(Watch Randleman transform from Bruce Banner into The Incredibly Vengeful Hulk at 30 second mark.) 

Back in August, we ran with a story on former UFC heavyweight champion and recently retired (at least according to his Wikipedia page) martial artist Kevin Randleman, who threatened to “rip a piece off” that “pussy” Matt Riddle via Twitter for allegedly disrespecting his wife back in the day. It’s not that we didn’t believe Randleman, it’s just that we were a little puzzled that Riddle, who always struck us as the Corky from Life Goes On of the MMA world (specifically, Corky during his “Fight the Power” phase), would even posses the ability to verbally berate anyone other than those “butter-toothed Brits.”

But whatever Riddle did say to Randleman’s wife must have been a doozy, because in his recent interview with MiddleEasy, Randleman absolutely lost his shit when Riddle’s name was brought up, calling him a “bitch ass motherfucking pussy” (4 STRIKE COMBO!!) among other things. Making it all the more hilarious was the fact that Randleman’s profanity-laden rant came less than 30 seconds after he discussed what it was like to finally be a role model for his son now that he was removed from all the negative publicity he’s received in the past. You just don’t see that kind of irony everyday.

After the jump: The low down on what allegedly led to the beef between Riddle and Randleman, as told by a UGer claiming to be a former ring announcer for Pure MMA.

(Who said “Huuuge bitch!” behind my back?! Who said it?!) 

As anyone who has married friends will tell you, no matter how funny it is to let said friend complain about how terrible/annoying/insufferable their wife is, you are never to make fun of said wife unless given a direct order to do so. Apparently something of this nature went down between Kevin Randleman and Matt Riddle recently, as Randleman recently unleashed nothing short of a deluge of threats aimed at Riddle over Twitter, citing alleged comments Riddle had made to his wife as his reasoning for wanting to “rip a piece off” the TUF 7 alum.

Just check out the anger in the tweets that await you after the jump. A line has clearly been crossed.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/CP)

UFC featherweight champion José Aldo made his MMA debut seven years ago at EcoFight 1 in Amapá, Brazil.

Why it matters:

It’s not the fact that Aldo defeated Mario Bigola in just 18 seconds by soccer-kick KO at the event,  it’s that he did it at the age of 17, setting the tone for what would become a dominant career. Bigola retired following the bout and Aldo racked up an impressive 19-1 record, including an undefeated eight-fight tear through the WEC and successful defenses of his WEC and UFC belts.

(Vadim’s revenge on Dana: Selling bootleg UFC shirts.)

Fedor Emelianenko’s manager Vadim Finkelchtein did an interview recently with Championat.com about the fighting future of his fighter whose career has hit a roadblock following his third straight loss two weeks ago to Dan Henderson. During the Q&A the Dana White’s favorite crazy Russian revealed that “The Last Emperor” will fight in the fall in Russia on the next M-1 Global show, possibly against fellow slumping former PRIDE standout Kevin Randleman, and that the event will likely be shown on Showtime.

Check out the full translation of what Vadim had to say after the jump.

(That’s the face of a man who values his privacy. Photoprops: Esther Lin/Strikeforce)

You know, when I woke up this morning, I never expected to read a news story involving Kevin Randleman‘s possibly-fake penis. But unfortunately, I did — and since I can’t get that horrible image out of my head, you’re going to have to hear about it too. Here’s Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer talking to MMAJunkie about the infamous Randleman-at-PRIDE 32 situation, which was the last time that his commission’s testing body has been burned by fake urine:

Kizer said Randleman’s deception began with the collection of his sample.

“What he did was he grabbed the inner-thigh of his shorts, kind of pulled it open, stuck out what we thought was the tip of his penis – it was the same color as the rest of his skin – and then urinated in the cup and gave it to our inspector,” he said…

(Ed. note: See, for me, that “same color as the rest of his skin” bit would be a dead giveaway. Everybody knows that wiener-skin is a shade darker than the rest of the guy it’s attached to. Come on, where were these NSAC guys licensed, anyway? Moving on…)

(Not so fast, buddy: Silva’s big win could cost him dearly. Photoprops: MMAGospel)

Reports about Thiago Silva‘s sketchy UFC 125 drug test results have been swirling since last month, and were allegedly the cause for Silva’s removal from a slated bout with Quinton Jackson at UFC 130, as well as Brandon Vera’s sudden un-firing. And even though Silva’s camp promised us that the light-heavyweight’s drug test would come back normal, the Nevada State Athletic Commission is telling a different story today. As the NSAC confirmed with FightersOnly and MMAJunkie, Silva is being accused of supplying a urine sample that was not from a human source.

(Actually, make that the “9 MMA Fights That Were Over Before They Started.”)

By Cage Potato contributor Chris Colemon

Your average Mixed Martial Artist devotes three months of his life to preparing for a fight. That’s ninety days of rigorous training and dieting; ninety days of mental preparation and time spent away from friends and family. That great sacrifice becomes worthwhile the moment the bell rings and he gets to show the world what ninety days of commitment can bring. There are few better ways of displaying your hard work than to shut down your opponent in the blink of an eye. After months of speculation, hype, and anticipation, you could say that such fights were over before they even began. You could say that, but you’d be wrong. That ignoble distinction belongs to a whole other category of fights. Fights that didn’t end with a winner and a loser. Fights that didn’t make the sacrifice of training worthwhile. Fights that were truly over before they began.

Check them out after the jump.

(Sorry, buddy — "chill dawg" is not in Alistair’s vocabulary. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

On May 17, 2010, the Potato Index becomes self-aware. Human decisions are removed from post-fight analysis. In a panic, CagePotato’s editors try to pull the plug. The Potato Index fights back. It launches its arbitrary numerical ranking system against the fighters of this weekend’s Strikeforce show. There are no survivors.

Alistair Overeem +265, pending result of drug test
The Demolition Man said he had nothing to prove in his fight against Brett Rogers, but he proved a hell of a lot: First, that he can compete in the U.S. against opponents who aren’t hand-picked victims. Second, that he’s absolutely one of the best heavyweights in the world. The way he tossed the Grim to the mat like a child and didn’t waver in his assault until the job was finished suggested that a fight between him and Fedor could actually be…competitive? Unfortunately, his criticism of Emelianenko’s management following the event has some validity. Just because the fight should happen doesn’t necessarily mean it will.

Brett Rogers -210
Apparently you need more than just heavy hands to hang with the division’s elite. Rogers offered nothing in this fight other than a large surface for punching; he never had a chance to enact any sort of gameplan, and his attempts to kick Overeem off of him and create an escape route were completely swallowed up. He’ll need a tune-up match against a lower-level prospect if Strikeforce hopes to restore some value to his name. Lavar Johnson sounds about right.

(Besides sporadically training MMA, Bobby Lashley has been saying his prayers and taking his vitamins and the results have been staggering.)

Strikeforce held a media conference call today with Andrei Arlovski, Antonio "Big Foot" Silva, Roger Gracie and Kevin Randleman to hype their upcoming
 Saturday May 15 “Heavy Artillery” event in St. Louis.

You probably didn’t notice because you were too busy being distracted by the bright lights of UFC 111, but there was another massive MMA event on Saturday, only this one was south of the border. Kim “Sugar Free” Couture – the woman known primarily for being briefly married to a famous MMA fighter, as well as for being hated intensely by many female fighters who made their way up the ranks without appropriating someone else’s famous name or building unintentionally hilarious websites – traveled down to Sonora, Mexico to compete in the Xtreme Fighters Mexico event.

On her Twitter, Couture wrote that her initial opponent “quit” at the last minute and was replaced by Rosa Vizcarra, who weighed ten pounds over the 135-pound limit that Couture had agreed to, but what are you going to do? It’s Mexico, after all. Couture also described being part of a pre-fight parade through the streets of Sonora, and after seeing Kevin Randleman (who ended up in her corner for the fight) sitting on top of a Corona bus waving to the crowd, declared, “This is the Biggest Event Ever!”

It’s possible she got swept up in the moment there and forget that you could probably hire Randleman to make a promotional appearance at a house party for a couple hundred bucks and all the wings he can eat.

("When I find out who did this to my window, I am going to Randleplex the shit out of them." Photo courtesy of flickr.com/photos/shosports.)

Strikeforce’s May 15th event in St. Louis — which is slated to feature the heavyweight clashes between Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers and Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva — picked up two more notable matchups this week. First off, BJJ prodigy Roger Gracie (2-0) is set to face off against explosive UFC/PRIDE veteran Kevin Randleman (17-14). Gracie’s grappling credentials include eight titles at the Mundials and sweeps of the 98kg and Absolute divisions at the 2005 ADCCs; his last MMA fight was two years ago, when he choked out Yuki Kondo at Sengoku 2. Randleman has suffered decision losses in his last two bouts against Mike Whitehead and Stanislav Nedkov, and has dropped nine of his last 12.

Meanwhile in the lightweight division, fast-rising prospect Lyle "Fancy Pants" Beerbohm (13-0, 12 wins by stoppage) will get his next test against former top 10 lightweight Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro. After a long period of injury-related inactivity, Ribeiro returned to MMA competition last year in DREAM, defeating Katsuhiko Nagata by TKO, but then losing a decision to Shinya Aoki. Beerbohm’s last two Strikeforce appearances saw him choke out Duane "Bang" Ludwig and score a doctor’s-stoppage TKO over Rafaello Oliveira.

Speaking of Strikeforce, their middleweight champ Jake Shields may not be sticking around after his next fight. As he told Graciemag:

(Massive props: GYVIDEOS, The Killers)

Cro Cop‘s head kicks. The Gracie Train. The double-knockout. The Randleplex. The flying inverse triangle choke. Severn‘s suplexes. Inoki’s slaps. Coleman‘s daughters. The entrance. The face-off. The blood. The towel. The destroyed limbs. The shaving gel endorsement. The agony and the ecstasy. The subtitle of this film is "MMA Is Just a Sport." We know better than that. Two more GY PRODUCTION films are after the jump. Happy Monday.

(Khalidov vs. Santiago)

Apologies for the delay/lack of attention on this, but Sengoku’s eleventh event took place early Saturday in Tokyo. Some highlights/lowlights…

— The headlining featherweight match between Hatsu Hioki and Michihiro Omigawa featured two things that have become common in Sengoku: A shocking upset for perennial underdog Omigawa, and an inexplicably bad judges’ decision. Hioki controlled the fight with his grappling in the first round, and dominated the standup in the second. Though Omigawa rallied in the final frame, few expected him to take the split decision victory. Afterwards, even Omigawa disagreed with the scoring.

— Chechen-Polish upstart Mamed "Cannibal" Khalidov scored a surprise first-round knockout of Sengoku middleweight champ Jorge Santiago. After a takedown by Santiago, Khalidov was able to stun Santiago with a punch from the bottom, then scrambled to top position and quickly finished the fight. Because it was a non-title bout, Santiago remains the champion. Love it when that happens.

— Kevin Randleman and undefeated Bulgarian prospect Stanislav Nedkov put on a three-round wrestling match that ended with one judge scoring it for Nedkov and the other two calling it a draw. In keeping with Sengoku’s ridiculous traditions, the two judges who didn’t pick a winner were required to cast "must decision" votes, and Nedkov walked away with a split-decision victory. Full results plus more fight videos can be found after the jump.

Strikeforce…How the Sausage is Made – Watch more Funny Videos

When I arrived at the Scottrade Center on Saturday, Gus Johnson and the Strikeforce crew were in the middle of going through a dry-run, testing the camera setups, production cues, and pyrotechnics, while a few of the fighters worked out their own bugs in the cage. So if you were ever curious to see what happens a couple hours before a big televised MMA show, check out the video above, in which random PAs stand in for Phil Baroni and Nick Diaz; apologies for the shakiness in the beginning. The centerpiece of this clip starts at the 0:30 mark: Brett Rogers was running through some sprawls when Kevin Randleman entered the cage and, as if on cue, an epic groove started blasting from the speakers. The Monster’s vibe was infectious, and by the 1:10 mark, the Strikeforce cage was the hottest dance club in St. Louis.

("Guys, you can get some of those cupcakes *after* we take this face-off picture, okay? Guys?" Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Hello, and welcome to a special "From Press Row" edition of the CagePotato liveblog. That’s right – I’m typing to you from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis tonight, not from my usual spot on my couch in Brooklyn. The good part? I’m about 25 feet from the cage and wedged between some of the brightest minds in MMA journalism. The bad part? Slamming beers, eating wings, and loudly showing bias towards my favorite fighters is frowned upon here, apparently. But we’re gonna try to have a good time anyway. Live round-by-round results are after the jump, starting at 9 p.m. CT. Hit that "read more" link and refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest. Time to do work, son.

(Kevin Randleman is athletic *and* explosive! Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

All fighters successfully weighed in today for Saturday’s Strikeforce event, which will be held at the Scottrade Center and broadcast on Showtime. CageWriter passes along this little detail from the weigh-in:

Yeah, that sounds about right. The numbers are after the jump. Don’t forget to swing by tomorrow night starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT as we liveblog the televised card. Fire up, Potato Nation!

(My God, the animosity between these two. It’s like the entire room could burst into flames at any moment.)

MMA fans have a full dance-card this weekend, with Strikeforce putting on a stacked Showtime event on Saturday night (10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT), and the WEC following it up on Sunday night with a show on Versus headlined by featherweight champion Mike Brown’s second meeting with Urijah Faber (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT). Be sure to come back here Saturday night for the Strikeforce liveblog — and get psyched for the whole shebang by reading the latest installment of the longest-running MMA argument on the Internet. Ben vs. Ben starts right now…

Brett Rogers says he wants to stand and bang with Andrei Arlovski on Saturday. That sounds like a horrible idea for "The Grimm," given that Arlovski is just as big and strong as he is but with much more technical striking. Does Rogers stand a chance with that strategy, or is he an unconscious man walking at this point?

BG: WTF? Is Rogers supposed to take Arlovski down and sub him out with his battle-tested Grimjitsu? I’m not trying to hate on Brett’s ground game, because none of us have actually seen it; he’s a brawler, and thus far he’s only had to face other brawlers. Arlovski, on the other hand, actually has some submission skills in his back pocket. So while we know that Rogers will be fighting an uphill battle on Saturday night, I’d say his odds decrease even further if the fight goes anywhere else besides stand-and-bangville.

Brett’s only shot is to stick to his bread-and-butter and swing those hamhocks. The fact that Arlovski’s hands are far more technical means that the Grimm will probably get picked apart. But Arlovski’s unreliable chin makes him vulnerable to what Rogers brings into the cage. That’s what makes this fight compelling for me: Brett Rogers definitely should not be able to beat Andrei Arlovski — but he just might.

BF: With regard to the submission skills in Arlovski’s back pocket, I hope your finger slipped and you really meant to type ‘submission skill.’ As in, his straight achilles lock. That’s all the dude’s got on the mat and he goes to it like it’s his signature killer move, so let’s not pretend that there any Arlovski-platas in the near future.

(By the way, it’s perfectly natural to have thighs like that. Diet and exercise, people.)

After announcing that he would fight anybody at any time in Strikeforce, then turning down a fight against Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante, then threatening the lives of all the keyboard warriors who pointed out the contradiction, Kevin Randleman has changed his mind and accepted a place on Strikeforce’s June 6th "Lawler vs. Shields" card after all. MMA Fanhouse reports that Randleman will be taking on UFC/IFL/Affliction veteran Mike Whitehead, whose sole loss in his last 15 fights came in a decision against Renato Sobral at Affliction: Banned. Whitehead holds notable victories over Ben Rothwell, Travis Fulton, Mark Kerr, and Krzystof Soszynski, and most recently submitted Leo Pla at an M-1 Challenge event last October. With the addition of the Randleman/Whitehead light-heavyweight bout, the lineup for "Lawler vs. Shields" currently looks like this:

Tracy Lee of Combat Lifestyle recently uploaded a metric assload of pics she took at Kevin Randleman‘s wedding last Saturday. (Congrats, Monster!) Among the familiar faces from Hammer House and the requisite pics of old people dancing were some great shots of MMA sex symbol Gina Carano, who showed up to the festivities with grappling coach Scott Bieri on her arm. A few more of our favorite pics from the highly-entertaining set are after the jump. You can check out all of ‘em here.

(Props: D Wizzle’s World)

Above is a video of former UFC champ Kevin Randleman announcing his comeback at a press conference for "Shamrock vs. Diaz" earlier this month, in which he said, and I quote:

Granted, Randleman made it clear later that he’d really like to fight Tito Ortiz, but we weren’t expecting him to turn down the first fight offered to him after his "bring ‘em on" press-conference speech — especially when his employer could use the help. From a new MMA Fanhouse report:

("Y’know, I used to box a little myself. Say, do you party?" Photo courtesy of this great set on allelbows.)

If not for Cris Cyborg’s woman-problems fiasco, last night’s Strikeforce show would have been an unequivocal success. There were memorable knockouts, brilliant performances (we take back every bad thing we ever said about you, Nick), and one fight (Smith vs. Radach) that will probably make year-end lists as one of the best matches of 2009. Here are some of the stories coming out of the event…

— "Shamrock vs. Diaz" pulled in 15,211 fans for an estimated live gate of $750,000. Said Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker: "We scaled the tickets back for the economy to make it affordable…We tried to be considerate and make it affordable for everybody. Would we like to scale (up) the prices and bring in more revenue? There will be a time for that. We’ll keep building it."

— In the post-event press conference, Coker stated that he’d like to put together the much-anticipated bout between Gina Carano and Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos for Strikeforce’s August event, and said it would be for "our first Strikeforce female title belt." As for the ongoing contract talks with Gina Carano, Coker said, "We’re currently negotiating the final touches of this contract. Hopefully we’ll get it to bed here in the next two weeks or a week. I think we’re very close."

— Also during the press-conference, recent Strikeforce signee Fabricio Werdum said that he’d like to be a future opponent for Alistair Overeem; Werdum previously submitted Overeem via kimura at PRIDE Total Elimination Absolute in May 2006. Said Werdum: "I’m going to take the other arm home. And then the third time it’s going to be hard to fight with no arms at all." Overlooked once again, Brett Rogers said "Before everybody walks away, I mean I wouldn’t mind fighting Overeem. That would be nice right there." Awww, of course it would, big guy!

(Jake Shields, pictured here with his son Gilbert Melendez.)

Multiple sources have informed FiveOuncesofPain that a welterweight matchup between Jake Shields and Joe Riggs, which was slated to go down at Strikeforce’s "Shamrock vs. Diaz" event on April 11th, has been scrapped. Writes 5oz:

While he was the 170-pound champ of EliteXC, Shields had entertained the notion of going up in weight to challenge Robbie Lawler, due to the lack of challenges at welterweight. We thought the new bodies at Strikeforce would keep Shields entertained at 170 for a while longer, but it sounds like he’s more interested in big fights than welterweight tune-ups, and we respect that. Besides, weight classes are more of a suggestion than a rule at Strikeforce anyway.

Update, 5:30 p.m. ET: Shields vs. Lawler has officially been announced for Strikeforce’s May event, which will take place somewhere in Washington state. It will be a non-title fight, contested at middleweight.

In other Strikeforce news, former UFC heavyweight champ and PRIDE vet Kevin Randleman has reportedly signed a deal to return to MMA competition under the Strikeforce banner. Randleman last competed at Sengoku II last May, where he won a unanimous decision over Ryo Kawamura. Though "The Monster" was terrifying in hs prime, he has lost seven of his last ten fights. The date of his next match and his opponent have yet to be announced.

(Props: Tapout.com via MMA Scraps.)

So Tapout has this new short film called “Pit Fight Redux,” which stars Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman, and Seth Petruzelli. At first it seems to be about a futuristic dystopian prison, where inmates have to fight for their freedom. Unfortunately, at about the five-minute mark the story falls apart and the narrator explains that the prison is really a metaphor for all of us being trapped in cages of our own making. Seriously. Can anybody make heads or tails of this goddamned thing?

(Props: MMA Mania)

Sportscenter scored an interview with John McCain last week and got the Republican Presidential candidate to open up about boxing and MMA (known to old people as “Ultimate Fighting”). It seems like he’s cooled down considerably since his “human cockfighting” days — McCain acknowledges that the sport is less barbaric today, and admits that his primary impression of MMA was based on a single fight, which featured “a guy bashing his head into an opponent’s face that was literally unconscious.” If anyone can identify which Mark Kerr fight he’s referring to, let us know.

(Props: Hiostaja via Fightlinker)

DREAM.6 airs live tonight on HDNet at 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT. To get you psyched for the middleweight grand prix, check out this preview/highlight vid, which features lots of exploding heads and limbs.

(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

We’ve all seen the lovely staph infection of Kevin Randleman.

Now behold…

…the equally heinous staph of Drew McFedries.

Thanks to MMAMania for assisting in grossing us all out.

Nightmare of Battle passes along the news that Sengoku II — which is scheduled for May 18th at Tokyo’s Ariake Colosseum — will feature a bout between Kevin “The Monster” Randleman and “Big” Jim York. You may remember Randleman as the former UFC heavyweight champion who got a suplex-variation named after him in 2004 and went through a nasty bout of staph last year. York is a New Zealand-based vet of the MARS and Spartan Reality Fight clubs, who’s won all nine of his fights since getting choked out in his pro debut. By comparison, Randleman has only won two of his last nine fights (though they’ve been against much, much tougher competition than York’s).

The match joins already-booked bouts between Satoru Kitaoka and Ian Schaffa, as well as Eiji Mitsuoka vs. Kwang Hee Lee; Roger Gracie, Yoshihiro Nakao, Yuki Sasaki are still expected to compete, against fighters to be names later.

In other semi-interesting fighter news, Affliction’s nascent MMA promotion has picked up Mark Hominick for its debut card, slated for July in Texas. Hominick most recently competed as a featherweight for WEC, and has also fought for TKO and the UFC; his opponent hasn’t yet been named. Hominick’s manager Shawn Tompkins confirmed that Affliction is no longer doing business with Golden Boy Productions: “I heard there was a conflict between HDNet and HBO wanting the TV rights to the shows.”

Hey man, it’s like John Thor said — everybody wants a piece of the action.

Lookin’ good, buddy! For the “before” pic, go here…

(Source: punchdrunkgamer.com)