(“No athlete under my watch has ever gotten away with using a rubber fake piss-filled wang. And that’s a fact.”)

When asked about the announcement yesterday that Zuffa is adopting a pre-contract drug screening policy and that the parent company of the UFC and Strikeforce would be stepping up its random drug testing strategy, the former head of the World Doping Agency and one-time vice president of the International Olympic Committee dismissed the news as simply being smoke and mirrors.

Montreal-based lawyer Dick Pound told the Canadian Press that by testing athletes in the month or so prior to and the day of a contracted bout, Zuffa is leaving a wide window of opportunity open for PED use the rest of the year by its athletes.

“It’s complete illusory and obviously intended to be that way.The minute you know when you’ll be tested, it’s very easy to make sure you don’t test positive.”

Zuffa has launched another salvo against the state of New York in it’s continued bid to have mixed martial arts regulated in the Empire State.

This time, the parent company of the UFC and Strikeforce has resorted to a lawsuit filed today in New York U.S. district court against New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. According to The Wall Street Journal, the plaintiffs are seeking a declaration that the ban of MMA in New York violates the First Amendment, which states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The portion of the amendment that Zuffa is focusing on is the “freedom of speech” part, which also covers freedom of expression. Because one of the three words in the term “mixed martial arts” is “arts,” Zuffa lawyers will attempt to argue that the sport is a form of artistic expression, and as such, should not be criminalized in the state.

Great belt, or the greatest belt? PicProps: AnnieSHOSports/Twitter

After another fun night of heavyweight action, the Strikeforce Grand Prix finals are set: Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier will fight to be recognized as the best heavyweight in the world, except for those guys in the UFC. Or the guys that have left Strikeforce in the past few months. Whatever.

Anywho, you may have seen pictures of the GP championship belt that showed up last week, and heard that Coker and company are still lukewarm about the idea of calling the GP winner the Strikeforce champion. We thought that didn’t really make sense, and Josh Barnett agrees. At the Strikeforce press conference Saturday night, Barnett tried to twist Coker’s arm a bit, asking: “Why don’t we sweeten the pot?” Barnett asked. “Why don’t we put that title on the line between me and Cormier?”

Coker, bless his heart, didn’t want to commit to that, and you have to wonder: “Why?”

The game in the video above is Fighters Uncaged, a fighting game for the XboX 360 that utilizes the XBoX Kinect motion control system to turn the game player into the game controller. The on-screen character replicates the movements that the player makes in his living room, and virtual beatdowns ensue. That’s the concept, at least. In reality, the game has been beaten up so bad by critics that Dana White wanted to fire it.

(Whatcha gonna do, brother, when Anik-amania runs wild on you?!)

By Jason Moles

In the first three quarters of 2011, the mixed martial arts landscape has changed radically.

We have witnessed the ascension of a smaller promotion with the aid of a hip cable channel and the ruination of a former mecca of MMA at the hands of natural disasters. Fighters have been busted for elevated Testosterone levels, arrested for their various transgressions, cut after a bad showing in the Octagon, and ensured that their job was secure after losing an unprecedented four fights straight.

Of all the things we’ve seen thus far, two news stories are head and shoulders above the rest in terms of impact. The announcement of Zuffa’s acquisition of Strikeforce and the recent news of UFC signing a television deal with FOX are the top two pound-for-pound news stories of 2011. Which story carries more significance? Which is the bigger game-changer? Only here at CagePotato, you the reader get to decide.

But first, let’s lay out both sides of the argument…

(Sorry, kids. Christmas is canceled this year.)

Josh Barnett is currently scheduled to face Sergei Kharitonov in the semi-finals of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, September 10th in Cincinnati. He was also scheduled to face kickboxing legend Jerome Le Banner in an August 27th pro-wrestling match for IGF in Japan, because he’s Josh Barnett, and fake-fighting dudes that he could just as easily fight for real is what he does, damn it.

But while that sort of thing wouldn’t have batted an eye under Scott Coker’s droopy watch, Zuffa runs a much tighter ship, and won’t run the risk of Barnett suffering an injury in a worked puroresu match two weeks before he has to show up for a legit cage-fight. As Fighters Only reports:

United Glory announced today that Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem is slated to compete in its next event scheduled for October in Moscow, Russia.

According to the poster for the event, “The Reem” will be joined by fellow Golden Glory fighters Sergei Kharitonov and Siyar Bahadurzada on the card.

(“This guy is f*cking fighting on September 10.”)

Well, it looks like there was actually some truth to the rumor that Alistair Overeem was experiencing some friction from Zuffa and could possibly pull out of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix.

1 by Zuffaforce

Dana White was interviewed by Forbes $ports Money while he was in Toronto for UFC 129 last month and as always the UFC president had a lot to say.

Among other items, The Baldfather touched on some hot button topics like the UFC’s plans for Strikeforce, whether or not women’s MMA will survive the merger and what prompted the minority stake sale of 10 percent of the company to Flash Entertainment.

Check out the transcription of some of the key quotes from the show after the jump.

(“That’s a great question, Fabricio. Actually, Chuck and I have found that through careful investment research it’s possible to locate dependable mutual funds that can average as much as 12 percent annual growth over the long term.”)

Look, we gotta believe there are a limited number of fake jobs that Zuffa, LLC can possibly make up for aging former fighters as the company’s way of saying, “Thanks for getting punched in the head for so many years so Dana could buy a new Ferrari.” Chuck already has one, Matt Hughes obviously wants one and now MMA grandpa Randy Couture is making noise about wanting one too. Not for nothing, but if we were Liddell we might be getting a little nervous right now. I mean, if you could choose to have Couture as your phony Vice President of Business Development instead of THIS GUY, you’d do it in a heartbeat, right? Office politics can be a bitch that way.

Remember last year when a pirate hacked the San Francisco Chronicle’s website and got a link to his illegal UFC 121 stream stickied on the top of the main page for the newspaper’s website?

Well it looks like a fellow stream hawker one-upped his SFC advertising cohort.

According to a cease and desist letter sent to Google on December 10, 2010 by MiMTiD Corporation acting on behalf of Zuffa, the owner of WatchUFCVideos.com was a bit more industrious.

According to the document, he employed the services of the pay-per-click advertising services Google Syndication, Google Doubleclick, ?atdmt.com, doubleclick.net, fastclick.net, linksynergy.com and overture.com to promote his non-licensed paid stream for UFC 124 on various websites Google paired his site with using its "super secret algorithm." He would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for the UFC’s pesky broadcast partner Spike TV whose site was the most prominent one watchufcvideos.com’s ad appeared on.

(Video courtesy Vimeo/MMANews.se)

Our Swedish friends from MMANews.se caught up with Chuck Liddell following the UFC’s announcement yesterday that "The Iceman" retired and effective immediately would be taking on the role of Executive Vice President of Business Development with Zuffa LLC and it seems that the former UFC light heavyweight champion is unsure about what his job will entail.

Chuck attempted to explain his role as diplomatically as he could from what little details he had been given about the job, but the iconic UFC fighter admitted he wasn’t quite sure what he would be doing from day to day.

"Well, we’re gonna get more into the details of it, but it’s business development, so I’m gonna be working with all the new projects and different things trying to help and promote the sport and the UFC. I’m gonna be doing that. I need something. I’m competitive and I need something to keep me driven. I need something to go after and do. I think this is probably the best way that I can keep continuing to grow the sport."

(Dana wasn’t kidding when he said he was going to shut down the Internet.)

As part of  its ongoing effort to snuff out the unauthorized and illegal use of its intellectual property, the UFC’s parent company, Zuffa LLC. has issued a cease and desist letter to popular web search portal Google.com, ordering that it stop linking to websites that offer illegal UFC pay-per-view streams and archived fight footage.

The move however could backfire on the UFC for at least the time being while Google’s legal team decides what to do, as the letter lists all of the sites that host the streams and videos, providing potential pirates with the means to steal from the company. 

The question is, what steps will Zuffa’s legal department take next?

According to sources I’ve spoken to, the company has recently begun issuing similar letters to websites that use unlicensed copies of Getty Image photos from the UFC website, regardless of whether or not attribution is given. A likely next step could be to order Google to stop linking to sites guilty of the infraction.

I’m not a proponent of piracy in any way shape or form, but if Zuffa takes legal action against Google and the search engine counters by removing all search terms relating to the UFC and it’s fighters, it wouldn’t be great for the company.

The letter, courtesy of chillingeffects.com, is after the jump:

(Argh!. That Free stream you watched a few months back might end up costing you a hell of a lot more than $39.95.)

Apparently Zuffa isn’t f-ing around when it comes to enforcing its copyrights.

According to a report by newteevee.com Ustream.com has complied with a request by UFC parent company Zuffa LLC to hand over the Internet protocol addresses of members who broadcasted the promotion’s events via the popular Internet streaming site.

Last week, Zuffa subpoenaed both Ustream and Justin.tv, demanding that both sites provide them with the IP addresses of individuals whom it says, quite simply, are infringing on its intellectual property rights.

("Objection, your honor! There’s no way Mr. Jackson can do justice to the character of B.A. Baracus!")

By CagePotato contributor Jim Genia

Last week, legendary promoter/murderer Don King filed a legal injunction against the Shine Fights organization to put the kibosh on their “Worlds Collide: Mayorga vs. Thomas” main event, a bout that would’ve seen pugilist Ricardo Mayorga — whom King manages in the realm of boxing — take on UFC vet Din Thomas in the pro boxer’s MMA debut. Though the event’s subsequent collapse can’t completely be blamed on King, his legal cock-blocking of the headlining attraction certainly didn’t help.

Of course, this isn’t the first time a handful of legal documents and a judge have affected the MMA world, and though the history of the sport is a relatively short one, it’s a history rife with broken contracts, copyright infringements and countless other court-based fisticuffs. Who’s filed a lawsuit against whom? How many fighters know too well the insides of a courtroom? What happens when you sell the UFC a lemon? The answers to these questions and more can be found when examining the top ten lawsuits in MMA history.

10) Zuffa v. The Ghost of Pride: There’s an old Greek saying that goes, “Buying from the Yakuza is like passing out at Mike Whitehead‘s house — one way or another you’re going to get screwed.” Zuffa learned this the hard way when they purchased the Pride Fighting Championship from Dream Stage Entertainment, for they soon discovered that the whole thing had been held together by organized crime money and Scotch Tape (and not even real Scotch Tape, but that cheap knockoff stuff you buy at the dollar store). Consequently, in February 2008, Zuffa filed suit against DSE alleging that they were sold a clunker. DSE in turn countersued, complaining that Zuffa went back on its promise to keep Pride alive.

(Props: Bloomberg.)

In the same month that Zuffa announced it had taken out a $100 million loan to pay off part of a revolving credit line and provide a payout to the owners, Dana White is now hinting that a 10-15% stake in the UFC could be sold to a private investor. As he told Bloomberg News:

Hmm. How much cash does Shane McMahon have laying around at the moment? And why does Zuffa need so much of it lately? Has the UFC become financially overextended? Are the Fertitta Brothers looking to cash out following the Station Casinos collapse? At any rate, if you have nine figures to invest in an exciting sports property and don’t mind the fact that you’ll have zero input in the company’s direction, give Dana a call.

(The Booyaa Fight Girls: Voted most likely to lie to you about working their way through community college.)

Banning clothing brands as potential sponsors is so much fun, Zuffa is at it once again.  MMA Payout reports that the newest addition to the blacklist is Booyaa Fightwear, an apparel-maker whose loose affiliation with the King of the Cage organization was enough to torpedo their proposed sponsorship of Mike Budnik in his WEC bout this week. 

King of the Cage was part of the Pro Elite network of organizations, but is one of the few entities that can still promote fights and is still somewhat capable of scratching out a living as small-timers.  Apparently this makes KOTC, and by extension Booyaa Fightwear (if ever there was a company name more inspired by the mid-nineties, I’ve yet to hear of it), a perceived competitor of the WEC.  And we all know how Zuffa deals with competitors. 

(‘Fuck you, pay me.’)

When we looked at the payouts for WEC 36 and saw $14,000 next to Urijah Faber‘s name, we had little choice but to assume that Zuffa was screwing him like a one-legged Panamanian hooker: cheaply and with shocking disregard for his delicate feelings.

But Faber’s manager, Mike Roberts, says that figure was “not even close” to a full accounting of what Faber was paid to face Mike Brown:

“That was an accurate statement of the check he received that night. Some contractual issues came up after the September fight was postponed and that $14,000 was the remaining balance of what was owed to him. That is not what he made.”

[...]

“Keep in mind Urijah’s still fighting off an old contract, but Urijah’s been well taken care of for the last couple fights.”

(Make an offer, but ring announcer Tim Hughes comes as part of the set.)

Even though the IFL has filed for bankruptcy and their best fighters have all signed on with other organizations, they are apparently still looking for a buyer who wants their video library badly enough to pay for it. Jay Larkin told Sherdog that when the UFC used some of their footage to hype former IFL fighters who had signed on with Zuffa, it wasn’t because the UFC had paid for the video, it was because the IFL was just “helping out.” It’s the least they could do, after all the help the UFC did for them.

But check Jay Larkin’s sales pitch when it comes to the IFL:

“You don’t always know what you got till it’s gone. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned,” said Larkin, a longtime boxing programming executive with Showtime. “One of the things I tried to do was do it in a more professional manner. The bottom line is, I feel MMA is a one-organization industry. I think UFC has done a spectacular job of branding, and UFC has become synonymous with MMA. And there’s a couple of hangers-on now. Wall Street’s having a hard time right now. I’d like to see MMA flourish but I’m very skeptical.”

In other words, please buy this stuff, but if you’re anyone other than the UFC, you’ll just be wasting your money.

I once went to Sears to buy a power drill and the stoned college kid working there responded to every one of my questions about various drills by telling me all the bad things about them, finally concluding that the one they had on sale “just generally kind of sucks.” I did not buy a drill that day. As sales strategies go, pessimism and ennui rank somewhere near the bottom. Larkin would do well to keep that in mind.

(Ooh-rah! Proud Marine Luigi Fioravanti stomps the crap out of bark-eating hippie Luke Cummo. Photo courtesy of FightwireImages.)

MMA Mania is reporting that the UFC will hold a free SpikeTV event for the troops at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on December 10th. The event will be free for military personnel to attend and will likely feature former members of the armed services who are now fighters. It will be the first time the UFC has been in North Carolina since UFC 5 (Charlotte, 4/7/95), and just the second UFC event to be held on a military base (after UFC Fight Night 7 in December ’06).

The addition of this Fight Night card means that the UFC will be holding three events in December — the Ultimate Fighter 8 finale will take place just three days later on December 13th, and UFC 92 will go down two weeks after that on December 27th. Besides a WEC event rumored for 12/3, no other major MMA promotions have announced events for December yet, so the holiday season could be completely Zuffa-dominated.

There’s plenty to love about the WEC. Zuffa’s brand of minor league MMA features competitive bouts between lesser-known fighters, including the lighter weight classes that get so little love in other organizations. But does that mean MMA fans are willing to pay extra for it?

Dana White seems to think so, as he told Yahoo! Sports that he plans to put on a WEC pay-per-view event, possibly in 2009. Yahoo! says it could go down “as early as May,” and also says that Zuffa will follow through on plans to absorb the WEC’s light heavyweight and middleweight divisions into the UFC. That means even fewer fighters will be available for the WEC cards that fans will soon be asked to pay for.

Asked how many events the WEC would stage in 2009, White replied, “We’re still figuring that out, but I can tell you this: It’s not going to go down.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of the WEC’s main selling points the fact that it was always free on Versus? Why go and screw with that? There’s been a clear dichotomy even in the UFC between fight cards that are good for free TV (i.e. Spike TV) and those that are of pay-per-view quality. As great a year as the WEC has had, asking fans to pay premium prices means expectations go up too. With so many UFC events already stretching the pay-per-view budget of many fans, it could also mean a decline in overall WEC viewership.

I think I speak for all non-independently wealthy MMA fans when I say, damn.

(Urijah Faber talks upcoming title defense with ESPN)

The WEC has announced the full fight card for their September 10 event in Florida, and once again it’s a fairly stacked show from Zuffa’s minor leagues. Most notable is the official announcement that former UFC lightweight champ Jens Pulver will be taking on Leonard “Just Try and Make Those Charges Stick” Garcia. It also includes Urijah Faber defending his title against Mike Brown, and Paulo Filho making his return to action in a rematch against Chael Sonnen.

Making their WEC debuts are two Team Takedown members — Jake Rosholt and Johny Hendricks — who are definitely worth keeping an eye on in the future.

Here’s the full lineup:

Urijah Faber vs. Mike Brown
Paulo Filho vs. Chael Sonnen
Jens Pulver vs. Leonard Garcia
Danillo Villefort vs. Jake Rosholt
Rob McCullough vs. Donald Cerrone
Rani Yahya vs. Yoshihiro Maeda
David Avellan vs. Tim McKenzie
Johny Hendricks vs. Alex Serdyukov
Ed Ratcliff vs. Danny Castillo

With the WEC’s next event just around the corner, media coverage has started to ramp up this week. As it does, the one thing that becomes increasingly clear is that the organization’s top fighters are mostly just pissed off that they aren’t in the UFC. USA Today wrote about the UFC’s uncertain attitude regarding the future of the promotion, including a quote from Marc Ratner that reflects what seems to the consensus opinion over at Zuffa:

“There is talk about having the heavier guys come on over (to UFC), and maybe anything under 145 (pounds, the featherweight limit) would be WEC and above 145 would be UFC,” says UFC vice president Marc Ratner. “It hasn’t been put into place yet.”

In the same article, Carlos Condit describes the UFC as “the big show” and says he hopes to move on up. Jamie Varner made similar comments to Sherdog, saying:

“I still got all the doubters out there, and that’s motivation to me,” Varner said. “All the people out there saying this guy in the UFC would beat you or this guy in Dream would kill you. I want to beat everyone that Zuffa puts in front of me and hopefully one day get my opportunity to fight a B.J. Penn and show the world what I’m made of.”

Ordinarily it would be a bad thing to have all your top fighters publicly stating their desire to go and fight somewhere else, but this only reinforces how smart it was of Zuffa to purchase the WEC and use them as a sort of minor league, as well as how dumb it would be to turn it into nothing but featherweights and bantamweights.

(Metaphorically speaking.)

Fighters.com is reporting that Zuffa (the parent company of the UFC and WEC) has acquired certain assets of the International Fight League, including the IFL’s video library and fighter contracts:

The deal is similar to the buyout of the World Fighting Alliance in 2006 and allows Zuffa to get its hands on the valuable IFL video library and fighters without assuming the failed company’s debt…

[T]he anonymous former IFL fighters who’ve confirmed to Fighters.com that they’ve been notified of the acquisition of their contract by Zuffa, LLC have also confirmed that their contractual obligations are now to Zuffa, LLC according to their respective managements and legal counsels.

Observant MMA fans noticed that the UFC was using IFL footage to introduce several of the new fighters during Saturday’s “Silva vs. Irvin” broadcast on SpikeTV, and that commentators Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg made several references to the defunct fight league — a practice that was previously verboten. And it seems that the more financially clever of these observant MMA fans made the connection and started buying up the IFL’s stock.

Obviously, those fighter contracts are the only things worth salvaging from Jay Larkin’s Death Ship. Reigning featherweight champ Wagnney Fabiano would be perfect for Urijah Faber’s next WEC title defense (assuming he walks through Mike Brown in September, which he will), Chris Horodecki and Ryan Schultz could help energize the WEC’s ho-hum lightweight division, and Roy Nelson would bring some big-bellied jolliness to the UFC’s malnourished heavyweight roster. And as we saw on Saturday, even the IFL’s lesser-known guys are often good for a highlight-reel head-kick knockout, or a comeback fight for Brandon Vera. If the UFC can steal the IFL’s ring girl contracts as well, it’ll be a total success.

(Props: MMA Training)

(Maybe this legal hottie can sort this shit out.)

It’s only been a couple of months since Zuffa/Pride FC Worldwide filed suit against the former heads of PRIDE because of their alleged defrauding of millions from Pride’s sell to the Fertittas. Dream Stage Entertainment’s president, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, has been silent in the case, but Dream Stage Holdings filed for dismissal since they were not a party to the previous contracts.

Now, Sakakibara, Ubon, and Dream Stage Holdings have sued Pride FC Worldwide — the Nevada and Japanese branches — and have laid down the legal to the Fertitta Bros, too. Ubon is a stock company in Japan owned by Sakakibara, who also owns 95% of DSH. The suit filing went down in Vegas on the 2nd of this month. Sherdog has a full rundown of the mess:

In an ironic twist, the motion accused Zuffa of including the DSE Nevada Corporation in an effort to defeat diversity jurisdiction. Zuffa is currently contesting a similar legal strategy employed by HDNet Fights in its suit against Zuffa for declaratory judgment on Randy Couture’s promotional contract.

The suit filed by the former owners of Pride in federal court, under diversity jurisdiction, seeks damages for breach of the asset purchase and consulting agreements that were part of the Pride transaction, as well as fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

The complaint alleges that Pride was sold to the owners of the UFC with the promise that the Pride brand would be maintained as a “global top-level brand.” This promise allegedly resulted in the former owners’ decision to sell to the Fertittas despite more lucrative financial offers from other suitors.

According to the complaint, Sakakibara also met with another “company which promotes martial arts related events, an operator of another sports-related business and investors in the entertainment industry, and received various offers to purchase Pride or to enter into business partnerships with plaintiffs.”

However, the suit alleges that the defendants had no intention of fulfilling that promise.

(The future centerpieces of the UFC.)

I don’t make a habit of reading askmen.com unless I’m researching how to properly organize my closet or how taking a cooking class can make me a better lover – my closet has never looked better by the way – but MMA News is directing attention to askmen’s article, 5 Things You Didn’t Know: The UFC. The piece digs up some absurd stuff we knew and some we didn’t about the organization. Case in point:

1- It was supposed to involve alligators
If nothing else, you can’t successfully accuse the original promoters of the UFC of failing to think big. Specifically, in addition to such outrageous ideas as putting electric fences around the ring, one of their many schemes was to include live alligators thrashing around in moats. Fortunately, UFC doctors were a bit more practical in their thinking, advising against such plans because of the potential harm these could do to the fighters.

Was Bob Meyrowitz behind the curtain on this one? It doesn’t give an exact date as to when the gators were to make their appearance, but I’m guessing YAMMA’s showman had crocs and gators as an idea for a new “surface”.

Point number two details John McCain’s flip-flop on his stance concerning MMA, specifically the UFC. That we are well aware of – as we are of point number five, which is that Dana White kept Tito in the UFC in 2006 by offering to go three rounds with him – a ploy that likely won’t work this time around.

(Randy, Rob Schneider, a parasol — pretty good little Saturday.)

The Fight Network has more details about the preliminary injunction that Zuffa has filed against Randy Couture, which we first mentioned last week. Here’s the broad strokes of the 90-page document: Couture’s association with the IFL, particularly his appearance at the IFL’s season opener on February 29th in Las Vegas, will cause the company “irreparable harm” and violates his contract.

Nothing we haven’t heard before, and if there really was a one-year restricted non-compete period in his contract, Couture will likely come out on the losing end of this one. From the article:

Xtreme Couture plans to field a team at the Feb. 29 IFL event, and Couture has said he intends to corner fighters from his camp at the show. Zuffa’s lawyers — who attached e-mails about the IFL card to its injunction request as evidence, including an IFL.tv screen grab that shows Couture’s face next to an Xtreme Couture logo — argue such advertisements constitute “direct or indirect competition” against the UFC.

Well, if Zuffa doesn’t like Randy’s IFL involvement, they’re really not going to like M-1′s latest cockamamie project. MMAFightline is reporting that M-1 Global is launching “M-1 Challenge,” in which various countries will field five-man MMA fight-teams to do battle against each other; think the IFL, but on a worldwide level. Coaching the Russian team will be Fedor Emelianenko, and slated to coach the American team is, of course, Randy Couture. We actually think this is a fantastic idea, except for two things:

1) This is M-1 we’re talking about here, so this project will never, ever get off the ground.
2) That lawsuit thing that Randy’s dealing with.

Aaaaaand, it now looks like his name has been removed from the “M-1 Challenge” post on M1Mixfight. Probably the best thing to do, what with all this legal heat. We’ll keep you updated…

(Somebody’s gonna’ pay for this scratch!)

The Natural is speaking out regarding the lawsuit he’s been slapped with – courtesy his friends who run the UFC. This comes shortly after a preliminary injunction was filed by Zuffa, LLC against Couture on February 1st. That was the same day the heavyweight champ was in the corner for his Xtreme Couture fighter, Mike Pyle, at a Hardcore Championship Fighting event. This is apparently one of the many breaches the UFC crew is crying about.

Couture recently spoke to MMA Weekly about the mess that probably won’t end well for anyone. As most suspect, he seems to know Zuffa is wanting to make him spend so much money, he’ll be arm-barred into fulfilling his contract. But they’ve got another thing coming, says The Natural.

“It’s unfortunate that things have kind of degraded to that point,” Couture said in the interview. “I’m sure that’s part of their ploy, to force me to spend enough money that I’ll have to come back and fight for them, which isn’t the case.”

Randy Couture has understood his contract will just run out at some point, but the UFC insists he owes them fights. Randy’s ready to take the next step to prove he’s right.

“I’ve got a very good team of lawyers. I think we’ll basically have to get a declaration from the state of Nevada on what they interpret the contract as, but the way I see it, the contract is up in July,” Couture stated.

(Tito Ortiz: Planning his next move?)

Too boring to get posts of their own — just boring enough to be lumped in with a few other stories!

— UFC 81 drew 10,583 spectators at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas on Saturday, with 7,167 of those asses-in-seats actually paying for their tickets. That’s the lowest paid-attendance figure for a Mandalay Bay UFC event since UFC 48, which featured Ken Shamrock vs. Kimo Leopoldo as the main event. “Breaking Point” took in a live gate of $2,437,890, which is the sixth-lowest total out of the venue’s past seven UFC events. This could all be explained by an inordinate amount of comp tickets being handed out for Brock Lesnar’s Octagon debut, and the UFC could have easily gotten their money back on pay-per-view buys. But since the UFC isn’t required to release information on PPV revenue, we may not hear the full story for some time.

— Tito Ortiz may be planning a 10-year-anniversary re-match with Frank Shamrock outside of the UFC. The two fighters first met at UFC 22 back in September 1999, where they battled for the UFC’s 205-pound title. Shamrock won by submission due to strikes near the end of the fourth round, then retired from the UFC with a perfect 5-0 record in the organization.

— Zuffa has filed a motion for preliminary injunction against Randy Couture, with a hearing date set for March 4th. The injunction will likely be focused on preventing Couture from making further breaches of the non-compete agreement in his employment contract.

— Though most Canadian provinces have given MMA their blessing, the sport is totes unkosher in Ontario.

— I just finished eating some thai food. It wasn’t bad.

When we last discussed Zuffa’s lawsuit against Randy Couture, our only source was an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal. Now, thanks to TMZ, we’ve seen the lawsuit with our own eyes (it’s conveniently PDF’d for you here). And after reading it, we immediately remembered why we never went to law school. But we were able to pick up a few interesting details:

— The lawsuit is seeking damages in excess of $50,000, not $10,000.

— Zuffa has hired Donald J. Campbell and J. Colby Williams as their representation.

— The lawsuit implicates Sherdog as the medium by which Randy Couture first began “implementing a tortious scheme and artifice whereby he and others acting on his behalf [fabricated] a false and fictitious history of events in which Couture was purportedly lied to and otherwise purposefully abused by Zuffa in a series of bad faith acts and unfair dealings.” Bastards! They get all the publicity!

— The parties who conspired with Couture are the “Does and Roe Corporations LLC” I think that means “to be named later,” but I’m no lawyer, and Google comes up with nothing, so I’m not 100% clear. But anyway, the lawsuit is referring to the people who hooked him up with HDNet so he could air his grievances in a public (or at least cable TV) forum. The accused “sought to maximize the damage inflicted upon Plaintiffs by arranging with HD Net TV to broadcast Couture’s remarks live and to later rebroadcast them during the course of an MMA event being presented by an UFC competitor.”

— Part of the financial judgement the UFC is seeking is to repay the costs that they incurred when they had to hold their response press conference (satellite uplink, production trucks, personnel, etc.).

— “Zuffa will further suffer a loss of prestige within the MMA community which will produce the consequential effect of inducing others not to deal with Zuffa.” Well, they may have a point there…

— Zuffa seems to accept Couture’s resignation from the organization on October 11, 2007, but argues that a one-year Restricted Period — in which he isn’t allowed to promote any events, programs, products or services related to unarmed combat — immediately kicked in. Couture’s sponsorship of the IFL’s “Xtreme Couture Team” was “the most recent and notorious” beach of “his covenant.”

See? Even better than NyQuil!