(“Oof…right in the diverticulitis!”)

Most fans and pundits who watched Friday night’s UFC 141 main event between former UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar and Octagon newcomer Alistair Overeem were amazed that Brock didn’t utilize his superior wrestling to stifle the offensive attack of “The Demolition Man.”

Junior dos Santos had a brief exchange in the cage with Lesnar following his crushing defeat at the hands (and legs) of Overeem, and according to the UFC heavyweight kingpin, his newly-retired peer was rattled by the sheer power of the former DREAM, K-1 and Strikeforce champion’s kicks and knees and couldn’t get back on track after absorbing such an immense amount of damage.

(Thank you, Internet. You never fail us. Dancing Gina Carano GIF via MMAConvert)

UFC 141‘s best moments, boiled down to 12 animated gifs. Check out the rest after the jump. Special thanks to IronForgesIron, Chas, and Unfilter on the UG.

(Hey Mario, is that some Jacks Links in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?)

By Jason Moles

When we next see Brock Lesnar, will it be in the Octagon or the squared circle? What did “Cowboy” Cerrone do with the beanie Nate Diaz handed him? Where in the world did this Jimy Hettes guy come from? None of these questions will be answered in this forum. Instead, you’ll learn which UFC 141 fighters’ stock to buy more of, sell off, or hold. Even if you’re still too hung over to remember what happened Friday night, you’ll still need to make a few fiscal moves to stay ahead of the curve. Remember, money never sleeps, kid. Now go make yourself a Bloody Mary then keep reading to kick off the New Year with sage advice about the MMA stock market.

Alistair Overeem – Buy it like they’re giving it away for free

It makes no difference whether you think “The Reem” is completely unstoppable or flat out overrated — when he fights, people watch. Casual fans will be enamored with Alistair Overeem because he looks good with his shirt off (at least that’s why I think Arianny make that face) and the hype that can be drummed up by Zuffa thanks to his Strikeforce, DREAM, and K1 titles. For the next few years, as long as he doesn’t piss hot for some tainted horsemeat, the “Demolition Man” will be a main event attraction that will only make him more valuable with time.

(The Interweb never lies.)

Ariel Helwani caught up with Dana White ahead of tonight’s UFC 141 event and he asked the UFC president where about the growing opinion that Jon Fitch is being overlooked in the UFC welterweight title picture. According to White, who says he’s in the mix, regardless of Fitch’s current streak and the fact that he only has one loss and one draw in his past 20 fights, unless he makes some drastic changes to his game, he likely won’t main event on a pay-per-view let alone fight for the welterweight strap any time soon.

“You hear the same thing from everybody about Jon Fitch: ‘If I want to get to sleep and I can’t get to sleep at night, I’ll put in a Jon Fitch fight.’ Whatever you think, Jon Fitch is one of the best 170-pounders in the world. And yes, he’s in the hunt for a title again, but everybody… find one person that will tell you they love a Jon Fitch fight, it’s the most exciting thing they’ve ever seen and they just get so excited for it. So when you say that you have a fight like Cerrone and Diaz on the card and a guy with a record like his is on and people aren’t jumping out of their seats for that fight, I think Jon needs to have a little bit of a… he’s got to be a little honest with himself and have a little bit of a reality check when he talks about stuff like [fighters talking their way into title fights.”

(UFC 141 weigh-in highlight video via MMAFighting.com)

Come back to CagePotato.com tonight for our liveblog of “Overeem vs. Lesnar,” beginning with the Spike TV prelims at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT; the pay-per-view card kicks off an hour later at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. UFC 141 weigh-in results are below. After the jump: GIFs of Brock Lesnar’s post-weigh-in rage-pose and Joe Rogan‘s search for meaning in the eyes of the main eventers.

MAIN CARD
Brock Lesnar (266) vs. Alistair Overeem (263)
Donald Cerrone (156) vs. Nate Diaz (156*)
Johny Hendricks (170) vs. Jon Fitch (171)
Alexander Gustafsson (203) vs. Vladimir Matyushenko (205)
Jim Hettes (145) vs. Nam Phan (146)

SPIKE TV PRELIMS
Junior Assuncao (145) vs. Ross Pearson (145)
Anthony Njokuani (154) vs. Danny Castillo (156)

FACEBOOK PRELIMS
Sean Pierson (171) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (171)
Efrain Escudero (155) vs. Jacob Volkmann (155)
Luis Ramos (171) vs. Matt Riddle (170)
Diego Nunes (145) vs. Manny Gamburyan (146)

* Diaz originally weighed in at 157. From Cagewriter: “Diaz missed the lightweight limit at 155 pounds and then cut to within one-quarter pound. Instead of taking 20 percent of Diaz’s purse, as is normally mandated by state commissions, Cerrone agreed to re-work the contract. He also said Diaz didn’t have to cut any more weight. Cerrone’s camp told its fighter to pipe down and asked Diaz to go lose the weight. After two tries Diaz got it done and the most heated fight at UFC 141 is a go.”

(Faces will be punched tomorrow night.)

Just a friendly reminder that we’ll have the video feed for tonight’s UFC 141 weigh-ins starting at 7:00 pm ET.

It’s worth tuning in to just to see what shenanigans the Diaz brothers get into.

In the meantime, make your predictions for tomorrow night in the comment section and we’ll revisit them next week and check out the video feed after the jump.

(Will Lesnar vs. Overeem bash out a place on the list, or will it inevitably fall short of the hype?)

Between Junior Dos Santos’s knee injury, Strikeforce phasing out their heavyweight division in 2012, and the general lack of UFC heavyweight fights lately (just three in their last five events, to be exact), it seems like MMA’s big-man scene is in hibernation mode.

But starting with Friday night’s UFC 141 main event of Brock Lesnar vs. Alistair Overeem — promoted as the “biggest” fight of the year — and continuing on to Josh Barnett vs. Daniel Cormier in March, the action among 265′ers is about to start heating up. With that mind, we decided to pay tribute to the greatest and most important heavyweight MMA fights from this past year. Enjoy, and let us know if we left out any of your favorites…

#6. DANIEL CORMIER vs. ANTONIO SILVA
Strikeforce World Grand Prix: Barnett vs. Kharitonov, 9/10/11

What happened: The smaller man fought like a giant. Cormier landed his punches at will and easily shrugged off Silva’s attempts to take the fight to the ground. Entering the tournament as an alternate, Cormier punched his ticket to the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix finals with a hook/uppercut combo that stiffened the Brazilian Frankenstein.
What we learned: Undersized doesn’t always mean outgunned — and a big chin doesn’t always mean a strong chin.

(“Only bad guys wear black hats, homie.”)

If you didn’t happen to catch the UFC 141 pre-fight press conference today, we’re going to show you what you missed in under 10 seconds after the jump.

(Why does Keith have to be such a mean old Grinch? Pic props Getty Images)

Dana White put out a short and sweet edition of his UFC 141 video blogs today so he could explain the UFC’s decision to award Duane Ludwig with the fastest KO in UFC history.

Previously, Todd Duffee held the distinction for his :07 routing of Tim Hague at UFC 102 back in 2009 and it was believed that Chan-Sung Jung mirrored The Duffman’s time earlier this month when he knocked out Mark Hominick at UFC 140.

On closer inspection it seems that neither fighter really holds the record as it really belongs to Ludwig, whose 2006 knockout over Jonathan Goulet at UFN 3 was previously in the books at :11.

(Two words: Cultivating mass.)

Oh my God, you guys. We are just two days away from a match so epic that it threatens to implode our entire universe and send it spiraling down a black hole quicker than a Duane Ludwig knockout. And since most of us are still trying to financially recover from Christmas (only to spend nearly as much on New Year’s Eve, ironically), why not place some bets with us and end this sumbitch on a bang instead of a whimper? Check out the betting lines, courtesy of BestFightOdds, along with our Negrodamus-esque advice below.

Main Card
Brock Lesnar (+110) vs. Alistair Overeem (-130)
Nate Diaz (+240) vs. Donald Cerrone (-280)
Jon Fitch (-230) vs. Johny Hendricks (+190)
Vladimir Matyushenko (+285) vs. Alexander Gustafsson (-345)
Nam Phan (-230) vs. Jimy Hettes (+190)

Preliminary card (televised on Spike)
Ross Pearson (-300) vs. Junior Assunçao (+250)
Anthony Njokuani (+155) vs. Danny Castillo (-175)

Preliminary card (Facebook)
Dong Hyun Kim (-360) vs. Sean Pierson (+300)
Jacob Volkmann (-260) vs. Efrain Escudero (+220)
Matt Riddle (-115) vs. Luis Ramos (-105)
Manvel Gamburyan (+200) vs. Diego Nunes (-240)

Thoughts…

(Video courtesy of Vimeo/THE REEM)

Our favorite web documentary series is back with another episode just intime for its protagonist’s biggest fight of his career.

In this episode of The Reem, Alistair Overeem does some PR work in L.A. ahead of his UFC 141 bout with Brock Lesnar this Friday and spends some time training with Mark Munoz and company at Reign Training Center.

Shame on HDNet and the Octagon Nation Tour for jacking our swagger (6:08 mark) and props to Overeem for punking the last fan in line at the signing. The dude looked like he was going to cry.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/FreeFightsForYou)

Besides Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal, everyone I know who watched GI Joe as a kid looked forward to the “Knowing is Half the Battle” segments that taught us how to escape a house fire, avoid being kidnapped and molested and how to camp safely. If you watched the show on Saturday mornings or have seen any of the scores of parodies that have popped up the past few years, you’re going to enjoy the short fan-made spot above.

“Mo” used to enjoy the popular PSAs until the day he found out they were all a lie.

Now that we’ve all officially finished binge-eating/drinking our way through Christmas, our good pal DW is back and with a late gift of his own – the gift of heartbreak. In typical fashion, this week’s Danavlog focuses on the aftermath of UFC 140, giving us a behind the scenes look at the pre and post-fight moments of Tito Ortiz, Jon Jones, and perhaps most importantly, Krzystof Soszynski, who, after suffering a 35 second knockout at the hands of Igor Pokrajac, informs us that he has fought his last MMA contest. Whether he is just pulling a BJ Penn on us or is truly sincere about his decision remains to be seen, but if we really have witnessed the last of “The Polish Experiment,” we here at CP would just like to thank him for all the great fights and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

Join us after the jump for the rest of the highlights.

In honor of Brock Lesnar‘s return to action at UFC 141 this Friday — yes, Friday, make a note of it — we put together a gallery of our favorite animated GIFs of the wrestling/MMA superstar, which you can find after the jump. Welcome back, you scary son-of-a-bitch.

Highly related: 11 GIFs of Alistair Overeem Being Awesome

(“You got a pretty mouth, Nate.”)

During Steve Cofield’s Vegas-based ESPN Radio show today, Donald Cerrone recalled an incident he had recently with Nate Diaz,  and to put it lightly, he isn’t impressed with the level of disrespect his UFC 141 opponent showed him.

According to Cerrone, the confrontation happened at the open workouts for UFC 137 and he had no warning that it was going to go south quickly when he approached his teammate and friend Leonard Garcia who happened to be talking to Nate at the time.

(Photo courtesy of Combate.TV)

It looks like Gray Maynard will be eating Brazilian kicks and punches for Christmas in the delicacy’s native land.

The former number one UFC lightweight contender will be in Rio de Janeiro for the next few weeks to help UFC featherweight kingpin Jose Aldo prepare for his January 14 UFC 142 bout with Chad Mendes. Aldo invited “The Bully” to Brazil as his style is very similar to Mendes’. Gray arrived on Wednesday and will stick around until after the event in three weeks.

(Props: IronForgesIron)

FUEL TV aired the latest UFC Countdown special last night, previewing next Friday’s UFC 141: Lesnar vs. Overeem pay-per-view card. The stuff about Brock Lesnar‘s latest recovery from diverticulitis and new love of swimming is fairly straightforward — once again, Pat Barry is on hand talk about what a monster Brock is — but if you’re a fan of Alistair Overeem, the look back at his rise in the sport and his career rebirth after a rough stretch in his personal/professional life is worth watching. Overeem’s sights are now set on a UFC belt to complete his collection; of course, Brock Lesnar is just as motivated to defend his turf and play the spoiler in the Reem’s Octagon debut.

Part two of the special is after the jump, featuring more tough talk from Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone and Nate “Not Your Friend, Buddy” Diaz, and a look at the redneck paradise of Cerrone’s New Mexico ranch.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/FederalPremiumAmmo)

Brock Lesnar had a lawyer in Manitoba plead guilty on his behalf for a hunting infraction he was charged with in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada stemming from an incident that occurred back in December, 2010.

Alberta Fish and Wildlife officers charged Lesnar and his guide, Chad Styker with three counts each of contravening the Alberta Fish and Wildlife Act, including improper affixation of tags, spoilage of skin and edible flesh and possession of a controlled animal.

(“What, this officer? No, it’s just a deer mask I wear when I hunt to fool the little buggers.”)

Alistair Overeem has met the first of three required stipulations of his conditional licensing in Nevada today as he passed his pre-fight urine test administered a few weeks ago in Holland.

UFC president Dana White tweeted the news today.

(All of these fighters have been ordered to wear sumo suits over the holidays.)

Well, it’s looking like UFC 142 may give a few of Zuffa’s most injury-plagued cards a run for their money.

According to various reports, the current body count stands at four as as many fighters have pulled out of the event for various reasons.

As a result the UFC is now scrambling to find replacements for Paulo Thiago (injury), Rob Broughton (injury), Siyar Bahadurzada (injury) and Stanislav Nedkov (visa issue) to face their respective former opponents Mike Pyle, Edinaldo Oliveira, Erick Silva and Fabio Maldonado.

Tatame first reported the news today of Thiago’s elbow injury, while the UFC tweeted that Broughton, Nedkov and and Bahadurzada were all off the card due to unnamed afflictions. Conflicting reports have since surfaced stating that Nedkov had issues securing a work visa for the January 14 show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

If replacements can’t be found, one or maybe two of the bouts in question could be salvaged, but with six scratches, the card would take the final slot in the five most cursed cards in UFC history.

Check out the top four after the jump.

(Oh, have I got your attention now? Good.) 

When rumors started flying that Alistair Overeem had failed his pre-fight drug test for UFC 141, therefore ruining his chances to participate in one of the biggest heavyweight matches of all time, there weren’t many of us who were quick to defend him. The fact is, despite Alistair never testing positive for steroids, his Incredible-Hulkian transformation from this guy to this guy has tested our beliefs as to exactly how much bulk one can add without the use of juice.

And when Alistair was only granted a conditional license by the Nevada State Athletic Commission due to his urine sample being over three weeks late, it only steepened the hill to which the rumor snowball was careening down. So, you can imagine our surprise when Alistair told Yahoo Sports that he felt there should be more drug testing in MMA:

(“Who nearly f*cked up our end-of-year show main event? This f*cking guy, that’s who.”)

During a scheduled Nevada State Athletic Commission meeting Monday, NSAC announced that Alistair Overeem failed to undergo a random drug test ahead of his UFC 141 heavyweight bout with Brock Lesnar and as a result he was granted a “conditional license” by the governing body.

According to commission records, Lesnar attended a hospital within one day of being told to do so on November 17, where blood and urine samples were taken and the results came back negative for both drugs of abuse and anabolic agents. Overeem did not comply with its request to submit specimens on that date, but instead had one of the two requested samples taken one week later.

Prior to the agenda item, the announcement was foreshadowed as NSAC representatives spoke candidly about all of the issues that have arisen in the past when it comes to testing out of competition outside of North America for various reasons.

Props to @LayzietheSavage for the UStream feed of the proceedings.

Check out the timeline of what went down the past month after the jump.

(Chan Sung Jung strikes Mark Hominick with the ferocity of someone who has just discovered Canadian beef in his bulgogi. / Photo via Cagewriter)

No matter how much Dan Henderson begs, Jon Jones‘s next opponent will be the winner of Rashad Evans vs. Phil Davis. Other than that, the fates of UFC 140‘s winners and losers are currently floating in limbo. But if we know matchmaking as well as we think we do, you might be seeing a few of these fights announced in the near future…

Frank Mir: His arm-snapping win over Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira was exactly what Frank needed to pull him out of his career holding pattern. Pundits are already chattering about a trilogy match with Brock Lesnar, in case there’s some truth to those ugly rumors about Alistair Overeem getting pulled from UFC 141. Let’s hope that’s not the case. Instead, we’ll set up a hypothetical booking between Mir and former champ Cain Velasquez, whose title reign and undefeated record were abruptly smashed at UFC on FOX 1. There’s always the chance that Mir would get overwhelmed by Velasquez’s power — see Mir vs. Carwin, Mir vs. Lesnar 2 — but his jiu-jitsu prowess and dangerous hands could make Frank vs. Cain a thriller.

Chan Sung Jung: In four fights under the Zuffa banner, Chan Sung Jung has given us a Fight of the Decade candidate and 2011′s greatest submission, and has now tied the (official) record for fastest UFC knockout; I just wanted you to take a moment and appreciate that. Smashing a recent featherweight title contender in Mark Hominick shoots the Korean Zombie way up the 145-pound ladder. He hasn’t earned a title shot yet, but he’s knocking at the door. Give him the loser of the Jose Aldo vs. Chad Mendes title fight next month in Rio and see if he can turn in another brilliant performance.

With 10 correct entries out of 32 submissions, the odds of winning this Hayabusa-sponsored UFC 140 contest were better than most, but as with most things in life, (except for stupid sports like doubles tennis and two-man bobsled) there can only be one winner.

All nine stoppages from Saturday’s action-packed “Jones vs. Machida” card, in convenient animated gif form. Props to IronForgesIron and the UG; lots more after the jump.

(“What you lookin’ at piss breath?”)

Well, here we are at the UFC’s second Toronto card of 2011 and I’m stuck at home an hour-and-a-half away live-blogging on my couch with my wife and my dog.

I got a call from a buddy a few hours ago telling me he had a free ticket for me, but I told him I had to keep you guys abreast of the action, so I took a raincheck. Don’t say I never do anything for you.

The prelims are already in the books. Check out the results after the jump and let’s get this thing going.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/UFC)

The weigh-ins for UFC 140 took place in Toronto this afternoon. Unfortunately, we forgot to set our watches to Canadian time, so you’ll have to settle for watching the video after the fact.

Only one fighter didn’t make weight, and since our headline spoils the surprise, you’ve probably figured out it was Dennis Hallman, who was 3.5 lbs over the 155-pound lightweight limit. He decided not to make a second attempt, which is unusual considering how close he was and will instead pay opponent John Makdessi 20 percentof his purse. By our estimation, this is “Superman’s” second strike, so if he doesn’t beat Makdessi, we may him get Miguel Torres’ed tomorrow night.

For those of you who can’t watch the vid at work, the full results are after the jump.

(Photo via @ufc)

The fighters for tomorrow night’s UFC 140 event just finished weighing in at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, with 23 of the 24 competitors coming in at or below their contracted limits. The sole fuck-up was Dennis Hallman, who was scheduled to make his lightweight debut against John Makdessi. Instead, he crushed the scales at 158.5, and was granted some extra time to get down to 156. And he’d better make it happen, considering that he’s already on the UFC’s bad side due to his unfortunate wardrobe choice in his last fight. Update: Hallman has been fined 20 percent of his purse for failing to make weight.

The other item worth noting is that Frank Mir weighed in 21 pounds heavier than Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for their heavyweight rematch. Three years ago, their size difference was only five pounds. The full list of “Jones vs. Machida” weigh-in results is after the jump. Come back to CagePotato.com tomorrow night at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT for our liveblog of the pay-per-view main card, and catch up on our previous UFC 140 coverage on the Main Event page.

If you’re looking for something to do this afternoon while you pretend to be busy at work, get out those TPS reports, lock your office door and turn on the latest episode of The Bum Rush Radio Show so you can fool your bosses into thinking you’re hard at work.

On this episode Ben, Mike and Jared break down the main card of Saturday’s UFC 140 event in Toronto and give their thoughts on some of the hot button topics of the week.

(The CagePotato HR Department: Boldly squashing inter-office disputes since 2007.) 

Just like pictures of hot womens and irresponsible opinions, pre-UFC event bickering has become a fixture here at CagePotato. In advance of this weekend’s card in Toronto, we locked Danga and ReX in a miniature Octagon with energy drinks, a blow-up doll, and a set of questions. We were dubious about the doll, but ReX insisted that hilarity would ensue, and he assures us that it did. It wasn’t mentioned in the final article, but some things you just don’t want to ask about.

Come on in past the jump and witness the confusion of two men discussing MMA while being distracted by said hot womens, touching on the subjects of likability, MMA Math, and the potential importance of fashion choices.