A week has passed, and it’s time to reveal the winner of and answers to the Lugz sponsored With Leather MMA Tattoo Trivia Challenge. This week’s winner is Michael Hickey, who was the first to send in a perfect 25. It turns out most of you have no idea who Eben “Big O” Oroz is, despite him looking like MMA’s closest living relative to Team Rocket. Not surprisingly, everybody got Brock Lesnar, even though I didn’t include his hyper-masculine chest penis.

If you sent in a guess (or are just curious as to who in the world would get these tattoos on their bodies), click through the slideshow and take a look at who we chose to represent the cool, weird and sometimes terrifying world of athlete tattoos. If you won this contest (or the previous contests), your prize is getting shipped out today.

This is the part where I walk by holding a sign that reads “Please Buy Lugz© Brand Boots.” Enjoy the answers.

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Who is that on Alan Belcher’s shoulder? The Blob? Francis, from “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure?” Wait, I think it’s supposed to be Johnny Cash. Man, I should’ve just put up a big picture of Alan Belcher’s arm and given a t-shirt to whoever guessed “Johnny Cash.”

But we’re going to do better than that. How about a t-shirt? With Leather has teamed up with the fine folks at Lugz to bring you part three of our Stupid, Awesome & Cool Tattoo Trivia Challenge. If you can click through the images and identify the MMA fighters based on their tattoos (and trust me, if you’ve ever seen these tattoos before, you know who they’re on), writer down your answers and send them along to me at infernaldinosaur@gmail.com. This one is a little bit harder, so we’re giving you a full week: get your answers to me by next Wednesday, and maybe you’ll be the winner.

And don’t forget: if you’re wearing Lugz shoes when you go to the tattoo parlor, you will at least leave without anybody drawing skulls on your feet.

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UFC has officially announced the purchase of rival mixed martial arts promotion, Strikeforce, with all sides (all eight of them) “looking forward to working together for the greater good.”  UFC President Dana White called MMAFighting.com video interviewer (and friend of the late, great FanHouse Pro Wrestling) Ariel Helwani into his office on Saturday and broke the news.  It’s surprising that the company would be able to keep something of this magnitude a secret for this long, and the purchase is sure to be the MMA story of the year, at least until Triple H shows up at an MMA event and gives Cain Velasquez the stink-eye.

UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta said:

“We’ve long admired Scott Coker and the Strikeforce business he launched and developed. We feel that together with Scott, we can continue to build both Strikeforce and the UFC. We intend to operate Strikeforce as a separate business much like we did with the WEC for many years. We look forward to working with Scott Coker and the entire Strikeforce and Showtime teams to continue to provide quality content for mixed-martial-arts fans.”

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker added, “Aaaaaaaaaaaah” before being kicked in the chest and knocked into a large, circular pit.

According to reports out of Zuffa headquarters it’s “business as usual” for both organizations, with Strikeforce being run as a separate entity for now, although I wouldn’t be shocked to see them book an invasion angle where guys from Strikeforce show up and act all threatening before the UFC guys squash them.  Regardless, this should restock the promotion’s talent shy roster with a new batch of little tattooed bald guys who are just as mad as Hell~.

[MMAFighting]

After losing her Strikeforce title fight against Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos via first round TKO in August 2009, heavenly asskicker Gina Carano decided that she would take some time off and perhaps pursue other career ambitions. And while I spent most of 2010 staring out a window, drinking scotch and wondering when Gina would return, she has answered our prayers and is currently training for her next Strikeforce match.

So what was Gina up to for the past year that could have made her consider leaving a life of having her perfect angelic face damaged? She was acting with Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas and Ewan McGregor in the new Steven Soderbergh film Haywire, due out later this year. Gina plays Mallory Kane, a black ops super soldier who is “betrayed and set up during a mission.” Haha, women be spyin’.

After the jump, check out a couple Haywire videos with Soderbergh and Carano, as well as exclusive insight on working with Gina from my good friend C-Tates…

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Few people manage to survive 12 years in the NFL, but Herschel Walker did that and continued to look for abuse elsewhere. Walker, now 48, is training for his second professional fight in mixed martial arts. He’s scheduled to fight in the upcoming Strikeforce event in San Jose next month. When Walker won the Heisman Trophy in 1982, his opponent from his first pro MMA fight, 27-year-old Greg Nagy, hadn’t even been born. Herschel brings a freakshow quality to what many already call a freakshow sport, but also the star power earned in pro football to a promotion that needs it to keep up with UFC.

Hershel is now representing ClinchGear, who produce MMA performance gear and apparel, and they were good enough to set up a phone call with the man who, by his own admission, still wears many hats. An transcribed excerpt of our interview follows.

Josh Zerkle, With Leather: I have to ask you, before anything else, how many push-ups and how many sit-ups you did today?

Herschel Walker: I’ve done about a thousand sit-ups so far and about 500 push-ups…and I’ll probably do 1000 sit ups and 250 or 500 push ups.

JZ: So you do them in sets? When I was growing up, I always thought that you did them bam-bam-bam all at once. And then you would go and eat an entire horse, because doing all of that sounds exhausting.

HW: Oh, no. I only eat one meal a day. I’m not a guy that loves to eat. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s almost unfair how much attention the media and especially the government have given performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball when there are other sporting leagues and organizations desperately in need of congressional intervention. I mean, how many NBA players have to be busted smoking the pot before the Vatican and Interpol organize a hard target investigation? But today’s latest PED scandal is in the world of mixed martial arts, as some fighters are apparently using canned oxygen as the spinach to their Popeye.

For example, the latest culprits are Muhammed “King Mo” Luwal and KJ Noons, who very openly used compressed oxygen during their respective fights at Strikeforce: Houston on Saturday night. Noons was victorious over his opponent Jorge Gurgel, which would lead us to believe that cheaters always win. Unfortunately, King Mo bucked that trend by losing his light heavyweight title after Rafael Cavalcante scored the TKO in the third round. I know, I know. I totally had King Mo in my Strikeforce: Houston pool this weekend, too. What a letdown.

Put me in a rear naked choke, Fightlinker:

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