Rutten’s main source of contention when it comes to picking “The Demolition Man” has to due with the durability of his chin, an issue having been called into question before given Overeem’s six TKO losses.

The former UFC champ spoke about the match-up on a recent edition of Sherdog Radio where he explained, “I think Alistair, everything he does is one single shot because he knows he’s got that glass jaw as well. He’s been knocked out quite a few times in the past, even by Chuck Liddell as well.”

“Every time when he punches, one hand is up,” Rutten continued. “He throws single shots; he doesn’t throw combinations. You saw that when he fought (Fabricio)Werdum. Werdum was actually tagging him more than he did to Werdum. I think that Junior dos Santos, with his combinations, his reach, I think he’s going to tag him and he’s going to throw combos and I think that yeah, he’s going to take this fight.”

Dos Santos has stopped eleven of the fourteen opponents he’s beaten via strikes and is seen as one of the best boxers in the heavyweight division if not #1 in that regard. No date has been set for Dos Santos-Overeem though the bout has been rumored for June in Brazil.

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC

“El Guapo”, who is as opinionated as he is colorful, wore both the hat of experience and as tribune of the sport when he took Twitter on Tuesday to offer up his thoughts on the use of performance enhancing drugs in MMA.

“I am just blown away with who gets caught. What happened to good food, water and some supplements? That’s what I did, and I never had a problem with people being stronger or in better shape.

Listen, if you had shoulder surgery, or whatever surgery, and the doc tells you that you will heal faster, do it, but then do NOT fight! This is giving the sport a bad name, everything (MMA does) is already “frowned upon” like masturbating in an airplane.

Sorry, had to do that…was writing and thought about ‘The Hangover’. But seriously, it’s very sad, and you do NOT need (steroids). If you can’t train had anymore because you are getting up there in age, then don’t fight – very simple.

I could never look at myself in the mirror if I would have cheated – never – and don’t give me the BS excuse “but everybody is doing it”. Yeah, lots of people don’t use their freaking turn signal. That doesn’t mean that I also simply not gonna do it. I use this example because those people stress me out…just don’t care about anybody else but their selves. And that’s the same as using PED’s. Don’t care about our sport getting a bad name, ‘as long as I get better’.”

Rutten was 28-4-1 in his MMA career and 21-0-1 over his last twenty-two match-ups before to officially retiring from the sport in 2006 (though he actually hadn’t fought since the late 1990s prior to his final bout). He holds notable wins in the past over Kevin Randleman, Frank Shamrock, and Guy Mezger.

He was 3-1 while fighting for Elite XC, and was being trained by one of the best around, Bas Rutten. It’s been well documented that the break-up between the two, following the 0:14 second TKO at the hands of Seth Petruzelli, had turned the once friends into now foes. Rutten had claimed that Keven “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson had stopped listening to the legendary fighter/coach and didn’t need to train using Ruttens advice. Ultimately, the two went their separate ways, but both have stayed vocal about the split.

Rutten jabbed first with his comments stating Slice had turned into an “a**hole”, and wasn’t interested in training people with no respect for his teachings.

Last week, Kimbo struck back with his own version stating, “I guess with him, he pretended to be a friend but he really wasn’t I guess. It was just business with him. You pay a guy good money to teach you things and be a good teacher and they take your money. But then they turn round and say ‘I tried to teach you stuff but its not working’ Come on man, you’re not a good teacher – so really he owes me some money right?,” Slice laughed. “But its all good, we all do what we gotta do.”

“El Guapo”, never one to keep quiet, issued a quick rebuttal to FightersOnly.com, claiming, “he had to respond to this”.

In the letter sent, Rutten wrote, “I didn’t say that he was an a**hole, I said that he TURNED into an a**hole, I actually told him this also about 5 weeks before the Petruzelli fight, I told him that I thought he turned into a a**hole, he said that he didn’t realize that and apologized, he did that two more times that day and even called me to say he didn’t knew he was doing that. Later I called him an a**hole because all of the sh** that he took for granted, I also told him that I had no respect for him in our last meeting, but why I said that? I won’t even go there”.

On the money he was being paid, Rutten claimed it wasn’t good as people might think, “Lets say that he made $100,000, I couldn’t train him two times a day so I told my buddy at my gym, Randy Khatami, who’s a great boxing coach and also teaches some basic submissions, that I would take him in the morning, and he would take him at night. Now everybody tells me that I just have to pay my friend a certain amount of money, like a “per hour” deal because it would be better “money wise” for me. But since I believe that a TEAM works together, I just pay him half of what I make. Lets do the math here, 10% of 100,000, is $10,000, that I split in half, so I make $5000 in 5 or 6 weeks. I also told him BEFORE I started training him, that he had to understand that when I had a commentary job, that I had to do that, since this was not a “money making machine for me” (try to live in CA from $5000 in 6 weeks and support a family, haha, I dare you). He and his manager Mike, who’s a great guy, told me they understood that.”

Its seems the war of words will probably continue, with filming of the new TUF series over and constant access to the fighters, but it remains to be seen if Slice wants continue with one of the most voiced people in the MMA community. Bas Rutten has never been shy about speaking his mind, and something tells me he could do this forever.

He finished his letter with this, “If Kimbo would have done everything that he did in the beginning when he came in, he had great potential. To now blame that on the people who trained him, very loser thing to do. And if it was so bad, why is he still with Randy Khatami? He trains him in the style as I do because I told him so. See what I mean? He makes no sense. Lets see what he did in the “Ultimate Fighter” with his new and improved training. To put it in his own words. “Haha, but its all good, we all do what we gotta do”.

The series premier of The Ultimate Fighter 10: The Heavyweights airs Wednesday of this week and we will get to see first hand just how improved Kimbo has become.

Bas Rutten had been Kimbo Slice, aka Kevin Ferguson’s number one and most vocal supporter since the very beginning of the former YouTube brawler’s professional fighting career.

The divide was formed between the trainer and the student right around the time of the now infamous bout between Kimbo and Seth Petruzelli where Slice was flattened in mere seconds in front of millions of viewers on network television.

“He just turned into a different guy, he didn’t need to do the things that I told him to do,” explained Bas in a recent interview with Fighters Only Magazine. “He wasn’t going to go to the ground, you know? The day before the [Petruzelli] fight, I told him I wanted to go over heel hooks and escapes, and he said “Nah, its not going to go to the ground

“I said ‘Ha, I like that attitude – but what if it does go to the ground?’ but he said ‘Its not going to go’. So I said OK, but don’t let me tell you ‘I told you so’ if he snaps your [expletive] leg in half. He said ‘I don’t know if that’s a good thing for you to be telling me mentally before a fight’ I said ‘I don’t think its a good thing for you not to be doing what I tell you before the fight’.”

Any questions lingering as to whether Rutten and Kimbo will one day come to an understanding can be put to rest right now. Bas will never end up in Kimbo’s corner again under any circumstances.

“I misjudged him, he turned into a whole different person,” said Rutten. “I told him a few weeks ago, I had a sit down with him. I told him that he was an asshole and that I have zero respect [for him] and I can’t train people that I have no respect for. Can’t ever.”

The Ultimate Fighting Championship(R) (UFC(R)) has added three thrilling bouts to the organization’s next UK super-show. It has been confirmed that Rameau Sokoudjou will collide with Luiz Cane in a battle of light-heavyweight strikers, Japanese submission expert Akihiro Gono will take on on highly-regarded British debutant Dan Hardy and steel-fisted heavyweight Shane Carwin will exchange bombs with England’s own Neil Wain.

There are definitely some quality match-ups in there, however I am slightly disappointed that I might not to get to see Sokoudjou vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua anytime soon. Who knows, maybe if the “African Assassin” comes out of the Cane fight unscathed (which I doubt) we may get to see him take on Shogun in December.

UFC 89 is headlined by a middleweight contest between Michael Bisping and Chris Leben and is set to take place on October 18th at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, England.

The current rumored line-up is as follows:

• Michael Bisping vs. Chris Leben
• Thiago Alves vs. Diego Sanchez*
• Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou vs. Luiz Cane
• Dan Hardy vs. Akihiro Gono
• Shane Carwin vs. Neil Wain
• Paul Kelly vs. Marcus Davis*
• Jess Liaudin vs. David Bielkheden*
• Samy Schiavo vs. Per Eklund*
• Sam Stout vs. Terry Etim*

*Indicates rumored bout as foretold by MMA Weekly.com.

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