(Not only did he charge little Billy twenty bucks for the autograph, but he also spelled his name “G-o-f-u-c-k-y-o-u-r-s-e-l-f.” Image via Caraway’s Twitter account.)

Okay, let me get this sentence out of the way as quickly as possible: Even though he expressed his opinion in a profoundly stupid manner, perhaps Nate Diaz has a damn good point about Bryan Caraway being a less-than-admirable individual.

I’ll give you a few moments to let that sink in.

(What, were you expecting something different?)

I’m not here to fault Caraway for accepting Pat Healy’s UFC 159 Submission of the Night bonus after Healy failed his drug test – even though he was obnoxiously self-righteous about it – because if my boss offered me sixty thousand dollars I wouldn’t exactly turn it down. But allegations of hitting a woman and selling drugs? That dog won’t hunt, monsignor.

Photo Courtesy of Getty Images.

Every UFC main event has to be about something, and when there aren’t any titles on the line, things tend to get pretty creative. Leading up to the main event of the TUF 17 Finale, the talk surrounding the bout focused on the friendship between competitors Urijah Faber and Scott Jorgensen and how it may affect the bout. Whether the two were actually the close friends that the media made them out to be was completely irrelevant; which is good, because Jorgensen revealed during fight week that they weren’t.

What we were left with was a bout between the number two and number seven ranked bantamweights that played out as expected. This isn’t to say that the fight wasn’t entertaining (it was), but Jorgensen was outgunned early and often by Faber before “The California Kid” sank in the fight ending rear-naked choke in the fourth round. It was closer than the gambling odds indicated it would be, but not exactly a close fight, and though Jorgensen managed to mount some offense of his own, he never appeared to be any real threat to Faber.

The bantamweight division is very top-heavy, which perhaps more than anything explains why Urijah Faber is seemingly always one fight away from a title shot. The gap between the top five guys and the rest of the division is wider than most fans would care to acknowledge, and it showed last night. Still, I’d rather watch Urijah Faber fight Michael McDonald than watch him get crammed into yet another title fight. I doubt I’m in the minority here – at least among hardcore fans.

(“Nice hair, douchebag.” — Both of them. / Image via MMAFighting.com)

Is Uriah Hall really the next big thing at middleweight, or will the constantly-overlooked Kelvin Gastelum pull off another upset? Which rock-solid female bantamweight is going to earn a reality-TV coaching gig (and future title shot) against Ronda Rousey? How much tread is left on The California Kid‘s tires? How exactly does one drink a Gatorade from a reclining position, in the traditional Brazilian style? These questions — and many others — will be answered tonight, folks. Prepare yourselves.

Handling play-by-play duties for our TUF 17 Finale liveblog is Alex Giardini, who will stack up results from the FX main card broadcast after the jump beginning at 9 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and please share your own thoughts in the comments section.

For that matter, could Good Guy Junior have saved last season?

We’rejust finishing up with a season of The Ultimate Fighter that most of us didn’t even pretend to watch, and are getting ready for a season that we’ll only watch to see how creatively Chael Sonnen can troll Jon Jones. Okay, perhaps some of us actually want to watch TUF for less cynical reasons – say because it’s free MMA or to see if the show discovers a legitimate fighter who has slipped through the cracks – just like how some professional football fans actually keep up with the UFL.

With the show in desperate need of a mix-up, Dana White has been open to the idea of casting Ronda Rousey as a coach, while still keeping the contestants themselves men. The idea picked up even more steam yesterday when White suggested that Ronda Rousey could be coaching against Miesha Tate on an upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter. Via MMAFighting:

“It could happen,” White said. “If there’s two people who would probably coach, you kick [the idea] around, this could happen, that could happen. If they did, it could be [Rousey] and Miesha. You know, we’ll see. Timing has a lot do with it.”

(Well, at least she has looking hot in front of a camera as a fallback career.) 

Although the main card of Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman card provided most of the evening’s highlights, you would be hard pressed to find an MMA site that didn’t declare Miesha Tate’s come-from-behind win (insert puns now) over Julie Kedzie to be the most exciting fight of the evening. Despite being rocked on various occasions and almost ending up as the first entry in the head-kick-nip-slip Hall of Fame, Tate was able to brave the storm and score an armbar victory of her own late in the third round.

But up until that point, it was plain to see that there was clearly something a little off about the former title holder. Her combinations came few and far between, and her takedown attempts seemed to be lacking a certain gusto that they had previously held. While part of this could be attributed to the toughness of Kedzie, who has been training at Greg Jackson’s gym for some time now (and is in fact his personal assistant), an equal amount could just as easily be blamed on Tate’s somewhat lackadaisical attitude in the cage on Saturday night.

The fact that she still managed to pull off an amazing, gritty win over a tough opponent despite this only shows what caliber of fighter Tate truly is, but according to the source herself, we might not be seeing “Cupcake” in action for a while. In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani during The MMA Hour, Tate explained that she simply “didn’t feel the passion and fire that [she] had felt in her previous fights” when facing Kedzie:

I felt out of my element, I didn’t feel normal in there whatsoever. It was very strange, it was not a feeling I enjoyed and not something I want to experience again, I don’t really know what my next step is here. Even when I was when lined up with Julie, across the cage, I was like, ‘Is this really happening right now? Am I really here? Am I really in this fight?’ I felt like I was kind of just in this twilight zone. I did not like that. It’s not how I normally feel, not how emotions really run. Normally I’m excited to be there, I’m amped and pumped, and I felt little to nothing, and I mean, she literally elbowed me and got my lip really good and I was like ‘ehh, whatever.’ She kicked me in the face, ‘ehh, whatever,’ It was not, it wasn’t a normal circumstance for me I don’t know why that is but I’m asking myself a lot of questions. I think I need to take a step back, relax a minute, and evaluate it. 

More from this interview is after the jump.

(No, this is not the ‘All Access’ video, but rather a behind-the-scenes video of her ESPN ‘The Body’ shoot. Go ahead and complain. I DARE YOU.)

“Everything you need in a fighter, she has, yet she’s a woman and she’s beautiful. The Ronda Rousey package is different than any other package we’ve ever seen.”

So says UFC President Dana White as he leads us into Showtime’s “All Access” look at the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion, Olympic Judo bronze medalist, and occasional TMZ host Ronda Rousey, who in just over two years has managed to almost effortlessly ascend to the sport’s highest level. And it’s hard to deny that “Rowdy” is an athlete unlike many, if not all of her counterparts — a hot female Jon Jones if you will — whose “kill or be killed” outlook on life (and aforementioned looks) has led her to achieve massive success in easily the most overlooked facet of MMA. We’re talking of course, about the ladies.

Detailing everything from Rousey’s heated title-earning feud with Meisha Tate (Spoiler: It ended like all of Rousey’s fights do) to her (gulp) nude shoot for ESPN’s The Body issue to her preparation for her upcoming title defense against Sarah Kaufman, “All Access” truly lives up to it’s name. Showtime takes us inside the champion’s house, which looks like an average episode of Hoarders, and snags interviews with everyone from Gina Carano, who Ronda admits convinced her to drop trau for ESPN in the first place (as if we needed to thank Gina for anything else) to former HooknShoot Grand Prix winner Julie Kedzie.

So check out the full video after the jump, and let us know what you think.

(Unfortunately, there is still no word on the mysterious disappearance of Heidi Androl. Sad.)   

It looks like the speculations that arose in the aftermath of Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Tate had some truth behind it, because it has been reported that newly crowned Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey will defend her title against inaugural bantamweight champ Sarah Kaufman. Though no specific date or location has been mentioned, the Strikeforce brass are hoping to have these two throw down sometime in August, and probably in either Nevada or California, as the majority of Strikeforce’s recent cards have been held in those locations.

Rumors of a potential clash between Rousey and Kaufman first started following the pair’s respective wins over Miesha Tate and Alexis Davis on March 13th. “Rowdy” took the considerably easier path to victory, snatching up her fifth consecutive first round armbar in typically gruesome fashion over Tate, whereas Kaufman chose to slug it out with Davis for three rounds in what was one of the most exciting brawls of the year, bar none, and brought home a majority decision victory.

Although Kaufman has a considerable experience and striking advantage over Rousey, her lone loss in sixteen fights has come by way of armbar (to Marloes Coenen in their October 2010 title fight), so expect her to be a considerable underdog coming into this one. As with any fight against Rousey, Kaufman’s only chance will lie in her ability to sprawl-and-brawl with the Olympic judoka, or God forbid take her out of the first round. Then again, we hear Rousey is taking out champions in the men’s division nowadays, so perhaps Kaufman is already dead in the water.

Full fight videos of Kaufman/Davis and Rousey/Tate await you after the jump. 

(Once again, we must turn to Rowdy Roddy Piper to lead by example.) 

Although moments were tense in the aftermath of “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey’s brutal first round, title-earning armbar over Miesha Tate, it seemed as if the two competitors had finally found, at the minimum, a newfound respect for one another. Sure, Ronda still referred to Miesha as “fake,” but it seemed like these two had perhaps found a common ground. A close friendship and some drunk photos of them making out seemed to be on the horizon, at least to us.

How optimistic ignorant we were.

It all started when Miesha, who may still have to undergo surgery for the damaged ligaments she suffered in the fight, mind you, requested a rematch with the newly crowned 135 lb. champion, stating the following:

I, personally, would love the opportunity to have a rematch. I think at a high level, it takes one mistake. Anyone can make a mistake at any moment and someone’s able to capitalize on that. I don’t feel that Ronda proved anything other than what she’s already (proved) — that she has one thing that she’s great at. Really phenomenal at. But everything else, I could beat her. Give me another shot. I think it was competitive. I think for the most part I was probably winning. And I think at a competitive high level, one day one person could beat the one person, and the other day the other person would beat the other person.

This statement is…let’s call it ballsy, to say the least. And let’s not get into the fact that, “I think for the most part I was probably winning,” just surpassed Judo Gene LeBell’s “nice big dinner” line as the most hilariously confusing sentence in the history of the English language. A hell of a lot of conviction there.

Well believe it or not, Ronda caught wind of Miesha’s statements, because the Internet is a surprisingly crowded place. And wouldn’t you know, she was not too pleased by them.

Hear what she had to say after the jump.

(Let me guess: You’re not here to make friends?)

We haven’t heard much from former Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Marloes Coenen since that whole Golden Glory debacle saw her get axed from the Zuffa banner along with John Olav Einemo and the Overeem brothers. And while Einemo and Alistair were quickly brought back to the promotion, Coenen opted to sign a three fight deal with North Carolina based BlackEye Promotions instead, a move that she might be kicking herself over in light of current circumstances.

In either case, it seems that the reason we have heard so little from Coenen since her fallout was not due to any legal issues or bitter resentment, but was rather more primitive in nature. (See what I did there? Triple entendre. Suck it.) Turns out, Marloes was cast alongside twelve of the Netherlands’ biggest celebrities, whoever the hell they are, as part of a Survivor type reality show called “De Schat van De Oranje” (The Treasure of Orange). According to some research that I most certainly did not do, the show dropped these hapless celebs out of a helicopter onto a remote island off the coast of Thailand, then pitted them against one another in a (death) race to find, you guessed it, hidden treasure. Being that it was shot in Thailand, the celebrities faced opposition in the form of crooked cops, gang fights, and transsexual prostitutes.

We’re not going to put our judgmental faces on, because honestly, on the scale of “Weird Things MMA Fighters Have Done For Money/Fame,” this is definitely closer to the Kimbo Slice: SpikeTV Host end of the spectrum than it is the Aaron Brink/Dick Delaware end, so we’re all for it. Get that bread, Marloes.

Join us after the jump for a sneak peak at the show, courtesy of IronForgesIron. 

(Nick Diaz was right! If you listen close enough, you can hear the ocean!)

Last weekend’s Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey event gave us plenty to talk about, a rare feature of a Strikeforce card these days. Ronda Rousey officially became the most successful one trick pony of all time, Ronaldo Souza showed us that he is ever improving in the stand up department, and the Strikeforce matchmakers let Nazi pedophiles worldwide know that they could still earn a shot in the big time through hard work, *cough* rape *cough*, and dedication to your craft.

Nowadays, we all know that cash rules everything around us, so let’s first talk about the recently released salaries from this weekend’s “Tate vs. Rousey” card, as they are surprisingly generous for most parties involved. It’s good to know that all of Frank Shamrock’s hard work has paved the way for this new generation of fighters. Per usual, this list does not include any undisclosed/locker room bonuses or any of that noise.

Ronda Rousey: $32,000 (includes $17,000 win bonus)
Miesha Tate: $19,000

Josh Thomson: $80,000 (no win bonus)
K.J. Noons: $38,000

Kazuo Misaki: $50,000 (no win bonus)
Paul Daley: $45,000

Lumumba Sayers: $10,000 (includes $5,000 win bonus)
Scott Smith: $65,000

Ronaldo Souza: $92,000 (includes $22,000 win bonus)
Bristol Marunde: $10,000

Sarah Kaufman: $25,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
Alexis Davis: $4,000

Roger Bowling: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus)
Brandon Saling: $5,000

Pat Healy: $22,500 (includes $5,000 win bonus)
Caros Fodor: $12,000

Ryan Couture: $10,000 (no win bonus)
Conor Heun: $8,000

Join us after the jump for our thoughts on the payout, along with a look at the medical suspensions from the event. 

(Get it?) 

Heading into arguably the most anticipated women’s MMA match of all time (that’s right, I said women’s), former Olympic bronze medalist Ronda Rousey had a mountain of claims to back up, a mountain only made higher by the fact that her meteoric run to a bantamweight title shot had left the general public with more questions than answers in regards to her skill set. In her four fight career, the woman had never seen what the second round, let alone the second minute, of a MMA contest looked like. So we were left to ponder: how would her striking, stamina, and suffocating Jiu-Jitsu attack hold up against the more experienced champ in Meisha Tate?

Well, as it turns out, we still don’t know much about the newly crowned women’s 135 lb. champion, and that may just be the scariest thing about her. Tate tried to answer a couple of these questions early, coming out throwing wild haymakers with ill intentions. Rousey was able to ride out the storm and secure a takedown, drawing an ominous “Oh shit!” reaction from the viewing audience, at least where I was. That statement was echoed tenfold when Rousey managed to secure her first armbar, which I’m still pretty positive did most of the damage to Tate’s arm. However, where referee Herb Dean would have let out his own, “Oh shit!” before stopping the fight right there, referee Mark Matheny was determined not to find himself in the middle of a Steve Mazagatti/Sarah D’Alelio controversy, adhering to a strict “snap then tap” policy for Ms. Tate. That policy would come into effect just a couple minutes later, when Rousey managed to secure the fight ending armbar that can only be described as “Palharesian.”

We’re not exactly sure where the correlation between mixed martial arts fighters and police dog demonstrations started, but man if it isn’t glorious every time. Released by the Network of Champions, this video is the first in a series that features current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones going through the Birmingham Sheriff Department’s training routine. Jones was also allowed to partake in some EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operation Control) training, some simulated gun play, and even got to hip toss a fool who decided to get fresh with him. Don’t worry officer, it could have been worse.

As you may or may not know, Jones received a degree in criminal justice from Iowa Central Community College back in 2005, so perhaps he was a little more prepared to take a mauling than the average UFC fighter. Bones attests that the dog was racist, and history tells us that he was probably right.

Join us after the jump for a behind the scenes look at the awesome Rousey/Tate promo Strikeforce managed to muster up and more.

We haven’t seen or heard much from Brock Lesnar since his first round UFC 141 TKO loss to Alistair Overeem and subsequent retirement from MMA. Most of us assumed he was likely off on another possibly illegal hunting trip, or perhaps was spending day and night just getting on top of that smoking hot wife of his. In either case, the former UFC Heavyweight Champ recently popped up in Minneapolis to present Minnesota Gopher freshman wrestler Logan Storley with the 2011 Junior Hodge Trophy. Storley, who recently helped the Gophers clinch half of the Big Ten Dual Meet conference championship (along with Penn State), attended the same high school as Lesnar, who, as we all know, was a NCAA Division I Champion himself. After compiling an incredible 262-3 record, Storley was voted the nation’s best prep high school wrestler by the Amateur Athletic Union and WIN Magazine. Now start training those hands, son.

Join us after the jump for a plethora of videos from around the MMA blogosphere, including a nasty Thai Boxing KO, Thiago Alves‘ first (and incredibly brief) UFC on FX video blog, and more…

So Ronda Rousey was on some program called Attack of the Show the other night, and the first thing we gotta say is daaaaaaammmnnnn. We’ve been hearing blasphemous claims of Ronda being a 5 at best around here as of late, and it’s time to squash this beef. Anyone who claims this woman is below a 7 must either email us a photo of their current or previous girlfriend, or send one to our Twitter or Facebook page. Otherwise…LIFETIME BAN.

Now that we’ve moved past her body, perhaps we can discuss her mind, as it is beginning to look like the witty, boisterous apparition that once inhabited Chael Sonnen has chosen Ronda as its next victim. Rousey, despite never fighting at bantamweight, is currently listed as a 4-to-1 favorite over current champ Meisha Tate, and the hype might just be getting to her head. When asked on how dangerous she saw herself, Rousey responded:

I think I am the most dangerous unarmed woman on the planet. [Looks to audience] I could literally kill every single person in this room with my bare hands if I had them one at a time. I wouldn’t do that, but I’m just saying, I could do it. 

(I bet even those scientists from the future who put me together couldn’t have predicted that old #643227 would become a future champion!) 

Success is a double edged sword. On one hand, it brings fame, fortune, and an immeasurable sense of self confidence, one that can only be gained by the awareness that you are truly the best at what you do. On the other, it brings crushing, tireless scrutiny from everyone around you, including those who helped build you up in the first place. And it is when you allow those naysayers to affect your daily routine, your mental state, or, in Christiane “Cyborg” Santos‘ case, your training regimen, that you have begun the inevitable fall from grace that follows.

Ever since her introduction to the public MMA circuit, Santos was looked at as a fighter who was simply on another level than that of her female counterparts. Her strength, striking ability, and general physique was shocking to even the most devoted MMA fans, and after she handled Gina Carano to take the Strikeforce women’s featherweight title, we knew she would be there for a long, long time.

And as with any case of athletic dominance, steroid accusations were immediately lobbed at the champ. Though there was little evidence to suggest any truth to these claims, pundits and keyboard warriors alike ruthlessly pursued them nonetheless. And as it turns out, behind the rumor was a fair bit of truth.

(Video courtesy of AOL)

When Gina Carano quietly slipped away from MMA for two years, many thought that Strikeforce was grooming Ronda Rousey to be the next face of women’s MMA.

Last weekend “Rowdy” Rousey spoke with Ariel Helwani about a variety of subjects and the outspoken decorated judoka who faces Julia Budd later this month had a lot to say on what makes women marketable in the sport among other topics.

Check out the quick quotes from the interview after the jump.

It may be five years too late for the winner of tonight’s Fedor vs. Henderson bout to gain anything other than bragging rights, but that isn’t stopping us from being excited. Those of you who saw yesterday’s link dump already know that Fedor is only seven pounds lighter than he was when he fought Antonio Silva. Even though the scale doesn’t show it, Fedor looks more athletic than we’re accustomed to seeing him. Of course, if you’ve been paying attention you aren’t too surprised. Dan Henderson made weight as well, tipping the scales at 207 pounds.

To get an idea of how small Fedor is for a heavyweight, skip to about the two minute mark. Even though Fedor has the sixteen pound weight advantage, you wouldn’t know it by looking at him standing next to Hendo. Henderson, who pretty much came into this fight at light heavyweight, appears to be the same size as Fedor. And remember, Dan Henderson isn’t exactly the Anthony Johnson of the light heavyweight division.

Everyone else on tonight’s card made weight for their fights. Yes, this includes Paul Daley, who weighed in at 171 pounds for his fight against Tyron Woodley. Full results, courtesy of mmafighting.com, are after the jump.

(Video courtesy of AOL Fanhouse)

All of the main card fighters from tomorrow night’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson card, save women’s welterweight champ Marloes Coenen were in attendance for the event’s pre-fight press conference at Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse in Chicago last night.

Check out some of the highlights of the presser for those who can’t watch the video at work, after the jump.

Continuing in its latest trend of breaking news before the media outlets can jump on the story, Zuffa announced last night that it had added a lightweight bout between Gesias ‘JZ’ Cavalcante and Lyle ‘Fancypants’ Beerbohm to its July 30 Fedor vs. Henderson card in Chicago.

Once thought to be one of the world’s best 155-pound fighters, Cavalcante’s stock has dipped the past few years thanks in part to a less than impressive 1-3 (2 NC) record in his past six fights. In his defense, each of those losses was a close-fought decision against top-tier opponents  Shinya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri and Josh Thomson. A win over Beerbohm could put him back on track.

(“I think we women really have to unite, keep coming up with really good fights and also be feminine outside of the ring as well.”)

We had the opportunity this week on The Bum Rush Radio Show to speak with Strikeforce welterweight champion Marloes Coenen who is set to take on Liz Carmouche at  Saturday night’s Feijao vs. Henderson event in Columbus, Ohio. As always, Marloes was an articulate class act, demonstrating why, besides her in-cage prowess, Strikeforce holds her in such high regard as a person, a fighter and a champion.

In the brief conversation we had with the Golden Glory-trained fighter, Coenen touched on a number of topics including original opponent Meisha Tate’s injury and miraculous recovery, representing Women’s MMA with class, finishing fights, her relationship with her Golden Glory trainers and teammates and much more.

Check out what Coenen had to say after the jump.