Dana, the ball is officially in your court.

After weeks of pleading, Twitter bombing, and viral videoing, all of which yielded no results, it appears that former UFC Heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia has run out of options. We’re not even going to question whether you were ready for this; we know you’re not. His back against the proverbial wall, Sylvia decided that the only way to prove that he was truly ready for another UFC run was to release the above video, in which he unleashes the collective power of Maine-iacs worldwide in just over two minutes. I simply cannot come up with the words to describe it, so instead will rely on those of MRuss, who, after witnessing those two minutes of pure, unadulterated athleticism, set to a haunting Evanescence melody, said the following:

My wife lifts more weight than Tim. He does girl push-ups for Christ’s sake. 

Like we said. Your move, Dana.

-J. Jones

If you’re anything like us, then your obsession with the gorgeous and deadly Ronda Rousey has grown greater with each passing day. You’ve likely written no less than twenty Shakespearean sonnets declaring your love for the woman, and though you won’t admit it, in the back of your mind you know that this obsession is destined to end with a restraining order and a harai goshi to boot.

The video, taken from one of Ms. Rousey’s recent training sessions, demonstrates a couple of the “impact conditioning” exercises the Olympic Judoka goes through on a daily basis. Now that she’s been rallying for a match against Strikeforce women’s featherweight champion Christiane “Cyborg” Santos, we imagine the purpose of this drill is to prevent our girl from immediately BM’ing after eating one of the champ’s ruthless body shots. Good luck, Ronda, because being in the same room as Cyborg is enough to make us try out our best Tim Sylvia impression. <— WE WILL NEVER STOP MAKING THIS JOKE.

You’ve probably heard by now that Kim Jong-il is dead. No, he was not killed by the hands of Hans Blixs and no, the above video is not a collection of clips from the 2002 fake karate film Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. The sad reality is that what you are watching is simply what the former North Korean dictator’s bodyguards went through on a daily basis. Unreleased until a few hours ago (shocking), the footage is…uh…impressive to say the least, but not without that extra bit of crazy thrown in to let you know this is a KJi joint.

According to the narrator, il’s bodyguards are forced to “hit something” from the moment they wake up, whether that be a giant, cement block attached to another guard’s face, or a two-by-four placed on another’s neck. The rest of their day, however, is not that different from what many of us do to make a living here in America:

(Turn on captions for subtitles.) 

It appears former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida has pulled out all the stops to prepare for his upcoming championship bout at UFC 140 with Jon Jones. Check out the above video, which gives us an inside peek at Lyoto’s daily regimen, with the exception of one truly disgusting aspect that could easily pop up on this season of Fear Factor.

The show, which I am going to ignorantly label “Random Univision Program #113,” states that Lyoto has packed on an incredible 22 pounds of muscle, and man does it show. Along with bringing in a team of physiologists and physiotherapists, Lyoto has even shrank the size of the octagon in which he trains, from 9 meters in diameter to just 7.5, forcing him to be even more elusive than previously thought possible. No word yet on how exactly he plans on making his precision more…precise.

-Danga 

(Props to GammaLabsTV.) 

Thanks to Gamma Labs CEO Cliff Morgan, footage has recently surfaced of world renowned MMA trainer Shawn Tompkins’ final training session with team mate and close friend, WEC and Bellator veteran Chris Horodecki. As we all know, Shawn Tompkin’s passing this past August shocked everyone including his family, and has had a tremendous impact on the fighter’s he trained in the time since.

Morgan, who also introduces the clip, decided to release the video, which was shot just days before Tompkins’ passing, in it’s “raw and unedited form, [to give us] a clear understanding of how important Shawn was a trainer, mentor, and contributor to the sport.”

-Danga 

Video Props: MiddleEasy via MMARocks.pl

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the day of a UFC event is always a pretty slow news day. Aside from last second hype for the event and the occasional minor league show with people you’ve actually heard of, we have to get creative with our definition of “news”. So when MiddleEasy posted a video of Aleksander Emelianenko training with World’s Strongest Man turned MMA fighter Mariusz Pudzianowski, it was a pretty easy decision to pass this along.

I’ll be honest, I kind of assumed that Aleksander’s busy schedule of crushing cans, getting prison tattoos and not having hepatitis left him zero time to actually train. For that matter, I also assumed that when you’re a decorated Russian criminal and Fedor Emelianenko’s younger brother, you wouldn’t need to practice to be really good at hurting people. Different strokes, I suppose.

Struve is planning on putting the hurt on Barry. Props: KCrigger40/YouTube

Man, fighters in the UFC have some real trouble with INFOSEC. (These guys know what we’re talking about.) Just yesterday we were able to show you footage from within Pat Barry’s camp as he prepares for the unique challenges Stefan Struve will present when the two meet up at UFC on Versus 6. The vast difference in reach means Barry will need to be creative in his striking attack.

Now we find this leaked tape from the Struve camp, and some of the drills he’s going through to prepare for the destroyer of legs.

Obviously, both guys are planning on putting on a show on 1 October. Are ya’ll ready for this?

[RX]

After years of watching Bob Sapp fight in Pride, K-1, and now Dream, I always assumed his pre-fight preparation involved weightlifting, a little bit of stairmaster while flipping through a copy of Self magazine, and a nightly regimen of practicing scary faces in the bathroom mirror.  But this video would have me believe that he’s actually in the gym training MMA moves in advance of his Super Hulk tournament bout against Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou on October 6.  By training, really I mean he’s throwing extremely slow strikes in between exhausted gulps of air.  But like the really fat people you see plodding their way through a slow motion workout at the gym, at least he’s in there doing something, right? 

To give Sapp the benefit of the doubt, it’s possible that this video was shot near the end of a grueling training session, and that’s why the act of throwing ten consecutive kicks seems as though it might make his lungs explode.  Or it could just be that Sapp’s body isn’t made for prolonged periods of activity, and no amount of encouragement from Antonio McKee is going to change that.  Good thing he’s got that acting career to fall back on. 

Two things occur to me after watching this training video, which Frank Shamrock recently sent out as a bulletin from his MySpace page:

1) Not that the ability to control a balance ball directly correlates to the ability to control a human being, but I’m starting to get the feeling that Cung Le is going to get his ass kicked.

2) I need some kettlebells immediately.

For more Frank, check out this new audio interview from Jarry Park, where the Strikeforce middleweight champ breaks down his match-up with Le, marketing the fight (he’ll be the “bad guy”), the new YouTube “mockumentaries” he’ll be dropping beginning next week to taunt his opponent, the status of his fight against his brother Ken, and his rejected CourtTV reality show. (Apparently, Frank TV already exists…)

Uh…

To see more of Joanne and Lauren, go to MMAgirls.net. If you need me, I’ll be dumping ice water down my pants.