Author: Maggie Hendricks

Chuck Liddell, Jason "Mayhem" Miller and Miller’s dog Gator all stopped by the new UFC Gym in Concord, Calif. on Saturday. Check out a tour of the new digs here, and try a caption in the comments. Read on for winners of the previous create-a-caption.

First place: "Hey, when we’re done here do you guys want to go abuse our privileges and go arrest some stoners?" — craigerswuzzhere

Second place: "We Swear To Never Fake An Eye Poke Again" 
— tdube88

Third place: Wonder Twin powers, Activate! Form of: A legitimate contender to GSP’s Title! 
— Clint

Saturday’s Strikeforce card already has plenty of interesting characters on it: Nick Diaz, Bobby Lashley, Wes Sims and Herschel Walker. But one of the best fights, Jay Hieron vs. Joe Riggs, was inexplicably relegated to the undercard.

The good news is that you will still get a chance to see these two middleweights battle. Though their fight hasn’t been added to the Showtime card, the fight will stream for free at the EA Sports MMA Web site. 

Afterwards, flip on Showtime to see Marius Zaromskis and Nick Diaz fight for Strikeforce’s welterweight title, Marloes Coenen go after Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos’ women’s featherweight belt, and see Herschel Walker abd Bobby Lashley make their Strikeforce debuts.

Hermes Franca recently retired after losing a Max Fights bout in Des Moines, Iowa. He took a look back at his career with Cage Potato and shared a bizarre story about fighting for one dollar and to shut up a trash talker from the Underground Forum.

When I did go [to the Underground] and leave some messages they think it was funny and they love that. So this guy Manny Reyes was writing some trash around 2004. He was saying he was the UFC champion and I thought this guy is crazy. He was challenging me for some reason and one of the promoters said, “OK Hermes you want to fight?” I say “I don’t want to fight this guy, he’s nobody.”

The promoter said that the fans want someone to kill him … They were selling a lot of tickets so he wanted like $2-3,000. Because he was so expensive the promoter asked me if I would fight for one dollar. I said, “What the [expletive]?” The promoter said, “Come on, do it for me, you’re a good friend.” “OK, let’s fight for one dollar.”

And the arena was crazy. Everyone was waiting for it like I was fighting Gomi or BJ Penn (laughs). It was packed! And then when we’re in the ring I can hear the promoter shouting to me, “Kill him! Kill him!” I said, “Bro you cant do that, you’re the matchmaker!

Franca knocked out Reyes in 37 seconds, so maybe the purse wasn’t too bad.

After that fight, Franca went on to win the lightweight belt from the WEC, and fight Sean Sherk for the UFC lightweight belt. He has wins over Caol Uno, Nate Diaz and Spencer Fisher, and always brought a bit of fun to his fights. 

Months before their second season debuts, Bellator Fighting Championships is already turning heads. Their fighter signings, which includes Bao Quach, Olympian Ferrid Kheder, GSP protege Mike Ricci and a bevy of tough welterweights, have shown that Bellator is not resting on the laurels of their first season.

Leading the way is Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, whose enthusiasm about the new season is palpable.

"Overall, I’m most excited that there will be an awful lot of competitive fights. We’re going to have an awful lot of that," Rebney told Cagewriter. "Every guy that we’ve announced so far are guys that I think, I would actually stay home from dinner out with friends because I wouldn’t want to miss the fight. That’s what we were shooting for. It wasn’t about getting names that people recognized, but bringing world-class fighters into the game that would be magical to watch and would make great fights and would could conceivably become big-time names."

The other big move that Bellator made in their off-season was signing a deal with Fox Sports, NBC and Telemundo, which guarantees that Bellator fights will be available to 12 times the viewers than with their previous deal with ESPN Deportes.

"When we finalized that 12-show run with ESPN, I had to ask, how do we go from being a very cool promotion that reaches a Spanish-language audience only to a promotion that you can see every week on multiple distribution platforms that reach a bigger audience? How could we make it so that I would never go on a blog or message board again and read, ‘Bellator’s cool but I can’t see it.’ This will ensure that we’ll be around for the long haul and ensure that a lot of people will see us, week in and week out."

The tournament is the difference

Rebney believes that the tournament structure Bellator offers is what will make them different from not only the UFC, WEC and Strikeforce, but the corpses of Elite XC, the International Fight League and Affliction.

"Everything we’re doing has a very ‘March Madness’ type of flavor. Almost every fight you’re going to see will all be, ‘This guy is fighting this guy, and if he wins, he’ll fight this guy and move to the semifinals.’ It will all be very tournament-themed because that’s what we’re all about. The design of what we’re doing is designed to get fans to follow fighters, love ’em or hate ’em, from round one through the finals."

The tournament set-up is also appealing to the fighters that Rebney and his team are recruiting. His experience as an agent helped him figure out what fighters want. 

"Fighters want to fight, they want to fight regularly, they want to be on national television, they want to be able to control how much money they’re going to make, and they’re going to want a shot at the title. It’s not a hugely complicated philosophical undertaking," Rebney said. He points out that Bellator offers that exact situation to fighters.

"It’s a cool dynamic. You control your own destiny. You can dictate how much you make, and you can dictate how much you’re on national television. I think that’s the primary thing that makes us real different. It’s in the fighter’s hands. It’s not in the matchmaker’s hand."

The tournaments that start in April will choose a challenger for the champions established in Bellator’s first season. In addition to their new signings, some of the first season’s stars will be back.

"At least two of the four finalists will come back to challenge. Toby Imada will be back to challenge again, after that submission that got so much attention and just won the World MMA Award. I’m hoping, from a fan perspective, to put a rematch between him and Jorge Masvidal in the opening round in the lightweights. Masvidal wants the rematch, and Imada is completely willing to give it to him. Jared Hess has been invited back. He came in fresh, and he faced a monster at 185 in Hector Lombard (pictured above). Hess has been working on his standup like crazy." 

For right now, Bellator is working on signing fighters and venues for the upcoming season that will start Apr. 8 as well as the third season that will begin in the fall. 

"We’ve got a few more announcements to make, and then slowly but surely, you’ll hear 135, light heavy and heavyweight announcements as well. The announcements will just keep coming and coming, all the way until the beginning of the season," Rebney said.

"Right now, we’re finalizing agreements for the almost three-quarters of the venues for the entire 24-show run. So, you’ll see fighter announcements for the next week and a half, and then you’ll start seeing venue announcements after that. We want to be out there three, four months in advance. We’re going to some really cool places, too. We’ll be in a lot of different locations, too, which is cool because a lot of different people will get a chance to be a part of the Bellator experience." 

TMZ is reporting that Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, the former UFC champ who is now working on a movie career, got into a fender-bender today. However, unlike the wreck he caused in the summer of 2008, this one is not his fault. Jackson was driving home from a car dealership in his brand new Audi R8 and was rear-ended by a little old lady.

"I am fine, the little old lady is fine, but my car got hurt, and for that I’m sad," Jackson told TMZ.

There is no word on if the little old lady is from Pasadena. As for Jackson, he seems to have no trouble settling into the role of a movie star. He even knows how to talk to paparazzi. 

No, it’s not Dan Hardy, and it’s not Gegard Mousasi, who is reportedly being sought after by GSP’s trainer, Firas Zahabi, as a sparring partner for St. Pierre. The person who can take out Georges St. Pierre is a three-year-old boy named Leister.

St. Pierre is spending time at the Grudge Training Center in Colorado not only preparing for his Mar. 27 title bout against Hardy, but also helping his friend and teammate, Nate Marquardt get ready for UFC 109 and a fight with Chael Sonnen.

Thanks to Purefight for the video. 

There are MMA shirts for the ripped, built guys (or guys who like to pretend that they are.) There are MMA shirts for those who want to show their undying loyalty to their fighter. There are MMA shirts for tiny women who want to show off a lot of skin.

But that hardly encompasses all MMA fans. That’s where our friends from Fightlinker come in.

One shirt is an homage to the quintessential MMA fan, "Just Bleed Guy." The other shirt is an homage to the fact that quite a few of us MMA fans also like to imbibe. How can you not love these shirts? Get the Just Bleed shirt and Ultimate Drinker shirt for $18 each plus shipping and handling at Fightlinker’s store. 

Along with their trainer "Crazy" Bob Cook, UFC welterweights Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck take oaths to be honorary police officers as part of an anti-drug campaign in Pennsylvania. The American Kickboxing Academy teammates are now back in San Jose training for their fights. Fitch will fight Thiago Alves at UFC 111 and Koscheck is rumored to be facing Paul Daley at 113. Take your shot at a caption in the comments; the winner gets an honorary police badge from the Scranton Police Department. Read on for winners from our last create-a-caption.

First place: Chuck is tired of people not-so-subtly telling him he needs to improve his chin.  — Rob R

Second place: Well someone had to sexy up the picture. — Diego G

Third place: I lost so much weight on Dancing with the Stars I might be able to cut to 145. Hmmmm, who would be a good challenger? — Clint

Honorable mention: Did you ever get the feeling Maggie was a bad MMA wrighter?  — Travis S (This one had me laughing for an hour.) Also, there was one that was very, very funny that I could not use because it was not PG. But Allen, rest assured, that was hilarious.

It’s a dead time of year in MMA, one with no major fights from the weekend behind us and no major fights in the weekend in front of us. Still, that doesn’t mean we don’t have plenty to get excited about in the remainder of winter.

5. The UFC in Australia: Seeing how MMA is received in a new part of the world is always an interesting proposition. Will Aussies embrace our sport? Beyond that, the headliner of Cain Velasquez vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will be a barnburner, and Michael Bisping vs. Wanderlei Silva will show how comfortable Silva is at middleweight. We’ll find out the answers to all these questions on Feb. 21.

4. Matt Serra vs. Frank Trigg at UFC 109: Yes, they’re both over 35 and coming off of losses, and the fight won’t mean much in the welterweight championship picture. But they’ve also been trash-talking since the moment their fight was announced, and they’ll make this fight fun part of the geriatric fight card.

3. The UFC debut of Phil Davis: When Davis was wrestling at Penn St., he was always one of the most exciting to watch, even at 197 lbs., a weight class that quite often produces boring matches. Since winning a national championship and graduating, Davis has gone 4-0 in MMA and only one of those fights went made its way out of the first round. He is on the undercard of UFC 109.

2. The U.S. debut of Marius Zaromskis: You want headkicks? Zaromskis has headkicks. He’ll bring his headkicking ability to Strikeforce on Jan. 30, facing Nick Diaz for the vacant welterweight belt. 

1. The return of Miguel Torres: Before losing to Brian Bowles in August of 2009, Torres had only one loss in his career, and that loss had been avenged. Now, we get to see Torres in a position he hasn’t been in for quite a while: the challenger. He starts his climb back to a shot at the belt on Mar. 6 at WEC 47. 

What are you excited about in the coming months? (Note: I didn’t include anything from the UFC on Versus card because it is on Mar. 21, and the first day of spring in Mar. 20.)

When UFC 90 came to my hometown of Chicago, I had lunch with my partner-in-blogging, Steve Cofield. He had read the Chicago Sun-Times that day, and asked me, "What did your governor do to deserve a 13 percent approval rating?" I answered that Rod Blagojevich, the governor at the time, was corrupt, rude, pandering and reactionary. Just two months later, the governor with the immovable hair was indicted and impeached, expelled from office and from the lives of Illinoisans.

Or so we hoped.

Now, in his book, "The Governor," Blagojevich contends that he pushed through legislation legalizing MMA in the Land of Lincoln. He had a distaste for it, but signed the bill to help out Rahm Emanuel, current Chief-of-Staff for President Obama. Emanuel’s brother Ari is an agent — the basis for the Ari Gold character on "Entourage" — and Zuffa, the holding company of the UFC and WEC, is one of Ari’s clients.

"After chiding him for not acknowledging the help I gave his brother Ari in the past to help one of his clients bring the sport of Ultimate Fighting to Illinois — an idea, incidentally, that I didn’t like but nevertheless I did to help him — I told him I would talk to my legal counsel and see if there was a way where this perhaps might work," Blagojevich writes.

Sure, Emanuel should be thankful to Blagojevich for helping out his brother, right?

Except, it didn’t happen that way. 

MMA legislation faced little opposition in Illinois. Zuffa did hire well-connected lobbyists and make political contributions, but nowhere near the full-court press that they’ve been forced to put on in New York. They didn’t need to in Illinois. The bill sailed through both the House and Senate, and any veto that the Governor would have tried would have been easily overridden. That opened the door for the UFC, WEC and Strikeforce to come to Chicago and its suburbs.

So, thanks for your "help," Rod. Keep deluding yourself into thinking that MMA couldn’t have come here without you. We all know the truth. 

Though this video is nine minutes long, you only have to watch for about 45 seconds to see the stupidity of tag-team MMA.

You can even hear the crowd laughing. To make it even dumber, only "slaps" are allowed to the head. That’s right; no punching people in the face.

Look, I love MMA for the strategy, technical difficulty, cardio and all of the many brilliant aspects of the sport. One of those aspects? Seeing someone get punched in the face. The tag team idea is weird enough, but no punching people in the face? That’s just silly.

Thanks to Cage Potato

Yes, you’re used to seeing MMA Marketplace run on Wednesdays, but in this case, we wanted to make sure you had the opportunity to see this special item before the auction was up.

Yep, that’s a doll’s professional wrestling belt "customized" for the UFC. From what I can tell, it was customized with white-out. At least they spelled UFC correctly, right? Buy this gem on eBay. 

If you’re thinking of giving your money to slightly more worthy causes, say earthquake relief in Haiti, check out what MMA Warehouse is doing. They are matching donations to Mercy Corps up to $5,000. Make your donation here. 

Thanks to the Fight Nerd on the belt news. 

For the first time in months, we will have two weekends in a row without major MMA on television. To help you through the withdrawals, we have Takanori Gomi’s extra-long, uncomfortable on-screen moment from UFC 108 and some links. 

Bob Shamrock, the father of MMA legends Ken and Frank, passed away at 68. He and his wife ran a home for trouble youths, which is how he first came in contact with Ken and Frank. He legally adopted both men, and they changed their last names out of respect for him. (MMA Mania)

The 10 worst mismatches in MMA history. The one that always makes me giggle is Anderson Silva vs. Chris Leben. Every time I see that bout in Silva’s record, it blows my mind that the match was ever made. (Cage Potato)

Monday night’s Ultimate Fight Night 20 may have been on basic cable, but it was hardly free. (Fightlinker — naughty language at that link)

One writer says that MMA has some serious issues that need to be resolved before the sport can grow … (Sports Illustrated)

… while another thinks that Dana White’s prediction about MMA’s growth in the next 10 years is underselling it. (Fight! Magazine)

Finally, remember our friend Conner from MMA Religion, the one who is going to prom with UFC Octagon Girl Arianny Celeste? He asked Georges St. Pierre for advice, and Rush delivered. (MMA Religion)

Thanks for reading Cagewriter this week, and don’t forget to follow the MMA team on Twitter: Kevin Iole, Steve Cofield, Maggie Hendricks and Yahoo! Sports.

Chuck Liddell joined in a lawsuit in California against Kelly Gearhart, a land developer, and the title company that facilitated the sale. The lawsuit alleges that Liddell paid $1.5 million to purchase three lots of land, but never received the titles for those lots.

According to the suit, around August 2007 Liddell entered into an agreement to buy three lots for $500,000 each and U2 LLC spent $1 million on two lots there intended for commercial property. Hutkin claims in the court document that his clients were told they’d receive title, but first had to pay the money to Gearhart to finalize a tract map to create the lots.

The lawsuit says that the money Liddell and U2 (a real estate company) invested wasn’t used to develop land; instead, it was used in a Ponzi scheme.

"The Iceman" is hardly the first athlete to end up on the wrong side of an investment scheme. Hall-of-Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was one of the 13,000 victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Michael Vick lost $2 million to a con woman out of Nebraska. 

While he waits for the lawsuit to come to court, Liddell will have plenty to keep him busy as he coaches the upcoming season of "The Ultimate Fighter," facing off against Tito Ortiz. The show debuts March 31, and Ortiz and Liddell are slated to face each other after the season airs, though the date has not been set. 

This weekend, two of wrestling’s all-time great programs, Oklahoma State and Iowa, will face each other. The last decade was up and down for both programs — as down as you can get while still placing in the top 10 nationally — but right now, Iowa is ranked first in the country and Oklahoma State is third. To commemorate such a huge meet, HDNet’s "Inside MMA" traveled to Stillwater, Okla. and Iowa City, Iowa.

If you’re a wrestling fan, you owe it to yourself to get both to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, as talked about above, and the Dan Gable International Wrestling Museum in Waterloo, Iowa (about an hour and a half north of Iowa City). Both offer wrestling fans a place to check out the history of the world’s oldest sport. Recognizing that wrestlers can rarely sit still, the Gable Museum even offers both a wrestling room and a ring. (I may have jumped in the ring and tackled a cardboard cutout.)

This weekend’s match is important for MMA fans not just because it will be amazing, but also because there is a good chance you will see some MMA stars of the future. Oklahoma State is the top Division I producer of MMA fighters, as Randy Couture, Don Frye, Mark Munoz, Mo Lawal, Daniel Cormier, Johny Hendricks, Shane Roller and Jake Rosholt are all Cowboys. Only Arizona State and Minnesota come close to OSU. 

Iowa isn’t as well known for producing fighters, but its current line-up could produce some great fighters. Brent Metcalf, national champion in ’08 and finalist in ’09, has strength that would translate well to fighting. Their 133-pounder, Daniel Dennis, comes from the same area of Illinois (and has a big fan in) UFC fighter Clay Guida. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him fighting bantamweight in a few years. 

Iowa has won 51 dual meets in a row, but Oklahoma State has uncommon success on the Hawkeyes’ home turf of Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The match takes place Saturday, 7 p.m. CT and will air on Sunday night on the Big Ten Network. (Check your local listings.)

Here at Cagewriter, we like to provide a public service from time to time. Today, we want to remind you that fighting is not easy. Take a look at these UFC fighters for a remind. Aaron Simpson, on the left, won his fight over Tom Lawlor, but that didn’t help him avoid a beat-up face. Gray Maynard’s nose and bruised face came about despite his win over Nate Diaz. As for Diego Sanchez, it’s been over a month since he took the beating of a century from BJ Penn. Yet, the cut over his eye is still pretty awful.

All of these fighters love their jobs and are paid to do them. But it is always worth mentioning that fighting comes with a cost. 

In MMA, everyone eventually loses. Anderson Silva has done it, Fedor Emelianenko has done it, Georges St. Pierre has done it. One loss does not make you a loser. Whining it about the loss does.

Enter Jamie Varner and Nate Diaz. After their losses this week, the two have shown how not to lose.

After losing his lightweight championship belt to Ben Henderson by a guillotine submission, Varner (pictured tapping out) was classless in the cage. "I was winning that fight," Varner said. "I came to fight, Ben came to grapple. It’s two different things." Varner must have forgotten the "mixed" part of mixed martial arts. Losing by submission means that you did something dumb to get caught.

Nate Diaz has been equally graceful, though he used Twitter and YouTube to communicate his dismay. After his split decision loss to Gray Maynard, he told his Twitter followers, "Just watched the fight 3 times I won last nite all three rounds [expletive] the haters…" He also took to Youtube to show that his face was not beat up, so clearly, he won. 

Losing close decisions is a tough break, but there is no way that Diaz won all three rounds. If Diaz wants to ensure a win, he needs to finish the fight. Any time a fight is put into the judges’ hands, there are few guarantees.

For some guidance, Diaz and Varner may want to look at how Tom Lawlor. After coming close to knocking out Aaron Simpson in the first round on Monday, Lawlor lost the next two rounds on two judges’ cards. Did Lawlor complain? No, he took the loss in stride.

"Hey everyone, sorry I didn’t finish that fight. All in all a good experience at UFN 20 and I’ll make sure to finish from now on," Lawlor said on Twitter. 

That, quite simply, is how it’s done. Whiny losers force you to remember that they did lose. Rarely does the complaining accomplish anything, and more often than not, it just makes the whiner look bad.

UPDATE: Loiseau has made contact with his family. His uncle and grandparents are alive, though he did find out that another relative perished in the rubble.

Former UFC fighter David Loiseau has not been able to contact his Haitian family members since Tuesday’s devastating earthquake. He says that his uncle and grandparents have both not answered their phones. They don’t have computers, so they can’t send messages through Twitter or Facebook, as some other Haitians have been doing.

“It’s a nightmare,” Loiseau told Sherdog.com late Wednesday night. “I haven’t been able to speak to them, so I don’t know if any of them are safe. When I call, their phones don’t even ring.”

Though he lives in Canada, Loiseau was born in Haiti and often visited there. Loiseau wants to fly down to the poor, island country to help with relief efforts as soon as possible.

Loiseau is not the only athlete who is having trouble finding his family. Basketball player Samuel Dalembert, football players Pierre Garcon and Elvis Dumervil and boxer Andre Berto are all desperately trying to find family members in Haiti. Berto, who represented Haiti in the 2004 Olympics, already knows that he lost some family members in the earthquake.

As Loiseau, Berto and the others wait for word on their friends and family, they ask that we help out by donating as much money as possible.

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to get the message out,” [Loiseau] said. “I beg you to donate as much as you can. It’s a real catastrophe what’s going on in Haiti and any penny will help. Every time a plane flies in with supplies and assistance, it costs money. That’s what the money is for. Just give. Haiti is a very poor country and they need our help.”

Make a donation to the Red Cross here. You can also donate $10 by text messaging the word "Haiti" to 90999.

With Frankie Edgar fighting BJ Penn — quite possibly at UFC 112 — he may need some visual motivation for the fight. Enter a fathead of the UFC lightweight champ.

For a mere $24.99, Edgar (and you) can have a two-foot by three-foot (almost life size!) image of Penn to paste on his wall. Buy it at MMA Warehouse or wherever creepy graphics of Hawaiian fighters are sold. 

Pride Fighting Championships will be resurrected — sort of — this Friday on Spike. Highlights from the Japanese promotion that is a favorite for hardcore MMA fans will be shown starting Friday, Jan. 15, at 10 p.m. ET. To whet your appetite, here is a bout between Chuck Liddell and a much-thinner Alistair Overeem.

I’m sure that the UFC, who now owns all of Pride’s video library, has no ulterior motive in releasing this particular video. There is no way they released this fight because they want to show one of their great former champions beating down on the current Strikeforce heavyweight champion, right? Right.

No matter the reasoning behind the fights chosen, all MMA fans should set their DVR for "Best of Pride." If you haven’t watched Pride yet, you don’t want to miss seeing Wanderlei Silva in his prime, the ring, footstomps, longer rounds and as they point out in the ad, giant checks.