(Photo via Esther Lin/MMAFighting.com)

If we needed any more proof that Michael Chandler deserves to be mentioned among the world’s best 155′ers, we got it last night at Bellator 85 in Irvine, California, when the reigning Bellator lightweight champion made decorated judoka Rick Hawn look like it was his first time on the mats. Chandler completed his takedowns with impressive ease, and when he saw an opportunity to take Hawn’s neck during a scramble in round two, he seized on it, sinking a rear-naked choke and showcasing the killer instinct that has now become a hallmark of Chandler’s game. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a fight, and this season’s lightweight tournament field doesn’t suggest that his next challenger will make things any harder for him. On the bright side, Chandler may have just established himself as Bellator’s greatest home-grown fighter — a budding superstar for the promotion’s new Spike TV era.

While Michael Chandler made his title defense with little resistance, reigning featherweight champion Pat Curran faced a much trickier test in Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. Their title fight (which led off the Spike TV broadcast) played out as a 25-minute kickboxing match, which started slow but built into an entertaining and evenly-pitched battle. Curran’s striking was just a little more active and accurate, however, and if you were judging on facial damage through the fight, Pitbull’s swollen-shut right eye and bloodied mouth didn’t exactly scream “winner.” When the scores were announced, “Judo” Gene LeBell saw it for the challenger, but the other two judges made the right call in awarding the win to the defending champ.

In addition to the two title fights, Bellator 85′s main card also featured a pair of light-heavyweight tournament quarterfinals. Unfortunately, those UFC castoffs we mentioned yesterday are well on their way to becoming Bellator castoffs as well, as Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Seth Petruzelli were steamrolled by their lesser-known competitors. Russian M-1 Challenge vet Mikhail Zayats stunned Sobral with a spinning-backfist near the end of the first round of their fight, then swarmed him to the canvas and fired down punches until the fight was stopped. (Eddie Alvarez’s wife called that shit, you guys.)

(Pat Curran, King Mo, and Michael Chandler — co-nominees in the “Best Kiss” category. / Photo via Getty Images)

Bellator’s eighth season kicks off tonight on Spike TV (10/9c), and now that the promotion has left Friday nights, you might even be thinking about watching the show. Here’s why that’s a good idea…

1. Michael Chandler is the second-greatest undefeated fighter in the world. Since winning Bellator’s lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez in November 2011, Chandler has competed exactly once — a 56-second TKO of Akihiro Gono in a non-title mismatch last May. Now carrying a perfect record of 10-0, Chandler is once again facing a legit challenge in the form of Rick Hawn, the former Olympic judoka and Bellator mainstay who dropped down from welterweight last year and swept the Season 6 Lightweight Tournament.

2. Pat Curran is also an entertaining son-of-a-bitch. Undefeated at 145 pounds, Curran also competed just once last year, when he very nearly ended Joe Warren’s life to win Bellator’s featherweight title. We’ve been itching to see him back in the game, and he’ll be leading off tonight’s Spike broadcast with a belt-defense against Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. Speaking of guys who have been sidelined for a while, Pitbull hasn’t been in the cage since he won the Season Four Featherweight Tournament in 2011, partly due to a broken hand suffered in training last year.

I’d like to consider myself a psychologist of sorts, the way that George Costanza considers himself an architect. Sure, my degree might have been acquired less at an accredited institute and more in my own imagination, but based on several interviews I’ve either read or watched in the past, I can professionally declare that Tom Lawlor is crazier than a sack of rabid weasels. The crazy ring entrances, the outfits, this isn’t a man trying to leave his stamp on the UFC, these are the early signs of schizophrenia. Trust me, I’ve diagnosed this sort of thing before.

And while I wouldn’t declare Lawlor sane enough to stand trial, let alone fight professionally for a living, I will gladly watch his decent into madness if it means more antics like the stuff he pulled at the UFC 154 open workouts, which will easily go down as the coolest open workout display since ever.

An unabashed fan of the WWE, Tom introduces his trio of sumo as the “Sumo Suave” to Ariel Helwani in the above video before squaring off with both gentlemen after the jump. Diapers were worn. Necks were bitten. Enjoy.

Every great sport has been built on the backs of men who absolutely sucked at it — athletes whose hapless failures made the champions’ triumphs look even more outstanding by comparison. Baseball has its Mario Mendozas, its Bob Kammeyers, its Pete Rose Jrs. We have our Joe Sons, our Tiki Ghosns, our James Toneys. So in honor of the brave competitors who proved that MMA is even harder than it looks, we humbly present this “tribute” to the worst UFC fighters of all time.

A couple of notes to start: 1) We chose fighters solely based on their performances inside the Octagon. Some of these fighters achieved great things in other organizations, before or after their time in the UFC; for the purposes of this feature, we’re not really interested in that. 2) Instead of ranking one form of suckitude against another, we’ll group the 50 fighters into sections and arrange them chronologically. Use the links below to navigate, and if we omitted anybody notable, please let us know in the comments section.

- Ben Goldstein

Page 1: The Pre-Zuffa Punchlines
Page 2: The One-and-Done Wonders
Page 3: The Repeat Offenders
Page 4: The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time TUF Guys
Page 5: The Barely-Worth-Mentioning Washouts

seven by JMMANow

Spiritwolf vs Zaromskis (courtesy of IronForgesIron.com)

The fighters in Bellator may not get the same respect and acclaim as their Zuffa-based brethren, but at least they have video evidence to back up their wild fight stories. Season six of our favorite Friday night fights marched on last night, and here’s how it all went down.

The rematch between Waachiim Spiritwolf and Marius Zaromskis was far more eventful than their initial clash, though the ending was just as unsatisfying. After spending the opening minutes pressed against the cage, Zaromskis took advantage of the space created by a ‘Tan’ Dan Miragliotta break to land a backward elbow that opened a small vertical cut between Spiritwolf’s brows. The Native American responded with a slam, but Zaromskis was immediately back to his feet. The pair spent the remainder of the round tightly clinched with Spiritwolf working very hard for short-lived takedowns. Round two looked less promising for Waachiim, who had missed weight the day before. He showed signs of fatigue early on and had trouble finding the clinch at the end of his lunging punches. Zaromskis backed him up with a series of knees and kicks to the head, but a bloodied Spiritwolf responded with a torrent of heavy hands that forced the wobbled Lithuanian to retreat. Spritwolf downed him with another punch and closed out the final two minutes of the frame on top, trying to land finishing blows through Zaromskis tight defense.

Unfortunately, the battle would end on the stools and not the canvas…

Here’s what happens when you give an eccentric amateur MMA fighter a Bellator 48 press credential and tell him to “just have fun out there.” Our man Jeff “KarmaAteMyCat” Watts was representing CagePotato in Uncasville, Connecticut this weekend, and came back with a ton of interviews with the show’s stars and supporting players. We’ll kick things off with his chat with the victorious Seth Petruzelli. Instead of going the predictable route and asking the Silverback what it felt like to ruin Ricco Rodriguez’s 12-fight win streak, Karma uncovers Petruzelli’s feelings about fedoras and traditional martial arts — as well as his most beep-worthy photo with Tom Lawlor. Lots more to come…

(Props: BellatorMMA)

So while we’re waiting on KarmaAteMyCat to deliver some videos from last night’s Bellator 48, let’s talk about the action, shall we? With all of the excitement from last night’s event, it only makes sense to start with Cole Konrad vs. Paul Buentello. Yes, they fought. Yes, Cole Konrad won in unspectacular fashion. Yes, we can now stop talking about this fight.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was Pat Curran’s dramatic head kick knockout of former Sengoku champion Marlon Sandro. Despite being in trouble early on, Pat Curran kept his composure and unleashed a brutal roundhouse kick. With his victory, Pat Curran becomes the first fighter to win a Bellator tournament in two different weight classes. I’m not sure what I’m looking forward to more: Pat Curran’s inevitable clash with Joe Warren, or the confused look on his banker’s face when he tries to cash that oversized check.

(Pat Curran’s Peruvian necktie submission of Luis Palomino at Bellator 46, 6/25/11.)

Bellator 48 goes down tonight at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, featuring the finals of Bellator’s Summer Series Featherweight Tournament — former Sengoku standout Marlon Sandro vs. former lightweight tournament winner Pat Curran — as well as the promotional debuts of Ricco Rodriguez, Seth Petruzelli, and Paul Buentello. The main card will be broadcast live on MTV2 beginning at 9 p.m. ET.

Honorary CagePotato Fight Team captain Jefferey “KarmaAteMyCat” Watts has snagged a press credential to the event, and will be representing us on press row this evening, hopefully wearing some killer tights. Assuming the Mohegan Sun has a solid Internet connection, Jeff will be sharing his observations during the show, after the jump. It’s not a “liveblog,” so much as a casual chat among friends. So follow along if you’re watching the fights, let us know your thoughts, and remember to refresh the page once in a while. Thanks for being here.

You know how sometimes you work on something for a long time, but toward the end you’re just making it worse, but you’ve already put time and energy into it so you don’t want to trash it? Yeah, that’s never happened to me before.

From Wikipedia: The Casino of the Sky has a functional planetarium utilizing fiber optics to display the sun, moon, and stars accompanying the lighting effects of the Wombi Rock, which is a three-story high crystal mountain crafted of alabaster and more than 12,000 individual plates of hand-selected onyx from quarries in Iran, Pakistan, and Mexico; which were transported to Carrara, Italy and fused into glass.

Now look, we may not be able to fully comprehend the functional value of this “Wombi Rock” but that sounds fucking BALLER. Turns out the Mohegan Sun Casino outside Uncasville, Connecticut is the second largest casino in the United States, and we have some extravagant casinos.

So when Bellator pops off for the third and last time of the summer this Saturday, don’t talk to me about “minor league” and “small potatoes”. With a talent pool that is constantly getting deeper with the excellent scouting from the BFC office, a tournament format that keeps fans coming back, and a spot waiting for them on SpikeTV (*fingers crossed*) Bellator is big time, baby.

Come on in and let’s run down the show, starting off with that Featherweight Tournament Final…

“I’m going to beat you so bad you’ll look like you were in a car wreck. Then I’m going to drag you over to the driver’s seat and run away into the night.”

With their featherweight tourney already underway, Bellator would like to remind you that they’ve got some big boys that can throw down too. Two fights have been announced for their upcoming Bellator 48 card, going down on August 20th.

 
(You’ll still always be "The Kimbo Killer" to me, Seth.)

It looks like the post-UFC 122 cuts just keep coming. 

Five Ounces of Pain is reporting that Seth Petruzelli has been dropped by the UFC after being finished for the second time in as many fights in his most recent stint in the Octagon.

30-year-old Petruzelli (12-6 MMA, 0-4 UFC), who lost by TKO to Karlos Vemola at the event in Oberhausen, Germany 10 days ago and was also submitted  by Ricardo Romera at UFC 116 in July in his first fight back since being dropped by the promotion originally in 2007 joins fellow UFC 122 losers Peter Sobotta and Goran Reljic on the unemployement line. Both fighters were also given their pink slips by the promotion because of their respective three-fight losing skids.

(When Romero says his grill has been "iced out" for the last couple months, he means that literally. PicProps: MMA Bay)

For a pro fighter, a lot of things seem atypical about Ricardo Romero. First off, as he tells Old Dad in an interview with MMA Fighting on Monday, Romero’s MMA career still plays second fiddle to his day job as an energy derivatives broker on Wall Street. Secondly, he admits he only started training to fight as a way to get over the depression of breaking up with his baby mama. Lastly, and most of interest to us here at the Potato, Romero managed to overcome a laundry list of injuries suffered during his UFC debut in July to defeat Seth Petruzelli by second-round arm bar.

Romero pretty much got the tar beat out of him for the first five-plus minutes of his bout against Petruzelli. Despite a 10-1 record compiled fighting on New Jersey’s independent scene – including victories over some known names like the UFC’s James McSweeney as well as TUF washouts Constantinos Phillippou and Karen Grigoryan  – Romero looked completely unprepared for UFC action. He was “Octagon jitters” personified and his honesty on that subject is something else that is refreshing about the former Rutgers wrestler.

(Video courtesy YouTube/Cagewriter)

Steve Cofield from Yahoo! Sports caught up with Seth "The Promotion Killer" Petruzelli in Las Vegas last week ahead of his UFC 116 return bout with Ricardo Romero and discussed a variety of topics including his sexual leanings, his planned entrance for the show (which will include a midget) and the fact that beating Kimbo hurt his career more so than it helped it.

Seth Petruzelli (12-4, 0-2 UFC) — who became notorious in 2008 for knocking out Kimbo Slice in 14 seconds, then doing a radio interview where he appeared to suggest he was paid to keep the fight standing, which pretty much led to the demise of EliteXC — is returning to the Octagon. The Silverback announced the news on his Twitter page earlier today, confirming that he will compete at UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin (July 3, Las Vegas) against new UFC acquisition Ricardo Romero. Petruzelli has only competed twice since his unexpected KO of the Miami Pound Machine, most recently submitting Ryan White last month at BAMMA 3 in Birmingham, England, a fight which he has still not been paid for.

Petruzelli’s relationship with the UFC first began in 2005, when he was a contestant on TUF 2, eventually being eliminated by Brad Imes in the heavyweight semi-finals. Following the show, Petruzelli dropped consecutive fights to Matt Hamill and Wilson Gouveia as a light-heavyweight before being officially released by the UFC in 2007. Since then, he’s racked up four straight wins by first-round stoppage, opened a Smoothie King franchise as well as his own MMA gym, and was walked on a leash by Tom Lawlor at UFC 100. If that isn’t a resume worthy of a second chance, we don’t know what one is.  

After the jump: UFC 116′s full lineup, and a picture of Seth and Tom that you’ll probably wish you hadn’t seen.

("I don’t need a passport, bro. I’ve got something even better.")

The artist formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver was inexplicably allowed to leave the country this weekend and on Saturday celebrated by defeating Zach Light via first-round rear naked choke at BAMMA 3 in Birmingham, England. Now it seems like he’s having some trouble getting back, according to his Twitter. (Editor’s Note: You go ahead and keep him, England. Seriously.)

Fellow UFC washout (and the first fighter to snatch away the veil to reveal Kimbo Slice’s canliness) Seth Petruzelli also got a win, locking on an arm bar just a minute, seven seconds into his fight against Ryan White. Petruzelli billed himself as "The Kimbo Conqueror" for this engagement, apparently hoping ships bearing news that Slice is now officially washed up had not yet arrived from The New World.

Following his controversial split-decision loss to Aaron Simpson at UFC Fight Night 20, Tom "The Filthy Mauler" Lawlor was ready to bounce back to the W column against fellow TUF vet Tim Credeur at UFC 113 (May 8th, Montreal). But an injury has forced "Crazy" Tim off the card, and now Filthy Tom will be facing Dirty Joe — Joe Doerksen, who has a 1-5 lifetime record in the UFC, but is getting another shot after racking up five straight wins in promotions like Sengoku and King of the Cage. We sent our friend "Skanky" Remington Reed to track down Lawlor at his gym in Orlando, The Jungle MMA & Fitness, and discuss how he copes with tough losses, the method behind his memorable cage entrances, the runaway success of his "Lawlormania" t-shirt, his weather-based prediction for Machida vs. Rua II, and the question everyone else has been afraid to ask: Between him and Seth Petruzelli, who’s gayer? Enjoy… 

As much fun as we’ve been having with our wild speculation about what Tom Lawlor‘s entrance will look like on tonight’s UFC Fight Night 20 event, we didn’t actually want to know ahead of time.  Sure, we grilled Tom about it and tossed out our own ideas, but that’s like shaking the presents under the Christmas tree to find out which ones might be something good and which ones are crappy jigsaw puzzles from your aunt.  It’s all part of building the suspense. 

Apparently, nobody ever told Seth Petruzelli that.  The Kimbo-slayer took to Twitter this afternoon to let the world know that Lawlor is planning a Hulk Hogan-esque entrance tonight.  Lawlor has previously bandied about the idea of coming out to Hogan’s "Real American," but Petruzelli seems to be setting us up for a full Hulkamania entrance.  Or…is this all a bit of misdirection?  Is Petruzelli purposely deceiving us to make it even more awesome when Lawlor actually comes down to the Octagon Ultimate Warrior style?

We should have our answer soon enough.  Make sure to keep it locked on Cage Potato tonight at 9 p.m. EST for all the liveblogging fun.  Whatever happens, you’re going to want to share the moment with your internet BFF’s.  And no, we’re not talking about those nice Nigerians you keep wiring money to.  They don’t really like you.  Same goes for the people on that dating site.

A bonus, just to get us all pumped for tonight, is after the jump.

With his one-year steroid suspension coming to an end next month, UFC Hall-of-Famer/Juggalo wrestler Ken Shamrock is ready to get back out there and prove that he can still circle the cage for a few minutes, fall dead to the mat after getting punched, and collect his paycheck. And get this: Some attention-hungry new promotion is actually giving him a shot at a championship belt.

MMA Fighting passes along the news that International Unlimited Fighting‘s debut event (March 6; Cancun, Mexico) will feature a five-round light-heavyweight title bout between Shammy and Seth Petruzelli. If you’ll recall, Shamrock was originally supposed to face Kimbo Slice at EliteXC: Heat in October ’08, but pulled out at the last minute due to a cut over his eye, and was replaced by Petruzelli, who went on to knock Slice out in 14 seconds. It’s unclear how the IUF will be able to spin that bit of shared history into the inevitable grudge-match angle. If anything, Petruzelli is probably thankful to Shamrock for providing him with the opportunity to make his name off of Kimbo on network television. We can only hope that Shamrock calls Petruzelli a pink-haired fruitcake and threatens to beat him into a living death.

Petruzelli — who will win this fight in the first round, assuming there’s no pre-fight drug test that would bar Shamrock from competing in the first place, and since it’s being held in Mexico I’m assuming we’re all good — last competed in August, when he scored a first-round TKO over Chris Baten.

(Friends forever? Photo courtesy of AllElbows.com)

It’s hard to even get up the energy to mock Jared Shaw anymore.  He’s just so damn irrelevant.  But in talking about the role Kimbo Slice’s loss to Seth Petruzelli played in EliteXC’s collapse, he summed up the company’s fundamental failures without even realizing it:

"I stick up for him a lot because we put so much weight on his shoulders because we had to, we needed a face. No, we didn’t expect him to be the world champion. We knew if he fought the kind of fighters that were at that level that his chances of winning were probably slimmer," said Shaw. "But you’ve got to throw somebody up there as the best in the world, because you’ve got to put a face on the company. And that’s not to say he can’t become one of the best fighters in the world, cause he’s an athlete, he has talent, but that was the situation we were up against."

(Props: TheGarv)

Previously:
Shinya Aoki: Ugly Schoolgirl
No Homo Alert: Seth Petruzelli
Arianny Celeste: Yep, Still Hot

(Will brawl for food.)

Now that Strikeforce is getting its Pro Elite ducks in a row, we’re all wondering what, if anything, they’ll decide to do with Kimbo Slice.  He was an undeniable draw for EliteXC, but he also came with a hefty price tag that was maybe, just maybe, not justified by his performance in the cage, particularly in his last fight against Seth Petruzelli.

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker seems sympathetic to the plight of the internet brawler, but perhaps not so much that he’s willing to keep paying him the six-figure salary Pro Elite did:

“I think that if you look back at the past, he could have been built up to have the fights that he needed to face the Seth Petruzellis of the world and be successful, but he wasn’t given the opportunity,” said Coker. “When I look at Kimbo, I don’t look at it as his fault. He was in a ‘no win’ situation.”

Kimbo’s manager, “Icey” Mike Imber, indicated that while he wasn’t enthusiastic about a pay-cut for his fighter, he’d consider it rather than keep him out of action indefinitely.  But one thing’s for sure, Bas Rutten will not be training Slice.  Ever.

(Seth Petruzelli: Not exactly a crowd favorite.) 

Former greatest pound-for-pound boxer in the world Roy Jones Jr. is testing the waters of MMA promotion with a hybrid boxing/MMA card to be held March 21st in Pensacola, Florida. Jones’s company Square Ring Promotions, Inc. is hosting "March Badness" at the Pensacola Civic Center, featuring RJJ himself boxing in the main event against Palestinian-American journeyman Omar Sheika. Jones, who has held titles in four different weight classes during his career, is coming off a high-profile decision loss to Joe Calzaghe in November. Of greater interest to MMA fans is the event’s supporting card, which will feature three fairly compelling MMA matches.

Seth Petruzelli, the flamingly heterosexual UFC vet who jabbed-out Kimbo Slice at EliteXC: Heat in October then accidentally admitted he was bribed to keep the fight standing, will be facing Doug "Rhino" Marshall, the former WEC light-heavyweight champion who lost his belt to Brian Stann last March. Also on the card, WWE-superstar-turned-MMA-prospect Bobby Lashley, who scored a 41-second TKO over rookie Joshua Franklin during his MMA debut in December, will take on a heavyweight opponent to be named later. And legal problems notwithstanding, Jeff Monson has been booked to fight former IFL champ Roy Nelson, who was most recently knocked out by Andrei Arlovski at EliteXC: Heat.

The whole shebang will be available on pay-per-view.

(Yeah, we definitely need to see this again.)

So, the South Florida Sun Suntinel has this story about how EliteXC’s collapse affects South Floridians (thanks for the tip, Fight Opinion), and it contains this rather amazing quote:

Rookie MMA fighter Kimbo Slice is already back in a local gym after his 14-second loss to last-minute replacement and UFC light heavyweight washout Seth Petruzelli in Sunrise.

Slice, who spent Thursday at one of his children’s school career day, is weighing his options with his agent Mike Imber. He may fight on the DREAM K-1 New Year’s Eve show in Japan, possibly a rematch with Petruzelli.

Oh man, career day? Poor Kevlar. I wonder if Kimbo was too embarrassed to talk about MMA following his recent loss, and instead delivered a five-minute speech about what it takes to be a porn company bodyguard.

(“Is it cool if we just throw wild haymakers at each other?”)

The Florida State Boxing Commission announced yesterday that its 13-day investigation of EliteXC’s alleged fight-fixing discovered no wrongdoing, and the case is now closed. As MMA Weekly reports:

The initial investigation was to determine whether commission rule 548.058, addressing “Sham or Collusive Contests,” was violated.

[FSBC Executive Director Thomas] Molloy interviewed Petruzelli, who said only that EliteXC officials told him to “just do your best.” Petruzelli further stated that the comments he made on a Florida talk radio show implying a fixed fight were “misconstrued” by listeners.

Mr. Molloy subsequently reviewed Petruzelli’s bout agreement and found no evidence of any additional bonuses other than a “win” bonus of $15,000.

Molloy also spoke with EliteXC Head of Fight Operations Jeremy Lappen, members of the Nevada and California State Athletic Commissions, and David “Tank” Abbott about possible wrongdoing in the past. According to Sherdog, Molloy asked if Abbott had been asked to fight in a particular manner, to which he replied, “No, nothing was said.” Of course with Tank, it didn’t need to be. But it seems that since EliteXC isn’t even a functioning entity anymore, the FSBC is content to take Petruzelli and Lappen at their words and move on without doing any real digging.

(Believe it or not, Kendall Grove vs. Chris Price was one of them.)

Using minute-by-minute Nielsen ratings data, MMA Weekly’s Ivan Trembow has painstakingly put together a list of the 20 individual MMA fights with the highest U.S. viewership. As he clarifies: “Viewership levels are based on live viewership, plus same-day DVR, rounded to the nearest 1,000 viewers, and the times listed are ET/PT. The indicated times begin at the opening bell of a fight and end at the minute in which the winner of the fight is known.” A few things to keep in mind before we get to the list:

— Pay-per-view fights are excluded due to a lack of reliable information, so the list only includes UFC fights on Spike and EliteXC shows on CBS.

— Seth Petruzelli actually appears on the list twice, thanks to his recent headlining fight at EliteXC: Heat and his fight against Matt Hamill at UFC: The Final Chapter in October 2006. Kimbo Slice, Gina Carano, and Hamill also show up on the list twice.

— Keep in mind that these aren’t even close to being the most-watched MMA fights worldwide. Due to Japan’s love of New Year’s Eve freak show bouts, a fight would need to draw over 30 million sets of eyeballs to crack the top five. In the U.S., only a bout between Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano would come close to putting up those kinds of numbers. So here we go…

1. EliteXC on CBS (5/31/2008): Kimbo Slice vs. James Thompson— 7.281 million viewers (Aired from 11:27 PM to 11:40 PM)

2. UFC on Spike TV (10/10/2006): Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock— 6.524 million viewers (Aired from 9:42 PM to 9:45 PM)

3. EliteXC on CBS (10/4/08): Seth Petruzelli vs. Kimbo Slice— 6.451 million viewers (Aired from 11:08 PM to 11:08 PM)

4. EliteXC on CBS (5/31/2008): Robbie Lawler vs. Scott Smith— 5.867 million viewers (Aired from 10.39 PM to 10:57 PM)

5. UFC on Spike TV (9/8/2007): Quinton Jackson vs. Dan Henderson— 5.811 million viewers (Aired from 11:29 PM to 12:03 AM)

Gina Carano does her best to play down the various EliteXC controversies in this interview with Steve Cofield. They cover everything from her naked weigh-in (where maybe Jared Shaw tried to sneak a peek) to her very meager pay to the impending investigation into the Seth Petruzelli bonus fiasco to…wait a minute. Is that the national anthem playing in the background? Gina, did you carry on with the interview through the national fucking anthem? The goddamn Star-Spangled Banner!? Jesus, that’s worse than wearing a hat during it! And you call yourself an American Gladiator.

But on a serious note, where I get confused is where Carano says she’s actually happy that people know how little she made (1/20 of Kimbo’s purse, as Cofield points out) because now they’ll know she doesn’t do this for money. Now, I’m no high-powered sports agent, but I have to think that maybe it’s this attitude that’s the problem. It’s one thing to say you’re not only in this for the money, but this is your career. It’s not just about what you want; it’s about what’s fair. I’m sure there are plenty of up-and-coming women fighters who wish that you’d make this point to your employers a little more forcefully. Plus, maybe if you made more to fight you wouldn’t have to do all this other shit on the side. Just saying.

Below, check out a clip from Randy Couture‘s perfectly coiffured days as a wrestler. An extra special bonus surprise awaits you after the jump. Props to MMA Scraps for the find(s).

(Props: MMA Scraps)

This 18-minute compilation is the only PRIDE highlight reel you’ll ever need, featuring the most brain-rattling finishes by Aleksander and Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem, Mirko Cro Cop, Dan Henderson, Quinton Jackson, Wanderlei Silva, Sergei Kharitonov, Joachim Hansen and many more. Listen closely at the 8:27-8:30, 8:47-8:50, and 17:47-17:50 marks to hear early versions of Frank Trigg’s “Oh! Oh no! Oh no!” catchphrase that he perfected during the Fedor/Sylvia fight.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

Speaking of dudes who knock people dead, here’s heavyweight rising star Shane Carwin discussing his fight against the noticeably smaller Neil Wain at UFC 89 this Saturday. Carwin is currently 9-0, with all wins coming via first-round stoppage, and all but one of those stoppages happening within the first two minutes.

Something short, simple, and hilarious awaits you after the jump…

Dana White calls for EliteXC investigation – Watch more free videos

Dana White is downright pissed off. He’s so mad at EliteXC in this video, one camera angle is insufficient for capturing his rage. He lays into EliteXC for the Seth Petruzelli “knockout bonus” scandal and suggests that Jeremy Lappen and the Shaws should look into the kickboxing business if they want to keep fights off the ground so badly. I couldn’t agree more.

For his part, EliteXC Head of Operations Jeremy Lappen changes his story yet again in a talk with AOL Fanhouse. First, Lappen told Si.com that Petruzelli was offered a knockout bonus, but the company doesn’t offer submission bonuses. Then he told ESPN.com that Petruzelli was offered a KO bonus, a submission bonus, and a fight of the night bonus. Now he says both stories misquoted him:

“They’re both wrong,” Lappen said. “We have given submission bonuses in the past but they’re not as common as knockout bonuses. If the question is, ‘Have we ever given submission bonuses?’ The answer is yes. But we give knockout bonuses more often. We gave Seth a knockout bonus before the fight started. That was part of the deal.”

Hold up, you gave him a knockout bonus before the fight started? As in, before he had knocked anyone out? Goddammit Lappen, I sure as hell hope you were “misquoted” yet again. At the very least I hope it’s just poor phrasing on your part and what you meant to say was you told of him of a potential knockout bonus before the fight. But either way, it’s still bullshit. You offered him an incentive to win a fight in a very specific manner, not an incentive to simply finish the fight.

Not to mention, this is the third time you’ve changed your story. Nobody gets misquoted this often. Not unless they keep changing their story so often that they can’t keep all the versions straight in their own mind.

(One of those days where it really sucks to have just one waist.)

Frank Shamrock has yet to encounter a situation that is not, at its core, about Frank Shamrock. It just hasn’t happened. It probably never will happen. The main event at EliteXC: Heat last Saturday night is a great example. You remember that one, right?

Kimbo Slice was set to face Ken Shamrock, but instead squared off against (and was quickly defeated by) Seth Petruzelli. You might have seen it. What you probably didn’t know at the time was that this situation was all about Frank Shamrock. He was the grown man with braces calling the fight for CBS. But really, he should have been in there fighting. If he had, MMA history could have been altered. At least, that’s the story he told Sherdog:

“I think it was a mistake to not let me fight [Kimbo Slice],” said Shamrock, who claims he offered to step in to face the notorious streetfighter.

[...]

“When I realized we would have to cancel the show, I said, ‘Look, I’ll fight the guy. You know, it’s a great story — little brother steps into the spot, comes out of the booth. It’s very compelling, but we need a fight to happen that’s compelling,’” Frank said. “That went around for hours. Then I put my shirt on and went to work. No one committed to it, so I just kept talking.”

Of course you did, Frank. Because that’s what you do. A lot of talking, and occasionally some fighting.

(If Tank was allowed to use his fearsome jiu-jitsu, it would have been a totally different story. Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly.)

When it was first announced that the Florida State Boxing Commission would not be investigating EliteXC’s alleged fight-fixing attempt, it seemed like the scandal would quietly be swept under the rug. But the public/media outcry has become too loud to ignore, and ESPN.com is reporting that the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation — which oversees the FSBC — will open a preliminary investigation into the legality of Seth Petruzelli’s “knockout bonus”:

“While the Department of Business and Professional Regulation doesn’t have any reason to believe there was a problem with the Slice-Petruzelli fight, given the interest in it, the Department has begun a preliminary investigation to thoroughly review the circumstances of the fight,” said Jennifer Meale, Communications Director for the DBPR.

Responding to this new development, EliteXC Head of Operations Jeremy Lappen continued to deny that the promotion acted inappropriately in any way:

“We offered Seth Petruzelli a knockout bonus, a submission bonus and “fight of the night” bonus. If we were trying to influence the fight, why would we do that?”

Oh, so now Seth was offered a submission bonus too? This is the first we’ve heard about that one, and of course, it directly contradicts what Petruzelli originally said. (“They didn’t want me to take him down.”) Former EliteXC boss Gary Shaw isn’t helping their case either. Speaking to the L.A. Times, $kala’s dad said…