Microsoft unveiled it’s new XBox One console and aside from a few creepy revelations like the device needing to connect to the internet once a day to stay operational and the device listening to you even when it’s off, there wasn’t a whole lot of mind blowing content. EA did show up and promise several launch games including the first UFC game since they bought the rights off THQ. No in game graphics, though – just that pre-rendered shit that has absolutely nothing to do with the final product. But hey! New UFC game at XBox One launch! That’s pretty neat.

After we learned that Boston Marathon Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev had trained with MMA fighters, I joked that half the Russians on Bellator’s roster would be getting a visit from the FBI. In retrospect, it’s not as funny of a joke any more:

A man being questioned in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings was shot and killed in Florida early Wednesday by an FBI agent from Boston when the agent “began to feel threatened,” ABC News confirmed.

Khusen Taramov said he and Ibragim Todashev were being questioned as part of the bombings by the FBI official and law enforcement officers in Orlando. Taramov said Todashev, 27, knew bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev because both were MMA fighters.

Taramov said they were interviewed nearly three hours, and at some point, “something went wrong,” and Todashev was killed.

“There was some sort of aggressive movement that led the FBI agent to believe he was under threat and he opened fire,” the law enforcement official told ABC News.
…
“When (Todashev) used to live in Boston, they used to hang out — not hang out — he knew him. They met a few times because (Todashev) was a MMA fighter and (Tsarnaev) was a boxer. They just knew each other. That’s it,” said Taramov.

That sounds pretty rotten to me … reminds me of the time UK police jumped an innocent man on the train and pumped his face full of bullets because they mistakenly thought he was part of the London train bombings. This is even worse though because the FBI had Todashev in their custody. When people start dying in situations like that, you really start to wonder what happened to your country.

*UPDATE* The Daily Mail’s version of the story includes many more details including the accusations that Todashev attacked the FBI agent with a knife and had confessed to committing a triple homocide in 2011. Also included in their article:

Taramiv says the FBI has been following him and Todashev since the bombings. He said that they were both being interviewed by agents late Monday before Todashev was killed. He claims his friend is innocent and that he has been targeted by authorities because he is a Muslim.

‘He was just a Muslim – that was his mistake, I guess,’ Taramiv, also a Muslim, told WESH. He said his friend is not an extremist and doesn’t believe he owned a gun. Shortly before the shooting, Todashev ‘had a bad feeling. He felt there’s going to be a set-up against him,’ Taramiv said.

Todashev gave him phone numbers for his mother and father late Monday just in case he got ‘locked up.’ ‘We had a feeling that a worse-case scenario, that something like [a shooting] is going to happen,’ Taramiv told the television station.

After appearing on the MMA Hour to hold out an olive branch to his former promotion, Josh Barnett has finally signed a new deal with the UFC:

USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today confirmed with promotion officials that former UFC heavyweight champion Barnett has signed a new multi-fight deal with the promotion and is expected to make his return to the octagon later this year. An official announcement is expected soon.

Barnett is currently ranked No. 6 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie.com MMA rankings and was considered the world’s most-talented free-agent heavyweight. His return date and opponent have yet to be determined.

No word on what managed to get Josh and the UFC over their impasse, which many believed was caused by Barnett insisting on a PPV cut. Did Barnett drop that provision? Did the UFC offer it only in the case of a championship or headline fight? No one knows. My tinfoil theory? Josh is back as part of a deal setting up a Fedor Emelianenko run in the UFC. Do I have any evidence whatsoever for this? Other than Fedor’s manager showing up at UFC Sweden, nope. But that’s the great thing about tinfoil theories – they don’t need any proof past the slightest shade of insinuation.

(pic by Mark D Smith for USA Today)

So I was spending another evening with no pants on trawlin’ Sherdog and came across this interesting bit of 80s combat sports Canadiana from Halifax:

Allan Clarke and Chris Clarke were really big back in the day where I live. Back then where I am was the boxing capital of Canada and big shows always took place. I see Allan around sometimes, He lives fairly close and is in good shape. Heard a few weeks back he caught some kid trying to break into his shed and just one punched knocked him out cold. His brother Chris fought Dickie after this, seeking revenge for his brother he came up short to a decision loss. Chris I heard is hard on drugs and likes to show he still got it by starting shit with younger crowd downtown. Just thought I should show this too people. I never knew one of the most brutal kos i would see took place in my backyard lol. Enjoy

Come for the knockout, stay for the fine example of sportscaster mustache. And man, is the knockout brutal.

There’s a lot of people who are crediting Vitor Belfort’s latest crushing win to his use of testosterone replacement therapy. But what if his victories are coming from an even more powerful performance enhancer: the favor of God Himself??? From Combate, thrown through the Google Translator:

Me and my coaches have a very good connectivity and trained a lot this last kick in the camp (in preparation to face Michael Bisping).” Vitor said the site combate.com.

“(…) This time, this kick I just trained a day in the gym, it was very little. (…). Except that I felt in the locker room. Holy Spirit spoke to my heart:” Train this kick. “then I said: “Henri (Hooft, coach of striking Blackzilians), safe for me that kick we trained?” (…) my coaches know me, and when I asked this thing they met. I’m not sure they all felt, but I felt very strong within me, as if God was speaking: “Vitor, train it there.” My life is faith. If you do not have faith, you do not get anywhere. “added Belfort, who is recognized as a religious fighter.

I’m just glad God is getting credit and not Steven Seagal.

You may have thought it was impossible to be given 65,000 dollars and still have a bad week, but Bryan Caraway has proven it is possible. His decision to tack a ‘Weed is evil, sucks to be you’ speech onto the news that he was being given Pat Healy’s Submission of the Night bonus money kicked off a storm of controversy. Nate Diaz called Bryan a bundle of branches bound together and got suspended 90 days, and then some other people jumped in with their own ‘Bryan Caraway is that word people in Northern California use instead of bitch’ stories. First, Cat Zingano:

“We’re backstage and all the fighters are there. We’re kinda tight on space because we were basically in the back where some magician does his shows,” explained Josh Ford. “There are like two rows of chairs lined up and then a table where everyone is filling out their medicals. Cat and I are sitting in the front row and a couple guys from Gabriel Gonzaga’s camp are on the other side of us. We’re talking and I’m looking straight at Cat when I see this body coming down the row behind her. I didn’t notice it was Caraway but there’s plenty of room to walk by. As he gets closer to our chairs he flares his elbow out and pops Cat right in the back of the head. The first thing on my mind was, ‘that guy just elbowed her in the head!’ As I’m turning around to see who it was Cat says the same thing. I turn my head to look and it’s Caraway! And then one of the other fighters, might have been Uriah Hall, sitting there says, ‘Hey! I think that guy just elbowed you in the head!’”

And then Bellator fighter Michelle Ould:

Caraway denied both stories and at this point has stopped really trying to defend those anti-weed statements:

“It was a poor choice of words I got ahead of myself,” Caraway said. “I meant you have no tolerance for people who smoke weed knowing its illegal or banned and get in trouble for it. I have plenty of friends who smoke and they are great people. I personally just choose not to use it. Pat Healy is actually my bro and I felt bad because I didn’t mean it that way. Sometimes I’m a knuckle head.”

Boom, there’s that moment of clarity we were all waiting for. Thanks for apologizing, Bryan. Until the next time you’re a knuckle head, peace out.

(pic by Brad Penner for USA Today)