(Dan Miragliotta explains to Guida the maximum amount of miles allowed to run in the octagon without penalty.) 

After a brief hiatus, Dana White has returned with the daily dose of heartbreak that is the Danavlog to remind us all of the downsides of being a f*cking fighter. Thankfully, not all of us take the phrase as literally as Brazilians do. But the main lesson we took away from today’s episode is simple: what you don’t pay in gym fees, you will more than make up for in blood. Nick Catone, Joey Gambino, and Ross Pearson were just a few of the men to walk away from their bouts with some gruesome lacerations and another (or in Gambino’s case, a first) loss on their record. A tough day at the office indeed.

“Boring,” and “sucked” were just a couple of words that White used to describe the five round affair between Clay Guida and Gray Maynard, a sentiment that most fans seemed to agree with when all was said and done. And regardless of who you thought won that fight, you could probably understand a little bit of Gray’s frustration with the Steve Prefontainian conundrum that Guida brought to the octagon. This frustration became all the more apparent when the two met backstage, where some less than positive remarks were exchanged between the two camps. Oddly enough, it all began when Guida uncharacteristically complained about the judges decision, despite the fact that Napoleon was closer to conquering Russia than Guida ever was to finishing that fight, or even attempting to for that matter.

Video after the jump. 

(And that’s for asking me how to save money on car insurance! / Pic Props: BRMMA Flickr)

By Jason Moles

Clay Guida won that fight. I know what the scorecards said; Bruce Buffer announced them to the world loud and clear. I know what everybody and their brother said on Twitter as well. None of that matters, though, because I know what I saw. Friday night in Atlantic City, Guida defeated Gray Maynard. In what parallel universe can you throw nearly a hundred more strikes than your opponent, he spends the evening swinging at ghosts, and they declare him the winner? On the mean streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico, if you have all but one of your fourteen takedowns stuffed, that does not make you a winner. That makes…not a winner.

Since when do we penalize fighters for not wanting to get smashed in the face? Guida willingly let himself be locked in a cage with “The Bully” for a total of twenty-five minutes. And yet somehow Maynard still wasn’t satisfied, saying at the post-fight press conference, “You can’t just go to the end of the cage and then back to the other end and back to the other end the whole time. You’ve got to give me a chance, too.”

“You’ve got to give me a chance, too?” Sorry, I thought Maynard was a professional fighter. I thought he was above the “If Johnny can’t hit off the pitcher, we’ll just bring out the tee” mentality. First, you don’t like his hair and now you don’t like the way he dances? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were looking for a date to the prom. You had your chance and you blew it. Were you really expecting Clay to just stand in front of you like the striking dummies at the gym?

By George Shunick

Our thoughts exactly. Props: MMAMania

Gray Maynard has never been the most popular UFC fighter. Maybe it’s because it’s almost impossible to picture him as an underdog; he’s an enormous lightweight who lives up his “Bully” moniker. (His choice of entrance music probably doesn’t do him any favors, either.) He’s always Goliath, and in our society we’re conditioned to root for David. That attitude was epitomized in Frankie Edgar’s back-to-back comebacks against him, with the crowd firmly in favor of the smaller fighter who seemed to rely on his will and technique, while Maynard relied on his size and power. As long as Maynard’s achievements were contextualized within that narrative, he would always be the villain.

Clay Guida won the first two rounds of their main event last night by constantly remaining out of Maynard’s reach, dictating the pace, occasionally landing jabs, and landing a solid head kick in the latter half of the second round. The action had been sparse throughout, but it seemed understandable; Guida obviously didn’t want to engage Maynard head on at first, he’d tire him out and then wear him down. Well, that didn’t happen. For the majority of the third round, Guida squandered whatever momentum he may have built by circling, dancing, and circling some more. It was UFC 112 Anderson Silva on meth. By the end of the round, Maynard was flailing with power punches, frustrated by Guida’s unwillingness to engage.

Midway through the fourth round, Maynard had enough. With Guida still circling and refusing to engage, Maynard finally grabbed a hold of him, landed some knees and then proceeding to embody the audience’s frustrations by dropping his hands and bellowing epithets, daring Guida to just stop running and hit him. Guida proceeded to oblige him, only to have Maynard walk through a hard overhand right, stuff a takedown and almost secure an arm-in guillotine in an unprecedented display of attitude and badassery that it actually caused fans to cheer him. Round 5 was unfortunately more of the same, which is to say, not much at all.

(I don’t see any braids, homeboy.) 

Tonight, the UFC makes its ever glorious return to FX, and if the undercard is any indication, we are in for a night of action packed goodness, Potato Nation. Clay Guida and Gray Maynard will battle for a spot amongst the endless string of lightweight contenders, and Spencer Fisher will be battling for his dignity against Sam Stout. Our very own Jared Jones will be liveblogging everything as it goes down, so join him as he recaps all the action as it plays out, won’t you?

(Props: @ewillphoto via ThePeoplesCecil)

Perhaps “cluttered” is the best word to describe this weekend’s action. After all, that’s the same word that you would also use for your bedroom floor: There’s a lot of stuff on it, but there’s not much there that you couldn’t live without. This weekend, we have a lot of MMA available to us, such as UFC on FX 4, UFC 147 and Bellator 71. But despite the quantity of the fights available to us, there seems to be very little in terms of fights with immediate significance. It’s one thing when ratings are slipping, it’s another thing when your promotion has to offer full refunds for an injury plagued card, and it’s yet another thing when the only attention your promotion gets for an upcoming card revolves around the wife beater you recently inked a deal with.

But have no fear; this floor isn’t entirely covered in dirty socks, empty bottles and condom wrappers. There are some interesting tussles worth watching (notice we didn’t say pay for), which we’ll make the argument for after the jump. Or you can just join us later for our liveblogs of UFC on FX 4 and UFC 147. That works, too.

Did that title totally blow your freakin minds?! We know it did, but for those of you who still remain on the planet Earth after reading it, prepare yourselves for a double dose of down and dirty gambling advice. Thanks to a pair of back-to-back cards and an injury curse the likes of which we’ve never seen before, this weekend’s UFC on FX 4 and UFC 147 events have just enough interesting matchups between them to help you prosper during the greatest American depression since the last great American depression, so lets do some (betting) lines!

UFC on FX: Maynard vs. Guida
Gray Maynard (-305) vs. Clay Guida (+275)
Spencer Fisher (+260) vs. Sam Stout (-290)
Brian Ebersole (-240) vs. T.J. Waldburger (+200)
Ross Pearson (-180) vs. Cub Swanson (+165)
Hatsu Hioki (-185) vs. Ricardo Lamas (+155)
C.J. Keith (+225) vs. Ramsey Nijem (-285)
Joey Gambino (-115 ) vs. Steven Siler (-115)
Rick Story (-380) vs. Brock Jardine (+290)
Luis Ramos (+145) vs. Matt Brown (-175)
Chris Camozzi (+175) vs. Nick Catone (-245)
Ricardo Funch (+375) vs. Dan Miller (-515)

UFC 147 
Rich Frankin (-170) vs. Wanderlei Silva (+150)
Cezar Ferreira (-260) vs. Sergio Moraes (+200)
Rony Mariano Bezerra (-280) vs. Godofredo de Oliveira (+220)
Mike Russow (+400) vs. Fabricio Werdum (-500)
Yuri Alcantara (+220) vs. Hacran Dias (-280)
(all figures courtesy of BestFightOdds) 

Thoughts…

(Ah, the Rumbleweight Diet, or as it’s known to the general public, the Fatkins diet. Well, played, Mr. Guida.) 

Just a reminder to make sure and swing by CagePotato at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT to catch the live weigh-ins and results for tomorrow night’s UFC on FX 4: Maynard vs. Guida event, which goes down from the Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Although the card may be somewhat lacking in terms of drawing power, it does feature some top to bottom great matchups that are sure to entertain. And let’s be honest, it’s more stacked than any pay-per-view event you’ll be purchasing stealing this weekend. Aside from the five round main event between perennial lightweight contenders Clay Guida and Gray Maynard, we will be treated to the anticipated trilogy bout between Spencer Fisher and Sam Stout, which may very well be Fisher’s last in the octagon, as well as a pair of great contests between Muay Thai “Bad Boy” Brian Ebersole and submission whiz T.J. Walburger and featherweight sluggers Ross Pearson and Cub Swanson. The undercard kicks off with the long-awaited return of our boy Dan Miller, who will be taking on Brazilian Ricardo Funch.

We will be liveblogging all of the action starting tomorrow at 9 p.m ET, so if your Friday is looking less than spectacular, why not spend an evening with your favorite drunken slobs?

Video and full results after the jump. 

Talk about stepping in a turd and turning it into gold. Word broke late last night that Yoshihiro Akiyama suffered an undisclosed injury that has forced him out of his upcoming UFC 149 bout with Thiago Alves. To say that the MMA blogosphere entered a brief yet hysterical state of mourning upon hearing this news would be an understatement…until we found out that Afghanistan-born power puncher Siyar Bahadurzada would be stepping in as his replacement. Then there was much rejoicing.

Bahadurzada is coming off a quick and brutal first round knockout of Paulo Thiago at UFC on FUEL 2, the first stoppage loss of Thiago’s career. The win instantly put the welterweight division on notice, and a victory over Alves would further cement Bahadurzada’s status amongst the division’s elite. To be fair, Alves has been struggling a bit as of late, sandwiching a first round submission win over Papy Abedi at UFC 138 between a decision loss to Rick Story at UFC 130 and a most recent submission loss to Martin Kampmann at UFC on FX 2. Despite the fact that “Pitbull” seemed on his way to a clear cut decision victory in that fight, an ill-timed takedown at the end of the third round provided Kampmann all the leeway he would need to snatch up a fight-ending guillotine choke.

Alves should not have to fear the submission prowess of Bahadurzada coming into this one, as two of his four losses have come by way of submission — the most recent of which was a first round heel hook to Jorge Santiago at Sengoku – Sixth Battle back in 2008. What we’re saying is, expect a brawl, Potato Nation, because what appeared to be a decent scrap at first glance has now been updated to an early candidate for Fight of the Night and/or Knockout of the Night.

Speaking of injury replacements…

(Dammit! This was so much easier to escape in the video game!)  

On the heels of two straight submission via rear-naked choke losses courtesy of Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller, former “top contender” Melvin Guillard’s stock is probably at an all time low. The UFC, likely recognizing Melvin’s need to step up his ground game or GTFO, are not cutting him any slack, as they have paired him against 3rd degree (uh-oh) BJJ black belt (not good) under Royler Gracie (dear God) Fabricio Camoes. The worst part: Camoes is coming off a submission by rear-naked choke victory at UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller.

Game. Set. Soon.

Look, we’ve got mad respect for Melvin Guillard; how can you not love someone whose idea of avoiding the takedown is repeatedly throwing flying knees? But this does not look good for “The Young Assassin,” who may very well get the boot if he is submitted for the seventh time in his UFC career come July 7th. Come on Zuffa, you can’t even give him some low-level nobody to squash first?

Matter of fact, it looks to us like the UFC is trying to punish each and every member of The Blackzilians for Anthony Johnson’s colossal mistake. Have the Zuffa attorneys not informed DW and Joe Silva that judging a certain group of people based on one isolated incident is considered profiling, and could lead to a huge backlash from said group? If we could think of any examples from American history, say from around the 1960′s, that could possibly help prove this point, we would. Unfortunately, no such example exists. Perhaps we’re just lucky.

Join us after the jump for a ton of fight booking news…

(“I ain’t Leonard Garcia, pal.”)

Another New Jersey native has been added to the UFC’s upcoming FX 4 card set for this summer in Atlantic City.

Jimy Hettes (10-0), the undefeated 24-year-old featherweight phenom who impressed us all in his first two UFC bouts, trouncing TUF veterans Alex Caceres and Nam Phan, will join fellow New Jerseyans Dan Miller, Nick Catone and Rich Attonito on the June 22 card.

(Yeah Dan, we’re stoked for the new Cung Le/Jean-Claude Van Damme movie too!) 

It looks like Demian Maia won’t be the only one making his welterweight debut in the near future.

Featuring a main event clash between top lightweight contenders Clay Guida and Gray Maynard, the UFC on FX 4 card is really starting to take shape, adding four more fights in the welterweight division last night. It seems a little odd that this plethora of fights have been added when the UFC on FX 3 card, which goes down two weeks earlier, has confirmed only two fights thus far. Then again, if we were in charge of matchmaking, Pat Barry would fight every weekend and Rousey/Caraway would already be booked.

But back to the welterweights. Yes, it appears that our buddy Dan Miller will be back in action at UFC on FX 4, and in fact will be making his welterweight debut when he takes on Ricardo Funch. Miller has not fought since his clusterfuck of a fight against Rousimar Palhares at UFC 134 that saw Palhares leap onto the cage in premature celebration, only to be talked off the proverbial tower by Herb Dean. Upon re-entering the octagon, Palhares was almost immediately KO’d by Miller, but managed to gather the few remaining marbles in his brain to pull out a unanimous decision victory. The loss was Miller’s second in a row and fifth of his last seven. But given Miller’s tendency to put on exciting fights, we don’t imagine a loss here will cost him his job. The same cannot be said for Funch, however, who has dropped all three of his UFC appearances to Johny Hendricks, Claude Patrick, and Mike Pyle.

Also set for the fourth FX card will be a welterweight tilt between submission specialist T.J. Waldburger and manscaping aficionado Brian Ebersole. Waldburger has scored a pair of brilliant back-to-back victories in his last two UFC appearances, leaping into a triangle against Mike Stumpf in September before notching a lightning quick armbar of Jake Hecht at UFC on FX 2: Kampmann vs. Alves earlier this month. He will be facing a tough test in Ebersole, who is riding a 10 fight win streak including three straight in the UFC over Chris Lytle, Dennis Hallman‘s balls, and Claude Patrick.

Nothing against Waldburger, but we’re kind of pulling for Ebersole in light of recent events.

And in other UFC on FX 4 news…