(Tim Sylvia, in his bantamweight debut. / Photo via Getty)

UFC 182 was certainly the talk of the town this weekend, yet we couldn’t help but notice a former UFC Heavyweight Champion call it a day after going on an Arby’s world tour to train for his most recent bout.

According to The Underground, Maine’s own Tim Sylvia retired yesterday, shortly after his super-heavyweight fight against Juliano “Banana” Coutinho at Reality Fighting 53 was cancelled. Sylvia, who was planning on entering the battlefield at a whopping 371 pounds, was not cleared to fight by  the Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulation at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT., and thank the good Lord for that.

However, manager Monte Cox confirmed on Facebook there was a problem with his pre-fight MRI, and the bout was cancelled due to other issues apart from his weight. Nevertheless, the face-off picture of a bloated Timmeh surfaced on social media and MMA sites around the world, and that was enough for its experts to stare at it without blinking for the whole duration of the UFC 182 main card (except for the main event, of course).

(“F*ck yeah I’ll watch this again!” — Nobody, ever. Photo via Getty.)

We have lamented at length about Matt Hamill‘s decision to unretire the *first* time and the uninspiring results it garnered, but alas, it appears the TUF 3 alum simply refuses to listen.

That sounded wrong. What I meant to say was that our words have fallen on…goddammit, this was a terrible analogy to use.

Matt Hamill is un-retiring, again, despite recently retiring from MMA (again) due to “a nagging injury” that forced him out of his expected WSOF debut in May. And not only that, but now he’s calling for a rematch with Rampage Jackson in Bellator over Twitter.

“@scottcoker I want a fight with @rampage4real. The Hammer is coming back and want to come to @bellator,” tweeted Hamill last night.

Eesh. Where do we begin…

(For just the price of a cup of coffee a day, you can help this child AFFORD A FIGHT PASS SUBSCRIPTION TO WATCH VINTAGE WANDERLEI SILVA KICK SOME ASS! HYEAAHHH!!!)

As we’ve mentioned before, Wanderlei Silva has been hopelessly trapped in a world of delusion ever since skipping out on his random pre-fight drug test prior to UFC 175. And although he announced his retirement from the sport prior to yesterday’s NSAC meeting wherein he was handed a lifetime ban/$70,000 fine – a meeting that he didn’t even bother attending, mind you – it appears that Silva will forge ahead in his near impossible quest for redemption. The horror, the horror.

Moments after Silva was handed his punishment, Josh Gross reported that Silva would in fact be repealing the verdict within 30 days through attorney Ross Goodman, who referred to the NSAC as a “kangaroo court” (presumably before dropping the mic and peacing out that bitch). Goodman’s assessment was not entirely ungrounded, as Chuck Mindenhall pointed out in his hilarious write-up of yesterday’s proceedings.

And now, Silva is attempting to rally support from what few fans he has left via the social medias, recently sending out a series of tweets that translated to (via BloodyElbow):

Thank you my friends, you got the power and you give it for whoever you want. Thank you very much for everything. And for you that desire my fall, come to me, the war is only in the beginning you sons of bitches. You’re going to see that we rule this shit. Bunch of fops.

I’ll give Wanderlei this, the man has a surprisingly diverse vocabulary for a guy who spends the majority of his free time shooting black-and-white vlogs set to bro rock in his basement.

(Bonnar has clearly yet to inform the little guy of the rules regarding small joint manipulation in MMA, but we’ll give him a pass for now.) 

I don’t mean to get all transcendent on you Taters, but to me, life is little more than a cyclical series of events; with death comes birth, with loss comes acquisition, and so on. And before you ask, yes, I take all of my philosophical life lessons from The Lion King. So it only makes sense that just a day after we bid farewell to one of MMA’s greatest ambassadors in Stephan Bonnar — professionally at least — we should welcome Stephan’s newborn son into the world.

Stephan released this photo on his Twitter account yesterday, along with the caption: “Just wanted to welcome in my MINI ME to this world…right in time to wish ya’ll a Happy Holloween!”

(John Einemo, the only man to ever truly smell what The Rock was cookin’.)

Norwegian news site VG.no is reporting that former UFC heavyweight John Olav Einemo has decided to call it a career after being cut from the promotion following his loss to Mike Russow at UFC on Fox 2.

Although Einemo told reporters that the UFC had left the proverbial door open for his return if he was able to put a couple wins together in smaller promotions, Einemo felt that the time he had to spend away from his family during the training process was simply too much to handle. Apparently his wife and kids didn’t drive him crazy. For those of you who are suddenly overwhelmed with panic as to when you’ll see J.O.E again, fret not, for he plans to help build upon Norway’s ever-growing MMA scene as a coach somewhere down the line.

Nevermind, this is likely the last we’ll see of Einemo before the trolls get him.

(The exact moment Tito’s fighting career jumped the shark.)

It’s amazing that with the UFC’s longtime policy of cutting fighters who lose three fights in a row, that Tito Ortiz, who is 0-3-1 in his past four fights hasn’t been fired yet. One would assume that “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” was being kept around because of his past merits and pay-per-view sales, but apparently his job isn’t as secure as we assumed.

According to Ortiz, the UFC was ready to let him go after his UFC 121 loss to Matt Hamill, but instead urged the former UFC light heavyweight champion to follow in the footsteps of longtime nemesis Chuck Liddell and retire to save them the trouble of sending him to the unemployment line. Tito says he basically begged Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta for one more kick at the cat and they begrudgingly agreed, throwing him in against a young lion in Ryan Bader at UFC 132.

“Dana White and Joe Silva [the UFC's matchmaker] told me they wanted me to retire, but I knew I still had the fight inside me.  I pretty much begged for my job, to show how much I want to fight, but I still have it in my heart to compete, to fight,” he told the UK Telegraph. I told them I want to still fight against the top guys, I want to put on a show. I’ve just turned 36, but when they put me against the top guys, I think I can still compete.”

(For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will do. PicProps: CombatLifestyle)

As it stands, the Potato has what you might call in the parlance of the fight game a “verbal agreement” in place to have Shonie Carter on an upcoming episode of The Bum Rush. So far it’s just been a matter of getting our schedules to mesh. When it happens and we get Mr. International live on the air you can damn sure bet we’re going to get to the bottom of this little tidbit: Recently retired, it now appears that Carter wants to take his singular talents to the world of professional wrestling. At least that’s what he told Old Dad on Wednesday in an interview over on MMA Fighting.

"I want to go to the WWE … ," Carter says. "I’m coming to acknowledge the midlife crisis that a lot of guys go through where they get a Corvette and a hot blonde girlfriend with big boobs. I’ve just decided to do the WWE. Overtime, that will be my name. Overtime, because I work hard. I put that hard hat on, I bring a lunchbox, and I punch in. If you get in that ring with me, you better punch in too, because you’re going to be working overtime."

Phew, midlife crisis averted. Still, we can’t help but wonder: Wouldn’t it be possible for Shonie to go to WWE and get the hot blonde girlfriend with big boobs? Just sayin.