(If you never saw the thread on Sherdog, do yourself a favor…)

It’s been an eventful week to say the least. Strikeforce Heavyweights are all but done, Overeem went before the NSAC, and Jon Jones choked Machida out cold. Too bad you didn’t ask us any questions about those things. That would have been cool. You did manage to pull some decent questions out of your asses, however, and we’ll take a few moments to address them now.

EnemyofReality asks: Dear, dear, Dear, DEAR Cage Potato. How I look forward to your wise words. Do tell me, what would your top 3 list of MMA refs look like?

It would like a lot like any other list, EnemyofReality, only it would have referee names instead of groceries, chores, and people to kill.

We actually covered this subject a couple of years ago, but times change and you’re asking now, so here we go. There are a lot of refs to choose from, but not necessarily a lot of great refs to choose from. If we were climbing into the cage—and we’re starting to warm up to the idea–we’d like to have Herb Dean, Big John McCarthy, or Josh Rosenthal in there to save our ass.

(I said god *damn*. God damn.)

In news that will probably make you clench your fists in triumph, Playboy has confirmed that beloved UFC ring girl Brittney Palmer will appear in their March issue. A photo of Palmer was included on the “Next Month” page of the nudie mag’s current January/February issue, with the following teaser copy:

“The Canvas suits her. The UFC Octagon has always attracted delicate beauties, but no ring girl paints a prettier picture than pop artist Brittney Palmer. It’s a pictorial worth fighting for.”

Palmer will be the third UFC Octagon Girl to grace the pages of Playboy, following Rachelle Leah in 2008 and Arianny Celeste in 2010. And as long as they don’t airbrush her to death like Lindsay Lohan, this will definitely be one of the highlights of our year.

After the jump, Brittney takes a sultry spin around the Octagon at UFC 140, in a series of candid photos from her Facebook page.

(Photo courtesy of Playboy. See the full gallery after the jump.)

Props (as usual) to BabesofMMA for turning us on to Iryna Ivanova, a Ukrainian model who now makes her home in Tuscon, Arizona. The 22-year-old is a ring girl for the Arizona-based World Fighting Federation MMA promotion, and has landed a coveted spot as Playboy‘s “Playmate of the Month” for August 2011. (Seriously. Pick up the issue right now.) Iryna is also a grad student in psychology, and is obsessed with guacamole and Starbucks. Follow her life on Twitter, and check out more great Iryna Ivanova photos in our gallery below…

(Vid: Playboy.com)

Just a couple of days before the semifinalists in our ’2011 Hottest Women in MMA Grand Prix’ are revealed and we thought you could use a little scouting video. What you’ll find above is a subtle little film from the artistes over at Playboy where Octagon girl (and tournament two-seed) Brittney Palmer dresses up like a slutty Power Ranger and plays video games in the most sexually-charged way possible against some lady named Jo Garcia. We’re led to believe Ms Garcia is some variety of Playmate, but whatevs. When we saw it, we thought of you, Nation. Need convincing that this is something you should invest just under two and a half minutes in? “I’m so on top of you right now,” Garcia says to B-Palm at one point. Watch the vid, then come back on Thursday to find out who stays in the running for the big gold belt, the medal, the trophies, the oversized check and the wreathy crown.

(Props: twitter.com/tikighosn)

UPDATE: The pics are right here! Unfortunately, we were asked to take the pics down, so that’s that. Feel free to mourn in the comments section. 

About five hours ago, Rampage Jackson entourage-member Tiki Ghosn tweeted the above photo of himself posing with — dare we say it out loud? — the new Arianny Celeste issue of Playboy. As he wrote: "Hey @nicolerichie fuck J-Lo I’d rather go home and rub one out to @AriannyCeleste !!!!" 

Tiki hasn’t been heard from since, suggesting that Arianny‘s pictorial may have literally killed him. You know what this means? The issue is out there, people. It exists, and it’s available for purchase. Potato Nation Street Team, ASSEMBLE! We need you guys to check every convenience store, bookstore, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse in your area until you find this issue. You will then purchase it, scan the photos from Arianny Celeste’s pictorial, and send them to contest@cagepotato.com so that we can post them here. We will reward your efforts to the best of our ability.

Go get ‘em.

(Your prayers have been answered, Potato Nation)

The final results of our latest caption contest, as the polls closed at 8 a.m. ET:

JTho (25%, 113 Votes)
RTS (20%, 91 Votes)
JoseMonkey (14%, 63 Votes)
Ted Nutmeg (11%, 48 Votes)
The king adrock (8%, 34 Votes)
PHISTAKUFFS (7%, 33 Votes)
Geriatric Peon (6%, 26 Votes)
Horror Fighter (5%, 21 Votes)
Baba (4%, 17 Votes)
Jordan (1%, 6 Votes)

JTho and RTS, send your addresses to feedback@cagepotato.com and we’ll send those signed copies of Rachelle Leah’s Playboy issue out to ya right away. High fives to all the finalists; if you didn’t win, you can still get a digital version of the entire issue here. Don’t give up, Horror Fighter!

(Images courtesy of this week’s caption contest.)

Voting — it’s so hot right now. In honor of next week’s election (and to prevent some of the inevitable bitching), we’re gonna go back to having you guys vote for the winners of these things. Remember, two copies of the November issue of Playboy signed by Rachelle herself are on the line, courtesy of Playboy Digital. And the nominees are…

Ted Nutmeg: In a bittersweet moment, Lyoto realized that standing next the chick in the red skirt is the closest he’ll ever come to scoring a knockout in the UFC.

PHISTAKUFFS: “Tito better be careful parking the car!”

RTS: Chick 1: “My man is a technician in bed.”
Chick 2: “Sounds great!”
Chick 1: “It’s actually quite boring.”
Chick 2: “My man is a knock out artist.”
Chick 1: “That sounds good.”
Chick 2: “He only lasts a minute, if that.”

Baba: Somewhere, Anderson and Thiago Silva are laughing in the midst of a Timberland shoot.

The king adrock: For the first time in career, Machida pressed the action.

JTho: After three grueling days and countless different models, the photographer was finally able to keep Alexander’s knees from buckling, and Machida from back pedaling out of the shot.

JoseMonkey: This photo was taken just moments after someone yelled, “Hey douchebag!”

Jordan: “Ok, next question….what the fuck are you looking at?”

Geriatric Peon: The Transvestite Realization Face

Horror Fighter: “All right, take ‘em off. It’s time to do the Condom Depot photos now.”

Cast your vote in the poll on the right side of the page. The two captions with the most votes by 8 a.m. ET on Monday win magazines. You are welcome to cast write-in votes in the comments section below, but if they aren’t shown above, they probably weren’t that funny. So please do your civic duty as a CagePotato reader, and good luck to all the nominees!

(The November issue of Playboy, on newsstands now. To get a digital version of the entire issue, click here.)

I promised you all a sexy caption contest this week, and I’m a man of my word. Dig this — the lovely and talented Rachelle Leah has given two signed copies of her Playboy issue to CagePotato.com, and we’re giving them away to the two readers who provide the funniest captions to the photo after the jump. Feel free to enter more than once, but please get all your captions in to the comments section by 6 p.m. ET on Thursday. Good luck, and be brilliant…

On Friday, we showed you Suzanne VanOrman’s attempt to discredit MMA veteran/Oregon State Representative candidate Matt Lindland as a barbaric and well-paid cage-fighter. Well, here’s one of Matt’s attack ads. LOFL @ that garbage-ass green screen and Lindland’s Meat Loaf-esque campaign platform. Good luck, buddy.

(Props: Yahoo! MMA Experts)
Michael Bisping defends his measured performance at UFC 89 in this video interview from The Telegraph.

After the jump: Keith Jardine answers questions at the post-UFC 89 press conference in his usual humble, quiet, completely unmarketable way, and the painfully attractive Rachelle Leah stops by Chelsea Lately to discuss her decision to do Playboy, while Chelsea drops in quirky vagina-slang at every opportunity and shows off her pet midget.

(Daniel Craig interview? This is big news!)

As you probably already know, Rachelle Leah, former Octagon girl and current host of UFC All Access, appears on the cover of November’s Playboy. This isn’t related to the sport of MMA in any real way, but it’s an excuse to plaster her picture all over the place so no one is really complaining. Except there’s something weird going on here.

Below are excerpts from a Yahoo! MMA story on Leah, a UFC.com story on her, and the official press release from Playboy. Two of those organizations are expected to shamelessly push this story on us. One is…not expected to do that. See if you can tell which is which without cheating:

Excerpt A:

Rachelle was an ordinary Las Vegas girl, studying to be a paramedic while doing some modeling on the side when her photo was taken at a boxing match and posted on the web. Soon after, that photo was discovered by the UFC and she was gracefully strutting around the 8-sided cage as an official Octagon Girl.

Despite promising never to climb into The Octagon for a match herself, Rachelle admits to being attracted to the kind of raw energy and excitement found at a UFC fight. “Any extreme sport is pretty much up my alley,” explains Rachelle. “I like to dirt-bike. I wakeboard in the summer. I snowboard in the winter. I skateboard—I do it all.”

Excerpt B:

Yeah, she’s Playboy’s November cover girl, which will hit newsstands on Friday. She was the UFC’s most popular octagon girl and she just signed a deal as a spokesmodel with Anheuser-Busch. While none of those jobs require a degree from Harvard, it’s selling Leah short to believe she’s making a living solely from her looks.

She is brash and thoughtful and introspective and witty and plenty crafty. She uses her share of coarse language, her conversation invariably turns to sports and, most significantly, guys, she loves – absolutely loves – mixed martial arts.

Excerpt C:

Playboy is a big deal, and has been home to pictorials from the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson to Cindy Crawford and Kim Kardashian. So when the offer to appear in the magazine (and on the cover) was presented to the 24-year old model and actress, it was something that she took very seriously.

“The main reason I did it was because to be on the cover of Playboy is a huge honor,” she said. “And I’m open-minded; I’m not the type of girl that’s like ‘oh my God, you should never be nude.’ But I am the type of girl that says you should never be nude if it’s not done right, and I knew that it was going to be done right.”

Give up? Answer key is after the jump.

(Thanks for bringing us this photo, Chickipedia. We mean that.)

Former UFC Octagon girl and current UFC TV personality Rachelle Leah has agreed to get naked for the nation’s most respected pornographers: Playboy. Official word came from UFC.com, which dropped this marvel of concise innuendo on the subject:

Rachelle Leah, the host of UFC® All Access™ has a secret and UFC.com readers will read it here first. The woman who many fans consider to be the Ultimate Female is confirming rumors she will appear on the cover of the November issue of Playboy! Inside you’ll be treated to a 10-page pictorial of UFC’s favorite girl who’s now all grown up! The former Octagon Girl™ turned show host looks fierce in what can only be described as…well, we guess you’re going to have to see for youself. On newsstands in just 30 days!

Ultimate Female? Does that mean she is officially betrothed to Thunderlips, the Ultimate Male? I hear he’s single now.

Seriously, we couldn’t be happier for Rachelle. Her improbable success story is an inspiration to incredibly attractive young women everywhere, proving that no matter what those other girls at your high school who are totally just jealous say, you can make something of yourself. However, a visit to her website reveals that she’ll have to update her “About” section soon:

She has also been featured inside and on the covers of many magazines, some of which include Maxim, Men’s Fitness, 944, Playboy (clothed), Steppin’ Out, Muscle & Fitness, AXL, Vegas Magazine, and Stuff.

What a proud day it will be when she asks her webmaster to remove that parenthetical qualifier. Lest you think we’re just bandwagon jumpers, allow us to point out that we’ve been ogling Rachelle since waaaaaay back in 2007, son.

The good people at famed gentleman’s magazine Playboy have an interview with UFC prez Dana White in their September issue (which drops Friday, August 15) and one of the more interesting nuggets to come out of it are White’s remarks on what torpedoed the HBO deal:

“I pulled the plug at the 23rd hour. HBO was pi**ed off… I would have had to sell out, literally. They would have owned the UFC… I took meetings with HBO’s boxing guys. I’ll tell you, if I had to hear one more time about how many fu**ing Emmys they had won, I was going to dive out the window. I said ‘You won a bunch of Emmys, but I’m kicking your a** on pay-per-view.”

Awesome. Do I believe Dana White actually said that to HBO executives? Not really, but it’s still a good story. As much as people criticized him for not making the HBO deal happen, you have to respect his desire to maintain his autonomy, even if it means not blowing up big time with HBO’s Emmy factory.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Dana White interview if he didn’t bash Tito Ortiz:

Even though Cage Rage employs a deep stable of Brit beauties to remind audiences what round they’re watching, Laura Jones still manages to stand out. The Essex-bred brunette has been a Playboy Cyber Girl, a model for every major U.K. men’s magazine, and is a presenter for a daily SkyTV/Freeview show called Party People. See more of Laura’s work after the jump…