(I had no idea what to use for the featured image on this post, so I Googled “puppy taking a shit,” and found this. It fits surprisingly well, I think.)

Last week, we learned that the UFC and FightMetric were organizing a new set of official fighter-rankings, which would be updated often and made available to the public. It was a good idea in theory — for one thing, the rankings would be a helpful reference tool for casual fans trying to keep the rosters straight — but it suffered from two fatal flaws: 1) The rankings would have zero impact on which fights actually get booked, as we were once again reminded today, and 2) If the ranking body is only made up of media members who are on good terms with the UFC, as well as reporters who don’t automatically recognize this exercise as a conflict of interest, the results will inevitably be biased.

The debut rankings list came out today, featuring the opinions of 28 media members, including longtime shills (Franklin McNeil), obscure non-entities (“Burbank Leader”?), and left-field surprises. (Andreas Hale, good to see you my man!) Yeah, I know this sounds like sour grapes from a blacklisted media refugee, but after scanning through the new rankings lists, it’s clear that this thing is as useless as you probably imagined. Here are some notable lowlights…

1. Despite his 0-0 record in the UFC, Gilbert Melendez is listed as the #1 lightweight contender. You know, because he’ll be fighting for the title soon.

2. Other 0-0 fighters on the rankings list: Tarec Saffiedine (#10 welterweight), Luke Rockhold (#7 middleweight), and Gegard Mousasi (#10 light-heavyweight).

3. After losing his featherweight debut against Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar is now the 4th-ranked featherweight contender in the UFC.

(“In my unbiased opinion as an MMA journalist, Chael Sonnen is the #1-ranked fighter at *all* weight classes. In addition, he has the biggest arm and does the most harm.” Photo via Fuel TV.)

For the first time ever, the UFC will publish fighter ranking lists in each of their weight divisions. The new rankings will be generated by FightMetric, in collaboration with a wide range of media members. Here’s the scoop, via a press release on UFC.com:

FightMetric®, the official statistics provider of the Ultimate Fighting Championship® (UFC®), will continue to enhance fans experience by providing UFC Fighter Rankings. UFC Fighter Rankings by FightMetric will poll opinions from sports media worldwide and will be recognized by the UFC and integrated into its broadcast and featured on UFC.com. Voting will be open to media immediately after each live event with results made available to UFC.com within 24 hours.

“We are thrilled to have UFC recognize our fighter rankings and to have them hosted on UFC.com, as well as incorporated into event broadcasts. FightMetric has worked closely with the UFC for several years as an industry-leader in MMA statistics. Sports fans are accustomed to seeing performance data and rankings on their favorite baseball, football and soccer players, and now we can engage UFC fans on a similar level,” said FightMetric creator Rami Genauer.

“UFC Fighter Rankings are a great tool for new and existing fans alike to learn and better keep up with the fast pace of the UFC,” said UFC President Dana White. “We always look for opportunities to engage fans and media, allowing them to connect and voice their opinions, and this just one more way of doing that.”

(To the victor go the spoils. / Photoshop via MRuss)

Cage Potato is pleased to announce that a troubling legal matter has been settled in our favor. After being named as a defendant in a June 2009 defamation lawsuit filed by MMA trainer Juanito Ibarra, we’ve finally been removed from the frivolous suit, and Cage Potato’s parent company has been awarded $61,075 in attorney fees and associated costs.

The lawsuit stemmed from a September 2008 PunchDrunkGamer.com interview with Tito Ortiz, in which Ortiz claimed that Ibarra had overcharged Quinton Jackson for his training camps, which led to Jackson severing professional ties with Ibarra. Like many other sites, Cage Potato quoted the interview in a blog post, and gave our own thoughts on the matter. Nine months later, Ibarra responded by filing suit against CagePotato.com — as well as Ortiz, Jackson, and over 20 web sites and writers — claiming that we damaged his reputation by publishing false information.

(“Great night of fights, Joe, and I’ll see you next Tuesday.”)

Earlier this week, when the “Rampage motorboating Karyn Bryant” video started to circulate among the MMA blogosphere, our friend Maggie Hendricks at CageWriter.com wrote a post about Quinton Jackson‘s history of reporter-abuse, calling for the MMA media to stop playing along with his old, tired act.

Yesterday, the article was posted on the Underground Forum, which led to an avalanche of posters insulting everything from Hendricks’s writing ability, to her physical appearance, to her perceived jealousy of Karyn Bryant. A series of posts from UG member “The Skywalker” summed up the anti-Maggie sentiment:

“The act is only old and tired to you because you seem not to like the colorful flirtatious nature of his character in the first place. And again, he isn’t assaulting anyone, he’s staying within the lines and giving them great material so they can get more hits, more ad clicks, and make more money…You try to empower yourself by implying that you have the power to take his stage away, when you know damn well that the fans couldn’t care less about who is holding the microphone. You’re not giving him a stage, he’s giving you a job. If you don’t like it, I’m sure that there are lots of other news outlets that would love (lol) to have your CV on file…

(My God, the muckraking! Pic: Strikeforce)

After being denied media access to cover last weekend’s Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley for CBS Sports (and apparently buying a ticket and going anyway), longtime reporter Loretta Hunt conducted a video chat with fellow scribe Jason Probst on Monday to discuss the ongoing banishment of many of the sport’s best-known journalists from events controlled by the UFC. We missed it, but since Zuffa, LLC’s brazen efforts to marginalize media it doesn’t deem friendly enough to its own interests is perhaps the biggest story consistently ignored by “credentialed” MMA sites (for obvious reasons, right?), we figure some of it needs repeating.

For starters, Hunt claims the honchos at CBS Sports are not impressed that Zuffa continues to conduct media relationships like a 13-year-old girl deciding who can ride the pony at her birthday party. It appears that heavy-hitters like CBS are used to a certain amount of professionalism from the entities they cover and the UFC obviously sorely lacks in that department. Zuffa has been such a pain in the ass that Hunt says CBS might just chuck it the fuck-it bucket and stop covering MMA entirely. So, that seems counterproductive. Her quotes – with props to Fight Opinion for the original transcriptions — and some of our own musings are after the jump …

(“Attn journalists: Instead of writing that Fedor ‘lost’ we’d appreciate it if you would use the phrase Fedor ‘almost won.’ Thank you, that is all.” Pic: All Elbows)

Since we figure our readers don’t spend a ton of time poking around the “fine print” section at the bottom of UFC.com, we assume very few of you noticed recently when Zuffa, LLC quietly began imposing its “Professional Journalism Policies” on Strikeforce. All told, the policies (which you can read right here, if you really want) are almost 1,500 words of dense legalese that spell out what it takes to be deemed worthy of a Zuffa (or in this case “Forza, LLC,”) press credential and the rules writers and photogs will abide by in order to stay in the company’s good graces. Basically, it’s two full pages that boil down to one big “Or else!” for MMA journalists. While this may be Business As Usual at UFC events, it charts a bold new direction for how Strikeforce will deal with the media moving forward.

We won’t bore you with many of the details, because it’s all pretty standard: No shooting video of the fights, no cheering on press row, etc., etc.. The policies themselves aren’t much different from the ones imposed on journalists by other major sporting events. The difference here is that the people making the rules have historically been fairly heavy-handed in their dealings with the media. The UFC certainly hasn’t been afraid to hand out indefinite bans to some of MMA’s best known and most “professional” journalists, many times for seemingly very petty reasons. This latest development also means that a few major MMA outlets that were formerly credentialed by Strikeforce (including some of the sport’s most veteran journalists) likely won’t be welcome anymore. Any way you slice it, that’s scary news.

(Besides his go-for-broke style of fighting, Big Country’s penchant for telling it like it is has made him a fan favorite.)

Roy Nelson stopped by The Bum Rush Radio Show recently and as always, the outspoken UFC heavyweight contender didn’t pull any punches when discussing the topics we broached.

When asked about his recently publicized contract dispute with Roy Jones Junior’s Square Ring Promotions, "Big Country" says the frivolous lawsuit, which came about eight months ago is old news and that reports that he didn’t have his manager or lawyer read through the contract are false. He says that he was given the impression that SRP was no longer promoting MMA events and that his obligation to the organization (who only promoted two events and at time of writing has no other cards planned) was completed.

"It’s pretty much eight-month-old news. There’s nothing really new and exciting. It’s just a lot of legal processes. In the United States anybody can sue anybody. This has been going on for months and if this is a new story that people are writing about now, somebody hasn’t done their homework," Nelson says. "From my understanding, there was no further obligation with them. We were trying to get some fights with them and we helped them out a bit [with setting up some matches] because they were doing some smaller shows and they wanted to get into the MMA business. Now, apparently they aren’t getting into the MMA business."