(This is closest any of us ever got to Liddell without getting punched.)

Bad news, guys. As of yesterday, CagePotato senior editor Mike Russell has parted ways with this site. It wasn’t our choice, and it wasn’t his choice either. Sorry if that’s more cryptic than it should be, but we’d prefer to keep the details private for now.

What’s important is, Mike spent the past two years tirelessly writing and reporting for the Potato Nation’s entertainment, and we’re incredibly grateful for his efforts. He’ll be impossible to replace — and we can’t afford to replace him anyway, so hang on to those resumes for now.

After first impressing us in late 2009 with his artful mix of journalism and photoshop, Mike started as a full-time editor for CagePotato in April 2010. His introduction post immediately launched the old dad/new dad meme that has haunted our site ever since. On his first day (!), he had his martial arts credentials questioned by a butt-hurt Gus Johnson. Pissing off a public figure in the MMA world is something of a rite of passage on this site, and doing it within 12 hours of employment is a record that will probably never be broken.

Since then, “MRuss/GusBuster” has been our go-to guy for everything from Canadian fight news, to exclusive interviews with MMA stars, to podcast production, to hilarious photo galleries. We’ve placed links to some of Mike’s CP career highlights after the jump. Read on, and wish him well in the comments section…

Mike represented the Potato Nation last night on MMA Sucka Radio’s third instalment of their State of the Union MMA media-centric series where he added his commentary on a variety of hot topics.

The roundtable discussion also featured the 209s rising MMA videographer/editor Layzie the Savage and host Trevor Dueck.

Check out MMASucka.com here, a sample of Layzie’s work below and give the show a listen.

(Video courtesy YouTube/LayzietheSavage)