The 11th season of The Ultimate Fighter, featuring coaches Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz (and Rich Franklin?) kicks off tonight following the UFC Fight Night 21 with Kenny Florian and Takanori Gomi in the main event.

Considering tomorrow’s April Fool’s Day, it seems like a good time to suggest ways to make the UFC-meets-Big Brother reality series more fun to watch.

1. Fighters will share the house with people from other reality shows – an addict, a hoarder, a dwarf, people with 19 kids, Paris Hilton, Flavor Flav…
2. There will always be one less bed than fighter. The odd man out must sleep in the tool shed out back.
3. Only winners of fights get any toilet paper.
4. Coaches won’t pick fights. Like American Idol, match-ups are made by the viewers via phone or text.
5. Dr. Drew will be on hand to deal with the Junie Brownings and JT Taylors of the house.
6. Unlike previous seasons, contestants will be able to watch TV. However, they only get one show: The View.
7. Fights that go to the judges will be decided by a game of Red Rover, Red Rover.
8. Fighters are told the house will be co-ed. The female fighters will actually be actors paid to mess with their minds.
9. The house will double as the Liberace museum.
10. The Situation and Snooki will be assistant coaches.

Well, maybe hate is extreme. Insanely jealous might be more accurate. Having a full-time job, a son and occasionally training and contributing to this blog leaves me pretty much gassed at the end of the day.

Shane Carwin holds down a full-time job (as an engineer), has two kids (one born recently), and somehow finds time to compete for the UFC interim heavyweight belt. (He also seems to be a genuinely decent guy.) A part of me respects that; most of me wants to see his over-achieving mug get beat to a pulp.

His opponent, Frank Mir, on the other hand has had many setbacks. I can relate to setbacks. Mir was in a motorcycle accident in 2004 that broke his thigh bone, he struggled with depression, alcohol and painkillers. When he returned to the UFC after the accident, he suffered some losses to lesser opponents.

I’m not saying I like Mir, ’cause I don’t. But in Mir I see a person I can relate to, warts and all. If Carwin loses he can go back to being an engineer, playing with his kids or helping old ladies cross the street. At the end of the day I just cannot stand someone who excels part-time at something everyone else strives and struggles toward full-time. I know I’m a totally jealous coveting envious asshole.

This jealousy of the genetically gifted has always struck me as at least part of the general hatred people have towards Brock Lesnar. Carwin and Lesnar are giants among men. Thanks to pure size and strength they are simply able to do more with less. But while Lesnar is hated, Carwin gets a pass.

As a short Jewish guy, I desperately want to believe that skill and technique can beat size and strength, just like it’s supposed to in jiu-jitsu. In the days of Lesnars and Carwins that might just be denial, but that is my favorite river in Egypt.

It’s got to take guts to start a fight promotion. Especially when the events have to occur in a different province, because MMA is illegal in your hometown. Such is the case with W-1, which is based in Ontario but held its most-recent card in Montreal on Saturday.

There were many warriors at the event. The fighters who risked life and limb for little financial gain, the promoters who risk high stakes on an out-of-town MMA event and, unfortunately, those of us who drove from Ontario to cover the event.

The Pierre Charbonneau Centre was nearly empty (it felt like there were more people in Schwartz’s deli downtown), which is surprising, as W-1 has great TV production values (shown on The Score and FOX Sports in the States), and some serious star power in the house: Wandelia Silvia, Carlos Newton, Denis Kang and Patrick Cote were there to support the fighters, including Jason MacDonald, Shonie Carter, John Alessio and Nabil Khatib and others.

The emptiness of the arena and the strippers’ perfume give the air  a bad stench. When the strippers try to rile up the few in attendance, it’s depressing, like a high school pep rally with brand-new plastic titties.

I don’t like the strippers. Most sports try and avoid wardrobe malfunctions. W-1 gives them ring time (not just between rounds) to prance around and plug their strip joint. Call me an MMA purist but if MMA was supposed to have strippers, there would be a pole in the cage.

The fights were good, they were what I came for and I was impressed. There is something intimate about these small promotions, and not just because of the size of the venue. Many of the local fighters (local being Ontario and Quebec) have brought a small entourage of fans with them. Rooting for friends, family and the people you train with has a distinctly different feel than cheering for some random dude on The Ultimate Fighter.

Small productions are hugely important for the future of MMA. The question that remains for W-1 is if an MMA fight happens in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a noise?

I know I’m going to get flack for saying this but as of late I’m seriously underwhelmed by Fedor Emelianenko. Fighting the likes of Brett Rogers, Andrei Arlovski, Tim Sylvia and Hong-Man Choi are not the makings of “The Baddest Man on the Planet.”

I know he is a business man and I’m sure Affliction (at the time) and Strikeforce are great business decisions, but that makes him business savvy, not the baddest man. Long story short, I was glad to see this brief interview with Randy Couture where he talks about “Fedor needing to step and fight top-level guys.” Check out the latest on the Fedor/M-1 Global/Strikeforce contract debacle here.

Just saw the ad for OxyMorons, a new film starring Tim Sylvia (and, strangely, sponsored by Affliction; watch the end of the trailer) about OxyContin addiction. A powerful – and powerfully addictive – opiate, Oxy is also known as hillbilly heroin.

Someone must think that the same people who watch MMA are the same people who like to get high. Which is maybe why Sylvia, whom Barrett wrote about earlier today, is scheduled to fight against five-time World’s Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski this April 23 in Worchester, Mass. The event is being promoted by Butterbean.

Laugh all you want, but half of you reading this are probably high right now…

"I know nothing. Absolutely nothing."

A couple of months ago, mixed martial arts got into a scuffle with racism when the WEC, UFC and Strikeforce all banned Hoelzer Reich, a “Naziesque” clothing company, to put it politely. It wasn’t the sport’s first encounter with the face of hate, and sadly it won’t be the last.

The story – racism in MMA – lasted all but a single news-cycle, which in the internet era is about seventeen minutes. It was December, after all, and Christmas and Chanukah and BJ Penn vs. Diego Sanchez were on everybody’s mind. Nazis are such a total downer. Complete killjoys.

Hoelzer Reich may have gone out of business or underground or under a rock or wherever it is fine neo-Nazi clothiers go, but when it comes to fighting racism – or at the very least, racist imagery – MMA continues to be a horribly disappointing opponent.

Okay, so lets refresh our memories on what brought all this up just a few weeks ago: Hoelzer Reich is a clothing line that incorporates Nazi imagery in its designs. The company somehow managed to sneak its hate couture onto the Ultimate Fighter finale on the back of fighter Joe Brammer.

Zuffa banned the company from future UFC and WEC events. Ditto Strikeforce. And that put an end to the story.

What someone decides to wear is their own choice; it’s called freedom of expression. However, there are professional repercussions for an athlete and their sport if they choose to wear something controversial.

Athletes represent their sport when they compete. Inappropriate behavior is a liability to athlete, sponsor and sport alike. Some sports contracts have morality clauses to keep athletes in line. For example, if you’re in the NHL or NBA, you wear a team uniform when playing and a suit when on the sidelines. And players must conduct themselves in the best interest of the team and the sport, like model citizens. It’s that simple. Get nailed for DUI or running a dogfighting ring and there are repercussions, not just in terms of the law, but penalties enforced by the respective leagues. Hell, Frank Mir is catching heat this week just for saying – in typical attention-grabbing Mir-perbole – in a radio interview that he wants nemesis Brock Lesnar to be “the first person that dies due to octagon-related injuries.”

A sponsor, in essence, tries to buy an athlete’s reputation to enhance theirs. In return, the athlete endorses the product giving it support and approval. When the sponsor is a merchant of hate, it reflects dreadfully on the athlete and the sport they represent.

Despite a T-shirt proclaiming “The Fourth Riech has begun” in German, Hoelzer Reich claims they’re not racist: “We do not have any political affiliations with any organizations, nor specific views of any controversial parties,” read a statement on the Hoelzer Reich website back when it still worked. (A more complete sense of the HR side of the situation can be found in a statement they released here.)

The similarities between Hoelzer Reich and neo-Nazi clothing company ayanware.com are blatantly obvious. Until recently, Hoelzer Reich prominently displayed a picture of WestWall, a band with neo-Nazi ties, on its website. WestWall’s lead singer, Ed Wolbank, is the former leader of a white supremacist skinhead organization called the Northern Hammerskins and is a member of Bound For Glory, one of America’s most-influential hate-rock bands. He also was one of the founders of (BFG) Productions, a white power music company.

Furthermore, Hoelzer Reich is the proud sponsor of Niko Puhakka, a fighter with neo-Nazi tattoos, including one that reads “blood and honor,” which sounds really cool and bad-ass and MMA except for the tiny fact that it was the slogan of the Hitler Youth and later the name of a neo-Nazi music promotion network. Puhakka also has the Life Rune tattooed on his chest. The Life Rune is associated with the National Alliance, which was one of the largest and most dangerous hate groups in America.

Hoelzer Reich looks neo-Nazi, it is worn by neo-Nazis, and it sponsors fighters with neo-Nazi tattoos. If it talks like a goose and steps like a goose… Enough said.

Your clothes in many ways are a reflection of who you are. Often they represent your interests and personality. Affliction says you like MMA, Prada does not. Wearing Sean John makes a statement about you that Hoelzer Reich does not.

Mac Danzig is a vegan MMA fighter and has lent his voice to animal rights causes. He was also sponsored by Hoelzer Reich. I doubt he would use his reputation as a vegan athlete to help bolster sales of KFC (if he had, we would call him a hypocrite). By allowing Hoelzer Reich to be his sponsor he gave them credibility, in the same manner he did with animal rights. Danzig no longer has Hoelzer Reich as a sponsor.

Zuffa and Strikeforce seriously messed up and let this slip through. What is equally disturbing is that a clothing company with no moral compass has enough money to pay the UFC’s sponsorship fee (upwards of $100,000 in some cases).

Interestingly, this is not the first time the UFC has been in a racist T-shirt incident. All-American golden boy Matt Hughes was once photographed holding a T-shirt that said “White Boy” and featured the SS symbol. Hughes had been signing autographs and posing for pictures all day and he was unaware of the shirt’s logo. An easy mistake to make, I suppose, but it still reflected badly on both the fighter and the sport. You would have thought afterward that fighters and the UFC would have exercised more caution. As Joe Brammer’s Hoelzer Riech T-shirt clearly demonstrates, you would have thought wrong.

Melvin Costa

Obviously this is not just a UFC problem or a Hoelzer Riech-related problem. Melvin “Man-o-war” Costa fought for King Of the Cage. He also has a classic Nazi eagle-and-swastika insignia tattooed across his chest. A loyal following of skinheads used to show up to watch him fight; he is openly racist, to wit:

Sherdog: In regard to the swastika that is tattooed to your chest, is that an accurate representation of your views?

Melvin Costa: Yeah.

After some complaints, Gary Shaw, the live events president of the parent company that owns King of the Cage, issued this statement:

“I try not to allow anyone to fight in the cage or the ring that has anything inappropriate either on their gear or tattooed permanently on their body. And that means either ethnic, or racial, or anything offensive to the general public. I was unaware of the situation but I’m in the process of handling it now. Hopefully, it will never happen again.”

Less than two months later, Costa fought in another King of the Cage event.

Toni Valtonen is another fighter with “white is right” tattoos. The Finn has a swastika tattoo on his shoulder and the words “white pride” tattooed on his back. Valtonen claims they part of a misspent youth of which he is not proud. M-1 Global had required him to wear a patch over his ink while he fought. During a televised bout in the U.S., the patch fell off.

M-1 Global issued a statement saying, “M-1 does not allow Mr. Valtonen to fight with any of these tattoos exposed. Before each of Mr. Valtonen’s fights there are patches placed over his tattoos. M-1 regrets the fact that there were still tattoos shown when the patches got loose in the fight. By this statement M-1 wants to state that we do NOT in any way support the views of any individual in particular.”

Not exactly the thorough condemnation of his tattoos or the beliefs behind them that one would have hoped for.

Even Fedor Emelianko’s brother, PRIDE and sambo vet Aleksander, has questionably racist tattoos. Fedor is also a part-owner of M-1 Global, for which Valtonen and Puhakka have fought.

What your brother chooses to have tattooed on his body has nothing to do with you. Just like his beliefs are his business, too. Except when those beliefs reflect on your business. Having people with racist tattoos or wearing racist clothing represent your company makes you an ignorant fool at best and a sympathizing douchebag at worst.

MMA must be more vigilant with racist imagery if it ever wants to be considered a legitimate sport. It is up to MMA where it draws the line. For better or worse, any sponsor that might alienate any viewing audience is probably best avoided. This is not censorship of an athlete’s views but a standard that needs to be upheld so MMA’s audience is inclusive to all and exclusive to none.

When it comes to Saturday’s UFC 110 co-main event, in my mind, there is no winning this fight for Wanderlei Silva.

Wanderlei is an MMA great, a PRIDE legend, having fought some of best the sport had to offer (Mirko Cro Cop, Dan Henderson, Sakuraba, Quinton Jackson). The only time Micheal Bisbing touched gloves with PRIDE greatness was against Henderson, who knocked him out so badly, I still flinch when watching the replay. Other than Henderson and Rashad Evans (both of whom beat Bisbing), Bisbing’s fights have been against far less impressive opponents – not that I’m dismissing a ‘roided-up Chris Leban – than Wanderlei’s.

Don’t get me wrong Bisbing is an asshole, a card-carrying douchebag. His behavior as coach on The Ultimate Fighter was immature and egomaniacal. Even if watching Henderson knock Bisbing out made me flinch, it also gave me a sense that justice and karma existed in this world. However, I did not gain any new respect for Henderson as a fighter for knocking Bisbing out – I could have only lost respect if Henderson did not win.

This is pretty much how I feel about tomorrow night’s fight. If Wanderlei wins he beat a fighter with a far less impressive career. If he loses, Wanderlei’s stock (which has already been taking a beating lately) continues to plummet. Even if Wanderlei wins tomorrow, all Bisbing will be is a stepping stone for Wanderlei as a middleweight. And how far can Wanderlei climb in that division when Anderson Silva is at the top of the ladder?

Brock Lesnar insulted the Canadian health care system yesterday, referring to it as “Third World.” The UFC heavyweight champ made the remarks during a press conference to answer questions about his current health and possible return to fighting (he’s fine; he will return).

So here’s his story: Lesnar was at a hunting lodge somewhere north of the border when his diverticulitis went into full gear. Correction: when his diverticulitis that his U.S. doctors had misdiagnosed as mononucleosis went into full gear. Unsatisfied with the treatment he was receiving at a small Canadian hospital (which he refuses to name), his wife, WWE superstar Sable, drove him “at a hundred miles an hour” across the Canada-U.S. border, where he claims the doctors were eventually able to properly diagnose his illness. He was later treated at the prestigious Mayo clinic, one of the foremost medical facilities on the planet.

Don’t worry, fellow Canadians. Despite feeling we have “Third World” health care, Lesnar claims to “love Canada,” adding it has “some of the best people and hunting in the world.” (I’m assuming the people and hunting are mutually exclusive.)

Lesnar who refers to himself as a “conservative Republican,” used the experience to criticize President Barack Obama’s health care reforms.

Lesnar blames the onset of his diverticulitis on “a total protein diet, not enough fiber.” Lesnar, the last man on earth anyone would accuse of being a sensitive New Age kind of guy, made the following comments: “I’m a carnivore. I’m not a fan of PETA. I’m a member of the NRA, and whatever I kill, I eat.” He also attributes his healing to a change of diet, natural medicine and praying.

Praying and a dollar will get you a cup a coffee at Starbucks in much the same way praying and a doctor can cure diverticulitis. I thank god I live in a country where everyone can pray and see a doctor and not pray to see a doctor.

If there is a moral to this story it’s to eat your vegetables. If you don’t eat your vegetables and get diverticulitis, being a former WWE superstar and UFC heavyweight champion helps to pay the bills. But seriously, eat your fucking vegetables.

Ever want all the excitement of MMA in a manner the whole family can take part in? Ever want to flying armbar the wife or ground-and-pound the brat but don’t want to spend the next few years sleeping on a state-issued pillow? Now you can with the MMA board game Extreme Fight Game, which uses “Fight Dice” to simulate real MMA action.

The game is the creation of Brett Sicilliano, who was once roommate of MMA legend Kimo. In the game, two players get to choose between four fictional characters that fight each other. That the characters are fictional is awesome because it will save me hours of arguing with the wife about who gets to be GSP.

Don’t worry, even though the fighters are fictional, the sponsors are real with Tapout and LA Boxing adverting inside the game. I know what I’ll be asking Santa for this Christmas.

UFC chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta spoke before the House Judiciary Committee on piracy on Wednesday. The Fertitta brothers are 90-percent owners of the UFC and they are concerned with streaming video sites like justin.tv, which offers live albeit illegal streaming of UFC events, thus bypassing the lucrative pay-per-view structure.

Relatively speaking, things are tough for Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. They own close to 25-percent of the Station Casinos. The casinos recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and were granted an extension by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge until March 25, 2010 to come up with a restructuring plan.

But before you lose too much sleep over the brothers’ economic woes, UFC president and pal Dana White recently stated in an interview:

“Trust me, don’t worry about the Fertittas being in any soup lines any time soon, Okay? They’re doing just fine (and Station Casinos) has nothing to do with the UFC. And all of the people who think the UFC is going to get sold and I’m going to get fired – keep dreaming.”

The Fertittas are Vegas entrepreneurial royalty. And as with many multi-millionaire/billionaires, this is not their first run in with hard times. In 2004, the brothers were $34 million deep into the UFC and pulled that around. I’m optimistic they will continue to be fabulously wealthy beyond any of our wildest dreams.

I have little sympathy for the Fertitta brothers’ “money problems.” According to Forbes Magazine’s billionaire list, last year the Fertitta brothers where No. 897, each having a net worth of $1.3 billion. Hard times have hit the brothers and they are now just multi-millionaires instead of billionaires. The brothers bought the UFC in 2001 for $2 million, it is now estimated at more than $1 billion. The UFC is protected against the Station Casino economic woes because the UFC is incorporated separately as Zuffa LLC. It does not seem likely that the Fertitta brothers will sell off shares of the UFC to help subsidize the casinos.

Whether it is Metallica or Zuffa, I find it excruciating to listen to the ultra-rich whine about protecting intellectual property.

Furthermore, the intellectual property being sold, as of late, is some less-than-stellar product. Admittedly, no one is forcing me to buy UFC 108 but Dana could meet us half way and reduce the price. I know it is a cursed card but it is still called Zuffa Entertainment not “Zuffa Our Fighters Are All Fucked Up Right Now And This Is The Best We Could Come Up With.” It is their responsibly to bring me exciting cards.

So, back to justin.tv. When viewed full-screen justin.tv is pixilated, it is not the HDTV PPV Zuffa is offering at home or at the bar. Most fight fans would never watch a stacked card on justin.tv – the quality is just too poor. However, when the quality of the fight card is equal to the quality of justin.tv, I can see where problems could arise.

These are hard economic times. Even the once billionaires are complaining. After, stifling daycare costs, a crippling mortgage, and taxes, the UFC get a substantial amount of what is left of my paycheck. I’m not sure if the brothers have had to sell their matching 200-foot Dutch yachts but I’m not losing sleep about the piracy of their intellectual property.