(Is Cro Cop leaving the UFC?)

Here’s what else was happening in the world while your thoughts were being dominated by Brock Lesnar:

— Gary Herman of 15 Rounds reports that Brandon Vera will be returning to the Octagon in June against a yet-unnamed opponent, and Dana White has given Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic a deadline of today to decide whether he wants to remain in the UFC; Filipovic’s last fight was a decision loss to Cheick Kongo at UFC 75 in September 2007.

— Josh Barnett announced on his MySpace blog that his next fight will be against Hidehiko Yoshida at World Victory Road’s Sengoku event on March 5th in Tokyo. Barnett hasn’t competed in a professional MMA bout since his unanimous decision loss to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at PRIDE Shockwave on New Year’s Eve 2006. Yoshida is a former Olympic gold medalist in judo who has a 7-5-1 MMA record, with notable wins over Don Frye, Mark Hunt, and David “Tank” Abbott. According to Barnett, M-1 never offered him a fight with Aleksander Emelianenko, and the rumored Roger Gracie/Yoshida matchup is total rubbish.

— Because of a military commitment, Tim Kennedy has been forced to drop out of the IFL’s season opener at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on February 29th. Though he was scheduled to face middleweight champion Matt Horwich for the 185-pound belt, a new press release has announced that Kennedy has been “called to service,” and that Ryan McGivern will be taking his place. A member of Pat Miletich’s Silverbacks team, McGivern has a professional record of 11-5, and previously defeated Horwich by unanimous decision at the IFL Championship Final on 12/29/06.

— In a post-UFC 81 interview with Mr. Sunshine, Dana White referred to Hong Man Choi as “Long Duk Dong.” Funny or offensive, depending on your perspective.

You guys killed it last week — let’s see how you do with this photo of Chuck with notable backup-dancer/sperm-donor Kevin Federline. The two CagePotato readers who produce the best captions will score signed copies of Chuck Liddell’s badass new memoir, Iceman: My Fighting Life, courtesy of Dutton Books. Submit your entries in the comments section and check back on Friday as we announce the winners. Come on…do it for Sean Preston and Jayden.

(The Nogueira brothers: Like lookin’ in a mirror.)

Lots of MMA action this weekend and we’re not just talking about UFC: 81 Breaking Point. Let’s start with tonight.

Hardcore Championship Fighting: Destiny
Tonight’s event features Antonio Rogerio Nogueira against Todd Gouwenberg, a 7-2 journeyman who is riding a four fight win streak. The event will air on The Score, a not-so-high-profile Canadian sports network. Should be an adjustment for “Little Nog” since he’s been used to fighting under some pretty bright lights. The Western Canadian organization is fighting for recognition and Rogerio was a great score, but someone like Gouwenberg is not the type of talent he should have to step down to fight. Also on the HCF card are some other fighters you’ll recognize – and some you’ve never heard of:

-Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos v Gegard Mousasi
-Thomas Schulte v Garett Davis
-David Loiseau v Jason Day
-Brendan Seguin v Derrick Noble
-Damir Mirenic v Mike Pyle
-Andrew Buckland v Dan Chambers
-Myles Merola v Ariel Sexton
-Tim Hague v Miodrag Petkovic
-Nabil Khatib v Lucas Rota
-Fabian Cortez v Juan Barrantes

BodogFIGHT: Nick Thompson vs. John Troyer
The main event tonight will feature Nick “The Goat” Thompson vs. John Troyer, hence the title. This one goes down in Vegas and will see Troyer in the biggest fight of his young career. This welterweight title fight is also notable because it will apparently be The Goat’s last bout for BodogFIGHT. Losing a character like Nick Thompson will certainly be a blow to Bodog, especially for an organization that is already hurting for fans.

Since it was such a success* last time, we thought we’d take another crack at predicting which fighters will pocket tomorrow‘s end-of-night bonuses. But first we’d like to predict the amount of the bonuses themselves. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the UFC’s Fight/Submission/Knockout bonuses have decreased from $55,000 to $50,000 to $35,000 over the last three pay-per-view events. After the last drastic reduction, the general opinion was that the amounts were going down to recoup some of the money lost to the UFC’s European expansion effort. Now that the show is back in the U.S., they can be a little more generous. And they will — but just enough to demonstrate improvement and shut people up. We’re saying the bonuses will be $40k each. Now let’s get to the fight card:

MAIN CARD
Tim Sylvia vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (heavyweights)
Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar (heavyweights)
Jeremy Horn vs. Nate Marquardt (middleweights)
Rob Yundt vs. Ricardo Almeida (middleweights)

PRELIMINARY CARD
Gleison Tibau vs. Tyson Griffin (lightweights)
Chris Lytle vs. Kyle Bradley (welterweights)
Marvin Eastman vs. Terry Martin (middleweights)
David Heath vs. Tim Boetsch (light heavyweights)
Keita Nakamura vs. Rob Emerson (welterweights)

Knockout of the Night: Eastman vs. Martin is a battle between two good fighters who have had terrible luck in the Octagon. The winner will prove that he still belongs there; the loser could very well be banished forever. Thus, we expect both men to come out swinging their asses off. We were tempted to give this a Fight of the Night nod, but it feels too much like a first-round-TKO kind of match. Marvin Eastman has been knocked out every time he’s fought in the UFC. Four of Terry Martin’s last five fights have resulted in KO/TKO victories — and we think he’ll do it again tomorrow night, picking up the bonus in the process. Dark horse: Kyle Bradley. If you want to talk about good fighters who have had rough times in the Octagon, Chris Lytle is Exhibit fucking A (34-15-4 MMA record, 3-7 in the UFC). There’s nothing to suggest that his fortunes will improve at “Breaking Point,” and his opponent Kyle Bradley is a guy who has been paying his dues in regional promotions as a knockout artist. His current seven-fight win-streak includes five first-round KO/TKOs, and he could be on his way to adding one more.

Yeah, you’re probably sick of this one by now. But we thought we’d run it One! More! Time! as we enter the home stretch to Lesnar’s UFC debut tomorrow against Frank Mir. Lesnar’s opponent at K-1 Dynamite USA (6/2/07) was an overfed can whose most notable fights were losses against Bob Sapp and Don Frye. And what did we learn? Brock has no time for the customary pre-fight fist-bump. Yes, that’s ex-WWE superstar Bill Goldberg freaking the fuck out when his homeboy scores his first MMA win.

And sure, why not — here’s the video of Frank Mir breaking Tim Sylvia’s arm.

Before he was the scariest man in the UFC, Anderson Silva had to make a name for himself at a lowly Ultimate Fight Night against Chris “Bed Pisser” Leben. Leben had put together five straight UFC wins by the time he stepped into the Octagon against the Spider at UFN 5 (6/28/06), but he was woefully outgunned by Silva’s laser-guided striking, and the match was called in less than a minute. Silva got a title shot against Rich Franklin for his very next fight.

Frank Mir’s last two fights in the UFC lasted just 77 and 69 seconds; one went well, one went not-so-well. Either tap your opponent early or get punched out just as quickly — those are pretty much Frank’s options on Saturday.

(Frank Mir vs. Antoni Hardonk, UFC 74, 8/25/07)

(Frank Mir vs. Brandon Vera, UFC 65, 11/18/06)

10. Roger Gracie In 2005, 23-year-old Roger Gracie won the Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling World Championship by submitting all eight opponents, something that had never been done before. The son of Reyla Gracie, Roger has racked up numerous first place finishes in jiu-jitsu tournaments around the world, and won his first MMA match in December [...]

I just came across this video from Brock’s WWE days, where he demonstrates a few of the exercises responsible for his behemoth-like build and athleticism. In particular, watch how he picks up that 180-pound log like it’s a toothpick. Though his technique on the heavy bag may be questionable, he certainly makes up for it in sheer aggression.

Of course, Brock’s physical abilities once convinced him that he could land a shooting star press from 20 feet away. But as long he avoids this sort of thing on Saturday night, he’ll be fine:

(Meyrowitz is giving MMA another go.)

We already gave you the heads up about UFC founder Bob Meyrowitz’s plans to step back into the MMA business. And now the details are here thanks to a press release sent out this morning.

YAMMA Pit Fighting is the name of the new organization and they’re promising a “unique approach” to their MMA events. Intriguing for sure, but as we said already, is yet another MMA organization good for the sport? Especially one from a guy that ran his first organization off the tracks? Regardless, it’s going to happen – unless Yamma goes all WCO on us. Appears Meyrowitz’s new joint will be throwing a few events for Pay-per-View, with the debut event kicking off in Atlantic City on April 11th of this year.

Check out some of the press release:

Los Angeles, January 29, 2008 – Ultimate Fighting Championship founder Bob Meyrowitz and his company Rope Partners today announced the formation of a brand new mixed martial arts (MMA) league, YAMMA Pit Fighting (YPF). Continuing in his role as a trailblazer in MMA, Meyrowitz and YPF will take a unique approach to the sport by reviving the Tournament fighting format and unveiling a new fighting surface that promises to revolutionize the traditional MMA approach.

Trailblazer is a strong word. Someone who initially had good ideas and the gumption to keep the sport going after being banned in 48 states, but didn’t have the long-term vision to carry it past its rough years – thus kicking your own company in the balls – that would be a better term. Whatever term that might be.

“It wasn’t a kick, it was a step” — awww, how adorable! Of course, if it was Wolf on the platform, there would be no sheepish avoidance of guilt. The dude would be like, “Hell yeah I kicked you in your fool head, that’s what happens when you step into the Wolf’s Den, ahhWOOOOOOOOOO!” Anyway, let’s hope Gina tries to use that excuse after soccer-kicking a downed opponent in her next MMA match…

(Props: 5 Oz. O’Pain)

(Dong Hyun Kim could soon be scrapping with the likes of Mike Swick and Marcus Davis. Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly.com.)

Most American MMA fans may be unfamiliar with the UFC’s two most recent hires, but both men look poised to punch a hole in their competition. First up is Rousimar Palhares, a Brazilian Top Team member who the UFC just signed to add some spark to their middling middleweight division. Palhares has a 7-1 record, with six of those wins coming via first-round stoppage (mostly submissions), and he won the Fury FC middleweight Grand Prix last month with swift victories over Fabio Negao and Daniel Acacio. Check out this video of his fight with Negao, and the acrobatic leg-lock he finishes the match with at the video’s 3:49 mark:

Joining the UFC’s relatively crowded welterweight division will be Dong Hyun Kim, an undefeated Korean fighter who holds wins over Hidehiko Hasegawa, Hidenobo Koike, and Yukiharu Maejima in the DEEP organization. Five of Kim’s eight wins have come by KO/TKO, including this first-round mauling of Kousei Kubota, who asked for the punishment by stomping on Kim’s feet with shoes on:

So, the dude can bang. Look for Kim to make his first Octagon appearance as early as March.

We mentioned this one yesterday. Here’s Aoki’s dismantling of Hansen at PRIDE Shockwave 2006 (12/31/06), and though Aoki’s rainbow stretch-pants are ridiculous, his skills are no joke. Check out his Penn-like flexibility as he works for the ultra-rare gogoplata submission; in our opinion, there’s only six welterweights in the world who could deal with him…

(Where did Randy and Rush land in our pound-for-pound top ten?)

Hawk-eyed CagePotato readers may have noticed a new link on the right side of the page — POWER RANKINGS (!!!), our list of the world’s ten best fighters in each weight class, from heavyweight to featherweight. Well, featherweight only gets a top five because they’re half the size of normal fighters, and fans only care half as much about them. But we also have a “Pound-for-Pound” list, which ranks the ten best fighters in terms of talent, regardless of weight class.

In creating these rankings, we took into account not just recent fight history, but past accomplishments and our own opinions on how each fighter would perform against other elite fighters in their division. Of course, all of this is open for debate, and we’ll soon be building separate pages for each weight class that will allow you to comment on them individually. In the meantime, check out the rankings and use the comments section on this post to give us your own thoughts. Stay tuned for more updates on our Power Rankings, which will be updated after most major fight cards. Let’s get it on!

We know we’re an MMA news site, but occasionally we like to mix it up with something funny. So here’s a list of the 12 worst tattoos in MMA for your enjoyment. 12. Rich Clementi Ignore the unfortunately placed head in this picture and focus on the tat on Rich’s right pec. Cartoony tattoos are [...]

We discussed the upcoming Fight Science series before, but now we have the promo video, which plugs the premiere episode; it airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on the National Geographic channel. Watch as Tito Ortiz demonstrates an elbow strike from the clinch, and how it might eff up a dude’s equilibrium. Huge boobs at 0:19! Bas Rutten saying “hooWoOO!” at 3:20!

If you missed Saturday’s play-by-play, click here.

Jorge Rivera steamrolls Kendall Grove.

Marcus Davis’s phantom knockout punch coma-tizes Jess Liaudin.

Colin Robinson goes up against Antoni Hardonk, gets life saved by Mario Yamasaki, whines like an asshole.

On an unrelated note, I’d like to take this opportunity to rag on the UFC for leaving all ring-card-holding duties to Arianny and Edith. If we have to put up with the one-dimensional antics of local scrappers like Paul Taylor, Paul Kelly, and Colin Robinson, could the UFC have maybe found some hot British chicks to step in as guest Octagon Girls? Just a thought. I got a million of ‘em.

(Not funny.)

— Bas Rutten starred in the best YTMND page of all-time. (last link)

— MMA Girl Joanne enchanted us with an exclusive video interview.

— We got overly emotional about Gina Carano.

— EliteXC signed two members of the Shamrock family. Unfortunately, neither one was Frank. We marveled at Ryan’s physique and gave Ken some encouragement.

— The UFC filed a lawsuit against Randy Couture. Your move, Natural.

— We solicited your predictions for the Kimbo Slice/Tank Abbott fight, then liveblogged their press conference.

— We counted down the best fights that didn’t take place in a ring or cage.

— We put $1,000 up for grabs in the Serious Pimp t-shirt design contest.

— Instead of predicting UFC 80‘s winners, we predicted the bonuses. (Reminder: Come back tomorrow at 3 p.m. ET for the UFC 80 liveblog. Good times guaranteed.)

— We coped with a slow news day.

Have a great weekend, people. Stay hungry.

Discussing Ken Shamrock’s recent loss history inspired us to dig up the video of his first-round loss to Kazushi Sakuraba, which went down at PRIDE 30 in October 2005. And watching the video reminded us of something we love/hate about Ken — his constant protest of early stoppages. Dude, maybe the refs wouldn’t step in so often if you could get hit without looking like you’ve lost consciousness. It’s a tough skill to learn, but an important one nonetheless.

Everyone else in cyberspace has weighed in, so it’s time for CagePotato to lay down the Chuck Norris law. ‘Cept we’ve not only collected Chuck Norris facts from the site that started it all, but we’ve also scoured the literally hundreds of off-shoot entries around the web. The man who put the MA in MMA may not like the facts much, considering the lawsuit he’s taken out – as reported by our peeps over at Holy Taco a few weeks ago – but we fucking love them. Love him or hate him, Chuck Norris walks above us, not amongst us.

So while the bearded ass-kicker is busy selling loco for Mike Huckabee, enjoy the definitive Top 25 Truths About Chuck Norris…and his beard:

25. Chuck Norris counted to infinity – twice.
24. Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
23. Who was the ghost writer on “Smack My Bitch Up” performed by the band, Prodigy? Chuck Norris.
22. The Ultimate Fighting Championship doesn’t use its full name, which is “Ultimate Fighting Championship, Non-Chuck-Norris-Division”.
21. Chuck Norris once fathered a shark – because they kick ass.

20. Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.
19. Chuck Norris is the only person to ever win a staring contest against Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder – at the same time.
18. Chuck Norris puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. The only difference is, then he kills people.
17. Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet…until Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked her into a glacier.
16. Chuck Norris’ first job was as a paperboy. There were no survivors.

Jason “The Punisher” Lambert — who takes on Wilson Gouveia on Saturday night — hasn’t fought since UFC 68 (3/3/07), but he proved himself to be a fighter of incredible heart during that match. Lambert was in big trouble during the first round, as Renato “Babalu” Sobral took his back and tried to sink in one of his infamous choke holds. But Lambert was able to defend the submission attempts and escape, and rocked Sobral with a couple of big punches when the fight went standing. Energized by his near-death, Lambert came out bashing in the second round, working Sobral over with ground-and-pound until Big John McCarthy stood the fighters up — which turned out to be the end for Babalu.

This was the 10th fight of Kid Yamamoto’s current 14-fight win streak, and ended, as most of Kid’s fights do, with a first-round knockout. Yamamoto most recently put Rani Yahya to sleep at K-1 Premium 2007 Dynamite!! Genki Sudo is perhaps best known for his near-victory on Ninja Warrior.

If you’re a regular CagePotato reader, you probably know about our savage crush on Joanne of the MMA Girls, whose UFC prediction videos and girl-on-girl training clips never fail to make us feel light-headed. Well check this: We e-mailed Joanne a bunch of questions to get to know the girl behind the teddy-bear, and she was cool enough to answer them all in video form. You already know that she’s an ace when it comes to predicting fights — now get ready to learn about where she likes to party in Orlando, her hard times as a Domino’s Pizza order-taker, and what she would do to Angelina Jolie if given the chance. Come on…you know you want to click that play button.

Thanks again to Joanne and the MMA Girls crew! For more good stuff, check out:
MMAGirls.net — their official page
MySpace.com/panicpulse — be their “friend” and check out more pics of the girls
MMA Girls on Spike.com — the latest vids, all in one place

You may have been following the Trekkie-style dork – with socks even Tinker Bell wouldn’t wear – in nine documentary episodes where he trains for four weeks alongside MMA fighter Matt Ruskin. Thomas “Baby Balls” Morton (the aforementioned dork) won’t win any broadcasting awards and would likely get his ass kicked at a 4th grade slumber party, but if you’re running low on your MMA juice this weekend, check out “Balls Deep”. Yes, that is the title of the show – which I’m sure has lured in thousands of unassuming truck drivers surfing the net on the truck stop’s courtesy computer. The ninth and final episode went on-line recently. Nothing mind-blowing or earth-shattering here, but by episode seven, I was having a good laugh. Morton looks fucking wrecked as he still works out MMA-style every day while starving himself. The ninth episode is Ruskin’s fight in Hot-lanta. Episode one is below. Enjoy.

— The UFC went on a frantic fight-booking spree.

— We played an extremely respectful game of FMK.

— Rob Emerson and Melvin Guillard had a contest to see who could be the biggest douchebag on Earth. Rob won, but just barely.

— Ali Sonoma got even hotter.

— Shamrock vs. Shamrock is definitely happening…eventually.

— We questioned the credentials of Quinton Jackson and Shawn Tompkins.

— We gave props to fighters with good musical taste.

— Roy Nelson and Kendall Grove had a lot of interesting things to say about the IFL’s organizational problems and weed, respectively.

From MMA.tv via Bloody Elbow:

From: IRONHAUS
Date: 01/06/08 03:59 AM
Member Since: 10/24/2002
787 Total Posts Ignore User

I just thought I’d let everyone know. I’m not really into politics but I have a family member that’s involved with Barack’s campaign. I asked her what Barack’s views were on MMA. So, she asked one of his campaign managers the question. He said that “although he disagrees with steroid use in any sport he really enjoys and supports MMA”. I just thought I’d let everyone know. At least we have someone that high in government that supports our sport rather than be against it.

From: THP
Date: 01/06/08 04:03 AM
Member Since: 08/27/2007
312 Total Posts Ignore User

Barrack Obama sucks and won’t be president.

So, if you’re still undecided as to which candidate you’ll be supporting in the primaries, consider the junior Senator from Illinois. Of course, he could be just another bandwagon jumper…

It was the beginning of the Axe-Murderer’s current career-slide, and one of the greatest beat-downs in recent MMA history. In this open-weight match at PRIDE Final Conflict Absolute 2006, Mirko Cro Cop swarms Wanderlei Silva like a rabid bear until he sets up a signature head kick at the end of the first round, leaving Silva in a mental haze that followed him through his subsequent matches against Dan Henderson and Chuck Liddell. We highly recommend you skip past 2:17-5:45, which has to be the longest mid-fight medical clearance of all time.

Much of the mystique of UFC co-owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta stems from the fact that we don’t see them cursing and making outlandish statements every day like their president and public face. Not that Lorenzo Fertitta’s statements are any less outlandish, but when he shows up to the occasional press conference or does the rare interview, we tend to pay a little more attention; clearly, the man has decided to speak because he has something important to say. In this interview with Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports, Lorenzo — ranked 380th on Forbes Magazine’s most recent list of the 400 richest Americans, with an estimated fortune of $1.3 billion — discusses the state of the UFC’s business and whether Dana White ever embarrasses him with his big mouth. We’ve gone and excerpted the best parts below.

On MMA being the country’s “fastest growing sport”: “A lot of people talk about the growth of MMA. I don’t believe in that. I don’t know where anybody can show me there is this great success in MMA outside of the UFC. There has been explosive growth for the UFC, but MMA in general, nobody is making a breakthrough. The biggest non-UFC pay-per-view, you might know better than me, but it’s something like 25,000, maybe 30,000 buys. There is a bit of a misnomer there. It’s not the growth of MMA. It’s the growth of the UFC.”

(Jr. and Sr., in happier times.)

Well, we already have a candidate for interview of the year. In this Q+A with FightHype.com, Floyd Mayweather Sr. — estranged father of the undefeated boxing champ who’s been hinting that he wants to compete in MMA — tells Percy Crawford what he really thinks about his son’s possible new money-making scheme. And it’s totally fucking amazing. To wit:

PC: I don’t know if you read yet, but Lil Floyd has been talking to Mark Cuban about fighting in mixed martial arts?
FM: He needs to leave that shit alone. He’s going to get the same fucking thing Vince Phillips got; leg broke, arm broke or whatever. Vince Phillips got his arm broke. You can’t mess with that…that’s what they do. You can’t beat nobody at their own game…All of this he talking about right now, this martial arts shit, I’m telling you, he about to get broke the fuck up right now. I’m telling you, he could forget all of that stuff being cute and how you supposed to hit somebody with a check hook. Man, them motherfucker’s going to take that check hook motherfucker and squeeze your guts out. I’m just being real with you man…If he ever want to take a motherfuckin’ loss, you bout to take one right now motherfucker. Go ahead and try that. One of them motherfuckers grab you and bing, bing…hit the floor twice motherfucker and it’s over with….Lil Floyd about to get his ass tore up man. He ain’t about to whoop them motherfuckers. He can forget that shit!

Man, just when you think life can’t get any sweeter…

It looks like I’ve been hooked up with a ticket and a Mohegan Sun hotel room for the IFL’s World Grand Prix, which means I’ll be heading out to Connecticut tomorrow to see what kinda trouble I can get into, journalistically speaking. I’ll be playing it fast and loose, but you never know what my hungry camera-lens and thirsty dictaphone might uncover. Full reports to come this weekend, whenever I can make it to my laptop. For you poor, sad, home viewers, the action starts at 9:30 p.m. ET on HDNet. Watch it! (Or at the very least, DVR it.)

As for UFC 79, my associate Kipp will be liveblogging it tomorrow night, so be sure to have your computer tuned to CagePotato.com during the fights so you can see his witty comments about the things you’ve just watched. And then of course there’s “Fedor Returns” on Monday morning, which I’ll be liveblogging myself. (Jesus, we have our work cut out for us.)

But the most important business at hand is tomorrow night’s IFL blowout, which closes the year out in style as the league looks ahead to switch their shit up in ’08. Five titles are on the line, including the IFL’s newly minted Featherweight belt. Let’s take a look at the matchups, shall we?