(Let me get this straight…Catchweight bouts have title implications, now?)

Strikeforce held a media conference call today ahead of its mid-week June 16 show next Wednesday. On the call were Renato "Babalu" Sobral, his manager, Richard Welner, his opponent on the card, Robbie Lawler and Strikeforce president, Scott Coker. 

(Video courtesy of Sherdog)

According to Renato "Babalu" Sobral, his upcoming 195-pound catchweight bout with Robbie Lawler on June 16 isn’t a one-off appearance for the former Strikeforce champion at a lighter weight as the Brazilian submission specialist is planning a further drop to compete as a middleweight in the foreseeable future.

Since his friend and training partner, Muhammed King Mo’ Lawal won the title Babalu previously held by defeating the man who took his belt, Gegard Mousasi in April, Sobral says that the fact that he would never fight anyone on his team necessitated the drop in weight.

(Props: MMA Fighting.)

It’s been nine months since Renato “Babalu” Sobral lost the Strikeforce light heavyweight title via short-and-sweet first round TKO to Gegard Mousasi last August. If you think that sounds like a lot of time to sit at home ruminating on the defeat, you’re right. Babalu is understandably pumped at the opportunity to step in for training partner Jason “Mayhem” Miller against Robbie Lawler next month and expresses some frustration to Ariel Helwani in the above video that it’s taken so long to get back in the cage.

Also interesting to note, Babalu seems to direct his annoyance at Showtime, not Strikeforce itself, so that should further stoke debate about who’s really wearing the pants in the fight company’s relationship with the premium cable channel. An excerpt from the interview after the jump.

(Props: backcaster421)

To be fair, I think it’s really cool that your dad is Internet-savvy enough to record video blogs and post them to YouTube. I was a little worried after your mom divorced him, but it seems like he has a good outlet for expressing his opinions now, and he’s probably not as depressed as he would have been otherwise. 

That being said, I have to disagree with your dad’s take on Nick Diaz. Nobody said that every professional athlete has to be a role model for our youth that are growing up, particularly the ones that depend on a "bad boy" persona to be marketable. Diaz may be a loud-mouth punk, but he’s also one of the best welterweights in the world, and some of us actually find his antics entertaining. He’s not for everybody, I know. There might be a generation gap that’s keeping your dad from appreciating Nick’s unique brand of don’t-give-a-fuck-ness. And the middle fingers are a bit much, no argument there. But does that mean he should be banned from the sport, like your dad is suggesting?

As for the part about Robbie Lawler beating Diaz down to his knees and forcing him to his apologize for his mouth, please tell your dad that they fought once back in 2004, and Lawler got wrecked, so he’ll have to find another hero for his Nick Diaz humbling-fantasy. Nothing personal, it just seems like your dad has a lot of anger he’s still working through, and it might be a good idea to look for some new hobbies for him. Anyway, send him my best, and we’ll see you guys at Brian’s wedding, okay? 

Previously: Well-Informed Fight Expert Explains How He Would Beat the Inbred ‘Feedor Emelenkio’

(Props: Fight Magazine)

Strippers, the government, our immediate family – we expect them to lie to us. We’ve gotten so used to it that we barely even notice it anymore.  We just give them our money and try not to think about what it’s really being spent on. But Robbie Lawler? Him, we thought we could trust. When he told us that he wanted to stand and bang with Melvin Manhoef, when he laughed off the idea of taking down an opponent for the first time in recent memory, we believed him. It seemed like a bad idea, but at least it seemed like a sincere bad idea. Only after the fight do we learn that it was all a ruse.  That lying son of a bitch.

As Lawler admits in this video, he didn’t really want any part of Manhoef’s vicious stand-up. The only reason the fight stayed on the feet at all was because Lawler couldn’t find an opportunity to get it to the mat. Instead he got his leg kicked to pieces and his head rattled a little bit before he managed to land that totally pre-planned, super technical right hand. It worked out for him in the end, but at what cost? With this trust now broken, his relationship with the MMA world may never be the same.

(Nick Diaz vs. Marius Zaromskis)

From last night’s Strikeforce: Miami show. More after the jump…

("Nice flower-tattoo, cupcake. I just got a tattoo of the Virgin Mary being ripped apart by pitbulls, directly on my asshole." / Photo courtesy of Strikeforce. More pics are below, including one of an alarmingly fat Wes Sims.)

Tonight’s Strikeforce event at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida (aka "Miami") has such a fantastic mix of high-level MMA and can’t-look-away freak shows. On the top of the card you’ve got Nick Diaz battling for Strikeforce’s vacant welterweight title against head-kickin’ rising star Marius Zaromskis, while 145-pound lady-champ Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos makes her first belt defense against Dutch submission artist Marloes Coenen. On the other end of the card, 47-year-old former football star Herschel Walker will kick off his cage-fighting career against Greg Nagy, while Wes Sims — who owns the physique of a 47-year-old — will do his best to avoid getting squashed by pro-wrestler Bobby Lashley. And somewhere in-between, Robbie "Brawler" Lawler and Melvin "Man-Hoof" Manhoef will launch leather at each other until one of them can no longer intelligently defend himself. If you’re not excited for this card, then you probably don’t use words like "excited" in general. Live results from the Showtime broadcast will be piling up after the jump, starting at 10 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

Update: Dubus22 wins the t-shirt! Please send your name, address, and size to feedback@cagepotato.com.

(Props: GenghisConMMA via BloodyElbow)

Of Robbie Lawler‘s 18 wins, 15 have come via KO/TKO; of Melvin Manhoef‘s 24 wins, 23 have come via KO/TKO. We may not agree with Lawler’s strategy going into tomorrow night’s fight, but sometimes you just have to say "fuck it, this is going to be a slugfest, and it’s going to be awesome." Genghis Con‘s preview compilation for the middleweight battle captures that spirit perfectly. Lawler vs. Manhoef is going to end with somebody staring at the ceiling, the owner of a brand-new concussion. The only questions are: Who will it be, and how long will it last?

After the jump: Wes Sims makes it very clear why he’s such an enormous underdog against Bobby Lashley, and Chael Sonnen takes a break from his homophobic Republican heel routine to speak candidly about his upcoming UFC 109 matchup with Nate Marquardt, which will very likely produce the UFC’s next middleweight title challenger.

Earlier this week we speculated that oddsmakers were only giving Melvin Manhoef the slight edge over Robbie Lawler because they thought Lawler was foolhardy enough to stand and strike with Manhoef rather than take it to the ground, where he would enjoy a distinct advantage. Unless Lawler is doing a great big fake-out in this video interview with Ariel Helwani, the oddsmakers know Lawler better than he knows himself. Yes, he realizes that he’s probably much better on the ground than Manhoef, and he probably also realizes that he could get it there if he wanted to. But that’s not how Lawler likes to party. He wants to go toe-to-toe with a man who’s known for having vicious stand-up and very little else. He wants to play to his opponent’s one strength rather than exploit his easily exploitable weaknesses. So he says, anyway.

Honestly? As much fun as it would be to watch Lawler and Manhoef play Rock-em, Sock-em Robots on Saturday night, a part of me hopes that Lawler is smarter than that. He needs a win more than he needs to prove what a stone cold bad-ass he is. Knocking out Manhoef in a stand-up war would be entertaining and impressive, but that’s like investing your savings in lottery tickets.  A 401k might not be as thrilling, but it is a lot less likely to leave you crying in the parking lot.

After the jump, part two of RawVegas.tv‘s series with Goran Reljic.  In this episode, Reljic spars with Forrest Griffin and shares a candid conversation about the challenges both of them are facing in the near future.

(These two guys could be brothers. Brothers with very different attitudes toward tanning.)

What do you do if you’re Strikeforce and you’ve just signed one of the most terrifyingly aggressive strikers of the modern era?  If you’re smart, you toss him against another heavy-hitter right off the bat and see whose head is still on their shoulders afterwards.  That seems to be the plan with new Strikeforce signee Melvin Manhoef, who will reportedly be taking on Robbie Lawler at Strikeforce’s Miami event on January 30.  There’s no official confirmation from Strikeforce on this just yet, but we know that they do owe Lawler a fight after he got shafted out of his chance to beat up Trevor Prangley in December, and Manhoef barely had a chance to break a sweat when he popped Kazuo Misaki at Dynamite!! on New Year’s Eve.

In fact, Manhoef was asked about the possibility of facing Lawler at his post-fight press conference in Tokyo, and he seemed game even if he didn’t appear to know too much about Lawler.  Said the Dutch striker:

(This Christmas, why not give the gift that will rest on your child’s bedside table, silently judging him while he sleeps?)

Matt Hughes doesn’t want to alarm anyone, but he’s pretty sure that Strikeforce is doomed. It’s no one’s fault — other than Showtime, which is totally at fault — but we all might as well accept it, according to Country Breakfast.  Hughes updated his blog today, discussing the disappointing turn of events that led to his bro-4-life Robbie Lawler going fightless on Saturday night. Hughes makes vague reference to Showtime’s interference in the process, and seems to believe that this will be Strikeforce’s undoing, sooner rather than later. Wrote Hughes:

Last week I was in California with Robbie, Pena, and Foster, hoping they would find a replacement so Robbie could fight. It didn’t happen and I guess I’m just spoiled being with the UFC. From what I understand, Showtime really likes to stick their nose in Strikeforce’s business and because of that I don’t think that Strikeforce will be around for much longer; but enough with that.

That’s a bummer. Especially for all the fighters planning on competing on their next CBS show in April. For all we know, Strikeforce may not even be around by then. Someone better go tell Scott Coker, but be gentle. This isn’t going to be easy for him to hear.

Hughes didn’t stop with visions of Strikeforce’s coming collapse, however. He also answered critics who say that his planned scrap with Renzo Gracie in Abu Dhabi on April 10 is a pointless bout:

("Okay Robbie, I’ll take the fight under two conditions. First, we do it at a catchweight of 195. And no pre-fight drug test. That one’s kind of non-negotiable." Photo courtesy of flickr.com/photos/shosports.)

Though Robbie Lawler was slated to face South African veteran Trevor Prangley at this Saturday’s Strikeforce: Le vs. Smith event, plans changed when Prangley was forced to pull out due to a knee injury suffered in training. Strikeforce scrambled to find another opponent for Ruthless this week, but a suitable replacement didn’t turn up, so Lawler’s fight has been scrapped altogether. Bummer. Lawler hasn’t competed since his first-round submission loss against Jake Shields in June; the organization hopes to place him on their "Miami" show on January 30th.

With Lawler vs. Prangley off the docket, the Strikeforce: Le vs. Smith lineup looks like this…

Showtime televised card (10 p.m. ET/PT)
Cung Le vs. Scott Smith
Josh Thomson vs. Gilbert Melendez (for unified lightweight title)
Matt Lindland vs. Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza
Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal vs. Mike Whitehead

Preliminary card
Antwain Britt vs. Scott Lighty
Daisuke Nakamura vs. Justin Wilcox
Juan Nunez vs. Luis Mendoza
Bobby Stack vs. Alex Trevino
Alex Crispim vs. A.J. Fonseca

The thing about Manhoef is, while he will almost certainly never be champion in an organization with so many adept grapplers, he’ll also never be in a boring fight.  Yeah, he can be taken down and submitted, and ideally you’d like to see more improvement in that area of his game from a guy who’s been in the sport for that long.  But the man is a human tornado of pain.  To put it in terms Dana White would appreciate, if you had a basketball game on one corner, a baseball game on another, a football game on a third, and a fight on the fourth, a crowd of people would still walk to the next block to see Manhoef go crazy on some poor bastard.  I mean, the guy knocked out Mark Hunt for crying out loud.

If you don’t believe it, get your fill after the jump.  Unless you’re a fan of Sakuraba, Evangelista Santos, or intact brain cells.

(Hughes isn’t even going to pretend to be interested in Dana White’s slides from his vacation to Disneyworld.  Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Matt Hughes may finally have a date for his next UFC bout, though he doesn’t have an official opponent just yet.  According to his blog, Hughes says he’ll likely be back in action on April 10, which would put him on the UFC 112 fight card.  He says he’ll tell fans "who and where" he’ll be fighting when it’s officially confirmed.  Renzo Gracie has been mentioned as a possible opponent for Hughes, though the Brazilian later shot down reports that the two would get it on as soon as February.  The mere fact that Hughes hasn’t publicly shot down the idea of facing Gracie, as he has with almost every other plausible suggestion offered to him, is somewhat encouraging. 

In other news via Hughes’ blog, Robbie Lawler and his wife are expecting a baby boy in February.  Hughes acknowledged that the information wasn’t "quite public, but I’ve never been that guy to keep my mouth shut."  It’s probably best he went ahead and told us.  A quick glance at Robbie Lawler’s blog reveals that he’s written a grand total of twelve entries in a year and a half, and none since July.  And here I always just assumed that Lawler’s blog would be a steady stream of You Tube clips of kittens doing cute stuff.  Guess you never really know anyone as well as you think you do.

(How’s taste this career-shattering loss? Photo by Esther Lin for Showtime Sports.)

What a weekend of fights, and amazingly, all without the benefit of the initials “UFC.”  Instead we had Strikeforce and the WEC (okay, a Zuffa property, but still) teaming up to blow our minds without charging us fifty bucks for a pay-per-view.  Now we begin the difficult task of using the Potato Index’s completely arbitrary numerical rankings system to see who’s up and who’s down after the eventful weekend.

Mike Brown +209
He beat Faber fair and square, no flukes needed, and he also proved he can last through five tough rounds.  Instead of making broken hand-related excuses for Faber, let’s finally all give Brown the unqualified props he clearly deserves.

Urijah Faber -37
We can play the ‘what if?’ game with his broken hand all we want, but that’s the fight game.  That he still fought well and fought hard afterwards, even in a losing effort, deserves to be mentioned.  But he’s not the world’s best featherweight as long as Brownie is around, and that deserves mentioning too.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

("Guys, you can get some of those cupcakes *after* we take this face-off picture, okay? Guys?" Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Hello, and welcome to a special "From Press Row" edition of the CagePotato liveblog. That’s right – I’m typing to you from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis tonight, not from my usual spot on my couch in Brooklyn. The good part? I’m about 25 feet from the cage and wedged between some of the brightest minds in MMA journalism. The bad part? Slamming beers, eating wings, and loudly showing bias towards my favorite fighters is frowned upon here, apparently. But we’re gonna try to have a good time anyway. Live round-by-round results are after the jump, starting at 9 p.m. CT. Hit that "read more" link and refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest. Time to do work, son.

(Kevin Randleman is athletic *and* explosive! Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

All fighters successfully weighed in today for Saturday’s Strikeforce event, which will be held at the Scottrade Center and broadcast on Showtime. CageWriter passes along this little detail from the weigh-in:

Yeah, that sounds about right. The numbers are after the jump. Don’t forget to swing by tomorrow night starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT as we liveblog the televised card. Fire up, Potato Nation!

(Fredbird hypes up Robbie Lawler before he throws out the first pitch at yesterday’s Cardinals/Reds game at Busch Stadium. Photo courtesy of Esther Lin/Strikeforce.)

- Urijah Faber and Mike Brown fill out Sports Illustrated‘s "Cheerleader of the Week" questionnaire. Hilarity ensues. (Asylum)

- Due to Cung Le’s movie career, Strikeforce will soon introduce an interim middleweight belt. (CageWriter)

- As if Team U.S.A. needed another reason to hate Jason Pierce. (SPIKE)

- Fedor Emelianenko discusses why he couldn’t sign with the UFC. (MMA Fanhouse)

- USA Wrestling is trying to bribe wrestlers not to jump ship to MMA. (Fightlinker)

- It’ll be Choi vs. Minowa and Mousasi vs. Sokoudjou in the second round of DREAM’s "Super Hulk" tournament. (MMA Mania)

- Kenny Florian will join the broadcast team at WEC 41 on Sunday. (MMA Junkie)

- Weigh-in results for tonight’s Bellator show. (MMA Madness)

- Mike Brown discusses how he got his start in fighting, and how his loss to Joe Lauzon turned his career around. (Scores Report)

- Urijah Faber is packing on leg muscle and working on a clothing line. (Ask Men)

- Redneck backyard MMA fight ends in head-kick KO. (NothingToxic)

- Spiders Flee From Paris Hilton’s Vagina. (HolyTaco)

- Trailer and production photos from It Might Get Loud, starring Jimmy Page, Jack White, and the Edge. (ScreenJunkies)

- Wreck of the Week: Drunk Fan Edition. (AllLeftTurns)

- Daily Market Madness. (WallStreetFighter)

- The Citizen Kane of beer pong trick-shot videos. (Break)

(My God, the animosity between these two. It’s like the entire room could burst into flames at any moment.)

MMA fans have a full dance-card this weekend, with Strikeforce putting on a stacked Showtime event on Saturday night (10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT), and the WEC following it up on Sunday night with a show on Versus headlined by featherweight champion Mike Brown’s second meeting with Urijah Faber (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT). Be sure to come back here Saturday night for the Strikeforce liveblog — and get psyched for the whole shebang by reading the latest installment of the longest-running MMA argument on the Internet. Ben vs. Ben starts right now…

Brett Rogers says he wants to stand and bang with Andrei Arlovski on Saturday. That sounds like a horrible idea for "The Grimm," given that Arlovski is just as big and strong as he is but with much more technical striking. Does Rogers stand a chance with that strategy, or is he an unconscious man walking at this point?

BG: WTF? Is Rogers supposed to take Arlovski down and sub him out with his battle-tested Grimjitsu? I’m not trying to hate on Brett’s ground game, because none of us have actually seen it; he’s a brawler, and thus far he’s only had to face other brawlers. Arlovski, on the other hand, actually has some submission skills in his back pocket. So while we know that Rogers will be fighting an uphill battle on Saturday night, I’d say his odds decrease even further if the fight goes anywhere else besides stand-and-bangville.

Brett’s only shot is to stick to his bread-and-butter and swing those hamhocks. The fact that Arlovski’s hands are far more technical means that the Grimm will probably get picked apart. But Arlovski’s unreliable chin makes him vulnerable to what Rogers brings into the cage. That’s what makes this fight compelling for me: Brett Rogers definitely should not be able to beat Andrei Arlovski — but he just might.

BF: With regard to the submission skills in Arlovski’s back pocket, I hope your finger slipped and you really meant to type ‘submission skill.’ As in, his straight achilles lock. That’s all the dude’s got on the mat and he goes to it like it’s his signature killer move, so let’s not pretend that there any Arlovski-platas in the near future.

(If Arlovski comes in with the same game plan as that big-ass tire, at least we know Rogers will be ready for him.)

There are exactly two indicators that something is important in contemporary American society: 1) there is a commemorative plate about it, and 2) you can bet on it.  Don’t believe me?  Then just consider two of the most important things happening in MMA this week – the Strikeforce event on Showtime this Saturday night, and the “Ultimate Fighter” Kimbo-mania that has set the internets on fire. Kimbo Slice is currently a +275 underdog to make it into the final two on this season of TUF.  The fact that there’s even a line this early on tells you what a big deal it is.  Still waiting on that commemorative plate, though.

Of course, if you like something closer to immediate gratification, you can just choose from these lines on Saturday’s Strikeforce fights, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Jake Shields (-115) vs. Robbie Lawler (-105)
Brett Rogers (+300) vs. Andrei Arlovski (-340)
Joe Riggs (+105) vs. Phil Baroni (-115)
Scott Smith (+300) vs. Nick Diaz (-310)
Kevin Randleman (-110) vs. Mike Whitehead (+105)
Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante (-370) vs. Mike Kyle (+300)

The breakdown…

(Some say Goldberg had a legit sexual harassment claim after what happens in the 0:49 mark in this interview, but clearly he was asking for it walking in there dressed like that.)

The war of words between Strikeforce fighters Joe Riggs and Phil Baroni this week seemed to promise an interesting encounter on today’s media conference call to promote Saturday night’s Strikeforce event on Showtime.  The only problem is that Riggs failed to pick up a phone in time, so Baroni was left alone with Jake Shields and the notoriously tight-lipped Robbie Lawler to do all the talking.  Fortunately Baroni had prepared all his life for just such a moment.

Some highlights from the NYBA:

("Josh, bro, you ever look at your hands? I mean really *look* at them? It’s like, why do we have five fingers anyway? Who decided that? It would be cool if I had six, but I’d probably be able to get by with just four. Or like, why is there a thumb on only *one* side of your hand. I feel like I’d be able to get more done with two thumbs on each hand. Do you ever watch ‘Fringe’? Great fuckin’ show." Photo courtesy of MixedMartialArts.com.)

With less than two weeks to go before Strikeforce returns to action on Showtime, the second-biggest fight on the "Shamrock vs. Diaz" card (April 11th, San Jose) has been scratched from the lineup. Strikeforce announced last night that lightweight champion Josh Thomson broke his left leg above the ankle while sparring with Billy Evangelista yesterday, and will not be having his rematch with Gilbert Melendez next Saturday. Said Thomson:

Strikeforce is searching for a late replacement for Melendez so that the former champ can still compete on the card. Tough break (literally) for Thomson, but on the bright side, we didn’t want to see him fight Melendez again anyway. Their first meeting last June saw Thomson  dominate Melendez with his striking for all 25 minutes of the match; El Nino was never really in the game. And Melendez hasn’t fought anybody since then, so it’s not like he’s legitimately earned another crack at the champ. We’ll keep you posted on the random-ass opponent they scare up for him. The full lineup for "Shamrock vs. Diaz" can be seen here.

In other news…

(Jake Shields, pictured here with his son Gilbert Melendez.)

Multiple sources have informed FiveOuncesofPain that a welterweight matchup between Jake Shields and Joe Riggs, which was slated to go down at Strikeforce’s "Shamrock vs. Diaz" event on April 11th, has been scrapped. Writes 5oz:

While he was the 170-pound champ of EliteXC, Shields had entertained the notion of going up in weight to challenge Robbie Lawler, due to the lack of challenges at welterweight. We thought the new bodies at Strikeforce would keep Shields entertained at 170 for a while longer, but it sounds like he’s more interested in big fights than welterweight tune-ups, and we respect that. Besides, weight classes are more of a suggestion than a rule at Strikeforce anyway.

Update, 5:30 p.m. ET: Shields vs. Lawler has officially been announced for Strikeforce’s May event, which will take place somewhere in Washington state. It will be a non-title fight, contested at middleweight.

In other Strikeforce news, former UFC heavyweight champ and PRIDE vet Kevin Randleman has reportedly signed a deal to return to MMA competition under the Strikeforce banner. Randleman last competed at Sengoku II last May, where he won a unanimous decision over Ryo Kawamura. Though "The Monster" was terrifying in hs prime, he has lost seven of his last ten fights. The date of his next match and his opponent have yet to be announced.

(Shane Carwin — one of the ten best heavyweights in the world. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

In the wake of UFC 95, WEC 39, and UFC 96, we’ve tidied up the heavyweight, light-heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight, and featherweight top ten lists in our Power Rankings section. Some notable changes…

— Shane Carwin enters the heavyweight list at #9 after taking out his first Top 20 opponent in 69 seconds.

— Keith Jardine leaves the light-heavyweight list (temporarily, at least) after his loss to Quinton Jackson on Saturday. He may have beaten a post-peak Chuck Liddell and a pre-peak Forrest Griffin, but it’s unclear if he has what it takes to beat a high-level opponent when they’re at their best.

— Robbie Lawler and Jake Shields drop a spot due to inactivity. Not their fault, but whaddya gonna do. Luckily, their stints in Strikeforce begin soon.

— Josh Koscheck falls to #8 on the welterweight list after being upset by Paulo Thiago. Kos definitely still has the talent of a top-ten fighter — he’s just made some unfortunate choices.

— Jose Aldo ascends to #6 on the featherweight list after his fourth brutal stoppage win in the WEC.

Check ‘em out and let us know if you see things differently.

Unrelated, but important: Thanks so much for all your awesome nominations in our Best MMA Bars forum thread. We’re going to start compiling our list soon, so if you have any others to share, please let us know!

(More headkicking in store for Shamrock in ’09?)

Ever since Strikeforce purchased “select assets” from Pro Elite we’ve been wondering a) which select assets, and b) what the hell does he plan to do with them?  In an interview with USA Today, Coker inched closer to answering those questions, saying he’s spoken with 10 Pro Elite fighters and only one of them has tried to renegotiate his deal (we assume this was Kimbo Slice insisting he take a pay cut and be place on the untelevised undercard).  

Coker also said he “would like to invite K.J. Noons to fight [Strikeforce lightweight champ]" Josh Thomson, and added that he’s in talks with Noons’ agent, Mark Dion, to make that happen. 

You’ll recall that Noons essentially turned his back on EliteXC when they tried to make him fight Nick Diaz on CBS and Noons was unhappy with the payscale and with rematching Diaz in general, who was slated to make more than him despite losing the first meeting due to a cut stoppage.  Thomson is a quality, name opponent, and if Noons decides he doesn’t want to fight him either, we in the MMA world would probably do well to forget about “King” Karl altogether and let him box his little heart out.

As for other fights on Coker’s mind right now…

 
(Let’s remember the good times. Props: Old, Bald, & Irish.)

First EliteXC tanked, leaving Gina Carano without an organization to call home.  But if that wasn’t enough of a kick in the ovaries, American Gladiators has also been cancelled.  We can’t say we didn’t see it coming, but it’s sad nonetheless.  If only the new American Gladiators could have captured some this kind of magic from the old AG, maybe they’d still be around.  Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  Not only does this mean we may never again see “Crush” tossing old ladies around in a unitard, it also means Hulk Hogan is being released back into the wild, so look out.  

But just when all Carano’s revenue streams look to be drying up, it sounds as if Dana White may actually be serious about getting her signed.  The UFC prez told Five Ounces of Pain’s Gary Herman that Carano, Robbie Lawler, and Jake Shields are all former EliteXC fighters he’d like to sign.  He also chastised fighters for signing with “fly by night companies,” saying they were “wasting their time.”

There you have it, young fighters not in the UFC.  Don’t sign with organizations other than the UFC or you’ll be wasting your time.  Just keep fighting one-offs in tiny regional shows for almost no money.  Then, after the UFC signs you and later cuts you, it won’t be so hard to re-adjust to your life of poverty and despair.  See?  Circle of freaking life.

(Surely Kimbo’s brilliant legal council will find a way out of this mess.)

Remember when Pro Elite ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy? Well, turns out they didn’t. At least that’s their story now. As fighters still under contract with them have been filing notices to get free, Pro Elite has responded by informing those fighters that the company has not declared bankruptcy and that it intends to stage an event in 2009.

A notice sent out to several managers representing Pro Elite fighters states:

“Elite XC and ProElite are currently downsizing its staff in an effort to improve its business moving forward. As this process is implemented, Elite XC cancelled the event previously scheduled for Nov. 8 in attempt to re-schedule another event in early 2009.”

That’s funny, because if I was running an MMA company that was merely downsizing but which intended to continue promoting events, and suddenly there were widespread reports that my company was filing for bankruptcy, I think I might say something to contradict that right away. I might, for example, immediately issue a statement declaring my intention not to just roll over and die. I might even call the people who had circulated those reports a bunch of lying sons of bitches. What I would not do is say nothing at all until fighters started trying to get free of their contracts, and only then come up with an obviously bullshit reason for not releasing them.

As you might expect, no one is buying this explanation.

(Clearly.)

Add Nick Diaz to the list of EliteXC refugees who Dana White may be looking to pick up. During an appearance on TapouT Radio Live, the UFC prez was complementary of Stockton’s favorite son, though he made it known that he doesn’t approve of Diaz’s confrontational antics:

“I think Nick Diaz is a bad ass. Nick Diaz is a tough kid. Nick Diaz doesn’t handle himself right all the time in public. I like him — I respect him as a fighter. I love his attitude. I love the way that kid fights. But you can’t do the stuff that this kid does in public. You can’t get into fights when the fight is over … you can’t do that stuff.”

Of course, we immediately think of Diaz’s in-cage taunts of KJ Noons and his father at EliteXC: The Return of the King in June — and the obscene gestures he makes at the crowd after his fights, which is something of a Diaz family tradition. But Dana White is likely also referring to a bizarre incident that took place after Diaz’s UFC 57 fight against Joe Riggs in February 2006. As Wikipedia retells it:

(‘Sometimes I think there’s a disconnect between how I see myself and how the world perceives me to be.’)

From the sound of things, being a fighter under contract to EliteXC these days is a lot like being in a long distance relationship. You never know exactly what your status is, whether you’re free to make out with other people in bars, whether you’re still getting together over Thanksgiving, and what little contact you do have with one another is always tinged with confusion and regret. Fortunately for EliteXC middleweight champ Robbie Lawler, he has Monte Cox for an agent, and Monte knows just what to do in this situation: write a break-up letter.

Cox filed a breach of contract notice with Pro Elite last week, hoping to get Lawler free and clear of the sinking EliteXC ship so Lawler can ply his trade elsewhere, perhaps in the UFC:

“There’s a warranty clause in the contract that you can challenge if they have enough money to fulfill the contract,” Cox said. “Obviously, right now, they do not. I notified them of what I considered to be breach of contract and they have 30 days to respond. They have to prove they can fulfill it or we’re a free agent.”

[...]

“We’ve done everything we can do,” said Cox. “Now, they may fight [the claim of breach of contract], but we can’t do anything at the moment. Right now, there’s no one at Elite to even talk to us. If I wanted to ask, there’s nobody there.”