(Props: mmadigest)

Proving that you don’t need dramatic music or clever editing to make a killer highlight reel, here’s a must-see compilation of Ronda Rousey judo-tossing the bejeezus out of Miesha Tate, Nick Diaz, Uriah Hall, Aaron Tru, Bas Rutten and a laundry list of opponents and training partners. And now that you’ve seen that, follow us downward for three more of the day’s best sort-of-MMA-related videos…

(Props: AXE)

Chael Sonnen‘s girlfriend is very attractive. Here’s how he landed her, with some sage advice at the end for all you young single fellas out there.

(Props: Giovani Brugnago via DamnSevern)

This quick ‘n’ nasty video was taken two Saturdays ago at a regional Brazilian promotion called Hawk Fight Championship, and features a dude named Anderson “Adele” Ramos (seriously?) knocking out his opponent with the kind of high-altitude body-slam that you don’t usually see outside of a pro-wrestling match. Though the move looked eerily familiar, I wasn’t sure what to call it, so I asked our resident pro-wrestling historian Seth Falvo if he could lend some assistance. After doing a bit of YouTube research, he directed me to this video of a “Back Suplex Side Slam,” and further explained via e-mail:

“It turns out no one used it as a finisher/trademarked a name for it that I can tell. I checked Undertaker, Dr Death, Bam Bam, Backlund, Taz, Kane, DDP…fucking no one named it anything. Vince McMahon’s famous “Whattamaneuver!” is probably it’s unofficial name.”

So there you have it. The Back Suplex Side Slam. Cue shooting star/piano music.

If you recall, the tryouts for The Ultimate Fighter 18: Rousey vs. Zingano transpired earlier this week, featuring such talent as Tara Larosa, Shayna Bazler and the incorrigible Kim Couture. Today, however, we actually get to take a first look at some of the lesser known ladies trying out for the groundbreaking season, as well as some of the veterans, courtesy of our friends over at MMAFighting. The most surprising appearance? Tonya Evinger, who I was positive had taken up a career in professional bull riding some years ago. Learnin’ something everyday.

With contestants spanning across all 50 states and even our neighbors to the North, the Grand Ballroom of the Palace Station Hotel was positively packed with young, excitable talent looking to prove themselves on the world’s biggest stage. Check out the video above, and let us know who you think we will be seeing come September 4th in the comments section.

-J. Jones

It’s a pretty well known fact that UFC heavyweight Pat Barry is a pretty eccentric guy. The same can be said for his girlfriend, Invicta FC strawweight Rose “Thug” Namajunas — in fact, it’s probably what drew them to each other in the first place.

Anyway, Rose recently scored her second professional win via 12-second flying armbar at last weekend’s Invicta FC 5, as you well know. While we were thrilled for her for obvious reasons, our excitement paled in comparison to that of “HD,” who proceeded to jump up from his ringside seat and leap onto the cage like he had just finished stomping a mudhole in Christian Morecraft following Rose’s big win. Thank God there were no small children in his way, or we may very well have witnessed a massacre worse than Cyborg vs. Muxlow that night.

Barry’s (literally) over-the-top celebration should come as no surprise to those of us who have seen him corner Namajunas before, but damn, I just really want what those two have. Not love, I’m talking about brutal knockout power and the ability to pull off flying armbars. I can force someone to love me with those two things.

After the jump: A video of Namajunas’ brilliant submission from Invicta FC 5, because big whoop wanna fightaboutit?

(I can’t tell you what my strategy was going in, nor can I tell you who the UFC would like me to face next. All I can tell you is that I’m just a man looking for the bastard children who took me Lucky Charms.) 

There was something incredibly familiar about Conor McGregor from the moment he started mean-mugging Marcus Brimage at the UFC on FUEL 9 weigh-ins. His brash arrogance, his complete lack of respect for his opponent’s game, hell, even his body type was positively…Diazian. And although his actual respect for Brimage in his post-fight interview and snappy attire at the post-fight press conference were anything but, we couldn’t help but be reminded of Nick Diaz while McGregor was explaining how dire his financial situation was before earning a $60,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus last weekend:

I’m just happy I won $60K. I’m just thinking on what I’m going to spend it on. I’ll buy myself a car anyway. A nice car, may be some suits or something. Custom made suits, I don’t know.

Just last week I was collecting the social welfare, you know what I mean? I was in there saying to them like, ‘I don’t know what going to happen. I’m signed to the UFC. I don’t know what….blah, blah, blah. But now I supposed I’m gonna have to tell them to f— off!

I didn’t have money before this… I was collecting 188 Euro ($245) a week off the social welfare. And now here I am, with like 60gs bonus and then my own pay. I don’t know what the f—s going on to be honest, right? 

Granted, it’s not exactly “I didn’t go to school for buying a house” levels of silliness, but you’ve got to…respect is the wrong word here…appreciate (?) the guy who openly admits to being on welfare literally seconds before sharing his plans to purchase custom tailored suits. Like Old Dirty Bastard before him, Conor McGregor will be an OG until the day he dies.

A full video of the UFC on FUEL 9 press conference is after the jump. 

You know, I may not have a fleet of G5 airplanes or an insanely successful, multi-million dollar company at my disposal, although I totally could if it wasn’t for my bum knee. I may not be part of a secret group of rich adulterers that smash the hottest trim in shanty towns across the globe, or show up to Hollywood premiers with Ronda Rousey on my arm — again, I’m blaming the bum knee. But despite all this, I take solace in the fact that — regardless of whether you’re UFC President Dana White or Skeeter the local angry drunk – as men, we all like to let loose in pretty much the same fashion. Mainly, getting our friends to embarrass themselves and blowing shit up.

So goes the latest Danavlog (seen above), in which The Baldfather grants us behind-the-scenes access to the one day off he gets each year. And oddly enough, DW doesn’t spend it getting a mani-pedi and eating veal that was killed in front of him like most of his fellow 1%ers. Instead, he spends it at his house in Maine with a few of his closest buddies, completing the redneck superfecta of hot sauce challenges, goat milking, skeet shooting, and hitting 125 mph on his dirt bike. Seriously, if White did all of this while slugging down Labbatt Blues, chain smoking cowboy killers, and demanding that Barack Obama show us his damn birth certificate already, I’d be convinced that we were born in the same town.

Then again, this is the same millionaire who willingly throws himself into mosh pits when he’s not cussing out members of the MMA media, so perhaps we should stop acting surprised when DW continuously defies our expectations for how the President of a major sports organization should act. Party on, Dana. Party on.

-J. Jones

(Props: OOFights.com)

Whew, does anyone else need a break from all this Nick Diaz/GSP/UFC 158 hype for a moment? I mean, I could listen to those two hurl insults at each other in broken English all day, but every now and again, I just want to see someone get knocked the fudge out, you know?

Thankfully, a video has recently been released of the battle between 3-0 KO artist Scott Noble and the debuting Francis Grant, which went down on December 1st of last year at OO Fights XXII in Virginia. And when I say “battle,” I mean a lone flying head kick that had Grant singing the Sleepsong just five seconds into the fight.

Look at it this way, Francis; your professional debut could have gone worse, I guess. You could have died.

-J. Jones

(Talk about mental warfare, Diaz has gotten so far inside GSP’s head that the champ has apparently forgotten how to hold his hands during a staredown. Look at him, he looks like he’s trying to restrain his excitement while watching a cheerleading competition.) 

The Nick Diaz crazy train continues to roll on, Potato Nation, and was on full display during today’s UFC 158: St. Pierre vs. Diaz pre-fight presser. First, when addressing why he had missed the open workouts — something Nick originally attributed to the UFC’s…I don’t know, flight scheduling? — Diaz claimed that he needed his sleep and that “it was either I miss yesterday’s open workout or I miss this.” Then, when questioned on whether or not he would pass his drug test this time around, Diaz dropped this gem:

I think [at UFC 143] I tested for a metabolite or a nanogram, it was hardly [a trace] so I just did a little more than I did last time so, sorry if I don’t pass the test, but I think it should work out. I’ve passed plenty of them before, unless they just weren’t testing me. I wonder how much they test people around here (glancing at St. Pierre). 

Seriously, this guy is like Sir Smoke-A-Lot, Burt Gummer, and the main character from Pi rolled into one tight, angel dust-laced doober. Are you still questioning whether or not Diaz is the antihero the MMA world so desperately needs?

Check out the full video of the pre-fight presser after the jump for all of these highlights and more, and make sure to swing by our liveblog of UFC 158 on Saturday starting at 10 p.m. EST.

(The family who pimps together, stays together.) 

Folks on the mats at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments tend to notice whenever a coach is shouting our instructions to their students in Portuguese or even a Portuguese accent. The reason being that it probably means they are from the fighting style’s native country and therefore know certain deadly secrets to convey to their pupils in their mystical coded language.

Or something.

The point is, some times the opposition can get psyched out by the ol’ Romance languages during tournaments. Imagine you’re a coach doing his best to prep a young student for his or her first Jiu Jitsu match and then you hear their opponent’s coach talking to them in Gracie-speak. Now, imagine if said Brazilian coach was Wanderlei Freaking Silva coaching his own son in his first tournament.

That’s just what happened last weekend, as Wandy was recorded…er…recording his son’s very first tournament performance whilst shouting instructions that likely left everyone else’s dad looking for the nearest exit. Fresh off a brutal KO victory of Brian Stann at UFC on FUEL 8, Wandy showed up, head shaved, tribal skull tattoo on full display, but holding a cell phone camera up to his face to capture his son on tape just like any other dad. Check out the video of Silva coaching his son, Thor, after the jump.

(Major props to MiddleEasy for the find.) 

Typically, a Monday morning at the CagePotato offices starts with cake. Lots of cake. There’s a staff meeting after that, again, typically held in the context of an underground cockfight or at the very least a back alley dice game. The rest of the day is as you’d expect: team-building medicine ball dodgeball at 11, lunch at Matsuhisa at 1, a full two-hour break to “research” WMMA videos at 3, and finally, Mr. Pibbs and a staff-voted episode of The Wire at 5. The writing usually happens after dodgeball.

But alas, not everyone’s Mondays can be as exhilarating or PCP-laced as ours. That’s where this video of a 14-second double knockout from last Saturday’s Galaxy Fight Night IV comes into play. Because, as you watch Aaron Britt and Brandon Alexander trade right hands and simultaneously topple over like a pair of felled oaks, you will experience nearly one-eighteenth of the life-affirming invigoration that fills the average CagePotato employee on a daily basis. It’s not something most people get to experience in the span of their measly, infinitesimal lives, let alone on a Monday morning at work. So enjoy this, you guys.

After the jump: Nick Diaz, hitting a speed bag, for 23 straight minutes. It is the lethargic, insomnia-inducing yin to this video’s captivating yang, and it will break you.

(Eduardo Dantas vs. Marcos Galvao video, via allthebestfights.com. Fight starts at the 1:48 mark)

So far, Eduardo Dantas‘s run in Bellator has been flawless. The aggressive Nova União member went 3-0 during the Season 5 bantamweight tournament in 2011, then choked out Zach Makovsky last year to win the promotion’s 135-pound title. Four months later, Dantas fooled around and got knocked out by American prospect Tyson Nam in an utterly meaningless fight for Shooto Brazil. (Bellator responded by threatening to sue Tyson Nam. Not a good look, guys.)

Last night’s Bellator 89 main event offered “DuDu” a shot at redemption, and fortunately, he rose to the occasion. Dantas made his first Bellator title defense against his teammate and former mentor Marcos Galvao, who won last year’s Season 6 bantamweight tourney. Dantas’s stiff jab and overall accuracy gave him the edge in the opening frame, and he turned up the heat even further in round 2, out-landing Galvao and rocking him with a head-kick. After a few more striking exchanges, Dantas found his kill-shot — a right-uppercut that buckled Galvao and sent him to the mat. A few more hammer-fists from the top, and it was lights out for the challenger.

Dantas was very emotional following the fight. “I’m sad and happy,” he said. “Sad because I had to fight my friend, and happy to still be champion of Bellator.” See? It’s not the end of the world, guys.

Bellator 89 also featured the Season 8 middleweight quarterfinals, which featured Bellator vets Brett Cooper and Dan Cramer picking up decision wins (over Norman Paraisy and Brian Rogers, respectively), as well as Russian newcomer Sultan Aliev out-pointing previously undefeated Mikkel Parlo. And let’s talk about Doug Marshall for a second, shall we? After showing up at Bellator 82 and KO’ing Kala Hose in 22 seconds, the former WEC light-heavyweight champ entered the middleweight bracket last night against Season 6 middleweight tournament finalist Andreas Spang, and knocked him out in just three minutes, adding another entry to the walkoff KO hall of fame. A couple more fights like this, and Marshall will have to change his nickname from “The Rhino” to “The White Hector Lombard.”

After the jump: Videos of the Marshall vs. Spang fight as well as a 15-second armbar from the prelims, and complete event results.

(Props to Sportsnet for the vid.)

And now kids, it’s time for some completely necessary last-minute hype for tomorrow’s UFC on FX 7 event, featuring such pros as Matt Brown, Alexander Gustafsson, and flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson making their picks for the main event middleweight showdown between Michael Bisping and Vitor Belfort. The matchup has started to gain a lot steam — thanks in no small part to a particularly intense staredown at the pre-fight press conference yesterday — resulting in the event nearly reaching a sellout despite slow ticket sales in the early going.

The video doesn’t feature too many stars, but the general consensus among them seems to be that if Bisping can survive the early onslaught, he should be able to take a decision over Belfort. Truly a shocking revelation when you realize that half of Belfort’s losses have come via decision and that Bisping has never defeated an upper-echelon opponent by anything else.

But enough small talk. Who do you like for this one and how?

-J. Jones

Fun Fact: According to our Strikeforce underdog poll, a staggering majority of you Taters thought Ed Herman stood the best chance of pulling off an upset over Ronaldo Souza. In a distant second was that of the now retired Mike Kyle, and in an even more distant third was a tie between “Mike Goldberg over his drug addiction” and “Barnett’s ability to piss clean.” In short, the results were hurtful, hilarious, and wildly incorrect, which is exactly the kind of rapport we’ve been trying to establish around here for the past five years. So take in this kudos, Potato Nation, because like a rich, neglectful father in a children’s holiday movie, it will be a long time before we willingly give you another compliment.

But on the off chance you didn’t vote in our poll or even tune in for Strikeforce’s final event (Full disclosure: I am catching up on the fights as I write this. KJ Noons should be on his way to a clear cut UD victory, right?), we’ve placed a full video recap of the main card above. So sit back and let Pat Militech’s soothing baritone take you back to a night of squash matches topped off by Tarec Saffiedine’s destruction of Nate Marquardt’s leg, which apparently next to none of you saw coming.

-J. Jones

Ladies and gentlemen, may we introduce to you the white Michael Page. His name is Conor McGregor, and on Monday he became the first two-division (featherweight and now lightweight — you hear that, Andy?) champion in Cage Warriors Fighting Championship history by starching Ivan Buchinger in the opening round of their headlining matchup at Cage Warriors 51. Combining some insanely fast hands with a flashy capoeira background, the Irishman has quickly made a name for himself in the European MMA scene, thanks in no small part to the fact that he has collected all of his twelve victories via stoppage (11 KO, 1 sub), including a four second knockout of perhaps the most Irish-named man of them all, Paddy Doherty.

McGregor’s most recent bit of handiwork is above, but join us after the jump to get real familiar with Ireland’s hottest rising prospect.

In light of recent events, it perhaps makes sense that the UFC would pull out all the stops to stir up some interest in the ever-elusive female demographic. That being said, the idea of having Vitor Belfort seduce our girlfriends/wives right out from underneath us, while clever, could have the opposite effect on the male demographic that basically built the sport from the ground up.

Regardless, the new trailer for UFC on FX 7: Belfort vs. Bisping – which goes down on January 19th in Sao Paulo, Brazil – forgoes the typical knockout-heavy highlight reels in favor of Belfort, a flamenco guitar, and a voice that will turn your woman’s pantalones into the Typhoon Lagoon at DisneyWorld. We’ll give them props for originality, but at the same time, they better deliver Ronda Rousey on a stripper pole when the UFC 157 promos start rolling out or there are going to be some serious problems.

We hear they shot a similar promo featuring Michael Bisping going apeshit on a turntable while “Ooonts! Ooonts! Ooonts!” blared in the background, but it was later scrapped for being — as the head of the UFC’s marketing department put it — “Way too Goddamned douchey.”

-J. Jones

(It was around roughly the fourth punch to Velasquez’s dome that Big John began to question the validity of Junior’s CPR certificate.)

Today at 4 p.m. EST, the UFC 155 press conference will kick off live from Las Vegas, Nevada. It will no doubt feature Junior dos Santos doing his typical “Baby Huey trapped in the body of Jason Voorhees” nice guy routine and Cain Velasquez repeatedly stating that “Yes, I will in fact bring a different gameplan into this fight, so for the love of God, stop asking me this question” while Dana White tries to comment on how great of a fight this is without dropping fourteen consecutive f-bombs in the process. All in all, it should be pretty entertaining as far as press conferences go, so join us after the jump to catch all the action (or lack thereof) starting at 4 p.m. EST.

What a difference two years can make. Back in 2010, Megumi Fujii was basically being labeled as the Fedor Emelianenko (circa 2007) of Women’s MMA — a mysterious, unstoppable killing machine who would easily run through all American opposition whenever she decided to make the move stateside. And indeed, her first three Bellator performances cemented her status as the top dog at 115 pounds, ending in two armbar stoppages and one TKO finish. Scratch that, her first four performances lived up to the hype she had built in Japan, the only difference in her fourth performance at Bellator 34 being that she let the fight go to decision and was therefore screwed out of a title for reasons unknown. Fujii’s opponent in that fight, Zoila Gurgel, would honor this gift decision by never defending said belt again, while Fujii would fight just once more in America, losing a unanimous decision to Jessica Aguilar at Bellator 69 in May of this year.

Shame decision aside, Fujii returned to action on Christmas Eve to square off against Mei Yamaguchi at Vale Tudo Japan 2012 and walked away with a clear cut unanimous decision victory, the video of which is above. Rumors circulated before the event that this would be Fujii’s final WMMA fight, and although she has yet to officially retire, the general consensus seems to be that the rumors are true.

We will hold off on the video tribute until an official announcement is made, but join us after the jump for a wicked highlight of Fujii’s reign of terror.

(Don’t worry, Fido, we’re pissed we can’t hump her leg either.) 

Thanks to the athletic supplement brand Gamma Labs, my penis has officially never been more confused in its life. It’s like a nervous groundhog down there, unsure of whether or not we’ll have six more weeks of winter. And all in the name of Christmas.

Picture this scenario: Brittney Palmer is in your living room, counting down the 12 days of Christmas in red lingerie, preferably while you wait for her evil but equally hot doppelganger to arrive and help you pick out stocking stuffers together (BA-DUM-TSH!). Sounds awesome, right? Now picture that, as you’re about to lay this gorgeous piece of work down by the fireplace, she suddenly morphs into PETE FREAKING SELL, complete with two black eyes and a shitload of tinsel (and probably a cold cut combo somewhere in there). Then Shane Carwin shows up. Then Chuck Liddell. Then Joe Stevenson and an army of caroling children. And so on. And so forth. It is a hellish nightmare that I wouldn’t wish upon the dingus of my worst enemy, yet Gamma Labs has spawned forth this erectoral purgatory on us all seemingly as some sort of cruel holiday joke.

Video after the jump. 

Although it has suffered its fair share of injuries, the UFC’s year-end event is still stacked enough to ensure that the sport’s highest promotion goes out with a bang rather than a whimper (*cough* Strikeforce *cough*). Featuring Joe Lauzon vs. Jim Miller in a FOTN front-runner, a rematch of top middleweights in Alan Belcher vs. Yushin Okami, and the return of The Duffman, UFC 155 will hopefully continue with the trend established by last weekend’s TUF 16 Finale, which is to say “Vicious knockout, vicious knockout, suplex knockout, knockout, rinse, repeat.”

And no matchup on the card has a higher likelihood of ending with a fantastic finish than the main event rematch between former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez and the man that took his belt away, current heavyweight kingpin Junior dos Santos. There were a lot of extraneous factors leading into their original clash at UFC on FOX 1 — Velasquez had come off back-to-back surgeries and dos Santos went into the bout with a torn meniscus. However, Velasquez looked like a man possessed in his first round destruction of Antonio Silva at UFC 146 and promises to bring the same one sided ass-kicking to dos Santos in the above preview, so check it out and give us your predictions for the fight in the comments section.

After the jump: A video claiming to have captured Velasquez tearing his ACL just two weeks before his loss to dos Santos at UFC on FOX 1. If that’s truly the case, Velasquez deserves major bro hugs for even making into the ring, because damn.

(18 seconds in = that moment when you realize you’ve literally been screaming obscenities on national television for the past 15 seconds. Props to FightersOnly.) 

We should all be thanking our lucky stars for tape delay, because if it weren’t for the quick minds (and fingers) of the UFC’s censorship department, some of our children might have had their minds permanently tainted by the obscene gestures and naughty words used by two men trying to beat the ever-loving shit out of each other last Saturday night. And that is unacceptable. I mean, violence is one thing, but the middle finger being thrown about all willy-nilly?! I don’t want my illegitimate children growing up in that kind of cold, harsh world.

And God forbid the censors had let the onslaught of f-bombs delivered by BJ Penn‘s trainer during his introduction (as captured above) slip past them, or we would have had a full blown crisis on our hands. As you can see, the gentlemen to the top left of the screen — likely through some sort of Hawaiian, mumbo-jumbo voodoo ritual that involves the repeated shouting of curse words — somehow absorbed all of the energy Penn was supposed to have stored up for his fight with Rory MacDonald in the moments beforehand. It’s the only explanation of how Penn gassed in a minute and a half, and the defense I am prepared to use whilst trapping my disappointment in his performance deep in the recesses of my soul.

Anyway, I spent most of my morning drowning my sorrows in alcohol compiling a playlist of awesome, semi-MMA-related videos from around the web that will last you through your lunch break, so check ‘em out after the jump.

It seems like it’s been forever since we passed along a Danavlog to you Taters, but today’s entry was simply too amazing to pass up. Perhaps to keep in accordance with the epic lineup that is UFC on FOX 5, Dana White has apparently turned up his pre-fight hype vlogs to 11.

Part 1 is above (featuring behind-the-scenes footage from UFC 154) but the real gem is part 2, which lies after the jump. Here’s a rundown of what you’re in store for:

- Dana White catching reality show producer Craig Piligian rummaging through The Ultimate Fighter wardrobe and nearly calling the police.

- Chael Sonnen discussing a recent near-fatal run-in his mother had with Yushin ”Yes, No, Thank You” Okami.

- Jon Jones and Sonnen engaging in a discussion about verbal tapping and whether Jones did it against Vitor Belfort, because Sonnen TOTALLY did against Paulo Filho.

- Mike Tyson briefly getting into the time he almost murdered Brad Pitt.

- Anderson Silva channeling DW and dropping an f-bomb, the scamp.

Enjoy this, Potato Nation. Enjoy every last second of it.

(“Why must we have to wait until February for the next episode of The Walking Dead? WHY?!”) 

If their backstories are any indication of how they will perform, then Rory MacDonald best prepare himself for hell against B.J. Penn come Saturday night. Not only is BJ looking to be in the best shape of his (welterweight) career, but the manner in which “The Prodigy” was portrayed in the UFC’s recent UFC on FOX 5 “Road to the Octagon” featurette has all but set him up for an epic career comeback. The “champion hoping to reignite legacy for family’s honor” angle has been played up plenty of times by similar countdowns, fight previews, or whathaveyous in the past, but very few cases have been as emotionally gut-wrenching as Penn’s.

The normally stoic Penn, whose daughter turned 4 around the time of the filming, revealed a completely unseen side of himself as he broke down in front of the cameras while describing how hard it has been to see his children grow up while he has been away fighting to secure their future (14:25). Credit is due to the editing department for brilliantly juxtaposing Penn’s fatherly plight (but did they have to have impose BJ’s breakdown over the Happy Birthday song for his daughter? TOO MUCH EMOTIONS DAMN YOU) with that of MacDonald’s, who admits that his own father wasn’t around much during his childhood. Nice try, Rory, but you are now the Max Bear to Penn’s James Braddock and we will root against you until Penn breathes his final breath. ATTICA! ATTICA!!

Anyway, a full replay of the special is after the jump, and it features an equally compelling handling of the Gustafsson/Rua and Henderson/Diaz fights, so check it out, won’t you?

(Props to FightersOnly for the find.) 

In the filmmaking/advertising business, the most common phrase you will hear is “Hey kid, if you want to make it anywhere you WILL get in this van.” But the second most common thing you will hear is to “show, not tell” — which oddly enough, normally precedes the first saying. So it is perhaps a testament to the people working in the Brazilian sector of Honda’s marketing department that they were able to convey so much in their new 45 second ad despite the fact that I couldn’t understand a goddamned word that was being said.

Seriously, this video has everything. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira rubbing lotion on his gloves. NO I DON’T KNOW WHY. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira eating a pineapple and dancing Gangnam style, then getting a spray tan. AGAIN, NO IDEA. Yet at the end of the day, the message is clear: HONDA GOOD. HONDA GET WOMAN. And being that it’s Brazilian, the ad also makes sure to squeeze in a few seconds of said women engaging in a pose-off whilst flames shoot out of some giant mechanical ring in the background. Did I not mention that this video has everything?

After the jump: A completely unrelated video that proves the superiority of Brazilian television once and for all. Again, it’s probably better if you just go in blind for this one.

I’d like to consider myself a psychologist of sorts, the way that George Costanza considers himself an architect. Sure, my degree might have been acquired less at an accredited institute and more in my own imagination, but based on several interviews I’ve either read or watched in the past, I can professionally declare that Tom Lawlor is crazier than a sack of rabid weasels. The crazy ring entrances, the outfits, this isn’t a man trying to leave his stamp on the UFC, these are the early signs of schizophrenia. Trust me, I’ve diagnosed this sort of thing before.

And while I wouldn’t declare Lawlor sane enough to stand trial, let alone fight professionally for a living, I will gladly watch his decent into madness if it means more antics like the stuff he pulled at the UFC 154 open workouts, which will easily go down as the coolest open workout display since ever.

An unabashed fan of the WWE, Tom introduces his trio of sumo as the “Sumo Suave” to Ariel Helwani in the above video before squaring off with both gentlemen after the jump. Diapers were worn. Necks were bitten. Enjoy.

(Welcome to Hell, “UFC Fan.”)

The UFC has finally done it, Potato Nation. They’ve finally crossed the line in the fucking sand.

Over the past year, the petty larcenists and newly-reformed-but-not-really-reformed gang members that constitute the UFC’s marketing department have been facing increasing pressure from their shiny-headed overlord to try and convince us that the UFC’s injury plagued, garbage ass pay-per-views were worth our money. And because a group of ragtag, delinquent video editors can only do so much, they were forced to scramble: recycling decade-old highlights to try and sell us on one fight and using outright tomfoolery to sell us on another. Hell, they even got so desperate that they took the honest approach to advertising.

But their best efforts could not prepare them for the UFC’s first trip to China. “A card so early,” they cried, “No one will want to watch that! Why, boss? WHY?!” They were desperate, knowing they had to go big with this advertising campaign or they would surely lose their jobs and be cast back into the cesspool they once called an existence. So, drawing inspiration from the recently popularity of such “torture porn” movies as Saw, Hostel, and Breakin 2: Electric Bugaloo, they put together an ad campaign that no one could dare look away from: a prolonged public execution, as carried out by the UFC’s brightest stars.

Three experts were brought in: The Muscle (Rashad Evans), the Loon (Chael Sonnen), and the Brains (Arianny Celeste), and over the course of three weeks, the subject dubbed “UFC fan” in the header photo (out of respect for his family) was hazed to death.

Sessions 1 through 3 are after the jump. Caution: These videos contain graphic material. 

(We can’t be the only ones seeing the metaphorical connection here, right?) 

Less than a week ago, Hurricane Sandy blew through the Northeast like the seventh plague of Egypt, leaving over 40,000 New Yorkers alone without a home to go back to. One of the people we originally reported to be among the homeless was UFC middleweight contender Chris Weidman, whose house was “lost in the storm” according to a tweet sent out by UFC light heavyweight Ryan Bader.

And although it turns out that the damage wasn’t as bad as we reported (his house is still standing for starters), it will still be weeks, if not months, before Weidman’s home is deemed livable again. Luckily for us, Weidman was generous enough to give MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani a tour of his home and the surrounding damage and even managed to capture some footage of his house as the storm was progressing. Pretty captivating stuff.

Video after the jump. 

Anthony Johnson picked up his third consecutive victory at 205 pounds over the weekend at World Series of Fighting 1, and while we described the moment as best we could, words simply don’t do justice to this Knockout of the Year candidate. Check out the moment above, in which Johnson, owner of the most cursed retinas in MMA, gets poked in the eye during an exchange with DJ Linderman, then immediately responds by turning Linderman into lumber with a single right straight. Even Johnson’s former boss was impressed.

After the fight, Johnson began speculating wildly (our favorite kind of speculation!) about how crazy it would be if the WSOF decided to book him against Andrei Arlovski:

“I thought about that fight too, I’d take it if they offered it to me. I was actually thinking about it today. I was thinking about it today whenever I watched the fights, I watched the whole card today, and I was like it would be crazy if I got to fight Andrei Arlovski…If it happened, I would accept it. Andrei’s a great athlete. I remember when he won the title, I remember when he lost the title, I’ve followed his career. He’s a great fighter, a real athlete, a real fighter too, so it would be an honor to fight him. If it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. That’s just something that popped in my head this morning, what if it did happen? That would be crazy.”

That would indeed be crazy — especially considering that AJ was competing successfully at 170 pounds as recently as October 2011. Then again, their size difference isn’t much of a difference at all. Arlovski was also victorious in his World Series of Fighting appearance, TKO’ing Devin Cole in the first round of the show’s main event. Arlovski has now gone four fights without suffering a scary concussion, which is as impressive an accomplishment as anything else that happened this weekend. Check out the Arlovski vs. Cole fight after the jump, and tell us who you think would win the hypothetical moneyweight matchup between Rumble and the Pitbull.

(Marcin Mencel vs. Mateusz Zawadzki at MMA Night of Champions on 10/27/12. Video props: MMANewsPL via MiddleEasy)

Okay, so maybe it’s not as funny as some of these, but I still LOL’d at the part where both guys were being stretchered out of the ring and the DJ decides to blast “We Are the Champions” in the arena. These Poles, they love their irony.

Previously: WTF?! Video of the Day: Double KO via Faulty Cage Door

Before we even get into the awesome that is UFC Tonight’s recent “Fighter Trivia” episode, I just want to put it out there that I will beat any of you in any game show trivia challenge. Any of you. When I was in college, the only channel my RCA 630TS television received was The Game Show Network. Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, Double Dare, right down to the early pioneers of Press Your Luck, Match Game, Pyramid, and The Price is Right were at my disposal on a near 24/7 basis. When I wasn’t browned out in an alleyway looking for a jar of marmalade and bus ticket to Santa Fe, you could assume I was getting my trivia knowledge on with Brawlin’ Bob and the gang.

So you can imagine my excitement when I came across this gem of an idea Fuel TV devoted an episode of UFC Tonight to, with Ariel Helwani playing the proverbial Bob Eubanks role. The premise is simple, a group of fighters are subjected to what I assume is five rounds of trivia (there aren’t videos of all 5 rounds to confirm/deny this) covering everything from their knowledge of The Ultimate Fighter to that of pop culture. They are paired up for certain rounds, but mostly are forced to go on their own until one man is declared the winner.

For the inaugural segment, Michael Bisping, Rashad Evans, Dominick Cruz, and Kenny Florian were chosen as participants. Spoiler alert: Cruz doesn’t know sh*t about sh*t, and Bisping knows more about Dora the Explorer than we would have ever imagined.

After the jump: Two snippets from the show in which Florian forgets that Bisping and Evans fought at UFC 78 (along with the rest of the world) and Cruz fails to identify Bruce Springsteen by his nickname. Unforgivable, Dom.

We’ve paid tribute to first-punch knockouts before, but the first-kick knockout is a beast we see far less of in the MMA world, or any combat sport for that matter. Maybe it’s because many fighters don’t feel comfortable exposing themselves by attempting a fight-ending kick when they’ve yet to feel out their opponent, or perhaps it’s because many kicks used early in a fight are for just that: feeling your opponent out. In either case, the crazy bastard in the black trunks who shall remain nameless really couldn’t give two shits about your so-called “tactics” or fancy schmancy “strategery.” Thems things is best left for the book-reading doctor types with their scientist talk and their elevated pinkies and bubbly alcohol drinks, amiright Taters?

So skip ahead to the 1:30 mark to see this feller disregard all of his pappy’s teachings and open the fight with a head kick that scrambles his opponents brains up worse than a June bug in prairie dog hole.

Now start researching other instances of a first-kick knockout and relay them to us in the comments section so we can compile a proper tribute list. Because let’s face it, you guys know way more about this MMA stuff than we do anyway, and we’ll be at the firing range determining which one of your shirt ideas holds up best to our rigorous series of tests for the next few days anyway.

-J. Jones