(Photo via Heavy/Fightday)

Shane Carwin never needed to fight. For the last 13 years, the former UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion has worked full-time as a design engineer, and he could have made that his entire life if he wanted to. But Carwin happened to be blessed with some extraordinary physical gifts — a level of athleticism that helped him become the NCAA Division II wrestling heavyweight national champion in 1999 while competing for Western State Colorado University, and the kind of eerie, inhuman punching-power that made him one of the most intimidating heavyweights in MMA history.

Unfortunately, Carwin’s supersonic rise to the top was derailed just as quickly as it began, first by a failed challenge against unified champion Brock Lesnar at UFC 116 — with Carwin eating his first career loss thanks to Lesnar’s unexpected resilience and a poorly-timed adrenaline dump — and then by a seemingly-endless series of injuries and surgeries. Inactive since his June 2011 decision loss to Junior Dos Santos, Carwin announced his retirement yesterday evening with a simple message on twitter: Officially retired 2day:-) thank you to my family, friends and fans! #dreambig GOD BLESS!!!

Even before he entered the UFC, Carwin was something of an urban legend, a spook story that MMA heavyweights told their kids at night. Making his professional debut in October 2005, Carwin’s first eight fights all ended in first-round stoppage victories, half by chokes, half by way of his enormous fists. During one stretch in 2006-2007, he stopped three consecutive opponents in the first minute of the fight.

In 2008, Carwin got his well-deserved invite to the UFC, where he faced Christian Wellisch at UFC 84. Here’s what happened:

(Man, could you imagine if he was like four feet closer to his opponent when he threw that punch? Devastating. / Photo via MMAWeekly)

When you think about it, it is really remarkable how successful and durable UFC featherweight Manny Gamburyan has been in his MMA career considering how many serious and ill-timed injuries he’s sustained. The Armenian judoka lost TUF 5 after suddenly injuring his shoulder during the finals against Nate Diaz and has been sidelined multiple times since then.

Well it happened again, just two weeks before another crucial fight for him. SI‘s Melissa Segura first reported via twitter earlier today that Gamburyan has pulled out of his scheduled UFC 157 fight against fellow top featherweight contender Chad Mendes, due to a broken thumb and fractured elbow. Gamburyan later confirmed the report to MMAJunkie.

“I just want to apologize to the fans and (UFC President) Dana White and the UFC. I’ve been training really hard. We’ll fight down the road for sure. My team was the main event, and we’ve been training together for many years, and I really wanted to be part of it too,” Gamburyan said, referring to his teammate Ronda Rousey, who will be fighting Liz Carmouche in the UFC 157 main event.

(…and if you include non-Zuffa fighters who shattered their penises last year, that number jumps up to 2,057.)

Yes, one hundred and four. Triple digits, baby. That startling figure comes to us via MMAFighting.com researcher Steve Borchardt, who tallied up all the injury pullouts by UFC and Strikeforce fighters in 2012, and fed them all into this chronological spreadsheet. (Color key: Injuries to champions are in yellow, all other main event fighters are in red, and co-mainers are in teal. Also, “KO’d by sauna floor when cutting weight” really deserves its own color. An ugly brownish-orange, perhaps.)

We’re all reasonable men and women, right? We know that this explosion in high-profile injury withdrawals can’t really be explained by a “curse,” or bad luck, or terrible coincidence. Grueling training conditions — in which MMA fighters work all year round, scrapping against elite-level teammates rather than paid sparring dummies, executing body-motions that are specifically designed to blow out your knees — has to account for most of it.

But are there other explanations? When you look at all the injuries listed as “Undisclosed” on the chart, you can’t help but speculate…

As MMA gamely stumbles into 2013, we’ve once again decided to bestow meaningless awards to the fighters and moments that caught our attention this year. CagePotato’s crack team of writers spent all month nominating winners in 27 different categories, which we’ve loosely arranged in chronological order. Use the “next page” links to scroll through this monster, or click on the following page links at your leisure. And as always, thanks for putting up with us for another year. Here’s to bigger and better things in 2013, which shouldn’t be a tough goal to hit, considering.

Page 1: Knockout of the Year, Comeback Fight of the Year, Worst Performance in a Drug Test, ‘WTF?’ Moment of the Year

Page 2: The Krazy Horse Bennett Arrest of the Year Award, Worst Event of the Year, Worst Fight of the Year, Best Fight of the Year

Page 3: The Cecil Peoples Shittiest Decision of the Year Award, Most Bizarre MMA News Story of the Year, The Dana White Crazy Freakout of the Year Award, MMA Twitter Photo of the Year

Page 4: Greatest Fight Canceled Due to Injury, The Minowaman Freak Show Hall of Fame Award, Most Satisfying Beatdown, Comeback Fighter of the Year

Page 5: MMA Fail of the Year, Catchphrase of the Year, The Steve Nelmark Memorial “Is He Dead?” Award, Best Female Newcomer

Page 6: The “Really? You’re Just Gonna Keep Doing that Shit that Gets You in All That Trouble?” Award (a.k.a. “The Koppenhaver”), Gnarliest Injury of the Year, Best Event of the Year, Submission of the Year

Page 7: The Inaugural “Okay, It’s FINALLY Safe to Call This Guy Wasted Potential” Award (a.k.a. “The Filho”), Greatest Hype Deflation, Greatest MMA GIFs of the Year

(“Aw thanks bro, these chips are so clutch. Say, you’re not an undercover cop, are you?”/ Props: CombatLifestyle)

Already smacked down by injuries to Forrest Griffin, Chris Weidman, and Gray Maynard, December 29th’s once-epic UFC 155: Dos Santos vs. Velasquez 2 card just got hit with another pair of withdrawals, less than two weeks before showtime.

First up: Cody McKenzie, the affable guillotine-choker who got gut-shot KO’d by Chad Mendes in his last appearance in July, has pulled out of his preliminary card bout with Leonard Garcia due to an undisclosed training injury. The UFC is currently searching for a replacement opponent for Garcia, who is looking to rescue his career after losing his last three matches. We’ll update you if/when Bad Boy gets a new booking. Update: Garcia will be fighting Max Holloway, who has won his last two fights against Pat Schilling and Justin Lawrence.

Speaking of undisclosed injuries, Czech wrestler Karlos Vemola is out of his main card match against Chris Leben, and will be replaced by Strikeforce vet Derek Brunson. After winning his first nine pro fights, Brunson has dropped his last two, a knockout loss to Ronaldo Souza and a decision loss to Kendall Grove. Leben vs. Brunson will remain on the UFC 155 main card, and will mark Leben’s first UFC appearance since his TKO loss to Mark Munoz in November 2011, and subsequent one-year suspension for oxycodone and oxymorphone. The Crippler is currently taking it one day at a time.

UFC 155′s bruised lineup is after the jump. Check it out, and ponder what could have been…

(I mean, seriously. Y’know?)

The UFC Injury Curse of 2012 has another big-name trophy to hang on its wall — Forrest Griffin, who will miss his UFC 155 main card match against Phil Davis on December 29th due to a wrecked knee. UFC president Dana White passes along the sad (but at this point completely unsurprising) news:

Forrest Has MCL tear and ACL strain. 20 cc’s of blood removed from his knee and the saga continues at the UFC!!

No word yet on whether Davis will be getting a replacement opponent at the “Dos Santos vs. Velasquez II” event, or if he’ll be pulled from the lineup. Keep in mind that Davis was himself a replacement for Chael Sonnen, who ditched his matchup against Forrest when his TUF 17 coaching opportunity came up.

We’ll update you when we hear more.

(Dominick Cruz, seen here seconds after being made aware that Dominick Cruz had been injured yet again.) 

It just doesn’t end, you guys. It. Doesn’t. Fucking. End.

The insatiable injury curse of 2012 — seemingly fed up with claiming non-injured, active fighters — has somehow grown powerful enough to affect those who were already injured to begin with. NO, IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.

And while the title may be a little misleading being that bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz didn’t truly re-injure himself, but rather failed to recuperate properly from the ACL injury that has kept him out of action since May, it looks like we won’t be seeing “The Dominator” dominating anything but a Domino’s delivery menu until late 2013 [WORDPLAY]. The newsbroke earlier today that the anterior cruciate ligament Cruz had replaced with that of a cadaver’s following his run on TUF 15 was rejected by his body, forcing the champ to undergo additional surgery in order repair/replace it.

“He’s pissed and disappointed,” remarked Cruz’s trainer Eric Del Fierro, echoing the sentiment of not only MMA fans around the world but that of MMA hack journalists such as myself.

I mean, I’m running out of ways to continue delivering bad news to you guys in this format. Creativity be damned; I feel like a World War 2 messenger at this point, just handing out notifications of death to the families of the deceased, trying to remain as emotionally unavailable as possible while little Jimmy Pocket and his Mom stare at me with tear-filled eyes. No Jimmy, your father isn’t coming home this Christmas. And that really awesome toy you wanted? You won’t be getting that either, because Santa never existed and now your Mom will have to pull double shifts at the diner and sell her body for money nightly just so you can eat canned hot dogs and stay off the street long enough to die with some dignity at age 7, when, following your Mom’s inevitable descent into cocaine and then full-on heroin addiction she’s since developed as a coping mechanism for being ravaged by the local charlatans and bottom-feeders day after day, she will fall asleep with a cigarette in her mouth and burn your house to the ground while you are dreaming of something, anything to remove you from the hellish nightmare your existence has become.

(Props: facebook.com/MichaelChiesaUFC)

Just days after UFC on Fox 5 lost its originally scheduled heavyweight bout between Brendan Schaub and Lavar Johnson when Johnson backed out due to a groin-pull, the December 8th event has lost another high-profile prelim match on short notice. The UFC announced yesterday that lightweight Michael Chiesa has been forced to withdraw from his fight against Marcus LeVesseur.

“Less than a week out from his backyard bout, Seattle’s Michael Chiesa has been forced to withdraw from UFC on FOX due to illness. The TUF Live season winner had been first slated to fight Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Rafaello ‘Tractor’ Oliveira, then lightweight Marcus LeVesseur when Oliveira was injured,” UFC.com reported.

The particular illness was not disclosed but one imagines that Chiesa would have to be awfully jacked-up to pull out of such a huge fight for himself. It would have been Chiesa’s first UFC bout since winning TUF Live at the series’ finale show last June, and he would have been fighting in front of his hometown fans in Seattle, on a FX-televised platform before a monster FOX event.

(So tell us more about this “pulled groin,” Lavar… / Photo via Maxim)

Just nine days out from UFC on FOX 5, the UFC confirmed last night that heavyweight slugger Lavar Johnson has withdrawn from his prelim meeting with Brendan Schaub due to a pulled groin. As a result, Schaub has also been removed from the card, and will not face a replacement opponent. “Frustrated would be an understatement..back to the gym,” Schaub tweeted after the news broke. The TUF 10 finalist has been inactive since April, and has lost his last two fights by knockout.

No word yet on the return dates for either fighter, or which Facebook match could potentially replace them on the FX broadcast. We’ll update you when we know more. Though the Johnson/Schaub fight was the card’s most likely candidate for a grisly knockout, UFC on FOX 5 is still loaded with the lightweight title fight between Ben Henderson and Nate Diaz, Mauricio Rua vs. Alexander Gustafsson, and Motivated Penn vs. Rory MacDonald.

(In a related story, Roy Nelson was recently diagnosed with advanced dickdo disease.)

Well, we saw this one coming a mile away. After suffering a “minor knee injury” back in September, Shane Carwin has now pulled out of his scheduled fight against Roy Nelson at the TUF 16 Finale on December 15th, due to a knee injury that may or may not be related to the last one. UFC president Dana White confirmed the bad news last night, and said that the promotion is looking for a new opponent for Nelson.

It’s a terrible setback for Carwin, who hasn’t competed snce June 2011 due to a series of neck and back surgeries, and was already forced to drop out of a fight with Nelson at UFC 125. Carwin hasn’t won a fight since his knockout of Frank Mir in March 2010, and at age 37, his competitive days are running out. There’s no word yet on the severity of Shane’s injury, or when he might return to action.

And by the way, this means that five of the last seven U.S. seasons of TUF — 10, 11, 13, 15, and now 16 — as well as one of the two international seasons (TUF Brazil), have ended with the coaches’ fight being canceled or delayed. Spooky. We’ll let you know when Roy Nelson picks up his replacement opponent. Our suggestion: How about Pat Barry, who’s already booked on the card against Shane Del Rosario?

And hey, speaking of UFC stars who have to pull out of fights next month due to knee injuries…

(“Brett, your x-rays came back and I have to tell you, the results are…grim. Ha ha, sorry, couldn’t help myself.” Image via MiddleEasy)

When Brett Rogers was stopped by Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem, and Josh Barnett during his Strikeforce run in 2009-2011, it just seemed like a case of a good slugger being outmatched by three legends of the sport. But when he was dominated for three rounds by relatively unheralded Russian prospect Alexander Volkov at last Friday’s Bellator show, the loss wasn’t as easy to dismiss. Was this proof that Rogers was washed up?

As it turns out, Brett had a good reason for looking so tentative throughout the fight. I mean, damn, just look at that friggin’ x-ray. Here’s what he had to say to MiddleEasy about trying to fight though a cracked arm:

(Between the facial hair and the t-shirt, the dude was kind of asking for it. / Photo via @RockholdMMA)

Strikeforce’s already-struggling November 3rd event just lost a title fight. Multiple sources have reported that middleweight champ Luke Rockhold recently suffered a wrist injury, and has withdrawn from his scheduled belt-defense against Lorenz Larkin next month in Oklahoma City.

The 11/3 event was originally headlined by Daniel Cormier vs. Frank Mir, before Mir dropped out last month due to an injury of his own. A replacement opponent for Cormier still hasn’t been booked yet — no thanks to Meathead — and now that the card has lost its co-main event as well, the lineup has gone from “damn good” to “damn, are they going to cancel this one too?”

The supporting bouts still scheduled for the card include Jorge Masvidal vs. Bobby Green, Tim Kennedy vs. Trevor Smith, and Sara McMann vs. Liz Carmouche. We’ll update you when Strikeforce figures out what the hell its going to do. Our suggestion: Put the remaining fights on Showtime Extreme, and use the original timeslot for Gigolos reruns.

(Just some more surrealist video art via gonzagabjj)

Gabriel Gonzaga hasn’t just been affected by the UFC injury curse — he is the UFC injury curse, in all of its weird permutations. The decision-phobic heavyweight originally found his way back into the Octagon as an injury replacement against Edinaldo Oliveira in January. Then, he had to drop off the chaotic UFC 146 card due to an injury. And now, he’s lost his scheduled opponent at next weekend’s UFC 153 card in Rio, after UFC officials confirmed that Geronimo Dos Santos would be unable to compete. Was Geronimo’s withdrawal injury-related? I don’t know. You tell me.

[UPDATE: Actually it was due to a failed medical exam due to hepatitis B.]

UFC officials haven’t yet confirmed whether they’ll be finding a replacement opponent for Gonzaga on the “Silva vs. Bonnar” card. As MMAJunkie suggests, Gonzaga would theoretically be available to serve as the replacement opponent for Daniel Cormier at the Strikeforce event on November 3rd, which would be better than nothing, I guess. We’ll update you when we know more.

(Welcome, gentlemen. We’ve been waiting for you.)

For the second consecutive month, Zuffa has canceled an event on very short notice due to one of the headliners pulling out with an injury. As confirmed in a press release on UFC.com, Gilbert Melendez suffered an injury in training, and was forced to withdraw from his lightweight title fight against Pat Healy at this Saturday’s Strikeforce show in Sacramento. As a result, the 9/29 card has been scratched altogether.

As with UFC 151, the relative weakness of the “Melendez vs. Healy” supporting card was surely a factor in the event’s cancelation. But what makes this situation unique is that Showtime essentially made the decision, not Strikeforce. From the press release:

Without the Melendez-Healy title bout, SHOWTIME®, which determines which fights are televised on the premium network, decided that it would not air Saturday’s scheduled event.

“When SHOWTIME informed us that it would not be airing the event, we made the difficult decision to cancel Saturday’s card in Sacramento,” STRIKEFORCE CEO Scott Coker said. “Without a television partner, we simply could not move forward with this event. We wish Gilbert a speedy recovery and will work diligently and quickly to reschedule the fighters affected by this news on upcoming cards.”

(Who ordered the mahi mahi?) 

You’ve gotta feel for Mark Munoz. In the past year, the dude has suffered not only one of the most disgusting elbow injuries on record (see above), but one of the most brutal, not to mention late stoppages of the year at the hands and elbows of Chris Weidman (see below). And he did the latter while rocking one of the goofiest haircuts in MMA history.

And just when you thought that Munoz might be headed down the path of recovery and redemption, it appears that he could be out of action for an entire year to deal with a foot injury he suffered in preparation for the ass kicking he would receive courtesy of Weidman.

Talk about adding injury to insult.

Full story after the jump. 

(Jared Hamman attempts to pull a fast one on us all at UFC 150. AS IF we couldn’t tell that his leg was clearly photoshopped.) 

Perhaps two-time Bellator middleweight tournament winner Alexander Shlemenko is just a little bitter that rival Hector Lombard vacated his former promotion (and a long-awaited rematch with Shlemenko) to compete in the UFC, or maybe “Storm” is just as tired of seeing all of the UFC cards he is ordering turn to shit as the rest of us. Whatever his end game may be, Shlemenko recently stated in an interview with ValeTudo.ru that he believed many of the injuries that have been plaguing the UFC as of late were more than likely faked by the fighters in order to get out of a fight that was not a good matchup for them. His primary example was Brian Stann:

I can tell you for sure, 100%, I know why there are so many injuries. I personally find UFC fights not as exciting because of all those injuries. There are a lot of background tactics around who’s fighting who; fighters are trying really hard to have a good record in the UFC. If you’ve been offered to fight someone who’s considered a bad match-up, then it’s pretty easy to say ‘hey, I’m injured’.

For example, they offered Brian Stann to fight Hector Lombard. He got injured, and then the next thing you know – he’s fighting Michael Bisping. I can see the logic – for Brian Stann it makes more sense to fight Bisping, he’s simply more popular in the UFC than Hector Lombard. That’s why beating Bisping means more than beating Lombard, who’s a risky opponent.

You can fake every injury. Just tell [UFC doctors] about the symptoms and that’s it.

God Damn it, Alex. Your love of centrifugal forces and general badassery made you one of our favorite fighters, but NO ONE accuses “All American” of ducking a fight. And considering the bullshit-laden excuse your boy Lombard gave us three weeks after putting on one of the worst performances of the year, we’d say it’s a little presumptuous to start calling out other organizations fighters for sparing us a fifteen minute wet fart in advance.

After the jump: Stann’s response, as well as a video of Shlemenko’s most recent fight, which ends with an injury that is physically impossible to fake.

(Ben Rothwell: One of the few men on Earth who can mess with the Zohan.)

Aw hell, this never gets easier. We regret to inform you that Ben Rothwell — who most recently made Brendan Schaub see God at UFC 145 — has been forced to withdraw from his main card fight against undefeated heavyweight rising star Travis Browne at UFC on FOX 4: Shogun vs. Vera; an ankle injury was the culprit. Though there were early reports that Strikeforce veteran Devin Cole would come in on short notice to get demolished by Browne, it now appears that Browne is being moved off the August 4th event altogether, and the prelim match between Mike Swick and DaMarques Johnson will be promoted to the main card.

Matt Mitrione was also offered the chance to fight Browne at UFC on FOX 4, but he wisely turned it down. As MMAFighting reports:

(Click for even larger, grosser version. Props: @anthonynjoku)

What you’re looking at is Anthony Njokuani‘s hand, which he broke during his decision loss against Rafael Dos Anjos at UFC on FUEL: Munoz vs. Weidman earlier this month. Good lord. It looks like a piece of driftwood that washed up on a particularly filthy beach. It looks like one of the sandworms from Tremors. It looks like a new Carvel employee’s botched attempt at making Fudgie the Whale. It looks like a bloated zombie hybrid of Anthony Johnson and Pac-Man. Get well soon, Anthony.

(From L-R: Claude Patrick, political kiss of death Dana White, Brian Ebersole)

Is this kind of thing even newsworthy anymore? The UFC 149 injury curse has gone from eerie to apocalyptic to as dependable as the rising sun. The latest victim: Canadian welterweight Claude Patrick, who has pulled out of his bout with James Head due to an undisclosed injury. Patrick will be replaced on less than three weeks’ notice by chest-hair artist Brian Ebersole, who just increased his UFC record to 4-0 with a decision win over TJ Waldburger at UFC on FX: Maynard vs. Guida last month. Coincidentally, Ebersole also holds a win over Claude Patrick, in a split-decision at UFC 140.

The latest withdrawal pushes UFC 149′s injury body-count to nine: Yoshihiro Akiyama, Thiago Silva, Thiago Alves, Michael Bisping, Jose Aldo, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, George Roop, Siyar Bahadurzada, and now Claude Patrick. If you include fighters who were moved off the card when their opponents came down with injuries (Mauricio Rua, Erik Koch), we’ve entered double-digit territory in terms of lineup changes. To paraphrase Tom Wright, the UFC’s director of operations for Canada, shit happens.

UFC 149 goes down July 21st at Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary. Urijah Faber vs. Renano Barao is still the headliner, and Hector Lombard vs. Tim Boetsch is still the co-main event. We’ll let you know as soon as that changes.

(The gold don’t come for free.)

By Elias Cepeda

Can you remember a time when the UFC has had more major injuries suffered by fighters in significant upcoming bouts at any other point than it has this spring? The heck if we can. So you can’t blame UFC President Dana White for being a little desperate to find answers as he and his matchmakers Joe Silva and Sean Shelby scramble to find replacement after replacement for televised bouts.

Here’s a brief rundown of some of the fighters who have pulled out of scheduled fights due to injury since last month:

- Chad Griggs from his fight with Phil Davis
- Yoshihiro Akiyama from his fight with Alves, and then Alves himself.
- Brian Stann from a fight with debuting Hector Lombard.
- Michael Bisping from his fight with Tim Boetsch.
- Thiago Silva from a scheduled bout with Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.
- Jon Fitch from his bout against Aaron Simpson.
- Vitor Belfort from his rematch with Wanderlei Silva.
- Jose Aldo from his title defense against Erik Koch.

White recently seemed to put the blame for such injuries on fighters sparring too hard against one another in training camp: “You have so many talented guys out there now all in the same camp, going at it like they’re fighting for the title. These guys need to tone it down in training a bit and stop hurting each other,” he said.

White’s anxiety over the recent rash of injuries is understandable but is he correct in diagnosing the cause? Are the majority of these injuries simply the result of training partners going too hard on each other? Or does Dana imploring fighters to “stop hurting each other,” make about as much sense as him telling fans who don’t have Fuel TV and have trouble watching UFC events to “figure that shit out”?

(Props: @JoshLBarnett)

Now, if that happened to my hand, it would be a wrap — you wouldn’t be able to stop me from sobbing. But Josh Barnett is cut from a different cloth than you or I. Despite suffering this uncomfortable-looking break within the first 30 seconds of his Strikeforce headlining fight against Black Fedor/Bro Cop on Saturday, the Warmaster bravely battled on for five agonizing rounds, only letting the pain show after the match was over. That’s what you call a savage and a true champ. Daniel Cormier also re-broke his hand early in the fight, but until he provides us with x-ray evidence, we’re going to have to proclaim Barnett the winner of their unofficial Gnarly Hand Injury contest.

(True story.)

Rousimar Palhares‘s reputation for unsportsmanlike leg-breaking, terrifying aggression, and general insanity is well-documented, and well-deserved. But now that he’s being blamed for leg-murders he didn’t even commit, we felt it was time to step in to defend him.

This morning, as part of their Blood Week series, Deadspin linked to a photo of a man on a table, with his femur sticking out of his leg. If you really, really need to see it, just hit the “next page” link at the end of this post. [Ed. note: Don't actually do that.] As Deadspin writes:

Click through to see what happened to Isiah Ordiz’s femur after he wouldn’t tap out of a heel hook from Rousimar Palhares. I cannot stress this enough: this is a Faces of Death-level photo and you will wish you hadn’t seen it.

Immediately, my bullshit sensors went off. I researched an entire article about Palhares’s assholish history of leg abuse two years ago, and there’s no way I would leave out something this gruesome and dramatic, if there was any record of it on the Internet. The fact that this is surfacing now makes it suspect to begin with. Surely us MMA fans would have already heard of it?

(As it turns out, Belfort-brand bottled water mostly consists of hydrochloric acid. Good to know. Photo via LasVegasSun)

Due to an undisclosed injury, UFC middleweight Vitor Belfort will not be showing off his “powerful trunks” against Cung Le at UFC 139 (November 19th, San Jose). Dana White broke the news via Twitter, adding that Le’s new opponent will be another Brazilian legend — none other than Wanderlei Silva.

Silva vs. Le will serve as the co-main event of UFC 139, which will be headlined by the PRIDE-era fantasy match between Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua. Silva is coming off his 27-second knockout loss to Chris Leben at UFC 132, while Le will be making his Octagan debut 17 months after his rematch victory over Scott Smith.

(Photo courtesy of Ed Mulholland)

Between the rotator cuff injury he fought through against Yushin Okami and the rib injury during his scrap with Chael Sonnen, Anderson Silva is becoming a bizarro version of Tito Ortiz — meaning that he makes injury excuses after winning fights. His latest ouchie is enough to take the UFC middleweight champion out of action for the rest of the year. Silva’s manager Ed Soares informed MMA Fighting this weekend that the Spider’s bum shoulder will most likely keep him benched until the first quarter of 2012.

So here’s the good news: 1) Silva will not need surgery to treat it, and should be back to 100% after some rest and rehabilitation. 2) It’s not like Silva needed to fight again this year anyway. And I don’t mean just financially, although he’s clearly rich beyond measure. More importantly, there won’t be a legit challenger to his belt set up until at least January.

(…and when he woke up, he could speak perfect Spanish. / Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

You know, if James Irvin didn’t already exist, Mike Swick would be a solid front-runner for Most Cursed Fighter in MMA. Since his second-consecutive loss against Paulo Thiago last February, Swick has been completely out of action, nursing himself back to health following a stomach-related medical misdiagnosis then a back injury. ‘Quick’ was scheduled to take on newcomer Erick Silva on the prelims of UFC 134 — which would have ended an 18-month layoff — but has now withdrawn from that fight due to a torn MCL and ACL suffered in training.

(The good old days — when men were men and briefs were shiny.)

Hello to all of my Cage Potato friends and thanks again for your interest and questions. It’s been a busy 2011 so far and things are only looking better from here. Thank you for the wonderful night before UFC 129 in Toronto. To those who missed it, there was a Cage Potato: Banned party that week and I had the opportunity to meet many loyal readers and Cage Potato “Big Wigs.” As you may know, I’ve reached a different stage in my career and I hope to provide you with more honest insights into many of the things that I’ve learned. I’m pleased to be black by popular demand. Ask away for my next column. Also, add me on Facebook, Twitter, and my blog www.bigdaddyfightteam.com.

All the best and Happy Humping,
Gary Goodridge

‘Bob Villa’ asks: How do you feel about all the lay and pray we’ve been subjected to lately? What do you think about guys like GSP who seem to fight not to lose and never go for the finish?
You’re asking the wrong guy because I always went for the finish. I think just lying on top of somebody is just crap and ridiculous. However, when fighters start doing that they pay the price because the promotions are not going to bring you back. You already know I like Wanderlei Silva and Chris Leben; I also like a lot of the U.K. fighters like Dan Hardy because they always provide entertaining fights.

GSP is a different animal though. He is a champion. He doesn’t have to finish these guys. They have to finish GSP. His job is to keep his belt any way that he can because the belt means prestige and, more importantly, money. If I were him I would use every fibre in my body to walk away with the belt. I never won a championship beyond the International Vale Tudo Championship so I was never in a position to have to try and retain my belt. I was the guy who tried to shatter the myths of others fighters as champions.

People need to understand that guys like GSP are facing the top competition in the world every fight. There is no room for a mistake. It may not look like he’s doing much but trust me, he is.

‘bgoldstein’ asks: At PRIDE 11, you gave Yoshiaki Yatsu one of the most savage beatings I’ve ever seen in my life. Why did PRIDE book a rematch of that fight the next year? Did you feel bad accepting it?

(Pokrajac chokes out James Irvin at UFC on Versus 2, but contracts the Sandman Curse in the process. Props: Francis Specker)

UFC 131 was never going to be remembered as the most stacked event of the year, but it did have a lot of crowd-pleasing names on it. Then, Brock Lesnar fell ill with a flare-up of diverticulitis, TUF 11 winner Court McGee tweaked his knee in training, and Mac Danzig’s chest injury snubbed out a compelling bang-up with Donald Cerrone. Throw in injury withdrawals from supporting players Anthony Perosh and Rani Yahya, and you’re left with a ghost-ship of a card that’s making Joe Silva work double-shifts.

Now, just days before the third UFC event in three weeks, the card continues to lose bodies. Due to an undisclosed injury*, Croatian light-heavyweight Igor Pokrajac has been forced to withdraw from his fight against Krzysztof Soszynski, and will be replaced on short notice by Mike Massenzio. (Pokrajac was already an injury replacement for Anthony Perosh, which means that this UFC 131 injury curse has affected K-Sos as much as anybody.)

(Get used to this mug. Props: MMARatings.net)

Anthony Johnson was slated to welcome Nate Marquardt to the welterweight division at this month’s UFC Live event (June 26th in Pittsburgh), but due to a rotator cuff injury suffered in training, ‘Rumble’ won’t be able to make that date. Coming in on short-notice against Marquardt will be rising welterweight star Rick Story, who was in action just last weekend at UFC 130, picking up his sixth-consecutive win against Thiago Alves.

It’s a gamble for Story, but taking out a longtime middleweight contender like Marquardt would earn the Washington native even more respect in the crowded contender pool at 170. Will Story be able to use his wrestling to stifle Marquardt in the same way that Chael Sonnen did at UFC 109, or is Nate going to put the welterweight division on notice, starting with Rick?

The current lineup of UFC Live: Marquardt vs. Story (aka ‘UFC on Versus 4′) is after the jump…

(“What has two relatively healthy thumbs and just screwed with Rashad Evans’s career? This guy!” Photo courtesy of Francis Specker.)

Well, this isn’t going to help the credibility of that swagger-jackin’ Jon Jones. Bones’s manager Malki Kawa took to twitter today with a revelation that will only give more ammunition to the haters who found it a little suspicious that the UFC light-heavyweight champion postponed a fight against Rashad Evans to fix a thumb injury that “doesn’t affect [his] punching or grappling“:

I guess its time to put out the truth. @Jonnybones suffered a tear in his thumb in 2 different spots… Every dr he saw said to have surgery. We went to meet with the surgeon on wed and after he looked at @Jonnybones he thought that surgery was a bit [invasive] and bones didn’t have To have if he didn’t want to. @Jonnybones decided against surgery, and we immediately met with dana and lorenzo the next day to get his next fight scheduled.

(Props: ix3623vault)

Think of it as a necessary cool-down after those ring girl videos. Starring: Dwayne Lewis, Mark Hominick, Kazushi Sakuraba, and a bunch of lumpy boxers. Gross.