Joe Doerksen

- ESPN Radio's Ball Park Frank talks with Randy Couture about a number of topics in this video (props to Steve Cofield), but perhaps most interesting is Couture's assessment of Kimbo Slice's upcoming match with Ken Shamrock. As Couture astutely points out (around the 2:55 mark), a quick KO of Shamrock does more to affirm his over-the-hill status than it does to prove Kimbo's worth as an MMA fighter. At the same time, if Kimbo goes back and forth with Shamrock will that only serve to prove that he's not the fighter "Buzz" Berry is? Best case scenario for Kimbo is he looks good, Shamrock looks good, Kimbo wins via late KO. That's also the least plausible scenario.

- Travis Lutter tells MMA Rated there is absolutely no truth to rumors he might be headed back to the UFC. Though it was originally reported that he might face Joe Doerksen in the Octagon, Lutter says neither he nor UFC matchmaker Joe Silva knew where the rumor came from, which means it's back to the small time for Lutter. He did have a prediction for the Anderson Silva-Patrick Cote bout, though: "Cote is going to get murdered." Come on, Travis, don't sugar coat it.

- CBS executives say they will show five fights from 'Elite XC: Heat' on Saturday, even if it will probably cause them to run over the allotted two-hour space. Some fans wondered whether CBS had cut "Ninja" Rua-Benji Radach from the broadcast when the bout wasn't mentioned in recent promos, but Executive VP Kelly Kahl says the fight is still on and will lead off the CBS portion of the card. That means Elite XC will have to keep its general dicking around to a minimum and still hope for a couple quick finishes to keep from going over. It's something you'll want to keep in mind if you're planning on DVR-ing this sucker.

Joe "El Dirte" Doerksen has become the latest UFC middleweight — after Kalib Starnes and Travis Lutter — to be released from his fight contract as part of the league's roster cuts. Doerksen's recent TKO loss to Jason MacDonald at UFC 83 brought his UFC record to 1-5 (and 38-12 overall). As he told Sportsnet.ca:

"(The UFC officials) made it very clear they're very happy with the way I fight and they want me to come back. But they need me to go put a couple of wins together (first)...I've come and gone several times over my career and I'm sure I'll be back again. It's not really devastating news. It's just the cycle I have to go through....I'm just going to go out and do what I always do, put five or 10 wins together and come back and try again. At the end of the day, I know the fight was very well received by the fans and that's the most important thing to me personally."

Doerksen has scored notable wins over Lee Murray, Denis Kang, Chris Leben, and Ed Herman outside of the UFC, but seemed to be cursed inside the Octagon. After losing his UFC debut against Joe Riggs at UFC 49, he came back to submit Patrick Côté at UFC 52, but then picked up two more losses against Matt Lindland and Nate Marquardt. Doerksen won six straight fights outside of the UFC before Zuffa took another chance on him, putting him up against Paulo Filho for the vacant WEC middleweight title (which he lost), then giving him UFC fights against Ed Herman and MacDonald (both of which he lost).

No matter how gently the UFC let Joe down, it's hard to imagine someone with his Octagon track record being given another shot unless he can put together a monumental win streak. Good luck out there, brotha...

As previously reported, Jason MacDonald picked up the $75,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for his handling of Joe Doerksen at UFC 83. In case you haven't seen it, the video is above (and if the vid goes down, there's an animated gif of the fight's end after the jump). MacDonald put on a brave performance, white-knuckling through a deep kimura attempt by Doerksen in the first round, before taking Doerksen down early in the second and clubbing him with elbows until the fight was stopped.

Well, sort of stopped. Check out the 8:37-8:46 mark — it looks like Mazzagatti tries to stop the fight, but MacDonald presses on and throws three more punches into the face of Doerksen, who's clearly unconscious by that point. Big John (or even Big Dan) would have thrown MacDonald across the cage, but Mazzagatti can only ineffectually flap his arms. Maybe it was bad sportsmanship by "The Athlete," maybe bad reffing is to blame; in any case, I don't think this chaotic moment should have earned anybody 75 large.