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UFC 131 Fight Club: Stephan Bonnar Entertains the Fans at Koscheck’s Expense

The weigh-ins for UFC 131 took place at the beautiful Jack Poole Plaza on the harbour front of Vancouver this afternoon and all the fighters on the card made weight as they were supposed to. Joe Rogan was on hand to do the honors and there were no real fireworks or staredowns to speak of with the exception of Kenny Florian coming in as the advertised villain, wearing a Boston Bruins jersey.

He was greeted by intense boos from approximately a couple thousand fans on hand and on the flip side, opponent Diego Nunes showed a bit of pizazz by wearing a Canucks jersey and firing off a flurry of punches as the fans cheered in delight.

That fight is not going to be a cake walk for Florian by any means.

Jack Poole Plaza is where the 2010 Winter Olympic cauldron stands and it was a pleasure to soak it all in with that structure standing tall behind.

In the hours leading up to the weigh-ins the fans were treated with a UFC Fight Club Q&A session with the always entertaining Stephan “The American Psycho” Bonnar and UFC play-by-play man Mike Goldberg.

Bonnar was a comedian from the get-go and he ended up giving the fans the shirt off his back—literally, as he ran out of the stack of T-shirts he had brought with him.

The highlight of the hour, and there were many with Bonnar, came when the topic of Josh Koscheck and his reported lawsuit against him came up. He was a good sport and in the midst of the discussion someone tossed an “Ultimate Fighter: Team Koscheck” shirt on stage, to which he promptly picked it up and wiped his blue-jeaned ass with it.

The crowd roared in approval. The irony came later when Bonnar ran out of t-shiorts to give out to the fans who were requesting them. Some bold fan asked Bonnar if they could have the one he was wearing so he gave it to her straight off his back.

As he sat there shirtless feeling awkward, he had no choice but to grab Koscheck’s shirt again and put it on.

The show ended with the fans gathered around him while he ripped it off to shreds in Hulk Hogan like fashion.

Other highlights included him telling about when he fought Lyoto Machida in Brazil and took a boat deep in to the Amazon to the event, where he said he felt like he was in “Enter the Dragon,” and realized he was the poor schmuck fighting Bruce Lee, and him suggesting an “Ultimate Fighter All Stars” show, although he stated he never gets what he wants in the UFC.

Stay tuned to Bleacher Report for all things UFC 131, including the latest UFC 131 results, fight card analysis, UFC 131 news and live reaction from Vancouver.

Dwight Wakabayashi is a Feature Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA (also a Correspondent for MMACanada.net).

Catch him on Twitter @wakafightermma.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Josh Koscheck Suing NGAUGE Over “Trash Talkin’ Kids” T-Shirt

(The ‘Josh Kosh M’Gosh’: Taken from us too soon. Props: facebook.com/TrashTalkinKids)

Due to his unauthorized depiction in the “Trash Talkin’ Kids” t-shirt line, UFC star Josh Koscheck is suing NGAUGE, the MMA artwork and apparel company co-founded by Stephan Bonnar. NGAUGE was officially served with notice of the lawsuit yesterday morning.

Though a source at NGAUGE told us that reaction from the other fighters depicted in the shirt series (including Georges St. Pierre and Brock Lesnar) has been uniformly positive, Koscheck apparently didn’t see the humor in being associated with a brand of children’s overalls. Which is too bad, because that shit is kind of hilarious.

(The ‘Josh Kosh M’Gosh’: Taken from us too soon. Props: facebook.com/TrashTalkinKids)

In an odd side-note to the story, Koshcheck’s legal representation in the case will be Christian Wellisch, a retired heavyweight fighter who you might remember as Shane Carwin’s first knockout victim in the UFC, back in May 2008. Following that fight, Wellisch was briefly fired during the mass-bloodletting over AKA’s refusal to sign away their likenesses for UFC Undisputed, then fired for real when he dropped a split-decision to Jake O’Brien in his next outing. These days, he runs a law practice near San Jose.

Unsurprisingly, Koscheck’s lawsuit has raised the ire of Stephan Bonnar himself, who now lists Koscheck as the person he’d like to fight most in the UFC. As he explained in an interview published yesterday on FiveKnuckles:

“He actually inspired the [Trash Talkin’ Kids] idea, he [talked] so much shit in the Daley fight and after the fight…I thought it was the funniest thing, like he is just a trash talking kid at heart….He got wind of it and he didn’t like it and I tried to explain it to him firsthand. ‘Like, look we’re doing them for all the fighters. It’s kind of a joke, just cartoon versions of the fighters.’…Anyway, so he didn’t like it. Turns out we won’t be able to sell his but we will be able to sell the other ones. I didn’t think his was gonna sell too much anyway. We’re getting hit up [by] his lawyers at the moment, it’s been a pain in the ass…I would drop a lot of weight to fight him.”

Will ESPN Ever Fully Embrace MMA?

Mixed martial arts is steadily entering the mainstream with each passing event.Fighters are being interviewed on more talk shows, casual fans are recognizing more athletes, but there remains one last obstacle before MMA can be considered a legitimate, …

Mixed martial arts is steadily entering the mainstream with each passing event.

Fighters are being interviewed on more talk shows, casual fans are recognizing more athletes, but there remains one last obstacle before MMA can be considered a legitimate, high profile sport.

More coverage on ESPN.

For a long time, the worldwide leader in sports gave little coverage, if any, to the UFC and no coverage at all to the other promotions. MMA was believed to be bloody and barbaric, relegated to a small section on the company’s website.

But the last two or three years has given way to a substantial increase in reporting for all the major MMA promotions by ESPN.

In 2008, ESPN started MMA Live as an internet show, mixing traditional analysts and commentators with fighters as a way to cover events. The show received so much positive feedback that the corporate brass decided to make the internet segment into a television program.

The show, regularly hosted by UFC personalities such as Kenny Florian, Rashad Evans and Stephan Bonnar, has gained a huge following by MMA and casual fans alike despite being aired late at night once a week.

ESPN has also featured some of the sport’s most amazing moments on SportsCenter’s Top Plays. Anthony Pettis’ “Showtime” kick and Anderson Silva‘s front kick knockout are just two great occurrences that appeared on the segment.

But if MMA, and especially the UFC, want to take the next step, then they will have to push for even more coverage by ESPN, specifically in the United States.

ESPN has shown an increased commitment to reporting on MMA, adding more money to their MMA budget recently and partnering with the UFC to televise events overseas.

However, inconsistent coverage on SportsCenter and the terrible time slot for the MMA Live show makes ESPN hesitant to fully embrace the sport just yet.

As the sport continues to grow and gain more and more fans, I have faith that ESPN will certainly start catering to MMA fans and, hopefully, elevate the sport to a higher profile status.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattJuulMMA.

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Announcing the Trash Talkin’ Kids T-Shirt Design Contest!

(Stephan Bonnar — supermodel. Props: TrashTalkinKids)

One of my favorite booths at the UFC Fan Expo in Toronto was Trash Talkin’ Kids, a brand-new t-shirt line that combines MMA fighters with one of the most horrible fads from the 1980s. As a dude who appreciates lowbrow humor more than skulls and wings, these shirts spoke to me.

TTK was cool enough to hook us up with a couple shirts for the Potato Nation. It’s been a long time since we’ve done a t-shirt design contest, so we thought we’d give it another shot. Your challenge is this: Create a t-shirt design in the style of Trash Talkin’ Kids. (Basically, a well-known MMA fighter, a weird Garbage Pail-esque pun using their name, and a gruesome visual representation of that pun.) Details continue after the jump…

(Stephan Bonnar — supermodel. Props: TrashTalkinKids)

Submit your entries to [email protected] by next Monday. We’ll select a few finalists, and you’ll vote for your favorite on Tuesday. The top two vote-getters will each score their choice of TTK t-shirt from the four designs pictured above. Simple as that. And for those of you who aren’t artistically inclined, you can always help out by tossing some concept ideas in the comments section. Any questions? Good luck to everybody, and thanks to Trash Talkin’ Kids for making this possible!

Announcing the Trash Talkin’ Kids T-Shirt Design Contest!

(Stephan Bonnar — supermodel. Props: TrashTalkinKids)

Twit Pic of the Week: Brittney Palmer Chokes a B*tch!

Okay, he’s not a bitch. We love Stephan Bonnar and this week he and Brittney Palmer tweeted out this pic of the two of them having some good natured violent fun. We like Brittney with that snarl. And she sure seems to enjoy getting her hair pulled. It’s nice to know what she’s into.

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Okay, he’s not a bitch. We love Stephan Bonnar and this week he and Brittney Palmer tweeted out this pic of the two of them having some good natured violent fun. We like Brittney with that snarl. And she sure seems to enjoy getting her hair pulled. It’s nice to know what she’s into.

Follow Stephan Bonnar: here.