(Unfortunately, scribed just below this sculpture were a series of hateful, anonymous comments telling these “pussies” to, among other things, “Quit lay-n-praying and knock a motherfucker out.”) 

Following the sport’s shocking removal from the 2020 Olympic games, the wrestling community has called upon every conceivable resource in an attempt to restore the sport’s reputation amongst casual fans and potentially introduce it to even more. Sadly, us history buffs have thus far failed to sway the group of geniuses who declared handball and all that horse-related bullshit as sports more worthy of our viewership from reverting on their monumental mistake. But now, it appears that the International Federation for Wrestling has decided to follow our beloved sport into the fire in a last ditch attempt to save their own. USA Today has the scoop (via MMAJunkie):

“We have to think about how to make a show because without that today, it’s difficult,” FILA acting president Nenad Lalovic told USA TODAY Sports.

Former world champion Bill Scherr, chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of Olympic Wrestling, has met with UFC chief executive Dana White and Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney. MMA stars and officials have been very supportive of wrestling’s efforts. Scherr said his sport can learn about presentation from the MMA world. “We need to think about ways to change how the stage is presented,” Scherr said. “They compete in an octagon and we compete on a mat. We don’t have to compete on a mat. We can compete in sand, we can compete in grass and we can compete on a mat or an octagon. I don’t know. We can get survey groups together and see what looks best.”

There you have it, Potato Nation: Goodbye USA Wrestling. Hello SandFC!

(I had no idea what image to use for this post, so since we’re talking about sports propaganda, let’s leave that to the experts. Props: sportspropaganda.com)

To be honest, I assumed that our coverage of the absolutely tragic Boston Marathon explosions would begin and end with the TD Garden singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” during Wednesday’s Boston Bruins game. It was a respectful tribute to the families of Monday’s victims, but let’s be honest, an MMA site shouldn’t provide continuous coverage of a story that has absolutely nothing to do with MMA. Post a quick tribute, freely acknowledge that it has nothing to do with MMA, and then back to our regularly scheduled programming, right?

If only it were that simple. Perhaps you’ve read that the suspects – Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – trained MMA [Author note: I'm not linking to other sites that have been claiming this, Google it if you're so curious]. Don’t bother looking for a professional record for either suspect, because it doesn’t exist. Neither does an amateur record. Or any proof that they were preparing for MMA bouts of any kind, for that matter.

So what made them “MMA fighters?” Tamerlan boxed, and briefly did so out of Wai Kru MMA. Dzhokhar wrestled in high school. And not that it matters, but even the extent of either of them belonging to an MMA gym has been exaggerated:

Cejudo on Inside MMA talking about his upcoming MMA debut.

With the future of Olympic wrestling up in the air, it isn’t necessarily a surprise to learn that some Olympic hopefuls are giving MMA a shot. Earlier this week, it was announced that Henry Cejudo, the youngest American wrestler to win an Olympic gold medal, is preparing to make his MMA debut in March.

The twenty-six year old wrestler failed to make the Olympic team in 2012, but has had a very decorated amateur wrestling career, including an Olympic gold medal at 55 kg (121 lbs) in 2008. This doesn’t mean that Cejudo is completely one-dimensional, however. He also has over three years of amateur boxing experience, which includes winning a Copper Gloves tournament in 2010.

As you all no doubt have heard, the International Olympic Committee has decreed that wrestling is no longer worthy of a place in the Summer Games, in order to make way for other, more lucrative events. I tell you now that this decision is the worst kind of folly, made for the worst reasons possible. I won’t rail about the corruption in the IOC, or the nepotism and naked commercialism that seems to hold sway in any of their decisions. I will point out that kicking wrestling out of the Olympics does seem rather…historically disconnected.

On the other hand, it’s possible that this is only a con from the IOC in order to drum up support (read: money) to get wrestling back into the Olympic arena where it belongs.

In any case, here is a list of ten sports that should be rightly removed from the Games, even if we weren’t talking about making room for an original Olympic event. Let’s just cut all this extra fat, and strip the Olympics down to the more raw athletic events. (And gymnastics. You have to keep gymnastics.)

The Modern Pentathlon

This was the ass-backwards event that everyone with a brain in their head assumed would get the axe, for two reasons. First, it’s an oddball series of activities based on an archaic skill set — cavalry officers still ride horses? — that is no longer relevant. Second, it’s redundant: Take this away, and athletes could still do the triathlon. Or the decathlon. Or just, you know, pick an event instead of being a scatterbrained dipshit.

Table Tennis

(Jordan Burroughs defeats Sadegh Saeed Goudarzi of Iran to become the 2012 Olympic champion at 74 kilos.)

In an utterly baffling move, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided to drop the sport of wrestling, a.k.a the reason the Olympics even exist, as of the 2020 games. The Associated Press reports:

The IOC program commission report analyzed more than three dozen criteria, including television ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity. With no official rankings or recommendations contained in the report, the final decision by the 15-member board was also subject to political, emotional and sentimental factors. 

The IOC, however, did decide in its infinite wisdom to keep the modern pentathlon, a sport which combines pistol shooting, fencing, riding a horse and some other crap. Forgive my facetiousness, but I fail to see how a sport that managed to bring in athletes from just 26 different countries last year has somehow been deemed more important than one that brought in athletes from 71. And oh yeah, golf will be added as an Olympic sport in 2016.

Yup. Golf.

Hint: This guy does pretty well. Props: The Cornell Sun

Last night concluded the NCAA’s three day tournament for the 2012 D1 National Wrestling Championships in St. Louis, Missouri. Given the success that dominant wrestlers have had in mixed martial arts, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll be seeing a few of these guys in the cage at some point, so you might as well learn who last night’s big winners were. It’s MMA’s version of March Madness, without the annoying Hooter’s commercials (Unrelated, but why are you giving us that dejected look, Bellator?).

Perhaps the biggest winner from last night was Cornell’s Kyle Dake. The 157 pound Ivy League grappler became the first wrestler in NCAA history to win three national titles in three different weight classes, defeating Iowa’s Derek St. John, 4-1. Cornell would wind up finishing fourth in the team standings with 102.5 points, behind Iowa (107.5), Minnesota (117.5) and Penn State (142), who had already clinched the team title before last night’s finals.

If you want a list of full results, check here, then come back for the videos, courtesy of IronForgesIron.com, after the jump.

We haven’t seen or heard much from Brock Lesnar since his first round UFC 141 TKO loss to Alistair Overeem and subsequent retirement from MMA. Most of us assumed he was likely off on another possibly illegal hunting trip, or perhaps was spending day and night just getting on top of that smoking hot wife of his. In either case, the former UFC Heavyweight Champ recently popped up in Minneapolis to present Minnesota Gopher freshman wrestler Logan Storley with the 2011 Junior Hodge Trophy. Storley, who recently helped the Gophers clinch half of the Big Ten Dual Meet conference championship (along with Penn State), attended the same high school as Lesnar, who, as we all know, was a NCAA Division I Champion himself. After compiling an incredible 262-3 record, Storley was voted the nation’s best prep high school wrestler by the Amateur Athletic Union and WIN Magazine. Now start training those hands, son.

Join us after the jump for a plethora of videos from around the MMA blogosphere, including a nasty Thai Boxing KO, Thiago Alves‘ first (and incredibly brief) UFC on FX video blog, and more…

For a guy nicknamed “The Party”, you’d think that he’d have a hotter chick.

At this time last year, MMA pundits were intrigued by Lance Palmer’s announcement that he intended to move to Sacramento to pursue a career in MMA. Lance Palmer was a four time Ohio High School State Champion, the subject of the documentary Pinned and a four time NCAA All-American at Ohio State, so we all dropped what we were doing to…okay fine. We were all busy covering the freak show that was Sylvia vs. Pudzianowski. It seemed important at the time. Anyway, Palmer moved to Sacramento in August of 2010 to join Team Alpha Male, and made his professional MMA debut last night at Fight for Wrestling 3 in Bakersfield California. By the way, the event was a fundraiser for Cal State Bakersfield’s wrestling program, which no longer receives support from the school.

His opponent, Emelio Gonzales, made his professional debut at the beginning of the month, losing by a first round rear naked choke. Predictably, Lance Palmer wasted little time getting this one to the ground. After securing an earlier takedown, Palmer was careful to avoid submission attempts from Gonzales. After a failed armbar attempt by Gonzales, Palmer took his back and sunk in a rear naked choke.

After the jump, be sure to watch the video of the fight with your sound on. Normally, spectators who yell out instructions at the fighters are extremely annoying. However, there’s something equally tragic and hilarious about assuming the woman yelling instructions at Emelio Gonzales throughout the fight is his mother.

(Maybe it’s not too late to learn to hit the 3-wood, Jase. Pic: Some Blog)

Well, this is just about the most pussy thing we’ve ever heard: Sherdog reports this week that UFC B-listers Jason Brilz and Jake Ellenberger are likely out of their jobs as assistant wrestling coaches at University of Nebraska-Omaha, as the university plans to scratch its powerhouse grappling program while making the jump to Division I.

A longtime juggernaut at the NCAA Division II level, UNO reportedly has designs on joining something called the Summit League, a D-I conference that includes such bastions of higher learning as Oral Roberts, Southern Utah and Western Illinois but does not offer wrestling or football. As a result – and despite the fact the Maverick grapplers have won six national titles in the last eight years – the school plans to cut both sports, replacing them with (holy fucking shit) men’s golf and soccer. Are you kidding me? Men’s golf? To make matters worse, Brilz reports UNO brass called longtime wrestling coach Mike Denney to let him know they were axing his whole program the same night the team won its third consecutive national title.

(VidProps: UK Telegraph)

The UK Telegraph posted part two of its video interview with Dan Hardy this week, leading up to Hardy’s clash with Carlos Condit on Saturday night at UFC 120. Though the video is titled “My secret weapon after losing to Georges St. Pierre,” Hardy doesn’t mention anything about GSP or his secret weapon here. Hopefully, that’s coming in part three. What Hardy does do in the above video is a bit of clarification about what he meant to say while he was ripping into wrestlers in a recent column he penned for his hometown newspaper. Once again – as we’ve already discussed –  Hardy seems far more sensible when you hear the words come out of his mouth than when your read them on paper.

The five-time UFC vet explains that even though he actually wrote the words, “the problem is there’s beginning to be too much wrestling in UFC Octagon,” he didn’t mean it as an insult to wrestlers, per se. Like, what would give you that idea?

(Props to Yahoo’s Maggie Hendricks and the Dog’s Jordan Breen for the public Twitter convo that turned us on to the unadulterated awesomeness of Senegalese wrestling. Vid: YouTube/mbourencouleurs)

This just in from the CagePotato Fashion Desk: What’s the hottest trend for fall? Foreign people wrestling on exotic, faraway shores. Don’t believe us? Behold the above video, where two dudes in their underwear wrestle in the grass in a packed soccer stadium somewhere in Senegal. Do we have any idea what’s going on here? No. Do we know who these guys are or understand the rules? No. Does any of that matter? Absolutely not. When the guy allegedly named Papa Sow jacks up the guy named Paul Maurice with an insane Randleman-on-Fedor-style slam, that’s a language everyone understands.  Or maybe it’s Maurice who does the slamming, who cares?

When Papa Sow –– or Maurice — responds to the victory by sprinting across the turf into the arms of his crew while the crowd absolutely loses its fucking mind? That’s pretty awesome too.  Honestly though, those guys need some T-shirts with their area code printed on them if they want to be taken seriously as a fighter’s entourage. Be sure to stick around to the 1:40 mark for the slow-mo, back-and-forth replays of the takedown while the announce team breaks it all down. We assume whichever one is the Senegalese Joe Rogan is probably saying the guy in the black trunks should’ve used more leg kicks.

After the jump, a trailer for a (we think) legit documentary about what happens when a bunch of Bolivian peasant women stop being polite … and start a professional wrestling federation.

(Here’s a quarter pal, call Michael Schiavello. PicProps: All Elbows)

MMA’s pathetic collective bitch session about the current trend of wrestlers kicking everybody’s asses reached its shrill and whiny fever pitch this week. With the UFC considering pulling Jon Fitch’s title shot off the table, Dan Hardy’s hilariously bad anti-wrestling column appearing in the Nottingham World Observer (or whatever it’s called) and people publicly worrying themselves sick about the marketability of Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard, the wrestling store must be all sold out of Haterade.

Add to the list of the aggrieved the already insufferable Shinya Aoki, who tells MMA Fighting.com that – in the wake of his own soul-crushing defeat by Gilbert Melendez and idol BJ Penn’s second straight loss to Edgar – he’s not too down with all this wrestling stuff.

(Who’s the tough guy? PicProps: Fight! Magazine)

File this under Least Surprising News of the Week: In the wake of getting thoroughly outwrestled by Gray Maynard at UFC 118 last month, Kenny Florian is vowing to make some wholesale changes in his training. Florian says he’s hired a wrestling coach from Boston University to help him with his grappling, so that he won’t get held down en route to a unanimous decision loss again anytime soon.

And frankly, this is a good example of yet another reason why KenFlo is one of the more likable fighters in all of MMA. Rather than taking the Dan Hardy approach — where you respond to your team’s multiple wrestling-based losses by publishing a screed in the local newspaper where you insist that (and, yes, this is an exact quote): “The problem is there’s beginning to be too much wrestling in the UFC Octagon, not too little of it in the (Team Roughouse) gym,” – Florian is opting to actually do something about it, trying to get better and keeping his dream of one day holding a UFC title alive.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

Maybe you’ve followed our coverage of Kyle Maynard’s impending MMA debut — which goes down tomorrow at Auburn Fight Night, and can be seen live on KyleMaynardFight.com for $14.95 — but you don’t have the whole story if you’ve never seen this man in action. We wanted to pass along the above clip of an appearance that Kyle did on Larry King Live a few years ago, which shows that yes, he can write his name (and type 50 words per minute), he has insane body control, and he can put you in a very painful keylock, if need be; the entire transcript of the interview can be found here. No matter what happens tomorrow night, we’re pulling for him…

After the jump: The poster for Auburn Fight Night, which promises another special guest with a completely different handicap…

(Props: "Card" on the UG. Lots more robo-scraps here.)

Are you sitting down? Good — prepare to have your mind blown. When I started to watch this Japanese robot MMA video, I thought, okay, these little guys are going to throw haymakers until one of their heads pop up. I was not expecting the little gray one to duck the hook then shoot in for the single-leg takedown (1:01), then follow it up with a suplex (1:26). Classic striker vs. grappler battle here. Alright, so it gets a little sloppy after a while, but the PRIDE victory music makes up for it. Skip to 3:42 for another epic slam, and if you watch to end, you’ll see that even in robot fights, the Japanese are fond of their freak shows.

(Here comes the pain…)

Cain Velasquez is a former All-American wrestler and undefeated MMA fighter who has yet to see what the second round looks like in his pro career.  This Saturday at UFC Fight Night 17 he faces Octagon newbie Denis Stojnic, and all indications are that Velasquez’s undefeated streak will still be intact on Sunday morning.  

In this exclusive interview, Velasquez talks with us about the choice of opponents, his transition from wrestling to MMA, and his thoughts on AKA’s recent dust-up with the UFC over the video game licensing deal.

CagePotato.com: You’re facing a guy who’s making his UFC debut in Denis Stojnic.  What do you know about him and how have you been preparing for him?

The only thing I know about him is from watching YouTube videos of him.  He’s an aggressive fighter, he throws some wild punches, and he’s an extremely tough dude.  I’m working on turning the corner, not really standing there and banging with him, but looking for shots from there for the takedown.

You’re 4-0 and beat a fairly established UFC fighter in Jake O’Brien your last time out.  Why do you think the UFC decided to put you up against a guy stepping into the Octagon for the first time?

I’m not really sure, but they did.  I’m glad they did because that’s just more ring time for me.  When I get up to the big guys, the big names, I’ll be more ready.

Brock Lesnar’s segment on E:60 aired yesterday, and we learned a few things about the WWE-superstar turned UFC heavyweight contender. Namely:

— His childhood on a struggling dairy farm in Bumblefuck, South Dakota, inspired him to achieve something greater with his life.

— He’s always liked beating the crap out of people. “Handling another human being and making him feel less than you is, I don’t know, something that I got a thrill out of,” Lesnar says.

— He never watched “a lick” of pro wrestling before he joined the WWE.

— Being a WWE champion takes its toll, both physically and emotionally. He wrestled for six months with a blown-out knee and three broken ribs, and lost two years of memories to vodka and pain pills, which he was basically addicted to.

— Bret “The Hitman” Hart looks scary-old.

— Steroids are a touchy subject for Lesnar, even though he’s never taken them. When the interviewer starts asking him about his unnaturally large physique, Brock sees where the line of questioning is headed and storms off. “I have never failed a fucking drug test,” he says later.

— Lesnar doesn’t put much faith in Randy Couture’s claim that he’s stronger now than he was 10 years ago. “My ass, he is. I’m 31 and I’m not as strong as I was 10 years ago. That’s a straight-up lie.”

After the jump: E:60‘s full reporter/producer discussion on the Brock Lesnar story.

Gina Carano does her best to play down the various EliteXC controversies in this interview with Steve Cofield. They cover everything from her naked weigh-in (where maybe Jared Shaw tried to sneak a peek) to her very meager pay to the impending investigation into the Seth Petruzelli bonus fiasco to…wait a minute. Is that the national anthem playing in the background? Gina, did you carry on with the interview through the national fucking anthem? The goddamn Star-Spangled Banner!? Jesus, that’s worse than wearing a hat during it! And you call yourself an American Gladiator.

But on a serious note, where I get confused is where Carano says she’s actually happy that people know how little she made (1/20 of Kimbo’s purse, as Cofield points out) because now they’ll know she doesn’t do this for money. Now, I’m no high-powered sports agent, but I have to think that maybe it’s this attitude that’s the problem. It’s one thing to say you’re not only in this for the money, but this is your career. It’s not just about what you want; it’s about what’s fair. I’m sure there are plenty of up-and-coming women fighters who wish that you’d make this point to your employers a little more forcefully. Plus, maybe if you made more to fight you wouldn’t have to do all this other shit on the side. Just saying.

Below, check out a clip from Randy Couture‘s perfectly coiffured days as a wrestler. An extra special bonus surprise awaits you after the jump. Props to MMA Scraps for the find(s).

(Friendship. It’s a bitch.)

Matt Hamill may not have fought his greatest fight against Rich Franklin at UFC 88, but he went two rounds and change before succumbing to some brutal body kicks. That’s not the outcome you want if you’re Hamill, but there’s no shame in that, right? Not so, says Hamill’s trainer, Duff Holmes (if in fact that is his real name). He blasted Hamill’s performance in an interview with Fightline.com, suggesting that Hamill didn’t have his mind right going into the fight and questioning his “fighting spirit,” among other things:

“I practically begged Matt to take Rich down,” said a clearly frustrated Holmes. “I was screaming at him to stop fighting Rich’s fight and fight his fight. I can’t explain it. He just had this blank look on his face. I don’t know where he was, but the Matt Hamill that I know and trained for the past 11 weeks was not in that octagon on Saturday.”

[...]

“Reports that Matt wasn’t able to take Rich down are completely false. Matt didn’t shoot once the whole fight. He didn’t try. Matt Hamill is one of the most physically gifted athletes in the UFC. He has double leg takedown that’s like he’s shot out of a cannon. The guy is an animal; unfortunately that’s not the Matt Hamill that showed up on Saturday. He didn’t work the game plan.”

[...]

“I can’t explain it,” said Holmes. “The only person that knows why he didn’t come out to fight is him. I told him after the fight that his performance was uncharacteristic and that he really needed to do some soul searching to see if this is really what he wants to do. He had absolutely no fighting spirit, no killer instinct. He looked like a shell of himself and was just out there to get through it and that is very disconcerting.”

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Plenty of people seem upset about Brock Lesnar after UFC 87. Maybe it’s because of his antics at the end of the fight. Maybe it’s because of his post-fight remarks. Maybe it’s because he won, or because everything about him reminds you of the guy who put you upside down in that trash can back in high school. We all have our reasons, is what I’m saying, even if they may be bad ones.

I’ll admit that I didn’t get a whole lot of joy out of watching Lesnar control Herring on the mat for three rounds. It wasn’t exactly a thrilling bout, athletically speaking, and his ‘ride-em cowboy’ routine was the kind of thing I hate about pro sports. But at a time when the UFC’s heavyweight division suffers from a general dearth of talent and interesting potential matchups, hate-ability may be just what we need right now.

What we have in Lesnar is the type of guy who various martial arts were created in order to protect against. He’s big, strong, fast, and aggressive. He’s all natural ability, and not so much technique at this point. His personality is abrasive, to put it mildly — the kind of guy you run into at a bar and think, ‘I’d kick your ass, if only you weren’t so big.’ What’s more, he seems to really enjoy being that guy.

After his display following the victory over Herring prompted some anger from MMA fans, Lesnar responded:

“That was just me. I was just excited. That was for Heath’s camp. I had the last laugh and the last words to say. I might’ve went a little overboard. If I offended anybody then I’m sorry…uh, not really!”

What’s not to love?

Randy Couture was featured in Wednesday night’s episode of Biography, which covered the Natural’s fatherless upbringing, his background in wrestling, his four failed attempts to make the U.S. Olympic team, his transition from wife #1 to wife #2 to wife #3, his discovery of mixed martial arts, and his championship successes. The documentary suffers from a lack of approved UFC footage — hence all the random IFL and Pancrase clips — but it’s a good way to learn about Couture’s backstory if you aren’t already a Randy fanatic. Check out the full video above; props to MMA Scraps.

(Small man, big money.)

It was announced today that boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. will pocket a very-real $20 million for fake-fighting “Big Show” at WrestleMania XXIV in Orlando on March 30. Let’s put that figure into perspective: $20,000,000 is 40 times more than the UFC’s highest-paid star, Chuck Liddell, made for real-fighting Wanderlei Silva. It’s 166 times more than Anderson Silva made for his last title defense. If you laid every one of those dollars end-to-end, it would stretch from Mayweather’s ass to the back of the garage he keeps his Bentleys in.

“Wrestling takes care of business right on the spot,” Mayweather said in the AP article. “There’s no waiting three, four, five months. Quick results, quick money. Quick big money, too.” And at the press conference, this happened:

Mayweather incited the couple hundred of already hyped fans at Staples Center by whipping out a thick wad of cash and repeatedly tossing $100, $50 and $20 bills into the crowd that had nearly as many women as men.

A mad scramble ensued, with a light pole nearly getting knocked over and two small children caught in the chaos.

As Mayweather’s manager Leonard Ellerbe very astutely put it, “Either I’m going to be a genius with this or I’m the biggest idiot.” Hey, why not both?

One of the most embarrassing aspects of pro wrestling (and there are many) is that it forces men to trash-talk about a fight that isn’t even real. A WrestleMania XXIV preview on WWE.com quotes Big Show as saying “At WrestleMania, I’m going to show you that wrestling can hurt…Look at the size of my fist. It’s the size of your head. Once you get a load of this, it’s ‘BOOM!’ You’re out.” Paul? Something tells me you’re going to lose this one.

Let’s hope this doesn’t distract Floyd from his budding MMA career. Oh, you already forgot about that, didn’t you?

Related: Stripper admits Oscar De La Hoya Drag Pics are fake (site sorta NSFW)

According to Brock Lesnar in this new promo video for UFC 81, the outcomes in pro wrestling “may be pre-determined.” (!!!)

Dude, you’re going to break this guy‘s heart. Check out 81.ufc.com to see the rest of Lensar’s interview, as well as an interview with Frank Mir in which the former UFC heavyweight champ discusses his gameplan against Lesnar and the motorcycle accident that nearly ended his career.

Oh, and also? Lesnar isn’t really a big fan of the gays. Which is surprising coming from a guy with a big schlong tattooed on his chest.

Related: If you haven’t already taken the new poll on our homepage (“Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir — who takes it?”), please do so now.