(Nineteen years later, we may finally find out how effective Shaq Fu is as a martial art.)

It’s been nearly four years since former Major League Baseball slugger Jose Canseco was defeated during the opening round of DREAM’s Super Hulk Tournament, but that hasn’t stopped him from attempting to find another MMA fight. Come to think of it, that last sentence isn’t entirely accurate. Let’s try again: It’s been nearly four years since Jose Canseco decided to get his ass kicked by Hong Man Choi, yet he’s still attempting to exploit MMA like it’s a former teammate’s steroid usage.

His most recent effort involved calling out former NBA center Shaquille O’Neal via his Twitter account. Shaq — already a big MMA fan with actual training under his belt — didn’t take kindly to being called out by a snitch. At this point, you’re probably already like…

…but you really have to see Shaq’s response for yourself, available after the jump.

The Jose Canseco have the big lady boobs and the lil mouse balls.

There’s something to be said about a drug addict who chooses to make money by exploiting his struggles with addiction, all while enabling the addictions of other people. I’m not sure if there are proper words for it, but utterly tragic, pathetic and thoroughly reprehensible are probably good places to start. Case in point: Jose Canseco, who has been dangerously addicted to anabolic steroids in the past (and possibly still is), now dedicates his time to encouraging both current and potential steroid users through a series of videos on Steroid.com. If you’re surprised by any of this, I envy your ignorance.

Oh, and he makes his glorious man boobies dance. Did I mention that part yet? Because that happens.

Back to business though. This week, Canseco touches on the topic of which steroids are “the most awesome steroids,” which obviously are the ones that make your tits bounce, n00b. Naturally, Canseco addresses former teammates who decided not to use steroids in the unfortunately typical words of an addict who refuses to take responsibility for his own actions:

As a baseball player, if you didn’t take steroids you were just a pussy. You were just not part of the team at that time. You weren’t really trying to win. You weren’t doing everything possible to become the best baseball player out there and help your team win. It was like a sacrifice in a way, you really had to do everything possible to help your team win.

(“You’ll never get me Lucky Charms!”)

For nearly four years, the Japanese MMA promotion DREAM did its best to carry the mantle of PRIDE, presenting the same mix of top international talent and freak-show comic relief, all inside of a traditional ring, rather than a filthy American cage. But we were hit with some sad news this weekend as multiple sources reported that DREAM has ceased day-to-day operations, and will no longer be producing events. So as we like to do when great MMA traditions die, let’s take a look back at some of the fights that made this promotion so unique, so entertaining, and so balls-out insane…

#8: Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Melvin Manhoef
DREAM.4, 6/15/08 

Though Kazushi Sakuraba’s fame was partly based on his willingness to absorb damage from larger fighters, the level of savagery that Melvin Manhoef inflicted on him during their meeting at the Yokohama Arena probably should have convinced Saku to walk away from the sport. The moment when Manhoef drags Saku away from the ropes by his leg so he can dive in to continue the assault (see the 2:43 mark above) remains one of DREAM’s most indelible and brutal moments.

#7: Shinya Aoki vs. dumb-ass gaijin
DREAM.7, 3/8/09

Another tradition that DREAM inherited from PRIDE? Absurd mismatches. At the time of this fight, Aoki was widely considered to be a top-3 lightweight, while Gardner was an obscure 13-7 journeyman who was coming off a loss to Brian Cobb. Aoki’s domination on the mat was no surprise, but the fight became legendary for how it ended. Stuck with Aoki on his back, Gardner took advantage of a brief pause in the action — and the near-silence in the Saitama Super Arena — to wave to the crowd and shout “Hello Japan!” Aoki immediately wrapped up Gardner’s neck and choked him out, causing the crowd to break out in laughter and Bas Rutten to cry “Oh my God it is so dumb! So dumb! Why?!” Some things just can’t be explained, Bas.

(Wait, so you mean to tell me that we have to fight indoors? In a ring? Like a bunch of pampered women? Props to MiddleEasy for the find. ) 

Fresh off his decision victory over Scott Ferrozzo at ProElite: Birmingham, Tank Abbott was at it again last night, this time taking on fellow UFC pioneer Kimo Leopold in a match that made the ill-fated special rules bout between Ken Shamrock and James Toney seem like a walk in the park. Fortunately taking place inside an actual building this time — the Avalon in Hollywood, California — the bout featured three, one minute rounds, in which the competitors wore both headgear and some cartoon sized boxing gloves.

(Props: battlecambrah)

Jose Canceso‘s record as a celebrity boxer currently sits at 1-2-1, including a knockout loss to Vai Sikahema, a decision loss to a 60-year-old man, a tough draw against Danny Partridge, and a win (finally) against Todd Poulton, self-described as “The Heavyweight Champion of OCD.”

We’d say that the former baseball star’s next match offers him a shot at redemption, but considering his opponent, he’ll look like a loser even if he wins it. Canseco is booked to appear at a Celebrity Fight Night event on November 5th against Tareq Salahi, best known as the “White House party crasher” whose wife Michaele is a total whore.

("Filthy" Tom Lawlor gives an interview to Aaron Tru while getting a colonic. Luckily, the years spent training with Seth Petruzelli have prepared him for this moment. Props: truplya777)

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…

– Midseason MMA Awards: Best Knockout (MMA Fighting)

- Dana White: Vladimir Matyushenko Deserves Shot Against Jon Jones (Versus MMA Beat)

– GSP Says He’ll Retire Once He’s the Best Pound-for-Pound (Watch Kalib Run)

– FIGHT! Girl Galleries (Fight! Magazine)

– M-1 Global Is Launching Its Own TUF-Style Reality Show (LowKick)

- It’s Official: Dan Quinn vs. Aaron Brink Is Going Down August 20th (MiddleEasy)

– 5 Biggest Threats To Brock Lesnar’s Belt (Heavy.com/MMA)

– Rusty Business: Addressing the Problem of Ring Rust in MMA (Five Ounces of Pain)

– Jose Canseco’s Celebrity Boxing Record Drops to 1-2-1 After Losing to 60-Year-Old Athletic Trainer Gary Hogan (MMA Scraps)

Antonio mckee highlights by Biodome10

Last night, many of us were shocked and saddened by a video floating around the ‘net that featured Chuck Liddell, completely naked, working out with his girlfriend, also completely naked. The video was notable for a number of reasons:

1) The girlfriend has been I.D.’d as Jose Canseco’s ex, Heidi Northcott. I will now pat myself on the back for my powers of observation.

2) Chuck didn’t wipe down the machine when he was done with it.

3) As CageWriter put it, “is the camera man a crazy, obsessed fan? How is this person still alive?”

4) After the video was originally taken off YouTube, it popped up on DailyMotion under the title “Antonio mckee highlights,” which is brilliant because nobody would ever think to search for that.

(Give Cofield credit, he isn’t afraid to just put it out there and say, ‘Why are you doing this?’ in the tone of a man trying to talk some sense into his alcoholic cousin.)

Sometimes I wonder if Jose Canseco is one of the dumbest former pro athletes out there, or if he is so brilliant that he merely seems dumb to those of us who can’t fully grasp the depth of his wisdom. Listening to the guy explain why we have wars and how those wars are just the large scale version of the petty criticism we perpetrate against one another on a daily basis, I could feel my mind slowing being blown into millions of tiny pieces. Then he said that Herschel Walker’s insistence on not fighting him was a “negotiating ploy,” and I was forced to completely disregard my theory of Canseco as an unappreciated genius.

You see, unlike Canseco, Walker is not desperate for cash and attention. The guy donated his Strikeforce payday to a church. Typically, guys who are fighting for charity do not engage in negotiating ploys to drive their price tag up. If they wanted their charity to have more money, they’d just give it to them personally. If they didn’t have that kind of money to give, they probably wouldn’t be fighting for charity.

Is any of this getting through, Jose? Are you even still reading? You became distracted by a dog with a puffy tail midway through the first paragraph, didn’t you? You know what, just forget it. You keep after Herschel Walker. After all, you’ve been doing this longer than him.

After watching this video of Jose Canseco in the gym with Nick Diaz and his boys, we still don’t know whether the former slugger is really learning anything about fighting.  All we know is that he has seen what real training looks like when professionals do it, and that he had the foresight to make sure that somebody was shooting video of him while he witnessed it. 

Honestly, this might be a more interesting video if we could remove Canseco from the frame altogether.  Then you’d just have Nick Diaz explaining some of the finer points of the clinch game, which is pretty awesome.  If that’s not enough to hold your attention, there’s also some Fifty Cent to bob your head to.  See?  Something for everyone.  Except Jose Canseco.  He only watches videos if Jose Canseco is in them, which results in him watching a lot of really annoying videos.  Or unintentionally hilarious ones…

(Something tells me this photo wasn’t Nick’s idea.)

The above photo of Jose Canseco smokin’ and jokin’ with the Diaz boys at their Lodi, California academy comes to us courtesy of NathanDiaz.com, the website that would like you to know that you are, in fact, a punk bitch.  Looks like the unholy union between the Cesar Gracie team and baseball’s most infamous attention whore/steroid snitch is now a reality, at least in some form. 

We were holding out hope that Nick Diaz’s well-established dislike for exactly the type of jock asshole that Canseco is might prevent him from letting Canseco use the squad as a stepping stone in his ongoing attempt to turn MMA into some sort of half-assed celebrity boxing.  No such luck.  Now we just have to pray that one of the Diaz’s breaks his arm in a training "accident" and sends him back to pleading for tanning salon endorsement deals on Twitter, where he belongs.

Strikeforce, if you’re reading, just so we’re clear about this, DO NOT SIGN JOSE CANSECO TO FIGHT FOR YOU.  Herschel Walker was one thing.  He took it seriously, said all the right things, and even though the quality of his fight proved exactly why you don’t put 0-0 fighters on TV, we’re willing to overlook it.  But Canseco?  No way, homie.  He just wants a quick buck and cheap attention.  Stay away.  We cannot stress this enough.

(Looks like somebody forgot to "put that little extra in there."  Photo courtesy of The Sun.)

Now that we’ve relaunched our t-shirt giveaways, it’s like a hot load of reeking chum has been tossed into the water with you blood-crazed commenting-sharks. Y’all brought it hard this week, until we really didn’t want it anymore, and we were just waiting for you to finish so we could get some sleep. (So to speak.) Moving on…

mynameisalsoben on "Mark Coleman Has Been Going Through Some Times, Brother":
C’mon we shouldn’t be surprised here…Mark’s always been known to have a small gas tank.

mma samurai on "Herschel Walker’s MMA Debut Has Only Emboldened Jose Canseco":
What’s Canseco talking about? Cyborg is the real bad boy of sports.

Viva Hate on "Completely Unnecessary Rematch Alert: Wes Sims vs. Tim Sylvia II":
Loser needs to retire and the winner needs to retire.

And finally, the audience award for Comment of the Week:

steampunk22 on "The New York Times Attempts to Find Out Why Jesus Didn’t Tap":
Why am I not surprised? The church has been trying to tap young boys for the last thousand years!

If your name has been called, please e-mail feedback@cagepotato.com with your real name, address, and shirt size, and we’ll get a CagePotato Devil Horns shirt out to you soon. (Disclaimer: CagePotato.com’s definition of "soon" may be very different from your own.)

(‘Screw this, baby. Let’s go to IHOP.’)

You’d think Cesar Gracie – head trainer/enabler to Nick and Nate Diaz – would have enough head cases in his life to keep himself busy. Either that’s not true, or else perhaps he’s developed a taste for difficult students, because now he is actively courting Jose Canseco. Silly us, we hoped it was just an empty, impulsive gesture when team members put out a video of them in a diner inviting Canseco to come on down and learn how to fight. But now the Gracie squad says it has reached an agreement to train Canseco for a fight with Herschel Walker “should that matchup happen.”

Hopefully that matchup won’t happen, and as a result Nick Diaz will not have to face a crisis of conscience for helping Canseco in his efforts to demean MMA for his own financial gain.  Why the Gracie team wants anything to do with him is a mystery in itself.  Unless they’re not getting a big enough piece of Diaz’s six-figure payday and are dealing with a dire financial situation, you’d think they’d want to stay away from a guy who has proved so toxic to everything he touches.

(After this offer, Canseco tweeted that he’s looking for a tanning salon and 24-hour gym to endorse. Seriously.)

It turns out that there is a good reason why MMA shouldn’t let retired athletes from other sports climb into the cage for a little career rejuvenation, and that reason is named Jose Canseco. Something about seeing Herschel Walker stop Greg Nagy with vicious strikes to the armpit at Strikeforce: Miami made the former pro baseball player/steroid abuser/attention whore think that this is his invitation to once again make a mockery of our fine sport with his helpless flailing.

We’re not going to ask why Canseco would refer to himself as “the bad Boy of the Sports industry,” despite not really being in the sports industry anymore. We’re also not going to ask how he chooses which words to capitalize, if in fact he is making choices at all and not simply mashing the keyboard with the end of a mop and hoping for the best. Instead we’re just going to say, no thanks. Put the notion out of your head right now, because no one is interested in a Canseco-Walker celebrity shit-show. I mean, even if he were to decide to actually prepare for a fight, what idiots would invite him to train with them?

Oh, wait…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Image courtesy of DreamOfficial.com)

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

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

(Props: The Garv)

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

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

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

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

 
(Horrifying image courtesy of CelebrityBoxing.tv.)

It’s bad enough that Affliction’s "Day of Reckoning" show has to compete with the Antonio Margarito/Shane Mosley boxing match that’s happening a half-hour away. Also vying for your entertainment dollar this Saturday night — live at the Ice Works Skating Complex in Aston, PA, and available on pay-per-view for $12.99 — is a Celebrity Boxing Federation match between former child star/radio personality Danny Bonaduce and former baseball star/’roid snitch Jose Canseco. While Canseco is 0-1 in CBF matches, having gotten his ass kicked by Vai Sikahema last July, Bonaduce has whipped a string of D-list stars in boxing events, including Donny Osmond, Barry Williams, and Bob Levy. Regarding the matchup, Bonaduce had this to say:

According to this profile of the Celebrity Boxing operation, CBF put on an event in November headlined by Phil "Bam’s Dad" Margera and John Wayne "Dude Who Got His Dick Cut Off" Bobbitt. What can you say — they know what the people want. Sorry, Fedor, but I have a feeling you’ll be beating Andrei Arlovski’s ass in an empty arena. A laughably low-budget promo video for Bonaduce vs. Conseco is after the jump; props to CP reader Danny-Eyal for the tip. 

You may have seen the raw footage of this floating around a week or so ago, but here’s the edited, minute-and-change version of Rich Franklin battling Wanderlei Silva in Rock/Paper/Scissors. The contest was a special exhibition bout that opened the 2008 Bud Light/USA Rock Paper Scissors League Championships — think “click-clack” for white hipsters — which went down June 21-22 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. How ’bout Franklin’s bitch-scream at 0:41? In a way, I think this video is very similar to how an actual fight between Franklin and Silva would go: Silva would come out strong in the first round, then Franklin would rally in the second before smashing Wandy’s scissors with a rock.

Also worth watching:
Countdown to Affliction: Banned (full 30-minute version)
Checking in with Anthony Johnson and Jake O’Brien
Canseco vs. Sikahema (ringside view)
The World’s Worst Stripper (Not safe for retinas, eardrums)

Props: Five Ounces of Pain

It’s great when former pro athletes and celebrities (or in this case, pseudo-celebrities) think that they can fight just as long as their opponent is another celebrity. Baseball’s public enemy number one, Jose Canseco, found out the hard way over the weekend that it doesn’t always work that way.

You have to love the commentary from Stephen A. Smith here, who seems just a little biased in his take on the match. His description of Canseco as a rat and of former Philadelphia Eagles player Vai Sikahema as a man who “knows what he’s doing with those fists of his” (hurling them at Canseco’s head?) is pretty great.