(Wait…it’s already been FIVE YEARS since these two last fought?!!) 

Trilogy fever has officially struck Zuffa.

Word has it that lightweight scrappers Sam Stout and Spencer Fisher will meet for a third time at UFC on FX 4 this June, in a fight that will be an early front runner for “Fight of the Night” to say the least. Both Fisher and Stout are coming off losses to Thiago Tavares, so it seems a good a time as any to have these two square off once again, because MMA fans eat up rematches like fried Kool-aid nowadays.

Fisher and Stout last met way back at UFN 10 in June of 2007, where Fisher was able to erase the memory of his split decision, “Fight of the Year” earning loss to Stout at UFC 58 by walking away with a close but unanimous decision victory. As of late, however, Fisher has descended further down the lightweight ladder with each performance, to the point that he could be fighting for his job come June 22nd. He has dropped 4 of his last 5, with the lone win coming by way of UD over UFC washout Curt “The War” Warburton at UFC 120. Yes, you read that correctly; Curt Warburton’s nickname is “The War.” What a crafty SOB.

Stout has seen quite a bit more success recently, scoring wins in 4 of his last 6, including a first round starching of Yves Edwards at UFC 131 last year. After his long time trainer and close friend Shawn Tompkins suddenly passed away, however, Stout pulled out of his bout with Dennis Siver to do some “soul searching” along with fellow Team Tompkins members Chris Horodecki and Mark Hominick. Upon returning to the octagon, the aftereffects of such a tragic loss were still noticeable, as both Stout and Hominick suffered defeats to Tavares and Chan Sung Jung, respectively.

In other fight booking news…

Add this upcoming documentary to the pile of must-see soon-to-be-released MMA movies along with “Once I was a Champion” and “Fightville.”

“Fight Spirit Pride” looks back on former UFC featherweight contender Mark Hominick’s crossover period from Canadian MMA standout to popular Octagon veteran five years ago. Though it should have been one of the most exciting and happy times of his life, it was one of the most stressful and painful for Hominick as his father was also dying from cancer.

Featuring a number of the sport’s most recognizable faces including Dana White, Eddie Bravo, Joe Rogan, Sam Stout, Georges St-Pierre, Bas Rutten and Kevin James, the emotional film also touches on the untimely death of “The Machine’s” longtime mentor, trainer and friend, Shawn Tompkins last year.

Here’s a description from the film’s producers:

“This is a Documentary film about a UFC fighter’s struggle between being there for his dying father, and his career. This documentary is a very raw uncensored microscopic look into the life of a fighter; it has two deaths and two births.”

Check out the trailer after the jump.

(From L-R: Gabriel Gonzaga, UFC president Dana White, Squidward Q. Tentacles, and the guy who totally isn’t Dana White’s bodyguard. Photo via MMAJunkie)

Before the UFC 142 pay-per-view card kicks off from the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, FX will be airing four fights from the preliminary card, featuring the return of veteran lightweight striker Sam Stout as well as formerly-retired heavyweight Gabriel Gonzaga. Follow us after the jump for round-by-round results from the live prelims broadcast starting at 8 p.m., courtesy of rookie CagePotato liveblogger Anthony Gannon. Porra, you guys!

UFC 142 goes down this Saturday from the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and though it doesn’t feature quite as epic a lineup as the UFC’s return to Brazil at UFC 134, the fact that the card has still maintained its two marquee match-ups is something to brag about, if only due to how cursed a card this has been. So if you, like Siyar Bahadurzada, Paulo Thiago, Stanislav Nedkov, and Fabio Maldanado, find yourself watching the action from the sidelines on Saturday night and suddenly in need of some extra dough, then we are here to help. Check out the betting lines below, courtesy of BestFightOdds, and join us after the jump for some sound betting advice.

Main Card
Erick Silva (-525) vs. Carlo Prater (+415)
Edson Barboza (-270) vs. Terry Etim (+230)
Rousimar Palhares (-525) vs. Mike Massenzio (+415)
Anthony Johnson (-110) vs. Vitor Belfort (-110)
Jose Aldo (-240) vs. Chad Mendes (+200)

Preliminary Card
Antonio Carvalho (-225) vs. Felipe Arantes (+175)
Mike Pyle (-460) vs. Ricardo Funch (+340)
Yuri Alcantara (-195) vs. Michihiro Omigawa (+160)
Sam Stout (EV) vs. Thiago Tavares (-140)
Gabriel Gonzaga (-120) vs. Edinaldo Oliveira (-110)

(“Look kid, I’m gonna find the man who did this to you. And when I do, so help me God, I’m gonna dock him one point for shorts-grabbing.” / Photo of Stout vs. Edwards aftermath via ESPN)

With a little help from the Potato Nation, we spent the last couple days gathering videos of the nastiest, ugliest, most-painful looking knockouts and submissions from this year. Finding 25 of them was the easy part. (Damn, MMA fighters. You seemed especially angry this year. Problems at home?) Putting them in order was a little more challenging.

Obviously, Frank Mir snapping Nogueira’s arm at UFC 140 was the people’s choice for #1. But how do you rank a head-kick knockout against a spinning-backfist knockout, when they both leave their victims zombie’d on the mat with their eyes open and their arms in the air?

So here’s what we’ll do. Instead of arranging these brutal stoppages in some arbitrary order, we’ll arrange them in groups. Use the links below to navigate through the sections, and take a moment to appreciate the human devastation that our great sport has caused in the last 12 months. And all this without a single death! Enjoy…

(Ben Goldstein)

- Page 1: The Perfect One-Shot (Or Two-Shot) Knockouts
- Page 2: The Savage Striking Onslaughts
- Page 3: The Gruesome Submissions
- Page 4: Fancy Kicks and Other Insanity

(“He’s never going to be forgotten. I think about him still every day and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.” – Sam Stout)

We caught up with consummate crowd favorite Sam Stout over the weekend at the MMA Expo in Toronto and we touched on a number of topics, including how the healing process is going for him and his Team Tompkins teammates since losing friend and mentor Shawn Tompkins. We also spoke about how the team is rallying behind Mark Hominick this weekend as “The Machine” gets set to take to the Octagon for the first time in his career without “The Coach” in his corner Saturday night when he takes on “The Korean Zombie.”

Stout is candid about the affect Tompkins’ death had on him and he reveals the team’s plans moving forward. Definitely a must-watch interview.

Check it out after the jump.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/ BlahBlahBlah2145)

While in attendance at the UFC press conference in which the promotion announced announced that it would be making it’s long-awaited debut in Ontario last year, I asked the company’s newly-appointed Canadian director of operations, Tom Wright, whether or not there were plans to implement any community-based programs such as in-school anti-bullying initiatives. Although it was early in his tenure, Wright told me that it was definitely something that they would be looking at and that programs such as these were some of the most rewarding he experienced as the head of the Canadian Football League Commissioner.

It’s been 19 months since Wright was hired and Zuffa announced this week that it’s planning on working with local schools in the Greater Toronto Area, where it’s Canadian branch is located, to implement a mentoring program for youth who have experienced bullying. Though it’s too early to tell, there are indications that a regular stream of fighters could speak to Toronto kids about their own experiences with bullying as youth, teachers and parents and if all goes well, it could become a implemented in schools across the country.

(Don’t be fooled by its innocent exterior, the Stout will knock you out quicker than you can say “10.6 percent.”) 

A pair of lightweight contests have recently been announced for the UFC’s return to Brazil this January. Fresh off his lightning quick victory over Edward Faaloloto at UFC 138, Terry Etim will be taking a big step up in competition when he faces Brazilian phenom Edson Barboza.

Barboza has gone 3-0 in his UFC career, notching wins over TUF 9 winner Ross Pearson and WEC KO artist Anthony Njokuani. Etim, on the other hand, had rattled off four victories in his last five fights before being sidelined by a rib injury for over a year. Having fought six of his nine UFC contests on his home soil, it will be interesting to see how Etim reacts to the foreign crowd, especially one that has shown the capacity to commit bloodshed before.

Cagewriter’s Steve Cofield hosted Team Tompkins founding members Mark Hominick and Sam Stout on his ESPN radio show this week to talk about tomorrow night’s Shawn Tompkins memorial fundraiser.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/ncaasteve)

(Although he will never be able to replace “The Coach” Stout says he knows he will have to find new trainers to work with eventually.)

UFC lightweight Sam Stout appeared on Mauro Ranallo’s The MMA Show podcast yesterday and the longtime Team Tompkins fighter revealed his reason for bowing out of his upcoming UFC 137 bout with Dennis Siver in October.

As expected, Stout says he’s still grieving the loss of his longtime trainer, mentor, best friend and brother-in-law, Shawn Tompkins who passed away suddenly earlier this month and has not decided where or with whom he will train with, but the decision, which will take a lot of soul searching to make, won’t be his alone to make.

“Shawn has been my coach since I got into the sport. I’ve never had a fight, dating back to my kickboxing career…I’ve never had a fight, without him training me for it and without him being in my corner…I’m not one of these guys who’s jumped around from coach to coach over the years and trained with lots of people,” he says. “He’s taught me really everything I know about mixed martial arts. And not only that, he was a lot more than that to me. He was a brother and a trusted friend and confidant and really, my mentor. Definitely the most influential person in my life. I’m going to have to wait for the dust to settle a little bit before I’m ready to get back in there and figure out what I’m going to do in terms of coaching. I’m really just unsure of what I’m going to do right now.We’ve discussed it and you’re going to see some changes being made to the team, but we don’t think Shawn would have wanted us to all go join other teams. He would have wanted us to stick together.”

(Should be a decent scrap.)

MMAJunkie is reporting that Donald Cerrone (16-3) has agreed to step in for Sam Stout against Dennis Siver (19-7) at UFC 137 October 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

Although it is unclear whether or not Stout is injured, it could simply be a case of the Canadian lightweight standout needing more time to deal with the sudden passing of his best friend, brother-in-law, mentor and trainer Shawn Tompkins earlier this month before fighting his first bout without “The Coach” in his corner.

According to Shawn Tompkins’ brother-in-law and longtime friend and fighter Sam Stout, the revered Ingersoll, Ontario-born trainer died from a heart attack.

Stout revealed the tragic news to the London Free Press on Tuesday.

“I don’t know what to say,” Stout said. “It’s not supposed to be happen to a healthy 37-year-old person. Who would think he had to get checked out for that?”

By Mike Russell

I spoke with Shawn on the phone about a week and a half prior to his tragic and sudden passing this past weekend at age 37. During our conversation we spoke about the brotherhood he shares with Mark Hominick, Chris Horodecki and Sam Stout and the past present and future of Team Tompkins among other topics.

By Mike Russell

I first met Shawn Tompkins six years ago while I was working for The Fight Network in Toronto, Canada. I’d been a fan of his work for a while, having watched Mark Hominick and Sam Stout climb the Canadian rankings under his tutelage, but didn’t get the opportunity to shake the hand of the London, Ontario coach, who was considered by many to be the top trainer in Canada until late 2005. He was one of the good guys in the sport, always eager to talk shop and would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it.

I last spoke to “The Coach” a week ago for a story I was working on for Fighters Only Magazine about his brother-in-law and longtime protégée Sam Stout. In spite of the fact that he was on vacation (the first one he’d taken in years) and was in the midst of celebrating his wedding anniversary with his wife Emilie, Shawn promptly responded to the text I sent him asking if he had time to talk that week with a familiar reply: “I’ve always got time for you, Mike.”

It didn’t surprise me when he told me that day that he and Sam had never had a disagreement.

Multiple sources have confirmed that well-regarded MMA coach Shawn Tompkins has passed away at the age of 37. He was found dead Sunday morning in Canada, where he was traveling with members of his Team Tompkins stable. As UFC vet John Gunderson put it, Tompkins “didn’t wake up.” No other details on Tompkins’s death are immediately available.

Tompkins’s wife Emilie — the sister of UFC lightweight Sam Stout — released a statement last night from their home in Las Vegas:

“Team Tompkins thanks everyone for all of the condolences that have come in since the tragic news of ‘The Coach’s’ death. Shawn would be touched beyond words by the outpouring of love from the MMA community. Sam Stout, Chris Horodecki, Mark Hominick, Kekoa Quipolta, Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins and I thank you for the respect you have shown us during this trying time. Shawn loved MMA and he considered all of you family. We will miss our Coach very much.”

Do this again some time? Sure…

The bookings just keep coming in. The UFC has announced yet another fight for an already stacked UFC 136 card, as well as a pair of very interesting fights to UFC 137. Who said Sundays are for resting?

The UFC has announced that former WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis and Jeremy Stephens have agreed to fight at UFC 136. Anthony Pettis is looking to rebound from a loss in his UFC debut, where he was on the wrong end of a unanimous decision to Clay Guida at The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale in June. That fight was less than exhilarating, but by no means due to a lack of effort from the dynamic lightweight. Meanwhile, Jeremy Stephens is riding a two fight win streak into the cage, with wins over Danny Downes at The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale and Marcus Davis at UFC 125, earning him Knockout of the Night honors. The craziest part of this booking? Due to the stacked nature of this card, it’s currently listed on the prelims. Yeah, UFC 136 is shaping up to be an outstanding card.

Check after the jump for the latest additions to UFC 137, as well as current fight cards for both events.

(Clay Guida’s party-animal status: Unchanged. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com)

Now that we’re halfway through a six-week stretch featuring a UFC or Strikeforce event every weekend, it might be time to take a deep breath, drag out a semi-retired recurring feature, and assign some totally meaningless scores to some of the notable trends and fighters we’ve seen lately. Who’s up, who’s down, and by how much? Well…

The UFC heavyweight division +113
Some have already labeled Shane Carwin’s loss at UFC 131 the “end of an era” for gargantuan heavyweights. (Didn’t last long, did it?) At the top of the division, we’re left with two guys who are smaller, faster, and better-conditioned than their predecessors; Velasquez vs. Dos Santos could be an all-time classic. Meanwhile, prospects like Travis Browne and Dave Herman continue to add depth at 265.

Cageside monitors -98
Nope, the judging in this sport still sucks, and the problem doesn’t appear to be technological. When you have shit for brains, every angle is a bad angle.

Take damage + knockout = $70K. LOL U Mad? PicProps: MMA Junkie

Just because it amused us, check out this picture of Sam Stout doing his best trollface.

Stout picked up a KO of the Night bonus for his jaw-crushing starching of Yves Edwards Saturday night, his sixth bonus in eleven fights in the UFC. Stout has a reputation for game planning to win FotN bonuses, which basically involves taking damage before firing every missile he has.

Hate him if you want, but Stout’s strategy appears to be working, and it probably brings a fair amount of job security along with stacks of cash. That’s how you set up a sound financial future, people. Or, you know, just go blow a stack of bills.

[RX]

“Hands of Stone”? Yup, that sounds about right. (Pic: UFC.com)

There is so much to love about the UFC’s Fight Night Bonuses. Often times one of these rewards can double, triple, or even quadruple a fighter’s take home pay for the evening. They also serve as bounties for action, encouraging the knockouts, submissions, and exciting fights that we all enjoy. But I love them best for another reason altogether. They give Dana White the opportunity to do what he does best: wield his godlike power with impunity. That sword has two edges of course, one of which has cut us frequently, but when dolling out these bonuses we get to see the best of Dana White. There’s Dana the Vindictive, who snubbed Mir’s poor performance against Cro Cop by denying the night’s only KO a bonus; Dana the Fight Fan, who loves action packed bouts so much that sometimes he can’t bring himself to award only one “Fight of the Night” bonus; and Dana the Merciful, who sets right the grave injustices cast down from the judges table. It was this last Dana who reared his head last night, giving an “unofficial” bonus to Michihiro Omigawa, who lost a unanimous decision to Darren Elkins in the prelims. White felt that Omigawa clearly deserved the victory and awarded him his win bonus for his performance. This fight, particularly one judge scoring it 30-27 for Elkins, is sure to add more fuel to the firestorm that is MMA judging. And now, on to the $70k bonuses…

(Photo courtesy of Eddie Manuel Photography)

London, Ontario police today revealed that they had arrested 28-year-old Las Vegas-based welterweight fighter Kasheem “The Dream” Peterson in connection with a sexual assault that occurred on the outskirts of the city southwest of Toronto at approximately 6:30 am Friday morning.

The victim, a 21-year-old woman who was not from the area and who had met Peterson prior to the alleged assault, reported the attack to police over the weekend and folowing an investigation by police, the Philidelphia native was arrested and charged with sexual assault, forcible confinement and choking someone with the intent of committing sexual assault.

A number bookings for upcoming UFC events have being reported by various sources in the past 24 hours.

Heavy.com broke the news yesterday afternoon that former CagePotato.com The Ultimate Fighter 11 blogger Rich Attonito will try to prove the theory that Matt Brown has incriminating blackmail-worthy photos of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva when he attempts to hand the Seattle, Washington fighter his fourth straight UFC loss at the TUF 13 finale on June 4 in Las Vegas. Attonito will be hungry to rebound from a unanimous decision loss to David Branch he incurred at the TUF 12 finale in December.

("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.

("Holy crap. Do my eyebrows really look like that?")

So here’s what we know: Josh Koscheck will be playing the fraggle-haired heel in Georges St. Pierre’s next title defense. Kimbo and Semtex are dunzo. Mauricio Rua’s next opponent will be determined by UFC 114′s Rampage vs. Rashad feature. Matt Mitrione and Joey Beltran could face each other at UFC 117 in August, which sounds about right. As for the rest of last weekend’s winners and losers, their fates are still to be determined. Not saying you need any help, Joe Silva, but if things are piling up at UFC headquarters, allow us to offer a few suggestions…

Lyoto Machida: If Antonio Rogerio Nogueira can get through Jason Brilz later this month, Machida vs. Lil’ Nog is the fight that makes sense. A win for Machida would be a perfect rebound against a dangerous, highly-regarded striker, while a win for Minotoro would convince fans that he’s a title threat worth caring about. Even though they’re both members of the Black House collective, Machida hasn’t ruled the match out.

Alan Belcher: He wants Anderson Silva. Isn’t that precious! Still, there’s no denying that Belcher is a rising star with some great recent wins under his belt. My first instinct would be to put him against Michael Bisping if the Count is victorious against Dan Miller at UFC 114. But there’s something just a little too obvious about that. If Belcher can handle Anderson Silva, surely he’d have no problem with Demian Maia, right? Tremendous upside for Belcher, and a good tune-up for Maia, who needs to re-locate his formerly fearsome jiu-jitsu.

(Video of the Daley/Koscheck cheap shot, courtesy of LynchTheGrynch; sorry about those first eight seconds, guys.)

In case you missed the press conference, the big news coming out of UFC 113‘s post-event aftermath is that Paul Daley and Kimbo Slice have been released from the UFC. Daley suffered his first loss in the Octagon after being smothered by Josh Koscheck for three rounds in their co-headlining bout last night, then followed it up by slugging Kos after the bell (see above). As Dana White explained to reporters, the poor decision earned Daley a permanent ban from the UFC:

As for Kimbo, his lopsided loss to rookie TUF 10 vet Matt Mitrione was enough to seal his fate. But unlike Daley, White has nothing but respect for the former YouTube brawler:

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Though UFC 108 had a lot of great finishes and battles to choose from, the recipients of the traditional end-of-night bonuses should come as no suprise. Picking up the $50,000 bumps are:

– Knockout of the Night: Paul "Semtex" Daley, for the IED he detonated on Dustin Hazelett.

– Submission of the Night: Cole Miller, for his inverted triangle on Dan Lauzon; I know it’s early, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing that one on "Best of 2010" lists.

– Fight of the Night: Sam Stout and Joe Lauzon. After suffering through Lauzon’s takedowns and elbows in the opening minutes, Stout put on the striking performance of his life en route to a lopsided decision.

Other notes on the evening…

By Elias Cepeda for CagePotato

Joe Lauzon (17-4) has held many roles throughout his 25 years — college student, 9-5er, web designer, coach, business owner — but above all else, he’s always been a fighter at heart. So when doctors told Joe he would have to sit out for at least a year after a surgery to repair a torn ACL, he took on the challenge the same way he approaches every endeavor — he trained for a fight.

“In training camp I’m absolutely miserable between doing all our rounds of sparring and cardio and I focused on my knee rehab the same way," explained the rising UFC lightweight, who has won five of his six official Octagon appearances.

"The place I did my rehab had a mix of people, young and old, and most just go through their exercises and don’t work up a sweat. I had to change my shirt just to drive home because I was soaking wet from pushing it. The place where I did my therapy was also in a gym so there were people there for other reasons than to rehab. My great physical therapist, Chris, pushed me and I progressed so fast that it got to the point where people were coming in thinking that I was in there for something else, like I was already in training camp for a fight, not knowing I had just had ACL reconstruction. I could have taken an easier approach to it but doing it that way really made a difference.”

It certainly appears that way. Based on what his doctors initially told him, Lauzon had planned for a March 2010 return to the cage, but he’s a few months ahead of schedule, fighting Sam Stout (15-5-1) Saturday night at UFC 108.

Mauricio "Shogun" Rua took home a $70,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for putting Chuck Liddell away, but he also ended "The Iceman’s" career with the TKO victory.  At least that’s what UFC prez Dana White said at the post-fight press conference, telling reporters "It’s over."

Liddell didn’t make any declarations that were quite so final, but he seemed resigned to the fact, admitting it was "probably the case" that he is now retired.  Man, what a downer.  Thanks a lot, Shogun.

The other $70,000 bonuses went to Matt Wiman and Sam Stout for Fight of the Night (really?), and Krzystof Soszynski for Submission of the Night.  Anderson Silva did not receive a bonus.  We imagine that when he asked Dana White why, Dana looked at him with disappointment in his eyes and said, ‘You know why.’

More videos are after the jump.

(Mo’ money, mo’ unfulfilled expectations.)

You can’t say Dana White didn’t warn Brandon Vera. His comments before UFC 89 suggested that it was time for “The Truth” to justify his high price tag. He didn’t, and so White is turning up the heat on him with remarks like these:

“I’m not seeing what I expected from Brandon Vera. It’s like he’s lost something. He doesn’t have that killer instinct since he took that year off. He doesn’t go after people. He used to be so cocky. He wanted to fight everybody.

“We tried to get him on one of the seasons of The Ultimate Fighter and he turned that down and said he wanted to fight Chuck Liddell and that he would knock him out. I hear that seven days a week so I told him to go on TUF and we’d find out how good he was.

“He was good. He used to walk through heavyweights earlier in his career. But he took a year off and we had all the issues with his contract and he hasn’t been the same since. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

It’s not exactly shocking to hear Dana White go after a guy who held him over the coals in contract negotiations and has since failed to live up to expectations. In a way, it seems justified. The UFC agreed to his six-figure demands based on his past performances and what they saw as his future potential. Lately he’s looked like a bad investment.

But being badmouthed in public by your boss, both before and after the fight, that’s got to sting. Especially when he goes on to compare you unfavorably to other guys who lost on the same night: