(Dammit, that’s the same leather bikini I just put on. One of us is going to have to change, because I am not going to look like an idiot at the Microtel Inn pool. Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

Now that Logan Stanton’s career as a UFC Octagon girl is firmly in the rearview mirror, she no longer has to smile and play nice when people ask about the experience. It’s like that time I got fired from Old Navy for my political views (and for stealing a bunch of cargo shorts) – once you get that last paycheck, you can tell the whole mall about how Steve used to peep in the dressing rooms at teenage girls before he became assistant manager and started thinking he was too good for everyone.

Stanton’s version of recent events seems to be that she was never really that into being an Octagon girl anyway, and the UFC is a company that will fire anyone at any time if the mood strikes them. Even the girls’ beloved “Octagon mom,” Leslie Hedges, got let go recently, which Stanton said didn’t surprise her because “the UFC really has no loyalty to anyone.”

(Dammit Ken, this is why we begged you to get a real attorney. No matter what he says, watching every episode of ‘Judge Judy’ does not qualify Big John to give legal advice.)

If we’ve learned anything at all from receiving UFC press releases over the last few years, it’s that the world’s top MMA organization is not the most gracious of winners. Whether they beat you in a ratings battle or a game of hangman, they’re probably going to gloat about it in a press release. The latest opportunity for internet chest-thumping comes in the form of a legal victory over UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock, who lost his lawsuit in a Nevada court today and now gets to have his nose rubbed in it by Zuffa’s PR staff. Because apparently laboring on far past his prime wasn’t enough of an indignity.

You may recall that Shamrock sued the UFC when they refused to give him another fight following his post-beatdown retirement after a third loss to Tito Ortiz. Shamrock thought he should be able to unretire and have the UFC honor the old contract, while the UFC thought he should go get his face smashed elsewhere. Turns out Judge Susan H. Johnson agreed with the UFC, which means Shamrock won’t be getting a fat payday after all this legal wrangling. Instead, just to make his life even worse, he may be getting a bill:

(Frank’s the guy in the background who is being assured by Josh Rosenthal that everything is going to be all right.  Well, not everything, but you get the point. Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

We left one name out of yesterday’s recap of the post-UFC 109 contract-cutting bloodbath, and it is perhaps the least surprising one of all.  Frank Trigg, who suffered his second KO loss in as many fights after being brought back to the UFC in 2009, was also invited to seek other opportunities/paychecks this week.  One has to think that Trigg saw the firing coming after his poor showing against Matt Serra last Saturday.  Not only did he get knocked out, but this fight had loser-leaves-town written all over it from the start.  Why Trigg would dare show up for a fight of that importance with hair is beyond us.

Unlike Mark Coleman, Trigg says he’s not sure yet whether he’ll try to land a gig fighting outside the UFC.  He has some on-camera experience and can probably land a job of some sort in broadcasting, or maybe he’s had enough of working for other people and will resurrect the Triggonomics brand as MMA’s next clothing giant.  Changing the name so it no longer "sounds like a lemonade stand" might be a good first step.    

(Props: Cagewriter)

At least now we know that the difficulty we had understanding James Toney’s previous video rants was not the result of poor video equipment and low production value.  Dark Gable showed up on the Versus show "Sports Soup" to deliver yet another Dana White/UFC call-out, and once again we only understood every fourth word.  Something about candy and Chuck Liddell being "daddy’s little girl."  Other than that it was like trying to understand a voicemail that your very drunk friend left you at three a.m.  You know he’s saying something about what a bitch his ex-girlfriend is, but the details remain hazy.

The most interesting thing about this is that it happened on Versus, which is the UFC’s newest cable network sweetheart.  That’s not to say that the UFC necessarily instructed them to let Toney wander into their studio and then refuse to leave, but chances are good that they probably did not disapprove of the free publicity either, or else it might never have happened at all.  Now we just sit back and wait for Toney’s guest spot on Spike TV’s "Blue Mountain State," where he ambles into the frame to interrupt a date rape scene by calling out "Simba Spice" and imploring the UFC to get their money right and make him a real offer.       

(He’s got all the vague platitudes you want, but as soon as you ask about specific policy proposals suddenly it’s ‘Se habla español.’)

You know what’s fun about Chael Sonnen’s website promoting his run for Oregon State Representative? For one, there’s a picture of him forcing himself to smile, and another of him having a serious conversation over coffee with a woman who may or may not be a constituent. For another, when you click the “Priorities” tab to see what Sonnen stands for as a politician, you see only a single sentence telling you to “Check back in the coming weeks” to find out what he’s all about. But what’s most interesting is that, if you didn’t already know it, you’d have no idea that Sonnen is a professional fighter. None.

His website describes him as “a successful realtor and vice president of Caged Promotions, a sports and music production and promotion company,” and touts his wrestling credentials both at the University of Oregon (where he earned a degree in Sociology, the hippie) and as an alternate on the U.S. Olympic squad. It even mentions his volunteer work with a local youth wrestling program, and yet nowhere does it reference the UFC, MMA in general, or any kind of fighting career whatsoever.

(‘Dairy is rape, you son of a bitch!’ Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

You can file this under the category of ‘Things That Should Have Been Obvious Without Any Supporting Evidence,’ but the ratings numbers from Spike TV’s recent broadcasts of select preliminary fights from UFC pay-per-views prove that fight fans actually like seeing more fights for free. As MMA Payout points out, the UFC 109 prelims scored the highest rating yet, despite the lack of big names (sorry Justin Buchholz fans, but it’s true), with an average of 1.7 million viewers for the hour-long broadcast.

This is one of those ideas that, in retrospect, seems baffling for it to have taken this long to come to fruition. The UFC isn’t doing much with those undercard fights anyway – they can’t show all of them, and it’s not like a bunch of people are willing to pay extra online to see Guillard and Torres go three rounds – and, who knows, you might even convince a couple people who were flipping through the channels on a Saturday night to pony up and buy the pay-per-view. Or maybe they find themselves watching Joe Rogan do a thorough analysis of an attempt to clean up ice and they flip back to “Man vs. Wild” reruns. Either way, keep them coming and we’ll keep on watching.  Unless Bear Grylls goes somewhere really crazy, like the moon.  Come on, Man vs. Moon?  Forget about it.  There’s just no way we’re missing that.

Personally, I blame Chael "Epic Troll" Sonnen, who recently proved that even if you have a somewhat dull fighting style, MMA fans will start caring about you as soon as you accuse Anderson Silva of being an overrated punk who’s fluent in both English and Spanish. Sonnen’s recent success in playing the heel is only encouraging trash-talkers to get bolder with their call-outs, and the latest instigator is UFC welterweight contender Josh Koscheck, who has been on Twitter the last couple of days demanding that Tito Ortiz fight him. Considering that Koscheck is two weight classes smaller than Ortiz, this seems like a fight that Ortiz would actually take, although the HBBB hasn’t responded yet.

Obviously, the matchup would never be approved by the UFC or any athletic commission in this country*, even if Kos went on an all-Bojangles diet for the next three months. And in that sense, the call-out is virtually useless, outside of the fact that it gets us talking about Josh Koscheck for a few minutes one Tuesday afternoon. It’s like when somebody says "I’d kick your ass if my friends weren’t holding me back." In this analogy, the "friends" represent the 35-pound weight differential. You’re talking shit with a safety net. Yes, Josh, in the old days of the UFC, you’d occasionally see a guy like Keith Hackney beating the crap out of a guy like Emmanuel Yarborough. But I’m not sure that argument’s strong enough to convince Dana to toss out the unified rules on your behalf.

* Wait a minute. Are they just building up heat for a future headlining fight in Abu Dhabi? Oh God, no.

Those of you who missed the Spike TV broadcast of the Melvin Guillard-Ronnys Torres fight at UFC 109 didn’t just miss a very close three-round scrap, you also missed a chance to see Joe Rogan flip out over something besides marijuana, locker room meat-gazers, or the craziness of space.  I refer now, of course, to an ice spill in the Octagon. 

It’s no one’s fault, really, except maybe the person who decided to use a cheap grocery store produce bag in Torres’s corner.  The thing comes apart at the most inopportune time, and the result is a group of grown men trying frantically to clean up a large pile of ice while Rogan yells at them and a packed arena boos their efforts.  The difficulty these men (or, as Rogan refers to them, "the goddamn Three Stooges") have in this task just goes to show how much more difficult everything becomes in a high-pressure situation.  Try unlocking your front door while someone yells at you about what an incapable moron you are, or clean up broken eggs on the kitchen floor as your emotionally unstable girlfriend stands nearby and refers to the situation as "a disaster."  Then maybe you’ll understand.    

Anderson Silva is a tough nut to crack. We know he doesn’t want to fight friends, and we know he doesn’t want to fight guys he’s already beaten, and we know he doesn’t want to fight guys who got middleweight title shots in the UFC without ever competing in the UFC at that weight class. New #1 contender Chael Sonnen doesn’t fit into any of those categories, so you’d think there wouldn’t be a problem. But as Silva’s manager Ed Soares has proven, you can find an excuse to duck pretty much anybody:

(Props: MMA Scraps)

If the internet age has taught us anything, it’s that by the time you start posting videos of yourself pleading for someone to give you something, you have passed a point of no return.  For whatever reason, people stop taking your requests seriously once they see you shouting into a cheap video camera while your boys mill around impatiently behind you.  Bonus points if you pause your video rant to say hello to a "beautiful girl" off camera who may or may not actually exist, and may or may not actually be beautiful. 

This is James Toney‘s second "UFC call out" video, and by far the more entertaining of the two.  The fact that he’s pumping these out now probably means that negotiations have stalled after Dana White made an offer that Toney described as "a joke."  So now he’s resorted to semi-coherent DIY video productions to get his big money fight in the UFC.  Yeah, that’s probably been the missing piece of the puzzle all along.

If I could ask the internet to grant me one wish, it would be for someone to break into Brock Lesnar‘s home, tie him to a chair, force him to watch this video, and record his reaction for us all to see.  I realize that’s a tall order, but maybe we could get Big Stacks there to do it.  If he’s James Toney’s bodyguard, I’m guessing he’s done a lot crazier stuff for a lot less reward. 

(He’d prefer cash, but if you’ve got some spare ligaments laying around he’ll take those too.)

Razak Al-Hassan, the fighter best known for the grisly arm injury he suffered after he absolutely refused to tap out against Steve Cantwell, has received his walking papers from the UFC, according to Five Ounces of Pain.  This is one we probably should have seen coming.  The arm-popping loss to Cantwell happened in Al-Hassan’s UFC debut at the injury-riddled Fight For The Troops event in December of 2008.  That kept him out of action for a good chunk of the following year, though he still claimed to adhere to a tapping-out-is-for-bitches mentality. 

When he finally returned in 2009 Al-Hassan lost a split decision against Kyle Kingsbury at UFC 104 to drop him to 0-2 in the Octagon, which is the equivalent of calling in sick to your first day of work at a regular job, and then showing up late, reeking of weed on your second day.  You may not always get fired, but no one will be surprised if you do.

Best of luck finding a new fighting home, Razak, and don’t get down on yourself.  Plenty of guys with good records elsewhere struggle in the UFC, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t good fighters.  Just look at Tiki Ghosn.  We’re not making you feel any better, are we?

George Orwell once said, “To see what is front of one’s nose needs a really good internet video editor.” Since he said this long before the invention of the internet, it probably confused the hell out of people. But as this new video from Lookoutawhale demonstrates, once more Orwell turns out to be right and everyone who doubted him feels like an idiot.

It’s not that we didn’t know how dramatically Dana White’s opinion of a guy can change once the opportunity to make money off of him presents itself. He’s a fight promoter.  Hyping stuff, sometimes through gross exaggerations of the truth, is what he does.  We knew this. But something about seeing the contrast between what DW claimed to believe about Kimbo Slice before he was in the UFC and what he had to say about him after he signed on for "The Ultimate Fighter" really slammed the point home.  White is a salesman, and salesmen tend to value honesty less than they value sales.

Again, we knew this. It’s just probably a good idea to remind ourselves every once in a while.

The mere fact that he name checks Roy Nelson in this video is enough to support our suspicion that Jim Rome is an MMA fan, but a Brock Lesnar fan he certainly is not. Of all the possible reasons why that might be the case, Rome’s current issue with Lesnar seems to be that he was not sufficiently humbled by his brush with diverticulosis. It really seems to bug Rome that Lesnar could come so close to seeing his career ended and still come back firing pro wrestling-style one-liners at potential opponents. As if this isn’t the Lesnar we’ve all come to know and, if not love, then at least live with. As if a little hole in his stomach would be enough to turn him into Mr. Congeniality.

This is the same Lesnar who described his recovery as a miracle brought about by the power of his own mind. The antibiotics and dietary changes probably helped too, but that doesn’t sound as cool.

(It’s all fun and games until you piss off a Canadian. Have we learned nothing from Alanis Morissette’s "Jagged Little Pill" album?)

Brock Lesnar refused to name the hospital in Canada where he received care that he likened to “a third-world country,” but it turns out he doesn’t need to. The CEO of the regional health authority in Brandon, Manitoba has done it for him, and she’s none too pleased with Lesnar’s description of the facilities. Carmel Olson told the Globe and Mail (tip via CP reader Organ Donor) that she took “real exception” to Lesnar’s third-world country remark, and suggested that maybe Lesnar freaked out a little too soon and didn’t give her staff the chance to go to work:

“The attending physician was very qualified and very respected,” she said. “He’s been in the business for more than 30 years. And he has the skills to diagnose a condition such as diverticulitis without a CT scan. …We have checked this particular health record and we are quite confident that the correct diagnosis was given and the best course of treatment offered. We have state-of-art equipment here. We are hardly a one-horse operation.”

Lesnar wasn’t satisfied. He checked himself out and had his wife drive him back to the U.S. in what he describes as a harrowing 100 mph drive that “saved [his] life.” Olson suggested maybe he had another reason for fleeing in her parting shot, adding, “maybe he didn’t like the bill.”

(Cote, in the process of claiming the center of the Octagon.)

You could forgive a guy for being a little detached from reality after fighting Anderson Silva.  If you’re someone who beats up other dudes for a living and suddenly you come face to face with the distinct possibility that another person is much, much better at this than you, your mind probably has a little bit of a meltdown.  That phenomenon, plus maybe some mind-altering substances, seemed like enough to explain this video. 

But lo these many months later, as Patrick Cote prepares for a return to the Octagon at UFC 113 on May 1 May 8, he still subscribes to an alternate version of what was going on at UFC 90.  Not only does he think he was doing really well against the middleweight champ, he wouldn’t change a thing if they met for a rematch:

"If I fight him again I think I am going to do the same thing, I think I learned that if you’re not scarred of him right away you have a good chance to win and that’s what I did. I was there in the first second of the fight, I took the centre of the octagon and I showed him I wasn’t scarred of him."

Our bro-4-life Ariel Helwani ran down to Renzo Gracie‘s NYC gym to ask the most affable member of Brazil’s first family of fighting why he feels the need to come back at 43 years old to fight in the UFC.  A smiling Gracie attributes it to his irrepressible love of combat, proving yet again that some guys are just born for this stuff and there’s nothing they can do about it.  Gracie refers to the chance to fight Matt Hughes at UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi as "an honor," and says he’s already dropped twenty-five pounds, so now you can kind of see his abs.  Now if only he could get his wife to stop complaining about all the time he spends at the gym, he’d be golden.

If you watch this to the end, you’ll see Helwani asking Gracie to repeat one of his favorite Renzo-isms of all time.  He complies but, much like the "Planet of the Apes" remake, it lacks the fire of the original.  See what we mean after the jump.

(Props: Cagewriter)

Not surprisingly, Brock Lesnar‘s dismissive comments about the Canadian health care system riled some people up today, prompting reporters to push him on exactly what went wrong when he was hospitalized in hockey country.  On a UFC conference call following his ESPN appearance, Lesnar said it wasn’t all Canada’s fault, but likened the care he received to "a third-world country," and praised the U.S. system as "a little radical, but we’ve got the best doctors in the world."

The way Lesnar sees it, our system doesn’t need reforming because it is totally kick-ass — an assessment that probably feels pretty accurate when you’re a millionaire at the Mayo Clinic.  True, as recently as 2007 medical bills accounted for 62% of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. (and, of those, 78% had health insurance), but Lesnar is about as far from the poorhouse as anybody in the state of Minnesota, so obviously that’s not his concern.  He needed the best care money could buy, so he needed to be in a place where money could buy it.

As some of our friends on Twitter have kindly pointed out, it’s a little unfair for him to compare some small facility in Canada to one of the best medical facilities anywhere in the world.  But Lesnar isn’t trying to bash Canada.  He just wants us Americans to know that reforming a system where we spend more than any other country in the world, and yet ranked 19th among 19 developed countries when it comes to avoiding preventable deaths is completely unnecessary.  Need proof?  Well, Lesnar will be back in the Octagon this summer, won’t he?

After the jump, Lesnar’s full "Sportscenter" appearance, in case you missed it.

(Nice try diverticulosis, but no dice.)

Canadian socialized medicine may have tried to kill Brock Lesnar or at least end his career, but after an agonizing few weeks the big man "healed [him]self" and will return this summer to face the winner of the Shane Carwin-Frank Mir fight.  This is what we learned during Lesnar’s appearance on "Sportscenter" today. 

Sitting beside Dana White and wearing a t-shirt laden with all the usual sponsors (Fusion Ammo, Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches, etc.), Lesnar explained the entirety of his long medical odyssey from an early misdiagnosis to a collapse in Canada that left him at the mercy of lousy Canuck doctors, to his return to the U.S. where good old American doctors prepared to put him under the knife to fix his diverticulosis, which would have cursed him with a colostomy bag and ended his career.  But, after laying for days on end in the hospital and losing forty pounds, he went to get a second opinion, which also called for surgery. 

Lesnar went home, returned to the gym and put some weight back on, and when he came back to the hospital on January 5 it was, "a miracle; they were dumbfounded.  They couldn’t find any signs of any problems in my stomach."

(This may be your best chance yet to hear the phrase ‘pencil-necked geek’ said aloud on ESPN.)

Change of plans, Potato Nation.  Remember that press conference this week where Dana White said Brock Lesnar would be in attendance to fill us in on his health status and future fighting prospects?  Yeah, that’s not happening anymore.  Instead he’ll be appearing on Wednesday’s edition of "Sportscenter" on ESPN, where he’ll probably do the bare minimum in terms of answering questions while also making it very clear that this was not his idea.  Lesnar’s scheduled to appear at 11 am EST, but if we’ve learned anything by sitting around in hotel rooms and watching ESPN in a constant loop, it’s that you’ll probably be able to catch it throughout the day, just like you’ll probably be really sick of all the clever one-liners about last night’s NBA games by noon. 

The real question is, will Brock actually tell us something worth hearing in this interview?  Or is he going to continue to act like his condition is a state secret that must not be discussed?

With all the people popping up to assure us that UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar is feeling better and getting back in the gym, we’re forced to conclude that one of two things is going on: 1) Lesnar has been dead for several months now and there is a vast conspiracy to keep the world from learning the truth, or 2) his health situation is really not as bad as once feared.  We can’t rule out option #1 yet, just like we can’t say with any degree of certainty that "Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" isn’t the best movie ever made, since we haven’t seen it for ourselves.  But what we can do is ask the people who would know better than us, and the more of them who come forward to say that Brock will be back soon, the more we tend to think it’s true. 

This still leaves us wondering why Lesnar has insisted on keeping quiet for so long, as well as why he asked Dana White not to say anything but apparently made no such request of his own coaches.  Or who knows, maybe he did.  Maybe they’re just smart enough to know that since Lesnar doesn’t have the internet, he won’t ever find out that they put his name in the streets on "MMA Live."  If does find out, though, oh man.  His reaction will make this seem tame by comparison…

(You don’t interview James Toney. You merely hold a mic near his face and wait for something confusing and almost terrible to happen.)

It’s been a little over a week since we’ve heard any rumblings from James Toney about his desire to fight in the UFC.  Maybe that means he’s changed his mind and will instead be bringing his formidable side check kick skills to K-1?  Not so fast.  Toney seems to be staying focused on his goals, and recently he told FightHype.com that he knows he can do well in MMA because he once sparred with Andrei Arlovski and, at least to hear Toney tell it, things didn’t go well for our Belarussian friend:

"I sparred with Arlovski before.  It was ugly.  They had to pull me off of him.  They didn’t want to let that go on too long."

This quote doesn’t tell us whether they sparred in boxing or MMA, but we’re going to go ahead and say that it probably wasn’t Toney’s head kicks that floored Arlovski, if you catch our drift.  Arlovski has been looking into a boxing career for some time now, but maybe a beating from Toney made him rethink that.  Of course, maybe it also made Toney start thinking about an MMA career.  ‘Cause hey, Arlovski used to be a UFC champ.  If Toney can beat him up, he can beat up anyone.  Isn’t that right, Brett Rogers?

Following up reports last week of Zuffa selling a chunk of the UFC to Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UFC has publicly released some information on the sale. First, the official statement via UFC.com:

Dana White followed up the announcement with a Q&A on UFC.com to put it all into layman’s terms for the fans. Some highlights:

(Oh. No. He. Didn’t.)

Tom Lawlor told us he was laboring under exceedingly high expectations after his display at UFC 100, and he didn’t know how he was going to live up to them.  I mean, how do you follow a ‘Just Bleed’ homage?  If you’re Lawlor, you do it with a tribute to UFC old schooler/Niagara Falls madman Harold Howard.  Just look at the attention to detail.  The mullet, the wife beater with accompanying black belt, the willingness to do a crazy scissor flip kick at any time (yeah, he totally did that) — it’s all there.  And while a lot of these new fans might not appreciate the reference to a guy who last fought for the UFC in 1995, the hardcores are sure to eat it up.  

Oh, and for those interested, all fighters made weight.  A video of the intense Nate Diaz/Gray Maynard staredown is after the jump.

Well look who’s getting name-checked on "Inside MMA."  Ron Kruck references our story on Brock Lesnar’s ongoing health issues before cutting to Randy Couture, who says he’s spoken with Lesnar and things are looking up for the big man.  If we can believe Couture (and he doesn’t seem the like the type to just make stuff up — that’s Tito Ortiz’s game), Lesnar is already back in the gym and ought to be Octagon-ready by this spring.  We should probably treat this with the same healthy skepticism we had for "Comprido" Medeiros’ assurance that everything was going to be just fine, but at least it’s encouraging news.

Once again though, we can’t help but wonder what’s with all the secrecy.  If Lesnar really is back in the gym and beating the hell out of poor Chris Tuchscherer again, why wouldn’t he be cool with the world knowing that?  Is this all part of an attempt to fake his own death just to get out of paying taxes?  That’s it, isn’t it?  That sly son of a bitch. 

(Nothing says ‘law-abiding citizen’ like a mohawk in court.)

You can officially cross legal issues off the list of things that may keep “Rampage” Jackson from returning to the UFC, at least for now. An Orange County judge struck down his felony conviction for evading police and – get this – congratulated him for a job well done successfully completing 200 hours of community service in penance for misdemeanor reckless driving. Just goes to show you that a wild chase that ends with police drawing their guns on you and ordering you to the pavement can still end with an ‘atta boy’ from a judge, as long as you carry it the right way.

‘Page vowed to stay out of trouble from now on, telling the OC Register, “I don’t see myself doing anything crazy again…I want to be a positive role model.” Jackson’s lawyer said his community service consisted of seminars with young people and Marines, and he did more than the amount required by the court.

The mohawk gave Jackson the rare chance to use his court appearance to plug his upcoming "A-Team" movie, saying he had to keep rocking it since filming is still ongoing, adding “it’s going to be a great movie, (especially) for fans of the TV series.” That is, except for those fans of the TV series who will inevitably feel that their happy childhood memories have been brutally raped.

(Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta chill with Sheikh Tahnoon during a recent boar hunting trip. Photos courtesy of twitter.com/danawhite.)

And here we thought Dana White was just visiting Abu Dhabi to set up a monster fight card and spring Lee Murray out of jail. FiveOuncesofPain has broken the wild and developing story that after a few months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the UFC has sold a piece of its empire to Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, son of former United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and founder of the world-famous Abu Dhabi Combat Club. MMA Payout estimates that Sheikh Tahnoon now owns approximately 10% of the UFC, and the proceeds of the sale will likely go towards regaining control of Station Casinos.

According to the original report, the deal was brokered with the help of Renzo Gracie, who happens to be Sheikh Tahnoon’s BJJ instructor; Tahnoon is a black belt under Renzo. The sale has massive implications, but without an official statement from the UFC, there isn’t much more we can tell you. Either Sheikh Tahnoon becomes instrumental in helping the UFC become a truly global operation, or he creates a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation, leading to counter-productive infighting and unfortunate ring girl choices. What’s clear is that Tahnoon has money and passion to spare. Let’s see how this thing plays out.

(Skoal and balloons. Looks like everything’s coming up Milhouse. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

There’s a reason Amir Sadollah wasn’t fazed when Phil Baroni blitzed him with an all-out assault in the opening minutes of their UFC 106 bout. Really, there are two reasons. For one, it was Baroni, so he had reason to expect that. For another, Sadollah always expects things to go badly. Always.

“That’s kind of my mindset in life,” he says. “Expect the worse and most of the time it’s not as bad. But sometimes it’s worse."

It might sound like a negative way to go through life, but Sadollah doesn’t see it that way. To him, it’s motivating. If he goes into each fight expecting it to be a fifteen-minute nightmare, it will make him bust his ass in the gym and prepare him mentally for the worst-case scenario. Even when he wins, and does so in impressive fashion, as he did against Baroni, he doesn’t like to dwell on the positives, he says.

(Now that we’ve seen Gray’s sparring partners, his boast about having never lost a round in training seems a little less impressive.)

By Elias Cepeda for CagePotato.com

When Gray Maynard (9-0-1) got matched up with Roger Huerta last September, many picked the former Michigan State Wrestler to steamroll the cover boy and aspiring movie actor. And though Maynard clearly and cleanly won, it was a tough-fought decision victory.

Fortunately for the Xtreme Couture team member, he fully expected a hard fight from Huerta, even if others did not. “He can scramble really well, he’s good inside and he can box,” Maynard says. “You’ve got to give him more credit. He doesn’t quit so you know it’s going to be a tough one.”

The win was the undefeated lightweight’s sixth consecutive in the UFC and observers wonder how close Maynard is to getting a title shot. Despite one of the most impressive runs in the division and wins over other top guys like Frankie Edgar, the timing hasn’t quite worked out for Maynard yet and he’s yet to be booked for a championship bout.

(Something that could make both these men smile? It could only be one thing: Arby’s roast beef sandwich!)

In all fairness, Dana White said that this would be the week he’d find out how serious Brock Lesnar‘s medical condition really is.  He didn’t necessarily say it would be the week he told the rest of us what he learned.  MMAFighting.com had a little text message convo with DW today, and when asked what Lesnar’s status was the UFC prez replied: "Brock asked me not to talk about it.  I have to respect that."

And so the mystery lives on.  How long will Lesnar be out?  Will he ever fight again?  Why is it so important to him that no one know anything at all about his illness?  Is Lesnar actually a malfunctioning cyborg super soldier, making this a matter of national security requiring the utmost secrecy?  These questions must remain, for the time being, unanswered.  All we know is, if the diagnosis was that he’d be up and cracking skulls within a few months, like his jiu-jitsu coach previously claimed, there probably wouldn’t be a need for all this shucking and jiving. 

You couple White’s reticence with the cryptic missive on Lesnar’s Facebook page, and there’s not much reason for optimism.  We might as well get used to life without Lesnar, at least for the foreseeable future.

(A harmless group of dudes enjoying some brews on a Saturday afternoon? Or a VAST CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY??? Photo courtesy of thedraftbarandgrille.com)

Watching pirated feeds of MMA pay-per-view events may seem like a cost-effective alternative to actually spending money on them. But no free ride lasts forever. According to a new story in The Vancouver Sun, the UFC plans to roll out an assault on those who distribute and consume unauthorized content. Said Lorenzo Fertitta during a recent referendum on Internet piracy: “The piracy of live sporting events is illegal, it kills jobs, and it threatens the expansion of US based companies. The UFC is potentially losing millions of dollars a year from piracy.” During UFC 106, Zuffa’s anti-piracy team counted 271 illegal streams of the event with over 140,000 viewers.

Though the UFC isn’t ruling out lawsuits against individual users, stream-hosting websites like Justin.tv will likely be the biggest targets of the new crackdown. "When people start going to jail, people will stop doing it,” Dana White said. “It’s going to be a battle, but I’m ready to (expletive) fight. We’re gonna go after them, we’re gonna go after them hard, and we’re gonna hurt ‘em.”

Unfortunately, someone’s gotta be the first guy to get kicked in the nuts, and those nuts belong to the kind of friendly neighborhood bar where everybody knows your name…