In the latest installment of the half-hour MMA web show, Dana White stops by to chat about Anderson Silva, the UFC’s July SpikeTV event going up against Affliction’s PPV, and Lorenzo Fertitta’s new role in the company. On the UFC’s global expansion, White says: “In eight years, this will be the biggest sport in the world. Bigger than the NFL, bigger than soccer (!!!), it’s gonna be the biggest.” Later in the show, Kenny Florian talks about avenging his losses as well as punishments for missing weight, and Josh Barnett calls in to analyze the ongoing DREAM tournaments and his Affliction debut against Pedro Rizzo. In the “MMA for Dummies” segment, Ken-Flo demonstrates the Muay Thai clinch.

(Babyface Barnett sticks it to the Snowman.)

World Victory Road’s “Sengoku II: Second Battle” event was held today in Tokyo, with Josh Barnett dominating Jeff Monson to a decision victory, Kevin Randleman winning a decision in his first fight since October 2006, and heavyweight rising star Roger Gracie scoring a first-round submission win in his second pro MMA bout. Props to Sherdog. More vids after the jump.

Josh Barnett def. Jeff Monson via decision
Roger Gracie def. Yuki Kondo via submission (rear-naked choke), round 1
Kevin Randleman def. Ryo Kawamura via decision
Yoshihiro “Kiss” Nakao def. Jim York via KO, round 2
Jorge Santiago def. Yuki Sasaki via submission (armbar), round 3
Eiji Mitsuoka def. Kwang Hee Lee via submission (rear-naked choke), round 1
Mike Pyle def. Dan Hornbuckle via submission (triangle choke), round 1
Satoru Kitaoka def. Ian Schaffa via submission (guillotine choke), round 1

Dude, how slick is this? I didn’t care about Mike Whitehead until just now, when I learned that he enjoys head-butting through glass. They may have spelled “Lindland” wrong, but Josh Barnett’s classic throat-slashing thing and the voice of Michael Buffer more than make up for it. Whatever you’re selling, we’ll take two!

(Props: MMAScraps)

Another high-profile matchup has been added to Affliction’s July 19th debut card (Location TBA), as Josh Barnett confirmed last night that he’ll be taking on Pedro Rizzo. It’ll only be Barnett’s second match on U.S. soil since UFC 36 (3/22/02), where “The Babyface Assassin” knocked out Randy Couture to win the UFC’s heavyweight belt, but was stripped of the title directly after for failing a steroid test; Barnett then re-launched his career in Japan, where the drug policies were, shall we say, less judgmental.

Adding to the drama is the fact that the two fighters have previously met. Barnett suffered his first career loss at UFC 30 (2/23/01) against Rizzo, who knocked out the Seattle native in the second round. Said Barnett:

“[A]fter he knocked me out with one of those really nice, well put together Pedro Rizzo right hands, I stood right there for the challenge and said you know what, I’m going to come back here, I’m going to fight him again and next time I’m knocking his ass out. So I’ve got to make good on my promises and I’ve got to stick to my word.”

Regarding Affliction 1′s current lineup — which includes Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia, and Matt Lindland vs. TBA — Josh was his usual sardonic self:

“As much as I love my buddy Fedor, it’s going to suck for him because I’m stealing the show.”

Barnett is consistently ranked among the world’s top ten heavyweights by any MMA news outlet with an opinion (this one included), despite the fact that he hasn’t had an impressive win since 2006. Beating Rizzo would help remind American MMA fans who he is, but a bout with the Brazilian UFC/PRIDE vet isn’t quite the return match we were hoping for. Rizzo has gone 2-2 since leaving the UFC in 2003; true, he scored both of his recent wins last year, but he’s also old enough to have fought Tank Abbott at Ultimate Brazil. Is anyone else getting a “Masters Superfight” vibe from this one?

Video of Barnett vs. Rizzo at UFC 30 is after the jump…

(“Hey, my name’s Josh and I’m a sex addict.”)

— A heavyweight superfight between Josh Barnett and Jeff Monson has been announced as the main event of Sengoku II (May 18th, Tokyo); the card will also feature fights between Kevin Randleman and Ryo Kawamura, and Roger Gracie taking on an opponent to be named later. In recent weeks, Monson has also been reportedly booked to face Mike Russow at Adrenaline MMA’s debut event (June 14th, Chicago), as well as Kevin Randleman at a Global Fighting event on June 21st in Charlotte, N.C. With those three fights so close together, expect at least one to fall apart. Monson most recently defeated Hakim Gouram at a Ring of Fire event last December.

— Speaking of Adrenaline MMA, Monte Cox has been scurrying around trying to fill its first card. Besides Monson/Russow, the June 14th show is expected to feature IFL vet Bart Palaszewski taking on King of the Cage/UFC vet Jeff Cox, and ex-UFC fighter/boxer Terry Martin taking on Daiju Takase.

— The UFC officially added three fights to UFC 86 (July 5th, Las Vegas): Josh Koscheck vs. Chris “Lights Out” Lytle, Patrick Cote vs. Ricardo Almeida, and Cole Miller vs. Jorge Gurgel. Lytle and Almeida are coming off of impressive stoppage wins at UFC 81 in February, where Lytle picked up the “Knockout of the Night” bonus. UFC 86 will be headlined by the light-heavyweight title scrap between Quinton Jackson and Forrest Griffin, and is also expected to feature bouts between Joe Stevenson and Gleison Tibau, Frank Mir and Justin McCully, and Ben Saunders vs. Jared Rollins.

— As for the Ultimate Fighter 7 finale on June 21st, the UFC has confirmed that Evan Tanner vs. Kendall Grove will be the show’s main event — not Diego Sanchez vs. Luigi Fioravanti, which will get secondary status. Also officially booked are Spencer Fisher vs. Jeremy Stephens, Josh Burkman vs. Dustin Hazelett, Marvin Eastman vs. Drew McFedries, and Jeremy Horn vs. Dean Lister. And of course Tim Credeur vs. CB Dollaway (one would assume).

Seriously! We can’t embed it, but go to their website and brace yourself. Just look at the partial cast of characters:

Ozzy!

GSP!

Quinton “Money” Jackson!

This terrifying clown!

Angry Randy!

A metal singer (the dude from Lamb of God, maybe?) with some truly breathtaking dreads!

I mean, fucking look at those things!

Babyface Barnett!

Again with the clown!

Fedor “Sleepy Boy” Emelianenko!

…and Dave Mustaine! WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

(Google Image Search result #1 for “freak show.” Apologies.)

From FightOpinion:

Nikkan Sports has a report claiming that Antonio Inoki is interested in Kurt Angle making his MMA debut on the IGF 4/12 Osaka Prefectural Gym show. According to Inoki, Angle will likely participate with open-fingered gloves and that it may be a 3-way MMA match involving Naoya Ogawa & Josh Barnett. Making this story even better is the fact that Angle has to work a TNA PPV the next day (4/13) in the States.

From Fightlinker:

DEEP is putting on a ‘Megaton’ grand prix, which means it’s a big fatty fest. Not only is this the most awesome concept ever, but if you’re a fat fuck too, you get free booze!

DEEP has announced the match-ups for their Megaton GP. I expect the fighters going at it with a lot of heart and maybe not the best of skills in this event. All in all, should make for some exciting fights.

Also, audience members weighing in at over 100kg can expect a 500yen drink coupon.

I guess the better question is — which of these events would you rather watch with your buddies while stoned? Hook us up, Mark…

From Sengoku. Props to BloodyElbow. More photos here.

(Takanori Gomi poses with one of the characters from Cabin Fever.)

(This wouldn’t turn out very well for Hidehiko Yoshida.)

(Told you.)

Here’s some footage of Gomi turning Bang Ludwig’s face into pasta sauce, and Barnett working over Yoshida en route to a heel-hook tapout. Gomi and Barnett’s fights at Sengoku were their first MMA matches in over a year, but both looked like they’d never left the ring. 100% dominance…

— Josh Barnett def. Hidehiko Yoshida via submission (heel hook), 3:23 of round 3
— Takanori Gomi def. Duane Ludwig via doctor’s stoppage TKO (cut), 2:28 of round 1
— Kazuo Misaki def. Siyar Bahadurzada via submission (guillotine choke), 2:02 of round 2
— Kazuyuki Fujita def. Peter Graham via submission (north-south choke), 1:23 of round 1
— Evangelista Santos def. Makoto Takimoto via submission (heel hook), 4:51 of round 1
— Ryo Kawamura def. Antonio Braga Neto via unanimous decision
— Nick Thompson def. Fabricio Monteiro via unanimous decision

We’ll get up some photos and videos when they become available…

(Props: Sherdog)

(Peter Graham, doing his best Vanilla Ice at the “Sengoku” press conference.)

World Victory Road’s debut event, “Sengoku”, is slated for tomorrow at 2:30 in the morning (ET). Fight vids will start being available shortly after the show because they know we’re all too lazy to stay up – or get up – at 2:30 a.m. to tune in. The card is a solid start to WVR and as expected, Takanori Gomi and Josh Barnett are big favorites, as is Nick “The Goat” Thompson. Kazuyuki Fujita is also favored big over kickboxer Peter Graham, who is making his MMA debut. Graham, known in kickboxing for his “rolling thunder” cartwheel kick, said some shit about Fujita back at a December press conference for DYNAMITE!! 2007:

One minor surprise took place at the DYNAMITE!! press conference held at a hotel in Osaka. When the MC began taking questions from the reporters, all of sudden a man wearing a red T-shirt stood up. His name is Peter Graham, a K-1 fighter who was there as Nicolas Petas’ teammate. While all the reporters were stunned by this abrupt interruption Graham yelled, “Where is my opponent who was supposed to fight me tomorrow! Chicken!” The MC didn’t know what to do but the interpreter softened a bit and translated what this big man from Australia had just said. Then no one knew how to react to this sudden speech by Graham, so it was basically ignored for then the press conference continued.

Graham revealed after his outburst that Fujita was supposed to fight him at the DYNAMITE!! show, but refused the fight. The Vanilla Ice-doubling big man then decided to publicly embarrass Fujita. This all came out at the “Sengoku” press conference (go here for more pics) and the two fighters had to be separated. Word is Fujita wasn’t so much upset about the remarks Graham had made about him as he was for the kickboxer’s human race-embarrassing sense of fashion.

Video of cartwheel kick attempts by Graham is after the jump. Notice I said “attempts”.

(…and the card holders for Barnett’s next fight.)

When Josh “The Babyface Assassin” Barnett fights for World Victory Road in Japan on March 5th, it’ll be the first time we’ve seen him in action in 15 months. Hidehiko Yoshida will be his opponent in the main event at “Sengoku” – WVR’s debut event. Barnett says this fight makes for a good headliner – on an already exciting card – and he’s glad to be back in action.

World Victory Road became the winning horse in the Barnett race after a messy contract situation left by the dismatling of PRIDE. The brand new WVR has been snatching up fighters lately, including top guys like Nick “The Goat” Thompson, Takanori Gomi, and Kazuyuki Fujita – all fighting in the debut event.

Barnett mentioned that although he is now with WVR, he wouldn’t rule out signing up with DREAM, which is run by several former PRIDE suits in conjunction with some K-1′s parent company. Barnett says the deal would be up to DREAM and the execs know what the issues were in PRIDE, so the conflicts can be avoided if they wanted. That could set up a possible fourth fight with Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic who recently signed up with DREAM. Cro Cop accounts for three of Barnett’s five career losses. Are we over that match-up or not? Me? I could probably be coerced into tuning in, but would complain about it being boring the next day.

Josh also recently spoke about the talk of him possibly fighting Fedor Emelianenko.

“Honestly, I don’t think much about it at all. I’m not Randy (Couture),” he said about the Fedor fight. “I’m not going to chase after this fight. For me, I need to be out there fighting my fights, creating my own merit. Fedor is the No. 1 guy out there based on his past performances; he’s an incredible fighter and a cool guy. At this point people need to go their own ways.

“I’ve been waiting way too damn long to get a fight because of the turmoil that came of Pride folding, so at this point I’m not going to do anything that could possibly stall or hold up my career anymore in hopes in putting one specific (fight) together.”

(Dude does a mean Truffle Shuffle.)

— The fight card for Sengoku‘s first show has been announced. Scheduled to go down March 5th in Tokyo, the event is headlined by Josh Barnett’s fight against champion judoka/mediocre MMA fighter Hidehiko Yoshida, which Barnett should win handily. Sengoku 1 also features bouts between Takanori Gomi and Duane “Bang” Ludwig, and Kazuo Misaki vs. Siyar Bahadurzada.

— Jens Pulver choked Cub Swanson directly into the minor leagues. Swanson faces Donny “Eagle Eye” Walker at IFBL Fight Night 11 tomorrow night in Niles, Ohio. Sucks to be you, brah!

— TUF 6 castmember Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver will receive no jail time for that little shirtless misunderstanding he had last September.

— Did we hear that right? Did Bob Sapp say he can actually run for ten straight minutes?

— Chuck Liddell proves he’s no less intelligent than the average American during his disastrous performance on highbrow NPR quiz show “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” Not sure who advised him that this would be a good idea, but they should be taken off the payroll immediately. (To save yourself a whole lotta boredom, skip past the first five minutes.)

(Is Cro Cop leaving the UFC?)

Here’s what else was happening in the world while your thoughts were being dominated by Brock Lesnar:

— Gary Herman of 15 Rounds reports that Brandon Vera will be returning to the Octagon in June against a yet-unnamed opponent, and Dana White has given Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic a deadline of today to decide whether he wants to remain in the UFC; Filipovic’s last fight was a decision loss to Cheick Kongo at UFC 75 in September 2007.

— Josh Barnett announced on his MySpace blog that his next fight will be against Hidehiko Yoshida at World Victory Road’s Sengoku event on March 5th in Tokyo. Barnett hasn’t competed in a professional MMA bout since his unanimous decision loss to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at PRIDE Shockwave on New Year’s Eve 2006. Yoshida is a former Olympic gold medalist in judo who has a 7-5-1 MMA record, with notable wins over Don Frye, Mark Hunt, and David “Tank” Abbott. According to Barnett, M-1 never offered him a fight with Aleksander Emelianenko, and the rumored Roger Gracie/Yoshida matchup is total rubbish.

— Because of a military commitment, Tim Kennedy has been forced to drop out of the IFL’s season opener at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on February 29th. Though he was scheduled to face middleweight champion Matt Horwich for the 185-pound belt, a new press release has announced that Kennedy has been “called to service,” and that Ryan McGivern will be taking his place. A member of Pat Miletich’s Silverbacks team, McGivern has a professional record of 11-5, and previously defeated Horwich by unanimous decision at the IFL Championship Final on 12/29/06.

— In a post-UFC 81 interview with Mr. Sunshine, Dana White referred to Hong Man Choi as “Long Duk Dong.” Funny or offensive, depending on your perspective.

In honor of today’s juicy rumor, here’s the 5/5/06 PRIDE fight between Barnett and A. Emelianenko. The ten-minute first round was an action-packed standup war, with both fighters exchanging bombs. But Barnett out-hustled Aleks in the second, taking him to the ground and working for a submission. As we’ve seen before, Aleks isn’t too awesome on his back. But we’d definitely open our wallets to witness these two go at it again…

(Business in front, death in back.)

I’m not very good with the Cyrillic alphabet, so I can’t confirm this myself. But various people are reporting that a post made yesterday on Aleksander Emelianenko’s Mixfight.ru page says Aleks will be fighting at an M-1 Global event in April. As one translation puts it:

Next bout of Aleksander Emelianenko will be held on April 11 in Chicago.

Currently we are negotiating for Aleksander’s opponent. Most likely it will be Josh Barnett.

Aleks won three bouts in 2007 by first-round stoppage, while Barnett hasn’t competed in an MMA event since his decision loss to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira on New Year’s Eve 2006; since then, the Babyface Assassin’s name has consistently popped up as the guy with the best chance of beating Fedor Emelianenko. It doesn’t look like M-1 wants to threaten its golden calf so soon — a loss for Fedor basically negates their reason for being — but an Aleks/Barnett rematch would be the next best thing. The two fighters previously fought at PRIDE Total Elimination Absolute in May 2006, where Barnett handed Aleksander one of his three career losses, a second-round submission via keylock. Keep your fingers and toes crossed and we might get to see Aleks have his bloody revenge.

Also of interest on Aleksander’s Mixfight page is the other “23 ?????? 2008 ?” post, which appears to be a rap song recorded by the fighter. You can listen to it here. Dude kinda sounds like a Russian DMX. Anybody who can translate the lyrics gets 1000 CagePotato Gold Stars, which can be redeemed later for Camel Cash.

Okay, I’ve got some bitch slapping to do. I can’t stay silent any longer. I’ve sat back and read the message boards around the MMA universe and listened to the lame ramblings of supposed MMA experts on a subject in the forefront of everyone’s mind. It could happen. It probably will happen at some point.

Who can beat Fedor Emelianenko?

While this is certainly a legit question/dead horse waiting to be beaten and should be at the top of every MMA dinner topic – and who hasn’t had several of those, right? – I’m fucking sick and tired of the lame-fucking-ass answers that keep floating around cyperspace and are shit from the mouths of these MMA ‘experts’. Check out some of the answers coming from the MMA world’s message boards:

-”A heavyweight Sean Sherk”
-”A bigger BJ Penn”
-”GSP, if he were a heavyweight”
-”Chuck Liddell”
-”Ricco, in his prime”

I’m losing my faith in humanity.

It’s real simple, people. The reader who writes the funniest caption for this picture of Josh Barnett and Hikaru Sato at a Pancrase event last Saturday gets a copy of the UFC’s Ultimate Ultimate Knockouts DVD. Let ‘em rip in the comments section — the winner will be announced on Friday.

Rumor has it that the first official M-1 Global event will feature Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett battling it out in Newark, so I thought I’d post a vid of “The Baby-Faced Assassin” in action. A veteran of both the UFC and PRIDE organizations, Barnett has a record of 25-5 and holds notable wins over Randy Couture, Dan Severn, Aleksander Emelianenko, and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, which makes him a much more credible opponent for Fedor than Hong Man Choi. This fight is from K-1 ROMANEX in May 2004, and features a wild ending where both fighters are hanging through the ropes (though feel free to skip past the first 2:25 unless you speak Japanese):

To see Barnett’s win over Aleksander Emelianenko, go here. Hopefully Fedor will get a chance to avenge his lil’ brudder‘s beating…

The UFC Hall-of-Famers whose blood and sweat carried the organization in its early days will act as coaches for a series of team MMA events to be held in Asia. According to MMA Weekly, Las Vegas-based Platinum Fighting Productions is organizing a tournament named “Ring of Fire,” which pits teams of five fighters (including one woman) against each other, with four preliminary events leading up to a final matchup between the two best teams. Along with Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, the other coaches will be UFC/PRIDE veteran Josh Barnett and Armenian-American submission grappling guru Gokor Chivichyan. The lineups will be:

Team Gracie: Cleber Luciano, Jorge Patino, Daniel Serafian, John Marsh, Katrine Alendal
Team Lion’s Den (Shamrock): Evan Dunham, Kyacey Uscola, Mike Whitehead, Ricco Rodriguez, Tonya Evinger
Team Barnett: Koji Oishi, Yuki Kondo, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Jeff Monson, Ginele Marquez
Team Gokar: Karen Darabedyan, August Wallen, Rodney Faverus, Hakim Gouram, Amanda Buckner

The first event will take place on December 9th at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines, and will feature Barnett’s team taking on Chivichyan’s. Future events will take place in Macau, Japan, and China; the final is slated for December 2008. Why this is being held on the other side of the world is anybody’s guess — it doesn’t seem to be the best move for a fledgling organization, marketing-wise, if a television broadcast is out of the question. Stay tuned for more details on this compelling, possibly bullshit event.