(Yeah, we’d miss this kind of thing too. Photo via Getty Images.)  

Alright, this is getting ri-goddamn-diculous.

Less than a fortnight ago, we dropped the official ban hammer on fighters announcing their retirement from the sport, then immediately unretiring. Aside from the fact that most of these so-called “retirements” last less time than the average hangover, the fighters who usually pull this bait-and-switch tend to look anything but “revitalized” or “renewed” upon returning. In most cases, it is quite the opposite.

And the latest offender of our ban? Former Strikeforce light heavyweight and semi-rehabilitated former bastard Mike Kyle, who announced his retirement from the sport following a first round submission loss to Gegard Mousasi in January. As in January of this year. One would think it would take a mighty fine offer against a well known opponent to draw Kyle out of retirement so quickly. One would be wrong, as it was announced recently that Kyle will be squaring off against fellow Strikeforce vet Valentijn Overeem in a heavyweight contest in May. Details via MMAJunkie:

A heavyweight bout between former Strikeforce fighters Mike Kyle (19-9-1) and Valentijn Overeem (32-30) is set for Championship Fighting Alliance’s 11th event, which is slated for May 24 at BankUnited Center in Coral Gables, Fla. 

We haven’t been this excited for a scrap between two aging lower-tier fighters since the Shamrock/Freeman superfight was announced. Any naysayers out there?

(“No way! You were the completely innocent victim of a vast conspiracy aimed at soiling your reputation TOO?! Somebody call Lance, we’ve got some work to do.”) 

You know, just once I would like to hear an athlete take full responsibility for their actions without needing an hour-long Oprah special to do so. I realize that as fans, we often refuse to acknowledge that the people we falsely idolize are capable of wrongdoing, but if the athletes that continue to get busted for banned substances/steroids/stevia were truly concerned about their fanbase, they probably wouldn’t be trying to cheat the system in the first place.

So you’ll excuse my rush to judgement, but suffice it to say, I ain’t buying the conspiracy theory that former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante laid out in a recent interview with Globo Esporte. As you might recall, Cavalcante tested positive for Stanozolol in the aftermath of his win over Mike Kyle last May, and was subsequently denied an appeal by the California State Athletic Commission in the months that followed. Although if you were to ask Rafael, he would tell you that the blood — or rather, the urine — is on the CSAC’s hands:

The organizers wanted to harm me. I had conducted a test in Brazil a week before the fight. I would not be so stupid to take any banned substance, the type of anabolic they claimed I took in fact makes a person gain weight. I’m already a heavyweight, would not take that. 

The urine sample was manipulated. When the form was submitted, it was dated on May 18, 2012, but in reality the sample was collected a day later on may 19. When we checked the form more carefully, we saw that there was another mistake. The collection was made at the HP Pavilion, where the event was held, but in the form it says collection was made at the hotel where we were staying.

(Photo via sports.sho.com)

Following his first-round submission loss to Gegard Mousasi at Saturday’s Strikeforce: Marquardt vs. Saffiedine event, Mike Kyle reportedly told Ariel Helwani that he was throwing in the towel on his MMA career: “It’s not in me anymore. That was my last one,” Kyle said. Assuming that the 32-year-old AKA product keeps his word, Kyle’s overall record ends at 19-9-1 with 2 no-contests, competing as a heavyweight and light-heavyweight over the last 12 years.

How you react to this news will probably depend on how long you’ve been following the sport. If you’re a relatively new fan, you probably think of Kyle — if you think of him at all — as one of Strikeforce’s dependable space-fillers, who was always there when a guy like Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva or Fabricio Werdum needed an opponent. Kyle’s single greatest accomplishment over the last three years was his upset knockout of Rafael “Feijao” Cavlacante in June 2009; their rematch last year ended in a 33-second submission loss for Kyle, but the result was overturned due to the Brazilian slugger failing a drug test.

But if you’ve been an MMA fan for a long time, you might still think of Mike Kyle as a scumbag, a shameful black mark on an already nasty business. Here’s how we summarized Kyle’s greatest hits in our “10 Most Despicable People in MMA” list from April 2008, where we stuck Kyle at #3, between Nazi fighter Melvin Costa (#4) and UFC president Dana White (#2):

Bit Wes Sims‘s chest during their fight at UFC 47. Repeatedly kneed Justin Eilers in the balls during their fight at UFC 49. Poked Tsuyoshi Kosaka in the eye during a Pancrase match in October 2005. Poked Krzysztof Soszynski in the eye during a Strikeforce match in March 2006. Two months later, he illegally soccer kicked Brian Olsen during a WEC match, knocking him out, then punched him several times while he was unconscious, despite the ref’s efforts to pull Kyle off…

I’ll be completely honest: I didn’t watch Strikeforce’s farewell card live last night. I recorded it, and watched it when I was done watching football. Am I just that dedicated of a 49ers/Packers fan? Not quite; last night was the first time I watched either team play all season. Rather, my mentality was that I haven’t been changing my schedule to accommodate Strikeforce events for the past two years now [Author Note: Damn, was the buyout really two years ago already? Time flies when you're watching something die.], so why start now for the promotion’s grand finale.

Reading through the collection of Strikeforce tributes online, it’s obvious that I’m not the only one feeling this way. Articles and tweets about the demise of Strikeforce have been respectful, but not overly-sentimental, and the comments sections of various liveblogs covering the event didn’t exactly blow up for the occasion. There were none of the regrets, what-nows and what-could-have-beens that usually come along with failed business ventures – just a few awkward goodbyes as Zuffa prepared to pull the plug on the machine that no longer served any purpose.

And honestly, why would anyone other than Strikeforce’s employees, fighters and Scott Coker feel any differently? The death of Strikeforce doesn’t mark the end of a promotion that has been pumping out relevant fights for the past two years. It isn’t the death of an alternative option for fighters not wanting to sign with Zuffa. It isn’t the even the end of free MMA on basic cable.

I guess it would be different if this card was stacked with the fighters who made Strikeforce Strikeforce, such as Cung Le, Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem, Ronda Rousey, Gilbert Melendez and Luke Rockhold, but they’ve either been assimilated into the UFC by now or they’ve pulled out of the event due to injury/apathy. Instead, this card served as one final night of squash fights – one of which actually ended differently than you may have expected.

(I know what you’re thinking: Why the hell did they leave Nandor Guelmino off the poster? Well I don’t mean to alarm you, but that bright shining ball of fire in the background *is* Nandor Guelmino.)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the end of the world. Tonight’s last-ever Strikeforce event went from a championship triple-header to Squash City in a hurry, and it’s okay to feel depressed about it. (If you need somebody to talk to, call 1-888-BRO-TATO and one of our mental health professionals will be on the line shortly.)

On the main card this evening, Nate Marquardt puts his welterweight title on the line against Belgian standout Tarec Saffiedine, Daniel Cormier and Josh Barnett try not to shit the bed against their unheralded opponents, Gegard Mousasi returns from a long layoff to face Mike Kyle, and Ed Herman crosses the UFC/Strikeforce DMZ to bang with the always-dangerous Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza.

Like a spirit guide leading us from one realm of existence to the next, Jim Genia will be sticking round-by-round results from the “Marquardt vs. Saffiedine” Showtime broadcast after the jump, beginning at 10 p.m. ET. Make your voices heard in the comments section, and please, let’s honor this moment.

CagePotato Conspiracy Theory: Rockhold isn’t hurt, but he already sold the belt on eBay while people were still willing to bid on his treasure.

There’s no need for a wordy introduction here: Strikeforce has officially become so incompetent that it can’t even die correctly.

After canceling two consecutive events, Strikeforce planned to have an absolutely stacked grand finale on January 12, 2013 featuring three title fights and Heavyweight Grand Prix champion Daniel Cormier. Much like everything else that Strikeforce has planned since being purchased by Zuffa, things quickly went wrong. First, lightweight kingpin Gilbert Melendez got injured/realized he was in a no-win scenario fighting for Strikeforce again and pulled out of the event. Now, middleweight champion Luke Rockhold is also off of the card, citing a wrist injury as the reason for his departure. According to The MMA Corner:

The MMA Corner has learned from sources close to the camp of Rockhold that the middleweight champion has suffered a wrist injury and has been forced to withdraw from his scheduled Jan. 12 title defense against Lorenz Larkin.

Mauro haters, hit mute now. Actually, everyone hit mute and read what I say about the fights below. (Video: YouTube/ShoSports)

Bruised and battered. Cut and bloodied. Josh Barnett’s face wasn’t one of a man who got out-wrestled last night. Olympic-level or not, wrestling doesn’t leave you looking like you put your head through a meat grinder. Don’t get me wrong, he did get out-wrestled last night, he just got out-struck as well. He got out-everythinged, if you want to get technical.

It didn’t have to be that way, of course. A lot of men would have wilted earlier–much earlier–in the onslaught of Daniel Cormier’s attack. But Barnett never thought of taking the easy way out, and today his face testifies to the evolving game of Cormier. The AKA product showed great versatility in his striking, staggering Barnett with heavy hands, head kicks, and knees. His combinations come fast, hard, and often, which explains why his hand surgeon is on retainer (yeah, he broke his hand again last night). When he did grab hold of “The War Master”, his grappling pedigree shone as well. He sent Barnett stumbling across the cage from the clinch and dolled out single-leg frequent flier miles, at one point flipping the former UFC champion in the air before slamming him to the mat.

(The time for talking is over. The time for looking into a camera and screaming has just begun. Photo via Esther Lin/SHO Sports.)

If you had told me 16 months ago that the Strikeforce 2011-2012 Heavyweight Grand Prix would conclude with an unheralded reserve-fighter ending up in the finals, and tournament favorite Alistair Overeem nowhere to be seen due to promotional poaching and a subsequent drug-test scandal, I would have said “Yeah, that sounds about right, actually.”

The good news is, Josh Barnett vs. Daniel Cormier is a hell of a matchup — a classic generational battle between a battle-tested old veteran and a hungry up-and-comer. (As it turns out, Barnett is only like a year-and-a-half older than Cormier, but work with me here.) Also on the main card: Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thomson fight for Strikeforce’s lightweight title for the third time, while light-heavyweights Mike Kyle and Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante throw down in a rematch of their own.

Handling the play-by-play for the tonight’s Showtime broadcast of Strikforce: Barnett vs. Cormier is our own Elias Cepeda, who will be posting live results after the jump starting at 10 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and let us know how you feel in the comments section. You ready for war? Because guys, we are always ready for war.

A light heavyweight tilt between former Strikeforce 205-pound kingpin Gegard Mousasi and controversial American Kickboxing Academy fighter Mike Kyle has been added to Strikeforce’s March 3 “Tate vs. Rousey” event in Columbus, Ohio.

Kyle revealed the news today via Twitter.

(Surprised they didn’t call this one “Beauty and the Beast.”)

On this day in MMA history two years ago Strikeforce held it’s first event headlined by a women’s championship fight. Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg, which featured a bout between Gina Carano and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos for the inaugural Strikeforce Women’s middleweight (145 pound) championship, took place on Saturday, August 15, 2009 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California.

VidProps: BloodstreamMMA100/YouTube

Strikeforce is forging ahead with this crazy “Grand Prix” gimmick — no telling how they came up with a concept like that, but props to them — and the semifinals could go down in September. If everything goes according to plan, the event should be packed with good matchups. Let’s take a look.

The heavyweight GP will continue with Alistair Overeem squaring off with Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, and “War Master” Josh Barnett against “The Russian Concussion” Sergei Kharitonov. Those two fights alone would be enough to carry a card, but Coker and company want to make it worth your while to watch, so they’ve continued to put together bouts with an eye on producing a blockbuster.

Every other bout currently rumored for the show features a current or former champion for the Strikeforce banner, including a title match for current middleweight champ “Jacare” Souza.

(Careful, Gegard. If he bites you, you become one of them. Photo courtesy of Esther Lin/Strikeforce)

According to a new report, former Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Gegard Mousasi could meet Mike Kyle at the promotion’s September 10th card (venue TBA).

The two fighters were originally scheduled to meet at the ‘Diaz vs. Daley’ card in April, but Kyle was forced to withdraw due to a broken hand; Mousasi wound up fighting to a disappointing draw against late-replacement Keith Jardine. The “Armenian Assassin” is already slated to defend his DREAM light-heavyweight belt against Hiroshi Izumi in Tokyo on July 16th.

(Yeah, now that you mention it, you never see Mike Kyle and Newark mayor Cory Booker in the same room together…)

Due to a broken hand suffered in training, Strikeforce light-heavyweight contender Mike Kyle has been forced to withdraw from his scheduled match against Gegard Mousasi at ‘Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley‘ (April 9th, San Diego). The Kyle/Mousasi match would have likely produced the next challenger to Dan Henderson’s 205-pound title. Strikeforce is currently looking for a replacement opponent for Mousasi, who has scored wins over Jake O’Brien and Tatsuya Mizuno while competing in DREAM since losing the Strikeforce light-heavyweight title to Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal last April.

The news of Kyle’s injury withdrawal comes just a day after we learned that Jon Fitch — who trains alongside Kyle at American Kickboxing Academy — would not be making his rematch date with BJ Penn because of a shoulder injury. Speaking of which, Carlos Condit is down to step in against BJ Penn…as soon as the UFC asks him to.

("Babalu, you old son of a bitch, I thought you were dead." "Maybe I was, Danny. Maybe I was." Photos courtesy of Esther Lin/Strikeforce.)
  
(From left to right: Mike Kyle squares off with Bigfoot Silva’s massive cranium, Kelli Hutcherson stands out in a crowd, and this is going to sound really strange, but does that photo of Lawler and Lindland remind anybody else of those optical illusion face-drawings that show a different person when you look at them upside-down?)

Headlined by a rematch ten years in the making, and featuring a solid supporting cast of knockout artists, Strikeforce: Henderson vs. Babalu could be the sleeper event of the year. The main card is about to kick off at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, and CagePotato contributor Matt Kaplan will be liveblogging it as quickly as his little fingers will allow. Round-by-round updates from the Showtime broadcast can be found after the jump, beginning at 10 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and share your own thoughts in the comments section.

("All in all, I prefer chest-biting." Photo courtesy of Esther Lin/Strikeforce.)

In the wake of Valentijn Overeem’s mildly disappointing injury withdrawal over the weekend, we racked our brains trying to come up with logical heavyweight replacements to face Antonio Silva. Strikeforce, however, took the opposite approach — drafting one of their light-heavyweights and hoping for the best. The promotion confirmed today that reformed bad boy Mike Kyle would be facing Bigfoot on the televised portion of this Saturday’s "Henderson vs. Babalu" card. Huh. That’s an odd one.

To be fair, Kyle has competed at light-heavyweight and heavyweight throughout his career, and has gone 5-0 with 1 no-contest in his last six fights. But his record — especially under the Strikeforce banner, where he’s never won as a heavyweight — suggests that he’s best suited for 205. Competing at light-heavy last year, he scored an upset TKO over current champ Rafael Cavalcante, and made another LHW appearance in July, choking out Abongo Humphrey. The last time Kyle competed for Strikeforce as a heavyweight, he was quickly choked out by Fabricio Werdum.

(This moment brought to you by Bob Cook, Cain Velasquez and God. PicProps: Strikeforce)

Allegedly rehabilitated a-hole Mike Kyle notched his fourth straight win on Friday night after a pretty entertaining fight with Ron “Abongo” Humphrey at Strikeforce Challengers 9. The two light heavyweights kept an impressive pace for eight-plus minutes and Kyle displayed some fairly dynamic striking before offering the clearly exhausted Humphrey a way out via rear naked choke roughly 3:30 into the second round. When it was over, Strikeforce play-by-play shouter Mauro Ranallo made somewhat vague reference to the victory being “the resurrection of a career once thought ruined” and a legitimately humble-looking Kyle repeatedly thanked God, trainer “Crazy” Bob Cook and his AKA teammates for “sticking by me when a lot of people didn’t.”

What they were both getting at, of course, was that prior to this current resurgence Kyle had basically done everything he could to drum himself out of MMA, in the process becoming the standard-bearer for bad behavior both in and out of the cage. But with seven wins in his last nine fights and now seemingly on the doorstep of a title shot in Strikeforce’s puddle-shallow 205-pound division, are fans really ready to accept Kyle as a renewed human … or as a valid contender?

(You can’t mention MMA and black eyes in a story without a "what’s up" to Rich "perma-periorbital hematoma" Franklin)

With the recent rash of unfortunate post-fight antics and TMZ newsworthy stories that seem to have plagued mixed martial arts in recent months, Cage Potato has saved you a whole lot of Googling and have compiled our list of the 13 biggest black eyes the sport has experienced over the years.

*Note: If the first fight you ever watched was Bobby Southworth vs. Lodune Sincaid, chances are you may not recognize the bulk of the fighters named below.

The list (in no particular order) is after the jump.

Let’s be honest — trying to predict the results of fights between guys you don’t really know is a fool’s errand. But we appreciate those of you who set aside logic and participated in MMA FightPicker last week anyway. I placed a respectable third in my pool (Contender Pool 10 #308 represent!), but was ultimately sunk by the upsets at King of the Cage: Vengeance. UFC vet Rich Clementi did his career no favors by getting TKO’d by young upstart Quinn Mulhern (video here), while Mike Kyle wore down the much larger Travis Wiuff with strikes until an exhausted Wiuff collapsed against the cage at the end of the second round. In the event’s title fights, KOTC heavyweight champ Tony Lopez picked up his 16th-straight win by finishing Tyler East with a triangle choke, while bantamweight champ Abel Cullum subbed Joe Coca via kimura in the first round.

As for the other action in last week’s pools, Alan Omer proved his status as a featherweight to watch by sinking a triangle choke on Paul Reed in the fourth round of their title fight at BAMMA 2, and dangerous Icelander Gunnar Nelson kept his undefeated streak alive by finishing Sam Elsdon in the first by rear-naked choke. Don’t ask me about the fights at Rage in the Cage; a couple dudes won by decision, and that’s all you need to know.

The top three players going into last week failed to pick up any chips (LOSERS!), allowing some new names to storm up the leaderboard. Currently in first place with 385 chips is Steffmeister, who must be a die-hard King of the Cage fan with at least a working knowledge of the British featherweight scene. Rounding out the top 5 are…

2) brade1584: 355 PotatoChips
3) Ciarán Parnell: 350 PotatoChips
4) Jokulgoblin: 275 PotatoChips
5) Aaron Rampey: 270 PotatoChips


They’re up there, but you can still catch ‘em if you beat some ass in this week’s pools, which focus on UFC 110 in Australia. Take a look at the questions after the jump, make your picks at fightpicker.cagepotato.com, and stay tuned because our first prize pools are launching this week. Thrilling details to come…

(The Good, the Bad, and the Leathery.)

Cyborg, Shields, and Mean Mr. Munchies may be M.I.A., but tomorrow night’s EliteXC/Strikeforce show still has some very compelling match-ups going for it, including a main event that will pit the fan-hyped Cung Le against the self-hyped Frank Shamrock in a middleweight championship bout. You can catch the action on Showtime starting at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Here’s what the televised lineup looks like…

Shamrock vs. Le (for Strikeforce middleweight title)
Frank (24-8-1) has talked his usual trash about how he’s going to spank the relatively inexperienced Le (5-0), but trust us, it’s only for promotional purposes; Shamrock isn’t dumb enough to actually believe he’ll be cruising through an easy one tomorrow, and unlike his brother Ken, he’s not dumb enough to stand and trade with a superior striker. Le has the most devastating kicks in MMA right now, and he ended his last fight — against Sam Morgan last November — via the ultra-rare body-kick KO. But like other fighters who come from a kickboxing background, Le’s long-range kicks often leave him open for single-leg takedowns, and Shamrock could capitalize. He’ll certainly be looking to take the fight to the ground when the moment is right and finish Le by submission, and we think Shammy will succeed in the second or third round. If they really wanted to make this one interesting, the loser would have to accept eternal banishment from San Jose.

Drew Fickett vs. Jae Suk Lim (welterweights)
A.k.a., “The Battle of the Guys Who Were Supposed to Be Fighting Other Guys.” Rage in the Cage/UFC vet Drew Fickett (32-5) has choked out fighters like Josh Koscheck, Kurt Pellegrino, and Carlo Prater, and has generally faced much tougher competition than “The Korean Icepick” (9-3), who spent most of his career in Spirit MC. We’re loving Lim’s nickname, but it’s not going to help him much against the far-more-experienced Arizona native. Both men hadn’t been preparing to face each other, so it’s a bit of a wash, but judging from how Fickett’s done against guys with Lim’s skill level, we’d say a first-round submission victory is nearly inevitable.

We already dished out our thoughts on the World Cagefighting Organization’s event set to enter the cage tonight in San Diego. According to Sherdog, the WCO’s weigh-in took over five hours yesterday – and when all was said and done, two fights were dropped from the fight card. Luckily for people who relish watching things like Britney Spears’ many public meltdowns, or smile at the trainwreck that is Danny Boneduce, there are still some great circus acts left on the card. eBay vet and addict Ricco Rodriguez will still battle Mike Kyle, who is fighting for the first time since his attempted murder of Brian Olsen after their fight was already decided, is 9-5-1 to Ricco “not-so-sauve” Rodriguez’s 27-7. Kyle was suspended by the CSAC after his incident, even though they did not sanction the fight.

Renato “Babalu” Sobral, the occasional prisoner and disgraced ex-UFC fighter, will face Vernon White in the main event. Obviously, someone hates Vernon White and wants to see him killed in the bout. Why else would the journeyman and his 25-32-2 record be thrown into the pit with the blood-thirsty Babs? Another ex-UFC fighter, David “The Crow” Loiseau, will face Leopoldo Serao, which will be both fighters first fight since last May.