After carefully analyzing the 150+ entries from last week’s Fear Factor contest, we’re ready to crown our latest Caption Contest Champion. But first, some honorable mentions…

Fried Taco: And that is how you clean up spilled ice.

J. Spaceman: ”You may be wondering why we’ve brought you to Stockton, CA. For your first stunt, you will be interviewing Nick Diaz. I understand if you want to drop out now.”

curlyroger: What happens after Steven Seagal teaches you how to light your fart.

wiv-honors: Evidently, avoiding ridiculous movie cliches is not a factor for Joe Rogan.

LOKI: Joe desperately tried to heed the advice of Lot, Oasis and Ace of Base.

Like a Bas: “Man, I hate that huge fireball guy. He’s such a douche, always setting fire to mountains and shit! Who does he think he is, what an assho…he’s behind me, isn’t he?”

Without further ado, your winners…

(That is some crazy, high-level arson. Props: Fear Factor on Facebook)

If we’ve learned anything from our Michael Bay DVD collection, it’s that calmly walking away from an explosion without even looking at it = ALPHA.

In honor of the stunt-packed and insect-infested return of  Fear Factor — which premieres December 12th on NBC — we thought we’d hold an impromptu caption contest, featuring host Joe Rogan totally ignoring whatever blew up behind him. Submit a clever caption to the comments section by Sunday night at midnight ET; we’ll pick three winners on Monday, who will receive CagePotato t-shirts. Good luck.

Related: Video: Fear Factor 2.0 Is F*cking Crazy

(“UFC 140: Jones vs. Machida” video trailer. Props: YouTube.com/UFC)

Some selected highlights from our eBros around the MMA blogosphere…

- Dana White Relieved Shogun vs. Henderson Didn’t Headline FOX Premiere (5th Round)

- ‘Tapped Out’ Author Talks Transformation From Pudgy Writer to Formidable Fighter (MMAFighting)

- Chael Sonnen Accepts Anderson Silva’s Challenge to Fight in Brazil (Five Ounces of Pain)

- UFC Champ Junior Dos Santos Contemplating 2016 Olympic Run in Boxing (FightLine)

- Tito Ortiz Has a Message for Rich Franklin: ‘I’ll Break You Off Some’ (MMA Mania)

- 15 MMA Fighters Who Are Ready to Explode Onto the Scene (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

- Remember When Joe Rogan Was on the Cover of “Black Belt” Magazine? (The Fight Nerd)

- Paulo Filho Pulled Out of ANOTHER Fight, and Now KSW Is Pretty Heated (MiddleEasy)

- Vadim Finkelstein: We Will Offer the UFC a Fight Between Velasquez and Fedor (Lowkick.Blitzcorner.com)

- DREAM New Year! 2011 Will Likely Feature Fedor Emelianenko and Shinya Aoki (MMA Convert)

- Media/Insider Fallout From UFC’s Debut on Fox (Fight Opinion)

- UFC 139: Payout Perspective (MMA Payout)

(Video courtesy of NBC)

Free-falling from 600 feet in the air.

Jumping from a burning platform you are standing on while ten stories in the air.

Plummeting 400 feet head first through multiple floors of a wooden structure.

Leaping from a moving bus onto a rope dangling from a helicopter that then drops you onto a speeding boat, that promptly takes you to another helicopter, which dangles you over a barge with gas-filled oil drums while you blow the motherfucker up with a flare gun.

These are four of my recurring nightmares, which all happen to be stunts from the return season of Fear Factor.

According to the show’s producer and host Joe Rogan, an increase in stunt technology has allowed them to multiply the,  ”Holy shit!” factor by 1000 and the result of the equation should be infinite entertainment when NBC launches Fear Factor 2.0 in December.

(Chael Sonnen whips Erik Koch’s ass at UFC Undisputed 3, later denies he used cheat codes. / For more photos, visit the “Chael Sonnen, Rampage Jackson and Chuck Liddell Test Out UFC Undisputed 3” gallery on Lowkick.blitzcorner.com)

This week’s featured stories…

- BJ Penn: A Lesson in Greatness (MMA Convert)
“When last we saw BJ Penn, the Hawaiian legend was battered and bloody and seemingly adamant about his UFC 137 appearance – a hard loss to Nick Diaz that left his eye purple and swollen – being his last trip into the Octagon. Then, days later, came the post on Penn’s website, saying he would take some time off and see where it goes from there. Which leaves us with what? A former welterweight and lightweight champ on the cusp of retirement? A warrior in the waning years of his career? Or simply a fighter who needs some time to reassess his place in the sport? I’d say definitely all of the above. Which isn’t to say Penn is washed up; he is, and will always be, one the best MMA has ever seen.”

- Joe Rogan: If NASCAR’s Not a Monopoly, UFC Isn’t Either (And They Should Buy K-1) (Fight Opinion)
“The people who own K-1, they owe a lot of money, man. They want to start fights but they want to not have to pay all the fighters that they owe money to and they owe just fucking untold millions of dollars to fighters that they haven’t paid. So, they’re in a bad financial situation but it’s because they didn’t promote it correctly. If someone like the UFC came along, if Zuffa came along and picked up K-1 — they’re not interested in it, I’ve talked to them about it — but if someone like that did, if Mark Cuban did or someone with balls and a lot of money who loves the sport, God damn that’s a gold mine. It’s a God damn gold mine. Mark Cuban, go do it! You already got Michael Schiavello working for you.”

- Gameplans For Surviving Fights With Movie Monsters (The Fight Nerd)
“Unless you’re UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, you do not want to be engaged in a stand up battle with a werewolf. The lycanthropic crime against nature may come out overly aggressive and afford you the ability to start dancing around and tagging him. But this thing has a gas tank to rival Clay Guida and one flurry is the difference between looking slick on your feet and a first round loss by technical mauling.”

(Photo courtesy of Ed Mulholland/ESPN)

In an effort to take some of the growing workload off of the backs of color analyst Joe Rogan and play-by-play man Mike Goldberg, the UFC announced today that it has added veteran sportscaster Jon Anik to its broadcast team.

Anik, who has anchored MMA Live since 2008 and hosted several ESPN pre-UFC shows, will be involved with the November 12 Fox broadcast in some capacity and will likely take the reins of commentating duties for the next season’s weekly live broadcast of The Ultimate Fighter on FX among other events.

“We’re very happy to have Jon as part of the team,” UFC president Dana White said after making the announcement at today’s UFC 137 press conference.

“It’s a dream come true. I believe the UFC’s a strong a brand as there is in professional sports, but what really drew me to this organization was the people behind it. I think as strong as this organization is, it’s the people behind it,” the 33-year-old Boston native said Thursday. “It’s a well-oiled machine, I just hope I don’t get in the way. I’m very excited to get started.

(You can make fun of your opponent’s voice, and you can trash his fighting style. But mock a man’s sideburns, and you’re asking for the worst beating of your life.)

Start sharpening your razors, folks: We’re just eight days away from the official start of Movember! To help get you in the moustache-growing spirit, we’ve put together a photo gallery of our favorite facial hair arrangements in MMA history, which you can check out after the jump.

It been five long years since we’ve been treated to moderately attractive chicks eating African cave dwelling spiders and crashing cars into buildings, but if the trailer for the return of NBC’s Fear Factor says anything, it’s that we are in for some even more clownshit crazy stunts and challenges when it airs December 12th.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/TwisterEddie)

Renato Laranja doesn’t take kindly to people dissing his beloved Brazilian homeland, and why should he? The dude is a 27-time Mundials champ.

It doesn’t matter if the guy talking smack about his country is a UFC commentator and the host of Fear Factor. Renato gives Joe Rogan no pass, even if he wants to avoid a face-to-face conflict with the dangerous BJJ black belt, because he “talks a lot of stuffs.”

Laranja has issue with Rogan’s penchant for smoking “the heefer,” because he feels like kids who are fans of his work in the UFC and on TV will start smoking it to emulate Joe.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/MMAHeat)

- Big Nog says he won’t train with gay training partners to “avoid evil” (UOLEsportes)

- Burger King retires ‘King’ mascot (HolyTaco)

- Machida doesn’t regret asking UFC for Anderson Silva money to fight Evans (Esportes.Terra)

- Video: how to win a bar fight (MadeMan)

- 9 videos of reporters losing their shit (ScreenJunkies)

- Joe Rogan Out, Kenny Florian in at UFC 134 (Bleacher Report)

- Dayana Mendoza: a kidnap victim with a lot of heart (TuVez)

- Video: Just your average chick fight at an Orlando pita joint (Guyism)

- Maybe Jim Miller wasn’t top three after all. (SportsIllustrated)

- Tim Hardaway is Growing up (WithLeather)

- Tom ‘Kong’ Watson: “I stand by my training partner Nate Marquardt” (FightOpinion)

- Michael Vick creates some trouble for Roger Goodell (ScoresReport)

- More grisly details from Joe Son’s rape trial (OCRegister)

- West Memphis 3 released from prison in exchange for pleading guilty (DenverPost)

- Snowboard-mounted paintball guns are a reality (Clutch.MTV)

- Interview with ‘Conan the Barbarian’ Jason Mamoa (TheRugged)

A moving-picture tribute to the UFC’s deep-thinking, pot-smoking, foul-mouthed color-man. More great Joe Rogan gifs after the jump…

(video courtesy of YouTube/NaturalBornKillerMMA)

Joe Rogan interviewed Tito Ortiz on the latest edition of UFC Insider and let’s just say Tito’s linguistics skills are as good as they’ve ever been.

Let’s break down the less than three-minute interview after the jump, shall we?

(“This damn knucklehead. Always saying what the rest of us are thinking. Ah, well.“)

If you read Kevin Iole’s follow-up on the Rogan/Hendricks situation that we linked on Friday, you’d know that Dana White initially did his best to avoid the topic altogether. Said DW: “Joe Rogan is an independent contractor and he wrote his opinion. And you are free to write your opinion of Joe Rogan’s opinion.”

White also released a statement on UFC.com clarifying that Rogan’s UG posts were not sanctioned by anybody but Joe himself, and they weren’t particularly appreciated by the company:

Joe Rogan recently made an offensive statement reflecting a personal opinion that does not represent the UFC in any way. I have addressed this directly with Joe.

(“Great night of fights, Joe, and I’ll see you next Tuesday.”)

Earlier this week, when the “Rampage motorboating Karyn Bryant” video started to circulate among the MMA blogosphere, our friend Maggie Hendricks at CageWriter.com wrote a post about Quinton Jackson‘s history of reporter-abuse, calling for the MMA media to stop playing along with his old, tired act.

Yesterday, the article was posted on the Underground Forum, which led to an avalanche of posters insulting everything from Hendricks’s writing ability, to her physical appearance, to her perceived jealousy of Karyn Bryant. A series of posts from UG member “The Skywalker” summed up the anti-Maggie sentiment:

“The act is only old and tired to you because you seem not to like the colorful flirtatious nature of his character in the first place. And again, he isn’t assaulting anyone, he’s staying within the lines and giving them great material so they can get more hits, more ad clicks, and make more money…You try to empower yourself by implying that you have the power to take his stage away, when you know damn well that the fans couldn’t care less about who is holding the microphone. You’re not giving him a stage, he’s giving you a job. If you don’t like it, I’m sure that there are lots of other news outlets that would love (lol) to have your CV on file…

(Video courtesy of YouTube/WoodysGamerTag)

The Internet would be clogged up with a lot less bullshit if commenters and trolls had to eventually meet the guys they talk trash about, especially if the subject of their vitriol were a professional fighter.

The dude above is lucky that he called out Joe Lauzon and not Josh Koscheck, or he might be in a bit more pain. Koscheck once posted a message on his MS page that if anyone talking smack about his fighting prowess wanted to see how good he was, they could come into his American Kickboxing Academy satellite gym and find out.

Here’s a video of a guy who thought he could take the UFC welterweight.

Josh Koscheck Fights a Fan by BaDaBooM80

Kos and J-Lau aren’t the only guys who have answered an Internet challenge.

(Vid: MMA Weekly)

At his worst, Joe Rogan can come off as an arrogant blowhard with skin like an aging professional wrestler and a voice like a blender left too long on its ‘puree’ setting. At his best, he’s still one of the most articulate and insightful analysts MMA has been able to dredge up after almost 20 years of searching in America. If you really think about it, that’s pretty astounding. In the above video from MMA Weekly, Rogan appears to be in top form during a Q&A session with fans in Seattle just prior to the UFC’s recent “Fight Night” show, especially when the inevitable Fedor questions get tossed up on stage. On the topic of the former consensus No. 1 heavyweight, Rogan says what we’ve all been thinking for the last couple of years, but manages to put it all in the kind of direct (yet somehow elegant) language few other MMA broadcaster have been able to muster.

“I think Fedor is an amazing talent and an incredible athlete,” Rogan says. “I really admire his mind and his mindset when he goes in to compete. It’s really fun to watch that he’s so nonchalant with his big belly and goes in there and fucks people up. But the reality is that’s not going to work at the upper echelon of the sport anymore.”

(Who’s to say what ‘Octagon control’ means, anyway? PicProps: UFC.com)

Among the warning signs that you may have won a bullshit decision, we’d think that A) The company being so unhappy that it decides to pay the other guy his win bonus anyway and B) A resulting internet beef on the subject between the top athletic official in Nevada and a shoot-from-the-hip stand-up comedian would both be pretty high on the list. That is to say nothing of the chorus of boos from the live crowd and your own trainer shrugging at you like “We’ll take it, dude,” in the cage after the announcement of the verdict. On their own, any one of those things would be bad enough, but together they make Leonard Garcia’s split decision victory over Nam Phan from last weekend look like an open-and-shut case of judging incompetence.

At the time even Garcia — who seems like a totally likable guy, by the way – admitted during his postfight interview that he didn’t think he deserved to win. Given a day or two to think about it however, he now tells MMA Fighting.com that after sitting down with Phan to watch the fight (awkward!) and then viewing it “approximately 15 times” since, he’s changed his mind. You know what? Fuck it, Garcia thinks he won that bad boy.

(Video courtesy YouTube/MattNYY2)

If TUF 6 graduate Matt Arroyo’s fighting career doesn’t pan out, he may have a future as an impersonator.

The 28-year-old who was dropped by Zuffa after back-to-back losses has been inactive as a fighter since his last Octagon appearance against Dan Cramer at UFC 94: St-Pierre vs. Penn 2 in January of 2009. He has competed in BJJ competitions since then, but it seems like he’s been spending the majority of his time away from the cage working on ‘is riddum.

More MMA notables’ doing some other impressive impersonations after the jump.

Apologies to those of you who patiently waited all day yesterday for our weekly rumor feature, which has been making us tons of new friends in the industry, believe me. After the jump, you’ll find five juicy items, mostly pertaining to guys getting screwed out of money. As usual, four are complete fabrications, and one is 100% on the level. Can you solve the mystery? Can we avoid getting sued for one more week? Time will tell!

(Jeez, Georges, casual Friday? Vid courtesy of ESPN.)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

– Helwani vs. Dundas: MMA Awards Edition (Versus MMA Beat)

– ‘Strikeforce: Henderson vs. Babalu’ Media Conference Call Highlights (LowKick)

– UFC-WEC Merger Brings Excitement, Warning About Jobs on the Line (MMA Fighting)

– CSAC’s George Dodd Pokes Holes In Chael Sonnen’s Rumored Testosterone Defense (MMA Convert)

– Prodigimon: Which BJ Penn Will You Get on Fight Night? (MiddleEasy)

– Mike Swick and Frank Shamrock Engage in Online War of Words (Five Ounces of Pain)

– Anthony Pettis Discusses ‘Fast Track to a UFC Title’ (FIGHT! Magazine)

– Alistair Overeem Discusses Steroid Accusations With Michael "The Voice" Schiavello" (MMA Scraps)

– Sean McCorkle Addresses Internet Fame, Trash Talk, and Stefan Struve (Heavy.com/MMA)

– Joe Rogan Calls MMA Writer a ‘F*ggot’, Internet Explodes (SBNation.com/MMA)

(Video courtesy YouTube/JoeRogan.net)

In a segment he recorded with K-1 and HDNet commentator, Michael "The Voice" Schiavello for his podcast last week, UFC color analyst, Joe Rogan gave his thoughts on the UFC partnering with other organizations to bring fans the best fights possible.

From a business perspective, Rogan says he can’t see it happening, but from a fan perspective, he says he wishes his employer would just periodically forget about the competition and money for the sake of the sport.

"That’s a big problem to me that there’s all of these organizations. If there was just the UFC, Alistair would fight Brock. But Alistair would not have gotten to become Alistair if it wasn’t for fighting in all of these other organizations. There’s not enough fights in the UFC. There’s not enough shows. There’s only so many shows," Rogan explained. "We need other organizations. I just wish they could fucking figure out a way to work it out so they could get to fight each other. For one night. The problem is, it would have to be..The problem is the UFC is such a much bigger name and they’re worth so much more money and it would lend respectability to Strikeforce and like build up the enemy. You couldn’t really do it, unfortunately, business-wise, but FUUUCK!"

UFC Ultimate Insider Best of Joe Rogan – Watch more Funny Videos (Vid courtesy UFC.com)

Two of the most overlooked redeeming qualities of great interviewers are that they they are comfortable and that they make their subjects comfortable enough that they will open up to them.

Joe Rogan does both.

Thanks to his years of television and stand-up comedy experience, Rogan has been able to transition into the role of interviewer with relative ease, without coming off on the mic or behind the camera as a gushing 12-year-old fan like many MMA reporters do today.

(Props: joerogandotnet)

Before UFC color-man Joe Rogan became a disciple of Eddie Bravo and 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu, he was a diehard Tae Kwon Do practitioner who won several championships as a black belt. He obviously keeps up with his training, because the dude can still throw a mean turning side kick (known as the "spinning back kick" to you laymen). Of course, this video raises more questions than it answers. For instance, will we eventually see a full series of instructional DVDs from the analyst/comedian? How long would Gus Johnson last in a cage-fight against Joe? What happened to the lizard?

(Video courtesy HDNet/InsideMMA)

On tonight’s episode of HDNet’s Inside MMA, the guest panel is shown an inflammatory clip from New York Assemblyman, Bob Reilly, in which the oblivious councillor compares "Ultimate Fighting" to dogfighting and prostitution, and let’s just say the guests are not impressed.

Before we get to that, here’s what Reilly’s latest bout of verbal diarrhea contained:

"Wait! Let’s have dogfighting and make money. We could make money off of dogfighting. We might make more money off of dogfighting than we could make out of human fighting. We certainly could make money off of prostitution as they do in Nevada. We don’t want prostitution here and we don’t want dogfighting here and we don’t want Ultimate Fighting here."

(Video courtesy UFC.com)

Taking a page out of Jay Glazer and Randy Couture’s MMAAthletics playbook,  the UFC has begun producing a weekly web show, aptly dubbed "Ultimate Insider."

The video above is the first episode of the Joe Rogan and Arianny Celeste hosted show, which although it doesn’t have the obvious feel of an infomercial that MMAAthletics (which, not by coincidence, shares its name with a Couture-Glazer P90-X-like fitness program) is a pretty slick little production overall.

20 years from now when Nick Diaz’s MMA career is over and he is holed up in his mom’s house, video blogging about weed, his past glory and cold fission, don’t say you didn’t see it coming.

In this very Dan Quinn-esque video response to Jason Miller’s recent remarks to Joe Rogan about him on the UFC analyst’s Ustream webcast, Diaz goes off on Mayhem for criticizing his ganster lifestyle and for accusing him for starting the Strikeforce brawl.

(Video courtesy YouTube/MMAFighting)

- Part 2 of "Backstage with Joe Rogan" (YouTube)

- Sure-fire UFC hall-of-famers (Heavy)

– Shine Fights hasn’t paid Chuteboxe fighters yet for cancelled May show (MMAJunkie) 

– Death in the Cage: The story of fighter Michael Kirkham (MMAFighting)

– 5 reasons why Apple sucks (AskMen)

– Where to take private Ninja lessons in NY (MadeMan)

– DREAM and its new business partner declare war on the world (MiddleEasy)

- 5 of the world’s largest and most worrisome toy collections (Asylum)

– Danzig appeals controversial UFC 115 loss to Matt Wiman (MMAWeekly)

- Seth Meyers’ ESPY monologue (ScoresReport)

- 25 Women wrestling in Jello photos (HolyTaco)

- The Glades actress Kiele Sanchez photos (ScreenJunkies)

- Belfort wants the winner of Sonnen-Silva (TATAME)

("I recommended Gus Johnson as my replacement. I heard he trains twice a week.")

Eddie Bravo contacted Cage Potato last night to expound on the news reported by Gareth Davies Wednesday that he had resigned from his post as an analyst with the UFC.

Although he confirmed he has indeed left the organization, he says his departure was an amicable one and that the move was necessary to allow him to focus more on his growing number of schools and students and will not restrict him from cornering his fighters in the Octagon.

"Yes, I quit to focus on cornering George [Sotiropoulos] and [Dan] Hardy. It was an amazing seven years with Zuffa," Bravo explained via text message. "I owe Dana, Lorenzo and Frank to the death."

(Props: YouTube.com/UFC)

Just a week after we learned that Stephan Bonnar is permanently replacing Frank Mir as color-commentator for the WEC, it’s been announced that the UFC’s Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg will be handling the talking-head duties for WEC 48. Headlined by the featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Urijah Faber, and the lightweight title fight between Ben Henderson and Donald Cerrone, WEC 48 will be the organization’s first attempt at charging a shitload of money for their product. You may have already noticed that the show’s video promos feature Dana White and Joe Rogan — not anybody directly related to the WEC — and for the most part, the UFC will be promoting this card. Sorry, Reed. As soon as it’s time to promote your next not-nearly-as-relevant event, it’s all you again

The presence of Joe and Mike won’t be the only similarity between WEC 48 and a UFC pay-per-view. Apparently, Spike TV will be broadcasting two fights from the preliminary card, directly before the PPV broadcast: Former featherweight title challenger Leonard Garcia will welcome "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung into the WEC, while UFC vet Alex Karalexis faces off against Anthony Pettis, who scored the Knockout of the Night at WEC 47.