Steve Cantwell

If the name Razak Al-Hassan means anything to you at all as an MMA fan, there can only be one reason.  He’s the guy who, when locked up in a tight armbar against Steve Cantwell at last December’s UFC Fight For The Troops, decided to go ahead and let his arm get popped on national TV by an enthusiastic sadist.  It was grotesque, it was sort of dumb, and it was a learning experience.  Maybe.  At least, you’d think that after suffering an injury that sidelined him for several months Al-Hassan would have a healthy appreciation for the necessity of the tapout.  Talking with the Las Vegas Sun (via Cage Writer) that does not appear to be the case:

Although the injury kept him out of training for four months, Al-Hassan says that he wouldn’t have done a thing differently looking back on the fight.

“At this level, with this kind of opportunity, I want to make sure that I do everything in my power to win,” he said. “I’m pretty infamous for the injury now, but I’d rather go out like that, than to not be remembered at all.  At least fans know that I’m going to bring it and I’ll go out on my shield any day of the week.”

(Props: BadBoyMMA1)

Roger Huerta may have an ill-advised acting career to turn to after tomorrow night's fight against Gray Maynard, but that doesn't mean he isn't training hard for his last stand in the Octagon. In the video profile above, Huerta implies that his previous loss to Kenny Florian at UFC 87 was the result of moving away from his dependable coaching duo of Dave Menne and Justin Hagen. He certainly seems focused — though you have to wonder if Huerta should be drilling nothing but his smother-defense at this point.

(Photo courtesy of Newsday.)

— TUF 3 finalist Ed Herman, who broke a two-fight skid in April with a unanimous decision win over David Loiseau, has been tapped to replace James "Job" Irvin against Wilson Gouveia at UFC 102, according to Sherdog. Irvin was forced to withdraw from the fight this week due to yet another serious knee injury. Herman was previously scheduled to face Aaron Simpson at UFC Fight Night 19 (September 16th, Oklahoma City).

— UFC 104 (October 24th, Los Angeles) will reportedly host a lightweight battle between Joe Stevenson and Spencer Fisher. "Joe Daddy" broke a two-fight losing streak of his own when he scored a decision win over Nate Diaz at the TUF 9 finale in June. Fisher is riding a three fight win-streak and most recently outpointed Caol Uno at UFC 99. The match will likely be on the main card, supporting the light-heavyweight title fight between Lyoto Machida and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua.

(Nate Quarry [left] shows off the move that made him famous. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com.)
 
The UFC returns to Montreal on April 18th for UFC 97, headlined by the shrug-worthy title fight between Anderson Silva and Thales Leites, and the somewhat more compelling light-heavyweight battle between fading legends Chuck Liddell and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. Here's some of the supporting bouts that we'll be seeing on the card...

— Jason MacDonald vs. Nate Quarry (MW): MacDonald is coming off a first-round submission-via-strikes loss to Wilson Gouveia at last month's TUF 8 finale, and hasn't been able to put together two wins in a row since 2006. Quarry became Demian Maia's latest strangulation victim when he succumbed to a rear-naked choke at UFC 91 in November. The win-or-get-fired threat level on this one has been raised to Orange.

— Luis Cane vs. Steve Cantwell (LHW): Though Cane was originally rumored to face Keith Jardine in his next fight, the Dean of Mean was booked to headline UFC 96 (March 7th, Columbus) instead. Cane will instead be taking on reigning WEC light-heavyweight champ Steve Cantwell, who famously snapped Razak Al-Hassan's arm at last month's "UFC Fight for the Troops," then gloated about it afterwards. Cane is coming off of impressive TKO victories over Jason Lambert and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, while Cantwell is on a four-fight win streak, dating back to his time in the WEC.

(In case you missed it...)

Steve Cantwell has been taking some heat for sounding so pleased with himself after bending Razak Al-Hassan’s arm like a Gumby doll at “Fight for the Troops.”  Telling Joe Rogan in the post-fight interview that he had "been waiting so long to do that,” was maybe not the best way of wishing his opponent a speedy recovery.  Now Cantwell tells MMA on Tap it was just the adrenaline talking:

“You know that was a really weird outcome to the fight. I had the arm locked in tightly and expected Razak to tap right away – then we rolled twice and it got even tighter. I was thinking to myself ‘This guy is made of rubber – this is crazy’. The only thing I could to end the fight was force the arm until either it broke or he tapped, and that’s what I did. Fighting is always a series of calculated risks, and he had ample opportunity to tap. But none of us enter the ring trying to end each others career, and I do regret the comments I made and being so animated about it afterwards. It was the adrenalin taking over.”

Fair enough, Steve.  It's somewhat understandable.  As we’ve all observed, nothing good ever comes out of those immediate post-fight interviews.  The guy is either too pumped up, too out of breath, or too busy trying to yank his sponsor’s t-shirt down over his sponsor’s baseball cap to say anything meaningful.  Really, the best you can hope for is that he doesn’t call anyone a cocksucker or lapse into dead air when asked to talk us through the replay.