(The Long Island boys are right.  It really does feel like we’ve been here a hundred times before.)

Remember when we told you the vote to legalize mixed martial arts in New York was imminent?  Turns out it’s even imminenter (that is so a word) than we thought.  The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle cites the UFC’s Julie Wood in a report that says a vote on the bill to lift the MMA ban in New York is expected this week or some time in early May.  The moment of truth, she approaches.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Now we know the name of Kyle Maynard’s mystery opponent tonight: Bryan Fry.  He fights out of Baraboo, Wisconsin and is 0-2 as an amateur.  Normally there would be no reason for the MMA world to even be familiar with the existence of an 0-2 amateur fighter from Baraboo, Wisconsin.  But clearly this is not a normal situation.  Auburn Fight Night goes down tonight beginning at 8 pm EST, and you can watch it on the old internets via pay-per-view.

(More mindless violence in the 209.)

Nick Diaz isn’t joking about how dangerous his hometown of Stockton, California is.  A new report from Forbes (thanks to reader CMH for the find) named Stockton the fifth most dangerous city in the nation. Detroit is currently number one on the list, followed by Memphis, Miami, and Las Vegas.  The weird part is, of all the five most dangerous cities, Stockton is the only one with less than a million people.  We strongly suspect that it drops to ninth place on the most dangerous list when the Diaz brothers leave town for a fight, but could easily claim the top spot if they were to have sons.  Handsome, articulate sons.

(Just when you’re hypnotized by the look of peace and harmony in his eyes, he whips around and lops your head clean off.)

Rising UFC heavyweight prospect Shane Carwin chose a nickname for himself, no thanks to you people.  After hundreds of suggestions from you and from members of his official fan community, Carwin went with “The Engineer” as his official nickname.  It makes sense, since he is actually an engineer, which you would know if you’d read Neal Taflinger’s awesome cover story on him in Fight! Magazine.  But since we thought you people had some decent ideas we wanted to get Carwin’s reaction to some of our favorites, just to see where the Potato Nation went wrong.  Here’s what he had to say.

(So…you guys are Matt Serra fans, I take it?)

You’re wondering, ‘Say I go to UFC 98, what am I supposed to do in this Las Vegas place to entertain myself before and after the fights?’  Fortunately, we’ve got you covered.  We asked the guys from RawVegas.tv and MMA Fix what out-of-town MMA fans like you might be interested in, and then we combined their advice with some of our own personal favorites.  Enjoy.

(The hoax match-up the world has been talking about since never.)

It’s a crazy rumor no more.  Now Fedor Emelianenko vs. Shinya Aoki is a crazy fact, according to press release sent out today by M-1 Global.  The two will square off in a "five-minute special sparring exhibition" at the "M-1 Challenge Presented by Affliction" on April 29 in Tokyo.  So what will the lightweight and the heavyweight try to do to each other over the course of the most bizarre and pointless five minutes in MMA history?  According to the press release:

Complete rules of the Fedor vs. Aoki sparring exhibition are still being negotiated, but it will be presented as a special attraction during a 19-bout event scheduled to feature head-to-head M-1 Challenge matchups between host country Japan vs. England, Team USA West vs. South Korea, and Spain vs. France.

Well, that’s appropriately vague.  I guess this is what happens when you start to run out of credible opponents (who won’t ask for a lot money to fight you) but you still want to get out of the house and break a sweat: you spar with a skinny guy in tights.  Sounds reasonable.  Oh, wait.  No, it’s completely insane.  But what do we expect at this point?

(‘Oh no you didn’t, Alistair. And to think I cheered for you against Cro Cop.’)

It’s not quite as bad as Lyoto Machida admitting to drinking his own urine every single morning, but Alistair Overeem seems to have some unusual dietary issues all his own.  In a recent interview translated by Robert K, Overeem said he’s changed everything about his life, from his girlfriend to his coach to his diet.  Now he lives mainly on “horse meat, rice, and protein shakes.”  And here you thought your dog was the only one on an equine-centric diet.

Turns out that eating horse meat is popular in certain parts of the globe that are not called the United States (the Mongolians even make a horse milk wine, so there).  According to the always informative Wikipedia:

“Horse meat contains 20% more protein than high quality beef cuts, 25% less fat, nearly 20% less sodium, double the iron and less cholesterol. When compared to ground beef, horsemeat has 55% more protein, 25% less fat, 30% less cholesterol and 27% less sodium.”

That sounds all right, if you can get past the fact that you’re eating a freaking horse.  I guess there’s no real reason, aside from the psychological ones, that it should be any weirder than eating, say, a cow.  And look what it’s done for Overeem’s physique!

Wait a minute, you thinking what I’m thinking?  All that speculation about how Overeem managed to go from a tall, kind of skinny light heavyweight to a bulky beast of a heavyweight centered on the theory that he was injecting something.  But maybe it’s the horses who have been injecting something.  You know, in their desire to get huge, floss, and get mares.  It all makes sense now.  And you know those horses are always outside tanning and stuff.  They really are the Phil Baroni’s of the animal kingdom.

A while back we told you that Kyle Maynard, the congenital amputee who wrestled at the University of Georgia, was planning to make his pro MMA debut at a small show in Alabama.  Well, that’s happening this weekend, and not everyone is happy about it.  Columnist Brad Zimanek for the Montgomery Advertiser refers to Maynard’s impending debut as “a freak show,” insisting that MMA fights are “basically no-holds barred combat” and the only people buying tickets to this thing are those who want to see “how badly Maynard gets beat up.”

Clearly, anyone who thinks Maynard’s fight is a freak show needs to watch Bob Sapp fight cartoon characters and learn what a real freak show looks like. Maynard may get beat up on Saturday night.  That’s a possibility, given that this is a fight he’s going into.  But isn’t that his choice to make?  There probably weren’t a lot of people who thought he could wrestle at the college level, but that didn’t mean college wrestling became a freak show the moment Maynard got on the mat.