On Sunday, 46-year-old MMA old-schooler Don Frye competed at a Gladiator Challenge event in Lincoln, California, making his first cage appearance since a one-minute TKO loss to Dave Herman in 2009. This one lasted a little longer, but ended the same way, with Don eating punches until he fell over. Poor Don.
Frye was originally supposed to face Mike Gonzales, but ended up throwing leather with journeyman Ruben “Warpath” Villareal; Frye and Warpath had previously fought to a draw at a King of the Cage event back in 2006. Villareal didn’t leave it to the judges this time, KO’ing Frye about two-and-a-half minutes into the fight. The win snapped a five-fight losing streak for Warpath, and earned him the Gladiator Challenge light-heavyweight title.
On Sunday, 46-year-old MMA old-schooler Don Frye competed at a Gladiator Challenge event in Lincoln, California, making his first cage appearance since a one-minute TKO loss to Dave Herman in 2009. This one lasted a little longer, but ended the same way, with Don eating punches until he fell over. Poor Don.
Frye was originally supposed to face Mike Gonzales, but ended up throwing leather with journeyman Ruben “Warpath” Villareal; Frye and Warpath had previously fought to a draw at a King of the Cage event back in 2006. Villareal didn’t leave it to the judges this time, KO’ing Frye about two-and-a-half minutes into the fight. The win snapped a five-fight losing streak for Warpath, and earned him the Gladiator Challenge light-heavyweight title.
Donning the most appropriate Halloween costume imaginable in Magnum P.I., Frye provided us with more gems in a minute than most of us can come up with in a lifetime:
Donning the most appropriate Halloween costume imaginable in Magnum P.I., Frye provided us with more gems in a minute than most of us can come up with in a lifetime:
On retiring from MMA: “You get to the point where you retire after every match…the only person who’s retired more than me is Terry Funk.”
On the general temperature of the Inside MMA set: “It’s a little cold in here. My lucky charms are freezing.”
On a particularly nasty cut: “It looked like he was hiding underneath the bleachers of a tampon factory.”
On attractive women: “…saw some girls so beautiful, I’d drag my pecker through a mile of broken glass just to stand in the shadow of the last guy that banged her.”
On his epic mustache: “It takes me about an hour to shave it off each morning.”
On other top mustaches: “You got Sean Connery…you got Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds, Sam Elliot, and I think old Nancy Grace has got a heady one there, too.”
Start sharpening your razors, folks: We’re just eight days away from the official start of Movember! To help get you in the moustache-growing spirit, we’ve put together a photo gallery of our favorite facial hair arrangements in MMA history, which you can check out after the jump.
Start sharpening your razors, folks: We’re just eight days away from the official start of Movember! To help get you in the moustache-growing spirit, we’ve put together a photo gallery of our favorite facial hair arrangements in MMA history, which you can check out above.
Visit us.movember.com for more information on Movember’s efforts to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer and other men’s health issues, and join our CagePotato Mo Bros Team to help us support the cause this year.
After days of anticipation, Ask the Potato is finally back and as credible as ever. The deepest thinkers among us have emerged with a series of questions- some of which even came in the form of complete sentences, with question marks and everything. The rest of you? Well, you at least tried to have a coherent thought, right? And even though the thought doesn’t count, you’re still special to us. So, without further delay, the triumphant return of Ask the Potato awaits after the jump.
It’s good to be back.
After days of anticipation, Ask the Potato is finally back and as credible as ever. The deepest thinkers among us have emerged with a series of questions- some of which even came in the form of complete sentences, with question marks and everything. The rest of you? Well, you at least tried to have a coherent thought, right? And even though the thought doesn’t count, you’re still special to us. So, without further delay, the triumphant return of Ask the Potato awaits after the jump.
El Famous Burrito asks: Let’s say you and Don Frye are in an elevator together, and a whole bunch of women get on at the next floor. Frye rips a nasty fart and you notice, but when the ladies notice he blames it on you. Do you say anything, or just let it slide?
Answer: We’d always just assumed that Don Frye’s gas was toxic, but we’ll honor the spirit of the question. Whether we man up or play the punk role comes down to one simple factor: How drunk is Don at the time? He doesn’t exactly have a great record in intoxicated elevator fights.
Dibs asks: Who would you rather have…Arianny or Brittney? That’s a tough choice. I think I would have to pick Brittney, she looks a little dirtier if you know what I mean.
Answer: We’re here to answer questions, Dibs, not break hearts, but if you must know, it’s Brittney for two key reasons:
noahnastyasks: Who’s gonna be UFC champion in every division, including the flywieghts, at the end of 2012?
Answer: It’s easy to hold onto the belt a little bit longer when you’re sitting on the shelf, which was the M.O. for UFC champs this past year, but we’ve also got some established title holders that aren’t likely to be going anywhere for awhile. Assuming that each champ defends his belt at least twice next year, we see it playing out like this:
Joseph Benavidez, Dominick Cruz, Chad Mendes, Gil Melendez, GSP, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, Junior Dos Santos.
KarmaAteMyCat asks: What color should I dye my mustache for Movember?
Answer: You should do half pink, half purple and just dare a motherfucker to call you gay.
skeletor asks: If each of the columnists on CP were sex positions who would be what. Please explain.
Answer: Ben doesn’t care about the position. He just wants to be fucked worse than he’s ever been fucked before. Mike Russell would be missionary because it’s the most classy, polite position, and he’s easily the most classy, polite person on this website. And judging by the way that Matt Kaplan shamelessly plows through liveblogs, he’d be the jackhammer.
Now, let’s let the rest of these jokers answer your question in their own words:
Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Tune in next week as we answer even more of your (hopefully at least kind of) MMA related questions. Just as last time, you can send us questions through our Facebook page. You can tweet them to our Twitter account. You can register for our forums and post your questions there. Or you can just post them in the comments section of this article. If we didn’t get to your question this time around, look on the bright side: You have an entire week to come up with a better question. Get to it!
We had several entries in what was likely our toughest contest to date. As always, you guys showed that you’re passionate fans of our site and the sport — either that or you just like free stuff.
Anyway, before we get into announcing who the winner is, here are the official correct answers:
2. Acclaimed coach Shawn Tompkins (hitting the bag), Frank “Johnny Cage” Colcher and Trevor “Hollywood” Harris (both sparring in ring) in “Sons of Anarchy” (2010)
3. UFC 3 tooth loser Teila Tuli AKA Taylor Wily in “Forgetting “Sarah Marshall” (2008)
4. Maurice Smith (the fatherless bastard) in “Miami Connection” (1987)
6. UFC founder Rorian Gracie (Mexican restaurant maitre d’) in “Hart to Hart” 1983
7. Cunning linguist Tito Ortiz in “The Crow: Wicked Prayer” (2005)
8. Rapist and murderer Joe Son (fighting Bolo Yeung) and Mike Bernardo (cornerman shouting encouragement to Yeung) in Shootfighter 2 (1996)
9. MMA legend and all around good guy (unless you accost his wife in a bar) Bas Rutten in Zookeeper (2011)
10. MMA trainer extraordinaire Steven Seagal, Randy Couture (answers door and gets KO’d by Seagal) and Karo Parisyan (thug number two that Seagal KOs) in “Today You Die” (2005)
11. UFC Hall-of-Famer Ken Shamrock in “That 70’s Show” (1999)
12. Raving lunatic Harold Howard (wild-eyed murderous gladiator) in “Gladiator Cop” (1995)
We had several entries in what was likely our toughest contest to date. As always, you guys showed that you’re passionate fans of our site and the sport — either that or you just like free stuff.
Anyway, before we get into announcing who the winner is, here are the official correct answers:
2. Acclaimed coach Shawn Tompkins (hitting the bag), Frank “Johnny Cage” Colcher and Trevor “Hollywood” Harris (both sparring in ring) in “Sons of Anarchy” (2010)
3. UFC 3 tooth loser Teila Tuli AKA Taylor Wily in “Forgetting “Sarah Marshall” (2008)
4. Maurice Smith (the fatherless bastard) in “Miami Connection” (1987)
6. UFC founder Rorian Gracie (Mexican restaurant maitre d’) in “Hart to Hart” 1983
7. Cunning linguist Tito Ortiz in “The Crow: Wicked Prayer” (2005)
8. Rapist and murderer Joe Son (fighting Bolo Yeung) and Mike Bernardo (cornerman shouting encouragement to Yeung) in Shootfighter 2 (1996)
9. MMA legend and all around good guy (unless you accost his wife in a bar) Bas Rutten in Zookeeper (2011)
10. MMA trainer extraordinaire Steven Seagal, Randy Couture (answers door and gets KO’d by Seagal) and Karo Parisyan (thug number two that Seagal KOs) in “Today You Die” (2005)
11. UFC Hall-of-Famer Ken Shamrock in “That 70′s Show” (1999)
12. Raving lunatic Harold Howard (wild-eyed murderous gladiator) in “Gladiator Cop” (1995)
14.Stephen Quadros (dude with the animated facial expressions) in “Demon Wind” (1990)
15. Patrick Smith’s first UFC 2 victim Ray Wizard (gang leader) in “The Master” AKA “Long Xing Tian Xia” (1992)
16. Joe Rogan in “Zookeeper” (2011
17. Chuck Liddell (Boy Scout catching orange) in “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1981)
If you got all of the answers you would have gotten 22 right. Worth noting is that not one person got all 22 and most (who were frontrunners up until we received the winning entry last night) topped out at 17. Many forgot to mention Sensei Seagal since most don’t consider him an MMA personality and the majority didn’t catch the background “bonus” characters in the Sons of Anarchy and Shootfighter 2 clips. A few, who are likely kicking themselves today, incorrectly stated that the clip with Joe Son was from Shootfighter, NOT Shootfighter 2.
We’d like to say thanks to Hayabusa for offering us such a great prize and to everyone for entering. Unfortunately there can only be one grand prize winner.
As a consolation prize we will be sending the runners up one of our coveted Cage Potato “Devil Horns” or “Hall of Fame” shirts. If your name is called, send us your shipping info and shirt size at [email protected]: Blakethoria, John Hernandez, Noah Kalkstein, Miles Ravitz, Chris Reid and Justin Williams.
And the big winner, and a true expert of Googling obscure MMA cameos is…. Michael Jones. Shoot us your shipping address and size and we’ll get your prize out to you.
Filed under: UFCIf you had asked Mark Coleman what he was up to in early 1996, he probably would have told you he was gearing up to earn a spot on another U.S. Olympic wrestling squad after his seventh-place finish in the 1992 games. But looking back n…
If you had asked Mark Coleman what he was up to in early 1996, he probably would have told you he was gearing up to earn a spot on another U.S. Olympic wrestling squad after his seventh-place finish in the 1992 games. But looking back now, “The Hammer” can admit that this is only partially true.
“I was still trying to be a competitive wrestler at 31 years of age, but really I was fooling myself,” he said. “I just wasn’t putting in the grind and the time I needed to put in. I wasn’t really training like an Olympic champion. I was training like a bum, to be perfectly honest.”
When he lost in the semifinals of the Olympic trials that year, Coleman knew he had only himself to blame. He hadn’t worked hard enough, hadn’t wanted it badly enough. Now his wrestling career was over and he had no idea what he was going to do with his life next. He didn’t have to wait long before he got an offer that changed everything.
“I went and lost at the Olympic trials, and that’s when a manager approached me and said, ‘You want to fight in 30 days at UFC 10?’ He also put this to [American wrestlers] Mark Kerr and Tom Erickson the same day and asked them the same question. I don’t think they gave him the right answer. I think they wanted to take the contract home and show it to some attorneys or something. But I talked my way into the UFC. I told this guy, I’m the man for job.” Take these cats down and pound them out. That was the plan from day one. — Mark Coleman
That guy was trainer/manager Richard Hamilton, who’d already helped shepherd several decorated wrestlers into the UFC. He was at the trials looking for his next big pickup, Coleman said, after his past relationships with fighters had fallen apart.
“Everybody had a falling out with this guy for a reason. I won’t give what the reason was, just a reason. Dan Severn left him. Don Frye left him. I’ll say this for him, he did notice that wrestlers were the wave of the future and he did go after us.”
After watching the UFC on TV for the past couple years, Coleman had a vague idea of what to expect. The first time he saw a UFC fight, he said, he thought “it couldn’t be real.” The concept of cage fights with no rules and no weight classes just seemed too far out there, yet the fights themselves also seemed too brutal and too messy to be choreographed. Once he realized it was legitimate, it seemed like a wrestler’s dream, and Coleman couldn’t wait to try it. He wanted a spot in the tournament so badly, in fact, that he said he didn’t closely examine the contract he’d signed with Hamilton.
“I just wanted in UFC 10. I wanted in there and thought the ramifications for signing a bad contract was something I’d deal with later, which I did.”
In the month between signing the contract and stepping in the Octagon for the first time, Coleman didn’t have a lot of gym time to learn striking technique or submission defense. He did, however, have a pretty solid game plan.
“Take these cats down and pound them out,” he said. “That was the plan from day one.”
On July 12, 1996, Coleman showed up at the Fairgrounds Arena in Birmingham, Ala., feeling pretty good about his chances. He’d have to win three fights in one night to claim the UFC 10 tournament title. His first opponent was Israeli heavyweight martial arts champion Moti Horenstein, who Coleman felt couldn’t possibly stop him.
“All the wrestlers, we were a family and we really felt like we were unappreciated, like we were some of the toughest cats in the world. Not just me — a lot of my friends. So I walked in with a lot of confidence, especially knowing I was fighting a stand-up guy. I knew the game plan and I knew it was going to work. I walked in thinking, this really isn’t going to be fair. But as I was walking to the cage, that worm of doubt worked its way into my head. It got pretty tense then.”
With just over 4,000 people in attendance and a meager pay-per-view audience at home, it wasn’t the bright lights of the big time that had Coleman nervous. After all, he’d wrestled in the Olympics and won an NCAA championship at Ohio State. He had plenty of experience in big matches with big stakes. What had him worried was a sudden fear of the unknown. Despite his long career as a wrestler, he’d never done this before. Maybe he wasn’t ready for what was about to happen.
“I was very confident walking in, until right when I got on the ramp and that’s when it hit me: holy s–t, I’m fighting a karate world champion. What if he does have some Bruce Lee crazy spinning back kick or something that’s going to knock me out?”
If Horenstein had such a move in his bag of tricks, he never got to use it. Coleman took him down and pounded him out exactly according to plan. A little under three minutes after it had started, Coleman’s MMA debut was in the books and he was on to the semifinal round at UFC 10. There he would face “Big Daddy” Gary Goodridge, who, with five UFC fights to his credit, was a veteran compared to Coleman. What if he does have some Bruce Lee crazy spinning back kick or something that’s going to knock me out? — Mark Coleman
In the years since, Coleman and Goodridge have become close friends. They spent time together on the Japanese circuit in Pride Fighting Championships, and they really got to like one another. But that night in Alabama, there was no fellow feeling. There was money at stake, after all, and they spent a grueling seven minutes in the cage together to decide who would go home with it.
Coleman’s superiority on the mat and conditioning edge eventually proved to be the difference-maker, as Goodridge finally gassed out and submitted. The bout took its toll on Coleman too, but he still had one more fight before he could claim the tournament title. This time he’d be going up against the man his manager had conditioned him to despise: UFC 8 winner Don Frye.
“[Hamilton] had a student come in and tell me Don Frye broke his knee on purpose and this and that. Honestly, I’m not a hateful person, but they tried to create some anger and some hate in me towards Don Frye and it kind of worked,” Coleman said. “I thought Don Frye was a bad guy, a cocky guy, and I went in there with bad intentions. Nothing more than normal I guess, but I really wanted to beat him for this guy who had his knee broken. But I think in the end it was all made up. I don’t know for sure.”
Both men came into the cage for the final fight looking worn down and battle weary, but after a combined 15 minutes in the cage between his two earlier fights, Frye seemed to be the worse off of the two. Coleman quickly put Frye on his back, pinned his head against the fence, and went to work with right hands on Frye’s already damaged face.
When the action drifted over toward Coleman’s corner, Hamilton was there to berate Frye from outside the cage, screaming for Coleman to punish him from the top. Even when the fight returned to the feet, Frye couldn’t keep it there against the much larger Coleman.
But no matter how Coleman tried, he couldn’t make the other man quit. Frye kept taking whatever Coleman dished out, and soon even Coleman had to admit that he was dealing with one tough individual, no matter what he’d been told about him before.
“At the eight to ten minute mark, I was looking this guy in the eye and feeling a lot of emotions go through my body,” Coleman said. “Like jeez, why aren’t they stopping this fight? I wanted them to stop it. I wasn’t really enjoying it at that point. But back then, you know, you had to tap out. They didn’t like to stop it unless you tapped out. I wanted them to stop it because I couldn’t finish the cat.”
After a brutal and exhausting eleven and a half minutes, a couple of Coleman headbutts (totally legal at the time) finally convinced referee “Big” John McCarthy to call a stop to it. Frye had taken a severe beating at the hands of Coleman, but he’d also made a lasting impression on the man who’d come into the cage hating him that night. Stopping was the furthest thing from my mind. I couldn’t wait until the next show. — Mark Coleman
“There’s a difference between the best and the toughest. Don was very good, but he wasn’t the best. He was certainly the toughest guy I ever fought in my life though, and he proved that many times. Thank God Big John stepped in and stopped it.”
Though Frye and Coleman gained a measure of begrudging respect for one another that night, they didn’t exactly become best friends. Not yet, anyway.
“Don Frye, as I understand, did not like me for a long time after that,” Coleman said. “He hated me, in fact. He wanted a rematch real bad, because that’s just the kind of cat he is. By the time we rematched four or five years later over in Japan, by that time we were good buddies. To this day, I respect him about as much as I respect anybody.”
After it was all over, Coleman was utterly exhausted from his frantic first foray into MMA. He was also “addicted” to the budding sport, and he knew he’d found his new career, even if he had no idea that it would one day take him across the Pacific to Japan and into the UFC Hall of Fame. All he knew at the time was that victory in the cage was a great feeling, and he had to have more.
“This was something I grew up wanting since I was five years old, even though there wasn’t this sport then,” Coleman said. “It’s respect, I guess. It’s knowing no one’s going to mess with you. Stopping was the furthest thing from my mind. I couldn’t wait until the next show.”
If you had asked 