How he hangs a hammer from those things we’ll never know.

It’s fair to say that this season of The Ultimate Fighter didn’t live up to expectations. Despite the inclusion of pay-per-view juggernaut Brock Lesnar, this season posted some of the lowest ratings in the franchise’s history. And yet again, the show’s momentum was halted by the revelation that the coaches would not be facing off at the end of the season. But tonight the UFC has a golden opportunity to make chicken salad out of chicken shit with a night of free fights on Spike TV. The UFC announced last night via Twitter that six prelim fights will be aired on Facebook at 6:30pm (Eastern). Tell us who you got in the comments, and if you’re up early enough there still may be time to enter our MMAOutlet.com UFC Fight-Picking Contest.

Results from last night’s weigh-ins are after the jump.

(Come back at 7:00 and see what these two guy look like in their underwear.)

Just a friendly reminder that we will be streaming the UFC 130 weigh-ins live here at 7:00 pm ET.

Will Roy Nelson have a six-pack or a keg?

Will Thiago Alves make weight thanks again to Mike Dolce?

Will Frank Mir come out wearing Whopper boxers?

These pressing questions and more will be answered after the jump.

(Props: MMARecap via MiddleEasy)

XFO 39 goes down tonight at the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, featuring Jeff Curran’s “win or retire” match against Billy Vaughn, Jamie Varner‘s first post-WEC match against Tyler Combs, and a women’s bout between the lovely Felice Herrig and 7-4 Tulsa-based scrapper Nicdali Rivera-Calanoc. At yesterday’s weigh-ins, Felice and Nicdali produced one of the greatest staredown photos in recent memory. (Whether you prefer this one or Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort pretty much depends on if you prefer chicks or dudes. Sorry. That’s the deal.) XFO 39 will be streamed live on alienwarearena.com/mma; the card kicks off at 7 p.m.

It’s largely business as usual for yesterday’s Dana vlog. We see Dana make good on his promise to treat MMA enthusiast/homicidal maniac-thwarter Joseph Lozito to a behind the scenes weekend at UFC 128. Yesterday’s weigh-ins may have been low on seething anger and hostility, but it’s always cool to catch the action up close and personal.

(Ricco desperately tries to squeeze off a couple more ounces on the scale. For more BAMMA 5 weigh-in pics, check out MMAWeekly)

No strangers to epic weigh-in failure, Paul Daley and Ricco Rodriguez were once again thwarted by the scales today while trying to make their BAMMA 5 bouts official. Main event fighter Paul Daley missed weight for the fifth time in his career, initially weighing in at 172 pounds for the welterweight contest, then getting down to 170.4 before his additional weigh-in time ran out.

Like the UFC, BAMMA follows the Unified Rules of MMA, which doesn’t allow a one-pound allowance for title fights. As a result, Daley’s bout against DEEP champ Yuya Shirai has been downgraded to a three-round non-title affair. Not a good look if you’re trying to convince Strikeforce to give you a title fight against Nick Diaz.

(Props: shosports)

Tomorrow night in New Jersey, Strikeforce will launch a tournament that will either establish the promotion as innovative big-dogs of the MMA industry — and arguably produce the #1 heavyweight fighter in the world when the dust has settled — or invite even more ridicule when the thing goes tits-up. Who knows how it’ll play out? Right now, all we can say is that Fedor Emelianenko is fighting this weekend (and coming back from the first loss of his career), and that’s a pretty major event in itself.

Weigh-ins for ‘Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva‘ go down today at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, NJ, beginning at 5 p.m. ET. The event is open to the public, and will be televised on a live episode of Inside MMA. HD Net will also be broadcasting the preliminary card tomorrow beginning at 8 p.m. ET, featuring TUF 12 vet Marc Stevens against John Cholish, and Igor Gracie vs. John Salgado.

Come back to CagePotato.com tomorrow night for round-by-round results from the Showtime broadcast, beginning at 10 p.m. ET.

(When did Anderson become a super villain? Image courtesy UFC/Getty Images)

("The Spider" is Angling for a role in the next "Blade" movie. Image courtesy UFC/Getty Images)

Just a reminder that you can watch the UFC 126 weigh-ins live right here a bit later than usual at 7:00 pm ET.

There’s a pretty good chance that Anderson will be willing Vitor’s head to explode with his ice cold death stare, so it’s probably worth tuning in to to see if any altercations go down ahead of their potentially epic fight tomorrow night.

(Tim’s impressive physique can be credited to his sports-nutritionist, John Belushi. / Photo courtesy of chavo.smugmug.com)

Tonight at the Historic Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas, former UFC heavyweight champ Tim Sylvia will take a break from almost suplexing mental ladies to face TUF 10 castmember Abe Wagner in the super-heavyweight main event of Titan Fighting Championship 16. Weigh-ins were yesterday, and Timmy punished the scales at 311 pounds, which is basically what he weighed for his ill-fated bout against Ray Mercer in June 2009. Back then, we took his weight as a sign that he wasn’t taking his opponent or training seriously. But just look at that grin in the photo above. Sylvia is owning his girth. It’s where he wants to be. 

We can’t seem to find full weigh-in results for the event, but we will say that Abe Wagner is looking mad beefy, and appears to be a hell of a lot more serious about the whole thing than his "aw fuck it" opponent. The Titan FC 16 main card will be broadcast on HDNet tonight at 10 p.m. ET. The full lineup — which also features UFC vets Rich Clementi, Drew McFedries, and Jason High — is after the jump…

Just a friendly reminder that you can blow off a couple hours of work or time with your family on this New Year’s Eve day by watching the UFC 125 fan Q&A with UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez at 3:00 pm ET followed by the weigh-ins at 5:00.

Cross your fingers that someone asks Cain what he thinks about Junior Dos Santos questioning the legitimacy of his torn rotator cuff injury. We might actually get to see "Sugar" Cain (as he’s known by at AKA) show some emotion for once if they do.

Hopefully you all have more planned for tonight than sitting in your underwear and CP shirt watching K-1 Dynamite!! videos from last night, eating cold pizza and drinking beer. *Apparently* that’s not a cool way to ring in New Year’s. Women…

Anyway, as always, the UFC media player is after the jump.

Happy New Year’s, Potato Nation.

Just a reminder that we’ll be streaming the UFC 123 weigh-ins today live from the Palace of Auburn Hills in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

Check out the main card preview videos while you wait and the UFC media player of the weigh-ins after the jump.

(Video courtesy YouTube/UFC.com)

(Video courtesy YouTube/UFC.com)

Just a reminder that we’ll be streaming the UFC 121 weigh-ins today live from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.

Will Brock and Cain butt chestpieces? Will Diego go into full-retard staredown mode? Will Tito apologize to Hammill and the deaf community using sign language?

All of these questions and more will be answered after the jump.

Just a reminder that we will be streaming the Q&A session featuring former WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber at 6:00 pm ET tonight, followed by the WEC: Aldo vs. Gamburyan weigh-ins at 7:00 pm ET.

What prophetic words will Urijah polarize the crowd with?

Is his move to bantamweight a permanent one?

What size chin strap does he wear on his wrestling helmet?

Did his crazy street fight in Bali really happen or did he recycle a scene from Fist of Fury and insert himself in the place of Bruce Lee?

(Video courtesy YouTube/vonguinness)

These questions and more will be answered after the jump.

 
(A Croat, an asshole and a Brazilian walk into a bar…)

Frank Mir weighed in 25 pounds heavier than opponent, Cro Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic at today’s UFC 119 weigh-ins, dispelling any rumors that he is over his loss to Brock Lesnar and he will drop to light heavyweight any time soon.

Making weight, Filipovic got the final stamp on his Indianapolis fight license, which made him breathe a sigh of relief after an eye injury he sustained earlier this week in training left the bout in jeopardy.

Shortly after he weighed in, Croatian news outlets who had been asked by the fighter to not release the photo until after he was given the go-ahead to face mir by the commission printed this shot of Mirko’s injury taken immediately after the eye poke occurred.

Amazing how much he has healed in less than five days.

(Amazing what the power of Stevia can do for healing.)

Every fighter on the card checked in at their respective weight limits, thus making all of their fights official for tomorrow night.

Check out the official weights and the replay of the weigh-ins after the jump.

(The moral of the story? When Gina Carano does it, it’s awesome. When Paulo Filho does it, it’s terrible. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com)

Anybody can be forgiven for missing weight by a half-pound — as long as it doesn’t become a habit. But when an MMA fighter comes in a full four pounds heavy, as Efrain Escudero did this week for his doomed UFC Fight Night 22 bout against Charles Oliveira, it tends to raise some eyebrows. As we’ve done previously with steroid busts, we decided to catalog the worst scale-fails in MMA history, arranged by number of pounds over the limit. When the information was available, we also listed the punishments the fighters were given, along with their excuses for missing weight, which range from injuries to salt water to the dreaded “menstrual period.” This is by no means a definitive list — but we’d like it be, eventually. So if you know of any other occasions where fighters missed weight by four pounds or more, or missed weight for multiple fights, please let us know in the comments section.

* Note: We’ve eliminated the “Repeat Offenders” section. In the instances where fighters has notably missed weight on more than one occasion (see: A. Johnson, P. Daley, T. Alves), we’ve ranked them in the leaderboard by their greatest weigh-in failure.

Karl Knothe @ Shark Fights 17
Weigh-in date: 7/14/11
Weight: 253.75 pounds, 23.75 over the 230-pound catchweight limit
How is that even possible? Due to some miscommunication between Knothe and his management, Knothe was never informed that his scheduled bout against Ricco Rodriguez was supposed to be at a catchweight, instead of at heavyweight.
Result: The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation disallowed Knothe from competing due to the large weight-gap and concerns over excessive weight-cutting. Knothe was paid a portion of his salary anyway, while Ricco Rodriguez instead faced 5-12 replacement Doug Williams. Rodriguez won via rear-naked choke in the first round.

Ricardo Mayorga @ Omega MMA: Battle of the Americas
Weigh-in date: 5/2/13
Weight: 175.9 pounds, 20.9 pounds over the limit for his contracted lightweight match against Wesley Tiffer, who came in at 153. Needlessly to say, shoving ensued.
How was this fight even allowed to happen?: The match took place in Managua, Nicaragua — which is Mayorga’s hometown, by the way — and the Nicaraguan combat sports commission that was overseeing the event didn’t seem to have a problem with the ludicrous weight discrepancy. (I hear they’re much more stringent when it comes to cock-fighting.)
Result: Mayorga by TKO after two rounds, aided by a fairly illegal knee to the spine. Stay classy, Ricardo.

(Video courtesy YouTube/Heavy.com)

Just a reminder that we will be streaming the UFC Fight Night 22: Marquardt vs. Palhares weigh-ins live starting at around 5:00 pm ET.

Enjoy the ultra-dramatic pipe organ music seasoned clip of the two main event fighters getting their hands taped and hitting the pads at this week’s open media workout while you wait for the action to get underway.

The UFC media player is after the jump.

(If you don’t look in his eyes, Randy, you won’t be hypnotized into standing and trading with him.)

Just a reminder that the weigh-ins for tomorrow night’s brouhaha in Boston will be live here at 4:00 pm. 

A number of questions will be answered, like:

Is James Toney really in shape?

Did Gabe Ruediger really quit cake?

Will Chandella give Arianny the stink eye for getting a Playboy cover?

UFC media player is after the jump.

(Video courtesy YouTube/k4BOSH; footage courtesy ZUFFA LLC)

Just a friendly CP reminder that the weigh-ins for UFC 116 are live at 7:00pm ET tonight.

If watching the UFC’s pre-fight presser at 6:30 doesn’t float your boat, there are some videos to help you kill some time after the jump, including one of Brock Lesnar’s college wrestling matches, a light heavyweight version of Brock in his early days with the WWE and a highlight featuring early and recent clips of Shane Carwin’s bouts and the backstage interviews from the weigh-ins.

Remember to check in with us tomorrow for our UFC 116 liveblog at 10pm ET. If you’ve never joined in the festivities, give it a try. The Potato nation knows how to party like it’s 1999.

Just a reminder that you can watch the TUF 11 weigh-ins right here at 7:00pm ET.
As always, the link to the UFC media player is after the jump

(Video courtesy of YouTube/GoodMorningTexas)

Gone are the days of seeing Chuck all hopped up on "NyQuil" rambling on about fighting Tommy Morrison and Vernon "Tiger" White on morning television. "The Iceman" has reinvented himself physically for his fight with Rich Franklin tomorrow night in Vancouver at UFC 115, which means night clubs and pharmacies have taken a hit beyond what the recession dealt them.

Feel free to rewatch the video, reminisce about this bizarre moment in MMA history and talk amongst yourselves until the stream of the weigh-ins goes live tonight at 7pm ET.

As always, the link to the UFC media player is after the jump

(‘Why you gotta act so black Rampage? You should dress and talk like I do — like a white middle class teenage boy.‘)

Just a reminder that we will be streaming the weigh-ins for UFC 114: Rampage vs. Evans live at 7pm ET. 

There’s a rumor swirling around that Rashad is having trouble cutting the last few pounds and had to pass on a planned interview with the Jim Rome show.

Video player is after the jump.

Just a friendly reminder that you can watch the weigh-ins here at 4:00pm EST as long as the stream has been ironed out since yesterday’s press conference debacle.

Video player after the jump.

(Props: Cagewriter)

Two notable moments came out of yesterday’s UFC on Versus: Vera vs. Jones weigh-ins at the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado. First off, James Irvin made his public debut at middleweight, and my God, I would kill for those cheekbones. Seriously, the phrase "cancer survivor" comes to mind. Also, Jon Jones got way up in Brandon Vera‘s face after they hit the scale. Dana White stepped in to separate the two so their forehead-jostling wouldn’t turn into something more serious. Jones explained his high emotions following the weigh-ins, telling Steve Cofield: "I just really don’t like Brandon as a person. I just think he’s disrespectful. I think he’s arrogant. I think he’s full of himself…I guess I let his arrogance get under my skin a little bit. It’s just a learning experience. In the future I’ll deal with talkers better."

The weigh-in numbers are after the jump, courtesy of UFC.com. Remember to come back tonight at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT for live round-by-round results…

(Chandella Powell makes her big debut. Photo courtesy of the UFC 108 Weigh In Pics set on CombatLifestyle.)

From UFC.com…

MAIN CARD (10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT)
Thiago Silva (205) vs. Rashad Evans (205)
Paul Daley (172*) vs. Dustin Hazelett (168)
Sam Stout (155) vs. Joe Lauzon (155)
Jim Miller (155) vs. Duane Ludwig (156)
Gilbert Yvel (239) vs. Junior Dos Santos (237)

SPIKE TV PRELIMINARY CARD (9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT)
Jacob Volkmann (171) vs. Martin Kampmann (171)
Dan Lauzon (155) vs. Cole Miller (155)

OPENING BOUTS
Ryan Jensen (186) vs. Mark Munoz (185)
Jake Ellenberger (170) vs. Mike Pyle (171)
Rafaello Oliveira (156) vs. John Gunderson (155)

* Due to safety concerns, the Nevada State Athletic Commission wouldn’t let Daley attempt to cut to 171 pounds. According to CageWriter, Daley appeared shaky and off-balance directly before hitting the stage. Hazelett agreed to a catchweight bout of 172 pounds and Daley will be fined 10% of his purse.

All fighters made weight today in Cologne, Germany, for tomorrow’s UFC 99 event — though things got off to a tense start for the undercard fighters. During the heavyweight faceoff between Stefan Struve and Denis Stojnic, the much-taller Struve leaned in to rest his forehead on Stojnic’s face, and the much-fatter Stojnic shoved him off; Dana White had to jump in to separate them. Then it happened again in the very next staredown, as Paul Kelly pushed his forehead against Roli Delgado‘s, and the Crazy Cuban angrily pushed Tellys off of him. The meeting between Dan Hardy and Marcus Davis was disappointingly cordial. The numbers are after the jump…

CageWriter brings us this video of UFC 97‘s headliners weighing in yesterday in Montreal. Anderson Silva established his dominance during the face-off, coming so close to Thales Leites that the challenger had to take a step backwards (3:45 mark); he’s lucky the Spider didn’t give him two for flinching. Don’t forget to come back to CagePotato.com tonight as we liveblog the action beginning at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT.

Below: Yesterday’s edition of Dana White’s video blog, in which DW finally loses his UFC Undisputed championship title to Georges St. Pierre ("I think there was Vaseline on the controller"), hangs some more with his Army vet buddy, and gives his fighters the traditional F-bomb-laced pep talk.

(Look who’s here to fix the cable…)

UFC Fight Night 18 in Nashville, Tenn. is not off to a great start.  They held the weigh-ins today, and both Jeremy Stephens and Gleison Tibau missed weight, with Stephens coming in a full two pounds over the allotted 156-pound limit.  Tibau was only off by a half a pound, but instead of letting him try to cut it they opted to change it to a catchweight bout at 158 pounds.  Because hey, screw it, right?

Ryan Jensen and Steve Steinbeiss didn’t weigh in as part of the regular proceedings at all.  UFC.com reports that they both later clocked in at 186, but the fight is “on hold at the moment, pending resolution of an administrative issue.”  Man, don’t tell me one of those guys has been going to Aleks Emelianenko’s favorite tattoo parlor.  Yes, they do great work there, but for the last time it isn’t worth it!

The rest of the weigh-in results look like this:

Martin Kampmann (170) vs. Carlos Condit (170.5)
Carmelo Marrero (205) vs. Ryan Bader (206)
Junie Browning (156) vs. Cole Miller (156)
Rafael Dos Anjos (156) vs. Tyson Griffin (156)
Matt Horwich (185) vs. Ricardo Almeida (185.5
Jeremy Stephens (158) vs. Gleison Tibau (156.5)
Jesse Sanders (171) vs. Brock Larson (171)
Nissen Osterneck (186) vs. Jorge Rivera (185)
Nick Catone (186) vs. Tim Credeur (186)
Joe Vedepo (185) vs. Rob Kimmons (185)
Aaron Simpson (186) vs. Tim McKenzie (184.5)

(Courtesy of youtube.com/UFC)

If you felt a little down in the dumps last week, it’s probably because Dana White hasn’t been brightening your life with his UFC video blogs. As he explains, you only get those for pay-per-view shows. But because you’ve been so good, he’ll make an exception. In this installment, Dan Henderson sexually harasses the boss ("you got man boobs"), we get a look at one of Zuffa’s tape vaults, Dana spends a little time with his kids — LOL @ Frac‘s Spanish skills — crazy Diego Sanchez drops some rays of positivity, DW presses flesh in the pre-weigh-in receiving line, and tells his fighters to shake off the Internet haters. I gotta get me some of that instant snow.

("Hell yeah, bro, and I didn’t even have to get that colonic!" Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle. For more from this set, click here.)

Weigh-ins for UFC 95 went down earlier today at London’s Dominion Theatre, with all fighters coming in at or below their limits. The only interesting results were in the heavyweight class, where Neil Grove made his 28-pound weight advantage official, and Stefan Struve managed to pack on enough bulk onto his Mr. Fantastic-esque frame to come in three pounds heavier than his opponent, Junior Dos Santos. Full results are below:

Diego Sanchez (156) vs Joe Stevenson (155)
Rory Markham (170) vs Dan Hardy (170)
Wilson Gouveia (185) vs Nate Marquardt (185)
Chael Sonnen (185) vs Demian Maia (184)
Paulo Thiago (169) vs Josh Koscheck (170)
Brian Cobb (155) vs Terry Etim (156)
Stefan Struve (240) vs Junior Dos Santos (237)
Mike Ciesnolevicz (235) vs Neil Grove (263)
Evan Dunham (154) vs Per Eklund (155)
Troy Mandaloniz (168) vs Paul Kelly (169)

Remember, we’ll be liveblogging the Spike TV tape-delayed broadcast starting at 9 p.m. ET; check local listings to see when the event will kick off in your ‘hood.

Semi-related: Former Cage Rage welterweight champ Paul Daley missed weight for his Maximum Fighting Championship 20 match tonight against Nick "The Goat" Thompson, and will forfeit 25% of his fight purse to Thompson. It’s the second consecutive time that Daley has weighed in over his 170-pound limit; in December he came in four pounds over for a fight against John Alessio at MFC 19. HDNet will broadcast tonight’s MFC event — which will feature UFC vets David Heath, Solomon Hutcherson, Rory Singer, and a welterweight title fight between Ryan Ford and Pat Healy — live at 10 p.m. ET.