(Looks like this year’s harvest will be even better. Sanguis Bibimus! Corpus Edimus! Photo via Getty Images.) 

By Dan “Get Off Me” George

This Saturday night, Cain Velasquez will attempt to make WILL MAKE the first title defense of his career in his second term as UFC heavyweight champion when he rematches Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, Mark Hunt will look to continue WILL CONTINUE his Cinderella run in the co-main event against former HW champ Junior Dos Santos, and a possible #1 contender the next lightweight title contender WILL BE DECIDED in the sure-to-be-brawl between Gray Maynard and T.J. Grant. Whew.

With one of the strongests undercards (on paper) in what feels like an eternity, UFC 160 is primed to become, at the very least, a night chock full of wild finishes and entertaining scraps that will leave *no fan* unsatisfied. I really hope I’m not overselling it. Anyway, join us now as we try to underline the right favorites and highlight some possible underdogs in the hopes of finding that ever-elusive payout for UFC 160. The gambling lines, as always, come courtesy of BestFightOdds.

Undercard bouts:

Brian Bowles (-280) vs. George Roop (+240)

Having only lost twice, to Urijah Faber and injuryweight world champion Dominick Cruz, Bowles comes in as a healthy -280 favorite (and rightfully so) against the woefully inconsistent George Roop. Roop is coming off a less than convincing win over Reuben Duran in his return to bantamweight, whereas his opponent is looking to get back on the short list of top contenders in the division. Bowles should be able to close the distance on Roop and get this fight to the mat, where we may see a submission victory for the former WEC champion. Bowles makes the parlay at -140 and the prop bet that he is able to end things before the final bell.

(“Do I *look* like I want to try on some slim-fit jeans today, you son of a bitch?!?” / Photo via FightDay)

After being hassled by The Man for two weeks due to a decade-old arrest, UFC heavyweight slugger Mark Hunt has successfully obtained his visa to travel to the United States for UFC 160 on May 25th, and will be departing from New Zealand sometime today. The UFC confirmed the news yesterday, and Hunt relayed the message himself with a quick tweet thanking God.

And so, Roy Nelson no longer needs to be hastily photoshopped into the poster. But the problem remains that Hunt is making the long trek to the States with less than a week to acclimate to the time-difference, which could hinder his performance. Will jet lag be the difference in this fight? Shoot us your predictions, and check out the complete lineup of UFC 160 after the jump…

(This shit again? Oh, yes. This shit again. / Photo via Getty Images)

Twitter rallies, brutal victories and even celebrity endorsements could not get Mark Hunt what he deserved — a clear path to the UFC heavyweight title. When Hunt was booked for UFC 160 against former champion Junior Dos Santos, however, it looked like the New Zealander’s violent campaign had finally paid off.

Dana White said that Dos Santos would get a title shot should he beat Hunt, so if Hunt crushed those plans, then he would be the unquestioned #1 contender in the division, right? UFC gold appeared to be within stumpy-limb striking distance for the former K-1 Grand Prix Champion.

Alas, ‘The Man’ just didn’t want to see Hunt get his. Last week, a 2002 arrest from which no charges resulted magically came to the attention of U.S. officials, who as of yet have refused to issue the New Zealander a visa to travel to the states, threatening his chances of competing at the “Velasquez vs. Bigfoot 2″ event on May 25th. (If you have to ask who ‘The Man’ is in this situation, you are clearly a part of the conspiracy against Mark Hunt. Narc.)

The UFC is not giving up on Hunt fighting at UFC 160, though they do appear to be hedging their bets. “To put anything to rest, we are confident the issue will be resolved and we anticipate Mark competing in the co-main event for UFC 160,” the UFC’s Director of Communications, Dave Sholler, told media during a Tuesday teleconference. ”Our team is working through that issue and we anticipate Mark making his way to the United States this weekend.”

(Yep. That pretty much sums it up.) 

God. Damn. It.

Although details are sketchy at best right now, it appears that UFC heavyweight contender/future champion Mark Hunt has been arrested in his native New Zealand and has consequently been denied the Visa that would allow him to fly to Las Vegas, kick Junior Dos Santos’ ass on May 25th, and secure the next shot at Cain Velasquez. The information was passed along by none other than Hunt himself via his Twitter account. Caution: the following contains several naughty words and a noticeable absence of the letter “c.”

Well thanks to a idiot friend of mine I did get arrested. Denied again at airport I’m never helping anymore dikhead mates. This is wat happens wen u have friends that are dikheads the last fukn time I help these mother fkn trouble makers. 

New Zealand: It’s pretty much Stockton, CA with nicer summers.

(Y’know, drinking a gallon of buttermilk every morning doesn’t make much sense either, but that never stopped him from doing it. / Photo via Joshua Wood @ MMAValor)

Roy Nelson‘s knockout of Cheick Kongo last weekend marked his third first-round KO victory in a row, and earned Big Country the first three-fight win streak of his UFC career — which means that the UFC has to start treating him like a legitimate heavyweight contender again, rather than a gray-bearded novelty act. So who’s next on Big Country’s menu? Following UFC 159, Dana White suggested that either Mark Hunt or Daniel Cormier could be the next opponent for Nelson, which makes perfect sense if we’re putting together matchups solely based on body type.

Nelson’s camp, however, doesn’t agree with one of those names. According to a report from Ariel Helwani earlier this week, Nelson’s manager Mike Kogan said he’s not interested in a fight against Cormier. “He doesn’t think it makes any sense for Nelson,” Helwani explained on UFC Tonight. Instead, Kogan would prefer Nelson to fight Hunt, Antonio Silva (if he loses to Cain Velasquez at UFC 160), or Junior dos Santos…despite the fact that Dos Santos already slaughtered Nelson back in 2010.

It’s obvious why the Nelson camp would want to avoid a guy like Cormier — he’s incredibly dangerous, but he still doesn’t carry the same name value as the other UFC vets that Kogan mentioned. And let’s face it, Nelson’s odds of beating Hunt or Bigfoot are a lot better than his odds of beating DC. (Let’s just forget Kogan said anything about Dos Santos. That’s a damn suicide mission, and we all know it.) From a managerial perspective, it’s solid advice. Devil’s advocate, though: Cormier is rightly ranked as the #2 contender according to the UFC’s official rankings, and beating him would place Nelson closer to a heavyweight title shot than a win over Hunt or Antonio Silva would.

Personally I think Nelson vs. Cormier makes dollars and sense. See what I did there? DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE, YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH??? Anyway, let us know how you see it in the comments section.

Better late than never. Props: @ZeusJupiterMMAO

It may have taken a year to come about, but a fight between Mark Hunt and Junior dos Santos has been booked for UFC 160.

When a quadriceps injury to Alistair Overeem left Junior dos Santos without an opponent for UFC 160, Hunt immediately organized a Twitter assault in an effort to get the fight. Despite White’s initial insistence on postponing Overeem vs. dos Santos, a phone call from “The Super Samoan” last night was enough to change his mind. See, sometimes persistence doesn’t result in a restraining order.

Mark Hunt is currently riding a four fight win streak, coming off of a brutal, jaw-breaking knockout over Stefan Struve at last Saturday’s UFC on FUEL 8. Meanwhile, dos Santos is coming off of a gutsy, yet lopsided loss to Cain Velasquez at UFC 155.

(“It’s embarrassing, okay? Let’s just say I’ll be on penicillin for a while, and leave it at that.”)

As first reported by MMAFighting yesterday evening, UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem will be unable to fight former champion Junior Dos Santos at UFC 160: Velasquez vs. Bigfoot 2 (May 25th, Las Vegas), due to an undisclosed injury suffered in training. No word yet on the nature or severity of the injury, although it will reportedly require 4-5 weeks of recovery. [Update: Overeem has revealed that it was a slight tear in his quad muscle.]

As soon as news of the withdrawal broke, fellow UFC heavyweight Mark Hunt tried to organize a twitter assault to claim the replacement spot against Dos Santos. However, UFC president Dana White suggested that Overeem vs. Dos Santos will simply be postponed to sometime in the summer. Ah well. Would have been nice to see this happen again.

The injury couldn’t come at a worse time for the hormonally fluctuating Overeem, who just followed up his nine-month licensing timeout with an upset knockout loss to Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva last month. If Overeem does meet Dos Santos this summer, the fight will come a full year-and-a-half since the Reem’s last victory over Brock Lesnar in December 2011 — not a good look for a guy who spent the previous four years unbeaten.

(UFC President Dana White revealed the organization’s previous plans for Barnett during a media scrum last weekend)

According to Dana White, nomadic heavyweight Josh Barnett not only turned down an opportunity to fight in the UFC again for the first time in a decade, he also turned down a chance to jump right into title contention. Barnett is 1-1 in his last two bouts — rebounding with a first-round submission victory over Nandor Guelmino last month following his decision loss to Daniel Cormier in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix finals — but White said Saturday that if his promotion had been able to sign Barnett, they would have immediately pitted him against fellow former heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos.

According to SB Nation, White said that the standard exclusivity component of the proposed UFC contract was the sticking point that Barnett had with the organization’s offer. Barnett has not announced any other plans for his MMA career and White went out of his way to say that he didn’t think the fighter was hesitant to face Dos Santos or any other particular fighter, so perhaps the two sides are still negotiating.

“I’m sure Josh Barnett wouldn’t care (who he fought),” White said after the UFC on Fuel 7 card in England this past Saturday. ”Josh Barnett is a fly by the seat of his pants kind of guy, he does his own thing, beats to his own fucking drum. Josh Barnett’s never been a guy to say I don’t want to fight this guy or I won’t fight that guy. He’s not that type of person.”

(But other than that, how was the fight, Antonio? / Photo via Getty Images)

As first reported by a “random Irish person” and officially confirmed last night on UFC Tonight, Cain Velasquez will defend his heavyweight title at UFC 160 (May 25th, Las Vegas) in a rematch against Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, just one year after Velasquez tore Silva apart at UFC 146. Though Bigfoot is coming off back-to-back stoppages of Travis Browne and Alistair Overeem, the news still comes as a bit of a surprise; even Bigfoot’s management felt that he should win a couple more fights before testing his fate against Cain Velasquez again.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many better options in the heavyweight division right now. Velasquez won’t fight his teammate Daniel Cormier, and the rest of the UFC’s heavyweight contenders either have their next fight booked already, or lack the kind of hype that Bigfoot currently carries after his comeback win over The Reem. And what are you going to do, have your champion sit out until a totally legitimate contender emerges? Come on. That’s not how you run a business.

So will Velasquez smash Antonio Silva for the second time, or should we start preparing for “The Bigfoot Era”? (Step one: Stock up on canned goods. Step two: Limber up.) In other UFC 160 heavyweight booking news…

When Junior Dos Santos attempted to write off his lopsided defeat to Cain Velasquez at UFC 155 as the result of “personal” issues, most of us just assumed that he was having a difficult time facing the fact that he was bested by a man he had previously destroyed. “Excuses are like assholes,” commented at least one of you. “JDS was way to overconfident and paid for it,” said a few others.

However, if the rumors currently circulating the MMA blogosphere have any truth to them, it was actually Armfarmer who provided the most astute observation of JDS when he declared that “Maybe he finally realized that he’s married to a 2 when he could be pulling 10′s left and right. That realization would sure cause me some distracting personal problems..” A bit harsh? Surely, but according to Tatame’s Guilherme Cruz, Dos Santos was in fact in the process of separating from his wife of ten years in the lead-up to UFC 155:

If you were wondering what JDS meant when said he has personal issues prior to Cain’s rematch, he ended his 10-year marriage w/ Vilsana. 

(As you can tell by the above photo, Junior was feeling a little self-conscious about his looks that night as well.) 

Perhaps it’s because he’s one of the nicest guys in the sport, but we’d like to think that most MMA fans hold Junior Dos Santos to a higher standard than that of most fighters. We sure as hell do. Regardless of who you were rooting for at UFC 155, we defy you to declare that you didn’t weep for the battered former champ as he asked Joe Rogan “Why they do that?” while being met with a chorus of undeserved boos in his post-fight interview. It was like watching a child’s face sink with the unexpected revelation that that there was no Santa. On Christmas Eve.

So it is with heavy hearts that we must bring you the inevitable next chapter in the book of any fallen fighter: The Excuses. To be fair, the problems Junior cited in a recent interview with Brazil’s Esporte were not the typical kind of nonsense you’d hear from 90% of MMA fighters attempting to diagnose a loss, but the fact that we hold Junior in such high regard makes his recent allegations all the more disappointing:

Really was my head. I had some personal things going on, a bit of my attention was lacking because of it. And another thing. Soon after the fight I went to the hospital and had a scan, which showed my creatine was too high. The normal level is up to 300, mine was in 1400. I also had trouble in the urine and kidneys.

 The explanation of the doctors is that I pushed over the line, I over trained, and problems could have happened even before the fight… I was so good that I ended up crossing the line. That was the explanation of doctors. Mine is that I was not good with my head, was having personal problems and did not go well mentally in the fight. 

(“Don’t worry, Junior! I can see him growing weaker with every punch! Three more rounds of this and he’ll be all yours!” / Photo via Getty Images)

We hate to even say this because he’s such a nice guy and all, but the beating Junior Dos Santos took at UFC 155 may have been the most deflating, one-sided ass-kicking in the history of UFC heavyweight title fights (other than the time that senior citizen beat the tar out Fatty McGoo, of course) and is being labeled as such by many MMA pundits out there. As one of you pointed out in our salary recap, Junior’s face mirrored one of those faces of meth posters over the course of the five round affair, yet the sumbitch still posed for photos afterwards.

As you can probably tell by now, my New Year’s resolution was to use more hyperlinks. SUCK IT, TOUCH PHONE USERS!

Aaanyway, Junior couldn’t even make it to the hospital before he was bombarded by SporTV, who thought the best time to ask a professional fighter strategy-based questions was while he was determining how much blood he had lost just hours earlier. You know, kind of like how CNN often waits until a soldier in Iraq steps on a landmine to drill him on the ins and outs of The Pincer Movement. Junior’s broken English response was as you would expect:

It (he) was better and deserved to win, but I used the wrong strategy. I was very worried about his entry in my legs and left face unprotected. So he hit me. When I was on the floor, I should have used more jiu-jitsu, I trained so much. But I tried to (get) back up, and it hurt me too, but on the ground it (he) is very good, very strong. I did not connect any punches good, even. It was bad because I was feeling very well, did a great training camp, everything was just right. But the fight is (over) anyway.

(This guy knows what I’m talking about. / Props: Reddit)

The UFC paid out $1,521,000 in reported salaries and performance bonuses to the fighters at UFC 155, according to figures released today by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Leading the payroll was former UFC heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos, who made a hefty $400,000 for his five-round death-march against Cain Velasquez. Velasquez landed in second place with half that total. The only other fighter who was able to crack six figures was Jim Miller, and that’s only when you factor in the $65,000 Fight of the Night bonus he earned for his three-round thriller against Joe Lauzon.

The full UFC 155 salary list is below, via MMAJunkie. Keep in mind that the numbers don’t include additional revenue from sponsorships, undisclosed “locker room bonuses,” or percentages of the pay-per-view that some of the UFC’s stars are privy to, nor do they include deductions for taxes, insurance, or licensing fees.

Cain Velasquez: $200,000 (includes $100,000 win bonus)
def. Junior Dos Santos: $400,000

Jim Miller: $147,000 (includes $41,000 win bonus, $65,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
def. Joe Lauzon: $92,000 (includes $65,000 Fight of the Night bonus)

Constantinos Philippou: $36,000 (includes $18,000 win bonus)
def. Tim Boetsch: $37,000

As MMA gamely stumbles into 2013, we’ve once again decided to bestow meaningless awards to the fighters and moments that caught our attention this year. CagePotato’s crack team of writers spent all month nominating winners in 27 different categories, which we’ve loosely arranged in chronological order. Use the “next page” links to scroll through this monster, or click on the following page links at your leisure. And as always, thanks for putting up with us for another year. Here’s to bigger and better things in 2013, which shouldn’t be a tough goal to hit, considering.

Page 1: Knockout of the Year, Comeback Fight of the Year, Worst Performance in a Drug Test, ‘WTF?’ Moment of the Year

Page 2: The Krazy Horse Bennett Arrest of the Year Award, Worst Event of the Year, Worst Fight of the Year, Best Fight of the Year

Page 3: The Cecil Peoples Shittiest Decision of the Year Award, Most Bizarre MMA News Story of the Year, The Dana White Crazy Freakout of the Year Award, MMA Twitter Photo of the Year

Page 4: Greatest Fight Canceled Due to Injury, The Minowaman Freak Show Hall of Fame Award, Most Satisfying Beatdown, Comeback Fighter of the Year

Page 5: MMA Fail of the Year, Catchphrase of the Year, The Steve Nelmark Memorial “Is He Dead?” Award, Best Female Newcomer

Page 6: The “Really? You’re Just Gonna Keep Doing that Shit that Gets You in All That Trouble?” Award (a.k.a. “The Koppenhaver”), Gnarliest Injury of the Year, Best Event of the Year, Submission of the Year

Page 7: The Inaugural “Okay, It’s FINALLY Safe to Call This Guy Wasted Potential” Award (a.k.a. “The Filho”), Greatest Hype Deflation, Greatest MMA GIFs of the Year

(Props: CagedInsider on Facebook)

Junior Dos Santos‘s five-round thrashing at the hands of Cain Velasquez last night resulted in photographs both horrific and comically horrific. But as the above photo proves, Junior walked away from his beating with his faculties somewhat intact, and was healthy enough to fist-pose afterwards with middleweight Tim Boetsch, who gave Cigano a run for his money in the “most gruesomely misshapen fighter of the night” category. Throw a slashed-up Joe Lauzon in there, and you’d have the most depressing/inspiring MMA photo of the year. It hurts to look at these guys so soon after suffering through unimaginable physical agony, but it’s hard not to give it up for you-know-what.

Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

By Elias Cepeda

With a somewhat forgettable year thankfully coming to an end, UFC 155 looked to excite fans, promote contenders and get everybody ready for a new year. This card did exactly that. Not to reach into our bag of clichés so early into the aftermath, but UFC 155 really sent 2012 out with a bang, and set the bar high for upcoming cards in 2013.

With as many solid fights as took place Saturday in Las Vegas at UFC 155, Jim Miller and Joe Lauzon’s three round battle was recognized by the UFC brass as the Fight of The Night and each man earned an extra $65,000 for their effort. The lightweight contenders should also be in consideration for Fight of The Year lists everywhere.

If it is, Lauzon will be competing with himself for his incredible fight last August against Jamie Varner. JLau may have lost the decision against Miller on the judge’s score cards, two rounds to one, but deserves credit for coming back from being bullied, beaten and bloodied badly in the first round by Miller in the first round and finishing stronger in the final two rounds.

On the strength of his aggressiveness and multiple submission attempts to close out the second and third rounds, this writer believes that a very reasonable judge could have scored the bout Lauzon’s way instead of Miller’s. As it stands, both men were impressive in their own ways and, *reaches back into the bag of applicable clichés* there simply were no “losers” in this one.

Miller has always shown excellent boxing skills but he may have been sharper than ever before against Lauzon in the first and second rounds, scoring almost at will with shots to the body and head, as well as knocking Joe down repeatedly with a nasty inside leg kick. His dirty boxing from the clinch was masterful, using punches, knees and elbows to hurt and cut open Lauzon over and again.

(What a crazy year it’s been. Just think, four weeks ago that bald guy in the middle was actually homeless. / Photo courtesy of Esther Lin’s UFC 155 weigh-in set on MMAFighting.com)

UFC 155 might not be as epic as some of the UFC’s previous end-of-year cards (you can blame the injury curse for that), but any time the Heavyweight Championship of the World is at stake, it’s must-see TV.

Tonight, defending champ Junior Dos Santos will try to keep the train a-rollin’ in a rematch with his old pal Cain Velasquez. Meanwhile in the co-main event, lightweights Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller will gobble up as many performance bonuses as they can get their little hands on. Plus, six middleweight contenders — including Tim Boetsch, Alan Belcher, and Chris Leben — will swing their ham-hock fists at each other, in the hopes that the most popular kid in school might notice them. Lotsa luck, ladies.

Running our final liveblog of the year (!) will be none other than Elias Cepeda, who will be updating you with round-by-round results after the jump starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and please share your New Year’s resolutions in the comments section.

(Beats your face to a bloody pulp… personally stitches you up after.) 

Most of us tend to forget that UFC heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos is a BJJ black belt under the Nogueira brothers, probably because we’d like to continue living in a world where we can convince ourselves that a 6’4″, 240 pound killing machine has some discernible weakness other than being a really nice guy when he’s not caving in your face like a Silver Shamrock Halloween mask. That’s right, I just referenced Halloween 3. I’m less a writer, more a prophet.

But unfortunately, the video that awaits you after the jump proves once and for all that JDS is, like me, an absolute master of his trade. In the video, we see a young Junior competing in his second professional MMA fight against Eduardo Maiorino, who sadly passed away from a heart attack just two days ago at the tender age of 33. After opening the fight with a signature flurry of punches, Dos Santos secures a takedown and is able to latch onto a guillotine choke from half guard that seems to be less technique and more Junior using his cyborg strength to vice grip his hapless opponent into submission.

Video below. 

(It was around roughly the fourth punch to Velasquez’s dome that Big John began to question the validity of Junior’s CPR certificate.)

Today at 4 p.m. EST, the UFC 155 press conference will kick off live from Las Vegas, Nevada. It will no doubt feature Junior dos Santos doing his typical “Baby Huey trapped in the body of Jason Voorhees” nice guy routine and Cain Velasquez repeatedly stating that “Yes, I will in fact bring a different gameplan into this fight, so for the love of God, stop asking me this question” while Dana White tries to comment on how great of a fight this is without dropping fourteen consecutive f-bombs in the process. All in all, it should be pretty entertaining as far as press conferences go, so join us after the jump to catch all the action (or lack thereof) starting at 4 p.m. EST.

(If you ever needed a sign that Photoshop is out of control in this country, look no further than the Koopa Troopas facing off in this photo.) 

By Dan “Get Off Me” George

This Saturday night, Zuffa will close out 2012 with a rematch between former UFC champion Cain Velasquez and current heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos. It has since been revealed that both fighters were injured heading into their original matchup (cue the guy who says “all fighters fight with injuries”), so there are a lot of extraneous factors heading into the rematch that you should seriously consider before placing your bets.

With a 3-4 record over the past 7 UFC shows, the GAE has slipped into the red for the first time since UFC 148 (thanks in no small part to that God damned injury curse) and we need a boost to avoid dining on Newfoundland steak and mashed potatoes in 2013. UFC on Fox 5 was a particularly cruel mistress, and like a Diaz brother taking a realtor’s exam, the result was a miserable failure. So follow us after the jump as we keep it short and sweet in the hopes of turning a profit for UFC 155: Dos Santos vs. Velasquez 2.

Preliminary card:

Max Holloway (-380) vs. Leonard Garcia (+290)

Leonard Garcia will be looking to avoid his fourth consecutive loss against a young up-and-comer out of Hawaii in Max Holloway. Holloway will enjoy a 12yr advantage in the father time category and I believe Garcia gives him the stand up fight he wants on Saturday night. Holloway will be too fast and this may very well look like a Cerrone/Garcia barnyard sparring session, with Holloway playing the role of “The Cowboy.” Max makes the parlay list and wins in an exciting affair as “Bad Boy” tries to find the mark with those crazy hands of his while Holloway picks him apart from the outside.

24/7 or a UFC Prime Time it ain’t, but Fox has put together some decent Countdown documentary/promo shows together. The newest one, looking towards this weekend’s UFC 155, features a look at the careers and camps of former heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez and current title holder Junior Dos Santos.

In the video, Cain talks about the lessons he learned as a college athlete that he feels will help him avenge his loss to Dos Santos. Dos Santos discusses the challenge of keeping Cain off of him and preventing him from using his All-American wrestling skills to stymie the Brazilian’s dangerous punches.

Also on the Countdown to UFC 155, Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller exchange smack talk and promises as they discuss their lightweight contender fight. If you’re lucky enough to still be sitting on your ass, stuffed with food sit back and enjoy watching pro athletes train harder in a single day of training than you ever have.

(Caution: This conference call was apparently recorded in a tin can headed straight for Pluto. Adjust speakers accordingly.)

For a guy who is supposed to be defending his title against Cain Velasquez in just over a week at UFC 155, heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos still seems awfully focused on Alistair Overeem, the man he was set to face back at UFC 146 before…well, you know. During the UFC 155 media call (full audio above), dos Santos touched on the respect he had for Velasquez as a professional, but not without taking a dig at Overeem in the process:

I prefer to fight against clean athletes and real professionals. Cain Velasquez is one of these guys. He’s a real professional fighter and that’s a good challenge for me. I know he’s very tough and I know how hard I have to train to face him. And the OTHER GUYS, they just say things, but there’s nothing behind the words. Guys like me and Cain Velasquez, we are made at the gym. Guys like the OTHER GUY there, they are made in the laboratory.

Ahh…the Lord Voldemort approach of anonymity. Touche, Junior.

Although it has suffered its fair share of injuries, the UFC’s year-end event is still stacked enough to ensure that the sport’s highest promotion goes out with a bang rather than a whimper (*cough* Strikeforce *cough*). Featuring Joe Lauzon vs. Jim Miller in a FOTN front-runner, a rematch of top middleweights in Alan Belcher vs. Yushin Okami, and the return of The Duffman, UFC 155 will hopefully continue with the trend established by last weekend’s TUF 16 Finale, which is to say “Vicious knockout, vicious knockout, suplex knockout, knockout, rinse, repeat.”

And no matchup on the card has a higher likelihood of ending with a fantastic finish than the main event rematch between former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez and the man that took his belt away, current heavyweight kingpin Junior dos Santos. There were a lot of extraneous factors leading into their original clash at UFC on FOX 1 — Velasquez had come off back-to-back surgeries and dos Santos went into the bout with a torn meniscus. However, Velasquez looked like a man possessed in his first round destruction of Antonio Silva at UFC 146 and promises to bring the same one sided ass-kicking to dos Santos in the above preview, so check it out and give us your predictions for the fight in the comments section.

After the jump: A video claiming to have captured Velasquez tearing his ACL just two weeks before his loss to dos Santos at UFC on FOX 1. If that’s truly the case, Velasquez deserves major bro hugs for even making into the ring, because damn.

(The best way to stop Cheick Kongo from kneeing you in the jewels? Turns out, it’s a simple jab. Who woulda thunk it?) 

As is the case for approximately 95% of the UFC’s current roster, Mark Hunt was forced to pull out of his last scheduled fight (against Stefan Struve) due to injury. But while he’s been quietly recuperating his knee and enjoying his current, not to mention improbable 3 fight win streak in the UFC, he’s apparently also been thinking about leveling the score with some of his former foes. Mainly, that of Alistair Overeem, who defeated Hunt by first round keylock when the two clashed back in June of 2008 at DREAM 5. It was Hunt’s third straight loss to come via form of arm-lock, but it certainly wouldn’t be his most painful.

In either case, it appears that Hunt may have heard through the grapevine that Alistair stated he would prefer to fight as soon as he got his license back, title shot or not, and figured he could kill two birds with one stone. Those two birds being a bit of redemption and possibly the next heavyweight title shot. He told The MMA Hour: 

If they’d like to get me a fight I’d like to get a rematch with Alistair Overeem, you know, when he comes back from his injury or from whatever, his hiatus. You know? I’d like to have my rematch with him. I’d be willing to fight next year so it doesn’t matter. If he gets a title shot, that’s good on him.

We hate to sound like a bunch of little schoolgirls but OMG JOE SILVA BOOK THIS FIGHT WE’LL LUV U 4EVER PLZZ!!

(Personally, I think this is a reasonable reaction.) 

We don’t mean to judge a book by it’s cover, but when that cover is a 327 lb man who goes by the name Tater Williams, it’s safe to say that he will more than likely end up on the wrong side of a knockout. Scratch that. If anything, a 327 lb dude named Tater Williams should most certainly end up on the RIGHT side of a knockout. His name is freaking TATER FREAKING WILLIAMS, and he uses catchphrases like “Five of these across the sneeze,” and “You’re gonna get ‘that’ about 147 times” in between asthmatic gasps for air. “That” being the aforementioned sneeze punches. Throw in the fact that Tater is apparently “a really great athlete” who has studied judo, wrestling, sambo, and had a high school wrestling record of 226-12* and not only is Tater suddenly looking like a well-rounded Goliath, but one who could demolish the likes of Junior Dos Santos, Cain Velasquez, and Alistair Overeem. At the same time. While in a diabetic coma.

Sadly, things do go quite according to plan in the next chapter of the XARM saga (but have they ever, really?), a sport so hilariously misguided that it really makes you yearn for the subtle nuances of wheelchair MMA. In today’s contest, Tater finds himself matched up against the slightly-slimmer Bond Laupua (I swear to God I am not making these names up), who is quick to admit that “I don’t really have a strategy” heading into the fight. The announcers inform us that Tater’s gameplan was to gain weight. HOW DID HE LOSE THIS.

Join us after the jump to see two bears wrestle over a jar of honey until one falls down. 

(Oh! So topical!)

From Rousimar Failhares to Scumbag Dana, we at CagePotato love a good MMA-themed image meme. And the jokers on the UG have been working on a great one this week: “Good Guy Junior Dos Santos,” a kind-hearted and honest heavyweight who is always there to help, and never gets nasty taint-sweat on your training tires. We’ve compiled a bunch of our favorites from that Underground thread, which continue after the jump. Enjoy!

(Step 1: Find a lawyer. Step 2: Explain that your ear didn’t look like that before the accident. Step 3: Collect large settlement. Step 4: Celebrate.)

If one more Brazilian UFC champion becomes involved in a car accident this month, we can officially start calling this a trend. Just a day after we reported that Jose Aldo was hit by a car while riding his motorcycle in Rio de Janeiro, MMA Convert passed along word that heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos was the victim of a hit-and-run while driving in Salvador, Brazil, last week. As JDS explained on his twitter (which was helpfully translated into Broken English by MMAConvert):

“The transit of Salvador giving this fear. They just hit my car and did not stop, continued to follow the path as if it were normal. Please let us be more aware and respect others. You win nothing with violence and disrespect. Crossing and follow in peace.”

Dos Santos escaped the incident without injury, and is still scheduled to defend his title against Cain Velasquez at UFC 155 on December 29th.

Speaking of dangerous drivers…

(Unfortunately, Ishanguly Meretnyyazov was the referee for this bout, and Velasquez ended up winning 13-11 on points.) 

Sorry, Alistair, it looks like you’ll just have to wait your turn.

In an interview with MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani that followed the UFC 150 post-fight press conference, Dana White was asked to answer a series of questions with simple “yes” or “no” answers. And although it seemed implausible that The Baldfather could ever go more than thirty seconds without uttering a certain curse word, he kindly obliged Helwani and spilled the beans in regards to several big questions currently circulating in the MMA world. Simply put, bullshit was cut through in record time.

And among the questions present in the back of Ariel’s (and everyone’s) mind was that of heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos and who would be the next man to get viciously mauled to death  bravely sacrifice himself for the good of The Colony ”challenge” him for the title. To put it in the words of DW: Overeem – No, Velasquez – Yes. Although an event has yet to be named, White said in a seperate interview that the pair would likely collide on the annually stacked New Year’s Eve card, also known as the card that Overeem will totally be fighting on.

After the jump: A full video interview, which details everything from the future of the BJ Penn/Rory MacDonald match to the specifics of Jon Jones’ Nike deal, and more.

(Alistair, we don’t want to question your lawyer’s advice, but we don’t think a ‘pose-off’ with Keith Kizer is really the solution to your problems.)

We’re not sure how much UFC heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem is paying for his legal advice and representation but hopefully he’s getting a discount. The unlicensed fighter recently went on MMA Uncensored and revealed that he hoped to appear in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) soon to reapply for a license early.

He’s been campaigning to fight champion Junior Dos Santos for the title in December, but wouldn’t realistically be able to do so unless he was licensed months prior to fight, in order to allow the UFC to promote the bout. After all, in just one fight with the UFC, The Reem has been great at either making the UFC nervous that he would blow a huge fight or in fact blow a huge fight because he has trouble taking and passing urine tests.

“I’m able to reapply for my license in December a couple days before the fight. But we have a strategy,” he said.

“We’re going to go in front of the commission sooner with the argument of good behavior. We have been doing random tests on our own. They were all witnessed by an independent doctor. In the hope of getting a license sooner. I think we will get it sooner. Maybe a conditional license that I have to appear and do some random tests.”

“We have a set date this month. Nothing confirmed, we’re gonna try and get it. Hopefully we will.”

(Hand shake deals ain’t what they used to be.)

Remember when UFC President Dana White said that former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez “deserved” the next shot at current kingpin Junior Dos Santos after Cain steamrolled Antonio Silva at UFC 146? Well, Velasquez certainly does and he seems upset over the buzz about Alistair Overeem leapfrogging him that has circulated recently.

When Alistair broke all of our hearts by failing a drug test and becoming ineligible to challenge Dos Santos (who won the belt by stopping Velasquez) and then was suspended from competition for a year, we figured he’d have to get back in line, at least a little bit, for a chance at UFC gold. But The Reem has been taking the Chael-lite approach to getting a title shot, ie. talking smack about the champion.

Overeem recently said that he feels Dos Santos is ducking him. Dos Santos didn’t take too kindly to that assertion, especially since it was Overeem that managed not to show up to fight when they were originally slated to face-off.

Junior’s anger at Alistair has gotten to the point where he’s expressed a preference to fighting the dangerous Dutch kick boxer next instead of Cain. Velasquez doesn’t have all that Brown Pride just to stand aside and let Overeem talk his way into a spot he earned so when the former champ visited The MMA Hour Monday, he let his feelings be known.