Tag: CagePotato Roundtable

CagePotato Roundtable #22: What Was the Worst UFC Title Fight of all Time?


(It’s not a UFC fight, but you can’t talk awful title fights without at least referencing Sonnen vs. Filho II. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Today we’re talking about bad UFC title fights – fights that fizzled out after weeks of hype, bored even the most die-hard fans among us, and left us baffled that the winner was considered the best in his weight class. Since we’re dealing strictly with UFC title fights, notable clunkers like Ruiz vs. Southworth II (Strikeforce), Wiuff vs. Tuchscherer (YAMMA), and Sonnen vs. Filho II (WEC) are ineligible for inclusion. Also, we promise that the only appearance of the name “Ben Askren” in this column lies in this incredibly forced sentence. Read on for our picks, and please, pretty please, send your ideas for future Roundtable topics to [email protected].

Jason Moles

Detroit is known by many names – Motown, Motor City, and Hockey Town to name a few. None of which lend to the idea that the birthplace of the assembly line was also a mecca of mixed martial arts or a place to catch great fights on Saturday. Unfortunately, UFC didn’t care; they took the show to the Great Lakes State in 1996 for UFC 9: Clash of the Titans 2 nonetheless. Ken Shamrock and Michigan native Dan Severn were set to face off for the first world title outside of Japan, the UFC Superfight championship. However, thanks to Senator John McCain, instead seeing an exciting rematch that was sure to cover the canvas in bad blood, fans in attendance and at home watching on PPV were treated to what became known as “The Detroit Dance.” And to this day, it is regarded as one of the worst fights in the history of the sport.


(It’s not a UFC fight, but you can’t talk awful title fights without at least referencing Sonnen vs. Filho II. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Today we’re talking about bad UFC title fights – fights that fizzled out after weeks of hype, bored even the most die-hard fans among us, and left us baffled that the winner was considered the best in his weight class. Since we’re dealing strictly with UFC title fights, notable clunkers like Ruiz vs. Southworth II (Strikeforce), Wiuff vs. Tuchscherer (YAMMA), and Sonnen vs. Filho II (WEC) are ineligible for inclusion. Also, we promise that the only appearance of the name “Ben Askren” in this column lies in this incredibly forced sentence. Read on for our picks, and please, pretty please, send your ideas for future Roundtable topics to [email protected].

Jason Moles

Detroit is known by many names – Motown, Motor City, and Hockey Town to name a few. None of which lend to the idea that the birthplace of the assembly line was also a mecca of mixed martial arts or a place to catch great fights on Saturday. Unfortunately, UFC didn’t care; they took the show to the Great Lakes State in 1996 for UFC 9: Clash of the Titans 2 nonetheless. Ken Shamrock and Michigan native Dan Severn were set to face off for the first world title outside of Japan, the UFC Superfight championship. However, thanks to Senator John McCain, instead seeing an exciting rematch that was sure to cover the canvas in bad blood, fans in attendance and at home watching on PPV were treated to what became known as “The Detroit Dance.” And to this day, it is regarded as one of the worst fights in the history of the sport.

What did McCain have to do with any of this, you ask? The politician was fierce in his letter writing campaign against a sport he knew nothing about. He essentially scared or bullied local government agencies to ban the sport. You know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Several key components in the UFC machine were tied up in the Detroit courts until 4:30pm the day of the event getting permission to hold an event that was already being set up. The hacks behind the desk said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “You can proceed with your barbaric and uncivilized fisticuffs spectacle as long as no one actually throws a closed fist to his opponents head nor will any butting of the heads be allowed. Anyone seen doing such things will be arrested.”

For the better part of twenty minutes, Shamrock and Severn circled each other with little to no contact. During the last ten minutes of the fight (if you can even call it that) the two played pat-a-cake until Severn decided to throw the special rules right out of Cobo Arena. Despite stalling for two thirds of the fight and head butting his opponent, Dan Severn won the fight and the championship belt. The Michiganders in attendance could be heard throughout the area booing and chanting, “Let’s go Red Wings!” There has never been a more pathetic example of a championship quality fight. The men in the cage deserved to be there, sure, but when you start adding special rules and stipulations, you’re watering down your product. So much so, that Detroit is now in two sport’s Hall of Shame.

George Shunick

It’s kind of ironic that Anderson Silva, who owns the most impressive championship reign in UFC history, also happens to have the distinction of participating in three of the worst championship fights in the company’s history as well. But ironic or not, it’s no less true. Picking the worst of the three is like deciding which segment you want to be in the human centipede, but I suppose it must be done. To that end, I nominate Silva’s bout with Demian Maia at UFC 112 as the worst of the worst.

I remember watching UFC 112 on an internet str- err, on pay-per-view. To say it was an underwhelming card is probably a little more generous than what it deserves, and that was before the main event. Matt Hughes fought Renzo Gracie – who didn’t know how to check leg kicks – for no conceivable reason. Frankie Edgar upset BJ Penn in the most unspectacular way imaginable, via a debatable decision with virtually no emphatic moments throughout the entire fight. But all of this would surely be a footnote when Anderson Silva, fresh off his humiliation of Forrest Griffin, would unveil some hitherto unknown debilitating maneuver that would drop all of our jaws to the floor while our feeble brains attempted to process what we just witnessed.

Instead, Silva spent the vast majority of five rounds dancing, taunting, and throwing the occasional oblique kick. To say it was frustrating doesn’t do it justice. It was maddening, made even more so by the lone flying knee Silva threw out of nowhere in the fight. It knocked Maia down, broke his nose and served as a reminder of just what Silva was capable of… and how he refused to bother indulging the audience with his capability that night. Maia, to his credit, never gave up. At one point in the final round, Maia – with one eye swollen shut – fell in front of Silva and kept swinging wildly from his knees. It was desperate and ineffective, but it exemplified heart and determination in contrast with Silva’s utter lack of such. Silva won the fight, Maia retained his pride, but the audience was left with the worst championship fight you could imagine. The UFC has not bothered returning to Abu Dhabi since.

On the bright side, “where’s your jiu-jitsu now, playboy?” became part of the MMA meme vocabulary. So I suppose it wasn’t a total loss.

Anthony Gannon

It’s easy to feel a little sympathy for Tito Ortiz these days. He’s been going through some personal shit – the variety of which we are banned from getting too specific on. But hey, thems the breaks when you shack up with a porn queen. Well-adjusted females with run-of-the-mill daddy issues don’t generally get into fuck films. They just latch onto some poor bastard and systematically suck every ounce of pride and manhood out of him until he’s an obedient slob with a semi-manageable speed habit and a secret fetish for snuff porn. That’s life. The ones that go for the porn queens, well, all I’m saying is disregard the lessons of Little Bill at your own peril.

That sympathy, however, can cause us to forget that there was a time when Tito was a wildly popular UFC champion; not just some dude with a quick mouth and a gigantic head who only tasted victory once during the last six years of his career. It’s hard to deny Tito his accolades. Circa 2002 he was the most successful UFC champion there was. He won the belt and defended it five times. That’s more title defenses than Randy, and even one more than his arch-nemesis, Chuck had. Granted, both of those guys would eventually clown Tito en route to victories (x 2 for Chuck), and of course there was that whole saga of Tito allegedly ducking Chuck, but we’re talking numbers here, bitch. Context is irrelevant when trying to make an absurd point.

Hindsight being 20/20 ‘n shit makes Tito’s title defenses seem mildly comical by modern standards, considering the competition: Yuki Kondo, Evan Tanner, Elvis Sinosic, Vladimir Matyushenko, and Ken Shamrock. But you gotta remember this was pre-TUF, pre-FOX, and pre-UFC monopoly when the glory days of Pride were in full effect. UFC title challengers were often contemptible back then. Incidentally, Dave Menne won the UFC’s inaugural middleweight belt that same night, and well shit I’ll go as far as agree with Danga, Dave Menne – for real???

It’s easy to mock a couple of Tito’s title defenses on grounds of legitimacy. But interestingly enough, perhaps the most legit challenger – Vlady – provided for the worst fight. This was UFC 33, an event which Dana White still to this day describes as, “The worst show we’ve ever had.” It was so bad we could just as easily be talking about the co-main event of the evening – Jens Pulver vs Dennis “Balls” Hallman, but that wasn’t the main event, and the pay per view broadcast didn’t black out in the middle of it – two very important factors that help to solidify Tito Ortiz vs.Vladimir Matyushenko as the worst ever.

According to one analysis, the Tito/Vlady fight produced only 40 “significant strikes.” To further expound on that lamentable figure, in a 25 minute fight that means that a decent strike was landed only once every 37.5 seconds. Might not seem like a long stretch while you’re on YouPorn stroking yourself to some early Jenna, but during an actual fight that’s an eternity of visual pain. Contrast that extreme with a Cain Velasquez, who lands over six significant strikes per minute – or one every ten seconds, and the standard deviation model gets blown all to shit.

Basically, the fight was about as horrific as you’d expect of two wrestlers with rudimentary striking skills. Don’t forget, this was before Tito’s “improved boxing” that Joe Rogan liked to talk about almost as much as his “underrated jiu jitsu.” The bottom line is there have been many terrible title fights in the UFC, but not one of them headlined the worst show ever, and not one of them blacked out on pay per view before the fans could fully experience the horror of just how anally violated they got. So there.

Josh Hutchinson

In deciding the worst UFC title fight I chose to look at a number of criteria. Do I choose one that was boring (GSP/Fitch)? How about one that’s meaningless or undeserved (Jones/Sonnen)? What about one that shames the sport of MMA as whole (Arlovski/Buentello)? Luckily I didn’t have to look far to find a shit sandwich that’s comprised entirely of those three ingredients.

Sean Sherk vs. Hermes Franca at UFC 73 was a complete failure in every sense of the word. A highly forgettable fight, which was put on only to build anticipation for the return of BJ Penn, resulted in a glorified 25 minute sparring session. Someone managed to wake the judges up long enough to decide that Sherk had won, and everyone could start getting damp in their trousers at the thought of Penn fighting for the lightweight title again. Mission accomplished, right? Not quite.

The aftermath of UFC 73 is really what landed this fight as my top pick. It’s a special kind of person that tests positive for anything following a title fight. Honestly, at the highest levels of competition you’d have to be as blind as Anne Frank not to see a drug test coming. It makes it all the more amusing that both Sherk and Franca tested positive for steroids following the fight. I would give up anything in my life to have been able to be a fly on the wall when Dana White heard this news. Something tells me his reaction was a little more than a simple facepalm. As usual, neither fighter was at fault for their positive tests, as Franca was forced by the UFC to roid up, and the CSAC botched Sherk’s results. Hey, these things happen in MMA.

So there you have it folks, a boring ass fight that ended up with both participants being suspended and the champ being stripped of his title. All parties involved, fans especially, would have been better off had these gladiators met under the XARM banner, but alas, it now goes down as the worst title fight in UFC history.

Nathan Smith

Apparently, now, the CagePotato Roundtable only happens when The Boss is on vacation (which means the inmates run the asylum for a day or two with Mr. Goldtsein’s unbelievable wealth, a seventeen-day luxurious private cruise to the Bahamas – don’t forget my obligatory touristy t-shirt BG) and that means it brings out the “fringe” contributors who enjoy throwing spitballs while generally making a ruckus in the back of the room in order to mess with the substitute instructors.

The topic of the “Worst UFC Title Fight” is a bit of a conundrum for me because, personally, Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra 1 was one of the worst moments of my life because of my inner bro-mance with GSP and my buddies’ propensity for reminding me that my affinity is unnatural.  But, I digress.  Since I hosted all of the UFC parties (and got ALL the PPV bills) there is still one in particular that pains me.

It was a highly anticipated bout that pitted LHW Champion Randy Couture vs. Vitor Belfort at UFC 46 and if you look at the fight card now, you’d call me a poseur for complaining about this.  No shit – the three prelim fights that didn’t air that night had Matt Serra vs. Pat Curran, Josh Thomson vs. Hermes Franca and Georges St. Pierre vs. Karo Parisyan. The PPV featured (in)famous names like Lee Murray, Jorge Rivera, Carlos Newton, Wes Sims, Frank Mir, Matt Hughes and B.J. Penn. The World Series of Fighting would double-barrel jerk-off Mr_Misanthropy AND crappiefloper while Fried Taco watched, if the promoters could get a collection of talent like that [Ed. Note: Wow.].

Needless to say, this main event fight should’ve been awesome but 45 seconds later . . . . . . It was OVER.  That’s right! I lasted longer on Prom Night – she’ll tell you too, not by much . . . . but still – than the LHW Championship bout at UFC 46 and I screamed (on both occasions), “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Then I realized that Couture’s eyeball was literally about to fall completely out of his head – Hostile style. Vitor’s glove grazed his outer eyelid and it caused a HORRIFIC paper cut-esque slice.  Yeah, a paper cut that could actually make your eye-ball drop out of your head.   It was gross and it was an absolutely warranted stoppage by the hot red-headed doctor (that I still dream of).  Yet, 45 seconds later and the championship fight was over without a single punch landing cleanly.

Jared Jones

TIE: Frank Shamrock’s 1st and 3rd Title Defenses

Look, I get that every sport has to start somewhere. I GET THIS. But even by the incredibly low standards of the UFC circa 1997, Frank Shamrock’s light heavyweight title defenses against Igor Zinoviev and John Lober were laughably misguided at best and staged public executions at worst. While the promotion’s heavyweight division featured such names as Mark Coleman, Maurice Smith, and Randy Couture battling it out for the title, down at 205, they were booking Shamrock in freak show matches that even the Japanese wouldn’t touch with a ten foot gunto. The Japanese, you guys.

Where shall we begin?

Ah yes, that’s Franky boy slamming Igor through the mat in under 30 seconds at UFC 16. What a contest.

How a man coming off a pair of draws can be fast-tracked to a title shot in his promotional debut is anyone’s guess. Maybe the UFC honestly thought that this Igor character was the next Randy Couture, or perhaps he just possessed some otherworldly trash-talking skills. In any case, we were left with a pathetic mismatch, one completely shattered collarbone, and a ringside medical crew questioning whether or not a spatula was an appropriate tool to lift a fighter onto a stretcher with by the time all was said and done. Oh yeah, and Igor never fought again. He always knows when it’s about to rain, though, so perhaps it was for the best.

And if you think that’s bad, just try finding a video of Shamrock’s third title defense — a rematch against John Lober at UFC Ultimate Brazil. You won’t be able to, because the UFC most likely destroyed all evidence of the fight for legal reasons. We’ve all heard the story before: Lober managed to score a controversial technical split decision victory over Shamrock at a SuperBrawl event in Hawaii in ’97, so one year later, the UFC decided, “Hey, why not have these two settle the score now that ShamWow is the champ?”

“Sure, Lober has gone 0-5-1 in the time since they first squared off,” they said whilst diving nose first into a mountain of cocaine the likes of which you have never seen, “But it will sell because GRUDGE MATCH.” It’s a strategy that the UFC utilizes to this day, but never did it appear more transparent than during the 7-and-a-half-minute beat down that Shamaroo dished out on Lober before forcing him to tap to strikes.

Lober would go on to score two wins in his next seven contests, and Shamrock would defend the light heavyweight title against his only true test in Tito Ortiz before leaving the UFC citing “a lack of competition.” No shit.

Seth Falvo


(Photo courtesy of Francis Specker/Getty Images)

Wow, you guys certainly left me with some options, huh? Let’s see…I guess I should point out that Ben Goldstein, if he was available to contribute, would have picked Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites, which is the only reason why I won’t be covering that turd on a plate. I could go old-school, “how the hell is one of those guys fighting for a title in the first place?” and tackle Pat Miletich vs. Andre Pederneiras or Maurice Smith vs. Randy Couture, but considering how weak the talent pool in general was back then, it really wouldn’t be fair to include them. So instead I’ll do something even broader, lazier, yet somehow twice as deserving as the rest of the fights we’ve omitted combined, and nominate all of Tim Sylvia’s title defenses as my selection.

Boring title fights from guys like Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre – while infuriating for fans to watch – are at least forgivable on the basis that they’re boring because the champion is simply that much more talented than the guy across the cage from him. I may not get too excited about watching GSP jab for five rounds, but I’ll be damned if I don’t acknowledge him as the greatest welterweight in the history of our sport. With Tim Sylvia, this was most definitely not the case.

Sylvia was a champion when the heavyweight division was weak enough for the “Cabbage” Correiras of the world to pick up victories inside the Octagon. During his reign over the heavyweight division, the “strikers” either lacked anything resembling technique (Exhibit A: Gan McGee) or lacked a tough enough chin to actually exchange punches with the big man (Exhibit B: Sylvia/Arlovski III), and the grapplers lacked the striking chops necessary to penetrate The Maine-iac’s awkward jabs (Exhibit C: Jeff Monson). In a sport defined by the diverse skills and athleticism of its athletes, Sylvia managed to defend the UFC heavyweight title that Cain Velasquez proudly wears by simply taking up space and staying on his feet; a “Great White Stiff” with unlimited upward mobility, ”the poster child for over-achievement.”

Fortunately for the fans who tried to stay awake during his title defenses, he was eventually matched up against Randy Couture, and that fight was incredibly memorable thanks to A.) how badass The Natural is and B.) a moment early in the first round, when Couture took Sylvia’s back and (not quite) Fatty Boom-Boom (yet) stalled in an effort to get a completely unnecessary stand-up, which inspired one of Joe Rogan’s greatest rants (“You’re on your back, tough! Figure out a way to get up! If that’s boring, baseball’s about a million times more boring!” Classic.). Ever since that fight, Sylvia began his transformation into the amorphous blob of his former self who loses to guys you’ve never heard of on the “Where are they now?” circuit that we know today. He’s still holding out hope for the possibility of a UFC comeback, but after watching him defend the once-meaningless UFC heavyweight championship…it’s probably for the best that he never even gets close to fighting for it again.

Did we repress all memories of your least-favorite UFC title fight? Then have the honor of ruining our weekends by bringing it up in the comments section.

CagePotato Roundtable #21: Which Fighter Had the Most Unexpected Career Comeback of Them All?


(They say a picture is worth a thousand words, yet the only one that comes to mind when looking at this one is ZOMGBARFLOLLERCOPTER. Via Getty Images.) 

Mixed martial arts is a cruel mistress, Potato Nation, and we’re not just talking about Fallon Fox. As the sport’s popularity has increased over the past decade, its participants have been forced to take on the added pressure of not only supporting their families with the oft paltry salaries they take home every few months (if they’re lucky), but winning fights and winning them impressively for the sake of their ever-increasing fanbases, who will turn on them at the drop of the hat should they fail to meet expectations. At the risk of sounding too cliche, MMA is a game that truly offers the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It’s also a sport that Tim Sylvia once declared 90% half mental.

And to some degree, that semi-retarded Ogre was right; MMA is a sport that, aside from pushing one to their limit and often past it physically, can do ten times as much damage to a person mentally. A string of losses — a single, particularly devastating loss even — can leave a fighter questioning whether they ever truly belonged in the first place, or whether their prime has simply passed them by. And it just happens so damn fast; in the span of roughly a year, Chuck Liddell went from the unstoppable light heavyweight kingpin to a washed up brawler who was getting punch-drunk into an early grave. At least according to the “experts” who regularly peruse the UG and Sherdog forums, CagePotato comments sections, and Wikipedia.

No, it’s not every day that we see a Randy Couture or a Georges St. Pierre who can recover from a brutal loss or string of losses and use them as motivation to refocus or completely resurrect their career. And in light of Wanderlei Silva and Mark Hunt’s recent triumphs, we go to thinking: Who Had the Most Unexpected Career Turnaround of Them All? 

That’s right, Taters. The Roundtable is back.


(They say a picture is worth a thousand words, yet the only one that comes to mind when looking at this one is ZOMGBARFLOLLERCOPTER. Via Getty Images.) 

Mixed martial arts is a cruel mistress, Potato Nation, and we’re not just talking about Fallon Fox. As the sport’s popularity has increased over the past decade, its participants have been forced to take on the added pressure of not only supporting their families with the oft paltry salaries they take home every few months (if they’re lucky), but winning fights and winning them impressively for the sake of their ever-increasing fanbases, who will turn on them at the drop of the hat should they fail to meet expectations. At the risk of sounding too cliche, MMA is a game that truly offers the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It’s also a sport that Tim Sylvia once declared 90% half mental.

And to some degree, that semi-retarded Ogre was right; MMA is a sport that, aside from pushing one to their limit and often past it physically, can do ten times as much damage to a person mentally. A string of losses — a single, particularly devastating loss even — can leave a fighter questioning whether they ever truly belonged in the first place, or whether their prime has simply passed them by. And it just happens so damn fast; in the span of roughly a year, Chuck Liddell went from the unstoppable light heavyweight kingpin to a washed up brawler who was getting punch-drunk into an early grave. At least according to the “experts” who regularly peruse the UG and Sherdog forums, CagePotato comments sections, and Wikipedia.

No, it’s not every day that we see a Randy Couture or a Georges St. Pierre who can recover from a brutal loss or string of losses and use them as motivation to refocus or completely resurrect their career. And in light of Wanderlei Silva and Mark Hunt’s recent triumphs, we go to thinking: Who Had the Most Unexpected Career Turnaround of Them All? 

That’s right, Taters. The Roundtable is back.

Josh Hutchinson

For a “great and unexpected comeback,” I personally have to go with Matt Brown. Starting his UFC career in season 7 of The Ultimate Fighter, Brown entered the house with a first round TKO victory over Josh Hall. That really wasn’t anything special, but what followed certainly was. As you recall, Jeremy May established himself early as the season’s token douche bag –which is impressive considering guys like Jesse Taylor and CB Dollaway were also on that season — and proceeded to endlessly fuck with Brown. Coach Forrest Griffin was cool enough to let Brown fight Jeremy when he asked, and then we got the TUF buildup for the fight. Jeremy May used his camera time to further show the world how much of an unnecessary waste of oxygen he was, whereas Brown came off as a determined, likeable guy. I also remember his team talking about how great he was, and that one day they would all be able to tell their children that they knew “The Immortal” Matt Brown. Also, Amir Sodallah predicted Brown would win “…by murder.”

Come fight time, this happened, and it came pretty damn close to Amir’s prediction. The good guy beat the bad guy, the loud mouth got silenced, and I officially drank the Matt Brown Kool Aid. Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed when he lost to Sodallah in his next outing, but still optimistic that this guy could one day become a title contender. Over the next two years, Brown went 4-1, losing the only fight that went to the judges, and I was never more sure of it. Then in 2010, his opponents noticed just how horrible his submission defense was, and Brown proceeded to lose 4 of his next 5 fights. For me, this was like finding out that the Easter bunny wasn’t real, or that the 50 dollar hooker from last week didn’t really love me (SHE DID!!!).

With a 1-4 record in his last 5 fights and a 12-11 overall record, I was sure that Zuffa keeping “The Immortal” around was the result of some Pepe Silvia level conspiracy shit and honestly wrote the guy off completely. Inexplicably, Brown rebounded in a big way. Fighting 4 times in 2012, he managed to hand Stephen Thompson his first loss and KO/TKO everyone else they put in front of him. Do I still think he can be a title contender? Shit no. The welterweight division is far too deep for a knockout artist with almost as many losses as wins to even be mentioned in a conversation about title shots (no offense, Mark). Then again, if he manages to beat Dan Hardy on April 20th, you never know. WAR Brown.

Doug “ReX13″ Richardson 

(Photo via Getty Images.) 

There was a guy, his name escapes me at the moment for some reason. Anyway, this kid was a real prodigy, pro debut at 20, UFC debut at 22, and he’s just making guys look bad on his run up to challenging for the UFC title. But, get this: when he gets his title shot, he loses. He puts on a good performance but the champion catches him with a last-second armbar for the finish.

So this kid is devastated, goes back to the gym, hits slabs of meat at his day job, drinks questionable protein shakes before his morning run, pretty much all the Rocky tropes. Except he’s Canadian. Did I mention he was Canadian? Well, he is. This turns out to be important for the UFC marketing department, and Canadians. So this Canadian guy goes on a five-fight tear, finally gets a second shot at the belt, and this time he wins! Wins the fight by TKO stoppage, so all hail the new king of the division, right? WRONG: New Canadian Handsome Champion (did I mention he was a good-looking guy with a French-Canadian accent? Well, he is. This turns out to be important for UFC marketing department, and women. And gay men.) LOSES HIS FIRST TITLE DEFENSE.

If you get a chance, ask an old-timer about the chaos after Matt Serra won a UFC title. Food and commodities prices skyrocketed. Pigs were seen to slip loose the bonds of Earth. Rivers flowed backward, and the skies were darkened. But Canadian Handsome Guy went to a whole ‘notha level in fighting: Winning Is Everything, and this time he goes on a ten-fight tear, during which he soundly defeats Old Champion, avenges his loss (and regains the title) from The Interloper Matt Serra, and lays the smackdown on perhaps the most impressive collection of talent in any weight class, putting his current successful title defenses at eight.

I don’t remember what the original question was, but if Georges St. Pierre loses this weekend, he’s either going to become The Batman or go Super Saiyan.

George Shunick

It might seem unfathomable right now, but only four years ago, no one knew who Chael Sonnen was. And if they did know who he was, it was only as “that guy who happened to be in the same cage with Paulo Filho when the latter lost his mind in the middle of a fight.” Prior to the Filho rematch, Sonnen’s career was thoroughly mediocre. Realistically competing since 2002 – he had a fight in 1997, then didn’t fight again until he defeated Jason “Mayhem” Miller five years later – the only notable names he had wins over were “Mayhem” and Tim Credeur. During that same time span, he lost to a pre-TUF Forrest Griffin, Renato “Babalu” Sobral and three times to Jeremy Horn. Sonnen’s final loss to Horn got him cut from the UFC for the first time, after which he rattled off five straight victories before facing Filho.

Their first meeting ended in controversy after Sonnen screamed in pain while locked in an armbar – but did not tap – and the referee stopped the fight. The second ended with less controversy, but more confusion, as Filho came in overweight and was more focused on an imaginary dialogue (does that make it a monologue?) than actually engaging in a fight. After the Filho debacle, Sonnen re-entered the UFC and was quickly submitted by Demian Maia in his first fight. Seven years into his career, and nothing appeared any different for Chael Sonnen.

In his next fight, Sonnen scored a decision victory over Dan Miller. No surprise there. But then, he dominated Yushin Okami, a man considered by many to be the number two middleweight in the world at the time. Still, Okami was a wrestler like Sonnen. It was unexpected, but still within the realm of plausibility. But most people favored Nate Marquardt when the two met for a title-shot at UFC 109; Marquardt was well-rounded, for starters, while Sonnen was entirely one-dimensional. Yet Sonnen’s one dimension proved more than enough to stymie Marquardt’s multi-dimensional approach, which unfortunately did not happen to contain an offensive jiu-jitsu game.

His victory led him to his UFC 117 title shot against Anderson Silva, and changed his entire career. Sonnen adopted a pro-wrestling persona, insulted Anderson Silva every opportunity he was afforded and then – to the amazement of everyone – came this close to defeating Silva. He lost, of course, and tested positive for extraordinarily high levels of testosterone afterwards, but Sonnen would never be the same. (This is true from a physiological standpoint as well as a narrative one, thanks to a TRT prescription.) He became – in no particular order – a television personality, a perennial contender, a TUF coach, a pizza parlor owner, a white collar criminal, a cheat, and a best-selling author.

Chael Sonnen was a nobody four years ago, seven years into a career. Now? He’s a brand unto himself and one of the biggest draws in the entire sport. He’s also probably a dead man coming into his fight with Jon Jones, but at this point, wins and losses are almost irrelevant when it comes to Sonnen. He’s established in the last few years of his career what all but a small percentage of fighters fail to achieve, without winning a title. No one could have expected that.

Anthony Gannon

Nothing like a good fallacy to maintain the natural order. It’s just one of those astonishing things that define us as a subservient people. It allows us to accept a widespread belief without any cumbersome thinking, all because it sounds good and true and just. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, where would the world be right now if everyone constantly questioned shit?

Stirling, that’s where. If those troublesome Scots had just accepted their rightful plebeian roles and allowed Longskanks to institute primae noctis on their women, then all those poor farmers wouldn’t have been butchered to death, and excruciatingly annoying people who claim Scottish and/or Irish descent wouldn’t use the term “aye.” Basically, the world would be a prettier place.

One of the best ones, right up there with Jesus being born of Immaculate Conception, is the Little Nog jiu-jitsu fallacy – debunked circa 2010. It held that Nog’s substandard wrestling ability wouldn’t have an adverse effect on his UFC career, that he would simply use his superhuman BJJ powers to submit any wrestler foolish enough to plant him on his ass.

This was largely perpetuated by Pride fanboys (Ed note: You got somethin’ to say, Gannon?), where Little Nog had attained deity status by not only going 8-2 during his renowned tenure, but by being the other half of the Nog zygote his larger sibling made famous by enduring vicious beatings before pulling off spectacular Hail Mary submissions. Never mind that Little Nog hadn’t pulled off a submission against a top opponent since 2005. He was a Nog God dammit, and he’d submit a bitch cause that’s just the way it was.

After Pride was acquired by the UFC in 2007, we all anticipated the arrival of Little Nog. However, it wasn’t until 2009 that he arrived. He commenced to destroy the supremely overrated Luiz Cane, then fought to a surprising split decision victory against Jason Brilz in a fight many thought he should have lost due to Brilz’s wrestling control. Two straight losses to wrestlers Ryan Bader and Phil Davis followed, and it seemed Little Nog’s jiu jitsu was ill-prepared for the wrestle-hump world of the UFC.

Then a funny thing happened: Nog learned how to stuff him some takedowns. Sure, he showed flashes of great takedown defense in his losses, but he would eventually succumb. His comical destruction of the dry-aged Tito was a useless barometer, but his recent win over Rashad Evans at UFC 156 was very telling. Aesthetically, the fight was a torturous affair, but Nog showed that, to go along with his formidable stand-up and excellent/yet totally mortal BJJ, he finally learned the skill that could fill in the blanks.

Next up is Shogun at UFC 161. And even though Shogun’s performances are starting to look as sloppy as his love handles hanging over those tight-ass Praetorian shorts, he’s still a tough opponent with big name value. A win here puts Little Nog into a very good position for a title shot. Hendo is out of the mix. After Jon Jones makes Chael Sonnen bust out the jelly, the only top 205ers left that Jones hasn’t already destroyed are Nog and Gustafsson. Yes, Dana White said Machida was next in line, but it’s not like Daddy Dana hasn’t been known to Indian give this sort of shit.

Nog’s right there, son. All he has to do is beat Shogun – something he couldn’t do back in 2005 — and with Shogun fighting like a guy who looks like he smokes three packs of Camel No-Filters a day after two rounds, Nog has a great shot at the W here. With it, he’ll be a pubic hair away. If none of that works out, museums are always looking for real life actors for their Neanderthal exhibits.

Nathan “The12ozCurls” Smith

(Via Getty Images.) 

Cub Swanson was a pedestrian 4-3 during his last seven bouts in the WEC before the organization merged with the UFC, and in his debut under the bright lights of the “big leagues” he tapped out when Ricardo “Don’t Call Me Lorenzo” Lamas slapped on a tight arm-triangle choke. Going .500 in your last eight fights and getting submitted in your first appearance in the Octagon is not exactly the model on how to impress the new bosses, especially when you already have an 8 second brutal KO loss to the champion (Aldo) as well as a UD loss to a perennial top contender/alleged bar brawler (Mendes) at the weight class in which you compete. The win/loss record along with the other variables is the exact reason the “Flow Chart of Doom” was invented by our fearless leader, but the UFC was not overstaffed back in late 2011 and thankfully Swanson was given another chance.

To say that Cub took the proverbial ball and ran with it would be an understatement. Swanson faced off against durable George Roop at the UFC ON FOX 2 undercard in what was a perceived as a must-win for him, and judging by the beating he put on Roop en route to a KO victory, Cub understood the severity of the situation. Swanson then won Knockout of the Night honors when he dropped Ross Pearson like a good wingman does to the fat chick “friend.” Next in line was dangerous submission specialist Charles Oliveira and Swanson took less than three minutes to go “Right Turn Clyde” with a left hook to the bread basket followed up with a one punch KO. Three fights, three wins and three knockouts. That is how you get some fans (according to Cub’s new head trainer) and the favor of the UFC brass.

A huge step-up in competition was in store for Swanson when he was pitted against the well-rounded Louisiana stud Dustin Poirier last month. The late/great Gorilla Monsoon would have said it was the “irresistible force meeting the immovable object” and both men put on a show for 15 minutes during their co-main event bout. Take downs and stand-up exchanges ensued. It was an awesome fight worthy of UFC ON FOX viewers. It was a fight that would have turned the casual viewer into a die hard and once the dust had settled, Cub came out with a unanimous decision victory.

Cub Swanson: his name may sound like a revoked TV dinner flavor but he has resurrected his career in unbelievable fashion. For Pete’s sake, he got guillotined by Jens Pulver five years ago and now he is sitting at the precipice of a number one contender’s bout. Kevin Luke “Cub” Swanson is a perpetual underdog and we all love the underdog especially when that mutt comes into the octagon swinging for – not only the fences – but for his career.

Seth Falvo

(Photo via Getty Images.) 

Before we go any further, it’s imperative that we give a much deserved shout-out to Bernard Hopkins, who once again became the oldest major champion in the history of boxing six days ago with a victory over undefeated IBF champion Tavoris Cloud. Is part of his longevity due to a weak talent pool in boxing? Of course. Does this take anything away from the absolutely legendary career that Bernard Hopkins has put together? Don’t be a fool, you idiot.

Now then, even if I could pick Hopkins for this roundtable discussion, I wouldn’t, because he never fell nearly as far out of relevance as my choice, Demian Maia.

As a middleweight, Maia followed the “Grappling Ace Anderson Silva Challenger” mold to the letter. He started off his UFC career with a string of submission victories. He eventually managed to convince the UFC brass that he could possibly submit the untouchable Brazilian, and while we more-than-willingly hyped him as a challenger, deep down we all knew that we were simply playing carnival barker while doing so. Much like how “The Incredible Bearded Lady” is less impressive when you call her “Your friend’s Italian Grandmother,” we focused on Maia’s submission prowess because of how little standup he had (the Marquardt fight, anyone?). An embarrassingly lopsided, yet also completely unwatchable fight against Anderson Silva ensued, and our fearless challenger would slowly begin to fade out of relevance (See Also: Leites, T.).

And then a strange thing happened (Ed note: You mean like with Lil’ Nog?): Maia dropped to welterweight, and he was unbeatable again. His welterweight debut saw him crush Dong Hyun Kim in just forty-seven seconds. While skeptics (ie. me) wanted to see more before declaring him “back,” Maia’s next outing saw him neck crank Rick Story so hard that the end result was like watching a Mortal Kombat fatality. You could spend hours watching grappling tournaments and not see such a gruesome, yet completely awesome finish. And then the icing on the cake came at UFC 156, where Demian Maia managed to out-Fitch Jon Fitch while actually being entertaining. Say what you want about Jon Fitch being boring, just don’t act like a victory over him has ever been meaningless.

Perhaps the most impressive part about Maia’s comeback is the fact that he is now a more legitimate contender than he was when he was actually challenging for the title. When he fought Anderson Silva, he was part of a trio of fighters (along with Sonnen and Marquardt) who could have all challenged for the belt, even though none of them really deserved to. Now, Maia just needs a victory over one more top welterweight to gain a shot at the champion. And this time around, I actually believe what I’m typing when I write that Maia has a good chance at submitting whoever that guy may be.

Jared Jones

It’s funny; I came up with this Roundtable topic specifically with Mark Hunt in mind, yet now that the time has come to sing his praises, I find myself surprisingly void of the right words to say. Maybe it’s because — like the family of Zhou Chengliang – I had long since given up the hope that I would ever see “The Super Samoan” fighting in the UFC, let alone knocking on the door of a title shot. Following a six-fight skid that included a handful of amateurish submission losses and a world-shattering KO loss to Melvin Manhoef, it was generally understood by fans and pundits alike that Hunt was on his way out. Personally, I welcomed the thought. In some strange way, I was almost more comfortable believing that when PRIDE faded away in 2007, the Mark Hunt I knew — the iron-jawed, heavy-handed, flabby-around-the-waist, butt-dropping introvert — faded away with it. It was the sole bit of solace I was able to scrape away from the collapse of my beloved PRIDE.

And when it was announced that Hunt would in fact be headed to the UFC, some five years after he had stopped being relevant, for the sole purpose of fulfilling leftover contractual obligations he had with PRIDE, I was heartbroken. Honest-to-God heartbroken. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I had already counted Hunt out. I believed that Hunt’s run in the UFC would accomplish little more than tarnishing his legendary status amongst the sport’s hardcore fans while spoiling his name amongst those new to MMA. Sure, he appeared to be in the best shape of his life heading into the fight, but in the back of my mind I couldn’t shake the feeling that we (“we” being Hunt fans worldwide) were setting ourselves up for disappointment. One minute and an arm-breaking loss to a super-heavyweight future UFC washout later, I had all I could do to hold back tears.

It is at this point in my little story that you’re probably expecting the phrase “but then, a funny thing happened” to appear, followed by a fight-by-fight retelling of Hunt’s completely unexpected four fight win streak that culminated in a stellar knockout of Stefan Struve at UFC in FUEL 8 and a late replacement, number one contender fight with former champion Junior dos Santos at UFC 160. But I’m not going to do that, because if you are not familiar with Hunt’s inspirational turnaround, the #RallyforMarkHunt campaigns, or his beatdown of one of the sport’s dirtiest fighters, then there is nothing I can write to convince you to get on board this warwagon.

Because to me, Hunt’s simultaneously depressing and inspiring story of perseverance is almost transcendent of the material itself. It represents more than just Mark Hunt the person; it represents more than just MMA. It makes the case that dozens of hackneyed, underdog sports films attempt to make each year with varying degrees of success: NEVER COUNT ANYONE OUT. Because if a one-dimensional, long since forgotten slugger like Hunt can mount as historic a comeback as he has, who’s to say that any other athlete, politician, or civilian can’t? Because Mark Hunt, you guys. Because PRIDE. 

CagePotato Roundtable #20: What Should MMA Fans Be Thankful For?


(A good meal well prepared, and the company of your loving family — that’s what it’s all about, guys.)

Happy Thanksgiving, Potato Nation, and welcome to a short and sweet Turkey Day edition of the CagePotato Roundtable. Today we’re discussing things we’re thankful for in the world of MMA, so if you can spare a moment from shoving cranberry sauce down your filthy gullet, give it a look and tell us what *you’re* thankful for in the comments section…

Seth Falvo

There’s an argument to be made that the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL have always been the most boring people on the planet. Throughout the league’s history, the most fascinating quarterbacks on the field have been about half as interesting as the instruction manual that came with your toaster off of it. Johnny Unitas was stoic enough to make Fedor look expressive in comparison, Joe Montana somehow didn’t have enough charisma to last on NBC, Brett Favre made people feel themselves get dumber whenever he opened his mouth, and Drew Brees wears Affliction shirts (seriously). While it’s not exactly a fact that having any type of personality will ruin your chances of becoming a famous NFL quarterback, I don’t see too many people wearing Christian Ponder or Ryan Fitzpatrick jerseys.

So why am I talking about football? For one, it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving unless some oafish mouth-breather that no one in your family actually likes didn’t talk about football during your holiday dinner and/or roundtable discussion. But aside from that, it’s because, in many ways, this has carried over to MMA as well. As fans, it’s fun to cheer for an interesting fighter — especially when he’s actually good — but while the personalities of our fighters have led to the rapid growth and development of our sport, they have also brought on some downright ugly consequences as well.  You don’t need to be the most interesting guy in the room to be the best athlete in your sport, and as fans, we should be far more thankful for the boring guys who are great at fighting than we currently are.

Case in point, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has outstayed his welcome in the UFC by about three years, putting on boring fights and complaining about the exceptional treatment he’s received as if he’s washing dishes at a Denny’s somewhere. Yet Rampage is still one of our sport’s most popular fighters — especially among mainstream media outlets — because of his reputation as a funnyman and an entertainer, despite being neither funny nor entertaining. Likewise, Dan Hardy has gone 2-4 in his last six, with Amir Sadollah being his most notable victory since 2009, yet his colorful hair and marketable image have kept him on ESPN as recently as last week.


(A good meal well prepared, and the company of your loving family — that’s what it’s all about, guys.)

Happy Thanksgiving, Potato Nation, and welcome to a short and sweet Turkey Day edition of the CagePotato Roundtable. Today we’re discussing things we’re thankful for in the world of MMA, so if you can spare a moment from shoving cranberry sauce down your filthy gullet, give it a look and tell us what *you’re* thankful for in the comments section…

Seth Falvo

There’s an argument to be made that the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL have always been the most boring people on the planet. Throughout the league’s history, the most fascinating quarterbacks on the field have been about half as interesting as the instruction manual that came with your toaster off of it. Johnny Unitas was stoic enough to make Fedor look expressive in comparison, Joe Montana somehow didn’t have enough charisma to last on NBC, Brett Favre made people feel themselves get dumber whenever he opened his mouth, and Drew Brees wears Affliction shirts (seriously). While it’s not exactly a fact that having any type of personality will ruin your chances of becoming a famous NFL quarterback, I don’t see too many people wearing Christian Ponder or Ryan Fitzpatrick jerseys.

So why am I talking about football? For one, it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving unless some oafish mouth-breather that no one in your family actually likes didn’t talk about football during your holiday dinner and/or roundtable discussion. But aside from that, it’s because, in many ways, this has carried over to MMA as well. As fans, it’s fun to cheer for an interesting fighter — especially when he’s actually good — but while the personalities of our fighters have led to the rapid growth and development of our sport, they have also brought on some downright ugly consequences as well.  You don’t need to be the most interesting guy in the room to be the best athlete in your sport, and as fans, we should be far more thankful for the boring guys who are great at fighting than we currently are.

Case in point, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has outstayed his welcome in the UFC by about three years, putting on boring fights and complaining about the exceptional treatment he’s received as if he’s washing dishes at a Denny’s somewhere. Yet Rampage is still one of our sport’s most popular fighters — especially among mainstream media outlets — because of his reputation as a funnyman and an entertainer, despite being neither funny nor entertaining. Likewise, Dan Hardy has gone 2-4 in his last six, with Amir Sadollah being his most notable victory since 2009, yet his colorful hair and marketable image have kept him on ESPN as recently as last week.

Is Rampage Jackson’s transsexual raping shtick really getting people more excited about UFC on FOX 6 than his opponent Glover Teixeira’s brutal knockouts? I’d like to think that this isn’t the case, but he wouldn’t be pushed as hard as he’s being pushed if the UFC wasn’t profiting from it. The numbers don’t lie — the “interesting fighters” like Rampage Jackson and Chael Sonnen draw more PPV buys than guys like Frankie Edgar and Dominick Cruz so. And we’ve seen our sport suffer from this — quick, name one reason why Chael Sonnen is the number one contender at a weight class he hasn’t even fought at in seven years.

Even worse than that is the number of talented fighters who are shooting themselves in the foot because they’re trying to play the personalities that they think the fans want them to play. We’ve watched Miguel Torres disintegrate from being the most dominant champion in the WEC to a guy who gets fired, re-hired and re-fired over his insistence on tweeting rape jokes. Jacob Volkmann and Matt Riddle have been reduced to “Hates Obama guy” and “Butter-toothed Brit guy” in the eyes of most fans due to their attempts to be comedians, even though they clearly are not meant for stand-up comedy. Tom Lawlor has never been a contender, but I’m seriously starting to think that he trains more for his weigh-ins than his actual fights. For that matter, this explains every goofy haircut and ugly tattoo on the undercard fighters.

Say what you want about guys like Cain Velasquez, Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, Junior Dos Santos, Ben Henderson, and Dominick Cruz being boring outside of the cage, but a boring interview never offended the opponents of our sport. Boring is safe. Boring allows the strength of the fight to speak for itself. And isn’t that supposed to be what matters? Can’t we get back to the time when guys like Bellator’s Mike Mucitelli could get over with fans for armbarring his opponent at Bellator 81 in less than thirty seconds instead of worrying about his promo skills? Can’t our champions fight the challengers who are most qualified without worrying that they’re just “amateur kids who can’t promote a fight?”

Because it’s Thanksgiving, I’m assuming you’re about to watch the Cowboys/Redskins game, where you’ll get to watch Redskins’ quarterback Robert Griffin III dazzle you with his on-field play.  Because it’s a Cowboys game, you’ll also get to watch overhyped media-darling Tony Romo compile turnovers and stumble around like an idiot whenever Dallas has the ball. As he overthrows yet another receiver while the announcers gush over whatever he does off of the field, take a second to acknowledge that this is the result of valuing celebrity over performance. Be greatful for the “boring” fighters, because a sport full of Tony Romos is a sport you don’t want to follow.

Jason Moles

This time of year, it’s only natural to ponder the things in life that you are most thankful for. Me personally, I’m just thankful we haven’t done anything to piss Dana off again. Oops, almost forgot about that. Well, there’s always next year, right? But what about you, what are you thankful for? I’ll tell you what you ought to be thankful for — 2012 is four minutes into the final round of a grueling, grinding, grapple fest. Grateful you should be that the final bell is forthcoming and we are all announced losers. Not to worry, we’ll go back and look at the tape and come back stronger next time.

In 2012 alone we’ve seen nearly 100 individual fights scrapped, three Zuffa events cancelled, numerous failed drug tests, and a partridge in a pear tree. This year may have been the Year of the Dragon, but it felt more like the year of the Dodo — an ugly, disease riddled bird that eventually went extinct like many of the most talked-about fights this year. All fans, both in America and abroad, should be thankful that 2013 brings the hope of announced fights coming to fruition and the best fighters in the world competing under one roof. Hope that the so called “injury curse” was not a legitimate sign of the supposed impending apocalypse, but rather an unpleasant phase from which much can be learned — kind of like puberty.

Nathan “the12ozcurls” Smith

2012 was, in theory, to be the dawn of a new era for the UFC as the FOX deal officially began with all the perks that came with it, and hypothetically it was supposed to vault the premiere MMA organization towards global domination, via a national television audience several times a year and a spot on the vaunted FOX conglomerate of cable networks. But as we all found out pretty quickly, as awesome as FOX may in fact be, FUEL is harder to find than this mythical female G-Spot I’ve heard so much about.  I have found evidence of both on youtube, but I am still not entirely sure either exists in the real world. So, needless to say, when you mix in the Chernobyl-esque injury plague that inflicted champions GSP (ACL), Dominick Cruz (ACL), Jose Aldo (foot) and Jon Jones (DUI induced ego damage), 2012 will be remembered more for what didn’t happen as opposed to what should have happened.

Last Thursday within a staff email, when Jason Moles jokingly asked what the CP “Thanksgiving/Black Friday Roundtable” topic would be, I said it should be this. When JJ responded with our current topic, I immediately went with my obvious answer. Yes, it was prior to the GSP vs Condit bout, but I have/had way too much on the line to doubt the outcome. I am mostly thankful that order has been restored to the universe and our favorite mixed martial artist, Georges St. Pierre, is once again on top of the world but upon further review, after the fairly crappy year I have had personally, I dug deeper and found something more profound even though it smelled like a used diaper filled with Indian food.

Picking St. Pierre’s victorious return would be the easy way out for me, the self-proclaimed GSP nuthugger, and I could spend the next 3 paragraphs ball-washing him up like I usually do but aside from my favorite fighter’s triumphant return, I am more thankful for something else. It is something that is not only more disgusting than a Rosie O’Donnell thong after Yoga class but it is also a veritable wasteland of sophomoric insults. That’s right dipshits. I am most thankful for the CagePotato comment section.

Whether it was Old Dad or New Dad or BG or JJ or Seth or Elias or ReX or whomever scribing the post — CagePotato.com has a tight-knit group that frequents the comment section. Some are more thoughtful, like ArmFarmer and RearNakedSpoon and shatterproof. Others come in to lighten the mood like Fried Taco and Mr_Misanthropy and macreadysshack. Then there are the ones that come in to stir the pot like RwilsonR and smellypiratehooker and dranokills. Oh, and there is skeletor, whose sole purpose on CP is to tell Danga how much he sucks.

Sure the Cagepotato.com comment section is an armpit for trolls and heathens but it is our armpit dammit. We have formed cyber-psuedo friendships with backhanded compliments and four letter bombs.  As Thanksgiving is upon us, I want to acknowledge my fellow miscreants and give thanks to all of you. To NomadRip and angry little feet and Viva Hate and Fletch the V Stretch and the rest of the gang — thank you for being heartless, hilarious and most of all, honest. The comment section and the people who reside there are a huge reason why CP is different and all you floor turds are special to me. Happy Thanksgiving.

Ben Goldstein

Well how the hell am I going to follow that tear-jerker? I’ll start by echoing Nathan’s words of gratitude. We don’t give much attention to birthdays around here, but in case you weren’t aware, CagePotato celebrated its five-year anniversary last month, and I’m incredibly thankful that I still get to do this for a living. With so many people unemployed in this country, I never want to forget how blessed I am to have a full-time job that I enjoy doing, which allows me to work from home so I can be a part of my baby son’s daily life, and never requires me to take a dump next to a co-worker in some squalid office bathroom. It’s the little things, really. And the fact that so many of the hardcore commenters mentioned above have stuck with us over the years is astounding. There are days when I feel like we don’t always deserve your loyalty, but having you around day after day really means the world to me.

Okay, enough bitchassness. I’m thankful that Overeem and Diaz are coming back, and that the modern tragedy known as Strikeforce is coming to an end after January. I’m thankful that there will be a woman fighting in the UFC, even though it’s still not clear who that woman will be fighting, or whether those fights will be squash matches against utterly random broads; no matter what happens, it’s an amazing moment in the sport’s history. And I’m thankful that as jaded as us long-time fans can be, the greatest talents in the sport still find ways to surprise and thrill us. Yeah, it’s been a rough year for cage-fighting. But at it’s best, MMA is still the greatest show on earth, so fuck all the haters. Now let’s eat.

CagePotato Roundtable #19: Fighters You Hated, Then Loved (Or Vice-Versa)


(I was a big fan of James Thompson until he TKO’d my beloved Giant Silva. You broke my heart, James. You broke my heart. / Photo via Sherdog.)

We’d like to send out a CagePotato Fist-Bump to reader Joseph Cisneros, who submitted today’s topic on this Facebook thread: “Fighters that u hated, that now u are a fan of.” It’s a good question (despite its grammatical quirks), and so is the reverse of it — fighters who you were a fan of, but can’t stand anymore. We figured, why not cover both sides of the coin?

Joining us for this installment of the CagePotato Roundtable is a very special guest, and former Roundtable subject: veteran MMA heavyweight James “The Colossus” Thompson. It’s been a fruitful year for Thompson, who has scored wins over Bob Sapp and Bobby Lashley under the Super Fight League banner, and launched his own MMA media empire with a fantastic blog (ColossalConcerns.com) and a highly entertaining MMA podcast, which you should subscribe to on iTunes right here. Follow the Colossus on Twitter @JColossus, and quiet down children, because the man is about to speak…

James Thompson

When I was told the subject for this round table, I thought I’d have to pass on it, simply because on first reflection I couldn’t think of any fighters that I was a fan of, but then went off completely, or vice versa. But then I did something I try, as often as possible, not to do…I used my brain. After this painful but mercifully brief process was over, I remembered a couple of fighters hidden deep in my grey matter that did fit this description. So here’s what I dug up.


(I was a big fan of James Thompson until he TKO’d my beloved Giant Silva. You broke my heart, James. You broke my heart. / Photo via Sherdog.)

We’d like to send out a CagePotato Fist-Bump to reader Joseph Cisneros, who submitted today’s topic on this Facebook thread: “Fighters that u hated, that now u are a fan of.” It’s a good question (despite its grammatical quirks), and so is the reverse of it — fighters who you were a fan of, but can’t stand anymore. We figured, why not cover both sides of the coin?

Joining us for this installment of the CagePotato Roundtable is a very special guest, and former Roundtable subject: veteran MMA heavyweight James “The Colossus” Thompson. It’s been a fruitful year for Thompson, who has scored wins over Bob Sapp and Bobby Lashley under the Super Fight League banner, and launched his own MMA media empire with a fantastic blog (ColossalConcerns.com) and a highly entertaining MMA podcast, which you should subscribe to on iTunes right here. Follow the Colossus on Twitter @JColossus, and quiet down children, because the man is about to speak…

James Thompson

When I was told the subject for this round table, I thought I’d have to pass on it, simply because on first reflection I couldn’t think of any fighters that I was a fan of, but then went off completely, or vice versa. But then I did something I try, as often as possible, not to do…I used my brain. After this painful but mercifully brief process was over, I remembered a couple of fighters hidden deep in my grey matter that did fit this description. So here’s what I dug up.

Before I get into this, please don’t mistake a dislike for a person — or in this case a fighter’s character — for his skill in the ring. A fighter can have a few character flaws and be a great fighter or vice versa. Now, some people might say it doesn’t matter about what the fighter does on the outside of the cage; it’s all about what happens inside. Which is true to an extent but, come on, MMA fans, for the most part, aren’t mindless robots. You are always going to want to root for the fighter that you can relate to and like as a person…

A fighter I was once a fan of but then went off…

Tito Ortiz

Now, the reason Tito didn’t jump to mind straight away was because I haven’t been a fan of his for such a long time. Before I go on to make it clear why I feel this way, I must say I’ve never met him. He might be the greatest guy in the world for all I know but the reasons I’m no longer a fan of his is from things I’ve gleaned in interviews and situations I’ve see on TV and interviews over the years.

When I look back to when I first started watching Tito fight in the UFC, I was definitely a fan. I mean how could you not be? I loved his fighting style, his GNP was great to watch and back then most of his opponents didn’t have an answer to it. Even the grave digger routine he did after fighting, which some deemed disrespectful, I thought was a good trademark that helped ‘brand’ him and it got him noticed and helped make him popular.

So, it begs the question, ‘where, for me, did it go wrong’? I started to go off Tito, a little, when he would list a catalogue of injuries that he had to fight off to be in the cage that night. It’s not that I didn’t believe him it’s just, I believe, if you make the decision to fight, injury or not, you’re doing it because you think you’ll win.

That being said, I can forgive Tito for going on about his injuries because, as a fighter, I realise that sometimes you need an excuse to fall back on and make the loss that much easier to swallow, so you can get over it and get back in there should it all go wrong this time. What really did it for me was when I heard him commenting on an Affliction show. It wasn’t so much the mistakes he was making in his commentary, as while these were cringe worthy they were also really funny. What wasn’t funny though was when Vitor Belfort KO’d Matt Lindland with a devastating left hook, and Tito started laughing, and then started singing “good night sweet heart.” Not only was this not funny but, as a fighter himself, he should have known better than to take the piss out of a fellow fighter that got caught. I mean, come on, it’s not like it’s never happened to him!

Another reason he lost me as a fan was that I didn’t like it when Joe Rogan was interviewing Marc Coleman, after his loss to Shogun, and Tito was shouting abuse at Coleman during Joe Rogan’s interview with him. This was because Tito was trying to reignite a fight that was supposed to have happened before Coleman tore his MCL, because he thought he could get an easy win off Coleman like he did with Ken Shamrock as Coleman, in Tito’s eyes, was now past his best. I don’t have any respect for that.
I’m going to stop there as I don’t want to fighter bash and for all Tito’s faults, he has been at the top of a big heap for a long time and provided entertainment to a lot of MMA fans along the way. I now see him a bit like one of those troublesome uncles you see at weddings, that has had far too much to drink and causes trouble by trying to shag a bridesmaid.

Fighter I didn’t like than ended up being a fan of.

I found this a lot harder, as most of the time it’s pretty clear cut whether you’re a fan of a particular fighter or not. Then I remembered Dave Legeno. If you don’t remember Dave, let me refresh your memory. He came into MMA with little to no experience of the sport, but being an actor by trade he was always able put on a ‘show’. I remember seeing him in Cage Rage doing an entertaining monologue then, as the camera panned, he screamed & he was holding a severed Japanese head aloft. All very WWE, which isn’t my issue, my issue was it didn’t seem like he had much to back up any of these antics and he seemed like he was just ‘all show’.

He lost the fight that night, by Achilles lock, to Minowaman who was, coincidently, Oriental. [Ed. note: He means “Asian.”] That was Dave Legeno’s second loss in two fights after he suffered a brutal KO loss to Mark Epstein.

I thought Dave was going to take his acting ability and Oriental severed head off into the distance to try his hand at something else. [Ed. note: He means “Asian severed head.”] But this didn’t happen.

Dave picked himself up to then go on and win his next four fights, before calling it a day and giving acting another go, where he’s had a lot of success in films like ‘44 Inch Chest‘ , ‘Snatch’ and ‘Harry Potter’ to name just a few.

Now, I know first-hand how hard it is to pick yourself up from a KO loss and try again, never mind if you had lost all three of the only fights you’ve ever had. But that he did and he picked himself up well and in the process turned me into a fan. Fair play, Dave.

Jim Genia

Chael Sonnen is a douche, but God do I love him.

This dichotomous set of feelings wasn’t always so. At first, I just hated him. Not because of anything he’d really done, you see, but because of what he wasn’t doing. He wasn’t entertaining me. And my opinion of the dude, who was obviously a very skilled and very capable wrestler, was formed long before he ever set foot in the Octagon.

Way back in September, 2003, the International Fighting Championship had a badass one-night eight-man tournament in Denver, CO, featuring the likes of Jeremy Horn, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua — the works. And who got triangle choked by Forrest Griffin in a quarterfinal bout on that card? Sonnen, of course. Sonnen, who seemed to be of the mold of wrestlers who’d lay on opponents like a human down comforter, riding out the clock or, thankfully, getting caught in a submission somewhere along the way.

I was ringside when Sonnen put forth a pedestrian performance against the Russian Arman Gambarayan at a promotion called the Mixed Fighting Championship, and though he won a follow-up bout in the organization via first-round TKO, he was still pretty much a blanket. Sonnen went on to compete in the Octagon — which should be an indication of progress — but he crapped the bed, taking an uninspired decision against Trevor Prangley and tapping to Babalu and Horn. Again, I was ringside when he stopped Amar Suloev at a BodogFIGHT show, but honestly, the most memorable thing about that fight was how much Suloev grabbed the ropes. Even Sonnen’s run in the WEC was forgettable.  Remember when he took on champ Paulo Filho for the belt? The story of that bout was Filho acting like a lunatic, not Sonnen kicking any degree of ass. It got to the point that, when I knew a Sonnen fight was about to grace my television screen, I’d go to the kitchen and make another batch of popcorn. Or I’d go take a dump. Anything was better than watching him in “action”.

And then the improbable happened. At UFC 104, Sonnen beat the ever-loving snot out of Yushin Okami, and at UFC 109 he prison-raped Nate Marquardt, and when he spoke…it was as if the heavens had opened up, and the ghost of every dead pro wrestler began channeling their collective energies into this formerly unworthy earthly vessel. Suddenly, Sonnen was interesting. I was entertained.

For sure, it helped that Sonnen was inexplicably very, very good at beating the piss out of dudes — which he did for about four and a half rounds against the heretofore untouchable Anderson Silva.  But there have always been fighters in the cage who possessed great ability yet had the personality of a discarded dildo. Sonnen, somehow, someway, came to have both the gift of fighting and gabbing in spades, and he wielded them in expert fashion. Yeah, it was interesting how he nearly beat Silva, but that interest was increased a thousand-fold because Sonnen’s mouth had written checks that he was very nearly able to cash.

Failed testosterone tests and suspensions? Mortgage fraud? Pshaw. Ain’t nothing but a thing when it comes to Sonnen, who went from a boring, no-potential fighter whom I hated, to the most interesting man in the world, and a fighter I love.

Nathan Smith

I am going to be completely fair and honest with the CP brethren. I am a notoriously meticulous individual who can hold a grudge like nobody’s business. Basically, I am not the easiest dickhead to get along with and once you cross me, no matter how trivial or juvenile the slight might be, you have made the list. I don’t easily change my mind to fondness once I view an individual as untrustworthy. Because I am such a judgmental prick, I found it extremely difficult to think of a fighter that swayed me from distain towards affection and before I spontaneously combusted, I opted to discuss a fighter that I used to be partial to but he has since fallen out of my (and I am sure most of the CP community’s) good graces.

Royce Gracie may have been the first star to come out of the UFC but Ken Shamrock was the one who had the appearance of a star. Although the Brazilian was very successful, physically he looked more like your average hairdresser. Kenny’s physique resembled an action figure on Winstrol and he reminded me of every cinematic hero of the 1980’s (except for Jack Burton). Shamrock was multidimensional because he could strike as well as submit his foes and I quickly jumped on the Shamrock band-wagon back in 1993.

His list of MMA opponents is like a who’s who of the sport that include names like Bas Rutten, Maurice Smith, Dan Severn, Oleg Taktarov, Kimo Leopoldo, Don Frye, Tito Ortiz, Kazushi Sakuraba and Rich Franklin. Although he did not win against all of these icons, a laundry list like that has to make you say, “Holy shit!” Shamrock then took a hiatus (1997-1999) from MMA to make some easy money testing his skills in the WWF (yes – it still had the “F” back then). Though I wanted him to continue with legitimate fighting, the move did not necessarily bother me because I would much rather pretend to get hit in the face than actually get hit in the face, especially if it was lucrative. Kenny used the moniker “The Worlds Most Dangerous Man” and although I didn’t know it then, it was the beginning of the end with my affinity for Shamrock.

Once Ken returned to the UFC he was a shell of his former shit-kicking self. He still looked physically imposing but almost magically his muscles looked deflated (if you know what I am saying). I reached the end of my rope during The Ultimate Fighter season 3 where Shamrock opposed Chico Tito Ortiz. Prior to the show, the Huntington Beach Bad Boy was at the pinnacle of his arrogance and Ken was viewed as the far superior coach due to the fact that he founded his own MMA training camps, The Lion’s Den. What transpired was nothing short of a legitimate WTF episode after episode. Ortiz seemed to genuinely care about the fighters on his team and brought in valid coaches like Dean Lister (BJJ) and Saul Soliz (kickboxing). Kenny on the other hand, constantly bickered with his students while surrounding them with a mediocre boxing coach and a gigantic buffed-out Nutrition/strength coach. Ken decided his team would be better served watching old fights of HIMSELF during a training session instead of teaching techniques and that is when Ken made my list.

He went on to get his ass kicked by Tito a total of 3 times and each fight was about as entertaining as watching morbidly obese people French kiss at Wal-Mart. It didn’t stop there though. Once I cut the cord on Shamrock he went on to embarrass himself like a fat kid in gym class. He was KO’d by a guy named Robert Berry at a Cage Rage event and then he was incidentally head butted during warm-ups for his fight with Kimbo Slice which resulted in a six stitch gash and Shamrock’s withdrawal from the primetime network television fight. After that, Ken started the MMA freak show circuit where he fought (and beat) 6’6” 380 lb. Ross Clifton who physically resembled a gigantic mound of manure stuffed into a Hefty bag (R.I.P. Ross). The victory was short-lived as Kenny tested positive for steroids afterwards and went on to wrestle for Juggalo Championship Wrestling. Yes, those Juggalos. What could possibly be worse than that? Answer: this.

So I raise my glass in one hand and raise my middle finger with the other as I stand up and say, “You’re a dick Ken Shamrock.” You are a UFC Hall of Famer and by your ego-driven actions, you made a mockery of yourself. By doing that, you made a mockery of the sport and basically told the fans that once cheered for you, that you didn’t care. Well, right back at’cha buddy. I don’t care . . . . . anymore.

Ben Goldstein

If you asked me who my least-favorite fighter in MMA right now is, I’d probably say Quinton Jackson — he comes off as a complainer with a persecution complex, he’s delusional about his current abilities, and his completely undeserved reputation as a “funny guy” has allowed him to get away with some pretty offensive stuff. But although he was a fantastic fighter in his prime, he was never one of my favorites; to me, there was always something off-putting about him.

On the other hand, I used to be the biggest BJ Penn fan around, and now I can’t wait until he’s pushed out of the sport. Look, there’s nothing wrong with being a “brash young man,” but as you get older, it’s important to gain some measure of perspective and humility. (It’s what makes Mike Tyson one of the most fascinating former athletes alive.) To put it another way, nobody likes a young punk when he’s 33, especially when he’s only won one of his last five fights.

A grappling phenom with the heart of a street fighter, Penn’s early run in the Octagon was absolutely thrilling — he seemed to represent the next evolution in the sport — and his lightweight title reign in 2008-2009 was shocking in its gory dominance. While critics like to crack on his “motivation,” I think BJ’s ambition was his fatal flaw — his misguided desire to pursue a title at welterweight despite his natural lightweight frame. A thrashing at the hands of Georges St. Pierre in January 2009 (remember “to the death?”) should have pounded some reality into him, but instead it just made him more obsessed to prove himself above his most effective weight class.

He didn’t need to take that beating against Nick Diaz, and he probably shouldn’t have accepted a fight against the new prodigy of the welterweight division. But his ego got in the way both times, and instead of a guy who lets his fists do the talking, we now have a BJ Penn who accuses Diaz of cheating by being larger than him, convinces himself that Rory MacDonald is terrified of him, and engages in embarrassing twitter wars where he comes off looking less mature than his 23-year-old opponent. He’s one rap song away from devolving into Rampage territory. Whatever happened to aging gracefully?

CagePotato Roundtable #18: Who’s Your Favorite TUF Cast-Member of All Time?


(Seriously? Not even *one* vote for Jason Guida?)

The 16th season of The Ultimate Fighter kicks off tonight on FX, and while we wouldn’t exactly say we’re looking forward to it, the premiere of a new season always puts us in a reflective mood. In this week’s installment of the CagePotato Roundtable, we’ll be paying tribute to our favorite cast-members in TUF history, and joining us today is a very, very special guest — Luke O’Brien, an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Fortune, and many other outlets that are much more respectable than the one you’re reading right now. (I first discovered Luke through his excellent MMA reporting for Deadspin.)

Shoot us your own favorite TUF guys in the comments section, and if you have a topic for a future Roundtable column, e-mail us at [email protected]

Luke O’Brien

Has there been a more unlikely TUF champion than Amir Sadollah? In 2008, the Persian-Irish surgical technologist came out of nowhere — or in his case, Richmond — to win the seventh season of the show by beating All-American wrestler C.B. Dollaway. Sadollah armbarred Dollaway not once, but twice. Before that, he triangled Matt Brown, who oozed tough. And before that, he TKOd Gerald Harris, who certainly looked tough. At the time, Sadollah had never had a pro fight. Not one. I liked him immediately. Not because he was an upstart, a little doughy around the middle and a bit of a lumberer. There were purer reasons that drew me to a fighter who walks out to Iranian techno music.

For one, he had a mullet. This wasn’t the unaware bumpkin coiffure found in many stretches of this country. Rather, it was a curated flange of keratin that complemented the smirk often playing on Sadollah’s face. It was a mullet that, like its owner, didn’t take itself too seriously. A mullet that grasped irony. And irony has always been in short supply on TUF. The premise of the show — quarantine 16 fighters for a month in a house stocked with unlimited amounts of booze and see what happens — is absurd, although I guess you could say the same about all reality television. As much as I enjoy TUF, the only way I can fully appreciate it is at a sardonic remove. Sadollah allowed me to do that.


(Seriously? Not even *one* vote for Jason Guida?)

The 16th season of The Ultimate Fighter kicks off tonight on FX, and while we wouldn’t exactly say we’re looking forward to it, the premiere of a new season always puts us in a reflective mood. In this week’s installment of the CagePotato Roundtable, we’ll be paying tribute to our favorite cast-members in TUF history, and joining us today is a very, very special guest — Luke O’Brien, an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Fortune, and many other outlets that are much more respectable than the one you’re reading right now. (I first discovered Luke through his excellent MMA reporting for Deadspin.)

Shoot us your own favorite TUF guys in the comments section, and if you have a topic for a future Roundtable column, e-mail us at [email protected]

Luke O’Brien

Has there been a more unlikely TUF champion than Amir Sadollah? In 2008, the Persian-Irish surgical technologist came out of nowhere — or in his case, Richmond — to win the seventh season of the show by beating All-American wrestler C.B. Dollaway. Sadollah armbarred Dollaway not once, but twice. Before that, he triangled Matt Brown, who oozed tough. And before that, he TKOd Gerald Harris, who certainly looked tough. At the time, Sadollah had never had a pro fight. Not one. I liked him immediately. Not because he was an upstart, a little doughy around the middle and a bit of a lumberer. There were purer reasons that drew me to a fighter who walks out to Iranian techno music.

For one, he had a mullet. This wasn’t the unaware bumpkin coiffure found in many stretches of this country. Rather, it was a curated flange of keratin that complemented the smirk often playing on Sadollah’s face. It was a mullet that, like its owner, didn’t take itself too seriously. A mullet that grasped irony. And irony has always been in short supply on TUF. The premise of the show — quarantine 16 fighters for a month in a house stocked with unlimited amounts of booze and see what happens — is absurd, although I guess you could say the same about all reality television. As much as I enjoy TUF, the only way I can fully appreciate it is at a sardonic remove. Sadollah allowed me to do that.

Most of the fighters on the show not only fail to get the joke, however, they fail to grasp that they’re even part of it. The character tropes that emerge, whether unbidden or teased out by producers, tend to be obliviously earnest. There is the shit-talking asshole, the ugly drunk, the prankster who ejaculates on sushi, the lovesick prat who worries photos of his bastard spawn, the zen master who strokes chi in the backyard, the anti-social, the dolt, the hard-knock kid and so on.

To me, at least, this collection of “types” has always called out for a more self-aware presence, someone able to appreciate the weird meta-comedy of the situation while still engaging it, like a wiseass anthropologist conducting ethnography on a strange tribe (and occasionally winking to his audience). Sadollah was that. He was wry and introspective and funny as hell, in the vein of Forrest Griffin, minus the ever-encroaching darkness. He didn’t pound his chest. When he won, he seemed surprised. His default state was general bemusement and he went through the show with a shrug. He was, essentially, the kind of person I didn’t mind watching fight but I really wanted to watch on TV. Mainly because he reminded me that the hour of my week I’d given over to Spike, and soon FX, was forever gone. And what a silly, pointless hour it was. And why not?

Ben Goldstein

I feel like Matt Serra is the greatest TUF competitor by pretty much any criteria you could name, and I’m not just saying that because I have fond personal memories of the man. He won the show, won a world title in the biggest title fight upset in UFC history — becoming the first and so far only fighter to TKO Georges St. Pierre — then came back to build an entertaining rivalry with Matt Hughes as a coach on season six. He was also one of the funniest dudes to ever pass through the TUF house, and through it all, he carried himself with integrity and class. Matt Serra made an impression, and he didn’t need to put his head through a wall like a fucking idiot in order to do it.

Even before he officially joined the “Comeback” season of The Ultimate Fighter, it was clear that Serra was destined for stardom. Just check out this audition footage, where the Terror puts his Long Island style of jovial ball-busting on full display, trading barbs with his boss and the show’s producers. He was entirely comfortable in his own skin. And that accent? Instant branding.

Serra’s run on the show saw him smash Pete Spratt, score a redemptive decision victory over Shonie Carter — who had knocked Serra out via fluke backfist with nine seconds left in their meeting at UFC 31 — and out-point Chris Lytle in a razor-thin decision at the finale. But it was Serra’s dressing-down of Marc Laimon that truly put him over, and remains the show’s most memorable verbal devastation not involving Dana White.

Season 4 was a far-fetched gimmick to begin with. (“Let’s take a bunch of near-washouts and award the winners an immediate title shot”?) The glass trophies that Serra and middleweight Travis Lutter won only seemed like tickets to a guaranteed ass-kicking. All Serra could do at UFC 69 was throw his hands and believe in himself. Three-and-a-half minutes later, GSP was staring at the lights, and Serra was a world champion. Following that win, Serra was brought on as a coach for TUF 6, and fans got to see a different side of him — the caring trainer and cornerman who was always reminding his guys to “BREATHE!”

Serra lost his title in a rematch with GSP, and only won one more fight in the Octagon, a knockout of Frank Trigg at UFC 109. These days, he’s settled into an elder statesmen role, sheperding along prospects like Chris Weidman and Al Iaquinta, always showing up in his fighters’ corners looking very well fed. But during his relatively brief time as a UFC star, the world got to know a true gentleman. While other TUF contestants have tried to create personas, Matt Serra was one of the few guys who passed through that house with genuine character. He was the scrappy underdog with brains and heart, who earned a second chance in the sport and made the most of it, achieving much, much more than anybody could have expected him to.

Nathan Smith

Before I begin, I am going to let the CP readers peek behind the curtain for just a brief moment. When a Roundtable topic is chosen, our fearless leader Ben Goldstein sends out a mass email asking each writer who or what they will be choosing as their nominee. It gives all the staff members/contributors a basic outline of what direction we are headed in, and it eliminates two people picking the same subject matter. Then, once all the topics are written and submitted, the workhorse that is BG crafts the posts with all the pictures and hyperlinks. I know, it is pretty complex and I am sure all of you thought we just used a couple of soup cans connected with some string to communicate (or in Danga’s case, sending bong-made smoke signals for correspondence).

With that being said, I had a general idea of who was being included and the usual suspects were covered. Considering this is the 16th season (17 if you count TUF Brazil) there is a virtual cornucopia of competitors to pick from. The freaks like Junie Browning and War Machine are both batshit crazy, but I could not call them my favorite. Then there are Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, and Chris Lytle who have/had great UFC careers while being fan favorites, but none of them (literally or figuratively) tickled my pecker either. I have already covered every single season of TUF in a previous CP post and there is only one man that makes me have undeniable feelings. Granted, those feelings are categorical hatred, but at least he makes me care one way or the other.

Josh Koscheck has been the notorious heel ever since he first appeared during the inaugural season of TUF.  He teamed up with Bobby Southworth to give us one of the best moments to ever come out of the series when they instigated Chris Leben to go Bruce Banner’s alter ego on a few doors. Kos went on to beat the tortured soul of Leben and sent him packing with more insults as he adjusted his invisible “black hat.” That has been the Kos that we’ve all loved to hate for the better part of a decade and nothing will change.

There have been so many participants throughout TUF series and the feeling of indifference is overwhelming for damn near all of them. It is hard to get people to cheer you and it is even harder to get the masses to despise you. Much like Koscheck’s in-cage abilities, he has worked extremely hard to paint himself as the bad guy, and as his MMA skills improved, so did his propensity to infuriate the fans. Like my father always said, “Find something you are good at and stick with it.” I have stuck to extreme unicycling while singing “Weird” Al tunes and Koscheck has stuck to kicking ass while pissing people off.

Josh Koscheck epitomizes every character William Zabka portrayed from the 1980’s. Kos is the prototypical bully jock that walks around dolling out wedgies and swirlies while spewing insults to anybody that crosses his path. The problem with that, other than the obvious, is that he is a pretty damn good fighter. Sure he is a notorious eye gouger and has never won a title but love him (doubtful) or hate him (probably), at least you have an opinion of him. He gives you somebody to root against. With a UFC record of 15-6 and wins over guys like Diego Sanchez, Anthony Johnson, Paul Daley, and Matt Hughes, nobody can argue that Kos sucks. And while he may in fact be a complete asshole, at least he makes us give a shit. That is why my favorite cast member from TUF series is without a doubt — Josh Koscheck. Oh, and he has his own god damn plane that he flies himself too. Screw that!

Josh Hutchinson

You guys know those assholes out there that slow down at every car wreck, root for every horror movie villain, and just seem to find delight in the pain and suffering of others? Well, I’m one of those assholes, and Corey Hill was the busty blond to my Jason Voorhees. But for my money train wrecks just aren’t as good if you don’t get to watch said train pick up speed. Luckily we had all of season 5 for Corey to gain some momentum.

I will say for starters that I’ve got nothing against Corey. Throughout the course of the show he came across as a pretty down to earth and likable guy (Note: although that’s pretty easy any time you’re sharing screen time with one of the Diaz boys). Add in the underdog factor, and I was sort of rooting for Corey. Between managing to calm the shit storm that was Nate Diaz and Manvel Gamburyan, and helping to build his teammates confidence and skill with no complaints, he was an all around nice guy. There, now that the reality show bullshit is out of the way, let’s talk fights.

Coming on to the show Corey claimed to have a perfect 4-0 record. While he did have a perfect record, the reality was that he was 2-0, and both of those fights had been amateur bouts. None the less the coaches and the other fighters alike saw a lot of potential in the untested fighter. It went so far as guest coach Jeremy Horn claiming Hill to have the most potential to become a force in the UFC. Keep in mind that this was a season with guys like Gray Maynard, Nate Diaz, Joe Lauzon, and Cole Miller — so in retrospect, quite a bold statement. If Hill hadn’t lost to Nate Diaz in the quarter finals, it could have been one of the best Cinderella stories in TUF history.

So with season 5 coming to a close, the Corey Hill hype train was off to a good start. He immediately picked up a TKO win over Joe Veres before falling short against Justin Buchholz. Then this happened, and for me it was like Christmas, New Years, and my birthday all rolled into one gruesomely wrapped present. Since then, Corey has gone 4-2 in the cage, which really is impressive since every time I see the above picture I refuse to even kick my dog for at least a week.

George Shunick

Rashad Evans has accomplished a lot in his career. His knockout of Sean Salmon has a permanent spot on UFC highlight reels. He forced Michael Bisping out of the light heavyweight division and into the middleweight division, inadvertently enabling Bisping’s knockout at the hands of Dan Henderson at UFC 100. He brutally knocked out Chuck Liddell, went Donkey Kong on Forrest Griffin to claim the light heavyweight title, and is the only fighter in UFC history to go five rounds with Jon Jones or perform the stanky leg in the middle of a fight. (OK, so he did this at the precise moment he lost consciousness, but that actually makes it more impressive.)

But these accolades are not the real reasons I’m picking Rashad Evans as the best member of TUF. It’s because of how much he was able to piss off Matt Hughes. (And his subsequent Uncle Bernie anecdote.) Sorry, but I have a soft spot for people who piss off self-absorbed socially conservative assholes. Particularly ones who have some type of bizarre notion about “unwritten rules” in combat sports. Look, sportsmanship is nice and all, but there’s nothing wrong with showboating. In fact, it can make fights better — Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin, for instance. Just don’t hit a guy when you go to touch gloves. That shit’s off limits.

Rashad is also responsible for absolutely demolishing Quinton Jackson in trash-talking during TUF 10, and exposed Rampage’s own smack-talking ability. Which, as it turned out, was limited to either calling someone “titties,” or simply taking one or two phrases and repeating them ad nauseum. (“Treat me like a bitch. Treat me like a bitch. Treat me like a bitch.” Etc.) When Rampage was unable to win the war of words — or, you know, have his fighters actually win a match since he was a terrible, terrible coach — he took his frustrations out on the only opponent he could actually beat; the poor, cheap cardboard door.

So whether you’re talking career accomplishments or TUF antics that aren’t borderline homoerotic or psychological breakdowns (hello Junie Browning!), Rashad Evans stands at the top of the heap. He accomplished all he could in his weight class, defeated legends in the sport, pissed off Country Breakfast, and mentally broke Quinton Jackson. Which isn’t necessarily hard to do or anything, he could have just thrown energy drinks and copies of “The Secret” at him, but it’s still very amusing.

Seth Falvo

As impossible as this sounds, I’m about to write something for this week’s entry that’s even more uninspired than what I usually publish. I’ll accomplish this by not only playing the “I got to meet so-and-so” card, but also by exploiting every keyboard warrior’s favorite angle, the infamous “I trane UFC.” If you were expecting more from me, do you mind if I ask why?

I know I’m pretty biased in saying this, but as a Lafayette, Louisiana resident who trains at Gladiator’s Academy, my favorite Ultimate Fighter alumnus is TUF 7‘s own “Crazy” Tim Credeur (For what it’s worth, I don’t cover fights from any of the gym’s fighters due to the obvious conflict of interest). For starters, Tim isn’t known for his zany antics on the show, a goofy, fluorescent mohawk or any of the other TUF cliches you’re sick of; definitely a plus. The fact that the only decision on his record is a Fight of the Night earning loss to Nate Quarry helps, too. But if I’m being honest, Tim Creuder is my favorite TUF alumnus simply because he’s cool enough to allow a hack journalist like me to come within fifty miles of his gym, let alone actually train there.

But let’s just say that if you’re looking to see how good of a coach he is, you should definitely check out Fightville instead of watching me practice. The other day, Tim watched me channel my inner Cro Cop by attempting a head kick during a Muay Thai practice. His reaction reminded me of the look on my father’s face when I tried out for the local Pee-Wee football squad. As a punter. Who broke his foot during the warm-ups. And cried for at least ten minutes afterwards.

Ryan Sarr

Pissing on a pillow, sleeping outside, destroying a door, getting called a “fatherless bastard,” and oh yeah, drinking a TON of alcohol. On the inaugural season of The Ultimate Fighter, as Stone Cold Steve Austin would say, Chris Leben arrived, raised hell, and left. Love him or hate him, The Crippler’s antics made for some of the best TV in TUF history. His in-house rivalry with Josh Koscheck got so heated that even the Baldfather decided to just let em settle it in the octagon. Though Leben succumbed to Koscheck’s superior wrasslin’ skills in their fight, the Crippler forever cemented himself as arguably the greatest hellraiser in TUF history.

So why is Chris Leben my favorite TUF cast member of all-time? Along with the entertaining personal antics, the man does what a lot of fighters these days won’t do, he FIGHTS. Only two weeks removed from beating Aaron Simpson at the TUF 11 finale, Leben stepped in for Wanderlei Silva to fight Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 116, and after an all-out war, pulled off a miraculous triangle choke victory with seconds left in the 3rd round. Though he can never seem to get that big win to put him in title contention, Leben remains a favorite of the UFC brass as well because he is a very aggressive fighter who never shies away from a brawl in the Octagon. So here’s to hoping The Crippler can get back on track at UFC 155, and remember, if you’re gonna piss on somebody’s pillow on the Ultimate Fighter, just make sure you kick their ass at the finale.

Jared Jones

Ladies and gentlemen of our esteemed jury, I ask you to turn your attention to Exhibit A: The single greatest moment in the history of The Ultimate Fighter. It literally contains everything that any fan of the show, the UFC, or the sport in general can appreciate: An upset victory, a brutal, lightning-quick submission, Dana White dropping the f-bomb, Steve Mazzagatti making a correct call for once, Arianny Celeste (for the gentlemen), Georges St. Pierre (for the ladies and gentlemen), and Josh Koscheck getting served a nice warm glass of shut the hell up. It’s the video clip equivalent of, as Seth would say, getting a blowjob while drinking a Mr. Pibb, but above all else, it features the coolest mofo to ever stroll through the TUF house: Cody McKenzie.

Now, I could simply rest my case right there and call it a day, but I suppose there are still a stubborn few of you out there who still aren’t picking up what I’m putting down, so allow me to continue.

We’ve talked a lot about the supposed fakeness that plagues certain MMA fighters over the past couple weeks, referring mainly of course, to Jon Jones. We’ve (and by we’ve, I mean you’ve) used such terms as “pussy”, “punk bitch”, “fake-ass trick”, “mark-ass trick”, “trick-ass mark”, “hoe,”  “heffer”, “hee-ha”, and “hooley-hoo punk-ass jabroni” to describe Jones and his fakeness, and declared that if Jones would just remove the “businessman-like” façade and be real with us for a second, maybe we’d actually come around to the idea of embracing him as a champion. Maybe.

Well, if it’s realness you’re looking for in an MMA fighter, look no further than the tobacco-chewing, McKenzietining, TUF 12 Alaskan native. While 90 percent of his counterparts spent their time on the show picking fights in between their actual fights and acting like general assholes (a trend that seems to be increasing exponentially), McKenzie was content to simply chill in a hammock, sip a beer, and appreciate the opportunity he was given. He was/is a down to earth, honest guy who you would just as easily find next to you at the bar as you would in the gym. Essentially, he’s the very definition of the “common man’s” fighter.

In the moments leading up to his fight with Marc Stevens, McKenzie was more than willing to admit to Nam Phan (Stevens’ teammate) that Marc was, and I’m loosely quoting here, “a better wrestler, a better striker, and probably a better talent, who was faster, stronger, better looking, and probably better at the hard sciences that I am. But I’m going to win.” That’s realness, ladies and gentlemen, and 16 seconds into their fight, McKenzie accomplished what he set out to do using only the power of trickery and a pair of God-given vice-grips that would make Clamps clamp himself to death in shame.

You see, a lot of McKenzie’s appeal lies in the limited attributes he possesses as a fighter. The dude is the definition of a one-trick pony, and from the moment the bell rings, you know that McKenzie is going to look for your neck, that choke, and the nearest exit. Yet he is still managing to pull it off on the occasional fool, and God damn is it fun to watch. He’s like Ronda Rousey minus the off-putting amount of cockiness, which is made all the more respectable when you realize that McKenzie was actually born with one. A cock, that is.

And do you want to discuss the “take on all comers mentality” that seems to have disintegrated in the sport over time? Not in Cody fucking McKenzie it hasn’t. The “AK Kid” managed to get under Koscheck’s skin so much during his run on TUF 12 that Fraggle challenged him to a fight if he ever made it to the UFC. Without even batting an eye, McKenzie accepted a fight against the future title challenger of a division he didn’t even compete in, as was the case when he offered to fight former title challenger Chad Mendes in his own featherweight debut and former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar in his. Is McKenzie reckless, delusional, and borderline masochistic? Possibly, but that’s the kind of attitude I’d like to see more of in the age where athletes like to fancy themselves CEO’s.

And do I even have to mention that McKenzie is responsible for this?


NOW I rest my case.

CagePotato Roundtable #17: What Was the Most Embarrassing Moment in MMA History?

(God damn it, Tim. We will never forgive you for this.)

We envisioned this week’s CagePotato Roundtable as a friendly take-down of everything from “Hello Japan!” to Tito Ortiz’s brief and terrifying career as a post-fight interviewer. But then a funny thing happened — the UFC canceled their first event of the Zuffa era due to a very unexpected decision by one of their champions, and the world exploded. The Jon Jones/UFC 151 fallout and much more will be covered in today’s column, so grab a beverage and get comfortable. And as always, if you have a topic idea for a future Roundtable, please send it to [email protected].

Seth Falvo

“World Combat League, bro. It already exists.”

In the perfect MMA Universe I envision whenever I eat enough Lotus Leaf, these words are uttered directly to MMA’s Vince Russo, Bob Meyrowitz, while he’s looking for investors for the mind-numbingly ridiculous YAMMA Pit Fighting. Upon hearing them, Bob decides to become a jaded boxing promoter, World Combat League is still the only promotion that uses a bowl as the fight surface and we are all spared the most stupid, embarrassing, gimmicky event since Heroes of Wrestling. Also in this universe: The Super Hulk division is recognized by the UFC as a real weight class, Paulo Filho never touches the GHB, Fedor knocks out Brock Lesnar and then retires as a UFC Heavyweight Champion and Chael Sonnen never attempts that freaking backfist. Who says us nerds don’t know how to party?

Of course, reality is a cruel mistress, and YAMMA Pit Fighting ended up happening despite the best efforts of an injury curse. Much like the aforementioned Heroes of Wrestling, Meyrowitz attempted to cash in on our love of nostalgia by booking a bunch of aging has-beens, never-weres, nobodies and ne’er-do-wells to compete in the promotion’s inaugural event. Never mind that half of the roster hasn’t been relevant in a decade (using “relevant” as loosely as possible in some cases), or that one of the fighters was best known for getting knocked out by a leg kick, or that another fighter was best known to casual fans for his stint on Celebrity Rehab; they’re going to brawl, you guys! Add on one of Brock Lesnar’s Team Deathclutch punching bags, the cheapest journeyman-for-hire you can find, an obese former Toughman Contest champion and some obscure Russians who dabble at sambo — because, you know, Fedor — and we’ll have all the tools for an exciting bankruptcy case after no one watches this. Tack on the incredibly cheesy, stuck-in-the-mid-90s “On the streets it’s against the law — in the pit it is the law” tagline, and laissez les bons temps rouler.


(God damn it, Tim. We will never forgive you for this.)

We envisioned this week’s CagePotato Roundtable as a friendly take-down of everything from “Hello Japan!” to Tito Ortiz’s brief and terrifying career as a post-fight interviewer. But then a funny thing happened — the UFC canceled their first event of the Zuffa era due to a very unexpected decision by one of their champions, and the world exploded. The Jon Jones/UFC 151 fallout and much more will be covered in today’s column, so grab a beverage and get comfortable. And as always, if you have a topic idea for a future Roundtable, please send it to [email protected].

Seth Falvo

“World Combat League, bro. It already exists.”

In the perfect MMA Universe I envision whenever I eat enough Lotus Leaf, these words are uttered directly to MMA’s Vince Russo, Bob Meyrowitz, while he’s looking for investors for the mind-numbingly ridiculous YAMMA Pit Fighting. Upon hearing them, Bob decides to become a jaded boxing promoter, World Combat League is still the only promotion that uses a bowl as the fight surface and we are all spared the most stupid, embarrassing, gimmicky event since Heroes of Wrestling. Also in this universe: The Super Hulk division is recognized by the UFC as a real weight class, Paulo Filho never touches the GHB, Fedor knocks out Brock Lesnar and then retires as a UFC Heavyweight Champion and Chael Sonnen never attempts that freaking backfist. Who says us nerds don’t know how to party?

Of course, reality is a cruel mistress, and YAMMA Pit Fighting ended up happening despite the best efforts of an injury curse. Much like the aforementioned Heroes of Wrestling, Meyrowitz attempted to cash in on our love of nostalgia by booking a bunch of aging has-beens, never-weres, nobodies and ne’er-do-wells to compete in the promotion’s inaugural event. Never mind that half of the roster hasn’t been relevant in a decade (using “relevant” as loosely as possible in some cases), or that one of the fighters was best known for getting knocked out by a leg kick, or that another fighter was best known to casual fans for his stint on Celebrity Rehab; they’re going to brawl, you guys! Add on one of Brock Lesnar’s Team Deathclutch punching bags, the cheapest journeyman-for-hire you can find, an obese former Toughman Contest champion and some obscure Russians who dabble at sambo — because, you know, Fedor — and we’ll have all the tools for an exciting bankruptcy case after no one watches this. Tack on the incredibly cheesy, stuck-in-the-mid-90s “On the streets it’s against the law — in the pit it is the law” tagline, and laissez les bons temps rouler.

Of course, if that all doesn’t fail the groan test, then the “revolutionary new fighting surface” that will prevent stalling (i.e. ground fighting) will. Disregard the fact that a so-called MMA promoter thinks that ground fighting has no place in the sport, even though the majority of his fighters are wrestlers, sambo masters and jiu-jitsu practicioners, and focus on how the already brain-meltingly stupid gimmick is nothing more than the World Combat League bowl with a cage around the edges. If anyone is dumb enough to buy tickets to this fiasco, they’ll be completely unable to see anything that’s happening if someone has the gall to attempt a takedown in an MMA fight.

Which, of course, is exactly what the pit ended up causing. As soon as the fighters realized that they could use the incline to trip each other (i.e. immediately), the fights became an unwatchable evening of lay-and-pray, pit-and-quitTM and two unspeakably sad freak shows billed as “Masters Division Super Fights.” Ironically, the event was at least partially saved by the boneheaded decision to hold it in a state that only allowed the championship bout of the tournament to be longer than one round — at least in the eyes of anyone who tried to stay awake through it. On the streets, it’s certainly against the law, but only because lewd conduct is a real offense.

In case you think I’ve been forcing Heroes of Wrestling references for the sake of doing so, both promotions immediately went under after the atrocity that was their debut event. And much like how Heroes of Wrestling’s only redeeming quality was the drunken mess of a Jake the Snake promo it gave us, YAMMA Pit Fighting’s most memorable contribution to the MMA universe has been some hilarious Don Frye promos that surfaced one year after the promotion’s demise. Even in redemption, these promotions managed to embarrass themselves in ways I never thought possible. Should have never messed with the Totally Awesome Sweet Alabama Liquid Snake, boys.

Jared Jones

I could easily start this entry with a boatload of disclaimers regarding my view on Jon Jones’ decision to turn down a fight with Chael Sonnen at UFC 151, but they would ultimately be pointless. Was I shocked and kind of puzzled that the UFC outright cancelled the event because of his decision? Absolutely. Do I think Sonnen deserved a shot at Bones? No way in hell. But long before this will be published, before I even began to sit down and write this hopeless addendum, you, our loyal readers, have already made up your minds. Regardless of any justifications I may give, or any opinions I will state that will be misconstrued as concrete facts, there is simply no way that we will be in total agreement by the time this is over. So fuck it, here I go.

Jon Jones’ decision to pull out of UFC 151 was an embarrassment to the sport of MMA unlike any other, one that has literally not been matched by any champion in promotional history.

OK, now that the bitter, kneejerk-reacting members who peruse this site have officially stopped reading and taken to their keyboards with the fire of a thousand suns, let the rest of us mild-tempered, 46 chromosome-possessing individuals have a little chat.

Say what you want about oversaturation and UFC 151 being an abysmally weak card; I would have to agree with you. When your co-main event features a guy who hasn’t fought in the UFC in nearly a decade, you pretty much know what kind of card you’re looking at. But you don’t happen to know what other event was just a step above a Strikeforce Challengers card and suffered from a late replacement in the main event, do you? That would be UFC 147 folks, but Rich Franklin, God bless him, stepped up to partake in a match that next to no one wanted to see, that did next to nothing for his career, because he’s a fighter and he was called upon for a favor.

Although there have been conflicting reports, Dana White claims he informed Jon Jones before he made his decision that, if he didn’t accept the fight with Chael Sonnen, the event would be cancelled. All of the fighters on the card, not to mention thousands of fans, would be screwed out of money because a completely healthy fighter with an entire training camp behind him wouldn’t be willing to fight a middleweight coming off a loss on eight days notice. And Jones decided to anyway. This move would not earn him any fans.

And CHAEL SONNEN is not the issue here; he was simply the first man to offer his services when they were required, and earned my undying respect for putting his money where his mouth is in doing so. Would he have shit talked his way into an undeserved title shot, which is exactly what we were worried about when he announced his move? Yes, but he was willing to fight Jon fucking Jones, the most dominant light-heavyweight in over six years, FOR FREE. That is a fighter, ladies and gentleman. The fact that Sonnen was also the most winnable/relevant matchup for Jones of the guys who volunteered, which included fellow middleweight Chris Weidman, and lightweight Jamie Varner (lolz) is just icing on the cake.  But again, Sonnen is not the issue.

The issue here is that Jon Jones and Team Jackson set a precedent with their decision yesterday, a precedent stating that Jones will not fight ANYONE without a full training camp to prepare for them. And that, my friends, is absolute bullshit behavior from a champion and supposed “pound for pound great” who won the belt on short notice to begin with. Jones should have accepted the fight regardless of Sonnen’s qualifications, if only to:

1. Shut Sonnen’s mouth forevermore.

2. Leave Sonnen with nowhere to go but back down to 185.

3. Prove that he can beat anybody, anytime, anyplace. You know, like a champion.

You say Sonnen wasn’t a “worthy” contender? Well who the hell is on eight days notice? Considering that Sonnen is basically Dan Henderson minus the KO power, Jones literally could not ask for a better late replacement matchup. Do you think Anderson Silva really thought Demian Maia, Patrick Cote, or Thales Leites had any business being in the same ring as him? Child please. But Silva took the fights. Sure, they were some of the worst fights the sport has ever seen, but the difference between Bones and Anderson is that one of them shut his mouth, signed the damn contract, and was willing to risk being upset for the sake of the card.

This bitch move on Jones’ part has only confirmed my worst fears that the robots over at Team Jackson have successfully drained away Jones’ ability to think independently, not to mention his self-confidence, like they do with every fighter that enters their gym not named Donald Cerrone, who would fight his mother for a bag of Doritos tomorrow if he caught her eyeballing him the wrong way.

Jones didn’t fight Sonnen for the same reason he won’t fight Anderson, he’s officially moved on to the “protect my legacy” point of his career, which in his mind is only accumulated through wins. And he’s partially right; wins do matter. Yet somehow, Randy Couture, Dan Severn, Mark Coleman, and Chuck Liddell have all become legends of the sport and UFC Hall of Famers despite the fact that they have accumulated 48 losses between them. Being able to handle defeat is what separates true fighters from the posers, for lack of a better word. It’s why George St. Pierre hasn’t lost a fight since getting upset by Matt Serra. Defeat builds character. It builds drive.

For a guy that claims to be all about personal sacrifice and a warrior mentality, Jon Jones sure has a warped view of those concepts.

*drops mic*

George Shunick

I love MMA, but as this very Roundtable exemplifies, the sport has had its share of absurd, stupid moments. Frankly, it’s what you should expect from a young, fringe sport. Chances were taken that, in retrospect, should never have been considered to begin with. And there will always be certain athletes who behave bizarrely, to say the least. So with that in mind, I think the truly dumbest moment in MMA history has to be the product of a person or an entity that has a decent track record of intelligent decisions.

Sadly, this precludes me from nominating Ultimate Ball.

So with this in mind, I’m going to say that Dana White acquiescing to James Toney’s demands to fight in the UFC was the single dumbest moment in MMA history. Was it stupid on the level of Rampage living up to his nickname? No. But you expect a little more out of Dana White. (Then again, this is the same man who went on a homophobic tirade because Loretta Hunt published something he didn’t like. So maybe not.) The man had absolutely no reason to let Toney fight in the world’s preeminent MMA organization, let alone against a former champion in Randy Couture.

It’s not like Toney had been a fighting force at the time. The man had the physique of an elephant seal, and linguistic capabilities of a man suffering from Down syndrome after he’d had his tongue amputated. Toney was unable to communicate in anything resembling a language, resorting to unintelligible gibberish whenever he was in the vicinity of someone with a camera. He had absolutely no knowledge of wrestling, jiu-jitsu or anything other than his boxing pedigree, although he hinted at a devastating maneuver roughly translated to the “side check kick.”

While it’s possible that this was an even more exotic and deadly maneuver than the five finger death punch, we never got a chance to find out. James Toney failed to land a single strike in his bout against Couture, getting taken down, mounted, and finally – mercifully – submitted. Couture was then awarded his black belt in jiu-jitsu – an extraordinarily high honor which requires years of training, mastery and hardship – following a fight in which he submitted a beached marine animal. Toney presumably lumbered off to find a local taco stand. Dana White was probably pleased that Toney lost, and deeply, deeply ashamed that he allowed this farce to occur on a pay-per-view. None of it made any sense. It was the dumbest moment in MMA history.

Jefferey Watts

When it comes to embarrassing the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, Josh Barnett is perhaps even more experienced then Tito Ortiz and Paul Daley combined. After being stripped of his UFC Heavyweight Championship for using a banned substance, one might think Barnett would have learned his lesson.

When Affliction was planning the third event for their fledgling promotion, I highly doubt they thought it’d be the last. A week or so before the event that was supposed to feature Barnett and Fedor Emelianenko in the heavyweight matchup of the century, Barnett tested for banned substances again during his required pre-fight screening.

In one fell swoop, Barnett took Affliction’s head right off their shoulders. Duncan MacLeod would have been proud of Barnett. Meanwhile, the rest of us were left to pick our jaws up off the floor. Without anyone except Vitor Belfort willing to step up and take on the Last Emperor — sound familiar? — Affliction’s dreams of being a big time promotion were heading right down the drain right beside their third event which never ended up coming to fruition.

Nathan Smith

Every sport has its embarrassing moments — bloopers that are occasionally celebrated in the form of compilations on the jumbo-tron during live events, while a musical bed of Yackety-Sax blares in the background. While that is acceptable for most sports, MMA is different. There is an aura of honor and respect by both the competitors and the fans. However, our sport is no different when it comes to blunders and calamities. There will always be “The Running Man” Kalib Starnes or the Dennis Hallman banana-hammock incident as well as Tim Silvia’s…well…Tim Silvia. Yet none of these were a bigger embarrassment than the main event from UFC 112.

The bout pitted the Michael Jordan of MMA, Anderson Silva, against Demian Maia as the headliners during the UFC’s first appearance in Abu Dhabi. Zuffa had recently sold a minority percentage to the Abu Dhabi-based Flash Entertainment and a temporary 11,000 seat open-air arena was constructed specifically for the event and was torn down a week after. The red carpet was rolled out for the UFC, and then Anderson Silva stepped into the Octagon and puked all over said red carpet.

The odds of The Spider winning were the same as Anthony Johnson looking like the love child of Lee Haney and Gabourey Sidibe, which is to say, certain. [Ed. note: Wow.] Silva was just coming off the demolition of LHW Forrest Griffin and was supposed to mow right through Maia. Silva dotted Maia early and often for the first two rounds, but then it all fell apart. Between rounds two and three Silva seemingly decided that it would be more entertaining to taunt Maia and dance like Gregory Hines for the remaining 15 minutes of the fight.  It was sickening to watch Maia and his swollen-shut eyeball continue to press forward while Silva danced a jig and ridiculed his challenger.

It got so bad that the Abu Dhabi crowd started to cheer for Maia even though they all knew he didn’t have a chance to succeed. Martial arts are based in traditions of respect and honor, and clearly Anderson Silva had those qualities seized at customs while entering The United Arab Emirates, because he showed neither. Dana White left ringside after the fourth round, tossed the middleweight belt on the lap of Silva’s manager Ed Soares and told him to put it on the champion himself. White later said that it was the most embarrassed he had ever been since becoming the UFC president. So don’t expect any blooper reels to be played on the jumbo-tron at upcoming UFC events, because nobody’s laughing.

Ben Goldstein

Not all athletes are meant to be sex symbols. Just because you can put Anna Kournikova on the cover of Maxim in a bikini, doesn’t mean you should do the same thing with Martina Navratilova. And that’s fine — sexiness isn’t a pre-requisite for athletic achievement, and most people are comfortable with that concept. You know what we’re not comfortable with? Jamming a female fighter into the “sexy chick” role just because that’s the only way you know how to sell a fight. And no MMA promo — with the possible exception of Jeff Monson threatening to fuck people for free — has made me cringe harder than Strikeforce’s latex bodysuit teaser starring Ronda Rousey and Sarah Kaufman.

You want to turn Rowdy into Catwoman? Go for it; she’s already decided that she wants to make her beauty and her body part of her persona. Kaufman, however, isn’t cut out for it. And honestly, that’s not a diss on her looks. If Kaufman wanted to be a sex symbol, she could certainly put on the attitude and the skimpy clothing, and make it happen though the sheer power of will. (See also: Felice Herrig.) The problem is, we all know this is not Sarah Kaufman in her natural state. She’s a humble, understated woman, only concerned with competing in the sport she loves to the best of her abilities. Being sexy is not on her list of priorities as an MMA fighter. And yet, Showtime decided to inflict this embarrassing white bodysuit on her anyway, out of some misguided attempt at equal time.

These are the dark ages for women in MMA, and shit like this is to expected, I guess. I just hope I’m alive to see the day when women’s MMA is flourishing to the point where the athletes’ looks are a peripheral element of the experience, and not the entire promotional strategy.