive today, wouldn’t he be an MMA fighter? I’d like to think so.

The fact that it took the cops being assholes to him for Rampage to realize how crazy this all was is probably the strangest aspect of the story. He seems to have been genuinely affected by that. It’s got to be the first time in history that the cops did something good by mocking people in a vulnerable state who were in their custody. Also probably the last time.

Here’s the rambling, bizarre CBS interview, where Rampage details more potential mistreatment at the hands of the police and talks about what led to his eventual breakdown. He claims the police were calling their friends on their cell phones to brag that they had him in the car, while also “chastising” him for trying to preach to them. He also admits that he doesn’t completely remember what he was saying, and sounds at times like he might not be all the way back from his bout with delirium.

Former UFC light heavyweight champ Quinton “Rampage” Jackson must really be feeling better. Apparently not content to have his name in the news just for felony charges and rumors of his November return to the Octagon, now he’s revisiting the topic of his loss to Forrest Griffin. Maybe he felt that his clash with “delirium” after the fight robbed him of the opportunity to talk about it, but he’s making up for lost time with this visit from the Ghost of Shit-Talking Past in a recent interview with the UK’s Fighter’s Only Magazine:

“I just want my fans to know, I was at my worst and Forrest was at his best – and I still beat him. …A man is not a man if he can’t ‘fess up to when he gets his ass kicked. See me, if I get my ass kicked I am like ‘yeah, I got my ass kicked’.

However, Jackson says that when he said those exact words at the end of the fight in July, “I was being sarcastic, because I really could not believe that it went the way it did”.

“I’m not a sore loser, shit happens. But I was hoping that Forrest would be a man and come out and say ‘You know what, I didn’t win that fight’, especially after he watched it.

“I wasn’t really sure, right at the end of the fight… I know he hurt me and punched me in the face a couple of times but I was bobbing and weaving and making him miss, stuff like that. I was hoping that he would come out later after he saw the fight and say ‘yeah, I saw the fight and I lost that fight.”

Daaaaaamn! First of all, Rampage really expected Griffin to come out after the fight and voluntarily say that he did not deserve to win the title? Has Rampage ever met any pro fighters? That’s just not their style. Especially with a fight that close, it’s standard operating procedure for both guys to claim they won and for both to go to their graves truly believing it. So basically Rampage wants Griffin to do what no other fighter, including him, would do in this situation.

(Trump Jr.: Voted most likely to buy and sell jerks like you.)

In an interview with MMA Rated Radio today Donald Trump Jr. discusses the Trump involvement in Affliction, along with related topics. The interview as a whole is definitely worth listening to, if for no other reason than to hear the occasional Thurston Howell III-type inflection come into Trump Jr’s voice, but things really get interesting when they start talking Tito Ortiz.

As we’ve all heard by now, the talks aren’t going well, which is par for the Tito course. But to hear Trump Jr. tell it, Ortiz’s sense of his own worth is even more out of control than we thought:

“It was a bit of a shock to us…I can’t make it a one man show or the Tito Ortiz show giving him more than a guy like Fedor who is coming in here with a winning record…I was (disappointed). I was shocked. It was almost like don’t even bother calling back because there is no point in making a deal here…it was aggressive.”

“There’s nothing concrete as of yet. If we can come to something, great. If not, so be it.”

“I think Tito’s obviously a good draw and he’d be good to have for a show. To say anything else would be stupid. However, that draw comes with an expense. In the cost-benefit analysis the question is, is it worth it? The answer is, at those numbers, definitely not.”

Trump Jr. also said that he was not surprised to hear the reports that Ortiz was once more negotiating with Zuffa, saying he expected him to “try and play both sides,” but given the acrimonious relationship with Dana White he thinks Ortiz will eventually end up signing with Affliction.

If it doesn’t go down that way, I doubt the Trump’s will be crying into their martinis. At Ariel Helwani’s prodding, Trump Jr. seemed to admit that the early negotiations with Ortiz have made him wonder if the guy isn’t more trouble than he’s worth, regardless of the price. Like the magic eight ball says, ‘All signs point to yes.’

(The stuff you find under Tommy Speer’s mattress.)

Former UFC welterweight champ Matt Hughes has been taking some heat for his remarks about the Georges St. Pierre-Jon Fitch bout, which he admitted to walking out on during UFC 87. But in a rare response to the media and the fans, Hughes updated his blog to address the criticism and set the record straight. Kind of:

I usually don’t do this, but I’m going to break my rule this time. There’s been so much talk about my last blog entry that it’s amazing. Some of it is legitimate thinking, some of it is just from idiots. I never said the GSP fight was boring, the reason I walked out was because I wanted to beat the crowd. I didn’t think Fitch was going to get back in the match and the fight wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. If you want, you can go look at my last blog entry and see that this is basically what I said. So people criticized me for leaving the fight early and said that was disrespectful to GSP, I disagree, I just wanted to get out of there.

Hughes also responded to a Yahoo! Sports blog entry by Steve Cofield that interpreted his ‘GSP-looked-small’ remarks to mean that Hughes was implying St. Pierre had been on steroids for previous bouts. While that might have been a little bit of a stretch, and Cofield admits as much, Hughes’ attempts at backtracking on his ‘boring’ remarks are hindered by the wonders of modern technology.

His exact words to interviewers with PWB Podcast: “I gotta be real honest though, I was kinda bored with the match.”

Woop. There it is.

If there’s one thing I love in fighter interviews it’s passive-aggressive remarks. Anybody can go out there and talk smack about an opponent or openly question his heart and his skills. But subtlety is a lost art in this business, and it can go a long way. For a great example, check out “Sugar” Rashad Evans’ remark about Liddell’s torn hamstring in this ESPN video. Says Evans, “at his age, injuries like that become harder to heal.”

Then he follows that up by saying he doesn’t expect it to be a big deal in the fight because Liddell is such a great fighter. I just really wish he would have added, “because, you know, Chuck’s sooooo experienced and has been fighting for soooo long, he can hobble his way through a fight with the best of them.”

After the jump check out Rich Franklin’s breakdown of his upcoming fight with Matt Hamill. Does he expect to be able to avoid Hamill’s takedowns all night? He does not. At least he’s being realistic.

In this video from RawVegas.tv, Russian stoic philosopher Fedor Emelianenko drops some knowledge regarding the issues of the day, including his thoughts on Randy Couture and his somewhat surprising admission that he is impressed by Brock Lesnar. My personal favorite is when he responds to Dana White’s earlier criticism of him by remarking that the UFC president’s comments are on his own conscience and he’s the one who will have to live with them. These are the moments that make me wonder if Fedor isn’t some being sent from another world in order to teach us all to be kinder to one another. Then I rewatch his bout with Tim Sylvia and I am forced to abandon that theory.

Jon Fitch is well aware of his underdog status going into tomorrow night’s title fight with Georges St. Pierre. He knows not many people are expecting him to win, but he doesn’t seem to care. In this exclusive interview he talks about what it’s going to take to beat GSP and why he feels he still isn’t getting the respect he deserves from fans and “self-proclaimed experts.”

CagePotato.com: Hey Jon, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Now that we’re so close to the fight, how are you feeling?

Great. Training went really well. Had a great camp, a lot of people have been helping me out. I feel really confident. I feel really great right now.

Who did you have working with you to help you get ready for GSP?

The usual guys like Josh Koscheck and Mike Swick, everybody at AKA. And then Jake Shields was coming in for three weeks or so, helping me out. Even Brock Larson, who was a former opponent of mine, was in town helping me out for a couple of weeks. So I had really great guys working with me.

Was Koscheck able to give you any special insight about GSP based on his fight with him?

Yeah, he helped me with little things, like what GSP’s strength is like, what his speed is like, stuff like that. Just knowing that he’s fast and strong is one thing, but knowing how fast and how strong is another. Knowing how I compare to him in those departments, those kinds of things really helped.

I heard you say before that Koscheck didn’t really work his wrestling before his fight with GSP. Is that true? I’d imagine you’re not making the same mistake in your training.