UFC Hall of famer and rock hipster Randy Couture stopped by Spike’s MMA Uncensored television program recently and discussed a wide range of topics. Our favorites were when he talked about his former teammate Chael Sonnen fighting Jon Jones for the light heavyweight title, Alistair Overeem getting a title shot when he returns from his failed drug test suspension and the future of Strikeforce and, specifically, one of their lightweight prospects Ryan Couture.

Randy said that he was “not terribly surprised,” that Chael got the TUF coaching gig opposite Jones and a promised title shot. “This is a business and Chael Sonnen is going to bring it and hype up any single fight that he’s in.”

Couture also believes that Chael has a fighting chance against Jones, if he can employ the right game plan.

(Who caught staph from who?)

MMA Weekly reports that UFC lightweight contender Anthony Pettis was admitted to a Milwaukee-area hospital after it was discovered that he had a staph infection in his elbow. Pettis’s manager Mike Roberts stated that the infection isn’t expected to be serious, but “Showtime” was hospitalized as a precaution.

Pettis, who had to undergo shoulder surgery earlier this year on the same arm, is still expected to fight Donald Cerrone in potential #1 lightweight contender’s bout in January. Hopefully Pettis’s infection was caught early enough to not cause further complication. Untreated, staph infections can be life threatening. The infections are common among wrestlers and fighters, who spend lots of time on mats which can be petri dishes for bacteria and viruses.

We’ll keep you posted on Pettis’s health as developments are made public. After the jump, check out a healthy Pettis kick ass in a career highlight video.

(Rampage and Bisping might want to start running the things they are about to say out loud by more people than one another)

Let’s just dive right in, nation. UFC middleweight and all around centered and nice guy Michael Bisping recently spoke with MMA Junkie and had some pretty silly things to say. “I’m tired. I know I’ve got to wait my turn, but it’s pissing me off. I want to get my title shot, and if I keep beating guys, they’ll have no choice but to give it to me,” he told Junkie.

“I’m here, and I’m fighting the best guys. I want my shot.”

Bisping has undoubtedly fought some of the best fighters in the world, but he still doesn’t seem to realize that he needs to beat some of them in order to deserve a title shot. At present, ‘The Count’ has a brand new streak of exactly one, count em, one wins.

(See that there on the right? That’s Matt Hughes’s autograph. So this photo is relevant)

In a recent feature profile on him written by Iowa’s The Daily Gate, former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes says that he is “fully retired.” Hughes last fought in September of 2011, when he was knocked out by Josh Koscheck at UFC 135.

Up to this point, the farmer-fighter has resisted describing himself as retired even as Dana White suggested that he should call it a career. Currently working on his family farm and only occasionally training, Hughes says that he’s content in retirement because the UFC still “treats him well,” as they tend to do with their former champions in good standing.

“I’ve not announced my retirement, but right now it looks like I’m fully retired,” Hughes told the Gate’s Brad Cameron. “The UFC still treats me well so I can be retired. It’s just funny, when God puts you on a road, you don’t know where you are going. I have all the faith that he put me there, and I have to thank him from that.”

By Elias Cepeda

Hey ‘Taters. I’ve been working on a new MMA podcast called “The Conversation” over the past few months, and we’re finally ready to debut it. The concept is simple — in depth, retrospective conversations with the most fascinating people in the fight world.

The production is basic and it’s something that I’ll be working to improve over time. What I hope shines through are the incredible stories that the remarkable people we speak with share during these honest and intimate conversations.

For this episode I traveled to New York to visit with everyone’s favorite Gracie, Renzo. In fact, it was just about a week or two before his now famous mugger smackdown tweet-a-thon. In my own head, I like to think that Renzo discussing self-defense and street fights during this podcast recording got his old-school juices flowing again. That, of course, is nonsense.

Renzo is always Renzo. He has deeply held convictions and stories that would make the fictional “World’s Most Interesting Man,” look like a mail room clerk in comparison.

And if you thought you’ve heard all the crazy stories Renzo had to tell before, I guarantee you have not before now. Renzo details a very independent childhood that had him fighting drug dealers on beaches to living in an Amazon brothel, experiencing lots of firsts. He goes on to talk about his pioneering family and a bit about his own time in Pride and the UFC.

He also opens up about the direction his careers have gone, possible regrets, and looking towards the future. If you love fight stories, life philosophy, and laughing your ass off, join us after the jump for this informal conversation with Renzo Gracie. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

MMA Fighting caught up with Dana White last night in Rio after UFC 153 to dig into topics not fully explored during the post fight presser and the Prez had some interesting things to say. The most ear-catching thing for us came near the end of the interview when White said that the UFC was hoping to have suspended heavyweight Alistair Overeem fight for the title against the winner of Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos as soon as he was cleared to.

Overeem came to the UFC in late 2011 and earned a title shot after stopping former champion Brock Lesnar in the first round. This, of course, came after he led the Nevada State Athletic Commission on an international goose chase as they tried to get him to complete his pre fight drug tests.

Then as he was nearing his next fight, Alistair tried to run out on a random drug test conducted by the commission and then, when he ultimately did take it, failed. As a result, he’s currently suspended.

Last night Eddie Alvarez scored a dramatic first round KO win (video above) over Patricky “Pitbull” Freire at Bellator 76 and potentially earned a UFC contract. The fight was the last on Alvarez’ contract with Bellator.

After Alvarez won, UFC President Dana White reportedly tweeted him saying, “congrats Bro!!! Let’s talk ”

Alvarez isn’t the top lightweight in Bellator after losing to Michael Chandler, but he has rebounded nicely from that loss with the win over Patricky and Shinya Aoki. Alvarez has long been regarded as one of the best fighters in the world not signed to the UFC.

We’ll keep you posted on developments with this story as they emerge. For now, enjoy Alvarez’ nasty KO.

- Elias Cepeda

We love Pat Barry and we’ve never been too shy to admit it. He fights hard in the ring and is hilarious outside of it.

Barry is the type of guy that takes his job deadly serious but not himself. So when someone as self effacing as Barry tweeted Friday night that he confronted a disrespectful fan in the Minnesota arena hosting the UFC on FX 5, we figured he had good reason to.

In the above video Barry gives his account of what, exactly, happened when a fan booed incessantly and lobbed loud insults at the competitors in the Octagon. We’ll let him do the talking but as a quick teaser – it involved several public admonisments from Barry, a bath room confrontation and at least one standing ovation from the near by spectators for “HD.”

The video is pretty sweet (other than Barry insisting on doing yet another of these vlogs shirtless and from an awkward angle, of course) so check it out. And before you ask, yes, this writer does approve of Barry calling “fans” like the one he described as “roaches.”

Video highlights of Barry kicking ass physically after the jump.

(Think that’s risky? Try downing three cans of NOS in a row.)

When an athlete like Georges St. Pierre signs with a major product like the Coca Cola-owned NOS Energy Drink, there’s a couple directions we can go in bringing you the news. The most obvious angle is that the news of GSP signing with a prominent brand like NOS is yet another coup for him personally, and possibly for mixed martial arts on the whole, because it signifies another step towards mainstream acceptance and will expose the sports to scores of new potential fans, blah blah blah, etc.

All that is nice, but what sticks in my craw is that I can’t imagine St. Pierre actually choking down that toxic go-go juice in real life. We hope that the deal nets GSP loads of cash and we’re truly happy for him; he seems like a nice dude and is the epitome of what a top-notch professional MMA fighter should be. That said, what are the chances that the health-conscious welterweight champion gets his energy edge from the same caffeinated sugar-water that your 15 year-old cousin uses to stay awake during all-night Halo marathons?

(During international expansion negotiations, UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta lets his pecs and arms do the talking.)

MMA Junkie has an interesting item up on their site from UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta where the owner/executive discusses the organization’s expansion into India. If you’re anything like this writer, your initial reaction to the news that the UFC was looking to break into the sub-continent nation with The Ultimate Fighter: India was, “Yeah, that’s a huge market! What with all their people, and such. Wait, do they like MMA in India? Are there Indian MMA fighters?”

Perhaps you’re much more worldly and cultured than I (more than likely) and didn’t think that. But in the Junkie article, Fertitta admits that the UFC is starting from scratch in India. He just believes that there are cultural forces and trends that might make Indians of a certain age very receptive to MMA and the UFC.

“It’s a market we think has a lot of potential, but we are literally starting from ground zero,” Fertitta said. “People (there) really don’t know anything about this sport or the UFC.”

(I guess we could caption this, but wrestling has a way of sometimes looking funny enough on its own.)

#1 middleweight contender Middleweight Chris Weidman just can’t let Mark Munoz have his own moment. First, Weidman spoiled Munoz’ hopes of earning a title shot. Now, just days after we found out Munoz injured his foot and will be out for some time, and also that his elbow is still jacked up from nasty bone chips, Weidman decided that he needed elbow surgery to remove bone chips as well.

We suppose its possible that Weidman’s elbow surgery is unrelated to sticking it to Munoz. MMA Fighting has the report. “[Weidman] underwent surgery at the Sanford Surgical Tower on his left elbow to clean out bone chips that had developed over time.”

According to the report, Weidman had been dealing with elbow issues for over two years.

(Renzo Gracie’s knuckles after beating up muggers. Out of the frame, Renzo Gracie absolutely beaming with a huge smile on his face)

The other day we told you about how Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA legend Renzo Gracie managed to tweet about how he *ahem* defended himself from two muggers in Manhattan this week, at the same time as he was beating the snot out of defending himself from them. Well, The MMA After Hour got Renzo on the line for a short interview where Gracie goes in to detail of how, exactly, he came to beat up two thugs and why he was insulted that they even tried.

We’re not going to waste too much of your time with our copy here because Renzo has plenty to say himself (and we really can’t re-create the effect of his Brazilian accent in writing, and you know it adds a lot to the story, my friend). After the break you’ll find the full interview.

(Tyson in MMA? Two words: Sprawl training.)

Given the amount of painful memories that are packed into his times as a boxer, Mike Tyson doesn’t always seem to have the same glee in discussing his days as a heavyweight terror as we do as fans. That’s why a recent interview he did with This is 50, stands out.

In the third part of the interview “Iron Mike” discusses mixed martial arts and who would have won if he and Muhammad Ali had fought one another in their primes. As he talks about both topics Tyson is full of emotion and obvious glee. The interview is a great glimpse at Tyson. Highlights below and video after the jump.

Would he have fought MMA if it was around when he was in his prime?

“If they had big pay days, yes. No doubt about it.”

“I want to slam, I want to hold ‘em, I want to choke. That’s what you want to do anyway if you’re in a street fight, right? You want to hit him but you want to get him too. You want to get him real good, get him down, get on top of him. So, you’ve got more aspects, you know? If it’s not working this way you can kick him in the fucking head, you know? (laughs)”

We still don’t know if we’ll get a super fight between welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre and middleweight champion Anderson Silva one day, but at least it seems that UFC President Dana White is on our side with this thing. “I think we’re pretty close,” White told Ariel Helwani on Fuel TV’s UFC Tonight. “I mean if Georges St. Pierre beats [Carlos] Condit, that could be the next fight.”

In other words, St. Pierre vs. Condit isn’t “meaningless” after all. And if GSP vs. Anderson does happen, White told Helwani that it would likely be held at a 180-pound catch weight.

“At one point it sounded like Anderson wanted to go to 170 and take Georges’ welterweight title,” White said. “That was what he was talking at one point. Then it was 180 as a catchweight, because Georges doesn’t want to go to 185, he’s going to stay at ’70. He said if ‘I had to make the move to go to ’85, I’d have to stay at ’85.’ We figured that a 180-pound catchweight makes sense.”

Sounds good to us, and Silva has seemed to do everything he could to signal that he wants that fight (from insulting the entire middleweight division to expressing a willingness to drop down in weight) but there’s a lot standing in the way of that dream match-up from happening. First of all, Condit could beat St. Pierre in November.

We’re not in favor of overly restrictive contracts for fighters but we wouldn’t be surprised if the UFC started prohibiting their guys from riding motorcycles. In the latest scary “fighter on a motorcycle” episode, UOL Esporte reports that UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo was riding a motorcycle in Rio de Janeiro when he was hit by a passing car.

Thankfully, Aldo said that he was uninjured and that his traffic accident would not affect his October 13th UFC 153 title defense against Frankie Edgar in Rio. According to MMA Junkie, Aldo told UOL Esporte, “Yes, I had a motorcycle accident, but it was no big deal.”

(Will it ever get old?)

Here at CagePotato we don’t mind doing things by the book if we can still have a good time doing it. So, we didn’t mind enjoying a few modern classics when the UFC made them available through youtube.

After the jump you can too. Full fight videos of Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II, Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping: Comeuppance, and Jon Jones vs. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.

These are all good’uns so if you’re in America, enjoy part of your day off by watching some of the world’s best fighters get after it. And if you don’t have the day off, get back at your employer passive aggressively by wasting a couple hours watching these on the job.

(The match up that launched a thousand rematches)

Last Friday we (and the rest of the known cyber MMA world) complained about Singapore MMA promotion One FC botching an otherwise solid event in the Philippines with convoluted rules relating to kicks to the heads of downed opponents. Referees somehow had to give fighters “permission” in the moment to throw kicks to the heads of their fallen opponents.

You might remember that Phil Baroni won his fight with a barrage of punches and kicks to the head of his opponent Rodrigo Ribeiro while Andrei Arlovski was penalized for kicking the head of the dropped Tim Sylvia. When the “Mainiac” could not continue, their fight was ruled a no-contest (GIFS of both fight endings here, full fight videos here).

Sunday night, a message was sent out from the OneFCMMA twitter account, hoping to set things right.

Effective immediately, ONE FC has adopted full PRIDE rules for soccer kicks.Catch ONE FC: Rise of Kings on Oct 6!

— ONE FC (@ONEFCMMA) September 3, 2012

Pound for pound boxing champ Manny Pacquiao‘s next fight has been scheduled for December 8th, the same night as the UFC’s next Fox network show. In the recent past when the UFC has had big shows scheduled the same night as major boxing events they’ve has hoped that earlier telecasts on would catch many viewers who were planning on watching boxing later in the evening.

Things may not have worked out that way for the UFC and this development of Pacquiao fighting on a date that the UFC had already set as a Fox event might end up taking away viewers from the MMA programming. Last May, the UFC on Fox 3 featured an exciting card headlined by a spectacular title contender’s fight between lightweights Nate Diaz and Jim Miller. The free to watch event was also followed, on pay per view, by Floyd Mayweather Jr. fighting Miguel Cotto.

The UFC’s numbers ended up going down from their prior two Fox shows, while Mayweather’s win had an excellent buy-rate on pay per view. The UFC’s “come pre-game with us before boxing,” strategy might be more successful this time around if Fox promotes the heck out of the event during football telecasts as it did last year for the Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos heavyweight title telecast.

Otherwise, the UFC had better hope that Fox is taking a qualitative and long-view of things because dropping ratings on network television are never good.

The good news is that we’ve got topless photos of Natasha Wicks for you. The better news is that since she sorta went the topless/body paint route in order to support an organization that helps people with cancer, so you don’t have to feel like a complete creep for checking these out on a Sunday morning.

It Ain’t Chemo “provides cancer patients with comfort and care supplies, advice and emotional support,” according to its website. It was founded by a firefighter and cancer survivor named Kevin Hoyt and enlists the help of celebrity endorsers like Wicks and athletes like Ryan Couture to raise awareness of its organization.

The idea behind the organization’s name and tagline is that we should remember those that are struggling more than we are. Ie. Had a crappy week at work? Well, at least it ain’t chemo therapy. They sell some dope apparel on their site to raise money for their services. Check them out.

Also feel free to check out photos of Wicks wearing very little other than some It Ain’t Chemo-themed body paint at a recent fundraiser party after the jump.

Plenty of fighters publicly criticized UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones for not accepting a last-minute change-of-opponent fight with Chael Sonnen after Dan Henderson pulled out of their scheduled Sep. 1st UFC 151 title fight because of a knee injury but Daniel Cormier added a lil something extra to his. In a recent interview with BJPenn.com, the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix champion said that Jones owed it to the UFC to fight Sonnen and help keep UFC 151 together and also mentioned that he’d be happy to take Jones on himself.

“Right now no one wants to fight Jon Jones, but shit, I’ll do it. I’ll fight Jon Jones,” Cormier said.

“Guys are turning down the fight; you have to go to an old school fighter like Vitor Belfort to step up to the plate. That’s no knock on Machida or Shogun, but if those guys want to coach on The Ultimate Fighter and move off to the side and let me fight Jones, I’ll do it. If no one wants the title shot then give it to Daniel!”

(UFC champ Anderson Silva has been married with kids for a decade and a half but says that as a youth many people assumed he was gay)

Fighters Only Mag‘s John Joe O’Regan reports that in an interview for the September issue of the Brazilian monthly magazine Tatame, UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva said that “a lot of people thought I was gay,” growing up. We’re not sure of the context in the interview or Silva’s tone when he said it, but it is nice that he isn’t ashamed to talk about it.

Just like Mike Tyson before him, Silva is an in-ring killer that happens to have a relatively high-pitched voice. Because of baseless notions of masculinity such a voice in a man can often be seen in societies as not incongruent with being a tough guy. That was prejudice that Silva ran into as a youth, he says.

That he allowed his sister to dress him up in her clothes until he was about fourteen also contributed to people judging him, according to Silva. “We would wear a dress, put on her shoes,” he said.

(Seems like a lot of prison tattoos for just 16 days. Impressive.)

UFC flyweight contender Ian McCall was released from jail Thursday, after a 16-day stay resulting from an August 14th arrest for driving on a suspended license and not completing the terms of a previous arrest in 2008. MMA Fighting’s Mike Chiappetta filed his report yesterday and McCall also tweeted in celebration after his release.

“Free at last free at last … time to get back to work,” the Creepy one tweeted Thursday. According to Chiappetta, McCall now faces a year of probation and a $300 fine.

It’s somewhat upsetting to think that McCall served actual jail time for non-violent offenses and citations, while other celebrities get off with none after bludgeoning women. That’s neither here nor there, we suppose, but in any case McCall can get back to his family and MMA career now that he’s been reformed.

In his last fight, McCall lost a decision to Demetrious Johnson June 8th and with it the right to fight for the inaugural UFC flyweight championship.

- Elias Cepeda

At UFC 144, the organization made a triumphant return to the Land of the Rising Sun with an evening full of exciting fights, culminating in Benson Henderson winning the lightweight championship from Frankie Edgar. Add on the way that the polite, educated Japanese fans packed the Saitama Super Arena, and it felt like it would only be a matter of time before the organization returned to Japan for more events.

Today, Japanese sportspaper NikkanSports is reporting (translated by MMAWeekly) that the UFC is planning on returning to Japan with a series of four smaller events in 2013. The events will showcase local, Japanese talent and will take place at a small, yet-to-be-determined venue. The UFC is reportedly aiming for 5,000 people attending each event.

By Elias Cepeda

Being proactive paid off for Joe Lauzon last week. The UFC lightweight contender signed on to fight Gray Maynard and says he was the one pushing for the tough match up.

“I saw Gray say in an interview that he wanted to coach the next season of TUF against Nate Diaz,” Joe explains.

“He’s banking on Diaz beating [Ben] Henderson [when the two face off for Henderson’s title] and wants that title shot and, I guess, a third fight between him and Nate. So I contacted [UFC matchmaker] Joe Silva and said that I thought Gray and I could be a cool angle as coaches of TUF. They didn’t do that but later I got a call asking if I wanted to fight Gray on December 29th. Its on the main card of a huge card.”

Lauzon is coming off of a record-setting submission of the night and fight of the night performance in beating Jamie Varner earlier this month. Maynard is coming off of a controversially-close split decision win over Clay Guida. Before that, Maynard fought then-champion Frankie Edgar twice in a row, first drawing with him and then losing via TKO.

Lauzon doesn’t know if a win over Maynard would put him in the #1 contender’s spot for the lightweight title for certain, but he says it would be a “step in the right direction.” “Gray is a monster. He’s only lost to Frankie. He’s super tough. Me beating Gray would make a big statement because he’s smashed everyone except for the champ at the time. Even in those fights he had the champ hurt badly at times,” Lauzon says.

You may have heard that former UFC weigh-in specialist Anthony “Rumble” Johnson was set to make his debut at “RumbleWeight” last night at Titan Fighting Championship (TFC) 24 in Kansas City, Kansas. Well, he did. The former welterweight Johnson made the 205lb light heavyweight and battered Esteves Jones until he secured a 2nd round stoppage in the TFC main event.

But we were more interested in seeing how submission grappling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu world champion Braulio Estima would do in his MMA debut, anyway – especially after Renzo Gracie told this writer yesterday when he visited him to tape an episode of the soon-coming podcast, The Conversation, that Estima had dropped over twenty pounds to make welterweight and then put it all back on for the fight. Renzo said that it was the first time Estima had ever made such a weight cut.

Besides, we hadn’t heard much from Estima since his amazing grappling match non event with Nick Diaz .

Estima is the reigning top dog in submission grappling and could conceivably stay that way for a long time. Instead, he decided to test the waters in mixed martial arts.

His first test was Chris Holland, a fighter who went into the contest with eight pro fights to Estima’s none. In the end, Estima’s lifetime of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu prevailed as he put Holland to sleep with an arm triangle choke.

A community news and forum, Stu News Laguna reported Friday that UFC flyweight Ian McCall was arrested last Tuesday on some strange, if relatively benign, charges including “possession of narcotic paraphernalia, possession of prescription meds without a valid prescription, and driving on a suspended license,” after undercover DEA agents spotted him. According to a later report from MMA Weekly, however, McCall’s manager Jason House says that McCall’s arrest happened a bit differently and with different charges.

“According to House, McCall was driving home on Tuesday when an unmarked police car recognized his vehicle from past occurrences and pulled him over.  The police ran McCall’s plates and they found an outstanding warrant in his name,” MMA Weekly reported.

“The warrant stemmed from a ticket issued in June for McCall driving under a suspended license.  McCall apparently paid the fines, but did not make a scheduled court appearance due to a miscommunication and a warrant was issued.”

(Alistair, we don’t want to question your lawyer’s advice, but we don’t think a ‘pose-off’ with Keith Kizer is really the solution to your problems.)

We’re not sure how much UFC heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem is paying for his legal advice and representation but hopefully he’s getting a discount. The unlicensed fighter recently went on MMA Uncensored and revealed that he hoped to appear in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) soon to reapply for a license early.

He’s been campaigning to fight champion Junior Dos Santos for the title in December, but wouldn’t realistically be able to do so unless he was licensed months prior to fight, in order to allow the UFC to promote the bout. After all, in just one fight with the UFC, The Reem has been great at either making the UFC nervous that he would blow a huge fight or in fact blow a huge fight because he has trouble taking and passing urine tests.

“I’m able to reapply for my license in December a couple days before the fight. But we have a strategy,” he said.

“We’re going to go in front of the commission sooner with the argument of good behavior. We have been doing random tests on our own. They were all witnessed by an independent doctor. In the hope of getting a license sooner. I think we will get it sooner. Maybe a conditional license that I have to appear and do some random tests.”

“We have a set date this month. Nothing confirmed, we’re gonna try and get it. Hopefully we will.”

(This is how a real Christian does product endorsement)

So we know that the first thing you thought when you heard that UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has signed a ground breaking global sponsorship deal with Nike was, “gee, I wonder what professional wrestler and Chael Sonnen bff CM Punk thinks about all of this?” Well, turns out that the straight-edge character actor/athlete may not be such a big fan of Nike’s decision.

On August 8th, CM Punk tweeted, “Let’s reward more drunk drivers with endorsement deals! #responsibility” he tweeted. Now, this is only circumstantial, but the timing of the tweet, along with Mr. Punk’s own fanboy-ness with the sport of MMA makes us think that he was referring to Jones and his new Nike deal.

You see, shortly after his last title defense last spring, Jones was arrested for an alleged DWI after crashing his Bentley into a tree. He’s currently still dealing with that legal situation.

So, Jones appears to have messed up and yet he continues to make a living. Perhaps C to the M cannot abide that injustice.

(“Hi Rashad”)

Ace MMA Fighting reporter Mike Chiappetta has the biggest business scoop in the sport this week – UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has signed a global deal with sportswear giant Nike. “The two sides have agreed to a multi-year contract that will see Jones decked out in Nike gear for the foreseeable future. On Sept. 1, when he faces Dan Henderson at UFC 151, Jones will be rocking the famous ‘Swoosh,’” Chiappetta reports.

“As a part of the deal, Jones will be featured on worldwide Nike advertising and receive his own signature line, sources said. It is expected to be announced within a week.”

(To prove he still has “it,” Cro Cop conducted the entire interview from this position)

Fighters have to fight, we suppose. Ultimately, that’s the reasoning kickboxing and MMA legend Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic gave when he recently told USA Today that he wants to return to MMA despite retiring from the UFC after his most recent loss to Roy Nelson at UFC 137 in 2011.

“If you ask me, when I look deep into my soul, of course I would like to fight MMA again,” Filipovic revealed. “People don’t get it. Martial arts is my life.”

Cro Cop has lost his last three MMA bouts, all in the UFC, by either KO or TKO, and was 4-6 in his ten total UFC bouts. Cro Cop also fought two dozen times in the now defunct Pride promotion out of Japan, where he took part in one or two fights that you may remember. Filipovic is still fighting for the kickboxing organization where he first made his name, K-1, and most recently picked up a second round knockout victory over Loren Javier Jorge at K-1 Rising, which we’ve added after the jump for your enjoyment.