(I have nothing funny to say, so instead I’ll remind everyone that this guy was an ECW champion, and that makes me feel empty inside.)

For a guy who doesn’t believe that MMA is a threat to his business, WWE owner Vince McMahon is certainly very conscious of its existence. In fact, I’m willing to bet that McMahon is secretly a pretty big MMA fan. In the past, he has basically taken credit for the MMA success of Brock Lesnar, financed a movie about a mentally-challenged MMA fighter (I’m being dead serious), paid tribute to Sonnen vs. Silva II during one of his company’s matches, and once tried to pay Mike Goldberg to no-show his UFC announcing duties. What hardcore MMA fan hasn’t thought about doing that last one?

So I guess it should come as no surprise then that according to Dana White, Vince McMahon once challenged him to a fight. As he told the media leading up to tonight’s UFC 158:

(“Brock, I want to trust you, I really do. But I’ve seen The Jeffersons before and I’m pretty sure this isn’t how you fix my bad back.”)

I might not follow professional wrestling anymore, but I’ve started to notice a pattern of sorts in regards to Brock Lesnar’s relationship with the WWE, which has to be the easiest job that anyone could ever ask for. Seriously, Lesnar shows up once every year or so, says less than a sentence, F-5′s whoever the hell is standing across the ring from him, and then stands menacingly over the victim’s body until they cut to commercial. He’s like the Mongo of the WWE, only instead of punching horses, Lesnar takes out his frustrations on genetically-enhanced geriatrics like Vince McMahon, who the announcers hilariously reminded us was in fact a grandfather while Lesnar was tossing him through the air like a bag of garbage during last night’s Monday Night Raw as the dude from Hardcore Pawn stared on in horror. Pretty sweet gig if you ask me.

We probably should’ve seen something like this coming when it was reported that Lesnar had signed a two year extension with the wrestling promotion, but the exact same routine, down to the sleeveless black tee and breakaway pants? Methinks the WWE is running out of ideas. I mean, they could’ve at least gone the Shooter route and had Lesnar show up sporting some camo pants and an unkempt beard before declaring that McMahon had double-crossed/left him for dead at last year’s SummerSlam. Seriously, Vince, if you’re looking for a writer with a penchant for abortion jokes and hyperbole, I’m your guy.

Video after the jump.

(It could be argued that the gun gave him an unfair advantage.)

Former WWE professional wrestling star Dave Bautista made a successful MMA debut last night in Providence, RI. Bautista beat Vince Lucero via TKO (ground strikes) in the first round of their main event bout.

Lucero, a late replacement, out weighed Bautista by nearly forty pounds and came into the cage with well over forty professional fights under his belt but couldn’t survive the pro wrestler’s ground attack. Early on, Lucero hurt Bautista on the feet with punches.

Once he was able to get space and clear his head, however, Bautista took things to the ground with a double leg take down. From there he moved to side mount, then mount and rear mount before unloading a series of unanswered punches that forced the referee to stop the fight.

“I am better than I showed,” Bautista told interviewer Joe Lauzon after the win.

Perhaps, perhaps not. But Bautista definitely has more guts than other celebrity performers out there who play tough guys on TV or film but have no idea what it is like to train for and take part in a real fight.

The pro wrestler promised that he would continue to fight and thanked his Tampa area team and coaches. Check out the fight video as well as full event results after the jump.

Our friends at With Leather just put together an incredible/awful collection of cheesy WWF promo photos from the late ’80s and early ’90s, and as we were browsing through some of these gems while drinking our coffee this morning, we couldn’t escape the eerie feeling that we’ve seen these faces elsewhere. The same snarling mugs, the same wacky personas — it’s obvious that some of our favorite MMA fighters owe a debt to these guys. So follow us back to pro wrestling‘s golden age, and allow us to make some startling comparisons.

Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart was the original…
Hillbilly Jim was the original…
Legion of Doom were the original…
Junk Yard Dog was the original…
Ultimate Warrior was the original…
The Honky Tonk Man was the original…
Tatanka was the original…
Big Boss Man was the original…
George “The Animal” Steele was the original…

(How many times do I have to tell you people this? I HAVE COMMITMENT ISSUES!) 

My grandfather always told me “Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear,” a statement that would in turn lead to a lifetime’s worth of cynicism. So perhaps it’s just my general misanthropy rearing its ugly head, but when former UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar released a video last night declaring that he was “never coming back” to the WWE, I was a bit skeptical. After all, Lesnar just returned to the promotion in April, and I may not follow the WWE anymore, but I’m pretty sure that Vince McMahon doesn’t hand out many five month contracts. For Christ’s sake, isn’t Ric Flair’s decomposing corpse still fighting for a retirement check that will never come?

Anyway, Lesnar released the video that awaits you after the jump, stating:

I came here and I accomplished everything that I said I was going to do. There’s nothing left for me here to conquer. I’m leaving the WWE and I’m never coming back.

(This is how a real Christian does product endorsement)

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

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

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

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

(Props: WWEFanNation)

After some awful soap opera bullshit involving Paul Heyman and Triple H, former cage-fighter Brock Lesnar showed up on the historic 1,000th episode of WWE Raw last night to save his manager from getting slapped to death by Stephanie McMahon. Though his last run-in with Triple H ended in a Submission of the Night performance, Brock got the short end of the script this time, and was clotheslined directly out of the ring. (Perfect execution on that fall, by the way. The man’s still got it.)

Plus, the Undertaker and Kane reunited, and Fozzie Bear showed up. Hardcore, bro.

“Okay Chael, I got right into the triangle defense you taught me! Now what?”

File this one under “Better (I guess) late than never.”

TMZ is reporting that former WWE Champion Dave Bautista – better known by his incredibly clever stage name “Batista” – has inked a deal with Rhode Island’s CES MMA. He will be making his professional MMA debut on October 6, which will take place at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

His opponent is thirty-three year old Rashid “Smash” Evans, who will also be making his professional MMA debut. Evans went 3-2 in amateur competition, with his most recent victory being a second round submission via strikes victory over Brett Jenkins at Barbarian Fight Club “2012″ in January.

(Chael Sonnen, seen here learning a lesson that Judd Nelson taught the rest of us back in the 80′s. All props be to Fightlinker for the find.) 

At this point, we’ve moved past the “illegal” knee, the shorts grabbing, and the vaseline that may or may not have marred Anderson Silva’s destruction of Chael Sonnen at UFC 148. We are not going to convince anyone to change their minds in regards to the gravity (or lack thereof) of Silva’s actions and whether or not they affected the outcome of the fight, and neither will you, because, as Ollie Weeks once said, “You can’t convince some people there’s a fire even when their hair is burning. Denial is a powerful thing.” And before you lash out at our use of the term “destruction” to describe the fight, first consider that that was the term used by Sonnen himself to describe Silva’s tenacity in the second round. According to Dana White, that is:

This is what Chael Sonnen said to me after the fight. He didn’t say it at the press conference, but he said it to me. He said, ‘I have so much respect for this guy, Dana. I’ve been competing in combat sports since I was seven years old. In that first round, when I was on top of him, hittin’ him with those big elbows, I felt him break. I broke him in that first round. He came back in the second round and destroyed me. I’ve never seen anybody do that, ever.

So now that we’ve all put aside our differences, we’d like to focus for a moment on the monumental mistake that was Sonnen’s spinning backfist, which has already begun to take on a life of its own as evident by the header gif. In fact, Sonnen’s mental error has become so popular over the past few days that his good friend and pro wrassler CM Punk decided to reenact the end of the fight on last night’s episode of WWE: Monday Night Raw. Although the result was as to be expected (a major whiff), Punk’s spinning backfist was arguably thrown with better technique.

Video after the jump. 

(“DO YOU SMELL WHAT THE FRANK IS COOKING??”)

Wow, Frank Mir wants to face Brock Lesnar again more than we realized. The two-time UFC heavyweight champion (and two-time Lesnar adversary) recently told The Chronicle Journal that he is “not opposed to the idea” of becoming a professional wrestler, although he did clarify that he “can’t do a back flip or anything.”

Mir has never kept secret the fact that he wants revenge on Lesnar for the beating he took at Brock’s hands in their rematch. With Lesnar back in the WWE, maybe Mir realizes that his only chance at getting his paws on Brock again is for the two of them to work together in a squared circle.

But could Mir really be trusted to stick to the script and work collaboratively with his nemesis, should they meet up in the WWE? Daniel Puder taught us that MMA fighters can’t always be trusted to make pro wrestling superstars look good in the ring.

(Inferior heavyweight contender, or marketing genius?!) 

Perhaps we’re in the minority here, but we’re getting pretty God damn sick of mixed martial artists throwing around the word “retirement” like Kim Kardashian throws around the word “marriage.” Because retirement, like marriage, is a sacred institution, and nowadays it seems as if every other fighter is taking a big, steaming turd on what was once holy ground. In the past year alone, both Jamie Varner and more recently B.J. Penn have retired, only to come out of said retirement before anyone could even assess their retirement in the first place. Though the jury is still out on how long Nick Diaz and Jason Miller will be out of action, it’s looking like you can add none other than former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar to the former list, as it has been reported by co-Host of Tough Talk on wrestlingobserver.com, Mike Sawyer, that Lesnar will return to the UFC within the year. He broke the news over his Twitter:

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
Had an interesting conversation with someone VERY close to all the Brock Lesnar stuff. He is fighting THIS YEAR in UFC & not Frank Mir…

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
plans change all the time, but the name I was told isn’t Roy.

Brian ?@FrontRowBrian
If it’s not Mir fighting Lesnar in UFC later this year as @TOUGHTALKMMA reports, who is it? @roynelsonmma? @stefanstruve? @ShaneCarwin II?

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
one of the above.

For those of you with the memory capacity of Sammy Jankis, Lesnar announced his retirement from the sport following his first round TKO loss to Alistair Overeem at UFC 141. UFC 141 was a mere six months ago.

(Look, Roy, we’re all big Harry Potter fans, but this Rubeus Hagrid obsession of yours is going a little far.) 

Like that of current light heavyweight champ Jon Jones, former UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar seems to be the subject of much debate amongst the MMA community. Not only was his heart called into question following his UFC 141 loss to Alistair Overeem, but in light of recent events, even the legitimacy of his title reign has seemingly been written off by some fans of the sport and wiped from the collective memories of others. Meanwhile, the hardcore conspiracy theorists claim that Lesnar’s run was nothing more than a genius ploy by Vince McMahon to boost Lesnar’s popularity before looping him back into the WWE. He’s a polarizing figure to say the least.

And when questions began to arise about the possibility of Lesnar becoming a future inductee into the UFC Hall of Fame, some of us nearly blew a fucking gasket. Among those detractors was that of Roy “Big Country” Nelson, who is scheduled to face Dave Herman on tomorrow night’s main card. A professional fighter for over seven years, Nelson was none too happy to hear all of this blasphemy, and when interviewed by Ariel Helwani, let his feelings be known about Lesnar’s chances:

You know what? If Brock belongs in the hall of fame, so do I. It’s not that hard to win the title when it’s set up that way for you. Pretty much [a silver platter]. After Dave Herman, I guess I get a title shot. Interim! Because someone’s gonna get hurt.

It’s pretty hard to deny the truth in Nelson’s words. Yes, Lesnar did win a title (and defend it), and all Nelson has done lately is get his face smashed in spectacular/gruesome fashion, but the fact that Lesnar got a shot after going 1-1 is pretty…you know what, we’ve already discussed this. I’m not going to retread any old ground.

Anyway, join us after the jump for Nelson’s full interview with Helwani, in which he also discusses his diet (of course), returning to his Kung-Fu roots, as well as his (and every fighters) gripes with his pay rate.

(From last night’s edition of WWE Raw. / Props: ReyWWETVWeekly via MMAMania)

Brock Lesnar‘s beef with John Cena continues in the land of make-believe, and well, sometimes these things happen in professional wrestling. I promise we won’t force you to watch this stuff each week, but it’s interesting how Brock’s UFC fighting style is now influencing his performances in the wrestling ring. Previously in the clip (around the 1:42 mark), Lesnar thanks John Laurinaitis “for having the wisdom to bring legitimacy back to the WWE.” Any wrestling fans out there care to agree or disagree with that statement?

By Jason Moles

After the most difficult two-and-a half minutes of his professional MMA career, it was all over for Brock Lesnar. Not just the savage abuse he was taking from Strikeforce/K-1 champion Alistair Overeem, not just his attempted comeback in the sport he took by storm, but his time in MMA altogether. ”I’ve had a really difficult couple of years with my disease, and I’m going to officially say tonight was the last time you’ll see me in the Octagon,” Lesnar said during his post-fight retirement speech at UFC 141.

It’s only fitting that Lesnar’s run in the UFC end as quickly and unexpectedly as it began. The former NCAA Division I wrestling champion was never really ours when you think about it — MMA merely borrowed Lesnar, and we should consider ourselves fortunate that he briefly lent his personality and ferocious physicality to our sport. As he said his final good-byes to the Las Vegas crowd, the beardless viking looked relieved to see the Octagon in his rear-view mirror.

Shortly after waiving off the fight, Mario Yamasaki raised the arm of the new #1 contender, Alistair Overeem. The former PRIDE fighter had everything going for him. He dodged a fatal bullet from the NSAC, was making bank in the UFC, and had just defeated a man most people considered a Top 5 contender in the heavyweight division – finally proving to the world that he can indeed hang with the best. On top of all that, he had just been announced as the next challenger for Junior Dos Santos’ championship title. The only way it could have been better is if the mayor had given him a key to the city and held a parade in his honor. If Overeem only knew the fate that would befall him over the course of the next three months, his smile might not have been as big that December night inside the MGM Grand.

(BROCK CARES NOT FOR JORTS.)

Brock Lesnar‘s rumored return to professional wrestling became terrifyingly real last night on WWE Raw. After a long-winded, jeer-drawing monologue from John Cena — who had just lost a match to The Rock in Wrestlemania 28′s main event the night before — Lesnar interrupted the proceedings by stalking into the arena. Pants were shat.

It was as if Lesnar’s previous four years fighting in the UFC, which included two years as the promotion’s heavyweight champion, was all a dream. The WWE fans in attendance at Miami’s American Airlines Arena welcomed Brock like he’d never left, and the Next Big Thing clearly hadn’t lost an ounce of his old swagger. Lesnar entered the ring, and without a whole lot of preamble, picked up Cena, spun him to the mat with his trademark F-5, then soccer-kicked Cena’s stupid little hat.

The video is after the jump. Discuss.

(Has Lesnar decided to return to the quiet and dignified life of professional wrestling?)

Earlier this weekend there were rumors that former UFC heavyweight champion — and before that, former WWE champion — Brock Lesnar had signed a new deal with the WWE and would be making an appearance at their annual pay-per-view centerpiece WrestleMania yesterday. Lesnar never actually showed up on the broadcast, and the rumors of his re-signing with the WWE are still just that, but they come from about as reliable a rumor-mill as there is in the business, Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer (via MMAMania):

“Brock Lesnar has arrived in Miami and arrived with security and a large group of people shielding him from everyone. This is the going story, but not confirmed, that Lesnar has signed a one year deal and will work a more than Undertaker and less than Goldberg type of schedule.”

What they mean is that Lesnar would not be driving all over the country in a rental car five days a week, working show after show like most people on the WWE roster. That’s good, since Lesnar first left the WWE because he didn’t want to have to maintain the brutal grind of a pro wrestler’s life, no matter how well it paid.

(Props: PopCandiesTv via MMAMania)

UFC President Dana White was recently accosted by fame parasites outside of Agency nightclub in Hollywood, and was drunk kind enough to grant a brief interview. Here’s what we learned

- Tiki Ghosn is everywhere, man. Everywhere.

- Brock Lesnar is free to go back to the WE. Or the WWE, if that’s what it’s called.

- When Dana White is drunk, it kind of affects his hearing. But to answer your question, Jon Jones might be the baddest dude on earth.

- DW doesn’t do New Year’s resolutions, although he does have some advice for the kids: “Don’t get drunk. Don’t drink Red Bull. Don’t stay out too late. Don’t do stupid interviews when you’re drinkin’. That should be your nous’re…yeah, you know what I’m sayin’.”

After the jump, another PopCandies video from earlier the same night, in which a relatively sober Dana gets props from a classy older woman, reminds everybody that Fedor sucks, and denies that his bodyguard is his bodyguard.

I did it at least nine times. How else would I inherit his empire?

By Jason Moles

Last week MMA Fighting reported that Paul Levesque, better known as Triple H, real life son-in-law of WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, said he thought the UFC should evolve like the pro wrestling juggernaut has, “because quite frankly sometimes the fights are long and boring, guys lying around and sometimes the fights are fast and over in five seconds.”

Is “The Game” right? Does it matter? Before we pass judgment on his comments, let’s take a quick look at a few specific examples he gave for his opinion, then weigh the pros and cons of leaning too far towards Entertainment or Winning.

(Rear-naked-choke to the ankle: If done right, no can defend.)

Kurt Angle appeared on a recent episode of MMAWeekly Radio and dropped a bombshell that he was very close to coming to terms with the UFC recently.

A former Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, Angle says that appearing in the soon-to-be-relesed MMA movie, “Warrior” re-stoked his fire to compete in MMA. Following his last appearance in the Olympics, Angle chose pro wrestling over MMA and has hinted ever since that he would try his hand at the sport one day.

“I actually contacted Dana White again after the movie. I flew out to meet him once and got a great offer. I contacted him again, I was thinking about dropping out of [TNA] Impact Wrestling, and there were some personal problems with my marriage and I just wanted to get away,” he explained. “I contacted Dana White, I flew out, and he had me take the UFC physical. I passed it, thank God, and he gave me the offer.”

By Jason Moles

Man, they sure are lowering the bar these days. According to TMZ, Dave Bautista (aka former WWE professional wrestler “Batista“) and renowned MMA trainer Cesar Gracie have created a new tag team, and will be opening a Gracie Fighter Jiu Jitsu franchise in Tampa. Though the gym is currently only open to “close martial artist friends,” it will be opened to the public next week; you can see a couple photos of the joint here.

The last we heard about Bautista’s MMA career is that it was dead thanks to the UFC acquiring Strikeforce. I’m not sure if I’m more surprised that Bautista can’t stop pretending he’s a real fighter or that Cesar is whoring out the Gracie family name like that. I hope his cousin Renzo gives him a good talking to about this whole ordeal.

For part one of our conversation with Brock Lesnar, click here.

BRIAN D’SOUZA: There’s your stage persona, and there’s your own job and family. I understand you didn’t want the media to cut into time when you’re having dinner with your family.
BROCK LESNAR: I really don’t know anybody that does. My time with family is very important to me and in today’s age with the cell phone and the internet, there’s not a lot of privacy left in this world and everybody knows what everyone is doing at any given time and I don’t really care if anyone knows what I’m doing at any given time.

Moving on to your wrestling career, you talk about not having watched — what is it — five minutes of wrestling before you came to professional wrestling. Is that true?
That is true.

So what sports were you drawn to view, to watch, growing up?
Well growing up, we had 2 ½ TV channels that sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. And in the summertime, I very rarely watched any television because we were working. I was outside. To me, if I’m inside, I don’t feel natural. My sons are the same way — they’d rather be outside doing something and I think that that’s a big problem in today’s society where kids are in front of the computer, the television and the [video] game boxes; they don’t get to go outside and experience communication, and nature, and get out and be creative and entertain yourself, and not having to be entertained by technology.

By Cage Potato contributor Jason Moles
(“Read my lips: ‘TNA WRESTLING F*CKING SUCKS!’”)

Recently the MMA community witnessed another watershed moment as Dana White announced that Zuffa, parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, had once again purchased the competition. This time the victim was San Jose based Strikeforce. Whether or not we look back upon favorably in the future depends on how the suits handle the situation. If history is any indicator, and it is, and I can compare a legitimate sport in MMA to a male soap opera in professional wrestling, and I can, then there is nothing to fear. Yo Dana, I know you’re reading so sit down and take some notes, class is about to begin.

(So, who wants to be the first one to tell her the name “The Honky Tonk Man” is already taken? Pic: ESPN)

Our amigos at Tatame dropped an under-the-radar, single paragraph report on us yesterday afternoon alleging that current Strikeforce women’s middleweight champion Cris “Cyborg” Santos is currently in talks with – oh, God, no — World Wrestling Entertainment. The website cites the ever-present “sources close to the fighter” saying that Santos is negotiating with the professional wrestling company and indicated that she’s joined a seemingly growing chorus of fighters disgruntled that the Strikeforce isn’t giving them enough fights.

“Without fighting since June of 2010, Cyborg is getting tired of the lack of fights in the MMA organization,” the website writes. “This proposal would change her future in fighting – and get bigger paychecks.”

Tatame reports that both Mr. and Mrs. Cyborg attended a WWE event in California two weeks ago and the rasslin’ company offered her a contract on the spot. If true, this news means the world of pro wrestling is essentially planning to acquire one of MMA’s top up and coming stars, while trading us one of it’s biggest malcontents, since MMA Weekly reports Dave Bautista could debut for BAMMA in England in May. Yeah, just another enormous dude, another conspicuously overseas MMA appearance. Anyway, we digress, more on the Cyborg situation after the jump.

(“…and there is nothing naked about a rear-naked choke.”)

Having Frank Shamrock represent MMA in trying to convince the New York State Senate to legalize MMA is like having George W. Bush represent the human race in trying to convince aliens that the human race is an intelligent species.

Leave it to the most self-aggrandizing fighter in the sport, though, to jump in where his help isn’t needed. The former fighter, who dubbed himself “The Legend,” is working on a new reality show called “Ungloved,” that follows him as he lobbies for MMA legalization in the hold-out state. While filming in New York during the legalization rally and Strikeforce fan event on Tuesday, Shamrock visited the state legislature to try to convince them to legalize the sport.

Not surprisingly, the cocky Strikeforce commentator who created an anti-bullying organization in response to how he felt when UFC president Dana White publicly criticized him, went into the meetings with lawmakers unprepared, telling reporters that he did no homework or research about the stances of those in opposition like Assemblyman Bob Reilly.

(Now smile and tell everyone I’m the TUF coach and that it was an easy decision to make.)

By Cage Potato contributor Jason Moles

The second Dana White announced that Brock Lesnar would be taking the reins of one of next season’s The Ultimate Fighter teams, it seems that everyone with a keyboard immediately began furiously typing out their manifestos explaining why, in their "professional opinion" the  former UFC heavyweight champ will suck as a coach.

Well, not everyone agrees with the popular assertion that the ironically seemingly reluctant UFC star who owned the camera while cashing paychecks from the WWE will sink the TUF ship.

We may not necessarily agree with White’s opinion that anyone who thinks it’s possible that Brock might not deliver as a coach is basically a stupid f*cking idiot, as he so eloquently inferred MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani was for asking about the plausibility during a press conference last week, but we are part of the minority who think it may not be so bad.

Check out contributor Jason Moles’ breakdown of why Brock will do TUF some good after the jump.

(For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will do. PicProps: CombatLifestyle)

As it stands, the Potato has what you might call in the parlance of the fight game a “verbal agreement” in place to have Shonie Carter on an upcoming episode of The Bum Rush. So far it’s just been a matter of getting our schedules to mesh. When it happens and we get Mr. International live on the air you can damn sure bet we’re going to get to the bottom of this little tidbit: Recently retired, it now appears that Carter wants to take his singular talents to the world of professional wrestling. At least that’s what he told Old Dad on Wednesday in an interview over on MMA Fighting.

"I want to go to the WWE … ," Carter says. "I’m coming to acknowledge the midlife crisis that a lot of guys go through where they get a Corvette and a hot blonde girlfriend with big boobs. I’ve just decided to do the WWE. Overtime, that will be my name. Overtime, because I work hard. I put that hard hat on, I bring a lunchbox, and I punch in. If you get in that ring with me, you better punch in too, because you’re going to be working overtime."

Phew, midlife crisis averted. Still, we can’t help but wonder: Wouldn’t it be possible for Shonie to go to WWE and get the hot blonde girlfriend with big boobs? Just sayin.

(Does this look like the face of a man who is pumped for Wrestlemania? PicProps: BloodyElbow)

Right on schedule, the Internets are in full-on meltdown mode this Monday morning concerning all things Brock Lesnar. Lesnar fans who talked him up as an unstoppable juggernaut as late as Friday afternoon are now backtracking, suddenly focusing more on his inexperience than his otherworldly physical prowess. Cain Velasquez supporters are getting their gloat on, as well they should, after Velasquez put a king sized beating on Lesnar at UFC 121. We blogging scumbags are attacking the former champ’s striking skills, his game plan and his training camp. Many of us are wondering aloud about Lesnar’s future in the sport, how he’ll rebound from this and what in the bejeezus is going to happen to our precious heavyweight rankings now.

For his part, UFC President Dana White is insinuating that the whitetail deer population of southwestern Minnesota might be a bit inflated come spring, since he believes Lesnar will cancel much of his planned time off in order to get back in the gym and back in the Octagon ASAP. Then there’s this goddamned Undertaker thing, which is threatening to take on a life of its own.

(We’ll always remember the good times we shared. PicProps: Esther Lin/Strikeforce)

Wrestling-and-MMA news guru Dave Meltzer reports this week that wrestling-and-MMA pariah Bobby Lashley is currently mired in contract limbo with Strikeforce. If you want to read Meltzer’s full report, we insist you sign up for a subscription (c’mon, Meltzer seems like a good guy), although the gist is this: Lashley’s contract with Strikeforce has reportedly “expired,” but it still requires a period of “exclusive negotiation” with Scott Coker and his crew. That means the former WWE champ can’t talk directly with any other MMA promotions right now and even after that particular contract stipulation lapses, Strikeforce will have the option of matching offers from other organizations.

However, Lashley’s contract doesn’t prohibit him from negotiating with professional wrestling companies, so if he were inclined to segue back into a world where baby-oiled-fake-bakers routinely slice their own faces open with razorblades, the iron is about as hot as it’s gonna get. In fact, things don’t get really interesting until you read what both Meltzer and SBNation are saying about Lashley’s relationship with Strikeforce right now …

(Video courtesy YouTube/218DeShawn)
If you pay attention to the small details in life, chances are you noticed the clip at the end of last night’s premiere of The Ultimate Fighter 12 that showed a brief glimpse of Josh Koscheck being his endearing self as he appears to grab a Team St-Pierre member by the throat before a scuffle ensues.

Middleeasy made a slowed-down gif of the video above and it turns out that the dude Kos rape chokes is either a somewhat rotund crew member or a random guy who wandered in off the street wearing a TapouT shirt in GSP’s team colors. Whatever the case is, it’s likely just another instance of a set-up scenario or creative editing to make JK look like the bad guy. It all seems very "WWE" to me. He nearly crack a smile as he confront the Biz Markie lookalike who likely hasn’t been a lightweight since junior high.

Check it out after the jump and judge for yourself whether or not the fracas seems staged.

(Video courtesy HDNet)

Well, it looks like Strikeforce may finally officially jump the shark if Bobby Lashley gets his way.

The former WWE star will make a guest appearance on Inside MMA as part of Ron Kruck’s "Kruck’s Corner" segment to talk about his desire to fight Fedor Emelianenko in his next bout and explain that he feels that promoters are responsible for his lack of quality opponents he has been matched up with thus far in his young 5-0 MMA career.