Josh Barnett Says He’d Like to Fight to the Death, Bas Rutten Laughs Enthusiastically

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With the opening bouts of the Strikeforce heavyweight tournament less than a month away, embattled grand prix participant Josh Barnett turned up on HDNet’s Inside MMA over the weekend, where he and Bas Rutten both ju…


(VidProps: YouTube/ZP420MMA)

With the opening bouts of the Strikeforce heavyweight tournament less than a month away, embattled grand prix participant Josh Barnett turned up on HDNet’s Inside MMA over the weekend, where he and Bas Rutten both just started saying stuff. Protest if you want, but it makes for great TV when nobody is around to check facts or rein in the insanity. Clearly, Barnett and Bas just want to bro down, have a couple of drinks and reminisce about how radical it used to be to be King of Pancrase, leaving poor Kenny Rice to try to bumble his way through some actual journalism.

Things reach a fever pitch of awesomeness at about the 3:40 mark, when Rice asks Barnett a serious question about his efforts (or lack thereof) to get relicensed in California. Barnett dismissively waves his hands and pretty much says he doesn’t give a damn, that he doesn’t need no pencil-pushing lawmakers to tell him when and where he throws down. All the while Bas just chuckles to himself and mumbles stuff like “Right! Yeah!” as if to say “You tell it, brother!” Seriously, these guys are two peas in a pod …

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‘UFC Fight for the Troops 2’ Aftermath: Screw It, How About a 10-Man Battle Royale for the Lightweight Title?

(We don’t really have to crack a joke about this position, do we? PicProps: Yahoo Sports)
Credit where credit is due: Melvin Guillard absolutely steamrolled Evan Dunham last night. He came out and simply blitzed the former lightweight golden boy …


(We don’t really have to crack a joke about this position, do we? PicProps: Yahoo Sports)

Credit where credit is due: Melvin Guillard absolutely steamrolled Evan Dunham last night. He came out and simply blitzed the former lightweight golden boy with his speed, clipping him with an early right hand that Dunham never appeared to recover from. By the time Guillard put a fork in him a couple minutes later with a trio of knees along the fence – the last, clearly illegal one “just a technicality” the broadcast team immediately assured us – he’d managed to further scramble the already muddy lightweight ranks. Now watch Anthony Pettis lose to Clay Guida at the “TUF 13” finale and George Sotiropoulos lose to Dennis Siver at UFC 127 and we’ll really be in trouble.

However — (*clears throat*) – let’s not get carried away here. Let’s not get too crazy. Let’s not do the thing we seem to always do when a guy wins a big fight and start to completely overvalue Guillard based on this one performance. What he proved with his beating of Dunham on Saturday night was either one of two things. One, it could be that Greg Jackson is helping him to finally harness the physical tools he’s possessed from the beginning and has Guillard on the verge of becoming something special in the lightweight division. Or two, he was just a terrible match-up of styles for Dunham.

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‘UFC Fight for the Troops 2’ Live Results and Commentary

(Creepiest job shadow ever. PicProps: UFC.com)
The fighters are locked and loaded. We can only assume that by now Evan Dunham has eased off the bender he no doubt went on after his beloved Ducks shit the bed in the BCS championship. Obviously, Melvin G…


(Creepiest job shadow ever. PicProps: UFC.com)

The fighters are locked and loaded. We can only assume that by now Evan Dunham has eased off the bender he no doubt went on after his beloved Ducks shit the bed in the BCS championship. Obviously, Melvin Guillard has found a suitably enormous wristwatch to complement his main event status. The troops have surely been drinking all day and we the audience have once again collectively decided to ignore the obvious irony of benefitting the survivors of traumatic brain injury with a show where the desired outcome often includes closed head trauma. In other words, as Bruce Buffer might say, it’s time.

We’ll be live starting at 9 p.m. EST. Be sure to hit refresh early and often for the latest updates.

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Dana Admits He’ll OK St. Pierre vs. Silva if Both Win Upcoming Fights

(“What can I say? My life is an embarrassment of riches.” PicProps: Las Vegas Sun)
UFC President Dana White said on Friday that the time might finally be right to promote the much-talked-about, long-debated superfight between middleweight c…


(“What can I say? My life is an embarrassment of riches.” PicProps: Las Vegas Sun)

UFC President Dana White said on Friday that the time might finally be right to promote the much-talked-about, long-debated superfight between middleweight champion Anderson Silva and welterweight titlist Georges St. Pierre, provided both guys take care of business in their upcoming fights. White reportedly made the admission as part of a private Q&A session with small group of soldiers at Fort Hood in Tex., the site of tonight’s Fight For the Troops show. The rap sesh was not open to the public, but MMA Fighting got one of its guys in

"If (Silva) wins that fight (against Vitor Belfort at UFC 126), then Georges St-Pierre needs to beat Jake Shields in Toronto (at UFC 129)," White told the guys in uniform. "If that happens, then we’re probably going to do that fight (between St-Pierre and Silva). If they both win, that fight makes all the sense in the world."

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Gilbert Melendez on UFC Lightweights: ‘It’s Not Like Those Guys Are Anything Special’

(Finally, some competition. PicProps: MMA Core)
From yesterday’s conference call where Nick Diaz accused Josh Koscheck and Georges St. Pierre of fighting lesser competition as Diaz himself prepares to defend his Strikeforce title against, uh, Eva…


(Finally, some competition. PicProps: MMA Core)

From yesterday’s conference call where Nick Diaz accused Josh Koscheck and Georges St. Pierre of fighting lesser competition as Diaz himself prepares to defend his Strikeforce title against, uh, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos to Cesar Gracie telling Ariel Helwani that he doesn’t think Greg Jackson is actually that good of a coach, things are just getting bizarre with the Scrap Pack these days. Whatever planet these dudes are living on, it’s clear that they own the place, while the rest of us are just visiting.

Enter Gilbert Melendez, who tells RingsideReport.com this week that he’s the man to beat at 155-pounds right now. All this noise about Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard? Melendez ain’t trying to hear that, see. But just in case you’re wondering if Melendez might be interested in proving his point, of signing with the UFC so he can actually fight the other top contenders in his weight class: Forget it. It’s those guys who should be coming to him.

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Bob Sapp, FEG Prez Continue Epic, Awkward Battle of Wits

(If only either of these guys brought this much energy to their actual jobs. PicProps: MMA.pl)
The ongoing war of words between recently-retired MMA punchline Bob Sapp and FEG President (and self-proclaimed soon-to-be failed businessman) Sadaharu Tanik…


(If only either of these guys brought this much energy to their actual jobs. PicProps: MMA.pl)

The ongoing war of words between recently-retired MMA punchline Bob Sapp and FEG President (and self-proclaimed soon-to-be failed businessman) Sadaharu Tanikawa has frankly gotten too awesome to ignore any longer. Believe us, if we possibly could ignore it, we totally, totally would, but these guys are just saying too much hilarious stuff about each other not to at least get a mention. Seriously, it’s like watching the two nerdiest kids in the fourth grade slap fight in a sand box. Except, you know, with words.

You may remember that Sapp pulled out of a scheduled “modified rules” fight with Shinichi Suzukawa at K-1’s gala New Year’s Eve show last month, claiming that FEG first promised him 30 Gs for it, only to tell him he was only getting half that once he’d already made the trip to Japan. The promotion responded by saying Sapp “had lost his fighting spirit” during its broadcast and the giant former football player later indicated he was finished with MMA, but alleged it had nothing to do with his spirit. “The No. 1 problem is that K-1 is extremely broke. So is Dream …,” Sapp said. “I’m just like, ‘You know what? I’m done with all the talk about me. I’m done with them stiffing the fighters. I’m just done with it. I’ve seen too much. Start paying people to show up.’ ” Tanikawa didn’t take kindly to that, and he’s been ripping Sapp on Twitter and in interviews ever since.

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