(Image via addisonsportsmedia.com)

Bryan “Back of the Head” Caraway may have just been replaced as the world’s biggest villain to female MMA fighters. After Invicta FC CEO Shannon Knapp posted a Facebook message on Sunday warning the public about a predatory MMA manager who was using lies and intimidation to influence female fighters into signing with him, veteran fighter (and rumored TUF 18 castmember) Tara LaRosa outed him by name — Brett Atchley, president of Addison Sports Management and Media, who manages Zoila Gurgel and Fallon Fox among other clients.

The accusation inspired BloodyElbow’s Brett Brookhouse to do some deep digging about Atchley’s behavior, and if you have the time, you should read his first two reports here and here. In short, Atchley is accused of being a despicable scumbag by a wide range of female MMA fighters who have had the great displeasure of encountering him. Here are the highlights…

- According to LaRosa, Atchley stole sponsorship money from Maurice Smith, and was once caught on tape at a casino stealing money out of the purse of a woman he was dating, who happened to be the mother of one of Ivan Salaverry’s students. These incidents led to a falling out between Atchley and Salaverry. Atchley responded by sending Salaverry some rather impolite text messages, in which he promises to blackball all of the female fighters that train at Salaverry’s gym from competing for Invicta or Strikeforce.

- After LaRosa turned down Atchley’s offer to manage her, due to the fact that she was already managed by Monte Cox, Atchley physically accosted LaRosa twice during the weekend of Invicta 3:

You know, in a world where even female fighters are valued for their sex appeal as much as their actual abilities, you’d think that an undefeated sexpot like Rin Nakai would be getting a lot more press. The similarities between Nakai and current UFC women’s champion Ronda Rousey are astounding, yet their career trajectories as of late could not be more different. Undefeated bantamweight submission specialists? Check. Willing to fall back on their sex appeal to promote a fight? Check and…uh…check, I guess. Showed up to their last weigh-in wearing bunny-themed lingerie, complete with ears and a thong? Point Nakai.

Sure, Rin’s look appeals to a *very* specific niche, but the woman’s shameless self-promotional skills and morbid sense of sexuality (the term “fearection” comes to mind) is something that should not only be recognized by us lamestream media types, but held in high regard. Let us not forget that we live in a society that has yet to rid itself of the personification of cancer that is Jose Canseco.

Anyway, join us after the jump to check out a video of Nakai rocking an outfit straight out of Final Fantasy or some shit and strangling Brenda Gonzales at Pancrase 247 over the weekend.

(“With all respect dued, Dana, *this* is our counter offer. Also, what does counter offer mean?”) 

Although both parties have since moved onto bigger, better things (if you happen to consider crushing cans for Invicta FC ”bigger” or “better”), MMA fans cannot seem to get over the botched negotiations between Cris Cyborg and Ronda Rousey that eventually led to the cancellation of what would have been the biggest fight in WMMA history at UFC 157. You know the story: Rousey was unwilling to even consider holding the fight at a catchweight, and it was physically impossible for Cyborg to make 135 pounds (or so we were told). Both fighters were left spinning their tires in the mud, that is, until Tito Ortiz showed up and everything really went to hell.

Cyborg was eventually released from her UFC contract, and Rousey went on to become the UFC’s first women’s champ, an influential and inspirational figure in female sports, and a universal sex symbol. So clearly, Tito Ortiz: Manager crushed another one out of the park. But if you were one of those fans who blamed Ortiz (and/or the rest of Cyborg’s Primetime 360 management team) for screwing things up in the first place, you should first turn your crosshairs on the people they were negotiating with. Because according to Ortiz’s Primetime 360 team partner, George Prajin, weight wasn’t even the issue, it was those damn Zuffa tightwads! MMAFighting’s Mike Chiappetta reports:

While (match weight) was at the center of most conversations in the media regarding the inability to make the Cyborg-Rousey fight, it was not the deal-breaker it’s been reported to be.

During the ongoing negotiations, which lingered for about two months, the promotion agreed to pay for the services of a dieting and nutrition consultant like Dolce. But there were other points that the two sides could not agree on.

The biggest issue, according to Cyborg’s management firm Primetime 360, was Zuffa treating Cyborg as a bit player rather than an event co-star.

There you have it, Nation. Like Dexy’s Midnight Runners before her, it appears that Ronda Rousey’s sophomore effort has failed to live up to her mainstream debut. It deeply saddens us to come to the revelation that her eye-popping debut on last year’s ESPN “Body Issue” will now serve as the ”Come On Eileen” of her career as an ESPN magazine cover girl, but what else could we have expected? The bar was set TOO HIGH, dammit; I personally anticipated nothing less than a giant Cobra, fireworks, paraplegics doing jazz hands, and a Suicide Girl with the words “Soy Bomb” painted on her chest swallowing a sword. But alas, we get elated Pikachu.

My obliterated (and completely unrealistic) expectations aside, it’s good to see “Rowdy” gracing the covers of ESPN: The Magazine again, especially on an issue as big as the mag’s 15th anniversary. Rousey will be featured alongside the likes of Kobe Bryant and Tom Brady when the magazine hits stands this Friday.

But for now, let’s pour (another) one out for Nude Ronda. She came into our lives as quickly as she went, but thanks to the power of print, her memory will forever remain in the annals of history. So it is with this song, Nude Ronda, that we bid you farewell…

(Somehow we have a feeling that this is not how things went down.) 

I know, I know, we already agreed to stop talking about this. But upon stumbling across the story of Fallon Fox allegedly terrorizing several Invicta fighters backstage at Invicta FC 5, I figured I had to break protocol just this once. Because, regardless of whether you support Fallon Fox’s right to compete in MMA as a woman or not, you should know that when all is said and done, Fox might be a tad bit unstable as a human being. Who saw this coming, amiright?

That is of course, according to Invicta FC strawweight Bec Hyatt, who recently posted the following parable on her Facebook page. As stated by Hyatt, Fox was spotted lurking around the hotel lobby that several Invicta fighters were staying at on the morning of Invicta FC 5, presumably looking for a fight or at the very least, to stir some shit up. I’ll let Becca tell the story:

It’s true that Fallon & I had a “run in” on fight morning in the hotel lobby. Nothing physical, just an unwelcome distraction from my fight later that night. Long story short… I was on my phone Facebook training, as I do, when my husband told me to look up to the second floor balcony. Sure enough I was greeted by Fallon (along with another female fighter??) staring meanie daggers at me & if looks could kill… boy would I be dead LOL!! A Fallon Fox mean mug makes Jasminka Cive’s look child’s play

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Everywhere you look, chicks are headlining fight cards these days. February had Rounda Rousey defending her world title in a UFC pay per view main event and now Invicta FC has announced their latest main event – a rematch between Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos and Dutch Marloes Coenen Pretty sweet, if you ask us.

Invicta always has a women’s bout as their headliner, of course, because they are an all Women’s MMA organization. As such, they’ve created new opportunities for female fighters to make a living and show how the females are not just the fairer sex, they might also be the fiercest.

Just as cool as what Invicta is doing, the formerly all-male MMA organization, the UFC, now has one women’s division and title, with more hopefully on the way. Last week, Meisha Tate and Cat Zingano tore down the house with their fight of the night on the UFC’s last Fuel TV card. That was on the heels of February’s UFC pay per view main event title bout between Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche.

(Kim, we’ve seen enough…you’ve got the goods.) 

When it was first announced that Ronda Rousey would be coaching a co-ed season of The Ultimate Fighter opposite the winner of the Miesha Tate/Cat Zingano scrap, the internet pretty much imploded with fanboyish enthusiasm. When Ronda put out an anti-sex warning to the show’s future participants, well, that enthusiasm seemed to suddenly disappear. In either case, the tryouts for TUF 18 went down from the Grand Ballroom of the Palace Station Hotel in Las Vegas yesterday, and a few of the names that were listed among the potential participants might surprise you.

With only twelve female fighters currently listed in the UFC’s female bantamweight division, yesterday’s tryouts not only featured the usual influx of eager amateurs, but the likes of…

Shayna “The Queen of Spades” Baszler: Competing professionally since 2003, you’d be hard pressed to find a WMMA fan who hasn’t heard of Baszler. The Strikeforce, EliteXC, and InvictaFC veteran is currently 15-8 and 3-2 in her last 5 and holds notable victories over Sarah D’Alelio, Alexis Davis, and Julie Kedzie. Baszler most recently suffered a third round submission loss in her rematch with Davis at Invicta FC 4.

Obligatory.            PicProps: Patrick Walters, CP OG

Invicta FC put on its fifth event last night, closing out a very successful first year for the promotion.  A thirteen-fight card at Kansas City’s Ameristar Casino highlighted Invicta’s swelling roster of talented fighters and solidified the promotions reputation for delivering entertaining MMA bouts.  The show featured debuts of three champs from Strikeforce and Bellator, plus a pair of Invicta championship matchups.  And it fucking rocked.

The card started with a pair of quick submissions, including CagePotato’s own Rose Namajunas, who set the internet on fire with a twelve second flying armbar victory.  According to initial reports, that is the 5th fastest victory in MMA history, and fastest in the women’s division.  Namajunas was understandably jubilant in her win, saying later that she would like all of her fights to be of the blink-and-you-missed-it variety.  She also pointed out that she was still a prospect just starting out at 2-0, and that title talks could wait until she gained more experience.

Of all the attempts to exploit female MMA fighters for their looks, the above photo of Alexis Davis might be the most confusing. I mean, she’s clearly an attractive woman to those of us with non-Internet standards, but did the photographer responsible for this realize that WMMA is not Foxy Boxing? If you want to do a sexy photo shoot showcasing the “feminine” side of a female fighter (makeup, hurr did, etc.), then do a sexy photo shoot. If you want to showcase your female fighter as a female fighter, then have her throw on the gloves and maybe hit some heavy bags like you would with anyone else. Combining the two just seems…impractical and kind of counterproductive to the whole “we are more than just a pretty face” WMMA ideology, does it not?

Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox to pass along the news that Davis has just been booked to take on wrestling powerhouse and qualified osteopath Rosi Sexton at UFC 161 in June. According to the UFC, the fight will air on the pay-per-view portion of the card that already features Shogun vs. Lil’ Nog II and Rashad Evans vs. Dan Henderson (man, Hendo appears to just be rolling in it these days).

(VidProps: @allElbows & @ekc)

While most of you are waiting on a concrete announcement for the main event of UFC on Fuel TV in Sweden 2: Mousasi vs Quick, Somebody Find Me a Viking, you maybe should be talking about this stacked card of fights going down right smack in the middle of the US of A. Featuring a handful of past and present champs, a double main event of championship fights, and the return of Cris Cyborg, Invicta’s fifth show looks like can’t-miss entertainment.

Invicta’s production values have been a consistent strong point, and this latest preview video from Esther Lin and E. Casey Leydon is no exception. It’s beautiful work, and does a fantastic job setting up Friday night’s main event, between Invicta’s Atomweight (105) Champion Jessica Penne and challenger Michelle Waterson.

Highlights:

-  Some of you may remember Jessica Penne from an interview we did with her in August 2010 (I haven’t asked, but I’m pretty sure Penne still hates you assholes), but this is not the same fighter. She looks about ten pounds stronger and ten pounds lighter at the same time.

-  In general, there’s a decent amount of footage of Penne beastin’ all over the gym.

-  Check out Mark Munoz being all proud.

-  While talking about fitting in at the Jackson-Winklejohn camp, Michelle Waterson lets slip that Jackson calls her “peanut”.  Awwwwwwww.  

-  Jon Jones says after a long day of working out, sometimes he likes to cool down and watch the Karate Hottie kick it like Tae Bo. Then he mumbles something about stealing techniques, like that makes it any better.

If George Shunick’s piece on Fallox Fox and transgender athletes in MMA proved anything to me, it’s that – regardless of whether you agree with Joe Rogan’s stance on the issue (or how he chose to express that stance) – Fallon Fox vs. Cris Cyborg is a fight that FANS NEED TO SEE DAMMIT. One fighter is arguably the most devastating female in MMA, yet is also constantly accused of being a man. The other fighter is undefeated, used to literally be a man, and now calls herself “The Queen of Swords” because of course she calls herself that. In fact, I’m willing to write that Fallon Fax vs. Cris Cyborg – if it were to happen – would go down as the single greatest superfight in the history of MMA, because hyperbole is a pretty rad figure of speech that we don’t use nearly enough around here.

Well, good news, fight fans: Cyborg took a break from preparing to sacrifice Fiona Muxlow to ensure a good harvest and delivering completely pointless trash talk against Ronda Rousey to offer her two cents on Fallon Fox. As ESPN’s Josh Gross recently wrote:

“She wants to be a girl. I don’t agree,” said Santos, who for the first time in almost a year and half will return to fighting on April 5. “I think you’re born a girl, you’re a girl. You’re born a guy, you’re a guy. But I don’t choose opponents. The commission needs to check and make sure she doesn’t have testosterone.

(Wow, we even got *Ronda’s* attention with that troll-headline. Photo via Neil Davidson/Canadian Press)

By ReX13

“Rowdy” Ronda Rousey has rocketed to fame as the latest “Face of Women’s MMA,” and she’s pushed awareness and enthusiasm for her sport to new heights. Now making history as the first female champion in the UFC, it’s entirely possible that the best thing that could happen to WMMA is for Ronda Rousey to lose.

Ronda Rousey made her pro debut two years ago this March, defeating a scary Brazilian lady very quickly via armbar. Since then, she’s burst into the mainstream consciousness — as much as she can inhabit the mainstream, competing in a fringe sport like MMA —and has almost single-handedly driven interest in women’s mixed martial arts competition. Her background as a lifelong judoka and Olympic medalist immediately establishes her a legitimate athlete, while her looks have won her a bit of extra hype.  Not that the hype was undeserved: Rousey has demolished her competition, notching six straight first-round stoppages by armbar.

That dominance is what gained her the attention of the man who previously maintained that he had no interest in female cage-fighting. After gaining control of a double-handful of women’s contracts when Zuffa obtained rival promotion Strikeforce, Dana White couldn’t help but change his mind about gender-equality in the Octagon. Rousey was pushing attendance, she was a moneymaker, and White chases money like a Kardashian chases famous dick: single-mindedly, without shame, and intent to take it all in. That he would also be cockblocking (snirk) another promotion by denying them the most marketable fighters in the market would just be icing on the cake.

And make no mistake: that’s exactly what’s going on here. What may at first seem like a boon for female fighters — the increased visibility of the world’s top MMA promotion in the UFC — also has the effect of skimming the top talent from the free agent pool and keeping them from Invicta Fighting Championships, a promotion that’s actually dedicated to the advancement of the women’s division.

When we sat down with the lovely Felice Herrig just over a month ago, we talked about everything from the suspicious, last minute withdrawal of her opponent from Bellator 84 to the likelihood of seeing Felice fighting for the all female promotion InvictaFC down the line. But as any conversation with a woman as beautiful as Felice will inevitably touch upon, we ended up discussing sex, sex appeal, and the role of sex appeal in women’s MMA. As you can probably tell from a quick Google search of her name, Felice resides strongly in the “sex appeal as a positive” camp, not only because it boosts her marketability, but because it opens up completely new doors outside of the fight game that could provide a future career for Herrig down the line.

Taking that into account, Felice recently appeared on TMZ Live, of all places, to defend the role of sex appeal in female sports, and in the professional world in general. And for a show that usually spends 30 minutes insulting psuedo-celebrities for being fat and wearing people clothes, the discussion was honestly rather straightforward. I mean, it wasn’t Ronda Rousey and friends talking about Kat Dennings’ awesome boobage, but it was intriguing nonetheless. In short, Felice feels that as long as you can back up your looks with actual skill, then you’d be pretty foolish not to utilize both.

So check out the video above and let us know where you stand on the issue in the comments section. But we beg you, try and stifle your blatant misogyny just this once.

-J. Jones

What a difference two years can make. Back in 2010, Megumi Fujii was basically being labeled as the Fedor Emelianenko (circa 2007) of Women’s MMA — a mysterious, unstoppable killing machine who would easily run through all American opposition whenever she decided to make the move stateside. And indeed, her first three Bellator performances cemented her status as the top dog at 115 pounds, ending in two armbar stoppages and one TKO finish. Scratch that, her first four performances lived up to the hype she had built in Japan, the only difference in her fourth performance at Bellator 34 being that she let the fight go to decision and was therefore screwed out of a title for reasons unknown. Fujii’s opponent in that fight, Zoila Gurgel, would honor this gift decision by never defending said belt again, while Fujii would fight just once more in America, losing a unanimous decision to Jessica Aguilar at Bellator 69 in May of this year.

Shame decision aside, Fujii returned to action on Christmas Eve to square off against Mei Yamaguchi at Vale Tudo Japan 2012 and walked away with a clear cut unanimous decision victory, the video of which is above. Rumors circulated before the event that this would be Fujii’s final WMMA fight, and although she has yet to officially retire, the general consensus seems to be that the rumors are true.

We will hold off on the video tribute until an official announcement is made, but join us after the jump for a wicked highlight of Fujii’s reign of terror.

By Jared Jones 

In less than an hour, Bellator’s final card of the year will kick off live from The Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana. Fighting in the only women’s bout of the night will be none other than Felice Herrig, a former Muay Thai wrecking machine turned MMA starlet who has been featured in such programs as Oxygen’s Fight Girls. Tonight, she squares off on the preliminary card against late replacement opponent Patricia Vardonic in a strawweight fight that is sure to convert more than a few fans to this thing called WMMA.

Being the humanitarian that “Lil’ Bulldog” is, she recently set aside some time in her busy schedule to discuss everything from the great injury plague of 2012 to the role of sexuality in female sports with us, so join us after the jump to get inside the head of one of WMMA’s fastest rising prospects in this surprisingly candid interview.

CagePotato: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Felice. First off, we were wondering if you could talk about the controversy surrounding Michele Guitierrez’s withdrawal from Bellator 84. When did you first suspect that she wasn’t being exactly honest about the alleged injury that forced her out of your scheduled fight? 

Felice Herrig: “I had suspected since I signed to fight Michele that she was going to do it. I’ve been in this game a long time and I heard a couple people that trained around her say that she was like 20-some pounds overweight, that she wasn’t going to make it, and that she was asking [her training partners] for tips on how to cut weight. For so long, Michele has done so many things to me that I’ve had to keep quiet about and now I feel like I got to expose her for what she really is.”

(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. 

(“Woah woah, Ronda, slow down. You can’t just waltz in off the street and demand to be in our crew. Fact is, you can’t join until you go through initiation.”) 

As us bloggers are apt to do when a pretty girl walks into the room, it looks like we may have prematurely shot our wad when we broke the historic news that Ronda Rousey had become the first woman to ever sign with the UFC. That’s correct, you’ve now read two semen-related puns in a row. And it’s only Monday. Anyway, Rousey’s manager recently spoke with ESPN to refute the claims:

“Right now, nothing has changed,” says Darin Harvey of Fight Tribe, noting that Rousey is in Las Vegas to fly with the Thunderbirds, the Air Force demonstration squadron, and not to sign a UFC contract.

(Put her in a body bag! No seriously, could someone please dispose of that corpse as quickly as possible? I’m starting to feel queasy.) 

No, that is not a screenshot from The Ring, that is the aftermath of the last time we saw Sheila Bird compete in this thing we call MMA. It took place back in July of 2011 against Kim Couture, and using the combination of a leg scissor choke and some of the worst referee negligence this side of Marius Zaromskis vs. Andrey Koreshkov, Bird not only came away with the win, but provided one photographer with the opportunity to stare into the fleeting remnants of Couture’s soul before she stole it. It was the first documented case of Shang Tsunging in WMMA history.

What are we going on about? Well, Ms. Bird stepped back into the octagon last weekend, and although the end result was nearly as horrific for her victim this time out, it was equally as decisive. Bird needed just 11 seconds to pack Christina Barry’s lunch and jam it down her throat brown bag and all at AFC 12 on Friday, so head after the jump to check out the brutal finish.

(If you are implying that this photo has anything to do with odds…you’re probably right.) 

You’ve gotta love the kind of needless analysis and ridiculous speculation that the Internet era has brought to modern sports. Despite the fact that the Ronda Rousey vs. Cristiane Cyborg fight is still trapped in MMA purgatory, the mere possibility of the matchup is apparently enough for several gambling sites around the MMA blogosphere to start laying out the betting lines for what could be the biggest fight in WMMA history. If it ever happens.

Currently, the women’s bantamweight champion is listed between a -160 to -170 favorite over the former featherweight champ on various sports gambling sites. Sure, Cristiane hasn’t fought in nearly a year since she was stripped of her title for a positive steroids test, and Ronda hasn’t met a challenger with anywhere near the kind of devastating knockout power that Cyborg possesses, but who are we to judge the motives of our cyber-bookie overlords?

(Let’s just say that Cristiane has a way of “convincing” men to do what she wants. We won’t give away the secret, but it involves a garden hose, a tub of creamed corn, a circus midget, and a LOT of tears.) 

What a difference one year (and a smokin’ hot champion) can make.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen UFC President Dana White pull a 180 on such topics as TRT, fights that “make sense,” and most importantly, women’s MMA. Where less than a year ago, Dana could be quoted as saying that we would “never” see women in the UFC – unless they were informing us what round it is, of course — nowadays, his attitude seems to have shifted in the opposite direction. This could partially be due to the success of such smaller promotions as InvictaFC, but is more a result of Dana’s budding fascination with Ronda Rousey, who he has referred to as “unique,” “a Diaz brother,” and “a f*cking dude trapped in this beautiful body.” We’re not sure how he would consider the second quality to be all that endearing, but needless to say, The Baldfather recently informed Sports Illustrated that WMMA is on its way to the UFC:

It’s absolutely going to happen.

[It] could happen tomorrow, it could happen a year from now.

We’ve just heard word that Scott Coker has hung himself.

(Props to MMAFighting for the find. The fight starts/ends at the 45 second mark.)

Yesterday’s knockout of the day featured a poor sap who was simply unprepared to deal with his opponent’s Rockette-esque strategy of starting the show with a high kick. And while today’s victim was lucky enough to make it through her opponent’s first kick intact, she completely forgot to follow the most basic rule of fighting: Always keep your hands up. This mental error would prove most detrimental to her 1-0 record as a professional fighter.

Someone grab a spatula.

-J. Jones

(Joanne Calderwood vs. Ashley Cummins. Fight starts at the 1:35 mark. Someone nearly shits their pants around the 4:45 mark.)

Over the past several months, we’ve heard a lot of hoopla regarding the plight of women’s MMA and the lighter weight classes in general. According to some self-proclaimed experts, these fighters stand next to no chance of providing exciting finishes because of their “frail bones” and their “cabbage fingers” and their “lady parts that prevent them from committing gruesome acts of beautiful violence.” And while it should be noted that I normally obtain most of this expert testimony during my weekly NO MA’AM meetings, I must admit that the ladies of Invicta Fighting Championships are pretty much shattering every pre-conceived notion that one could have when approaching women’s MMA or the lighter weight classes. Last weekend’s Invicta FC 3 event did not stray far from the pattern established by the first two events, which is to say, it delivered exciting fights and brutal finishes from top to bottom.

In the evening’s main event, submission specialist and general hottie Jessica Penne made history by becoming the promotion’s first champion in the atomweight class, controlling the previously number one ranked atomweight Naho Sugiyama easily before submitting her midway through the second round with a slick triangle choke. Penne improved to 10-1 as a professional with the win and likely set up a showdown between herself and “The Karate Hottie” Michelle Waterson, who picked up a hard fought split-decision win over Lacey Schuckman earlier in the evening, down the line. I’m not saying I will be watching that fight with ulterior motives, but I am saying that I will be watching it alone. With the curtains closed. With no pants on.

After the jump: A boatload of fight videos from the event, including Shayna Baszler’s domination of Sarah D’Alelio, Stephanie Frausto’s lightning quick submission over Amy Davis, and Julia Budd’s brutal beatdown of Danielle West.

(Seen here: The WMMA fight that men and women around the world would *definitely* tune in to.) 

If we know anything about Strikeforce female bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, it’s that she is not one to let go of a grudge. On the heels of yet another dominant armbar finish over Sarah Kaufman in August, Rousey was quick to call out the roided-up thorn in her side that the general public knows as Cris Cyborg. As it turned out, Cyborg had been removed from the building beforehand, but the table was nonetheless set for possibly the biggest fight in WMMA history. The only problem with this matchup appeared to be Cyborg’s insistence that she simply could not cut the weight necessary to challenge Rousey for her title. Rousey was also adamant about her desire to stay at 135, and the two have been locked in a stalemate ever since.

But that hasn’t stopped either party from continuing the endless war of words with one another. True to form, Rousey has lobbed significantly more verbal bombs at Cyborg as of late, mainly in regard to her past steroid use. Her most recent attacks took place on The MMA Hour:

If you can make 145 [pounds] while you’re super juiced out, you can make 135 if you’re clean.

Cyborg has never had a fair fight. If you really look at it, she’s had fights where she came in and outweighed the other girl by 12 pounds and then they still fought. This girl has a long history of cheating and using drugs, and coming in overweight, and no one’s ever put their foot down ever about it.

While Rousey has every right to criticize Cyborg’s history, to say that she’s never had a fair fight seems a bit audacious on her part. Sure, the opponents placed before Cyborg were little more than lambs being led to the killing field, lambs who stood next to no chance of beating Cyborg in this or any other dimension, but….we forgot what point we were trying to make. In any case, while we’re on the subject of audacious claims, Rousey followed up her anti-Cyborg rant by claiming that a fight with the former Strikeforce featherweight women’s champ would be “the biggest fight in MMA history.”

Those comments are after the jump. 

(WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S NO FOAMING OF THE MOUTH ALLOWED IN THIS ARENA?!)

You might recall that in the immediate aftermath of Ronda Rousey’s win over Sarah Kaufman last weekend, “Rowdy” called out former women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg. Unlike past Strikeforce events, Cyborg was not allowed to enter the ring and cause a full-fledged riot for our entertainment, and in fact was actually removed from her seat in the audience before the fight even started.

Why, you ask? Well, it turns out that the California State Athletic Commission has a rule declaring that any fighter under a current suspension is not allowed inside to be at a professional mixed martial arts event. Cyborg shared your current confusion while she was being removed form the audience, telling Tatame in a recent interview:

I watched all fights but on the last one, Ronda’s, a woman working on the event came to tell me I had to leave because the commission doesn’t accept suspended athletes on the shows. My manager talked to the guys at the commission and there’s really a law that says that.

I was upset for the way they treated me. They could’ve pulled me on a corner and told me, not in front of the fans. I was taking pictures and they interrupted me, saying I had to go. It was very disrespectful. I believe a champion deserves to be treated with respect. Everyone knows an athlete’s life isn’t easy, so all fighters deserve respect. When I was in Brazil I watched UFC and there was no problem.

An odd rule indeed, made all the more unusual by the fact that the commission decided to wait until the main event to inform Cyborg that she wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place, which is the equivalent of letting a homeless man wander into your dinner party uninvited and waiting until the nightcap to kick him out.

More news on the Cyborg/Rousey match is after the jump.

(Well, at least she has looking hot in front of a camera as a fallback career.) 

Although the main card of Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman card provided most of the evening’s highlights, you would be hard pressed to find an MMA site that didn’t declare Miesha Tate’s come-from-behind win (insert puns now) over Julie Kedzie to be the most exciting fight of the evening. Despite being rocked on various occasions and almost ending up as the first entry in the head-kick-nip-slip Hall of Fame, Tate was able to brave the storm and score an armbar victory of her own late in the third round.

But up until that point, it was plain to see that there was clearly something a little off about the former title holder. Her combinations came few and far between, and her takedown attempts seemed to be lacking a certain gusto that they had previously held. While part of this could be attributed to the toughness of Kedzie, who has been training at Greg Jackson’s gym for some time now (and is in fact his personal assistant), an equal amount could just as easily be blamed on Tate’s somewhat lackadaisical attitude in the cage on Saturday night.

The fact that she still managed to pull off an amazing, gritty win over a tough opponent despite this only shows what caliber of fighter Tate truly is, but according to the source herself, we might not be seeing “Cupcake” in action for a while. In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani during The MMA Hour, Tate explained that she simply “didn’t feel the passion and fire that [she] had felt in her previous fights” when facing Kedzie:

I felt out of my element, I didn’t feel normal in there whatsoever. It was very strange, it was not a feeling I enjoyed and not something I want to experience again, I don’t really know what my next step is here. Even when I was when lined up with Julie, across the cage, I was like, ‘Is this really happening right now? Am I really here? Am I really in this fight?’ I felt like I was kind of just in this twilight zone. I did not like that. It’s not how I normally feel, not how emotions really run. Normally I’m excited to be there, I’m amped and pumped, and I felt little to nothing, and I mean, she literally elbowed me and got my lip really good and I was like ‘ehh, whatever.’ She kicked me in the face, ‘ehh, whatever,’ It was not, it wasn’t a normal circumstance for me I don’t know why that is but I’m asking myself a lot of questions. I think I need to take a step back, relax a minute, and evaluate it. 

More from this interview is after the jump.

 I don’t know how you have a staredown with a French accent, but I’m pretty sure Romy Ruyssen (right) is doing it.

So let’s get this out of the way:  I live in Kansas.

No, I don’t know what the hell a jayhawk is.  I’m not actually from here.

Anyways, Invicta Fighting Championships is going down just a short drive away in Kansas City, so I was quick to accept when I was offered a chance to be a member of the fight media for the inaugural Invicta FC card.

There were a few hiccups at the weigh-ins:  for some reason, they did not set up a raised platform for me to set up upon. As a result my pictures and video were of decidedly low quality. (As a recompense, please enjoy a few pictures courtesy of Invicta’s own photographer, Esther Lin.)

(McCorkle vs. Heden round 1; round 2 is after the jump. Props: PVTHansen16)

Notably stacked for a regional card, Worldwide Mixed Martial Arts‘ debut event went down Saturday night in El Paso, Texas, and was highlighted by an upset in the main event and a handful of UFC vets smashing their way into the win column.

At this point, when Sean McCorkle gets booked against a smaller, doughier opponent with a journeyman’s record, we just assume that “Big Sexy” will bully his way to a first-round stoppage without much difficulty. But WMMA 1′s super-heavyweight main event didn’t go down like that. Though McCorkle (who tipped the scales at 312 pounds) came very close to finishing the 287-pound Brian Heden near the end of the first round, he blew his cardio wad in the process. With McCorkle barely able to lift his arms in round two, Heden was able to reverse a takedown, trap McCorkle’s left arm, and slug his way to a TKO victory. According to Danga, the announcer referred to the win as “the upset of the century.” (Somewhere, Gus Johnson is masturbating.) In a follow-up post on the UG, McCorkle lamented the cardio problems that have plagued his entire athletic career, credited Heden for showing up in “decent shape”* and vowed to retire if his cardio ever contributed to another loss.

In the co-main event, Karo Parisyan snapped a three-fight losing streak when he scored a unanimous decision over veteran Thomas Denny. Even more impressive, Drew Fickett snapped a four-fight losing streak when he choked out WEC/Bellator vet Kevin Knabjian, despite reports that Fickett was pretty well sauced throughout fight week. (Obviously, it could have been worse.)

(Video courtesy of YouTube/WMMASPORTS1)

If you’re looking for an MMA fix to get you through until UFC 145, Worldwide Mixed Martial Arts is holding its inaugural show on Saturday in El Paso, Texas.

The promotion put together the pretty slick looking promo above for its McCorkle vs. Heden: Fighting For A Better World event that will see a portion of the proceeds from the show donated to the Wounded Warriors project.

In the main and co-main event of the evening, former UFC heavyweight Sean McCorkle will take on a somewhat unknown fighter by the name of Brian Heden and onetime UFC welterweight contender Karo Parisyan will face King of the Cage, EliteXC and MFC vet Thomas “Wildman” Denny. The event will be available for rent via pay-per-view.

During the promo, clips were shown of Parisyan’s first fight — a bare-knuckle scrap he had in Mexico when he was 14 against a 20-something local champion.

Check out the entire impressive fight by young Karo and the complete WMMA fight card after the jump.

(Video courtesy of HustleShow)

- Cats With Boobs (WorldwideInterweb)

- Build an MMA Fighter’s Neck (MensFitness)

- The Hurt Business: Highs and Lows in the Brick City (MMAFighting)

- Jason Segel Talks Funny (MadeMan)

- The 10 Dumbest Things About St. Patty’s Day (Guyism)

- It’s Come To This: Another ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ Movie (ScreenJunkies)

- 8-Second WMMA KO (BuzzerBeat)

- 10 Awesome, Yet Painful Concert Fails (Break)

- The Peruvian Fight Club Festival, Takanakuy (TuVez)

- Doc Love: The Right Way to Pick Up on Facebook (AskMen)

- Brass Tacks Infographic: Trivia On Jonah Hill (Clutch.MTV)

- How Women Are Wired (TheRugged)

- 21 Jump Street Review (FilmDrunk)

- Jon Jones: Being Champ is My Destiny  (FightersOnly)

- Tom Watson on the UFC, Brian Stann and BAMMA (BleacherReport)

- 25 Reasons Not to Ride the Bus (HolyTaco)

By Crooklyn

                                                      (Photo courtesy of Getty/ForzaLLC)

As we wind down this frenetic week of anticipation for arguably the biggest fight in WMMA history, Ronda Rousey is taking a load off and catching some much needed rest. Despite being run down from days that start at 5 a.m. and end well past the hours of normalcy, she is still generous with her time, and graciously granted CagePotato.com another interview, among a seemingly unending stream of Q&A requests ahead of her first MMA title bout Saturday night. The focal point is always the same from one interview to the next: Miesha Tate.

In this latest visit with the former Olympian, “Rowdy” discusses several more topics, including Tate’s striking, and the misconceptions some may have about her ability to go into the later rounds if need be.