(Solitary confinement: Still not as bad as salad-tossing.)

Just twelve days into his 87-day jail sentence for domestic battery, #2 pound-for-pound boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. (behind Timothy Bradley, obviously) is already begging to serve the rest of his term on house arrest, arguing that continued incarceration could jeopardize his entire boxing career. Oh boo-fucking-hoo. Here’s the Las Vegas Review Journal with the details:

An emergency motion obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows Mayweather’s lawyers will ask Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa as early as today that the former Olympic bronze medal winner be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence on house arrest.

The 35-year-old’s physical conditioning is deteriorating under the stress of being jailed at the Clark County Detention Center, and he is being held in “inhumane conditions,” lawyer Richard Wright said in the motion filed Monday.

The boxer is being segregated from the general population and confined to his cell 23 hours a day in a locked-down section populated by felony defendants, Wright said. And in the hour each day Mayweather is allowed in a recreation area, he is alone and unable to use training facilities.

(Yeah, I think he’ll fit right in.)

Today in Las Vegas, boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. finally went to jail for some shit he did two years ago. After being sentenced in December for beating the hell out of his ex-girlfriend then threatening her and their sons with further violence if they called the police, and then being allowed to remain a free man through May so he could make $32 million fighting Miguel Cotto — good lookin’ out, justice system! — Mayweather was scheduled to surrender before a Las Vegas judge today to start his 87-day jail term. Huffington Post passes along some details about his upcoming summer in the pokey:

Floyd Mayweather Jr. may be one of the richest prizefighters ever. But the unbeaten five-division champion who goes by the nickname “Money” is about to trade life in a posh five-bedroom Las Vegas home for almost three months in a cell about one-third the size of a small boxing ring…

As a high-profile inmate, police say Mayweather, 35, probably will serve most of his time in a small solo cell. There is floor space for sit-ups and push-ups. But Mayweather’s stint in the high-rise Clark County Detention Center is expected to limit his ability to train for another fight.

At least for the first week, Mayweather will be segregated for his protection from the other 3,200 inmates in the downtown Las Vegas facility, police Officer Bill Cassell said this week…

(Covering up that neck tattoo before going to court would have been a good idea.)

If you’ve been missing War Machine’s acclaimed Big House Blogs, you’re probably the only group that is going to be happy about this news.

According to the fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver, he has been sentenced to another year in jail in Las Vegas for an old charge, forcing him to withdraw from Bellator’s season six welterweight tournament that gets underway in March. He indicated on Twitter that he will begin serving his sentence in two weeks and that, as per usual, he isn’t happy with the system.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. must be realizing that the number of fights left for him that people actually want to see at this point in his career are few and far between. Today the soon-to-be-incarcerated WBC, WBA, IBF and The Ring welterweight champion has agreed in principle to face Manny Pacquiao May 5 in Las Vegas.

“Money” took to his Twitter and Facebook accounts this afternoon to call out the WBO and WBC welterweight champ. Pacman’s camp has yet to respond to the challenge, but his promoter Bob Arum is said to be in the Philippines negotiating Manny’s next fight.

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.

(“Well old sport, I look forward to matching skills with you in the chain link-enclosed competition area.”)

According to a report from the Apple Valley Patch, Brett Rogers could land himself back in the clink if he breaches any one of his several probation requirements when he is released from jail later this month.

Most notably, “Da Grim” is forbidden from participating in “assaultive or intimidating behavior toward anyone,” which means that telling his upcoming DREAM opponent Tim Sylvia that he was going to “hurt, maim, or kill” him would be contrary to the terms of his release.

("I think it’s cool, but do you think the judge will find it as ironic as we do, Lee?")

It looks like Lee Murray will be behind bars longer than he thought.

According to a BBC report, the former UFC fighter who was named as the mastermind behind the 2006 $85 million (USD) Securitas heist in London had 15 years tacked onto his 10 year sentence today following a brief hearing in Rabat, Morocco where he has been held since being arrested in the North African country for importing drugs, whereupon authorities discovered he was wanted in connection to the UK robbery.

Murray fled England with right hand man and fellow MMA fighter, Paul Allen who was sentenced to 18 years in jail two years after being extradited back to London in 2007 when the pair were arrested outside of a mall in Morocco.

"Lightning" managed to avoid extradition because his father was a Moroccan national, but he couldn’t avoid the stiffer jail sentence he was handed down today.

 
("Maybe if I give myself a black eye nobody will notice.")

I gotta be honest, War Machine’s blogs are starting to seem a bit halfhearted these days.

Maybe we need to get someone on the inside a la Michael Scofield to shake things up a bit. Do we have any unemployed  members of the Potato Nation in San Diego with eight months to spare who are looking to make a few bucks?

I don’t know if I can stand to read about War’s herpes outbreaks and the number of continuous push-ups he can do for the next eight months, so we would make it worth your while.

Here’s the latest, and arguably the most disinterested prison journal entry to date by the fighter once known as "little Jonny Koppenhaver" after the jump.

(When War gets his photos done at Sears, he always turns to the side out of habit.)

Apparently most MMA outlets were like us in thinking that since War Machine got sat down by the District Attorney in his case who used his tweets about drugs and booze against him, that the fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver was done with Twitter since nobody has written anything about him in a while.

I hadn’t checked out Machine’s page in a while, but it came up as a friend suggestion on my personal account the other day, so I clicked it and was pleasantly surprised that he is back blogging about his exploits in jail.

I’ve got to admit, I was kind of disappointed with the latest edition. I clicked on it expecting to read about how to make a shank out of a toothbrush and instead, I get War talking about how often he masturbates and how he’s thinking of fucking a bologna sandwich. Remind me never so eat lunch with him if I interview him in person after his release (no pun intended).

Maybe it’s because his lawyer is censoring his posts, but last week’s entry seems somewhat subdued.

Here’s what’s going on with War Machine who has only been behind bars one month, which means we only have 48 more of these recaps.

(When you’re name’s War Machine, you’re likely never getting the benefit of the doubt)

Embattled former UFC welterweight War Machine avoided state prison Tuesday, but was sentenced by a judge to serve the remainder of a one-year sentence in county jail, whereupon he will be on probation for three years and will be prohibited from consuming alcohol during that period (so much for drinking toilet wine). The news comes courtesy of NBC San Diego.

Prior to his sentencing yesterday, the fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver gave the judge a three-page letter pleading his case in which he stated that he has met some bad people in jail and doesn’t want to end up on the same life path as them.

"I’ve made some stupid mistakes in my life,” War Machine told the judge. "I’m not a bad person. I’ve tried the hard way my whole life. It’s not working. I’m done with that."

(War Machine getting ready for the Miss Jail Rat 2010 pageant.)

We were disappointed, though not totally surprised today when we visited War Machine’s Twitter page and found that the beleaguered fighter’s prison blogs had been removed.

We figured it was only a matter of time before prison or court officials got wind of War’s documented exploits behind bars that included drinking prison moonshine and finding a fellow inmate’s fishing line used to share contraband with other cons in his cell block.

Apparently we were right on the money with our estimate that he wouldn’t get through three weeks without getting in trouble and that his big house blogs would be his undoing.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

("Screw you, society. Jail ain’t so bad after all.")

Considering I also picked Chael Sonnen to win Saturday night, I got an eerily similar empty feeling when I read War Machine’s latest "Big House Blog" and learned that my proclamation that he wouldn’t get through three weeks without getting into some kind of tomfoolery didn’t come to fruition.

I thought for sure that  alcohol+War Machine = spitbag and handcuffs, but apparently the fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver has matured behind bars and instead of scrapping anyone and everyone after consuming his IQ in Jagerbombs, he has taken to sipping his toilet wine while engaging in stimulating conversation with murderous Somalian Muslims.

Who knew jail would have such a good influence on War?

 
(Scrabble? I pictured War Machine as more of a Tiddly Winks kind of guy.)

Well, War Machine got through his second week in the clink without any controversy, which is nearly as surprising as Paulo Filho making it to his scheduled Impact FC appearance.

Other than getting ripped off for his phone credits, Machine’s week, which mostly consisted of reading and taking advice from convicted felons, was relatively serene, but considering he has 50 weeks remaining in his one-year sentence, we’re not holding our collective breath that things won’t go sideways at some point in the near future.

(Video courtesy YouTube and stevia)

There’s something reassuring about watching a Dan Quinn video. I don’t know if it’s knowing that no matter how crazy I may get as I get older, there’s no way I’ll ever claim that I’m a self-trained scientist who has discovered that the cure for every disease known to mankind is drinking a mixture of a sugar substitute and water. Or maybe it’s the fact that every time he posts another one of his more increasingly psychotic rants, my original inclination that he was a character attempting to pull off the ultimate troll-job evaporates more and more, like the soap floating on top of pure H2O and I realize that he is a legit whack job, which gives me faith that not everyone on the Internet is lying about who they are.

Chris Leben’s first shot at Michael Bisping didn’t exactly go as planned. Soon after signing to fight “The Count” at UFC 85 in London, Leben was forced to return to Oregon to deal with an outstanding warrant resulting from a DUI arrest before he could leave the country. Though Leben and the UFC were hoping to resolve the matter quickly, the judge had other plans. Leben was sentenced to thirty-five days in jail, prompting the UFC to scratch him from the card.

With his legal troubles now behind him, Leben is getting a second chance at Bisping, this time at UFC 89 in Birmingham, England. In this exclusive CagePotato interview Leben discusses his maturation process as a fighter, his gameplan against Bisping, dealing with hometown judges, and more.

CagePotato.com: Hey Chris. Thanks for talking with me. We’re a few weeks out from the fight. How is your preparation coming?

Really good, really well. It’s been long and intense and I’m kind of just getting to the point now where I’m ready to go fight and get this thing over with.

It seems like things really changed for you when you moved to Hawaii. What has that move done for you?

You know, it’s great. Moving to Hawaii is definitely the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I had the opportunity to be the head coach at Icon and there are a whole bunch of guys out here training with me who are just great. But besides the gym and the wonderful people out here you have the weather and everything that is Hawaii. It’s been really conducive to my training.

I hear a lot of people say you’re much more mature these days, no longer such a wild guy in and out of the cage. What do you think prompted that transformation?

Losing (laughs). You know, I got away with being a brawler for a long time. And it’s hard to change things when they’re working. But when I fought Anderson I realized, I might be able to beat 95% of the guys out there, but I’ll never be a world champion fighting this way. So I had to go back and change a lot of things. That was one part of it.

And the other part was, you know, coaching. Now that I have a team of amateur guys fighting, it’s hard to tell them to do something if you’re not doing it yourself.

(‘See, what had happened was…’)

Oh, the fun one can have trying to keep track of all the different theories about what’s really happening with “Rampage” Jackson. Fightline has a new one. A really new one:

Our source indicates that Jackson was fumbling around with a contact lens that was giving him trouble while driving and subsequently lost the lens. He was apparently searching for it when he sideswiped at least two vehicles, mildly injuring one woman.

A frightened, paranoid Jackson, who had again, been up fasting for days, then acted on instinct and fled the scene and eventually the police.

Jackson pulled over after giving police a brief chase and was fully cooperative with authorities after that point.

This is an interesting possibility. It doesn’t explain why he was picked up by the police again after being released, or why everyone from Dana White to Sports Illustrated to, well, us, has insinuated or outright said that there are some mental issues going on as well. Maybe it’s both? The lost contact and lost perception of reality is a powerful duo. Either way, we hope for a happy ending to this strange tale.

(‘These walls are funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em…’)

Chris Leben’s time in jail may have cost him a big time bout with Michael Bisping, but it does seem to have forced him to reflect on the state of his life. It also gave him the opportunity to choke out a convicted felon. Which is, you know, good to have on your resume.

He tells the story to MMA Weekly, describing what happened when his attempts to train in jail drew the curiosity of fellow inmates, who asked Leben to teach them a choke.

“I told the guys it’s a blood choke, so you don’t have to squeeze hard,” he said. “So I was just kind of choking him with one arm while he’s standing up. And I told him just tap when you start to feel like you’re going to pass out. Well, he didn’t tap, and at the time I’m going wow, this guy’s pretty tough, I’m surprised he hasn’t tapped yet. He just drops to the floor in the cell.

“Now I’m standing there with 20 prisoners around and they’re freaking out. This guy’s laying there, snoring like crazy. I’m like ‘it’s all right, it’s all right,’ then I realize they have cameras in here. I’ve just choked this guy out in jail – I could get in trouble for this. I kept telling them, ‘he’s fine, he’s fine,’ and it took this guy a minute to wake up. Finally he woke up and we had a laugh, and luckily I didn’t get in any trouble for it. That was beginning and the ending of my inmate coaching career.”

Two things here: 1) That’s awesome, and 2) The moment where Chris chokes out an inmate and then thinks it through long enough to realize that it was probably a bad idea is, I’m going to say, emblematic of the kind of approach to life that landed him there in the first place.

To his credit, Leben seems to have enough self-awareness to admit that: