(Man, the Jack Links people are gonna be pissed when they realize their mascot is jumping ship for Subway.) 

Alright, so we all know that Daniel Cormier is fat. And, of course, we all also know that fat people are what Roy Nelson eats for his three squares each day. Preferably after they’ve been dipped in a vat of sausage gravy and deep fried.

The guy’s big.

As such, fans and fighters alike have often wondered aloud if the two would be better suited at a lighter weight class – say, light heavyweight. However, both guys continue to kick ass at heavyweight, which kinda makes it hard to say that they should feel a sense of urgency to drop a weight class (except, you know, so as not to die in ten years from a heart attack, Roy).

Nelson is coming off a knockout of professional Greek Statue Model, Cheick Kongo, and Cormier just dominated his second former UFC heavyweight champion. There has been talk of the two facing each other next. But there’s also been talk, mainly from Dana White, that Cormier could get an automatic shot at champion Jon Jones should he choose to drop down to 205lbs.

At first, it seemed liked both Nelson and Cormier were down to face one another, but then “Big Country’s” manager made him look like a chicken – a succulent, golden-fried chicken — by nixing the proposed matchup. Fortunately, Nelson spoke with Bloody Elbow recently and cleared things up once and for all. We guess.

As far Daniel [Cormier], I think the reason Mike, my manager, said anything about Daniel is because he’s supposed be getting an immediate title shot at 205. If he’s going down to 205, it doesn’t really make any sense to fight him, unless we’re going to fight for a 205 contendership. Then hey, we can do that, too. 

Photo courtesy of Sherdog.com.

We’re just hours away from UFC 159, yet an update has just been made to the card. After missing weight and subsequently forfeiting 20% of his purse, welterweight Nick Catone has been hospitalized for dehydration brought on by his weight cut. As a result, the scheduled fight between Nick Catone and James Head has been canceled.

The announcement was made by the UFC through a press release issued earlier this morning.

Due to the last second nature of the fight cancellation, James Head will not be offered a replacement opponent. He will, however, receive his show money for the event.

Catone vs. Head was set to take place during the Facebook preliminary card. That portion of the card will now only feature the featherweight scraps of Steven Siler vs. Kurt Holobaugh and Leonard Garcia vs. Cody McKenzie.

@SethFalvo

(Mousasi, seen here trying to convince Burt Watson that his tummy is simply an optical illusion created by the unflattering pattern of his shirt. Or what we here in America refer to as The Burgundy Defense.) 

Clearly, we are being shamelessly facetious with that title, for neither Daniel Cormier or Gegard Mousasi could be considered “obese” by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, Cormier is a little heavy for his height, I guess, but his layer of protective fat is a necessity. How the hell else is he suppose to ensure that his own bones are not completely shattered by the shockwave of the wrecking balls he regularly throws at his sparring partners and opponents? He tried cutting a lot of weight once before and it damn near killed him, so what do you people want from the poor guy?! LEAVE DC ALONE, DAMMIT.

I’m sorry, I was a fat child. But thanks to the powers of MMA, I can proudly stand before you as the picture of modern health that I am today. Cormier apparently shares my enthusiasm for all things dietary, as he recently spoke with USA Today and MMAJunkie about the likelihood that he will drop to 205 to fight Jon Jones once and for all. Just not immediately:

USA Today: Physically, I’m different now. When I was saying that I couldn’t make light heavyweight, it wasn’t happening. At my heaviest, I was 264 pounds. I was consistently weighing in for fights at 250 pounds, and that was after training camps. I was losing 7, 8 pounds and being 250 pounds at weigh-ins. Now, I wake up in the morning, and I’m 234 pounds. That’s almost a 20-pound difference. Now it seems realistic. I’m lighter now than even when I was wrestling.

MMAJunkie: At first, I was like so emotionally tied to that fight. I was like, ‘I want to fight Jon Jones. I want to be in that division and fight him immediately.’ But I’m not a very impulsive guy. I kind of think things through.

I’ve thought about it, and I wouldn’t be opposed to fighting one time before then just to see how my body reacts to the weight cut. It’d be very difficult to fight him in my very first fight (at light heavyweight), in a five-round fight, and my first time down in the weight and everything. As I’ve thought about it, I kind of feel it’d be in our best interest to maybe take a fight. 

(Welterweight, middleweight, we don’t care. Just don’t ever lose that twinkle in your eyes, you handsome son of a bitch.) 

Although Patrick Cote managed to secure his first UFC win since 2010 at UFC 154 last month (by way of DQ), we’re still not quite sure if his decision to cut down to welterweight falls into “last ditch effort to save career” territory or not. Regardless, Cote recently told MMAWeekly that he is planning on cutting down to 170 for his next bout now that his UFC 158 rematch with Alessio Sakara has been cancelled due to Sakara’s kidney issues. His reasoning: They build middleweights a lot bigger than they used to.

We’ve been thinking about it since about a year now. I think now it’s the time. I was a pretty decent middleweight a couple years ago, but now those guys are really, really big. They’re cutting from like 230, 225, and I’m walking around at 205 so I spoke with my coach and my nutritionist and it’s doable so we’re going to do it.

Although it seems like Cote might be exaggerating those numbers a little bit, one must first consider that Anthony Johnson walks around at upwards of 230 pounds and used to fight in the same division Cote is shrinking down to. Hell, Thiago Alves still fights at 170 and that dude regularly eats Adam Richman under the table in between training camps.

(Whoa! Those are some nice hardwood floors!) 

Although I technically have a Twitter account, I am not what you would consider an avid user, whatever that may mean. In my mind, the best addictions are the old fashioned ones: cocaine, air duster, and drunk driving – preferably at the same time. But if there’s one person out there I consider myself a “follower” of on the Twitter, it’s Felice Herrig, and it’s not just because she occasionally tweets out photos like the one above (although it doesn’t hurt). And after finishing off my last can of Gust last night (which we all know is the Rolls-Royce of air dusters), I happened to stumble upon quite the little story while perusing over Ms. Herrig’s account.

You see, Herrig was set to return to the bright lights of Bellator for the first time since 2010 at Bellator 84 on December 14th. Her opponent was supposed to be the 3-3 Michele Gutierrez. However, it was recently announced that Gutierrez had suffered a hand injury in training and would not be able to fight. And while we were just about to chalk up another victory to that God forsaken injury curse, Herrig came out of the woodwork to declare that not only was Gutierrez faking the injury, but that she had solid proof to back her accusations.

The alleged proof is after the jump. 

(Who knew that “The Dream” was actually short for “The Wet Dream Brought on by Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation”?) 

After going 2-2 in his return to the welterweight division, which began back in 2010 and included wins over Paulo Thiago and Martin Kampmann, as well as a most recent loss to Jake Ellenberger at the inaugural UFC on FUEL event, it looks like Diego Sanchez is headed back down to lightweight. We have been told by an anonymous source that the move has nothing to do with the fact that B.J. Penn a.k.a the man who handed Sanchez the worst beating of his career has returned to the welterweight division, but rather because BJ Penn a.k.a the man who handed Sanchez the worst beating of his career has left the lightweight division. So rest assured, Sanchez is definitely not ducking B.J. Penn.

Sanchez made the announcement over his Twitter account earlier today in a conversation with UFC color commentator Joe Rogan:

@joerogan there isn’t anyone out there that understands Mma as a whole like you do! Thanks Joe, its back to 155 for me… Should be good!!

(“Good job, good effort.” — James Irvin)

Jeff Curran is living proof that dropping a weight class in MMA often has a negligible effect on your level of success. After kicking off his career as a lightweight — and losing a decision to Matt Serra in his Octagon debut way back at UFC 46 in 2004 — the BJJ black belt eventually transitioned to featherweight to pursue a championship belt in the WEC. Unfortunately, Curran took back-to-back losses against Urijah Faber and Mike Brown, which inspired him to drop another ten pounds. He didn’t fare any better at 135 either, losing decisions to Joseph Benavidez and Takeya Mizugaki in 2009 before exiting the promotion.

After two years of purgatory — in which he went 4-1 competing for the XFO and on Strikeforce and Bellator preliminary cards — the UFC brought Curran back for another run at bantamweight. And after two more losses to Scott Jorgensen and Johnny Eduardo, Big Frog was back at square one. And now there’s this:

Veteran fighter Jeff Curran (33-15-1 MMA, 0-3 UFC), whom the UFC released following back-to-back losses to bantamweights Johnny Eduardo and Scott Jorgensen, is headed to the flyweight division. That’s according to his cousin and training partner, Bellator featherweight champion Pat Curran.

“I don’t know how he’s going to make it, but he’s going to find a way,” Pat recently told MMAjunkie.com…Pat, who defeated Joe Warren for the Bellator belt earlier this year, took up the sport at his cousin’s urging. He said his mentor figure now is planning to regroup on the regional scene in the new weight class.

(Phil Davis: The UFC’s leading producer of new middleweights.)

By Ben Goldstein

“When in doubt, drop a weight class” — that’s been the mantra for many MMA fighters who have hit rough patches in their careers. Of course, shaving 10-20 pounds off your body is no guarantee of future success, and it occasionally leaves fighters worse off than when they started. Following a week that saw Demian Maia, Dan Miller, and Nik Lentz all decide to seek their fortunes against smaller opponents, we decided to round up a few notable fighters who revitalized themselves at a lighter weight, and a few that became cautionary tales for weight-dropping. Read on, and let us know which UFC fighters should consider taking the weight-class plunge…

The Good

Dominick Cruz

After racking up a 9-0 record — not to mention belts at lightweight and featherweight for the Total Combat promotion — Dominick Cruz challenged Urijah Faber for the WEC featherweight title in March 2007. Unfortunately, Cruz fell into a guillotine choke and tapped at the 1:38 mark of round 1. Cruz addressed the setback by dropping to bantamweight the following year, and has since gone on another 9-0 run at 135, collected the WEC and UFC bantamweight belts, and exacted revenge against his arch-nemesis, the California Kid. We’ll see if he can make it two in a row against Faber in June, but for now, it seems that dropping to bantamweight was the best move of Dominick’s career.

(If you’re controlling the Japanese fighter against Rampage, just hit down, down, up, X, down to poison his food.)

By Jason Moles

Two weeks ago, fans around the world were delighted to partake in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s latest attempt to broaden its revenue streams with the release of UFC Undisputed 3. It didn’t take long before word began to spread about just how incredible the game is. But despite all of the improvements and advantages that Undisputed 3 has over the game’s first two installments — such as an improved submission system, a less cluttered career mode, and the inclusion of two additional weight classes and a PRIDE mode — the game just isn’t quite “as real as it gets.” At least not yet. Here are five things that UFC and THQ need to add the next go-’round if they want to put a little truth in their advertising and gain some more street cred among UFC die-hards.

Hat Thieves: If you’ve been watching the sport for any amount of time you will have noticed that fighters love to promote their sponsors with every opportunity they get, from donning their gear to slapping a sticker on everything they wear. Some even go as far tattooing a logo on their calf. One of the easiest ways to rep a company that gives you a paycheck for the exposure is to throw a ball cap on your head on the way to the Octagon…and hope that you still have it on when you hit the Harley Davidson prep point.

Hat snatchers are the lowest of the low, depending on whom you ask, and yet they add a comically endearing bit of chaos to the broadcast. C’mon, admit it. You chuckle every time a hat vanishes into the crowd. Therefore when my created fighter, The Bulldog, makes his way to the cage, I want to see someone snatch his hat. Then, and only then, will I know I’ve made it.

(Leben gets his cut checked out by forensics investigator Vince Masuka. Gif via IronForgesIron)

We knew something was up. After the first five minutes of his UFC 138 main event battle with Mark Munoz on Saturday, Chris Leben already looked like he was heading into the championship rounds — sucking deep breaths, his body drifting towards a Pudzianowski-esque shade of crimson. And according to a Fighters Only report, it wasn’t just trans-Atlantic jet lag or a post-Halloween candy hangover:

Chris Leben cut nearly 21 pounds in 24 hours to make weight for his fight with Mark Munoz, Fighters Only was told ahead of last night’s bout. The 31-year old middleweight had “a terrible weight cut” and was in such bad shape before the weigh ins that medical staff were keeping a very close eye on him.

(Davis during a much easier weight cut. Photo courtesy of MMAJunkie)

As a member of a group that has done some consulting for the Ontario Athletic Commission in terms of MMA fighter safety and regulation, I’ve been a longtime opposer of the practice of weight cutting. It’s just a matter of time before a fighter dies from the practice.

Not only is the process a dangerous one that has led to the death of several high school and college wrestlers, its side effects are non-reversible and can cause major health problems for fighters later in life. It’s no coincidence that many of the sport’s participants who used to wrestle and cut weight in their youth are now on hormone replacement therapy. Starvation and extreme dehydration — two of the facets of the weight cutting procedure — put stress on the body’s endocrine system and inhibit the production of key chemicals such as testosterone, adrenaline and insulin.

Former UFC welterweight-turned-lightweight Marcus Davis shared a scary weight cutting story with MMA Weekly recently that should be a must read for athletic commissions who allow such a dangerous practice as dropping between 10 and 40 lbs the week of a fight to take place.

Davis, a former pro boxer who had been cutting weight since he was a teenager explained that his first post-UFC bout weight cut for his MFC 29 bout with Curtis Demarce in April was a nightmare that very well could have had fatal consequences.

“It’s kind of scary to say this but that fight almost killed me, making that weight. I had a really, really, really bad time and I still made the weight, but I’ll never ever be able to do that again,” Davis explained, revealing that the dehydration left him without his voice at weigh-ins and unable to urinate or have a bowel movement for the better part of a week. “After that, I think I was all the way down to 154 (pounds) when I ended up weighing in and that fight was on a Friday. That Monday I was 207, so it had nothing to do with my overeating. It had to do with my body freaked out and thought that I might torture it again like that so it just held onto everything.”

(Props: YouTube.com/UFC)

Add this to the list of explanations as to why Jose Aldo nearly fell apart in the last round of his title defense against Mark Hominick. As the above video illustrates, the UFC featherweight champ suffered through the worst weight cut of his career before UFC 129 in April. Aldo’s coach Andre “Dede” Pederneiras explains that Junior had packed on more muscle than he had in the past, and was forced to cut 6.6 more pounds on the day of weigh-ins. Aldo’s training partner Marlon Sandro guides us through the weight cut process, which involves a lot of weight loss cream and a hot bath (“it feels like your skin is melting”).

With 1.1 pounds to go, Aldo mentally breaks down, refusing to cut any more, damn the consequences. The video leaves us hanging for part 2 for some reason, but look, we all know what happened; Aldo made the weight, and showed obvious signs of fatigue in his fight the next day. No matter what happens in his title defense against Kenny Florian at UFC 136 on October 8th, Aldo’s days in the 145-pound division may be numbered.

Related: Five of the Worst Weight Cuts in MMA History

(“Can you tell me what the scale says? I can’t see over my cheekbones.” Props: CombatLifestyle)

By Ben Goldstein

Tired of fad diets? As MMA fighters have proven for years, the best way to effectively take off pounds is to dehydrate yourself until you nearly die — a miraculous system known as “brutal weight cutting.” Here are some of the sport’s greatest success stories…

Sean McCorkle
Lost: 55 pounds in three months, before his submission win over Mark Hunt at UFC 119 (9/25/10)

After charming his way into a UFC contract, Indiana-based super-heavyweight Sean McCorkle was faced with a dilemma — making 265 pounds for the first time since middle school. “Big Sexy” had 12 weeks to come down from his walking weight of 320, which forced him to get very familiar with chicken breast, apples, and oatmeal.

By weigh-in day, it seemed like the world was conspiring against him. “The cut was an absolute nightmare, and the commission scales were off the morning of the weigh-in,” McCorkle explained. “I told them that and the commission said they weren’t. I said I couldn’t possibly be three pounds heavier [on the day of weigh-ins] than I was last night when I didn’t eat or drink anything. So I went to cut an extra three pounds that morning. It took me two hours to cut the weight. Then I weighed in at 263 pounds and I wanted to strangle somebody.” Compared to that, making Mark Hunt cry “uncle” with an armlock was the easy part.

Jake Shields
Lost: 20 pounds in one day before his split-decision win over Martin Kampmann at UFC 121 (10/23/10)

(Maybe Thiago should concentrate more on cutting weight, not on updating his Match.com profile)

When Thiago Alves missed a scheduled appearance at yesterday afternoon’s open UFC 117 workout, it didn’t take long for reports to surface that the American Top Team fighter, who has been plagued with weight cutting issues in the past, was having problems shedding water and that he chose to forgo the media event to focus on making weight for Friday’s weigh-in.

Alves tweeted yesterday that he just had 15 pounds to go before he makes the 170-pound limit, which is at the higher end of the poundage most fighters start cutting at the beginning of the process over a week out from their bouts.

(Props: MMA Opinion)

Is there any fighter who more closely resembles the animal for which he is nicknamed than Thiago "The Pitbull" Alves?  Just looking at his face makes me want to lock the door and call Animal Control.  He says in this video that he’s been working out at Wanderlei Silva’s new gym/daycare center in Las Vegas, and plans to return there the week before his title fight with Georges St. Pierre at UFC 100 to get his weight right.  Alves has had some weight issues in the past, and with a title fight he won’t get that extra pound allowance so he’d better be on point.  Something tells me that screwing up a title fight at UFC 100 would be a murderable offense in Dana White’s eyes.

Raw Vegas went by Xtreme Couture to talk with Kim Couture about her upcoming bout.  Am I the only one not buying it at all when she claims to be blissfully unaware of the criticism that suggests she’s only getting these opportunities because of who she’s married to?  Even if she doesn’t "go on the computer," the idea must have occurred to her that it’s not solely her 1-1 pro record that’s landing her on Strikeforce cards.  Whatever you think of Couture though, it’s nice to see a woman fighter slam "Cyborg" Santos’ woman trouble excuse.  It just doesn’t have the same force when we do it, for some reason.

After the jump, American Top Team boxing coach Howard Davis Jr. takes it to the gloves and shows us the hand speed.