(Things got so bad that the two had to be kept in permanent split-screen. / Image via GalsGuide)

You guys aren’t going to believe this, but Michael Bisping and Jason Miller didn’t become best friends during the taping of The Ultimate Fighter 14. With the new season kicking off next Wednesday night, Bisping went on The MMA Hour for a little promo work, and spent a good chunk of his appearance talking about how annoying Mayhem was on set. Some notable quotes:

“[There was] a bit of friction between me and Miller, just a little bit, ups and downs. At the start of the season I thought he was an OK guy. By the end of the season I wanted to kill him. Fortunately, December 3, I’ll get that opportunity.”

“Yeah, I mean he tried to [get under my skin], unfortunately Miller’s mouth is bigger than his brain, so he didn’t do a very good job of it. He tried to do it a few times, but they were really quite pitiful…I definitely get the upper hand throughout the entire season. I’m not talking about the fights, I’m just talking about the one-on-one interaction between me and Miller. I feel he crossed the line a few times, there were a few instances that he definitely crossed the line, so come December 3rd, I’m looking forward to making him pay for his words and pay for his disrespect.”

(Props: Spike)

Spike TV has released the full cast of TUF 14, which premieres September 21st on Spike. The 32-man bracket features a diverse spread of talent including WEC vets looking for a comeback (Bryan Caraway, Micah Miller), well-known prospects from outside the Zuffa umbrella (Matt Jaggers, Eric Marriott), up-and-comers from notable camps (Jackson MMA’s John Dodson, Cesar Gracie’s Josh Clopton), and total unknowns (Roland Delorme? Bryson Wailehua-Hansen?).

Episode 1 of ‘Team Bisping vs. Team Mayhem‘ is a two-hour orgy of elimination-round fights, in which the 32 featherweight and bantamweight hopefuls will be slashed down to 16. Mark it on your calendars, and check out the full list of names after the jump.

(“I’d rather lose the best fight of my life than win the worst.” Photo courtesy of Sherdog)

On August 14th, Chris Lytle will step into the Octagon for the 20th time in his career, when he squares off against Dan Hardy at the aptly-named UFC Live: Hardy vs. Lytle in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It will be Lytle’s first-ever headlining bout for the UFC — as well as an opportunity to re-claim the title of “Most Bonus-Worthy Fighter in UFC History.” (He currently shares the honor with Anderson Silva and Joe Lauzon.) We recently spoke to “Lights Out” about some of his most memorable UFC fights, his upcoming scrap against Hardy, his crowd-pleasing style, and the tough lessons he’s learned along the way. Enjoy…

CHRIS LYTLE vs. BEN EARWOOD — Lytle’s UFC debut
UFC 28, 11/17/00
Result: Defeat via unanimous decision

“I’d been fighting for less than two years at the time, but as soon as I started training, I got really involved in watching the UFC. I knew who all the key guys were and I knew it was the pinnacle of the sport, so it was my goal to be there. We only fought two five-minute rounds [at UFC 28], and they’d started having fighters wear gloves not too long before, so it was just way different. Earwood was more of a wrestler — he just tried to hold me down. I don’t think they stood us up once.

Back then I was training with Jason Godsey and a few other guys maybe two or three times a week. Every one of us had real jobs, full-time jobs, and this was something we did for fun. I definitely felt like we were good fighters — Jason was King of Pancrase, and beat a lot of good guys — but we didn’t train every day. And after that fight I kind of realized…I didn’t feel like Earwood was any better of a fighter than me, I just felt like he had a better gameplan than I did, he stuck with it, and he trained more than I did.

Jason Miller clearly knows what’s expected of him in this quickie promo for The Ultimate Fighter 14. Put a camera in front of the dude, and suddenly he hates Michael Bisping‘s stupid accent and funny-looking face. Fair enough. Meanwhile, the Count calls Mayhem the class clown. Yep. Not exactly Sonnen-level eloquence, but it’ll surely be a step up from last season, in which Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos managed to make it through ten episodes without ever speaking to each other. Man, remember how awful that season was? So awful.

After the jump: The Brazilian trailer for UFC 134, which manages to be understated and evocative despite what apppears to be a very random F-bomb at the 0:09 mark.

(Rich Franklin looks at this poster to cure his hiccups)

Anderson Silva puts the UFC’s middleweight class on notice 5 years ago at UFN 5

(Video courtesy of Thisis50/TonyScorpio)

Why it matters:
For those who didn’t know who Anderson Silva was prior to his UFC debut against Chris Leben at Ultimate Fight Night 5 back on June 28, 2006, they knew who he was after the fight. Silva was the slight favorite to win the bout (at – 170 to Leben’s +200), but if oddsmakers knew then what we know now, they would be kicking themselves for giving Leben a shot in hell at beating “The Spider.” It took Silva just 49 seconds to dismantle the previously thought un-KO’able TUF 1 veteran whose head was (and is) often described in the same vein as a fire hydrant. Those in the know from witnessing Silva leave a pile of PRIDE and Cage Rage opponents in his wake were not surprised that he beat “The Crippler,” but rather how quickly he did it and the devastating fashion he did it in.

Leben still wakes some nights in a cold sweat, screaming, from the recurring nightmare of Silva turning him into a human bobble-head with his pinpoint jabs.

(Bader beat him. K-Sos beat him. Lawlor beat him. Now he’s one of the toughest prospects in the light-heavyweight division — proving once again that shaving your head is always a good career move. Photo props to UFC.com)

Not to pee-pee on Tony Ferguson‘s parade, but winning The Ultimate Fighter is no guarantee of success in the UFC. On the other hand, getting eliminated while in the TUF house is no guarantee of failure either. In fact, some of today’s most dangerous UFC contenders are guys who entered the promotion through the reality show, but didn’t even get to fight for the glass trophy. In the wake of Saturday’s TUF 13 Finale, here’s how I’d rank the Top 10 non-finalists from The Ultimate Fighter, based on their current standing in the promotion…

#1: Gray Maynard

On TUF: Was choked out by Nate Diaz in the semi-finals of season 5.
These days: Drew with Frankie Edgar in his first lightweight title challenge in January, but will get another crack at the belt later this year. His pair of title fights against Edgar follow an eight-fight win streak in the Octagon, which included a decision win against Diaz in a rematch last year.

#2: Josh Koscheck

On TUF: Lost a split-decision to Diego Sanchez in the semi-finals of season 1.
These days: A perennial top contender in the welterweight division, Kos will be one of the front-runners for the belt if GSP ever leaves the division; until then, he’ll just have to be content with being “right up there.”

(Kyle Kingsbury is wearing that rainbow fanny-pack in honor of all the brave men and women who gave their lives defending our freedom in the Candyland-Disco War of Sissystan. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle. For more photos from this album, click here.)

TUF 13 reaches its conclusion tonight, with “Stripper” Ramsey Nijem facing off against “Jerkwad” Tony Ferguson for the mythical six-figure contract and glass trophy. Plus: Anthony Pettis makes his official UFC debut against Clay Guida in a guaranteed thriller with lightweight title implications, the suddenly-badass Kyle Kingsbury looks to put Fabio Maldonado’s 11-fight win streak to an end, and much more.

If you’ve got nothing better to do, it’s not a bad way to spend a Saturday night. (If you do have something better to do, count yourself lucky, and come back later to let us know what the outside world is like.) The action is already underway at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas — and streaming live on Facebook — but we’ll save the spoilers until the end of the night, because some of you crybabies get sooooo sensitive. Round-by-round results from the Spike TV broadcast will begin to pile up after the jump starting at 9 p.m. ET; refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

Dammit, who are all you guys again?

Say what you will about The Ultimate Fighter (not like you need an invitation), but the finale shows tend to be pretty damn fun. This season, we actually have two fairly solid finalists, a dynamite co-main in Pettis-Guida, plus a handful of other matchups calibrated for striking showdowns and crowd amazement.

Here’s a quick and dirty rundown of the fights scheduled for this weekend, with a few of those fancy moving pictures that you like so much. Who ya got?

Ramsey Nijem

VS

Tony Ferguson

Well, either this fight is the one you’ve been waiting for, or you’re just wondering what these two nobodies are doing on your UFC card. Tune in to find out which guy gets a contract with the UFC. (Spoiler Alert: It’ll be both of them.)

(Ramsey jacks Chris’s swagger before their semi-final match. Props: IronForgesIron.com)

Following last week’s “Where’s your kid?” fiasco, Tony Ferguson is persona non grata in the TUF house. He tries to strike up a conversation with Chuck O’Neil in the kitchen and gets brutally cold-shouldered. “He’s burnt every last bridge in this house,” Chuck explains. “He’s burnt a bridge with everybody.”

Tony finally gets a clue and apologizes to everybody — or at least tries to — claiming that he drank too much, blacked out, and doesn’t really remember what he said. Chuck ain’t having it: “I was disgusted by what you said last night. For you to put Charlie’s kid’s name in your mouth, and for him not to hit you in the face, that shows what kind of person he is, because all of us wanted to fucking kill you.” The other guys aren’t interested in making up with Tony either, and he eventually gives up. On the bright side, he didn’t come here to make friends, so at least he succeeded on that level.

Both semi-finals are slated to go down on this episode, starting with Chris Cope (Team Lesnar) vs. Ramsey Nijem (Team Dos Santos). They “woo!” at each other during the weigh-in. And it’s already time for somebody’s dreams to be crushed…

There’s a very good chance that Tony Ferguson will be the next winner of The Ultimate Fighter. So it’s a shame that his primary legacy from the show — at least for the people who actually watched it — is the moment from this week’s episode when he attacked his own teammate Charlie Rader then needled Rader about having his son taken from him. It was particularly shocking because Ferguson hadn’t previously shown any signs of being a mean-spirited drunk. Now, he has to expect a small chorus of boos when he enters the Octagon at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas next Saturday. In his guest blog for SBNation.com, Ferguson tried to explain the circumstances that transformed him from humble front-runner to TUF 13‘s biggest heel:

You first have to understand we started drinking not long after we had just got done fighting. We had also done the semi-final picks. I think part of me brought the fight home since my real fight with Ryan ended so fast. When you bring alcohol into the mix, it was just bad from there.

We all drank a lot. It started out with shots of Patron and moved to Jim Beam. Miller Lites were mixed in the entire time. We weren’t just drinking to relax. We were going hard core. Everyone was drinking, too, although maybe not as much as some of us.

(Exhibit A. Props: IronForgesIron.com)

One positive thing you can say about the 13th season of TUF? It was mercifully brief. We’re already winding down to the end here, with just two more episodes to go until next Saturday’s finale show. Last night gave us two more quarterfinal fights, the selection of the semi-final matches (which go down next week), and a standout contestant making one of the most dramatic and unexpected heel-turns in TUF history.

Zach Davis feels confident in his quarterfinal rematch with Chuck O’Neil considering he’s already beaten him once. He knows it’s a dangerous matchup, but he wants to keep the fight standing this time to show the diversity of his skills. Because when you’ve got a good thing going, change it up I guess. Bad sign. Junior Dos Santos wants Zach to “do what he do well” — put Chuck on the mat and use his jiu-jitsu.

Chuck offers to give his teammate Charlie Rader his win bonus because Charlie recently had his son taken away from him and is being charged an arm and a leg for child support. The situation draws the sympathy of his teammates (“It’s not right…He deserves to have his kid, plain and simple”), but Charlie says he can’t accept the money. And of course, Chuck doesn’t even have it yet, so there’s that too.

“Chuck’s like a bad penny, he keeps showing up,” Zach says. And it’s already time for fight #1…

(Props: Heavy.com)

Despite recent rumors that Georges St. Pierre and Nick Diaz are slated to face off at UFC 140 — and were the most likely candidates to coach the next season of The Ultimate Fighter — UFC president Dana White wants to make it clear that it ain’t happening. As he tells travel-size interviewer Megan Olivi in a new interview (quotes via FightOpinion):

“That fight is not a done deal and I guarantee you that those two will not be coaches, not even close. All this stuff that’s out there about that fight and the meeting that we had here is all bullshit.”

Asked if GSP vs. Diaz would be happening at the UFC’s return to Montreal in December, DW responded with a simple “no.” Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that the UFC has denied a report just so they could announce it themselves later — but at the very least, relying on Nick Diaz to coach TUF for an entire season seems like way too much to ask, when he can’t even get through an eight-minute interview without threatening to slap somebody.

(“New episode of ‘Coal’? YEAH, BABY! GET SOME!” / Gif via IronForgesIron.com)

The quarterfinal round kicked off in last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Bellyache vs. Team Stare Directly at the Camera While Being Interviewed by Megan Olivi, and Shamar Bailey’s not feeling a personal best. The gray-team standout tweaked his back, and direct pressure ain’t comfortable. As he discusses it with Justin Edwards, Chris Cope lurks by, as if on cue, and screams “Woo!”

“I’mma choke that voice box out,” Shamar says.

But before he gets a chance to do that, Ramsey Nijem and Clay Harvison will square off. Dos Santos feels Ramsey is the best wrestler on his team. Ramsey says that his Palestinian heritage helps him be the fighter he is. He’s seen the road-stops, the walls, the guns; he feels grateful to be fighting in a controlled environment, and not for his life.

Dana White brings UFC middleweight contender and war hero Brian Stann to the gym. Stann tells the guys about being a Marine Corps captain, the lifestyle of discipline, how success breeds success…wait a minute. Is this just an ad for the Marines? This is like those segments on The Biggest Loser where they teach the contestants how to cook with Jennie-O-brand turkey. Come on, you know what I’m talking about. I can’t stand that crap. Anyway, Brock tells some of these long-haired punks to fill out an application.

(If you ever find yourself in a bad mood today, just put on ‘Cool It Now’ and stare at this gif for at least 45 seconds. Trust me. Props: IronForgesIron.com)

Len Bentley can’t wrap his head around the fact that he was passed over for the wild card spot in favor of Chuck O’Neil and Javier Torres. “At no point in the wild card were any names called that were superior to mine,” he says, humbly. He tracks down Dana White in the gym, grips his hand in a bro-shake, and will not let that sucker go.

“If Ryan [McGillivray] doesn’t make it to the finals, I would do anything to fight him in the finale,” Len tells Dana, squeezing the boss’s hand desperately. Len figured his performance would be enough, and that he didn’t need to beg for it during the wild card meeting with the coaches last week. Well, it wasn’t, and he did. Dana is a little taken aback, and doesn’t appreciate guys trying to do matchmaking for the finale. Also, we can probably assume that he went back to his office and went through an entire bottle of hand sanitizer.

Back in the Team Lesnar locker room, Brock tries to put the whole wild card thing in perspective: “Don’t hang your head, you’re a part of something great…everybody got their chance to fight.” Or, as he tells the camera later: “Tough shit, that’s life.”

(Above: Zach Davis’s face-off with Chuck O’Neil. Below: Jake Busey, for comparison. Gif via ironforgesiron.com)

It’s a big ol’ locker-room pity party on Team Dos Santos following Mick Bowman’s loss. “Sometimes it’s not our time to be winner, but we have to try our best,” Junior says, trying to raise Mick’s spirits. He explains that the UFC is looking for exciting fighters and exciting fights. Lew Polley sees it differently: “You can say whatever you want, I don’t care, but the fact of the matter is, your job is just to win the fight. If it’s boring [and] you win, great. If it’s exciting [and] you lose, then what?”

Junior is not pleased to be contradicted in front of his team. “I think we make the guys a little bit confused, Lew,” he says. “Because sometimes I say something and you say something different…I know you’re a good fighter, I’m glad you’re here, but I think we need to talk to each other.” Uh-ohhh.

Back on the victorious Team Chickenshit, Brock tells Len Bentley that if they win their next two fights, he’s in line for a wild card spot. (Pay attention. This will become important later in the show.) And like clockwork, Len goes down grabbing his knee in practice. “I’m speechless,” Brock says, not literally speechless. “Maybe it’s time to close shop here for the day…I just want to exit the building. I’m just sick to my stomach.”

(Without televisions in the house, Ramsey and Junior had to imagine what happened on the ‘Jersey Shore’ finale. / Props: IronForgesIron)

Lew Polley thinks Team Dos Santos is outworking Team Lesnar, and believes Brock Lesnar has already lost interest. “Junior legitimately cares about how these kids are doing,” he says, totally contradicting the trash he’ll talk after the show wraps.

Lesnar, who missed last week’s fight due to a family obligation, returns to a very luke-warm welcome. “Len, I heard you fought hard buddy,” he says. Len Bentley isn’t interested in such pleasantries. After going 1-2 in the first three fights, Team Lesnar is down to “The Four Horsemen”: Tony Ferguson, Clay Harvison, Chuck O’Neil, and Charlie Rader.

But in practice, the Horsemen are performing like a bunch of damn fillies. Clay is sleepwalking through practice, and Charlie is lollygagging too. (Brock’s word, not mine.)

(“Look mom, no future!” Pic: Las Vegas Sun)

If 13 seasons of “The Ultimate Fighter” have taught us anything, it’s that we will never see Keon Caldwell again. Truth is, you can get away with a lot of things on “TUF” and very little of it really has anything to do with being a professional fighter. You can piss in somebody’s fruit tray. You can piss in somebody’s bed. You can piss in somebody’s workout gear. Hell, you can even get drunk and piss in your own pants and as long as you don’t cause an embarrassing public scene at a casino later, you’ll probably be fine. After approximately 160 episodes however, one thing we know you absolutely can not do is quit the UFC’s popular reality show.

In choosing to leave “TUF” of his own free will this week, Caldwell essentially committed career suicide. Of all the bullshit UFC fighters can do and be forgiven — Steroids? Fine. Federal crimes? Whatever. High speed chases with the cops? No problem – it’s strange to think that quitting a TV program is a sin that simply can’t be absolved. It’s true though, leave “TUF” and you might as well be a child molester. You’re done. Finito. Dead to them. Time to start thinking about community college.

More than any of the ridiculous “made for TV” aspects of the show – more than the editing designed to bury him or his coach’s cartoonish disappointment or Dana White’s self-righteous fuming — that’s what made Caldwell’s exit from the show so hard to watch this week. As fake as the rest of “TUF” may be, one fact is very real: We just saw a 22-year-old kid euthanize his own dream on national television, seemingly without fully grasping the consequences.

(“No, I’ve never been a male nurse. Why does everybody keep asking me that?”)

At the end of last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Lesnar vs. Team Dos Santos, we saw that tension was about to develop between Junior Dos Santos and his outspoken assistant coach Lew Polley. Reading Lew’s guest-blog for MMA Junkie, you get the sense that the two never really made up — why else would Polley be throwing JDS under the bus in public? Here’s what the Team Dos Santos wrestling specialist wrote about the coaching dynamic on the show:

“Myself and the other coaches were starting to butt heads already. Junior had never coached before, and fights and trains as a heavyweight, which means he doesn’t cut weight, nor has he fought at a pace that isn’t conducive to a heavyweight fight. Junior has a limited understanding of English. This and my wrestling is why I was brought in. In the season opener, Junior said pretty much the same thing. His other coaches felt differently, and the tension was mounting.

Junior decided to bring in a strength coach that was not very good at his job, or at least explaining why he was having the guys train in such a manner. The Brazilian coaches felt I was pushing too hard because I was trying to maximize the time we had in the gym. Before the fight, it became an issue. I would suggest an aggressive yet normal approach to maximize the guys time and skills, trying to be more efficient. Junior and the other staff decided it was a wrestling vs. jiu-jitsu thing.

(Chris Cope and Javier Torres: They will clinch you into a living death.)

Coach Dos Santos kicks off the episode by putting his team through an intense workout circuit. “Nobody died by get tired,” he says. Uh, dude?

With control of the matchups still in his hands, JDS wants either Javier Torres or Ramsey Nijem to fight next. One dude who won’t be fighting any time soon is Dos Santos’s last pick, Keon Caldwell, who has been struggling in practices. Junior tries to encourage him. Keon barfs in the bathroom. He thinks he’s falling behind because his mind is “where’s my family’s at.” He misses his daughter and he’s having a tough time with everything.

Brock Lesnar is in a bad mood. He hates to lose, and notices that his team is lacking in wrestling skill, which was their downfall in last week’s fight. Unfortunately, there isn’t much time to get everybody up to speed. “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit,” he tells us, once again. “You know, you can’t polish turds to make ‘em look pretty. But we’re doing all we can.”

“If we don’t win this next fight, Brock is probably gonna kill us,” Charlie Rader says.

(This story doesn’t have much to do with Anderson Silva, but holy crap, remember when that happened?)

Sorry gang, but it looks like those rumors about Chael Sonnen and Michael Bisping landing coaching spots for TUF 14 were too good to be true. Though the pairing would make for brilliant/insane reality television, Sonnen’s laundry list of personal problems will likely prohibit his participation. From a new MMAJunkie report:

UFC president Dana White today told MMAjunkie.com no decisions have been made about the head-coaching slots for the show, which debuts in September on Spike TV.

But White also said [Chael] Sonnen “has a ton of problems” to deal with, which makes a rumored “TUF 14″ coaching slot against Michael Bisping unlikely…

(Three seasons later, the ‘Innerme‘ still looms large…)

With a big-name crossover star like Brock Lesnar as one of the coaches for this season of The Ultimate Fighter, we wondered if TUF 13‘s viewership ratings would land anywhere near TUF 10‘s — the heavyweight season featuring Quinton Jackson and Rashad Evans as coaches and Kimbo Slice as one of the heavyweight hopefuls. According to the numbers released by Spike, TUF 13‘s premiere ratings couldn’t hold a candle to Kimbo.

Wednesday’s show attracted an average of 1.5 million viewers and a 1.0 household rating, and earned the highest viewership numbers for men 18-34 and 18-49 in its new 9 p.m. time slot, with ratings of 1.93 and 1.51, respectively. Still, that’s a far cry from the 4.1 million average viewers that TUF 10 earned in its premiere. It’s also a slight decline from last season’s Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck premiere, which attracted 1.6 million viewers — which was itself a decline from the 1.9 million viewers brought in by the TUF 11: Liddell vs. Ortiz premiere. In fact, the TUF 13 premiere was the least successful debut episode in series history, in terms of household rating.

Responding to the news, UFC president Dana White was in full-on hater-hurtin’ mode, posting the following on the UG: “SINCE WHEN IS 1.5 MILLIONS VIEWERS BAD? People have been saying it is dead since season 4. Sit back and watch bitches or don’t. TUF isnt going anywhere!!!! deal with it.“ Fair enough. But the downward trend can’t be ignored. So what went wrong?

(Coaching gaffes aside, the green jersey really brings out his eyes. Pic: TheMMANews)

At least one thing was abundantly clear Wednesday night about the debut episode of “The Ultimate Fighter,” season 13: Brock Lesnar has obviously never seen this show before. Forget for a minute all the silly squabbling over the former heavyweight champ’s credentials as a coach and whether or not his inclusion on the UFC’s popular reality show will be good for ratings and/or the sport. The real question this morning is whether or not Lesnar even owns a television, because the dude played the “TUF 13” season premiere like a straight-up rookie. Things snowballed so quickly and decisively in the favor of Team Dos Santos, that by the end of the first 60 minutes we had to wonder if this season will be another one-sided ass-kicking on the order of those handed out by Team GSP on “TUF 12” and Team Rashad on “TUF 10.”

We don’t want to totally bury Team Lesnar this early on because – let’s face it – a lot can happen between now and the end of the season, especially since producers appear to have done an uncharacteristically good job making the actual cast of “TUF 13” look evenly matched. There are only two dudes on board we’ve ever heard of before – Shamar Bailey and Ryan McGillivray, both snapped up quick-fast by Team JDS – so maybe Brock’s picks will surprise us. Still, we couldn’t help but notice that Lesnar didn’t exactly pin episode one to the mat and give it a Heath Herring-style beatdown. Here are the multiple ways Coach Brock screwed things up …

(Brock and the Burn Machine: Like a Shakeweight for straight dudes. Props: ZombieProphet)

The Ultimate Fighter: Team Lesnar vs. Team Dos Santos premiered last night, and whatever the opposite of fireworks is, that’s what episode 1 delivered. We begin with a video montage introducing the coaches. Brock Lesnar announces that he ain’t here to make friends during the first minute. Check that off your reality show cliche scorecard. (In an unrelated story, Junior Dos Santos later refers to himself as “a sleepy bitch.”)

The fighters come in howling like they just got selected for a spot on Mr. Awesome. They’re told that there will be no elimination fight to get into the house, which gets them even more psyched. Brock and Junior enter the room to a rousing ovation. The guys applaud Brock’s list of credentials. Dana says that Junior “stepped aside from that title shot to come in here and teach you guys what he’s got.” Obviously, they’re not going to mention Cain Velasquez’s injury and how Junior really felt about his title shot getting delayed.

(Props: ironforgesiron.com)

Not only did Brock Lesnar avoid dropping The Other F-Bomb during yesterday’s appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the former UFC heavyweight champion actually managed to come off as a fairly charming dude. Watch as Lesnar runs through his life story, explains his chest-tattoo and The Ultimate Fighter series, and — as is expected when you have a huge MMA fighter do a TV spot with a pencil-necked geek — chokes Jimmy out to end the segment. The book is called Death Clutch, and TUF 13 premieres tomorrow night on Spike.

After the jump: Lesnar does a longer and more serious interview with Ariel Helwani, in which he discusses his Ultimate Fighter coaching gig, gives his thoughts on Junior Dos Santos, and tries to make sense of his loss to Cain Velasquez.

Though Jeff “Karmaatemycat” Watts‘s TUF 14 tryout journey was cut short due to his record (more on that to come), the scrappy Potato Nation member does make a brief appearance at the 1:40-1:44 mark of the above video from MMAFighting.com. Had Watts been able to show off his skills for Dana & Co., he would have been doing so alongside such well-traveled 135/145-pound vets as Ian McCall, Bryan Caraway, Nick Denis, Matt Jaggers, Jose Vega, Paul McVeigh, and (as we see in this other highlight vid from KahL-One) Din Thomas. He would have also picked up $100 cash for every submission he pulled off. Oh well. Next time, bro…

By CagePotato contributor Jason Moles

Fans have been clamoring for the UFC to announce the coaches for The Ultimate Fighter 14 since the featherweight/bantamweight season was announced earlier this month. Many would argue that after Urijah Faber’s dominant performance over Eddie Wineland in his UFC debut, it’s a foregone conclusion that he will face off against arch-rival and current UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz. Others have suggested recently that it would be a missed opportunity if Zuffa drafts anyone other than newly crowned UFC light-heavyweight champ Jon “Bones” Jones and “Suga” Rashad Evans. Those are both excellent choices, but that’s not what we really want to see, now is it?

The best matchup is one in which the built-in marketing would compel the most casual of fans to tune in to Spike on Wednesday nights. Ever since Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller uttered the fateful words “Where’s my rematch, buddy?” to Cesar Gracie fighter Jake Shields on live television (as Gus Johnson so infamously reminded us), you can’t mention him and not automatically think of Nick Diaz. The Stockton native repping the 209 essentially jumped the Bully Beatdown host in what many consider the largest black mark on our sport. It didn’t stop there either.

Countless interviews and appearances over the past year have prompted the same question: “When are you two going to settle this in the cage and fight?” Add in a few YouTube videos on top of an epic custom t-shirt and you have yourself a nice little beef. Wait, there’s more! I would be remiss if I forgot to remind you of the time Diaz hurled a water bottle at Miller’s head backstage at a Strikeforce event. The aforementioned is all prelude that demands a culmination in the cage.

(Update: Damn autoplay. Check out the video after the jump.)

“I just suffered a huge loss. That’s fighting. That’s the name of the game. That’s the world. As the world turns, people win, people lose, you get your ass back on the saddle and ride into town again…[Dos Santos] is in my way, and that’s the only thing I give a shit about. He’s in my way to get my title back. I was, and I will be again, the UFC heavyweight champion of the world. [Sarah Palin-esque wink/click]”

So says TUF 13 coach Brock Lesnar in his first video promo for The Ultimate Fighter: Team Lesnar vs. Team Dos Santos, which premieres Wednesday, March 30th, at 9 p.m./8c. We’re curious to see how the moody, insular former heavyweight champ handles a room full of screaming welterweights. Along with his solid team of assistant coaches, will Brock be able to inspire the up-and-coming fighters to be successful? Or are we looking at another heel-coach in the vein of Koscheck and Rampage?

(Update: The video was stuck on auto-play, so we moved it after the jump…)

Courtesy of Spike TV, here’s the cast unveiling video for TUF 13, which premieres on March 30th. Among the 14 welterweight hopefuls, there are fewer well-known names compared to recent seasons. I know who Shamar Bailey is because of his stint with Strikeforce, while undefeated KOTC standout Myles Jury — 9-0, all wins by stoppage, eight in the first round — has also been on my radar. But other than that, the cast is mostly made up of unknowns, with no obvious ringer in the mix. On the other hand, there also isn’t a lot of crazy hair in this video, which suggests that maybe these guys are more serious about fighting than camera time. That’s a good sign. A complete cast-list is after the jump…

(Gina Carano announces her return to MMA during last weekend’s ‘Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva‘ broadcast. To be honest, I could have used more energy. Props: shosports)

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…

- Rashad Evans Says Absent Priest Messed Up Fedor’s Mental Preparation Before Silva Bout (MMA Convert)

- Dana White: First International “The Ultimate Fighter” Could be in Philippines by Late 2011 (5thRound)

- ‘Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva’ Breaks Showtime MMA Viewership Records (SBNation.com/MMA)

- Jorge Rivera: I Got Under Michael Bisping’s Skin [Exclusive Interview] (LowKick)

- And Now He’s Fired…Again: Gabe Ruediger (Five Ounces of Pain)

- What Might Have Been: Fedor Emelianenko in the UFC (MMA Fighting)

- Dada 5000′s Second Professional MMA Bout Took Place Last Weekend, and We Have the Video (MiddleEasy)

- Rafael Natal Out, UFC Newcomer Chris Weidman In Against Alessio Sakara at ‘UFC on Versus 3′ (Versus MMA Beat)

- Natasha Wicks Hangs Out Half-Naked with Urijah Faber In FORM Athletics Video (FightMagazine)

- Dana White Meets with New Yorker Who Used MMA to Subdue Serial Stabber (MMA-Scraps)

(Video of you purchasing the weapon? Check. Tape of you admitting to the crime? Check. Incriminating text messages sent to the victim? Check. Women on the jury still think you’re innocent? You must be a professional fighter. PicProps: VCStar.com)

Two months after he stunned his attorney midway through trial by pleading guilty to raping his former girlfriend in 2008, UFC washout Jeremy Jackson was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on Monday in California. A Ventura County Superior Court judge said she had “little or no discretion” in deciding Jackson’s sentence after the plea, according to a newspaper report.

The Ventura County Star – whose reference to Jackson as an “Ultimate Fighter” in its headline is only excusable because of his stint on the UFC’s reality show of the same name – had the details of Monday’s proceeding, which we have to say are kind of bizarre. Even though he admitted last December that he raped his ex-girlfriend while burglarizing her home on June 28, 2008, the Star reports that a female juror in the trial asked the court if she could “make a statement on Jackson’s behalf” during sentencing. The same juror later told the paper she thought Jackson was innocent and that he “only pleaded guilty because he was depressed and wanted the trial to end.”

We’re sure there’s a terrible joke to be made here about the women who fall in love with prison inmates – especially since the sentencing came down on Valentine’s Day, which probably felt like the worst possible timing for everyone involved – but we’re not going to do that. That’s what user comments are for, right?