(Did you just call my mum a bumbag, you budgie-smuggler wearing dole bludger?) 

Meet “Diamond” Dan Pauling, a nineteen year old undefeated prospect fighting out of the Australian-based Shindo New Breed camp. All of his eight victories have come inside the distance, with all but one of them coming by way of submission. Just four days ago, he stepped into the cage at FightWorld Cup 11 to square off against 4-3 slugger James Vainikolo in the evening’s main event. What transpired will ultimately go down as one of the most gutsy comebacks in the history of MMA.

To be clear, this wasn’t a Cheick Kongo/Pat Barry return-from-the-grave type comeback that will make you recoil in shock and awe. No, until the very end, this fight more closely resembled something out of a Rocky movie, in which our hero absorbed well over one thousand punches and offered little to nothing in return. Now take that and combine it with an attrition level that would make you beg for Ben Rothwell vs. Mark Hunt II, and you’ve pretty much got the picture here.

That being said, Pauling deserves some sort of award for his performance based on pure heart and determination alone.

Check out the crazy video after the jump.

CagePotato Roundtable is a new recurring column in which the CagePotato writing staff (and some of our friends) share their opinions on an MMA-related topic, and hopefully inspire some discussion among our readers as well. For the inaugural installment, we took inspiration from Joe Rogan’s enthusiastic crowning of last weekend’s Tim Boetch vs. Yushin Okami fight as “the greatest comeback in the history of the UFC.” That’s debatable, to say the least — but isn’t everything? So what *was* the greatest comeback fight in MMA history?

Seth Falvo
When Joe Rogan first called The Barbarian’s victory the greatest comeback in UFC history, my first thought was “Come on, Joe, are you seriously the only MMA fan who hasn’t seen Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Bob Sapp?” That comeback exposed Sapp for the overhyped freak that he was while establishing the legend of Big Nog and his ability to come from behind to win fights. Hell, we at Cagepotato consider it to be the best freak show fight to ever come out of Japan. But in fairness to Joe Rogan, that fight didn’t take place in the UFC. So my second thought was “Come on, Joe, are you seriously the only UFC fan who hasn’t seen Mike Russow vs. Todd Duffee?”

What makes this comeback so great was the fact that Todd Duffee and Mike Russow were essentially photo negatives of each other. Before this fight, Duffee was destined to be the next big thing in the UFC’s heavyweight division, having just tied the record for the fastest knockout in UFC history in his promotional debut against Tim Hague. Duffee was on the cover of Muscle & Fitness, the poster boy for Muscletech and seemingly in every men’s magazine on the planet — no matter how loosely the content was related to sports. Meanwhile, Russow was quietly coming off of a unanimous decision victory over Justin McCully in his UFC debut and had more fat in his left bicep than Todd Duffee had in his entire body. Everything about this fight seemed like it was a squash match.

(A wise man once said, ‘Success is the best revenge.’ A slightly less-wise man once said, ‘All y’all haters can blow me.’ / Photo courtesy of MMAFighting)

When Tito Ortiz choked out Ryan Bader at UFC 132 — breaking a four-and-a-half year winless streak in an upset that absolutely nobody saw coming — he immediately became MMA’s comeback story of the year. And if Ortiz can defeat old rival Rashad Evans at UFC 133 on August 6th, he’ll have earned a place among the greatest MMA comebacks of all time.

In honor of the Huntington Beach Bad Boy’s return to legit contendership, we decided to look at MMA’s classic career comebacks, and the non-MMA sports comebacks that we most closely associate them with. Check out the list below, and ask yourself one question: If Tito can leave the Octagon with a victory next Saturday, would he deserve the #1 spot?

FRANK MIR

Rise and fall: The brash submission specialist earned a heavyweight title shot at UFC 48 in June 2004, against 16-0 champion Tim Sylvia. Mir famously snapped Sylvia’s forearm with an armbar and went home with the belt. Three months later, Mir was struck by a car while riding his motorcycle. The accident broke his femur, tore up his knee, and nearly cost him a toe as well. His return to competition a year-and-a-half later was a minor miracle in itself, but the “comeback” saw him get smashed by Marcio Cruz, followed by a lackluster win over Dan Christison, followed by another smashing at the hands of Brandon Vera.