(Aoki/Alvarez 1, from K1 Dynamite 2008. THIS is how men fight.) 

A lot has happened in the four years since Eddie Alvarez was heel-hooked by Shinya Aoki in the first round of their inaugural lightweight championship match back in December of 2008. Aoki has fought a remarkable 13 times since then, picking up notable wins over Marcus Aurelio and Rich Clementi as well as evening the score with DREAM rival Joachim Hansen. He has only gone 1-1 in the States, however, dropping a humiliating unanimous decision to current Strikeforce lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez and notching a quick neck crank submission over Lyle Beerbohm.

Alvarez, on the other hand, went on to become the Bellator lightweight champion after defeating Toby Imada at Bellator 12 in June of ’09, but defended the belt only once in the five fights that succeeded it. We last saw the Philadelphia Fight Factory standout lose said title via fourth round submission in an absolute war with Michael Chandler at Bellator 58 that was my personal pick for 2011′s Fight of the Year.

Well now it seems that these two are destined to collide ONCE AGAIN, in what will surely be…an absolute war (isn’t it funny how you can impersonate Mike Goldberg without even talking?).

Spoilers after the jump, along with the Fedor/Ishii fight, the Sylvia/Le Banner “fight,” and the bantamweight tournament final match between Bibiano Fernandes and Antonio Banuelos.

(Clements v. Travis Briere, end comes at the 2:44 mark.)

Aside from The Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale, December 3rd also features an interesting welterweight battle between UFC veteran Rich Clementi and up and coming KO artist Chris Clements under the Score Fighting Series promotion. And after doing a quick check-up on Clements, we thought he was a guy that was worth talking about, so let’s, shall we?

“The Menace” is a 9-4 product fighting out of Ontario, Canada who has collected all 9 of those wins by way of KO or TKO inside the first two rounds. He often trains with the likes of Mark Hominick and Sam Stout, because there can only be so many MMA gyms in that tundra known as Canada, am I right or am I right? *High fives self*

A little known fact about Clements: he is the man responsible for retiring UFC vet Jonathan Goulet back at Rinside MMA-Payback in November of 2010, the video of which is after the jump.

Aoki vs. McCullough. Enjoy it while it’s still available. Props: FightVieoMMA.com

Earlier this morning, DREAM 17 went down in Saitama, Japan. For those of you who have been reading this website for a while now, you know the drill. For those of you who are new here, first off, welcome. Second, DREAM publishes the results of their fights immediately after they happen, but the fights aren’t typically aired on HDNet until a later date. So if you feel like you’ve already read the results from somewhere or already saw the fights, well, you probably have. However, if you were really drunk last night and want to refresh your memory on what you saw (not that we condone that sort of thing), or are too disinterested in DREAM to have stayed in to watch it, then come inside where we have full results waiting after the jump.

With all the buzz surrounding UFC 135, you might have forgotten that DREAM 17 transpires Saturday, and features a pretty stacked card to boot. Japanese legend Kasushi Sakuraba returns to action for the first time since nearly having his ear torn off by Marius Zaromskis, taking on undefeated submission specialist Yan Cabral. Sakuraba is currently riding a three-fight losing streak including the aforementioned loss to Zaromskis as well as a submission loss to Jason “Mayhem” Miller at Dream 16 and a unanimous decision loss to Ralek Gracie back at Dream 14. “The Gracie Hunter” is in desperate need of a win here to avoid falling into Ken Shamrock territory, though some critics out there feel he already has.

Also on the card, Shinya Aoki takes on Rob McCullough in a lightweight bout. Aoki has technically gone 5-0 fight win streak since his loss to Gilbert Melendez at Strikeforce: Nashville; this is of course excluding his embarrassing knockout loss to Yuichiro “Jienotsu” Nagashima in a mixed rules match at Dynamite!! 2010. But hey, if Sherdog doesn’t count it, then it never happened. McCullough on the other hand recently had a two fight win streak snapped by the heavy hands of Patricky Friere back at Bellator 36.

(Tito Ortiz tells The Voice where to stick it.)

I’ve seen all kinds of crazy stuff go down at my local dive bar, and yet I’ve never had a beautiful woman proposition me by giving me the finger. (Oh, but what a magical world that would be.) In honor of Wild Turkey‘s “Give ‘em the Bird” campaign — which is definitely intended for people who live dangerously — we decided to round up the greatest obscene gestures in MMA history. Enjoy these unquestionably rude photos, which continue after the jump, and shoot us some links in the comments section if we’ve left out any good ones.

(Felice Herrig puts it all out there.)

(Cuddly New York Jets coach Rex Ryan shares his opinion on Strikeforce matchmaking.)

Bad news for Aoki: he may not be able to use those magic tights.

According to a report by Sherdog, Bellator is trying to wrangle a actual, no-shit SuperFight for Eddie Alvarez — a rematch against the Japanese submission wizard Shinya Aoki. The two met previously at Dynamite!!! 2008 for the DREAM lightweight championship, which Aoki won in just 92 seconds via heel hook.

The loss was Alvarez’s first (and only) loss at 155; he’s since reeled off seven straight wins in Bellator and DREAM, winning the Bellator lightweight strap along the way. Alvarez has seen his stock rise in the intervening years, while Aoki has suffered some humiliating losses, including an epic beatdown from Gilbert Melendez for Strikeforce and a hilarious KO loss to Yuichiro Nagashima at DREAM’s 2010 New Year’s Eve show.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/BellatorMMA)

It looks like Patricky “Pitbull” Freire didn’t get permission from Bellator to face DREAM lightweight champion Shinya Aoki. Instead Bjorn Rebney and Co. are sending “Razor” Rob McCullough over to Japan to face “T?bikan J?dan” in a non-title affair at DREAM 17 September 24 at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

DREAM announced the match-up on Friday. MMAJunkie.com was the first site to report the news.

ATTENTION PAUL BUENTELLO: Please do this at Bellator 48.  PLEASE.

“The only great failure in life is the failure to try.” -Some old wise man, probably with a large beard

Fail is sort of like porn. You can’t really define it properly, but you know it when you see it. And brother, we’ve seen some fail watching our favorite sport. It can happen anytime, from walking out to the ring, to celebrating your victory (see above), and anytime between. We here at CagePotato hold MMA and fighters in our highest regard … but we still like to point and laugh every once in a while. Allow us to present to you our first (in what we assume will be many) installment of MMA Fails.

Special thanks go out to anyone and everyone who ever GIF’d a video, including the fine people at UpstandingCitizens, MMA-Core, IronForgesIron, and MMATKO.  Props.

Now let’s get it on!

Continuing in its latest trend of breaking news before the media outlets can jump on the story, Zuffa announced last night that it had added a lightweight bout between Gesias ‘JZ’ Cavalcante and Lyle ‘Fancypants’ Beerbohm to its July 30 Fedor vs. Henderson card in Chicago.

Once thought to be one of the world’s best 155-pound fighters, Cavalcante’s stock has dipped the past few years thanks in part to a less than impressive 1-3 (2 NC) record in his past six fights. In his defense, each of those losses was a close-fought decision against top-tier opponents  Shinya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri and Josh Thomson. A win over Beerbohm could put him back on track.