We’re big fans of Masato Toys’ MMA action figure series, so when we saw his latest work on the first issue of MMAtional Enquirer, we knew our readers would dig it too.
Besides Roger Huerta and Tito on TMZ, we haven’t really had any MMA luminaries who have gotten much attention from the tabloids. Not sure that’s a bad thing, but it’s likely to change as the sport grows and gets more mainstream.
We had our suspicions about Roy, but the Arianny-Ariel affair surprised the hell out of us us since you’ve got to fight to love her.
Check out the inside of the rag after the jump.
We’re big fans of Masato Toys’ MMA action figure series, so when we saw his latest work on the first issue of MMAtional Enquirer, we knew our readers would dig it too.
Besides Roger Huerta and Tito on TMZ, we haven’t really had any MMA luminaries who have gotten much attention from the tabloids. Not sure that’s a bad thing, but it’s likely to change as the sport grows and gets more mainstream.
We had our suspicions about Roy, but the Arianny-Ariel affair surprised the hell out of us us since you’ve got to fight to love her.
Click on the pages below to enlarge the inside pages of the rag.
Despite Jason Miller‘s basic-cable cred, Michael Bisping will be the biggest UFC star to compete at the TUF 14 Finale on Saturday night. He’s also one of the biggest villains on the UFC roster — a fighter who fans love to hate. To some extent, you can blame that on reality show editing, which Bisping in fact does, starting at the 10:18 mark of this video interview. But he’s also been responsible for some real-life behavior that’s just nasty and wrong. Like Josh Koscheck, the villain persona that has been hoisted on Bisping seems to be an exaggerated version of what’s already there.
In this 20-minute pre-fight chat, Ariel Helwani gets the Count’s thoughts on his fight with Mayhem Miller, and attempts to reconcile Michael Bisping the bully character with Michael Bisping the human being. Here’s a cheat sheet…
Despite Jason Miller‘s basic-cable cred, Michael Bisping will be the biggest UFC star to compete at the TUF 14 Finale on Saturday night. He’s also one of the biggest villains on the UFC roster — a fighter who fans love to hate. To some extent, you can blame that on reality show editing, which Bisping in fact does, starting at the 10:18 mark of this video interview. But he’s also been responsible for some real-life behavior that’s just nasty and wrong. Like Josh Koscheck, the villain persona that has been hoisted on Bisping seems to be an exaggerated version of what’s already there.
In this 20-minute pre-fight chat, Ariel Helwani gets the Count’s thoughts on his fight with Mayhem Miller, and attempts to reconcile Michael Bisping the bully character with Michael Bisping the human being. Here’s a cheat sheet…
— The smaller scale of the TUF 14 Finale doesn’t feel any different to him than his bigger fights, though it’s a bit of a disappointment not to be on a big PPV card.
— Six of Bisping’s last seven opponents have gone to the hospital afterwards, and Mayhem will be heading there as well.
— He doesn’t like being considered a “bad boy,” and has done nothing to purposefully play up that image. He’s often said things out of emotion that he regrets later.
— Haters hate on the Internet. In person, they show love.
— He’s happy as a pig in shit, most of the time.
— The footage of Bisping acting like a nice person in this episode was left on the cutting room floor, which annoyed him.
— “Mutual respect” is probably the wrong way to describe the relationship between Bisping and Miller.
— Steroids are “a massive problem” in MMA, and he knows that a lot of fighters use them. He also questions the idea that alpha-male MMA fighters would need testosterone therapy. (At 16:15, he thinks of something funny related to sex-changes, but doesn’t say it. Good man, you’re learning.) Of course, the two things are linked: “When you abuse steroids, that does affect your natural production of testosterone, hence, therefore, if you need testosterone replacement therapy…I would say that the people taking that have been abusing steroids in the past and therefore have low testosterone.”
— Bisping knows for a fact that his camp didn’t leak any information to Miller, but he couldn’t care less even if they had. Mayhem could watch Bisping’s training himself and it wouldn’t make a difference in their fight.
— Bisping’s prediction for the fight: “I’m going to beat him in all areas.”
The Canadian reporter who conducted the highly-publicized Q&A with with Chael Sonnen last week in which the “Gangster from America” questioned his credentials and berated him for ten minutes before walking off the set says that he still isn’t quite sure what the hell happened in the interview.
Michael Lansberg, the longtime host of “Off the Record,” got the goat of the UFC middleweight early in the interview when he asked why he rescinded his loser leaves town fight offer to Anderson Silva, prompting an agitated Sonnen to to fire back with a few barbs of his own. The interview went downhill from there, at least in terms of Lansberg maintaining control.
The Canadian reporter who conducted the highly-publicized Q&A with with Chael Sonnen last week in which the “Gangster from America” questioned his credentials and berated him for ten minutes before walking off the set says that he still isn’t quite sure what the hell happened in the interview.
Michael Lansberg, the longtime host of “Off the Record,” got the goat of the UFC middleweight early in the interview when he asked why he rescinded his loser leaves town fight offer to Anderson Silva, prompting an agitated Sonnen to to fire back with a few barbs of his own. The interview went downhill from there, at least in terms of Lansberg maintaining control.
Besides making fun of his mundane questions, Chael asked Lansberg — who claims to have interviewed UFC president Dana White between “10 and 25 times” — if he even knew what MMA was and scolded him for taking his quotes out of context.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/UFC)
In an interview he did with Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour today, Lansberg says he thought Sonnen was kidding around at first, but mid way through the segment he says he started questioning whether or not the Oregon fighter was seriously perturbed.
He has since written Chael a letter taking responsibility for his part of the communication break down and says that he received an “appropriate response” back, although he wouldn’t reveal what was Sonnen said. Still, Lansberg says he is unsure about whether or not Sonnen was in character or if he was truly as pissed off as he seemed to be and he concedes that he’ll likely never find out.
Kimbo, I dare you. Right now, I want you and if you give me a chance to redeem myself as far as boxing… You can’t beat a real boxer. You can’t. I mean, right now, I respect you as an MMA fighter before but boxing… night and day. I’ve been there, I’ve done that and I’ve tried MMA, I failed. So now you’re in my ring. In my ring, I can’t be beat. I don’t care if it’s Royce Gracie or Kimbo Slice. It’s been a few years (since my last boxing match) but you gotta understand, I’m in the gym every day. … I don’t see him lasting three rounds with me. I want it to happen right now, me and Kimbo Slice. I’m calling him out.
So, on an anticipation scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Andrei Arlovski vs. Travis Fulton 2, and 10 being Zimmer vs. Martinez 2, how stoked are you for this fight? Take the weekend to think this one over, Potato Nation.
Parents (probably just moms) are pissed because Sasha Grey read to Elementary School kids. I don’t see why… She looks perfectly innocent in the pic [above]. Hmmm… Maybe parents thought she was reading like this:.
Parents (probably just moms) are pissed because Sasha Grey read to Elementary School kids. I don’t see why… She looks perfectly innocent in the pic [above]. Hmmm… Maybe parents thought she was reading like this:
or maybe this:
Sasha Grey is a legitimate actress these days and parents shouldn’t be quick to judge who they let near their kids. Up until last week, we bet most parents wouldn’t have had any trouble with Jerry Sandusky reading to a classroom. Just sayin’… Don’t judge a book by its cover…unless it’s the Jerry Sandusky biography, which [for realz] is titled, “Touched”.
Forrest Griffin apologizes for “rape” tweet and donates to a Rape Crisis Center: here.
Ariel Helwani talks UFC going mainstream to celebrities like the Cookie Monster, Michael Jackson (who clearly does not sound like MJ), a giggling dude called “Mr. Muscles”, and Jack in the Box…(WTF! LA is so strange!) on the streets of Hollywood: here.
Bringing out the biggest stars in UFC, Dana White announces Brock Lesnar will be a commentator for UFC on Fox 1: here.
Watch Gina Carano‘s “Haywire” movie trailer: here.
Watch UFC on Fox 1 weigh-ins today at 7pm ET (4pm PT): here.
Place your bets for UFC on Fox 1 by clicking the icons to the online sports books in the Odds Side Bar to the right of our page!
Happy Early Birthday to Arianny Celeste who turns twenty—something on Saturday!
CagePotato has learned that the popular MMA website has been bought by Vox Media.
Vox Media, formerly SB Nation, is a web media company whose properties include SBNation.com, BloodyElbow.com, MMAMania.com, BadLeftHooks.com, CagesideSeats.com, GirlsGuidetoMMA.com and HeadKickLegend.com. The company owns more than 300 sports-based blog sites — the majority of which are staffed by part-time editors and are largely based around stories and posts submitted by fans.
(Time will tell what changes are in store for MMAFighting)
CagePotato has learned that the popular MMA website has been bought by Vox Media.
Vox Media, formerly SB Nation, is a web media company whose properties include SBNation.com, BloodyElbow.com, MMAMania.com, BadLeftHooks.com, CagesideSeats.com, GirlsGuidetoMMA.com and HeadKickLegend.com. The company owns more than 300 sports-based blog sites — the majority of which are staffed by part-time editors and are largely based around stories and posts submitted by fans.
Sources indicate that MMAFighting employees were told by their future employers that when the site joins the SBNation network things won’t change for the most part, which for obvious reasons caused some concern when some longtime staffers were informed that their services are no longer required a short time later.
It’s unclear whether or not the current MMAFighting team will be kept intact or if some of Vox’s other MMA writers will be added to the mix, but it’s unlikely that the site will continue to exist entirely unchanged when the purchase is finalized.
For instance, AOL spared no expense flying its staffers — including multiple writers, videographers and photographers — around the world to events in places like Australia, the UK and United Arab Emirates. What are the chances that SBNation will do the same?
Another facet of MMAFighting that will likely unfortunately change at least somewhat is Ariel Helwani’s popular TheMMA Hour radio show, which is recorded and filmed at AOL’s studio in New York City. Unless Vox (which is based out of Washington) plans on renting out NY studio space and hiring sound and video production staff, it’s very unlikely that The MMA Hour will survive in its current format, which would be unfortunate as it’s a great show.
Time will tell if the outlet suffers any major overhaul from the purchase, but there’s a pretty good chance that it won’t be business as usual when the new owners take possession and that we’ll see a new look MMAFighting.com. Hopefully for the sake of its employees and fans of the site, the changes aren’t drastic.
A confirmed date for the finalized transaction hasn’t been indicated, but considering that meetings with current MMAFighting staff have taken place and personnel changes have already been implemented, it’s likely it will happen in the coming weeks.
