By Elias Cepeda

Props: MMAFighting.com

Junior dos Santos is a walking, terrifying public relations smashing machine. Not only did he Babe Ruth it and fulfill his prediction of winning by 2nd round stoppage over former two-time champion Frank Mir Saturday night, but he also provided the best feel-good photo op of the year so far.

Junior trains out of Luis Carlos Dorea’s Champion Boxing gym in Brazil which, in addition to being headquarters for world-class fighters, is home to a vibrant youth boxing program. After training one day, the UFC Primetime cameras caught one of the little tikes hanging asking Junior to take him with him to the states for his title fight.

At the time, Junior said, “we’ll see.” But he ended up bringing the 9 year-old kid and his family to Vegas to watch him win. After beating Mir, he lifted the lucky young fighter onto his shoulders and posed for the cameras along with his coaches.

Dos Santos definitely appears to have the Wanderlei Silva nice guy/maniac fighter balance down pat. Try as I might, that image warms my cynical heart, and I don’t give a damn how orchestrated it may or may not have been. Who doesn’t like watching a kid’s dream come true before their eyes?

It may be an all heavyweight main card, but the bantamweight is stealing the show. Props: MMAFighting.com

We’re just hours away from UFC 146, so it’s time to turn on FX and watch the preliminary card. This evening’s all heavyweight main card will kick off with the lighter guys, as Diego Brandao makes his first post-TUF appearance against Darren Elkins, Dan Hardy and Mayhem Miller fight for their careers against Duane Ludwig and C.B. Dollaway, and Edson Barboza takes on Jamie Varner in what may potentially be the squash match/upset of the year. Handling tonight’s liveblogging duties will be Seth Falvo, who will be frantically checking to see if his beloved Philadelphia 76ers can take Game Seven during commercial breaks. Come in after the jump for live play-by-play.

By the end of this gallery, you’ll remember why you either love or hate this guy. Lots more Mayhem after the jump.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/bobbycavian)

Michael Bisping was interviewed by Bobby Cavian from MMANYTT last week after the premiere of The Ultimate Fighter 14 and the slightly tipsy UFC middleweight, although *slightly* less abrasive than usual, was pretty much the exact type of guy his opposing coach, Jason “Mayhem” Miller would have taught a lesson to on Bully Beatdown.

From calling Cavian “a Swedish Hobbit” and insulting his attire to pushing him around and slapping him in the face, Bisping seemed to take pages out of “Rampage” and Forrest Griffin’s playbook for the Q&A session. He better hope he doesn’t meet up with Dan Henderson on the MTV show if Mayhem shows up at his door with Cavian to throw down the gauntlet.

(How many muppets must die for Jason Miller to dress in the manner to which he’s become accustomed? Pic: ESPN)

Truly spoken like a dude who’s used to being asked to leave. Some pretty classic quotes out on Tuesday from fighter, television host and all-purpose awesome dude Jason “Mayhem” Miller re: recent reports that Strikeforce literally couldn’t find him a fight during the last year of his contract because he’d become persona non grata at both Showtime and parent network CBS. Turns out, though he knew he was in hot water after his participation in the April, 2010 Nashville brawl, nobody at any of the above corporate entities bothered to inform Mayhem that he was no longer welcome on the two television stations and – therefore – damaged goods for Strikeforce. Instead, they just put him on the shelf to rot.

“I asked, and guess what? Nobody would tell me,” Miller told MMA Fighting. “This is a political environment. Nobody’s going to tell you. They’re just going to be cowards about it. That’s the way of the world. Nobody’s going to tell the crazy ultimate fighter guy to his face, ‘Hey, screw you.’ They’re not going to do that.”

(Jake, you be Strikeforce. Jason, you be the UFC. Now, show us how the next few months will go …)

It’s been three days since Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s sudden jump to the UFC and we still haven’t heard anything substantive on the topic from Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker or anyone else in the lame duck MMA company. A week ago Coker went on a popular MMA “radio” show and danced around the issue of Miller’s future in Strikeforce. He said the promotion was talking to Mayhem’s management about a fight this summer. No mention of the fact Miller was twisting in the breeze without a contract. No mention that the UFC might stick its beak in. Used to be, it felt like a waste of time to ask Coker questions because it was hard to get a straight answer out of the guy. Now it feels like it’s a waste of time because he may no longer even know what’s going on inside his own company.

For all his talk about his ongoing commitment to “growing Strikeforce and making it work,” it’s pretty clear that Coker (and maybe Strikeforce itself) has become the metaphorical equivalent of a WWE referee. He’s just a dude standing the middle of the ring in an official-looking outfit, desperately pleading for order while the battle rages heedlessly around him. No one is listening. No one is even pretending he has any power anymore. That’s sad, because Coker seems like one of the sport’s legitimate good guys, but the quiet loss of Miller last week is maybe the most compelling evidence yet that it’s only a matter of time before that phone call from Vegas comes in, informing the Strikeforce staff that the charade is over.

(“What the fuck did you just say?” PicProps: Showtime)

Looks like the intrepid journalists at Strikeforce Films had to go to the gym and pull a shirtless Nick Diaz out of a training session in order to actually get him on the record about his upcoming rematch with KJ Noons. This after Diaz no-showed the company’s media conference call on Tuesday, leaving Noons to answer everybody’s questions all by his lonesome. Maybe that was for the best actually, since the last time Strikeforce tried to put Diaz onto a conference call he was so “sleepy” he didn’t really know what was going on. Or Maybe the Diaz Bros are finally starting to realize that talking to the media shouldn’t be their main thing, given how much stupid shit they constantly say whenever they get the chance. No wait, sorry, they’re still totally into doing that.

Anyway, the result of SF Films’ effort is after the jump, and it’s pretty much what you would expect: Diaz continues act like he thinks of himself as a normal, happy-go-lucky guy who just can’t believe that all these assholes keep fucking with him.

(Hipster, please. PicProps: GBRing)

Nick Diaz, it seems, is the new Tapout. Perhaps taking his cue from Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s iron-on awesomeness, Shinya Aoki showed up for a Dream.16 prefight press conference in Tokyo over the weekend sporting his own Diaz T-shirt. Where Miller’s shirt was straightforward and to-the-point, Aoki’s – which is manufactured by the TwoThree clothing company – was a bit more verbose. Seriously, this has to be considered the most unlikely MMA fashion trend since Jesus Didn’t Tap and a muddled attempt to figure out what it all means is after the jump.

(Yeah, I’d slap this dude, too.)

So there’s a completely unconfirmed rumor floating around painting a mental picture that makes me smile. A few forums are saying that yesterday, Jason “Mayhem” Miller darted out of Legends in Hollywood to chase down former child star Danny Bonaduce — who happened to be walking by. The red-headed douche apparently lives nearby, in case you’re curious.

Anyway, the eyewitness claims that “Mayhem” confronted Danny about stealing a bit from the fighter’s radio show which Bona-douche then used on his own show. For the finale, Miller simply slapped Bonduce in the face and walked calmly back into Legends. Just normal afternoon conversation between two super classy guys.

While this may be total crap, it certainly would be awesome if it were true. The fact that “Mayhem” slapped him instead of punched him just adds the cherry on top, so even if proven false, I’m still telling myself this is a true story. We’re not sure exactly how the real thing went down, but luckily we have a reenactment of the event.