#2: Norifumi Yamamoto vs. Kazuyuki Miyata @ K-1 Hero’s 5 (5/3/06), 4 seconds

Though the official time of the stoppage was 0:04 into round 1, that seems more like a generous estimate than an exact measurement. Kid Yamamoto takes a Rickey Henderson-style leadoff before the fight even starts, and dives knee-first into the hapless Kazuyuki Miyata’s face. Miyata clearly hadn’t trained for this scenario, but as he’d find out, ducking into the blow is not the most effective defense. The stunning flying-knee KO was Yamamoto’s 11th-straight win, his ninth-straight win by stoppage, and the fastest knockout in MMA history to that point. Unfortunately, his record wouldn’t last long…

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO

(‘Okay, quit messing around now.  Where’s the rest of my paycheck?’)

Give the UFC credit, they can spot a nascent, kind-of-but-not-really grudge match in the making a mile away.  MMA Madness reports that Matt Hamill will meet Brandon Vera at UFC 101 in Philadelphia to see who has the chops to make it in the light heavyweight division and who will end up on the receiving end of an assholish celebration.

As you probably recall, Hamill head-kicked Vera’s friend and training partner, Mark Munoz, into a briefly frightening unconscious state, then paraded around the Octagon like he’d just hit a walk-off homerun in the last World Series game ever.  Hamill would later explain the celebration by pointing out that a) he’s deaf, so vibrations from an excited crowd get him really pumped, and b) he doesn’t head kick that many people, and this one was pretty sweet.

#4: Takanori Gomi vs. Ralph Gracie @ PRIDE Bushido 3 (5/23/04), 6 seconds

Known for his very un-Gracie-like hard-charging style, Ralph Gracie racked up five-straight first-round stoppages in vale tudo matches during the ‘90s before re-entering competition in 2003 to test himself against modern mixed martial artists. But his PRIDE debut against Dokonjonosuke Mishima at Bushido 1 didn’t go so well — he only won by decision — and he returned to the ring seven months later ready to murder somebody. And that babyfaced little Japanese dude in the red corner, who Ralph’s student BJ Penn had choked out the year before? Yeah, he’d do. But Gracie was a little too anxious to get out there and kick ass (as evidenced by his refusal to touch gloves), and when he shot in right after the bell, his jaw ricocheted off Gomi’s knee; the Fireball Kid took over from there. This was the fight that officially put Gomi on the map — and served as the final six seconds in Ralph Gracie’s MMA career.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

#5: Jonathan Goulet vs Joey Brown @ TKO 17 (9/25/04), 7 seconds
He calls himself the Road Warrior, but Jonathan Goulet may as well be nicknamed “The Flash.” Twenty-five of the UFC/TKO veteran’s 32 pro fights have ended in the first round, and six have ended within the first 30 seconds. (Luckily, he’s won most of them.) Goulet’s all-time fastest victory was this seven-second KO against Joey “Knockdown” Brown. All it took was a head kick, a quick Thai clinch, and a knee fired right up the middle, and Brown was in dreamland. The win was Goulet’s fifth in what became a ten-fight win streak, which culminated in him scoring a contract with the UFC, shooting down Jay Hieron in his notoriously bloody Octagon debut, and choking out Shonie Carter back in Canada. As for Brown, he still seemed to be dizzy from Goulet’s knee during his next four fights, losing all of them.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

#6: James Irvin vs. Houston Alexander @ UFC Fight Night 14 (4/2/08), 8 seconds

If you compiled James Irvin’s best and worst moments, you’d probably have the craziest MMA highlight reel ever. After all, this is the guy who took out Terry Martin via flying-knee, fell through the cage against Bobby Southworth, was whipping Thiago Silva’s ass until his knee exploded, and became Anderson Silva’s first light-heavyweight victim. And even with all those wild finishes, the Sandman may be remembered best for the out-of-nowhere knockout victory he scored over poor Houston Alexander at UFC Fight Night 13 last April. Honestly, who leads off a fight with a Superman punch? As crazy as it sounds, that was Irvin’s game-plan from the beginning. It’s hard to predict what he would have done next if Alexander survived that punch. A spinning-backfist, perhaps? A sudden and unexplained case of total paralysis, maybe? You just never know with this guy.

Honorable mentions: Don Frye vs. Thomas Ramirez @ UFC 8 (2/16/96), and Jonathan Goulet vs. Travis Axworthy @ TKO 29 (6/1/07) — which also lasted 8 seconds

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

Many of you disagreed with our description of yesterday’s cartwheel kick knockout as “the greatest KO ever.”  Yeah, we weren’t totally serious about that (ever heard of hyberbole?), but our good friend Matt Brown, editor of Fight! Magazine, took issue with it and sent us the above video to demonstrate what a truly amazing knockout looks like.

These two midgets pull out all the stops in this kickboxing bout, and as you can tell the announcer (is that you, Frank Trigg?) is loving it. So is this yet another sign of the impending apocalypse?  Maybe.  But we prefer to think of it as a sign that Matt Brown is a weirdo.  Don’t worry though, he insists that he only stumbled across the video by accident while searching for midget porn.

After the jump, Kimo Leopoldo is out of jail and breaking bricks with his head.  Is that more or less bizarre than the midgets?  You decide.

#7: Chris Willems vs. Akoni Nakila @ Rumble on the Rock Beatdown 4 (7/14/07), 9 seconds

What you’re about to witness is the MMA equivalent of a walk-off home run. Chris “Red Bull” Willems gets a leg-kick checked at the start of this fight, but then reloads and goes upstairs — hard. The sound of foot impacting with face can be heard all the way in the cheap seats, and Akoni Nakila is comatose before he even hits the canvas. We’ve seen some gnarly head-kick KOs in our time, but this one is a freakin’ masterpiece; Cro Cop himself couldn’t have painted it better.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VID…

#8: Neil Grove vs. James Thompson @ Cage Rage 22 (7/14/07), 10 seconds

Three years after his embarrassing 11-second destruction at the hands of Fedor’s younger brother, James Thompson managed to shave one second off of his personal getting-knocked-out record during this Cage Rage match against 2-0 rookie Neil Grove. Following a very brief feeling-out process, Grove starts swinging his big meathooks around until one of them connects squarely on Thompson’s glass chin, sending the Colossus facedown onto the mat for a lil’ nap. The announcer immediately calls the stoppage “UN-BA-LAY-VA-BOWL,” but honestly, what did you expect to see in a fight between two British heavyweights — a flying gogoplata?

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

(Go ahead.  Tell Chuck you forgot to order the ice cream cake for his birthday party.  I’m sure he’ll understand.)

As Chuck Liddell prepares to try and prove to Dana White and the rest of the MMA world that he still belongs in the UFC, some recent comments seem to suggest that he maybe he has suffered serious head trauma after all.  Regarding his goal to take back the UFC light heavyweight strap, Liddell told Fighters Only:

“I don’t plan on letting [Rashad Evans] stay champ for long. I thought I was winning that fight. I made a mistake, got caught and dropped. I was winning the fight up until then.  People ask me about retiring after that fight. It wasn’t like I got my ass kicked and then got knocked out. I was winning the fight, got sloppy for a second and got caught. I made a mistake.”

[Sigh]  I can’t help but feel like he’s using the old ‘got caught’ explanation as a crutch here.  Yes, he got caught in the sense that he left himself wide open and was absolutely hammered by a right hand from Evans.  But he wasn’t really winning the fight up until then.  He wasn’t losing, either.  The fight was fairly even with little significant action.  And then he got knocked out.

Watch Steve Cofield’s video interview with Brandon Vera and see if you aren’t suddenly glad that “The Truth’s” formerly-overpaid ass is sticking around in the UFC.  The best part is when he addresses Matt Hamill’s post-fight celebration after knocking out Vera’s friend and training partner, Mark Munoz, at UFC 96.  Hamill caught some flack for acting like he just made a half-court shot worth a million bucks during halftime at a Laker game, when all the while his opponent was still crumpled in a motionless heap against the cage.

As Vera explains at the 3:30 mark, winning a fight in the UFC (particularly by bonus-worthy KO) is actually a lot like winning the lottery:

#10: Luiz Azeredo vs. Naoyuki Kotani @ PRIDE Bushido 9 (9/25/05), 11 seconds

The unspoken first rule of Chute Boxe seems to be, “When you’ve got a guy hurt, hurt him worse.” Representing the notoriously aggressive Brazilian camp at PRIDE’s 2005 lightweight tournament was Luiz “The Joker” Azeredo, who may as well have taken a baseball bat to the ring with him during his quarterfinal match against Naoyuki Kotani. Azeredo wastes no time in dazing the Japanese fighter with a dead-on right straight, then place-kicks Kotani’s melon like he’s aiming for a set of goalposts 40 yards downfield. The knees to the head that came directly after might have been a bit unnecessary, but the Joker was too consumed by bloodlust at that point to stop. Despite his intimidating opening-round performance, Azeredo went on to lose a decision to Takanori Gomi later that night. As for Kotani, he has finally regained the use of his lower body, though he still pronounces his “th”s as “f”s.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

Before he was damn-near-killing people in the WEC, #6-ranked featherweight Jose Aldo was doing it in small Brazilian shows. We just came across this video of Aldo’s fourth pro fight against Aritano Barbosa; watch as Aldo puts Barbosa’s lights out with a knee (see also: Aldo vs. Rolando Perez at WEC 39), jackhammer-punches him for a while, then ends the fight with some of the most brutal soccer kicks in MMA history. Hardcore, brah.

Below: Fightlinker dug up this video of a girl-on-guy vale tudo match, if you’re into that sort of thing. The fight starts off with the dude clearly taking it easy on the little lady — and wouldn’t you know, he winds up paying for it at the end. And therein lies the Catch 22 of fighting a woman: If you go 100% and smash her, you’re an asshole. If you half-ass it and get armbarred, you’re a pussy. And my God, look at the guy’s face at the 3:03 mark. I don’t even let my own girlfriend beat me like that.

(I know, tons of words rhyme with Shane, but let’s think this through.)

There’s a discussion brewing in our forums right now, begun by user LuketheDuke, with the goal of finding a suitable nickname for UFC heavyweight Shane Carwin.  Luke is right, here.  Carwin doesn’t have a nickname (that we know of — maybe he’s keeping it a secret?), and after knocking out Gabriel Gonzaga and cracking the all-important top ten in the Cage Potato Power Rankings, the time is now.  

Trouble is, after looking through your forum posts I see that many of you are in love with the rhyming nickname.  This disappoints me.  As awesome as suggestions like Shane “The Great Dane” Carwin and Shane “You’ll Need a Cane” Carwin are, rhyming nicknames always seem forced.  Although at least T Rex rhymed the last name with his submission: Shane “Darwin” Carwin (since the dude is bringing survival of the fittest back to the UFC’s heavyweight division).  I like that.

(You look sleepy, Gabe.  Maybe time to grab a quick nap?  Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

Who’s up and who’s down?  The Potato Index is here to tell you with our post-event wrap-up of arbitrary numerical rankings. 

“Rampage” Jackson +121

He won a fight he was supposed to win, even if it took him 2 2/3 rounds longer than many thought it would.  Jackson said he needed the work, and he looked good from start to finish.  But will he still be glad he went through rounds when he has to get back in the gym and prepare for Rashad Evans in two weeks?

Keith Jardine -15

“The Dean of Mean” fought hard and, if nothing else, proved his chin isn’t so suspect after all.  The guy has a lot of heart and he’ll fight anyone (except his Jackson camp buddies).  There’s always a place in the UFC for someone like that.

Shane Carwin +154

Didn’t we tell you this guy was a beast?  Gonzaga broke his nose in the opening seconds and it barely slowed Carwin down.  The knockout blow didn’t even seem like it had all his power behind it, but it didn’t matter.  Another first-round KO, and this time against a notable opponent.  This guy is headed for big things.

Dana White’s UFC 96 video blog, ep. 2 – Watch more free videos

In this edition of the UFC 96 video blog, Dana White and the rest of the traveling circus dazzle Deutschland in their promo tour for UFC 99 this summer.  ‘But wait a minute,’ you’re saying to yourself, ‘isn’t this video blog supposed to be about hyping this weekend’s event on an entirely different continent?’  To which Dana White would respond: “Fuck yourself, it’s only Wednesday you pussy.”

Highlights of this episode include a touching conversation between White and Wanderlei Silva, who displays the ability to laugh at himself and his Borat-like grasp of the English language, as well as a trip to a weirdo German talk show with a moving stage, and of course an obligatory shot at Tito Ortiz.  In other words, a good time is had by all.

After the jump, a strange, quick knockout from an amateur MMA bout in Scotland.  Dude’s going to need an ice pack when he wakes up.

(Props: World of MMA)

File under: Things that would be kind of amazing, but don’t have the slightest chance of actually happening. In this quickie interview with Fabricio Werdum, the former UFC heavyweight says his next fight will be for Strikeforce, likely in May (cool!), and his opponent "is possible, maybe, Kimbo" (oh no!). Throwing Ferg against a seasoned killer like Werdum seems to contradict Scott Coker’s previously stated plan to build Slice back up slowly, so we’re raising an eyebrow at this one. But for the record, Fab says that his gameplan would be to take Kimbo down and submit him. Smart thinking, player; you don’t want none of Kimbo in a stand-up war.

Below: Versus chose not to show the direct aftermath of Damacio Page’s Knockout of the Night over Marcos Galvao at WEC 39, and with good reason — Galvao was completely stiffened after the KO, and then suffered a brief seizure. Check out the gruesome fan-shot video below. Fortunately, Galvao was quickly released from the hospital with no apparent injuries, but it was a scary moment for the fighter and his supporters.

(Props: Fightlinker)

(And here’s where things took a turn down Queer Street, which is located dangerously close to TKO Way.)

Josh Koscheck commented on his somewhat controversial upset loss at UFC 95 on his website, and – surprise! – he argues that the ref should have let it go on a little longer.  To his credit, however, Koscheck doesn’t lay the blame for the loss at the ref’s doorstep.  Instead he puts it squarely on his shoulders, right where it belongs:

As for UFC 95. . . YES, I would have liked to see the ref let the fight go on a little bit more because we are all fighters and we fight until the end. Yes, I got hit hard, but felt as though I could have recovered if I had the chance. As for next time, my message to all the ref’s would be to, please let the fight go until I’m put out to sleep. . . Just so I don’t have the thought of what if, going through my mind and probably the minds of all of you, my fans.

…I could be like a lot of other people and cry about it for weeks and months and make a big deal about it, but it’s now when the true character and discipline of a person is tested.

Then he goes on to quote Martin Luther King Jr. and apply it to his current situation, that of having lost a fight he was supposed to win.  Nice.

 
Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Denis Kang – Watch more free videos
(Akiyama putting a hurting on Denis Kang, back when that meant a little more.)

UFC.com announced this afternoon that Yoshihiro Akiyama has signed on with the UFC.  There’s no word on who his first opponent will be, but he’s expected to step into the Octagon for the first time this summer.  

This is a big move for the UFC because it not only bolsters their middleweight roster, but also helps Dana White’s eventual plan to take his business to Japan.  Akiyama is the kind of fighter many Japanese fans (and Shinya Aoki) love to hate, partly because he is ethnically Korean and has been involved in one or two greasing scandals of his own.  As the UFC gets more top Japanese fighters on its roster, especially ones the Japanese fans will pay to see in spite of themselves, it’s going to make things much easier when the UFC finally manages to schedule an event over there.  

As Dana White is quoted as saying in the UFC.com story:

(Props: Smoogy on the UG)

Josh Koscheck’s TKO loss has been the subject of a lot of debate on the old internets for the past couple of days.  Some people think the stoppage was too fast, not giving Koscheck the chance to recover and defend himself.  One of those people, obviously, is Koscheck himself (side note: man, give that camera man credit for going into a tense locker room, hearing that rant, and then having the balls to ask, very simply, “Do you think he should have stopped it?”), but the fact is he’s wrong, and so is everyone arguing his side in this case.

Here’s how you know your fight was stopped early: you can immediately look into the ref’s face as he moves in to stop the bout and say, ‘What the fuck is your problem?’  If you can do that, preferably without slurring or attempting to rise and then falling back down, then you have a legitimate gripe.  I like to call this the ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ rule.  

If you can’t say ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ (other acceptable variations include: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’, ‘That’s fucking bullshit!’, and ‘Mazzagatti, you asshole!’) immediately after the stoppage, then the ref had reason enough to stop the fight.  

Josh Koscheck is clearly not happy about the stoppage in his UFC 95 fight with Paulo Thiago.  In this backstage video from The Telegraph he insists his hands were up, his eyes were open, and his guard was ready.  His cornermen seem to feel the early stoppage was part of a trend on the night — perhaps a dig at "regional referees" in the U.K.?

The replay showed that Koscheck was definitely out after the punch landed and may have come to when his head hit the mat, though how lucid he was at that moment is debatable.  What say you, Potato Nation?  Early stoppage, or whiny Koscheck?

(Diego will try anything to get to 155.  Anything.)

With UFC 95 (which we’ll be liveblogging) just a day away, we took some time to berate one another regarding some of the more pressing issues surrounding the UFC’s trip to London.  Okay, so there’s essentially no main event here, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still have some fun with a night of free fights on Spike.  Plus, there are Chael Sonnen’s ridiculous claims to discuss, and so much more…

What are Diego Sanchez‘s chances as a lightweight contender? Who has the skills to beat him?

BG: His chances are freakin’ excellent. Sanchez was already the fifth best welterweight in the UFC by my count (after GSP, Alves, Fitch, and Koscheck), and he’s looked incredibly dangerous in his last two wins over David Bielkheden and Luigi Fioravanti. I was particularly surprised to hear that he was dropping to lightweight because it seemed like he was gathering steam for a title shot at welterweight. Think about it: Fitch and Kos have already been dominated by St. Pierre, and if Alves can’t beat the champ this summer, who else is ready?

(‘I want you! If you are morbidly obese and easily beatable.’)

Someone should invent a time machine solely for the purpose of going back to 1995 to inform the then proud Ken Shamrock that someday he would be fighting a 380-pound slob with a losing record in a “Valentine’s Eve Massacre” show in Fresno, and that he’d be glad just to get the win since it would be his first in six tries.  

The look on his face would have been worth all the effort and plutonium, though you’d need to hightail it back to 2009 to keep an enraged Shamrock from tearing your head off.

These days, you need have no such concern.  Unless you’re Ross Clifton.  He’s the 6-9 fighter who stands 6’8” tall and weighs 380 pounds and yet still can’t fight his way out of a Wienerschnitzel.  This, naturally, is why Shamrock chose him as an opponent for last night’s War Gods event.  Because even if Shamrock didn’t get him, heart disease probably would. 

Shamrock dispatched of Clifton with an armbar in the first round after dropping him with a punch.  Now he gets the match with Tank Abbott that he claims to want so badly.

(Skip to the 1:27 mark, where the ass-kicking begins.  And don’t try to act like you aren’t digging the music, either.)

In his time with the IFL, Rory Markham became known as the guy who didn’t really start fighting until he got hurt.  More than one of his bouts began with him getting dropped and ended with him getting his hand raised, so much so that trainer Pat Miletich used to plead with Markham to fight smart before he got rocked.

But as Markham admits in this exclusive interview, that’s just not his style, as anyone who saw his devastating head-kick KO of Brodie Farber in his UFC debut knows by now.  At UFC 95 next Saturday night Markham takes on England’s Dan Hardy in London.  Chances are, things will get ugly fast.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for talking with me, Rory.  Now that you’re in the UFC, how have things changed for you?

You know, I’ve been putting in a lot of time, trying to hone my skills since October.  I found that I was weak in certain areas and I knew I needed to improve.  Being in the UFC now, it’s improve or die.

What areas do you feel you needed to improve in?

I don’t want to touch on bad instances, but there was one moment in the Brett Cooper fight where I really felt like if he hadn’t gotten the takedown and I could have kept it on the feet, there would have been a drastically different finish to that fight.  Since then I’ve been really trying to hone my wrestling skills.  I see what wrestling has done for guys like Georges St. Pierre and even, I think people overlook what it did for B.J. Penn.  When he went out with Randy [Couture] and Matt Lindland, that’s when he really hit his stride.  That’s something I noticed that I needed to work on.  Definitely in the long run, maybe not in this fight or even the next one, I think it’s going to add to the longevity of my career.

("He was better than me that night," says Kos about his loss to GSP.)

Josh Koscheck knows he’s not your favorite UFC fighter.  But you know something?  He doesn’t really care.  The way he sees it, his job is to fight, and win, as often as possible.  After a highlight reel knockout of Yoshiyuki Yoshida at the UFC’s “Fight for the Troops,” he looks to continue he winning streak at UFC 95 next Saturday against Octagon newcomer and undefeated Brazilian fighter Paulo Thiago.

In our exclusive interview, Koscheck discusses his next fight, his career, and what he makes of the Georges St. Pierre greasing allegations.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for talking with me Josh.  What do you know about your opponent on the 21st, Paulo Thiago?

I really don’t know anything about him.  To be honest with you, I don’t even know what he looks like.  I’ve never seen video on him, nothing.  For me, it’s a fight.  I expect to go in there and fight and just do what I do, which is win.

Is the reason you haven’t seen any video on him because you can’t find any, or because you don’t care to look?

I just don’t even care to look.  I don’t care to watch it.  I don’t watch video on any of my opponents.  For me it’s just another fight.  I fight tough guys every single day at the gym.  I got a couple guys in the top ten in the weight class, like Jon Fitch and Mike Swick, plus the other guys from other weight classes at our gym.  I’m just looking for another good fight.  I’m sure he’s a tough opponent, but he hasn’t fought in the UFC yet.  This will be his first opportunity to fight somebody really tough.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

Though most UFC fans think of Jon Jones as a guy who tends to put his opponents through three rounds of body-slamming, reverse-elbowing hell, he actually finished most of his pre-Octagon fights in short order. Above is his 15-second knockout of Parker Porter at a WCF event in Massachusetts last June. Just another reason to keep your hands up around this guy.

For more on Bones, check out this analysis of his Greco skills, and this new interview with TheGarv. 

(Props: Bloody Elbow)

Originally scheduled for the undercard of Affliction’s Day of Reckoning show last Saturday, the welterweight bout between IFL/UFC vet Jay Hieron and 6-0 prospect Jason High had to be postponed to the very end of the lineup due to time constraints — as in, directly after Fedor vs. Andrei, when 80% of the audience was out the door, the pay-per-view broadcast had cut out, and nearly everybody with a videocamera had already moved over to the post-event press conference. Fortunately, Inside MMA was able to show the fight on their Friday episode. And it looks like Emelianenko’s mid-air knockout of Arlovski wasn’t the only KO from Day of Reckoning that you’ll eventually be seeing on "Best of 2009" lists. After about a minute of settling in, Hieron dashed in with a crushing right hook which floored High, then landed three or four uppercuts while High was already dead asleep. The Thoroughbred lets out a battle cry after being pulled off his opponent, which we’d imagine is partly joy over the highlight-reel victory, and partly relief that he finally gets to go home.

Dana White’s UFC 94 video blog, episode 2 – Watch more Free Videos

In the second episode of Dana White’s UFC 94 video blog we get a look inside the taping of “The Ultimate Fighter,” and encounter a man identified as Dana White Sr.  Could this really be the father of the UFC prez?  The brief look we get at their relationship seems contentious yet oddly loving enough.  After that it’s off to NYC for more Pinkberry (so no more Men’s Health cover shoots any time soon, then?) and another race through the city streets.  Oh, to be rich and loaded on sugar.  Nothing at all about GSP-Penn in this episode, by the way.

Andrei Arlovski comes home to Chicago and thanks his fans for their support after his loss, which he attributes to a stupid mistake.  His cameraman, playing the role of the enabling sycophant, insists it was just necessary risk-taking, but Andrei knows better.  He also tosses another jab at “pee-pee-pee taster” Tim Sylvia, because that always makes a man feel better when he’s down in the dumps.

(Is there any situation not improved by sound effects from Super Mario Bros.?  Props: MMA Scraps.)

Freddie Roach has figured out what went wrong for Andrei Arlovski on Saturday night.  It’s simple really.  Fighting the world’s best heavyweight proved too easy.  This bored Andrei, prompting him to try the flying knee that he was not awake long enough to finish:

"He made a young man’s mistake," Roach told MMAInsider backstage. "It was too easy for him. He was winning the fight handily I thought, controlling the fight like we planned. He got a little cocky, and he tried the flying knee from too far away, no setup, and he paid for it. … But Fedor swings hard, that’s his thing. He probably had his eyes closed, but he just got lucky, I think. If we had followed a more disciplined fight, and kept to the game plan, I think it was going to be easy."

I agree with Roach on one point: Arlovski did make a mistake.  As for the rest of his explanation, it’s just more evidence that Roach doesn’t understand the differences between MMA and boxing.  In the boxing world, a man who wins via one-punch knockout after landing fewer punches than his opponent until that point is almost always the beneficiary of a lucky punch.  Not so in MMA, especially when that man is Fedor.

You can say he got lucky.  You can accuse him of closing his eyes and hoping for the best.  But you can’t explain away his record.  Arlovski may have helped him out with that mental error, but a right hand like Fedor’s sure improves a man’s luck considerably.

(Props: Keegan on the UG)

Affliction paid out a little over $3.3 million in disclosed fighter salaries for “Day of Reckoning,” pretty much guaranteeing that they’ll take a financial loss on this event, as we all expected.  Naturally, the payouts include several head-scratchers and jaw-droppers, including $1.5 million to Andrei Arlovski for his 3:14 KO loss to Fedor Emelianenko last night.  At least when you compare it with Tim Sylvia’s $800,000 loss in 0:36, it’s proportional.  Now someone explain to Mark Hunt where his $4 million is.

Here’s how the disclosed salaries broke down:

Fedor Emelianenko $300,000 (no win bonus)
Andre Arlovski $1,500,000 (win bonus would have been $250,000)
Josh Barnett $500,000 (no win bonus)
Gilbert Yvel $30,000 (win bonus would have been $9,300)
Vitor Belfort $200,000 (includes $80,000 win bonus)
Matt Lindland $225,000 (win bonus would have been $75,000)
Renato "Babalu" Sobral $90,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus)
Thierry Sokoudjou $50,000 (win bonus would have been $50,000)
Paul Buentello $90,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus)
Kiril Sidelnikov $10,000 (win bonus would have been $25,000)
Dan Lauzon $12,000 (no win bonus)
Bobby Green $4,000 (win bonus would have been $4,000)
Jay Hieron $45,000 (includes $25,000 win bonus)
Jason High $10,000 (win bonus would have been $5,000)
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira $150,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus) def. Vladimir Matyushenko $50,000 (win bonus would have been $30,000)
L.C. Davis $14,000 (includes $7,000 win bonus)
Bao Quach $7,000 (win bonus would have been $6,000)
Albert Rios $6,000 (includes $3,000 win bonus)
Antonio Duarte $3,000 (win bonus would have been $2,000)
Brett Cooper $10,000 (includes $5,000 win bonus)
Patrick Speight $2,000 (win bonus would have been $3,000)

Thoughts…

Badr Hari discusses his DQ loss in K-1 – Watch more free videos

Badr Hari doesn’t seem too concerned about his disqualification loss in the finals of this weekend’s K-1 World GP.  In case you missed it, Hari took Remy Bonjasky down, which is already illegal in K-1, but then he decided that as long as he was down there he might as well punch him a couple of times and then stomp on his face.  When the interviewer here points out to him that this is “prohibited,” Hari responds: “Yeah, but cycling on the pavement is prohibited too.”

Seriously?  That’s his response to illegally attacking an opponent who was under the referee’s care?  Apparently Hari didn’t feel that his actions in the fight made him unlikeable enough.  No, better go ahead and follow that up with a dismissive statement that reveals your amoral thought process to the world, just to be sure.

The argument that I absolutely don’t buy in this case is that he let his emotions get the better of him because Bonjasky didn’t come to fight.  First of all, when Bonjasky dropped him in the first, that seemed an awful lot like fighting.  Second, if you get mad in a kickboxing match, why not kick or punch the other guy in the head, torso, or leg region while you’re both standing?  It’s an effective expression of anger, and it’s legal!

Then again, if you fight only within the scope of the rules, how is everyone supposed to know what an asshole you are?