We’d like to start by thanking each and every one of you who have already donated to the “CagePotato’s Fight for ALF” Indiegogo page. Thanks to your generous contributions, we have already managed to raise $1,040 to help Laura “angrylittlefeet” Nicholson pay for the various expenditures related to her recent Hodgkin’s Lymphoma diagnosis. You guys are truly amazing.

That being said, we still have a ways to go if we are to reach our goal of $5000. So if you happen to have a few extra bucks laying around, please donate to this good cause today and help support a beloved member of the Potato Nation. And to give you an update on ALF‘s current situation, we go to none other than the woman herself:

angry little feet

Visit the “CagePotato’s Fight for A.L.F.” Indiegogo page today and contribute whatever you can; $50 gets you a CP “Pull No Punches” shirt, $1000 gets you a “No Questions Asked” webcam show with BG or Karma, and Danga is still willing to take “Head Kicks for Cancer” from anyone who lives in the Boston area for the low, low price of $200. Thanks again, you guys.

-J. Jones

(A personal message from Karmaatemycat, recorded last night.)

For years, Laura “angry little feet” Nicholson (aka “ALF”) has been a calming, motherly influence on CagePotato.com’s forums and comment sections. Just kidding — she’s a salty s.o.b., meaner than a sack full of rattlesnakes…and we wouldn’t change her for the world. A passionate supporter of mixed martial arts and a superstar on twitter (@angrylittlefeet), Laura has become a true friend to many folks in the Potato Nation.

Yesterday, we learned that Laura was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (“The big C“) and we were devastated. But we know that she won’t back down from this fight, and we’re going to have her back every step of the way.

Like so many Americans afflicted with cancer, Laura has no health insurance, and has already gone $10,000 into debt. We just want to help dig her out and raise her spirits. Every little bit helps, right? So we’ve started an Indiegogo page — “CagePotato’s Fight for ALF“ — and we’ll be asking for your donations* over the next couple months.

The $5,000 goal that we’ve set for this campaign represents a tiny slice of the financial burden that Laura will have to endure. That’s the reality. But we want ALF to know that we have her back, just as we’d have the back of any devoted CP family member who falls on hard times.

Give a dollar, give $5, give whatever you feel comfortable with. (By the way, a $50 donation gets you a CP t-shirt. A $1,000 donation gets you a live cam show with either BG or Karmaatemycat. Ten minutes, anything goes. Yeah, we’re working on better prizes.) All funds raised will go to Laura, even if we don’t reach our goal. Considering that tens of thousands of people visit this site every day, we’re confident that we can hit it.

We intend to mobilize the MMA community to help spread the word about Laura’s health situation and our efforts. In the meantime, visit the “CagePotato’s Fight for A.L.F.” Indiegogo page and join the fight. Thanks guys. We friggin’ love all of you.

— Ben Goldstein and Jefferey Watts

(Moustaches: For real men only. / Photo via CombatLifestyle)

Just a quick update for those of you who are participating in the men’s health awareness moustache-a-thon known as Movember: It starts today, so if you haven’t done so already, please shave your bristly face. And make sure to take photos of your moustache progress through the month, because we’ll be awarding a $100 StubHub gift card to the prettiest one at the end of the month.

If you’re not really the participatory type, but still want to help out a good cause, please donate a few bucks to CagePotato’s Mo’tato Nation team page (which you should join if you’re doing this), or Karmaatemycat’s personal page, because that dude keeps it real.

Good luck, Mo’ bros.

(Props: karmaatemycat.tumblr.com, the Internet’s #1 source for Karmaatemycat video blogs.)

The life of an MMA fighter isn’t all loose women and free lollipops. It’s a 24/7 grind, and if you’re a hungry up-and-comer without the benefit of fancy-shmancy UFC accident insurance, you might have to perform some home surgery once in a while.

Our dear friend Jefferey “Karmaatemycat” Watts recently posted the following vid on his official site after a nasty cauliflower ear flare-up, with the following description: “Oh yeah thats right I did it, I drained that bitch. I am sure it wont be the last time but dammit if I am not worried anymore and it beats waiting on useless Doctors who went to school for ten years to tell me about shit they don’t know anything about.”

So how did Karma’s ear-drainage go? Well, hit that play button and find out.

(Props: 1tSurge)

Jefferey “Karmaatemycat” Watts continues to let his haters be his motivators. The CagePotato Fight Team captain and fundraising superstar increased his amateur record to 4-1 on Saturday night in a featherweight bout at Raging Wolf XII in Irving, New York.

Jeff’s opponent Josh Lange entered the fight with a 6-0 ammy record, but had no answer to the riddle of Karma. After doing a Jon Jones impression for the first minute, Jeff stands and fires some leg kicks. Lange shoots and takes Karma down (BIG MISTAKE) but can’t do much with the position. Jeff calmly starts working his guard, and before long, he sinks a triangle choke. Sorry, judges.

It was an especially meaningful win for Karma, who spent the last month suffering through a fight cancellation and a knee injury, and was fighting in front of his friends and family for the first time. When Jeff finally goes pro and starts kicking asses in major organizations, remember where you saw him first.

After the jump: Video of Karma’s entrance. How many CagePotato t-shirts can you count?

(Yep. Just a couple of total badasses, right there.)

Do you know what today is, gentlemen? It’s the last day of Movember, which means that tomorrow you can finally shave your upper lip and return to a somewhat normal life. To celebrate, we’re proud to present the fourth and final installment of Dan Severn’s mailbag column, in which the famously-moustached UFC Hall of Famer shares his wisdom on worked fights, steroids, the death penalty, Chuck Norris’s beard, getting buck-ass naked in a parking lot, and more hot-button issues. Our deepest gratitude goes to Dan for gracing this website with his sense of humor and weird stories for the last month. Show him some love at DanSevern.com and his Facebook page.

But before we get into that, a couple parting notes about Movember. If you grew out an impressive mo’ this year, we encourage you to enter Break.com’s Show Off Your Mo contest for a chance to win a Samsung HD camera, and feel free to post a moustache pic on CagePotato’s Facebook wall. And if you still have some money left to donate, please consider doing it on KarmaAteMyCat’s CagePotato Mo Bro page. Karma’s tireless efforts have already raised $664 at the time of this writing — amazing work, bro — and he’s trying to break the $800 mark by the end of the day. Need more incentive than helping to fight testicular and prostate cancer? How ’bout this: Today’s biggest donor will receive a CagePotato t-shirt and, if you want it, a chance to write your own contributor column on CagePotato.

And now, the stunning conclusion of “Ask Dan”…

RwilsonR asks: Have you ever seen/been involved in/know anyone involved in any worked fights? Was this ever common practice with any promotions you have fought for?

(“Nice hipster glasses, buddy! Let’s see what they look like…SUPLEXED!!!!” Photo via Dan’s Facebook page.)

In this week’s installment of his mailbag column for CagePotato.com, UFC Hall of Famer Dan Severn discusses a memorably bloody Vale Tudo match, the greatest night of his career, and the technique that he wants to see banned from the sport.

DARKHORSE06 asks: What is the worst injury you ever received?

The worst injury I’ve ever received in my career has probably been a cut. One time I was competing in Brazil back in the No Holds Barred days — known as Vale Tudo in Brazil — and my opponent hit me with a big overhand right that split open my top lip. When I grabbed hold of him to try and shake some of the cobwebs out of my head I noticed he was covered in baby oil so I couldn’t get him down.

In the clinch, my opponent threw a knee up that hit me in the mouth and split my bottom lip open. Somehow he was able to get me into the corner and I couldn’t really see as he started trying to attack me with knees, stomps and other techniques of that nature. I was trying to think of some way out when suddenly it dawned on me to suck the blood off my face and into my mouth. Once it was in my mouth, I would basically just spit the blood into my opponent’s face because it was not against the rules. As my opponent looked away so as not to get any blood spit at him, that’s when I got the upper hand, swept his feet out from underneath him and dropped him down on his butt.

Here’s another highlight from Karma’s Big Adventure at Bellator 48 — an 11-minute gab session with the boss himself, Bjorn Rebney. After telling us that he reads and likes CagePotato (!?), Rebney discusses the upcoming production improvements for future Bellator broadcasts, the state of women’s MMA in Bellator, the promotion’s relationship with MTV2, the ways that Bellator develops fighters, and more. Also, Jeff plugs our Proving Ground promotion, and vows to become the Bundini Brown of women’s MMA. More to come…

Here’s what happens when you give an eccentric amateur MMA fighter a Bellator 48 press credential and tell him to “just have fun out there.” Our man Jeff “KarmaAteMyCat” Watts was representing CagePotato in Uncasville, Connecticut this weekend, and came back with a ton of interviews with the show’s stars and supporting players. We’ll kick things off with his chat with the victorious Seth Petruzelli. Instead of going the predictable route and asking the Silverback what it felt like to ruin Ricco Rodriguez’s 12-fight win streak, Karma uncovers Petruzelli’s feelings about fedoras and traditional martial arts — as well as his most beep-worthy photo with Tom Lawlor. Lots more to come…

While most of us were busy watching Diaz vs. Daley last Saturday, Potato Nation Fight Team captain Jeff Watts (aka ‘Karmaatemycat‘) was actually fighting, in an amateur bout at King of the Cage: Outkasts, held at Lake of the Torches Casino in Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin. It’s impressive enough that our man Karma now has cage experience at a well-respected regional event like KOTC. The Shinya Aoki grappling pants and the 80-second submission victory? That’s just icing on the cake, homey.

As with his last fight, Karma proves himself to be an adept wrestler, needing all of six seconds to put his opponent on the mat. From there, it’s a methodical progression to full mount, and a textbook rear-naked choke when his opponent rolls to escape. The fight aftermath is just as entertaining. Watch as Jeff shouts out his team, apologizes to the judges (LOL!), gets hug-snubbed by his opponent (BOOOO!), gives love to “CagePotatoMMA!” then asks the audience “What the fuck is up?!” He even got the announcer to shout out our site. Epic victory, brother — we’re proud of you.

(LargeMidget, Karmaatemycat, and Joe.)

Better late than never, right? Here’s the first installment of Jeff Watts‘s UFC 128/TUF 14 tryout saga. Thanks to everyone who helped make it possible, and stay tuned for more…

After waiting several weeks and training hard I left my humble abode with intentions to make the most out of an amazing experience. I remember driving to Milwaukee, WI, just thinking that no matter what happened, haters were going to hate and my real supporters were going to be there when the dust settled, and I was right. So I got a last minute flight to Newark, NJ, and arrived at my destination at 12am on Saturday, March 19th. I spent the remaining part of the night in the airport with other members of the gym. We checked into the hotel at 7am and spent the majority of Saturday morning sleeping.

Saturday March 19th
I woke up early afternoon and did what I had to do to get ready for the day. The Marriot in Newark had some really cool people working there; they gave the guys and I a quiet place to do some sparring and pad work. After working out I got a text message; I can’t remember who it came from but they essentially told me that LargeMidget had an extra ticket to UFC 128. I wasted no time getting his contact information and contacting him. He told me that he and his friend Joe were three hours out and had an extra ticket I could have, so I got some food in me and headed downtown.

Though Jeff “Karmaatemycat” Watts‘s TUF 14 tryout journey was cut short due to his record (more on that to come), the scrappy Potato Nation member does make a brief appearance at the 1:40-1:44 mark of the above video from MMAFighting.com. Had Watts been able to show off his skills for Dana & Co., he would have been doing so alongside such well-traveled 135/145-pound vets as Ian McCall, Bryan Caraway, Nick Denis, Matt Jaggers, Jose Vega, Paul McVeigh, and (as we see in this other highlight vid from KahL-One) Din Thomas. He would have also picked up $100 cash for every submission he pulled off. Oh well. Next time, bro…

Big, big congratulations to Potato Nation member Jeff “karmaatemycat” Watts, who increased his amateur MMA record to 2-1 on Saturday night, scoring a dominant decision victory over Rusty Dafoe at the LCO Cage Fights event in Hayward, Wisconsin. And as promised, he came out wearing his CagePotato Devil Horns t-shirt, like a boss. You did us proud, buddy. Video of the fight is after the jump, along with some play-by-play…

Our first interactive edition of The Bum Rush Radio Show went really well yesterday thanks to our loyal readers and listeners who really made the episode.

We’re thinking about doing a live segment for every episode moving forward, so let us know what you think about the idea and whether or not you’d all be interested in participating in future shows.

If you didn’t catch Episode 9 live yesterday, we spoke a bit about UFC 121 and the UFC-WEC merger as well as a glut of other topics including how CP came to be. Some of our loyal readers got in on the action sharing their favorite Cage Potato moments and how they stumbled across our little site.

Rounding out the show, we spoke to UFC middleweight contender Nate Marquardt about his UFC 122 opponent Yushin Okami, PEDs, the opinion of some that Team Jackson fighters play it safe and taking Internet trolls to task for real.

Have a listen, give us your suggestions for future episodes and tell us what you like and what you hate about the show.

If you don’t have iTunes (which you really should) and you can’t listen to the live player at the top of the page, you can download the show HERE.