(Photo via Heavy/Fightday)

Shane Carwin never needed to fight. For the last 13 years, the former UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion has worked full-time as a design engineer, and he could have made that his entire life if he wanted to. But Carwin happened to be blessed with some extraordinary physical gifts — a level of athleticism that helped him become the NCAA Division II wrestling heavyweight national champion in 1999 while competing for Western State Colorado University, and the kind of eerie, inhuman punching-power that made him one of the most intimidating heavyweights in MMA history.

Unfortunately, Carwin’s supersonic rise to the top was derailed just as quickly as it began, first by a failed challenge against unified champion Brock Lesnar at UFC 116 — with Carwin eating his first career loss thanks to Lesnar’s unexpected resilience and a poorly-timed adrenaline dump — and then by a seemingly-endless series of injuries and surgeries. Inactive since his June 2011 decision loss to Junior Dos Santos, Carwin announced his retirement yesterday evening with a simple message on twitter: Officially retired 2day:-) thank you to my family, friends and fans! #dreambig GOD BLESS!!!

Even before he entered the UFC, Carwin was something of an urban legend, a spook story that MMA heavyweights told their kids at night. Making his professional debut in October 2005, Carwin’s first eight fights all ended in first-round stoppage victories, half by chokes, half by way of his enormous fists. During one stretch in 2006-2007, he stopped three consecutive opponents in the first minute of the fight.

In 2008, Carwin got his well-deserved invite to the UFC, where he faced Christian Wellisch at UFC 84. Here’s what happened:

(Click chart for full-size version. For previous Databombs, click here.)

By Reed Kuhn, @Fightnomics

We’ve saved the biggest fighters for last in the striking assessment series. Heavyweights end 57% of fights by (T)KO, far more than any other weight class. They also have the highest average power head striking accuracy, possibly because defense is harder when you’re that big.

So let’s see how the whole division stacks up against each other, then look at the winners and losers in each category. A full explanation of the chart and variables is included at the end of this post.

THE WINNERS

Sniper Award: Relative newcomer Shawn Jordan has been a highly accurate striker to date, though he has lacked knockdown power. So let’s focus on the trio of Pat Barry, Dave Herman, and Mark Hunt, who each have four or more UFC appearances and have maintained power head striking accuracy of 38% or more. These are big guys who can also hit their target.

Energizer Bunny Award: Monstrous southpaw Todd Duffee has almost quadrupled the striking output of his opponents with three fights to date in the Octagon, none of which have gone the distance. But with far greater Octagon experience, veterans Cheick Kongo and former champion Junior Dos Santos have managed to almost double the volume of opponents, all while maintain accuracy well above the division average.

(Don’t worry, Fido, we’re pissed we can’t hump her leg either.) 

Thanks to the athletic supplement brand Gamma Labs, my penis has officially never been more confused in its life. It’s like a nervous groundhog down there, unsure of whether or not we’ll have six more weeks of winter. And all in the name of Christmas.

Picture this scenario: Brittney Palmer is in your living room, counting down the 12 days of Christmas in red lingerie, preferably while you wait for her evil but equally hot doppelganger to arrive and help you pick out stocking stuffers together (BA-DUM-TSH!). Sounds awesome, right? Now picture that, as you’re about to lay this gorgeous piece of work down by the fireplace, she suddenly morphs into PETE FREAKING SELL, complete with two black eyes and a shitload of tinsel (and probably a cold cut combo somewhere in there). Then Shane Carwin shows up. Then Chuck Liddell. Then Joe Stevenson and an army of caroling children. And so on. And so forth. It is a hellish nightmare that I wouldn’t wish upon the dingus of my worst enemy, yet Gamma Labs has spawned forth this erectoral purgatory on us all seemingly as some sort of cruel holiday joke.

Video after the jump. 

(Yeah, Matt, we’re all pissed about the Giants last performance.) 

When we last heard from Matt Mitrione, he had placed himself in Dana White’s crosshairs by committing the #1 sin a UFC fighter can commit. No, not failing a drug test that eventually cancels the biggest fight of the year — that sort of thing can easily be forgiven. The man known by many as simply “Meathead” did something much, much worse: he refused to bail the UFC out by taking a fight against Daniel Cormier when Frank Mir got injured. THE AUDACITY.

Out of action since October of 2011 and coming off a hype-derailing performance against Cheick Kongo, Mitrione needed to step up for the UFC in one way or another ASAP, lest he find himself Attonito’d. The perfect opportunity arose when Shane Carwin became the sixth coach in the last eight TUF seasons to pull out of his scheduled fight due to injury. So bada boom bada bing, Mitrione will now be squaring off against fellow TUF 10 castmate Roy Nelson at the TUF 16 Finale in December.

(In a related story, Roy Nelson was recently diagnosed with advanced dickdo disease.)

Well, we saw this one coming a mile away. After suffering a “minor knee injury” back in September, Shane Carwin has now pulled out of his scheduled fight against Roy Nelson at the TUF 16 Finale on December 15th, due to a knee injury that may or may not be related to the last one. UFC president Dana White confirmed the bad news last night, and said that the promotion is looking for a new opponent for Nelson.

It’s a terrible setback for Carwin, who hasn’t competed snce June 2011 due to a series of neck and back surgeries, and was already forced to drop out of a fight with Nelson at UFC 125. Carwin hasn’t won a fight since his knockout of Frank Mir in March 2010, and at age 37, his competitive days are running out. There’s no word yet on the severity of Shane’s injury, or when he might return to action.

And by the way, this means that five of the last seven U.S. seasons of TUF — 10, 11, 13, 15, and now 16 — as well as one of the two international seasons (TUF Brazil), have ended with the coaches’ fight being canceled or delayed. Spooky. We’ll let you know when Roy Nelson picks up his replacement opponent. Our suggestion: How about Pat Barry, who’s already booked on the card against Shane Del Rosario?

And hey, speaking of UFC stars who have to pull out of fights next month due to knee injuries…

(“All natural, bro. No steroids. No testosterone. I’ve never hired a nutritionist. I’ve never bought hair conditioner. I ate my dog‘s food once, but it was an accident.” Photo via MMAWeekly)

Unlike some people we know, UFC heavyweights Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson are training without the help of performance-enhancing drugs. According to Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer (via MMAMania), Carwin and Nelson have both tested negative for steroids and diuretics, after being tapped for random testing last month.

Currently babysitting the worst Ultimate Fighter cast of all time, Carwin and Nelson are slated to face off at the surprisingly stacked TUF 16 Finale card on December 15th. Neither fighter has ever failed a drug test in their professional MMA career, though Carwin’s name was previously linked to an illegal steroids ring based in Mobile, Alabama. His manager, Jason Genet, recently gave a full explanation of how that happened, which seems reasonable enough, although that part about Carwin hanging out with Ron Waterman and ripping phone books in half is a little odd, to say the least.

(Not pictured: Fabricio Werdum and Junior Dos Santos, merrily sharing a caipirinha.)

All of Roy Nelson‘s rabble-rousing about drug-testing has paid off…sort of. While Big Country has been campaigning to have his upcoming fight against Shane Carwin overseen by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA), it was confirmed today that the Nevada State Athletic Commission has informed both fighters that they’ll be subject to random testing at some point before their December 15th meeting at the TUF 16 Finale. The fighters will need to provide samples within 24 hours of request, and the results will be returned in approximately two weeks.

(Serious question: The NSAC is completely within its rights to randomly drug test fighters out of competition, so why is it necessary to inform those fighters that that’s what it intends to do? I’m just saying, if you were Nelson or Carwin, and you were, hypothetically, using steroids up until yesterday, and the NSAC calls you and says they’re going to randomly test you sometime in the next two months, wouldn’t that be your signal to stop using PEDs immediately and hope they’re out of your system by the time they ask for your piss?)

If you’ve been keeping up on this story, you know that Carwin’s camp had been against VADA’s involvement from the beginning, with Shane’s manager Jason Genet calling VADA an “opportunistic” organization with an “anti-Shane” bias, and questioning why an independent testing body is any better than the athletic commission testing currently in place for MMA fighters. “I’m questioning where the relevancy coming from,” Genet said earlier this week. “As a manager, it’s not that I wouldn’t agree with outside testing. I want to know what’s wrong with what’s currently taking place.”

(If only the fight were held under West Coast Pose-Down rules, Bonnar would actually have a chance. / Photo via MMAFighting.com, click for full-size image.)

- Cops: Jeremy Stephens’ Alleged Victim Beaten Unconscious, Stopped Breathing Twice (MMAFighting)

- UFC 153: Bonnar vs. Silva, Tex Cobb vs. Larry Holmes and Courage Through Standing in Front of a Locomotive (BloodyElbow)

- Erick Silva Talks Twilight Series, Fighting Jon Fitch (HeavyMMA)

- Jon Fitch: Getting Title Shots Is A ‘Popularity Contest’ (Fightline)

- VADA Offers Drug Testing for TUF Finale Main Event, Carwin’s Camp Says That’s News to Them (MMAWeekly)

- Bellator 76′s Rad Martinez Out to Prove He’s no ‘Charity Case’ (MMAJunkie)

- Emily Ratajkowski Gets Saucy with Sara Underwood in Carl’s Jr Ad (MensFitness)

- 30 Hilarious Animal Photobombs (Complex)

- The Ultimate Faceplants Compilation (WorldWideInterweb)

- Chefs of Anarchy: New York’s Best Fries (MadeMan)

- Christopher Walken Reads “Honey Boo Boo” (ScreenJunkies)

- Russian Soldiers Flee Exploding Ammunition Stockpiles (EgoTV)

- B*tch, Get Off My Bus: Uppercut Edition (WorldStar, Baby)

(“Welp, that’s the last time I try to use left-handed scissors.”)

From Tito’s neck to Lensar’s gut to Cruz’s knee to Belfort’s hand, injuries to TUF coaches have become the rule lately, not the exception. And Shane Carwin nearly became the latest name on that list after injuring his knee in training. According to MMA Weekly, Carwin suffered no major tears or damage to his knee, but it was enough to prevent him from traveling to England this weekend for a scheduled autograph signing.

As of now, Carwin is still scheduled to face rival Roy Nelson at the TUF 16 Finale on December 15th. But as Dan Henderson and Jose Aldo recently demonstrated, sometimes fighters try to tough out their injuries until the last possible moment, before dropping out when reality sets in. And since Carwin already withdrew from a UFC 125 fight against Roy Nelson, and because he’s spent much of the last two years recovering from neck and back surgeries, the appeal of just getting in there and throwing down against a guy you can’t stand must be overwhelming.

While we certainly hope that’s not the case, and that Carwin is close to 100% by December, this is the 2012 UFC Injury Curse we’re talking about — Carwin’s knee could merely be a red herring for the horrid fate that lies in store for Roy Nelson.

Meh.

Perhaps you are part of the ever-diminishing group of people who chose to watch The Ultimate Fighter on a Friday night before going into town on a taxi, having a couple of drugs, having dinner, having a threesome, going home again, having a shower, going out again, more drugs, more threesomes – basically living the rock n’ roll lifestyle of the 18-34 year olds that this show targets. Or perhaps you are straight edge, in which case TUF serves as a warm-up for your night of  Mr. Pibb (or some other beverage, if you enjoy missing all the cool things), lines of Pixy Stix and threesomes. You know, standard practice.

If you tuned in during the first episode, the good news is that you were treated to a night of actual fights instead of drunken arguments, disturbing pranks and more of the stuff you hate about the show. Sure, we still had multiple dudes entering the cage sporting Tatanka/Jorgensen hawks, but not everyone can pull off a normal haircut, I guess.

Right off the bat things get awkward between Dana White and Roy Nelson. Before the fights, Big Country informs the fighters that it’s important to entertain the fans, but winning should be their main priority. Dana White lets Shane Carwin address the UFC hopefuls before he tells the fighters how wrong Roy Nelson is for saying that. That moment probably would have been pretty effective in building interest in the Roy Nelson vs. Dana White storyline if Dana White hasn’t been telling everyone who will listen how fed up he is with Big Country.

As for the actual fights, we’ve got results after the jump, including team selections.

(He’s just jolly. Who could begrudge him that outlook?)

Since tonight marks the premiere of TUF 16, coached by UFC heavyweights Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin, and featuring Uncle Dana on backup vocals, it seems like a good time to round up all the vitriol spewed at Nelson by Carwin and White, as well as preview all the drama to come. In recent interviews, both Shane and the Baldfather spoke about their distaste for Big Boy Roy.

Carwin is succinct in telling Bleacher Report, ”I hate [Nelson]. I dislike him. I hate him as a person. That’s just it.”

Apparently, Shane feels that Roy poses as a hardworking blue-collar guy, but instead spends most of his time complaining. “He always has an excuse for everything. He claims to be this average, normal guy and that’s who he tries to reach too, the blue-collar workers,” Carwin tells BR.

“Well, that’s me. That’s where I came from. I was the one working at 15 years old and working concrete in construction, working at meat packing plants, throwing boxes and things like that. He hasn’t had a job in his life. This is the only thing he has ever done. He’s the farthest thing from a blue-collar worker that he claims to be.”

While Carwin chastises Nelson for not doing enough chores around the family farm as a kid, White has his own reasons for criticizing the more rotund TUF coach:

If you asked a longtime UFC fan what he — or she! — thinks of The Ultimate Fighter, they would likely tell you that the series has gotten stale. (Damn, have we really been complaining about this for over three years now? Time flies when you’re bitching.) It’s not that we won’t tune in to watch up-and-coming fighters slug it out for a spot in the UFC — although that Friday night time-slot is still a pain in the ass — but all the “house drama” officially got old around the Junie Browning era, and highlighting the contestants’ dumb frat-boy behavior makes the sport look worse.

So it’s unfortunate when you watch this new teaser for “Ultimate Fighter Fridays” (known to regular folk as TUF 16), and you realize that the show is actually doubling down on the stupid. Let’s run through the checklist…

- A dude getting up in another dude’s face in the kitchen. (check)

- A prank involving flour. (check)

- A prank involving a bed being moved outdoors. (check)

- An idiotic piece of trash-talk, made worse due to silly delivery. (“You got more stories than Dr. Seuss, ho-mee.” –> check)

(This is your promo, for real? It’s like the UFC gives even less of a fuck than we do at this point.)

FX has released the list of 32 welterweights who will be competing on the 16th season of The Ultimate Fighter, which debuts on Friday, September 14th, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. You can check out the names after the jump, though not a lot of these guys jump out, besides Bristol Marunde, who lost to Jacare Souza in Strikeforce earlier this year. On the other hand, we do have at least one terrible nickname, and one terrible actual name.

The premiere of “Team Carwin vs. Team Nelson” will be a two-hour elimination episode, in which the 32 TUF hopefuls are immediately cut down to 16, who will then be divvy’d up by coaches Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson (a former TUF winner himself). From the press release: “Carwin and Nelson are two guys who just can’t stand each other and Roy and I haven’t exactly seen eye to eye either — he’s been a nightmare for me to work with on this show with all his stupid BS,” said UFC president Dana White. Oh God, Dana. Please tell me you didn’t eat the special sushi.

Carwin and Nelson will fight each other at the show’s live finale on Saturday, December 15th, on FX.

(Dana White only has three looks: The “Life is Good”, The “Bouncer”, and the “Fuck You and the Horse You Crushed With Your Obesity”, displayed here.) 

If there of any of you left who haven’t grown tired of the, for lack of a better word, tiresome formula that The Ultimate Fighter has devolved into over the years, which is to say, fighters argue–>training montage–>coaches argue–>fighters argue–>actual fight, then boy do we have good news for you. Not only are you going to be treated to the verbal back-and-forth of one Roy Nelson and one Shane Carwin throughout the season, you are more than likely going to see “Big Country” and UFC President Dana White at each others throats as well, as both men have basically been taking a fat steaming dump on the others chests via various MMA media outlets lately. Metaphorically, of course.

TUF 16, which is set to debut on September 14th on FX (yep, that’s a Friday), will showcase 32 welterweights attempting to battle their way to the next interim championship of the world, but it seems the real firefight will be between Nelson and White, who just can’t seem to get along on anything. Take for instance, the TUF 10 winner’s recent interview with MMAJunkie, where he basically calls Dana a lying wannabe fighter:

[The onset tension is] probably because he wants to be a fighter, and he’s not. I think we were talking about coaching or something like that, and [White's] not a coach. There’s an understanding of being a fighter, and I don’t think he understands. 

I’m always at the back of the bus when it comes to the UFC. I’m just trying to further MMA to the next level, hold journalism up to higher standards, holding fights to higher standards, holding promotions to higher standards, holding athletic commissions to higher standards, and even holding the fans to higher standards. 

You never know with Dana. Dana will tell you guys one thing, and then five minutes later tell you another. Last week, ‘Shogun’ and Brandon Vera were fighting for the title, and now all of the sudden, Machida and Ryan Bader are, too. Next thing you know, he’s going to say Randy Couture gets the next title shot when he comes back.

“You think that’s funny? This motherfucker on my left THINKS HE’S A WELTERWEIGHT!”

Finding someone who still gets excited about The Ultimate Fighter is a lot like watching a guy wearing a gi or a Luchador mask in a cage fight: It’s a throwback to the days when our sport was arguably more pure and definitely more innocent. It’s oddly refreshing, incredibly confusing and somewhat disturbing, all at the same time. It’s the type of encounter that you’ll look back on a few months from now and say something like “Remember when we went to that event in the middle of nowhere and they let a guy compete wearing a Psicosis mask?” (Come on, stranger things have happened) or “Remember that night at The Korova when we met that guy who was all about TUF Live?”

That being said, TUF 16 actually looks like it has some promise. At the very least, head coaches Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin should provide some entertaining antics and some original trash talk. The fact that the two were originally set to fight each other at UFC 125 is a nice touch, too. And earlier today, Shane Carwin told MMAJunkie.com that UFC Heavyweight and one of MMA’s most recognizable personalities Pat Barry will be a part of his TUF 16 coaching staff.

If anything else, Carwin and company should be able to revolutionize the TUF coaches ribbing, which, let’s face it, has become pretty stale, predictable and disturbing throughout the history of the show. Looking over the rest of his coaching staff, his fighters will have one hell of a coaching staff to learn from. They’re listed for you after the jump.

(If you were a guest on that gay Indian party bus and want to share your story, please e-mail tips@cagepotato.com.)

Thanks to everyone who submitted stories for today’s crowd-sourced edition of the CagePotato Roundtable. We’ve selected 12 tales from the pile — ranging from drama to comedy to horror — and we’ll begin with a story that comes to us from an actual pro fighter, involving one of MMA’s greatest out-of-the-cage rivalries…

Sal Woods
A few years ago I fought on the Strikeforce: Lawler vs. Shields card. While at weigh-ins I was obviously star-struck from being at Al Hrabosky’s with a room full of legends and badasses. The only guy I had the balls to say what’s up to was Nick Diaz. He was completely cool and super polite, he said hi and introduced himself to the entire table (my cornermen, shaking each one’s hand). We were just shooting the shit about how it was my first time on a big card and that I was fighting T-Wood. I was thinking this dude is nothing like the interviews I have watched.

All of a sudden he looks over and sees Joe Riggs and almost flips shit, starts telling his corner guys “there’s that little bitch right there!” Looks over a crowd of people and called Riggs a punk bitch. Then Gil and someone else walked him away/cooled him down. Proved that if Nick doesn’t like you and fights you he may fight you again in the hospital and almost again at completely different fight’s weigh-in!

Noah “Jewjifshoe” Ferreira

You guys all remember Dan Barrera from TUF 6, right? Well I met him during a math class in the Fall of 2011 and it was one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever had.

(Thanks to tufentertainment.net for the fitting logo.)

By Nathan Smith

With the recent announcement that Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin have been named as the coaches for the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter series, the MMA universe immediately launched into a full-blow orgasmic ticker-tape parade complete with tons of flying confetti and a marching band belting out death metal tunes. Once I heard the news, it was as if my life instantaneously turned into a beer commercial and the entire Potato Nation was invited. There was a rad pool-party, barbeque, a plethora of hotties, endless alcohol, and an overall quest for fun.

Well . . . . . actually, none of that happened. In fact, when word spread that Nelson and Carwin would helm the next season of TUF, it was officially filed under “WTF?” Judging from the comment section, most of the CP brethren didn’t care for the choices either. TUF is coming off a season that saw the ratings dip lower than they ever had, which could partially be blamed on the move to FX and the dreaded Friday night time slot. Regardless of the variables for the ratings drop, something drastic needs to be done, but is anybody really convinced that Carwin and Nelson are the answer to TUF’s slow and painful demise? Let’s start from the beginning and take a look back to see if this runaway train can be coaxed back onto the main rail.

The Season That Started it All 

The inaugural season of TUF featured future Hall of Famers Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture as the competing coaches who would go mano y mano at the PPV after the season finale. For fans of the UFC, that was good enough for most to initially tune in for the Fertitta-funded experiment. It still remains the best crop of young talent and personalities to ever grace the show; future stars like Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Koscheck, Chris Leben, Diego Sanchez, Mike Swick, Kenny Florian, and Nate Quarry were all complete unknowns vying for stardom in a fledgling sport. You mix in the whole “fatherless bastard” angle and the show was off and running even before the awe-inspiring climax between (pre TRT) FoGrif and The American Psycho. Even before that, we were treated to the greatest speech of all time that has since been condensed into a few words. “Do you wanna be a fighter?” Though there were other memorable moments from the seasons that followed, Zuffa should have quit while they were ahead because it would never be this good again. The unrefined personification of immature talent, undeniable aspirations and gonzo-sized balls oozed from the boob tube during every episode.

(A replay of the Munoz/Weidman ending in all its gory glory for those of you who missed it.) 

Right before he kinda sorta announced his pending retirement from the sport during the UFC on FOUEL TV post-fight show, Stephan Bonnar made the audacious claim that referee Josh Rosenthal should be fined and/or suspended for his late stoppage during the Mark Munoz/Chris Weidman fight. After Weidman landed some 12 or 13 unanswered shots on a helpless Munoz, I briefly thought that we were witnessing the first death in the promotion’s history, and my immediate reaction was almost that of agreement. Almost. 

Because, although it is hard to deny that Rosenthal dropped the ball Wednesday night, the stoppage was likely considered even worse because it was a revered official like Rosenthal who made it. This wasn’t Steve Mazzagati calling an eye poke a TKO or Kim Winslow letting Jan Finney return from the dead only to be killed once more. This was Josh freakin’ Rosenthal, a man who had not only made our top five referees list a couple years ago, but had easily climbed up it a few spots in the time since. This was a man who had, as GritandMettle’s Darren Jensen put it, “reffed Shogun vs Hendo perfectly” — the same goes for his excellent job in the first round of Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin’s UFC 116 heavyweight title fight. What we’re saying is, this isn’t an everyday occurrence for the guy. Hell, can anyone even remember an instance in recent memory that Rosenthal has even come close to screwing up (Faber/Mizugaki maybe)?

In retrospect, Bonnar’s assessment was a little harsh, but Rosenthal was still willing to admit that he shit the bed, so to speak, when he appeared on SiriusXM’s “Tapout Radio Show”.

Check out a few snippets from the interview after the jump.

(For his final masterpiece, Michelangelo decided to pay tribute to the Biblical hero’s fall from grace through the medium of hamstone. The results were shocking, yet delicious.)

As is likely the case for most of you, we here at CagePotato are more than willing to admit that we all but completely missed out on the failed experiment that was TUF Live. The placement of the show on Friday nights, the rehashed trash-talk and pranks between coaches; it just seemed all too played out and tired to really get us hooked. The fact that Dominick Cruz tore his ACL with only a couple episodes to go only furthered our belief that the season would have been a complete loss if not for the uplifting story of the season’s lightweight winner, Don Cheadle (or something like that).

So when Dana White informed USA TODAY Sports yesterday that the coaches for this season would be polar opposite heavyweights Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin, it more than piqued our interest. Aside from being the winner of the show’s tenth (and arguably least talent filled) season, TUF: Heavyweights, Nelson is by all accounts, one entertaining and funny sumbitch. Carwin, on the other hand, has shown before that he is up for a good joshing as long as it is not aimed at him. If you recall, the last time we got on Carwin’s bad side, Old Dad packed up his things, fled, faked his death, died his eyebrows, and attended his own funeral as a man named Phil Schiffley. The last we heard, he was still reporting on all things MMA from a one man vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean out of fear that “The Engineer” was still looking for him. So clearly, the potential for hilarity between these two on the set is higher than Nelson’s cholesterol levels.

(Inferior heavyweight contender, or marketing genius?!) 

Perhaps we’re in the minority here, but we’re getting pretty God damn sick of mixed martial artists throwing around the word “retirement” like Kim Kardashian throws around the word “marriage.” Because retirement, like marriage, is a sacred institution, and nowadays it seems as if every other fighter is taking a big, steaming turd on what was once holy ground. In the past year alone, both Jamie Varner and more recently B.J. Penn have retired, only to come out of said retirement before anyone could even assess their retirement in the first place. Though the jury is still out on how long Nick Diaz and Jason Miller will be out of action, it’s looking like you can add none other than former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar to the former list, as it has been reported by co-Host of Tough Talk on wrestlingobserver.com, Mike Sawyer, that Lesnar will return to the UFC within the year. He broke the news over his Twitter:

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
Had an interesting conversation with someone VERY close to all the Brock Lesnar stuff. He is fighting THIS YEAR in UFC & not Frank Mir…

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
plans change all the time, but the name I was told isn’t Roy.

Brian ?@FrontRowBrian
If it’s not Mir fighting Lesnar in UFC later this year as @TOUGHTALKMMA reports, who is it? @roynelsonmma? @stefanstruve? @ShaneCarwin II?

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
one of the above.

For those of you with the memory capacity of Sammy Jankis, Lesnar announced his retirement from the sport following his first round TKO loss to Alistair Overeem at UFC 141. UFC 141 was a mere six months ago.

(Wait, so if Cormier got his ass kicked by Antonio Silva in September, would *he* be fighting Cain Velasquez in a UFC pay-per-view co-main event this weekend? Mind = blown… / Photo via MMAWeekly)

As if a broken hand wasn’t a big-enough pain in the ass, newly crowned Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix winner Daniel Cormier is contractually obligated to take one more match under the Strikeforce banner before making his inevitable assault on the UFC. But since Strikeforce’s current heavyweight roster only consists of guys who Cormier already beat and guys who the guys Cormier beat already beat, this is a problem. Who the hell is Daniel Cormier going to face next? And is there any way it won’t be a complete waste of his time?

The only logicial solution is if the UFC sends one of their guys over to Strikeforce to throw down against Black Fedor. And yeah, Cormier’s already been thinking about that. Here’s what he told MMAFighting.com’s The MMA Hour (via MMA Mania):

“I think if there is a ‘plus-one’ [fight] and Zuffa’s going to send someone over it is going to have to be someone that is very good you know? Maybe Carwin, as he’s coming back. He’s a guy with a lot of name value and I don’t necessarily know if that’s a step up [from Josh Barnett] but that is somebody with name value. Or, if one of the guys loses from the card this weekend. But then it really limits because if Frank Mir loses I’m pretty sure he is not going to want to come to Strikeforce to fight me where if he loses he has everything to lose. When Cain beats Bigfoot Silva, what are they going to do, send [Silva] back to Strikeforce to fight me again? Nothing really adds up right now, I don’t know, I don’t know how to guess what they are going to do. There just is not that many step ups out there better than Josh Barnett.”

Over the past few weeks, we’ve taken a look at several unique knockouts in the world of mixed martial arts, and as Nick Diaz will tell you, now that we’re hooked, there’s no turning back. So today, we pay tribute to yet another aspect of the fight game, specifically, one that only happens on the rarest of occasions, like Halley’s Comet or Bob Sapp showing up to win. We’re talking, of course, about the moment in combat sports when a fighter delivers a shot with such force that it is able to dislodge the airtight mouthpiece from the opponent’s…mouth. It’s embarrassing, often causes a stop in the action, and doesn’t always end in a knockout, but it’s also hilarious, and that’s what we’re all about anyway. So with that in mind, here are some of the finest instances of the flying mouthpiece in MMA.

Forrest Griffin vs. Tito Ortiz – UFC 106

Rob McCullough vs. Olaf Alfonso – WEC 19

Coaches and fighters from Jackson’s MMA say they were stunned last week to find out that an up-and-coming amateur fighter who had been training at the gym in Albuquerque since last summer was a wanted man who was on the run from kidnapping and domestic abuse charges in Colorado.

According to the complaint filed last July, Tyron Wright allegedly kidnapped an ex-girlfriend who he handcuffed and tortured. Besides assaulting her, Wright is also accused of heating up a knife on his stove and burning the victim with it.

(The only less popular piece of gold in MMA is Kimbo’s licensed signature fist necklace.)

Considering that every one of the six men who has worn it since this day three years ago has fallen to illness or injury, the UFC heavyweight belt could soon become the least desired trophy in sports.

The latest victim of the ill-fated gilded strap is Junior dos Santos, who went into his UFC on Fox heavyweight title bout with Cain Velasquez with a torn meniscus which will probably require surgery and an extended recovery time, making his first title defense unlikely until the second half of 2012. Somebody needs to bring the belt to a priest and have him perform an exorcism on it. Otherwise, we may only see one heavyweight title bout per year.

Check out the breakdown of the unlucky timeline of the cursed hunk of leather and gold after the jump.

“It’s the weirdest thing, Doc. It feels just fine when I stand like this.” (Photo: Francis Specker)

In a post to his blog titled “Unfinished Business”, top UFC heavyweight Shane Carwin revealed yesterday that for the second time in a year he will be going under the knife.

“I have spent my entire fighting career dealing with injuries from my football career. I have done my best to get through my training and I have been blessed to get through my fights with relatively little to no damage.

The decision was easy. I have unfinished business. The UFC had me lined up to face one of the best in the world and I am confident I have everything I need to be a Champion. I am scheduling surgery and I hope to return to the Octagon by spring or summer 2012.”

The UFC announced today that it will be holding an impromptu media conference call tomorrow at 1:00 pm ET, during which Dana White is expected to make a “major announcement.” It didn’t take long for the UFC president to reveal via his favorite communication channel, Twitter, that the announcement will be the two main event combatants in the promotion’s inaugural show on Fox which will also feature a featherweight scrap between Dustin Poirier and Pablo Garza.

Some are hypothesizing that former Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem, who was dropped by the promotion last month for what Zuffa termed as “an issue with his management team” Golden Glory, will make up half of the bout and that his opponent will either be Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin or Frank Mir.

By Jason Moles

“We the people of CagePotato.com, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Bans, insure comments section Tranquility, provide for the common noob, promote the general Lack of Welfare, and attempt to secure the Blessings of Dana to ourselves and our readers, do ordain and establish this Comparison of fighters and fireworks for the Potato Nation.”

There are plenty of MMA fighters out there who love to bring the pyrotechnics to the cage, lighting up their opponents for the enjoyment of the fans and the pleasure of a paycheck. In honor of Independence Day weekend — and our new friends at Wild Turkey — here’s a list of actual 4th of July fireworks that remind us of some well-known scrappers. Celebrate safely, and please try not to lose any fingers.

Snap-n-Pops (aka bang snaps, snappers, or whip’n pops): Corey Hill, Jason MacDonald, Razak Al-Hassan, Tim Sylvia

Call ‘em what you want, these small novelty fireworks are perfect for youngsters. You throw them against a wall, floor, or sleeping grandparent, and they make a satisfying POP! Cool, huh? It’s hard not to think of a ‘Snap-n-Pop’ and not think of these guys, whose limbs unfortunately made the same noises in their past fights.

Roman Candles: Clay Guida

Excitement. Power. Flash. Seemingly unending performance. Fun. Clay ‘The Carpenter’ Guida is more than your average firework. Hey may not blow up any doors but rest assured he’s always going to be a crowd favorite. No one has ever had a Roman Candle war or watched a Guida fight and not had the time of their life. For every colorful ball that is emitted from the candle, Guida whips his hair back and shoots in for a takedown. Regardless of what happens, they both just keep going until the final bell. When messing around with either, be careful; someone usually ends up a bloody mess.

So”heart of a champion” is just a meaningless phrase?     PicProps: Esther Lin

Heart is awesome. Guts are more important to cage fighting than Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Balls sell more tickets than Olympic medals. Heart is an intangible, an ethereal quality that fighters seem to either have in abundance, or sorely lack. And while intangibles may offend the sensibilities of those who would analyze fights like they’re backward engineering a damn nuclear centrifuge, it’s that very quality that motivates fans to buy tickets, buy shirts, buy pay per views, buy hotel rooms.  It isn’t simply some writer’s trope that we use to fill space; this is an attribute that, however hard to pin down, has a demonstrable effect.

There is something about competition in sports that speaks directly to primal emotions in all of us. Ok, apparently not all of us, but still. Fans tend to be emotional people, and not always rational. So a non-tangible quality like “heart” is important, if for nothing but a fighter’s popularity.

Guys like Ox Wheeler or Leonard Garcia or Scott Smith that seem to just go out there and wing it, wind up getting in a war with some guy and they beat the piss out of one another and everybody in the crowd goes bonkers and throws their hotdogs in the air and the collective cry is a noise like the damn building is yelling–that’s why that happens. And everyone goes home horny and it’s generally a good time had by all. It’s a purely emotional response, and base, and uneducated…and it’s totally valid.

(Shane may have had heart, balls, guts, and a chin, but they were no match for Junior’s elite-level anatomical-metaphor defense.)

We’re almost a week removed from the magnificent beatdown that Junior dos Santos laid on Shane Carwin, and it’s probably safe to assume that all of the post-fight articles have been written about the main event at UFC 131. Well, all but one.

This article is not specifically about UFC 131 or Shane Carwin — it’s about a certain phrase that has been tied to Carwin’s performance following his three-round beating, and that phrase is “He showed a lot of heart.”

Do a Google search on MMA “showed heart” and look at the names associated with the term: Shane Carwin, Paul Daley, Roy Nelson, and Andrei Arlovski, just to name a few. Any fighter that stood in there and took a beating, yup, he “showed a lot of heart.”

It’s time to retire that phrase, and here’s why…

(You know, there probably is a dude out there whose ‘ultimate fantasy’ involves Arianny Celeste and a few thousand limes, and when he sees this video he’s going to absolutely lose his shit. Props: officialbudlight)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

- Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum Head to Head: Who Will Win This Saturday? (LowKick)

- TUF 12 Winner Jonathan Brookins Returns to Featherweight This September Against Eric Koch (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Shane Carwin: “I Can’t Recall Much of the Fight” (5thRound)

- What’s Next for UFC 131′s Winners? (NBC Sports MMA)

- UFC May Enlist Retired NBA Superstar Shaquille O’Neal as Ambassador (MMA Fighting)

- Brendan Schaub: ‘A Win Over Nogueira Puts Me Right In The Number One Contender’s Spot’ (MMA Convert)

- Shane Del Rosario Discusses His Injury, Recovery, and the ‘Supremacy MMA’ Video Game (TheFightNerd)

- Is the Lightweight Division Really the Toughest in MMA? (MMA Mania)

- The 25 Greatest “Changing of the Guard” Fights in MMA History (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

- Jorge Masvidal Talks to Us About Streetfighting, Machetes and Making KJ Noons Shoot on Him (MiddleEasy)