(Don’t fear Cheick Kongo’s patented elbow-to-hip attack. Fear the career consequences of tapping out to it. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

After a bizarre night of injuries, illegal blows, and confusing stoppages, we sort through the raw data to arrive at a number we made up out of nowhere in order to assess who’s up, who’s down, and by how much after the UFC’s first event on Versus.

Jon Jones +86
We were expecting more of a stand-up battle, but as long as you can take the guy down so easily, why risk it? The win was impressive, and yet expected. For his next act, he’s got to face a top contender.

Brandon Vera -82
When the most significant blow you land in a fight is an illegal one, you know it was a bad night. Going home with a lump the size of a golf ball on your eye probably doesn’t cheer you up any, especially when you just lost your third fight in the last five outings. At this stage in his career, “The Truth” is no longer a friend to Vera.

(Don’t do it, Paul! Think of all the impressionable German children! Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

Those wacky Germans are at it again, Potato Nation. It wasn’t enough that the UFC had to put up with all manor of ill-informed, reactionary nonsense when they held their first event in Germany last summer. Oh, no. Now they’ve been banned from German TV for the “unacceptable” level of violence in their broadcasts. Since the UFC has been broadcasting on German sports television channel DSF for roughly a year, it seems odd that they’d be banned only now, especially when their programming is completely unchanged. That’s pretty much the exact position of UFC UK president Marshall Zelaznik, who told Sherdog.com:

“The Bavarian state office for new media has approved UFC programming on DSF twice on separate occasions in the past,” said Zelaznik. “That is why we deem the sudden ban unusual as the content of our programming has not changed. We have also had a commission for youth protection in the media review the situation and they deemed the broadcast legal if televised after 11 p.m.”

So what’s Germany’s problem with MMA, you ask? Well, aside from a vague belief that it will somehow damage the minds of their youth, they also seem really hung up on the whole ‘hitting a man when he’s down’ thing. In its statement explaining the UFC ban, the BLM (which, in German, apparently stands for Bavarian state office for new media) cited certain “breach of taboos” such as “punching a downed opponent.” Also, remember that article from Der Spiegel describing the Brock Lesnar-Randy Couture bout:

(Well done, Nick the Face. If in fact that is your real name.)

The UFC sent out an email this afternoon pumping up the match-up between “bitter rivals” (sound familiar?) Rashad Evans and “Rampage” Jackson for UFC 114 on May 29. All we can say is, it’s about damn time. Their coaching stints on “The Ultimate Fighter” initially got us hyped for this bout, but then almost immediately we had to get unhyped as ‘Page ran off to make movies/announce his retirement instead of delivering on the “black-on-black crime” he promised us.

Now that it’s on again, we must begin the slow, arduous process of rehyping ourselves. This highlight video helps a little, but how about throwing down with some incendiary quotes to push us over the edge, UFC press release?

(Daniel Roberts grappling highlight reel. Props: YouTube.com/ninjaroberts)

Three hungry up-and-comers will be making their Octagon debuts this Sunday, filling some gaps on the "Vera vs. Jones" preliminary card. But who will explode on the scene, and who will blow the biggest opportunity of their careers like total losers? Read on and get acquainted with…

DANIEL "Ninja" ROBERTS (WW)
Experience: 9-0 record (7 wins by submission), mostly in Oklahoma-based promotions. Most recently scored a submission-via-punches over MMA old-schooler Anthony Macias in January.
Will be fighting: John Howard (13-4, 3-0 UFC)
Lowdown: Roberts is filling in for Anthony Johnson, who dropped off the card last month with an injury. He comes from an amateur wrestling background, and as you can see in the video above, his grappling is ferocious. Roberts currently trains at the Cesar Gracie camp with Strikeforce champions Nick Diaz, Jake Shields, and Gilbert Melendez. He’s thrilled to be fighting John Howard: “I have to say that if I were to pick my opponent for the UFC, it probably would be him. Not to say that he’s a bad guy or an easy win — the fact that he’s 3-0 in the UFC is actually a good thing. I checked him out, I saw what he has, and I definitely feel like my grappling is way ahead of his…if he can last through the first and second round, then he’s pretty tough, because I plan on giving it everything I’ve got…I know a lot of people like to stand up and bang, but I think I’m gonna win a lot of fans over with my grappling. I move really well on the ground and there are not a lot of people that can move like me."

(This is why B.J Penn still wakes up some nights in a terror, convinced that he’s covered in Vaseline and his own blood.)

Whether we want to admit it or not, excuses are as much a part of mixed martial arts as Tapout tees and fist-pose photographs. They have to be. In a world where you must talk yourself into believing that you’re either the baddest man in your weight class or else on your way to becoming it, a loss is something you have to find some way to reconcile, or else have your identity destroyed. That other dude couldn’t have won just because he was the better fighter. No, surely there’s a reason for this temporary setback, and chances are it’s very detailed and probably a little bit ridiculous.

In honor of the post-defeat excuse in MMA, we give you ten of the worst and weirdest attempts to explain away an ass-kicking. They aren’t necessarily untrue (though some are demonstrably untrue), but neither can they turn that L into a W. The best you can hope for is that they make sleeping at night just a little easier for the people who uttered them.

10. Mark Coleman couldn’t afford a proper training camp

(Don’t forget those elbows to the back of the head, either.)

(Did anyone else just get a great idea for a buddy cop movie?)

Do you know what today is? Well, yeah, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, which means that for at least one evening you can puke on the sidewalk outside of your favorite bar without people judging you, but aside from that. Today is a brand new day from yesterday. That means it only makes sense that we get a new Tito Ortiz rumor to force us back to that inevitable question: why do we have to keep talking about this guy?

The newest report comes from Five Ounces of Pain, and it claims that “multiple herniations in the neck” forced Ortiz off “The Ultimate Fighter” and out of his fight with opposing TUF 11 coach Chuck Liddell. Sound familiar?

(Step one in preparing for a fight with Jon Jones? Spinning elbow defense. Step two? Hiring a gypsy to put a hex on him before fight night.)

For the past six weeks Jon Jones has been at Greg Jackson’s gym in New Mexico, getting ready for a main event showdown with Brandon Vera on the UFC’s first Versus event this weekend. Despite Vera’s edge in Octagon experience, Jones is better than a 2-1 favorite in this fight, but he says he knows that the fans are a fickle lot, and he needs to show what he can do against the elder opponent who swears he’s on the verge of getting back to his old destructive self again. We sat down with Jones recently to get his thoughts on Vera’s renewed sense of purpose, the lingering effects of his disqualification loss to Matt Hamill, and more.

Clay Guida told us in a recent interview that he’s not using his plane ticket to get to Denver for the fight on Sunday and is going to drive his RV instead, and stay in it instead of his free hotel room. You guys are both at Greg Jackson’s in Albuquerque right now. Are you going to ride up in that beast with him?

Yeah, I’m going to go with him. I haven’t been inside [the RV] yet, but I hear it’s like the ultimate bachelor pad, like there’s video games and everything. It’s supposed to be pretty sweet. I’m going to use my hotel when I get there, don’t get me wrong, but I’m looking forward to driving up with Clay. We’ve been doing everything together. We’ve been eating together, training together – not directly with each other, since we’re in different weight classes – but we do our conditioning together. It’s been great.

(Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll pick you up a pair of oversized sunglasses at the gas station on our way to the after-party, and no one will even notice that thing.)

In the past few years James Irvin has had about as difficult a time as you can experience while still being employed and above ground. His string of untimely injuries and unfortunate mishaps earned him the title of ‘Most Cursed Fighter in MMA History,’ and the last time he was actually healthy enough to limp into the cage he took a beatdown from Anderson Silva and then got suspended for using prescription painkillers. He’s the kind of guy you don’t want to walk down the street with because chances are good that a piano might fall on his head and you’ll end up getting hit with the resulting splinter shrapnel.

But in an interview with Heavy.com on the verge of his return to action at ‘UFC on Versus’ this weekend, Irvin offers a sober assessment of his career and abilities that is so honest and forthright that we don’t know whether to be impressed or really bummed out.

(You may have been listening to us, Brandon. But you certainly weren’t *hearing* us.)

I swear you guys, sometimes it almost seems like these fighters are not constantly checking our site for updates and then living according to what we say like it’s the freaking gospel. Just a little over two weeks ago we enacted one of our irrevocable Cage Potato Bans on the practice of promising to bring back your old self. We’d had more than we could stand of guys vowing that this next fight, this was when we’d once again see that bright-eyed young ass-kicker we’d once known. It struck us as a cloying and empty gesture, and so we banished it from the land forever.

But wouldn’t you know it? Here comes Brandon Vera, wantonly flouting our edict like it meant absolutely nothing to him. As he told MMA Weekly:

"I stopped believing in the hype, I stopped worrying about what people think. I’m going back in there just trying to hurt people again like I used to," Vera said. "When I first came out, I would just bang on people and roll with people just to see them break. I got away from that somehow. I don’t know what happened. I got sucked into the MMA world of trying not to disappoint people. I’m over it, I want to go back in there and start doing things like I used to."

Damn these Raw Vegas jokers, they make you sit through more than seven minutes of video before they finally get to the good stuff.  Fortunately, the payoff in this particular video comes in the form of Frank Mir giving his approval to the popular ‘Lesnar is to Mir as Moby Dick is to Captain Ahab’ analogy on the grounds that Brock Lesnar is big, white, and a dick.  Get it?  Like the book that you totally didn’t read but have learned about purely from pop culture references? 

Well, take our word for it that it’s actually a pretty sweet little burn by Mir, who insists that his Lesnar death threats were just a savvy way of keeping his name in the news.  Do we believe that?  Maybe not, but none of that is going to matter unless he can get past Shane Carwin.

I don’t know what made me think that getting the UFC contract he asked for would make James Toney stop with the YouTube videos. I guess I mistakenly assumed that they were simply a means to an end, which is clearly not the case. This is just something Toney does. He makes videos and calls people out. When it works and he gets what he wants, he must necessarily find something/someone else to call out, and thus the whole drama renews itself.

But I don’t really want to talk about that, nor do I want to talk about why Toney might have decided that it’s in his best interest to focus on Kimbo Slice and not any of the other UFC fighters who might be more eager to welcome him to the Octagon. No, instead I think we should talk about the guy in the glasses standing just behind Toney. That guy, ladies and gentleman, is what a real hype-man looks like.

(‘Abe Lincoln and Mary Todd got nothing on us, baby.’)

Sometimes you have to stop and wonder how people ever dealt with hardship before the invention of Twitter. Before the age when one could broadcast one’s own personal tragedies in 140 characters or less, how did we ever get along? I mean, say you’re a woman who recently went through a miscarriage, as Jenna Jameson claimed on her Twitter account recently. What are you supposed to do with that pain, keep it to yourself? Only share it with close friends and family members? Some life that would be. Your 97,000 followers on Twitter absolutely need to know about this, just like they need to know about the really bad flu your famous pro fighter boyfriend is suffering from, and about your desire to be in an all-girl rock band.

And see, that’s just a couple of days in the Twitter life of Tito and Jenna. A few weeks ago Ortiz raised eyebrows with cryptic messages about how difficult his life had become, prompting all manner of speculation about his health and general well being. Now he tweets that he’s suffering from “the worst ful I have every had [sic]. More IV’s please.”

Well now we don’t know what to believe. Here’s Dana, denying the recent Chuck vs. Rich rumors via Twitter. He goes on to say that "Nothing happened to Tito. Tito and I are cool." Good to know. Still, could all of these reports have been inaccurate? Why the weirdness from Tito lately? Is Randy bummed that he won’t be getting James Toney?

(Little known fact about Roach? He absolutely loves Hitler jokes. Poor guy can’t help himself.)

Renowned boxing trainer Freddie Roach may not understand what this MMA jazz is all about, nor does he have much of an appreciation for the ground game (with the possible exception of Fedor Emelianenko’s armbars, I think they’re called), but he sees what’s going on with the UFC’s James Toney signing, and he doesn’t care for it. As he told Crave Online recently:

“I think they’re using James as a way to say MMA fighters are better than boxers. If he fights a quality ground guy, once he goes to the ground he’s gonna get killed. But If a guy chooses to stand up with James, James is gonna destroy him. That’s why they call him “Lights Out”. I really don’t think there’s one fighter in MMA that could stand with James.”

And thus, Roach exposes the great dark secret about the UFC’s latest maneuver. Signing Toney is just a ruse to make all boxers look inferior to MMA fighters. It is, at the very least, an interesting theory. It’s not without its problems, however.

(Sometimes the difference between making the cut and staying home is all in how you wear your silly hat.)

The time has come once again for the UFC and Spike TV to scour the land in search of MMA fighters who want to be on a reality show and/or need a place to stay for a few weeks. I refer now, of course, to the open tryouts for season twelve of “The Ultimate Fighter” which, Spike announced today, will be held on April 1 at the Omni Charlotte Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina.

This time around the UFC is looking for lightweights and light heavyweights, and since our vast readership encompasses everyone from angry pre-pubescent boys to confused retirees who are still trying to figure out where the internet keeps its porn, we figured that somewhere in there we’ve got to have some readers who are aspiring UFC fighters. To help these special members of the Potato Nation achieve their dreams, we’d like to offer some tips for a successful TUF audition. You can thank us after you win that six-figure contract and weird cut glass trophy.

1. Have an Interesting Personal Story
If you haven’t noticed by now, reality TV producers are lazy. They don’t want to have to work too hard to figure out the angle on anything, so make it easy for them. Tell them all about your life of hardship and tragedy. Explain that you want to become a UFC fighter because you promised your dying mother you would. Mention the interesting/quirky job you have. Unless you work as a bouncer or bartender. Trust us, they’ve heard that one already. If all else fails, tell them that you think you might be gay. Or an alcoholic. Or a gay alcoholic. They won’t be able to resist putting you in that house.

(Striking fear in the hearts of buffet owners everywhere.)

Now that James Toney has signed with the UFC and hired a trainer known primarily for his boxing expertise, you might think he’d be hard at work trying to get a feel for this MMA stuff. If this were a movie, this is the point where some inspiring, upbeat music would accompany a training montage that shows Toney’s rapid improvement in the span of just a few minutes. But this isn’t a movie; this is real life. And in real life, “Lights Out” isn’t really that worried about anyone taking him down and laying on top of him.

As Toney told MMAFighting.com, he still has yet to do any actual MMA sparring, but has been shown some “basics” by Juanito Ibarra. He’s also “tried a little kickboxing and wrestling,” but isn’t too concerned since it’s “all hand-to-hand combat.” In other words, don’t even trip. Toney has got this under control, playa.

(I hope you’re working hard, James, because Kimbo is working double-hard.)

It’s not enough for the UFC to simply hold an event the same day their rivals are holding one. No, gentle readers, what Dana White may have in mind is far more savage. In an update on the Strikeforce: Nashville counter-programming situation, Sherdog passes along the following amazing detail:

Tennessee Athletic Commission Executive Director Jeff Mullen says that the UFC has not yet applied for a permit, but if this actually happens, holy shit. This is basically something Keyser Soze would do if he was running an MMA promotion. Again, overall TV ratings would still lean in favor of Strikeforce, but the UFC could steal a lot of the local heat in Nashville depending on who’s on the card. Although the proposed Mike Swick vs. Matt Serra match isn’t happening due to Swick’s impending arm-surgery, Carmichael Dave drops the rumor that James Toney vs. Kimbo Slice is being prepared as the main event for the UFC’s April 17th show.

Kind of short-notice for Lights Out, but it’s not like he was planning on getting his blue belt in BJJ before stepping into the Octagon. He’s working with a fucking boxing coach to prepare for his MMA debut, okay? He doesn’t plan on anybody laying on top of him like a lil’ fag, you feel me? All of this is still unconfirmed, but we hope it goes down, just so we can hear Dana White explain why Dan Henderson vs. Jake Shields is a freak show, while Kimbo vs. Dark Gable is legitimate MMA…

(‘Sorry everyone, but could we take another one? I forgot to sneer.’)

Really, there are two disturbing aspects to this rumor. One is that someone intentionally had sex with C.B. Dollaway. The other is that the same person was also, perhaps during the same general time period, having sex with Tiger Woods. Sports by Brooks says Tiger mistress and former reality TV show participant Jaimee Grubbs (not the girl pictured above, btw. we’re talking about the chick who was on "Tool Academy" until her boyfriend’s other girlfriend showed up, so yeah, classy broad) was also banging “The Doberman.” So you see? It’s not that this girl was intentionally trying to wreck Woods’ marriage. She just has really, really poor judgment.

(Man, I do not want to be the one to point out to Nate that the letter from Publishers Clearing House says he *might* have won ten million dollars.)

Nate Quarry takes on Jorge Rivera at the end of the month at Fight Night 21 in Charlotte, North Carolina, but there was a time not too long ago when a chronic back problem almost sidelined him for good. Recently “The Rock” sat down for an interview with Cage Potato to discuss the surgical procedure that likely saved his career, as well as his well-publicized beef with a former sponsor, and a special surprise he has in store for fans who still remember him as the only redeeming aspect of the infamous fight that saw Kalib Starnes run his way out of the UFC for good.

Your last fight against Tim Credeur was a great battle, you guys won Fight of the Night, but by the end you guys both looked like you had been to hell and back. As great as those fights are for the fans, do you ever think to yourself, Man, I don’t know how many of those I can do.

[Laughs] You know, I don’t think you can really go into this sport thinking too much about the end game. Part of the rush of the fight is living in the moment. You get so lost in what you’re doing. Fighting is one of those few times in your life where your goal is 100% clear. There’s nobody coming to stab you in the back. You don’t have to worry about your boss or your wife or your kids. You know that for the next fifteen minutes you have this guy who’s standing in front of you and he’s going to try and put you away. It’s such an incredible part of life to go through, to be so clear and single-minded.

(Now there’s a couple of guys you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark boardroom.)

What, you thought that Strikeforce could put together a stacked card on CBS featuring three title fights, one involving former UFC star Dan Henderson, and Dana White would just stand there and take it like a bitch? C’mon, son. As first reported by Dave Meltzer of f4wonline.com, the UFC is planning to set up a counter-programming show on April 17th — the scheduled date of Strikeforce: Nashville — which will likely air on Spike TV. No matchups are official yet, but a welterweight bout between Matt Serra and Mike Swick is in the works. While the Spike event would likely get blown out by Strikeforce’s CBS show in overall ratings, Meltzer explains the reasoning like this:

Good plan, right? There’s just one problem: Scott Coker might not play along.

(We don’t want to tell you what to do or anything, Clay, but a little bit of leave-in conditioner would sure do wonders.)

by Cage Potato contributor Elias Cepeda

Clay Guida has twice been on the cusp of getting a title shot in the UFC’s ultra-competitive lightweight division, only to come up a little short. On the heels of back-to-back losses against Diego Sanchez and Kenny Florian, “The Carpenter” has a chance to get things rolling again on March 21st, when he faces Shannon Gugerty. Clay sat down with CagePotato to discuss training with Greg Jackson, why he’s living in an RV in the desert, and much more.

Clay we’re going to jump right in to the most controversial topic that everyone wants to hear about with you. There was a big stink made last year when you were not included in the UFC 2009 Undisputed video game. With the new 2010 version coming out soon, fans want to know if they will be able to play as either you, your hair, or both in the game.

Oh yeah, we’re in the 2010 UFC game. We’re definitely in it, we’ve got all our sponsors and stuff in it and believe it or not (laughs) THQ actually contacted us this time. We didn’t have to reach out to them like we did for the 2009 game where they dropped the ball. That time around they were very, what’s the word, unprofessional in the way they went about it.

(Some clever son of a bitch is still patting himself on the back for coming up with the title to this video.)

If you need a break from the constant James Toney news cycle, and yet also feel like you still have a lot of unanswered questions after the very disturbing Chuck Liddell naked workout video, boy have we ever got good news for you.  Our friend Steve Cofield, who is constantly scouring the internet for videos of nude male athletes, alerted us to this video of Chad Ochocinco (who non-football fans will remember as that dude who wanted to throw down with Anderson Silva) also working out in nothing but a pair of Reeboks. 

As far as getting people to talk about your low budget ads, this clearly works.  When it comes to actually getting me to purchase a pair of shoes, I can’t think of anything less effective.  Wait, yes I can.  They could have gotten Roy Nelson instead.

Here at the Potato, we realize that many of our readers are longtime boxing fans, while others among you still haven’t gotten around to watching “Rocky IV” yet (spoiler alert: it’s awesome). With that in mind we realized that some of you might be wondering, what’s this James Toney dude all about? Is he good or something?

The short answer to that question is, he used to be. He also used to be much leaner and quicker, but hell, so did Kirstie Alley. It still doesn’t do her any good in the present day. The things about Toney that have endured into his early forties are his ability to take a punch (in 83 pro fights, he’s never been knocked out), and his complete willingness to say outrageous stuff. The big difference now is that the outrageous stuff is a lot harder to understand, and he makes up for his slower hand speed by being harder to hit.

How will that translate into MMA? Well, if he tries to slip punches by bending over at the waist all the time, not good. That’s great for boxing, but just begging for a kick or knee to the dome in MMA. He’ll also have to learn all new footwork if he wants to stay upright against a decent grappler. Of course, there’s also the issue of conditioning, which is impossible not to mention once you’ve seen what the guy’s physique has looked like at times. Check out some Toney highlights after the jump and ask yourself, when we factor in the stopping power of his side check kick, could I see this man counter-punching his way to victories over experienced MMA fighters?

(Via Rampage Jackson’s Twitter, with the message: "A gift from the UFC. Wanna make a black man happy? Get him a ride!!")

Here’s a question for you, Potato Nation.  Say you’re Dana White and you’ve got yourself yet another problem with "Rampage" Jackson.  Seems he’s running his mouth about how he’s done with the UFC, was never really all that into MMA to begin with, and just wants to finish his contract so he can forget this noise and go be the biggest movie star since Jim Varney.  What do you do to talk him down off the ledge and get him to play nice again?

As those of you who have been following MMA for any length of time already know, DW knows only one foolproof way to make his fighters happy and it’s, Buy the dude a car.  Why?  Because people love cars that they didn’t pay for.  And judging by Jackson’s response — which would fall into the realm of harmful stereotype if we said it, but sounds perfectly reasonable when ‘Page says it — it totally worked. 

Who says you can’t fix every interpersonal problem with material goods?  Something tells me Dana White is one hell of a father.

(Image courtesy of twitter.com/Randy_Couture)

Guys, we had the craziest dream last night. We dreamed that the UFC signed James Toney to a multi-fight deal and he was actually training with…HOLY SHIT, NOOOOOOOOO! This isn’t happening! This isn’t happening!

Anyway, here’s some more notes about the aspiring porn star known as Dark Gable…

— Toney’s UFC contract would still allow him to box. Said Dana White: "If we promote him and he does well and that raises his profile and he gets a [Vitali] Klitschko fight and makes a lot of money for himself…I’d be cool with that."

— Randy Couture wants to fight Toney first. Seriously, he mentioned it twice on Twitter. Putting a UFC legend against somebody who’s 0-0 in MMA would definitely fall under the category of "almost criminal, not to mention impossible to get sanctioned in the U.S." Not that the UFC would need to set up the fight in the states… 

— What’s more, this is the caliber of fight that Toney expects to get during his run in the Octagon. As he told Yahoo!, “I’m a main event fighter and I’ve been a main event fighter since before a lot of these punk-(expletive) fighters were out of the crib. Don’t give me that (expletive) about fighting on the undercard. People want to see James Toney and I’m going to give them what they want.”

(Friends forever. Or until somebody steals from somebody else like a total scumbag. Sorry, alleged scumbag. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

As much as we were hoping that James Toney would get smart and head down to Greg Jackson’s New Mexico gym for a little MMA 101 and some positive reinforcement/visualization sessions, it seems like he has other plans. MMA Junkie reports that Toney has tapped Juanito Ibarra to help him transition from boxing into MMA. You remember Ibarra, right? Dude with the hat, used to train “Rampage” Jackson, then allegedly screwed him out of a bunch of money, which led to ‘Page living on energy drinks until his mind went all looney tunes on him and he ended up face down on the pavement after police chased his monster truck through the streets of southern California? And once Jackson dumped him he reportedly offered to train other UFC light heavyweights to beat his former fighter?  Yeah, that’s the guy.

Ibarra says that he and Toney “have good personal chemistry,” adding, “I just don’t jump in with anybody.”

We’re not sure if that means Ibarra is one of the few people on the planet who can actually understand the words coming out of Toney’s mouth these days, or whether it just means that they don’t actively hate each other. We don’t mind saying that Toney could have done better (and, you know, less sleazy) in his search for an MMA trainer, but as long as he keeps one hand on his wallet and demands to see an itemized list of training camp expenditures, he should make out okay.

(Apparently it doesn’t even matter if no one can understand a single word you say, either.)

Well, it’s happened. According to a report on FiveOuncesofPain.com, which was then confirmed by MMAFighting.com, the UFC has signed heavyweight boxing champion James Toney to a multi-fight deal. I’m going to give you a moment to process that information before we move on…

First of all, let us be the first to say, Are you fucking kidding us? Then let us follow that up with, You’re fucking kidding us, aren’t you? Once that’s out of our system, we have to admit that while we publicly supported this idea, we never thought it would really happen. Now that it has, all we can do is stare out the window in numb silence, a tepid puddle of drool collecting in our laps, while our minds spin with all the possible opponents the UFC might put him up against first.

(At least he’s got a sense of humor. That’s the second best thing to have in a fight with GSP. The first? Excellent takedown defense.)

At this point, we have to assume that Dan Hardy knows he won’t be the fan favorite heading into his title fight with Georges St. Pierre at UFC 111. As a 5-1 underdog, he won’t be the betting favorite either, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still have a little fun. The problem is, there’s really not that much trash you can talk to GSP. Not only are there very few evident weaknesses in his game, but as a person he’s almost painfully non-offensive (unless you happen to be B.J. Penn). So what does Hardy do? He goes after the people who say he hasn’t earned his shot at the champ. Fortunately for him, there is no shortage of them.

On his blog at ThisIsNottingham.co.uk, Hardy took aim at his critics and held absolutely nothing back.

On Mike Swick: “It’s funny Swick is now moaning that I didn’t deserve this shot. Swick should have kept his mind off me and on his last opponent, Paulo Thiago, and maybe he wouldn’t have been beaten again.”

(I don’t know Marcus, I thought some of those photos were quite fetching.)

Marcus Davis has deleted his Twitter remark wishing Dan Hardy death via AIDS, and attempted to explain away the “Dark&Bad taste” comment by pointing out that Hardy was at least partially responsible for some unflattering photoshops of him. To what extent Hardy is to blame for the exact homosexual nature of those efforts is debatable, but what seems pretty clear is that, at least in Davis’s mind, those were worse than wishing death upon someone. Just when you think he might have realized that it’s a bad idea to get into this sort of thing at all, he follows it up by tweeting, “Would it have been better if I said hit by a car?”

When you really think about it, that’s a tough one. Getting hit by a car doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as being killed by a car, so there’s that. But if we assume that Davis would also wish for Hardy to die of his injuries, what then? At least someone who gets AIDS has a chance to say goodbye to their family and gain a new perspective on the circle of life and other such bullshit before they pass. The person killed by a speeding Audi doesn’t ever get the opportunity to set his past wrongs right. Then again, he also doesn’t have to suffer in hospital rooms or get all weak and lesion-y like Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia."

And thus has a man nicknamed “The Irish Hand Grenade” plunged us into a philosophical quandary with a couple of garbled sentences. Really makes you wonder what Jean-Paul Sartre could have accomplished if he had lived to Twitter.

Spike TV has released the full roster of fighters for the eleventh season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” complete with this handy video to help you match faces to names. At the very least they’ve found some guys who look interesting – some in the sense that they have faces like old catcher’s mitts and so must be pretty tough, others in the sense that they just seem like colossal jerks (looking at you, Nick “The Promise” Ring).  But are any of them good enough to be prematurely declared the next Anderson Silva? Do any of them have the potential for complete psychological breakdown that Junie Browning brought to the show? And who, I ask you, will be their “Linderman”?

We don’t know the answers to any of those questions (despite being an MMA news source), but we did learn some interesting factoids about the guys from a press release sent out by Spike TV earlier today. For instance: