IT’S SO WRECKED, MAN. Sorry, I had to use that joke one more time now that Shane is retired. And since he is no longer putting himself into a position where other people are trying to maim him in a cage, we get to find out how rickety his body has really become:

Carwin’s decision had been a few months in the making, precipitated by a knee injury that sidelined him from a headlining bout against fellow Ultimate Fighter 16 coach Roy Nelson last December. The final confirmation came in the form of a letter from Carwin’s spine surgeon, who recommended he step down from combat sports’ competition entirely.

“Once the knee got better, I tried to go back to training and had problems with my spine, my lower back.,” said Carwin. “That [letter] obviously made the decision for me, for us.”

With all said and done, Carwin walks away from professional sports with six bulging and an additional three ruptured discs. He’s also developed foraminal stenosis and arthritis.

Foraminal stenosis, which narrows the passage that the spinal cord runs through and constricts on the nerve roots, carries symptoms like numbness, weakness, burning sensations, tingling and “pins and needles” in the arms and legs. This and Carwin’s arthritis made for some uncomfortable-to-excruciating training sessions at Denver’s Grudge Training Center over the last few years, as he prepared for bouts against Gabriel Gonzaga, Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar.

My God this Carwin. Let’s hope he stopped soon enough, because that’s a lot of spinal damage right there.

(pic by Ken Pishna for MMA Weekly)

Obligatory Shane Carwin destructo-gifs.

Looks like I wasn’t the only one who irrationally channeled his rage over the Pat Healy situation onto Bryan Caraway. Nate Diaz also called out the guy who ended up pocketing $65,000 worth of Healy’s UFC bonus money, and of course he did it in typical Diaz fashion:

Of course, that don’t fly in today’s mainstream UFC and the hammer was dropped pretty much immediately:

“We are very disappointed by Nate Diaz’s comments, which are in no way reflective of our organization,” the statement read. “Nate is currently suspended pending internal investigation and we will provide further comment once the matter has been decided.”

And in what I assume is an attempt to show this may not be like the oh so brutal suspension Matt Mitrione suffered through for two whole weeks:

Meanwhile, Nate’s manager Mike Kogan thinks people just misunderstood Diaz’s exotic NoCal colloquialisms:

“Guess what? The word f—-t, at least in Northern California, and where Nate is from, means bitch. It means you’re a little punk. It has nothing to do with homosexuals at all. So when Nate made the comment that he made, he didn’t make it in reference to homosexuals or calling Caraway a homosexual. He just said it was a bitch move.”

This reminds me of that time King Mo tried to explain that calling a female NSAC commissioner a bitch was totally cool because we live in a more inclusive world now where anyone can be a bitch regardless of gender.

Man, Georges St Pierre is getting all the plum roles lately. After news that he’ll be appearing in the new Captain America movie as ‘Batroc the Leaper’, we now learn he’s also appearing in the sequel to Monsters Inc:

Okay, so it’s not the English version of the movie. It’s not even the French version. It’s the Quebecois version of the movie. Yes, that’s right. Quebeckers not only get their own version of Disney movies, they get celebrities in them too! I think I’ll go check out what the Newfoundland version is all aboot, aye.

After spending the last few months watching the UFC sell wolf tickets, it seems like Nick might be looking to sell a few of his own.  The latest word from the 209 is that Diaz is getting into the fight promoting game. The California State Athletic commission has confirmed that Nick is applying for a temporary license and if that is granted, you can look forward to WAR MMA on June 22nd in Stockton. As for who will fight … hold onto your butts:

This is of course just a tweet from an account we’re not even 100% sure is currently being driven by the Diaz brothers, and I’ve learned not to count my twitter chickens before they hatch out into the real world, but still. Wouldn’t this be the freakshow to end all freakshows? And Nick Diaz is just crazy enough to try and pull it off. And when Shaq turns the fight down? No worries, homey. Nick can step right in and fight Canseco himself!

(pic by Eric Bolte for USA Today)

You could easily be forgiven for not realizing that UFC On FX 8 is coming up this Saturday, since Zuffa hasn’t even bothered to cut a promo video for it.  So enjoy this fan-sourced one instead, though it now illustrates one of many injury shufflings this card suffered, as TUF 11 also-ran Chris Camozzi has replaced Costa Philippou in the co-main against Jacare Souza.  Camozzi may be on a 4-fight win streak himself, but let’s be honest, he looks like a much easier match for Jacare than the surging Philippou.

In the main event, this is Vitor Belfort’s second fight in Brazil in a row (and third in the last four), where the lack of athletic commissions is awful convenient for his crippling testosterone deficiency.  Dana White vowed to crack down on bullshitty TRT after Belfort showed up last time looking like a superhero, so I guess we’ll know Dana’s full of shit if we get a repeat performance.  While other Strikeforce champs were offered immediate title shots upon entering the UFC, Belfort’s opponent Luke Rockhold was apparently told to go beat a contender or two first.  I guess that’s the difference that hype and popularity make.  Still, the scarcity of better options implies that the winner here will likely become the next challenger, especially if Weidman beats Silva in July.

The rest of the card is the typical mix of middling and local dudes that you’d expect from a foreign UFC event airing on FX, as shown below.  But hey, it’s free… so quit yer bitchin and remember those poor starving kids in Africa who don’t get any UFC.

MAIN CARD (9 PM EST):
Middleweight: Vitor Belfort vs. Luke Rockhold
Middleweight: Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Chris Camozzi
Lightweight: Rafael Dos Anjos vs. Evan Dunham
Middleweight: Rafael Natal vs. Joao Zeferino

FUEL TV PRELIMS (6 PM EST):
Featherweight: Hacran Dias vs. Nik Lentz
Lightweight: Francisco Trinaldo vs. Mike Rio
Lightweight: Gleison Tibau vs. John Cholish
Welterweight: Paulo Thiago vs. Michel Prazeres
Bantamweight: Yuri Alcantara vs. Iliarde Santos
Light Heavyweight: Fabio Maldonado vs. Roger Hollett

FACEBOOK PRELIMS (4:30 PM EST):
Flyweight: John Lineker vs. Azamat Gashimov
Flyweight: Jussier “Formiga” da Silva vs. Chris Cariaso
Lightweight: Lucas Martins vs. Jeremy Larsen

This Pat Healy marijuana thing still bugs the fuck out of me, but at least we may be on the way to sanity sooner or later. Marc Ratner recently went before the NSAC and asked them to stop hammering athletes for obviously out of competition levels of marijuana metabolites. And the World Anti-Doping Agency (the organization athletic commissions tend to follow the lead of) just fixed things with one fell swoop:

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) raised the threshold for a positive test for marijuana from 15 nanograms per milliliter to 150 nanograms per milliliter, significantly reducing the likelihood of detection for athletes who use the drug.

“We wanted to focus on the athletes that abuse the substance in competition,” said Julie Masse, WADA’s director of communications. “This should exclude cases where marijuana is not used in competition.”

Although marijuana is not considered a performance-enhancing drug, WADA included it on its initial list of prohibited substances in 2003 after caving in to pressure from U.S. sports officials.

Those sports officials are probably scrote faces like Bryan Caraway. Screw you, Caraway. That’s right. I’ve now transferred all my anger over this Healy injustice over onto you. You closed minded embodiment of the status quo. Sitting there sipping a beer like it’s somehow so much more civilized than marijuana.