(Paul Kelly, leaving his audition for the upcoming Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro sequel. / Photo via Liverpool Echo)

Paul “Tellys” Kelly, the thickly accented Scouser who compiled a 5-4 record while competing in the UFC as a welterweight and lightweight from 2008-2011, was just convicted of drug-trafficking in his native England, and is currently awaiting sentencing next month. According to the charges filed against him, Kelly — who has maintained his innocence throughout his trial — led a significant heroin dealing operation, in which he and his friend Christopher St John McGirr used couriers to import and distribute heroin. The Liverpool Echo (which Tellys doesn’t seem to hold a very high opinion of) adds more details:

West Derby hard man Paul Kelly had denied being a major heroin dealer after an acquaintance of his was picked up with 1.5kg of import purity drugs in the footwell of his car. But after a four day trial jurors returned unanimous guilty verdicts and he was remanded in custody to await sentence…

During his trial he claimed he earned £100,000 a year and did not need to deal drugs for money. But prosecutor David McLachlan said the fighting money had dried up after he left UFC and ended up losing a “journeyman” bout in India.

(Contrary to what this painting implies, Minowa will not be taking on Gabe “Godzilla” Rudiger. Seems like a wasted opportunity to us.) 

India-based promotion Super Fight League is quickly making waves in the MMA landscape. Aside from being the first promotion to sign an exclusive broadcast deal with Youtube, they’ve managed to sign UFC veterans Todd Duffee and Trevor Prangley and held a mildly successful first event earlier this month. Sure, Bob Sapp was there, a sentiment we are getting sicker and sicker of typing, but just listen to SFL’s theme song and tell us that these gentlemen are not on the short path to success. Go ahead. We’ll be right here. Haaaaangin out.

But if you weren’t convinced by Super Fight League’s first event, then you will be more than happy to learn that they’ve decided to move on from the undisputed queen of freak show fights in Sapp to the undisputed king of freak show fights in Ikuhisa Minowa for their next event. Oh yes, one of the greatest fighters to never hold a major title will be taking on two time Bellator middleweight tournament winner Alexander Shlemenko at SFL 2, which goes down on April 7th from Chandigarh, India.

We last saw Minowaman in action at the “meh” ProElite 3 event, where he was outpointed by TUF 3 winner Kendall Grove. True to form, Minowa rebounded from the loss by picking up a first round submission over a 1-6 fighter that I am not going to bother looking up again because I already closed the tab. The Super Hulk Champion could be in for a long night against Shlemenko, a 44-7 kickboxing expert who showcased an improved submission game in his Bellator 50 guillotine joke victory over Zelg Galesic. If this fight features anything less than ten spinning backfists and a dropkick we will eat our hats.

Also set for SFL 2…

("COME AT ME, BRO!")

Happy Thanksgiving, Potato Nation! If you’re reading this right now, you should probably consider disconnecting from the Internet and spending time with your family. If you came here to escape those horrible people, brother we can relate. (*Pours another glass of scotch*) Let us know what you’re thankful for in the comments section, and keep up-to-date with this grab-bag of UFC headlines…

– Replacing the unfortunately injured Jose Aldo at UFC 125 against Josh Grispi will be Dustin Poirier, an 8-1 featherweight prospect who just knocked out Zach Micklewright in 53 seconds earlier this month at WEC 52: Faber vs. Mizugaki. Chris Leben vs. Brian Stann will now be the event’s co-headliner, in support of the Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard lightweight title fight.

– Coming off an ugly knockout loss against George Roop at WEC 51, "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung has his win-or-go-home fight booked, as he’ll be taking on Rani Yahya at Fight for the Troops 2 on January 22nd. It’ll be the only fight on the card where you won’t be able to chant "U!S!A!" in support of at least one of the fighters. Expect a lot of fans in the arena to make trips to the bathroom.

("This isn’t how Tony Robbins had me visualize shit going down.")

According to a source close to the fight, Gabe Ruediger has been forced to pull out of a planned UFC 123 bout with Paul Kelly due to a groin injury suffered in training.

CagePotato.com was informed of the situation over the weekend.

UFC matchmaker Joe Silva is looking for a replacement for Godzilla, but as of time of writing a new opponent for Kelly has yet to be signed for the November 20 event in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

(We ain’t saying no names, but it looks like somebody’s ready for UFC 120. PicProps: SBNation. Vid Interview Props: YouTube/Kimurase. DanaVlog Props: YouTube/UFC)

While some CagePotato editors are lying low until the heat dies down, our trusted Swedish affiliates at Kimura.se were on the scene in London in the days leading up to UFC 120. See, we’ve got people everywhere. Mad props to Kimura for serving up the collection of semi-exclusive prefight interviews that are after the jump, especially since they slapped our logo on them and everything (right there next to OrcBite.com, which feels pretty special). Find out how Mike Pyle has embraced the role of heel against hometown favorite John Hathaway this weekend, how Greg Jackson prepared Yoshihiro Akiyama for Mike Bisping and what Travis Browne plans to do to Cheick Kongo. Also, hear from Cyrille Diabate, Paul Kelly (who fights Godzirra at UFC 123) and Jon Jones, who as of yesterday still sounded pretty sure he was going to fight Ryan Bader next.

For good measure, we even tossed Dana White’s third UFC 120 video blog on the bottom. Even in the worst of times, we still show love. Tune in to see Big DW get exasperated when his own fighters keep predicting a slew of decisions for tonight’s fight card. It ain’t always easy being the most powerful man in MMA, people …

(Back from the grave: James Irvin yesterday [left], and in March [right]. Photos courtesy of CombatLifestyle)

Spoilers after the jump…

(Usually, flying a British flag at half-mast would signify some sort of tragedy. Photo courtesy of the UFC 105: Weigh in Pics set on CombatLifestyle.)

Spoliers after the jump. Come back at 8 p.m. for play-by-play from the Spike broadcast…

(It didn’t last. Nothing perfect ever does. Props: BloodyElbow)

From Paul Kelly via the CageWarriors forum (all misspellings printed as-is):

In case you missed it, Roli Delgado freaked out earlier today at the UFC 99 weigh-ins when Tellys got a little too close for comfort — and in doing so, signed his own death warrant. Not that UFC 99 needed any more bad blood, between Davis/Hardy and Franklin/Silva, but there ya go. After the jump, one of the jokers on the CageWarriors board takes the piss out of the Crazy Cuban…

(‘Bones’ Jones: Nothing but awesome.)

Between his unstoppable takedowns and wildly unorthodox YouTube-influenced striking, Jon Jones has caught the attention of many UFC fans, who see him as one of the future stars of the light-heavyweight division. And after his one-sided mollywhopping of Stephan Bonnar at UFC 94 in January, he’ll be getting another big name to prove himself against. TheGarv has confirmed that Jones will compete next at UFC 100 (July 11th, Las Vegas) where he’ll take on former heavyweight Jake O’Brien. Known primarily as a wrestler, O’Brien most recently won a split-decision over Christian Wellisch during his light-heavyweight debut at UFC 94; before signing with the UFC, he racked up a 7-0 record with all wins by first-round T/KO, but he hasn’t won a fight by stoppage since August 2006. Jones would certainly seem to have an advantage in the standup, and if he can neutralize O’Brien’s wrestling — a very likely scenario — it’ll be Jones’s fight to win.

In other booking news…

(Unfortunately the beating wasn’t the worst thing to come out of UFC 95 for Mandaloniz.  Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

According to BJPenn.com, Troy “Rude Boy” Mandaloniz has been cut from the UFC following the decision loss to Paul Kelly that left the Hawaiian’s face looking like an impressionist painting that had been left out in the rain.  While we’re not terribly surprised to see a guy who is 3-2 in his career and 1-1 in the UFC (with the lone win coming against Richie Hightower) cut from the big leagues, he seems fairly shocked.

"I thought I showed them what I was made of, but I guess not. I don’ think I see too many other fighters out there fighting with the same passion and intensity that I bring. I’m a fighter that people want to see fight and maybe one day after I prove myself again I could be back in the UFC.”

Rude Boy apparently learned he had been cut via email (sure it wasn’t a text message to someone else in the camp?), which seems kind of cold.  They couldn’t even pick up the phone and call him?  

Maybe dropping fighters from the UFC is like breaking up.  If they’ve only fought twice for you, an email is fine.  If they’ve been around a little longer, you gotta call.  And if it’s an ex-champion who’s put in years of service, you take them out to a mediocre Mexican restaurant and break the news over appetizers, then let them have just one more go-round in the bathroom for old times’ sake.

Of course, if they’ve only had one fight?  Like poor Josh Hendricks?  Then you can inform them via a post on their Facebook page.  Right before changing your status to “Accepting heavyweight applications.”

(Props: MMALinker)

Those of us who watched the Spike TV tape-delayed replay of UFC 95 were treated to a briskly paced broadcast that managed to fit a Spike-record nine fights into three hours. The only match that was left off the U.S. broadcast was the event’s leadoff scrap, a welterweight fight between Paul "Tellys" Kelly and Troy "Rude Boy" Mandaloniz, which Kelly took in a unanimous decision. It’s definitely worth watching; Mandaloniz comes out fast ‘n’ furious, like he’s looking for Knockout of the Night, or Fight of the Night, or both. But Kelly wakes up with about two minutes left in the round and inflicts some abuse of his own — with Wolfslair teammate Quinton Jackson shouting encouragement from cageside — and manages to slash the Hawaiian’s left eyebrow wide open before the round’s end.

The second frame starts off with some ground-and-pound by Kelly. Mandaloniz scores the mount later in the round, and briefly takes Kelly’s back, but Kelly brilliantly reverses and goes back to using Mandaloniz’s head like a punching bag. Rude Boy clearly doesn’t want any more after round two, yet he soldiers on for the final five minutes, which is more of a slower-paced boxing match until the 2:20-remaining mark, when Mandaloniz takes Kelly down. Unfortunately his submission attempts are rebuffed and it’s fist-eating time again. The fight’s actually a little closer than the scores would suggest, but Mandaloniz is the the one who looks like he got too close to a polar bear’s cubs, and there you have it.

(Tensions ran high at the Mr. Clean lookalike contest. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Sounds like it was a good one, too. Spoilers after the jump…

(Leben fits Bisping for a right hook. Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

The weigh-ins for UFC 89 went off without a hitch today. Everyone hit their target weight, or at least fell within the one-pound allowance of it, and nobody had to strip naked while their dad held a towel in front of them. There was a terse exchange between the main eventers, with Chris Leben offering an apology in advance to the British fans, and Michael Bisping getting all Rodney Dangerfield about Leben showing him no respect:

Said Leben:

“I’m sorry for coming over and ruining your guys’ big hope and dream. I know you love him, but I didn’t come all this way to lose. One of us will take a step back and the other a step forward; there isn’t too many ahead of us now.”

Replied Bisping:

“You’re right, one forward and one down. I am moving forward. You underestimate me and I think that is a mistake. May the best man win and I will see you tomorrow night.”

As weigh-in disagreements go, that’s downright gentlemanly. Guess that’s what you get in jolly old England. Full scale-tipping results are after the jump:

(Big mistake.)

With Juanito Ibarra out of his life, Quinton Jackson was down a trainer and a business manager. But according to Fighters Only Magazine, he’s found both at Wolfslair Academy, the Liverpool, England-based MMA team that’s home to UFC fighters Michael Bisping and Paul Kelly. Jackson has signed a three-year deal that will make Wolfslair responsible for managing all aspects of his career, from training camps to securing sponsorships. According to gym co-owner Anthony McGann:

“After the Forrest fight, he felt that his training hadn’t been quite right. He was deeply disappointed in his performance and he felt like he needed to change some things in his life. He came to us as we’ve all been friends for a long time. He feels that training in England can help him focus, which can be difficult in California because of his star status. He’s relatively unknown in England…He will be training when he can in England and the Wolfslair will be running his camps up in Big Bear when he is preparing for his fights.”

Oddly, McGann mentioned that Jackson’s split with Juanito Ibarra was amicable, and they parted on good terms — which runs contrary to every other report on the subject. As for Jackson, he seems very enthusiastic about his new camp, since their vibe seems to mesh with his own:

(Paul Taylor bashes Paul Kelly during their “Fight of the Night.”)

Things are tough all over, I guess. The UFC released its customary bonuses after UFC 80, but each one was only $35,000, a full $20,000 less than the bonuses handed out after UFC 79. This is the first time we can recall that the bonuses actually went down from one event to the next. We knew European expansion was a bitch, financially speaking, but it’s unfortunate that the fighters had to tighten their belts to recoup some of the costs. Anyway, here’s who got the extra cash:

Fight of the Night: Paul Kelly and Paul Taylor. Each Brit got $35k, primarily for the insane brawl that kicked off the first round; after that, it was fairly dull GnP domination from Paul Kelly, who won a unanimous decision.

Knockout of the Night: Wilson Gouveia earned $35k for his out-of-nowhere comeback blast of Jason Lambert.

Submission of the Night: B.J. Penn collected $35k by default for his rear-naked-choke of Joe Stevenson, UFC 80′s only tap-out.

Thus, I went 1-3 in my predictions. And commenter MattyLight owes commenter Olie $5. (Sorry buddy!) Feel free to work out the exchange in the comments section.