UFC fight

(Shogun's audition for Pride's ill-fated production of "West Side Story" didn't lack spirit, but Gilbert Yvel later proved to have more jazz-tap experience.)

It used to be that we all had a lot of fun listening to Anderson Silva’s next opponent wax optimistic about the one thing everyone else had missed that he had finally figured out when it came to devising a strategy to beat “The Spider.”   That is so 2008.  As we all know, Lyoto Machida is the new Silva, so now everyone gets to take their turn claiming to have figured him out.  Next up is “Shogun” Rua, who says you got to be patient, but not too patient:

“Most of the guys that fought Lyoto… found a problem with patience, with finding the right moment to attack, or to counter-strike him.  Some guys try to rush it too much; some guys try to stay too patient, (and) they start to get nervous because of that.  …I think the key is the timing of the fight, to get the feeling of when to engage and when to counter-strike him. This is likely the key, to find the pace and the rhythm, mostly the timing of the strikes to be able to connect and to make it a fight. For sure, I’m going to concentrate on that and develop a good strategy.”

Cut the bullshit, Shogun.  You have no idea what you’re going to do against this guy, do you?

Joe Stevenson began his UFC career on the second season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”  On Saturday night he returns to fight another TUF alum, Nate Diaz, on the season nine finale in what might prove to be a make-or-break outing for him.  In our exclusive talk with him, Joe “Daddy” tells us why he changed training camps after his decision loss to Diego Sanchez, whether he’s worried about being cut, and why he might be hesitant to appear on a new season of TUF if he were coming up through the ranks today.

CagePotato.com: So you’ve been in New Mexico with Greg Jackson’s team preparing for this fight.  What made you decide that it was time for a change of training camps?

JS: Honestly, I’ve been here for going on seven weeks now and it’s been great.  I was feeling a little stagnant and I knew that if I didn’t try something different I would regret it.  If you don’t try all your avenues you’re going to end up when your fifty wishing you’d done something different and I don’t want to be that person.  On top of that, there’s great coaching here, great strategy, and they’ve given me a different outlook on the way I fight.  I’m just excited to let people see it now.

You mentioned strategy and that’s something a lot of people talk about when it comes to Greg Jackson.  How is his way of strategizing for a fight different from what you’ve been exposed to in the past?

(Yep, that's how bad it was.)

Yeah, I know that he was technically ineligible to receive a Submission of the Night bonus at UFC 98.  And the fight wasn’t competitive enough (read: at all) to garner consideration for Fight of the Night.  But when you beat ass with the kind of dominating, precise beauty that Lyoto Machida did last night, knocking out Rashad Evans and looking like a perfect fighting machine sent back in time by a futuristic Karate-centric society to teach us all a valuable lesson, it really seems like they ought to create a new bonus category to honor you.

(Does it even matter why this picture was taken?)

- Everyone is just trying to help Chuck Liddell. (Fightlinker)

- UFC Undisputed is a solid hit. (MMA Payout)

- Machida talks urine drinking. (Ask Men)

- The pros pick Evans vs. Machida. (Sherdog)

- Check out the final Bellator tournament schedule. (Fighters Only)

- Rashad Evans talks Machida, being the underdog. (Ask Men)

- Video of Machida vs. Bonnar. (MMA TKO)

- Top 3 most frustrating teams to watch in baseball. (Scores Report)

- The celebrity gender switch experiment. (Holy Taco)

- 10 great war movie quotes. (Screen Junkies)

- 56 insanely hot Indy car grid girls. (All Left Turns)

- Fat kid ATV jousting nut shot. (Nothing Toxic)

(Kampmann does some of his best thinking on the streets, right around dusk, wearing his UFC sweatshirt.  You wouldn't understand, man.)

You have to love it when an MMA fighter explains why he turned down a fight that the UFC offered him and begins with the phrase, ‘No disrespect to [name of fighter he is disrespecting], but…’  It's as smooth a move as saying, 'Don't take this the wrong way,' right before you say something that you know will be taken the wrong way.  That’s basically what Martin Kampmann is doing while explaining to Versus.com why he turned down a fight with T.J. Grant that has been all over the internets the last couple days as if were totally official:

“No disrespect to T.J. Grant, but I don’t think it’s a fight that makes any sense for me at the moment,” Kampmann said. “I want to fight some higher ranked guys. I never even knew who the guy was, and he’s probably a tough guy. But I want to fight guys who make sense for me and who can escalate me up the ladder more, so I didn’t accept that fight. I don’t know what happened, but apparently some miscommunication somewhere because I saw it all over the internet.”