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(Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

Some frighteningly dominant performances mixed with some very mediocre ones to form this edition of the Potato Index.  Our arbitrary numerical rankings system sorts through each fighter’s rise or fall after UFC 101.  Were we the only ones who locked our door and slept with the lights on after watching Anderson Silva?  Even then we had nightmares about his fade-away jab and woke up hearing his lengthy Portuguese shout-out echoing in our ears.  Freaky.

Anderson Silva +411
Simply finishing a fight and looking like his old self again would have been enough.  Instead Silva puts on a Jedi striking display and makes a top-ten light heavyweight look like a special needs child.  Might as well go up to 205 lbs. for good now.  The middleweights have suffered enough under his reign.

Forrest Griffin -276
Maybe the most embarrassing knockout ever, and that was after about three minutes of the most one-sided fight in recent memory.  Does it help to know that it came at the hands of the sport’s pound-for-pound best?  Probably not.  Feel better, FoGriff.

(Get ready for hell, Philly. Stay just about as hellish as usual, Pittsburgh.)

You know what time it is.  With UFC 101 set to invade Philadelphia on Saturday night, we debate the possibilities for an upset, whether the lackluster undercard presents the perfect opportunity to go make ourselves some hoagies, and so much more.

Who has the best chance of scoring an upset this weekend: Kenny Florian, Forrest Griffin, or Brian Bowles?
 
BG: I have to go with Griffin, because at least you can point to his size as one clear advantage he has over Anderson Silva. Plus, he's a tough S.O.B. who's not afraid to take a punch — which means he'll probably do better against the Spider than Patrick Cote and Thales Leites, who seemed to be psyched out before they even stepped into the cage. I like what Forrest has been saying about "touching" Silva, and focusing on just making contact. I'm not saying he'll be successful, but at least he'll give Silva a fight, and that's a good start. You can't shock the world if you don't put the ball into play.

(Nice t-shirt, Miguel. See? There are distinct advantages to being small enough to shop in the kids' section at Wal-Mart.)

It may have slipped your mind with all the UFC 101 hype and Fedor/M-1/Strikeforce trash talk this week, but there’s also a WEC event this weekend.  I know, right?  We totally almost forgot, too.  But as long as we’re talking about it we might as well take a look at the betting lines, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Miguel Torres (-300) vs. Brian Bowles (+285)
Takeya Mizugaki (-185) vs. Jeff Curran (+160)
Joseph Benavidez (-250) vs. Dominic Cruz (+210)
Leonard Garcia (-400) vs. Jameel Massough (+375)
Ricardo Lamas (-170) vs. Danny Castillo (+160)
Marcus Hicks (-115) vs. Shane Roller (-115)
Ed Ratcliff (-300) vs. Phil Cardella (+300)
Fredson Paxiao (-165) vs. Cole Province (+140)
Diego Nunes (-360) vs. Rafael Dias (+300)
Rani Yahya (-700) vs. John Hosman (+550)
LC Davis (even) vs. Javier Vasquez (-115)

The breakdown…

(Just then, in mid-thai clinch, Anderson Silva realized that hurting people no longer gave him any pleasure. He could not help but be overcome by the meaninglessness of it all, and he resolved that he would find a way to remain champion without ever harming another human being again. And the people, he felt certain, would love and cherish him forever...)

If you want to know how much of a difference oddsmakers think the move up in weight will make on UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva, you need look no further than the general consensus formed by the betting lines.  No one has Silva as anything less than a 3-1 favorite at the moment, with one even tagging him a 5-1 favorite.  Is it weird that online bookmakers aren’t even giving Forrest Griffin, the former UFC light heavyweight champ, a decent chance to send “The Spider” back to his own division?  Maybe.  But we should also remember that these are the people who handicap fights for a living.  And they seem to be predicting a serious ass-whipping.

The most favorable lines on the internet come to us courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

B.J. Penn (-228) vs. Kenny Florian (+215)
Anderson Silva (-345) vs. Forrest Griffin (+301)
Amir Sadollah (-115) vs. Johnny Hendricks (+104)
Ricardo Almeida (-145) vs. Kendall Grove (+139)
Josh Neer (-195) vs. Kurt Pellegrino (+190)
Aaron Riley (-150) vs. Shane Nelson (+140)
Tamdan McCrory (-175) vs. John Howard (+174)
Thales Leites (-330) vs. Alessio Sakara (+325)
Matthew Riddle (-150) vs. Dan Cramer (+153)
George Sotiropoulos (-380) vs. George Roop (+260)
Danillo Villefort (-180) vs. Jesse Lennox (+170)

The breakdown…

(Johny Hendricks vs. Richard Gamble, 3/15/08)

Saturday night will see the Octagon debuts of three welterweights who joined up with the WEC just before the league folded its 170-pound division. Now the UFC will give these fighters a chance to prove themselves — slotting one of them in a high-profile main card fight against TUF 7 winner Amir Sadollah. Get to know UFC 101’s trio of newbies below…

JOHNY HENDRICKS (WW)
Experience: 5-0 record (3 wins by TKO, 1 by submission). His last two fights were in the WEC, where he defeated Justin Haskins and Alex Serdyukov.
Will be facing: Amir Sadollah (1-0 MMA/UFC)


Lowdown: While wrestling at Oklahoma State University, Hendricks won two NCAA Division I titles at 165-pounds, and was a three-time Big 12 Conference champion. After graduating in 2007, he racked up three MMA wins in local Oklahoma shows before joining the WEC. But despite his fearsome wrestling credentials, he doesn't plan on laying on top of Sadollah for three rounds. As he said in this UFC.com profile: “You can’t afford to play in Amir’s guard at any point. A lot of wrestlers have tried that with Amir and have ended up failing badly...I actually now like to stand and strike. I’ve tried to finish all my fights while standing on my feet. If I take a guy down and he wants to get back up, I’ll just let them...I want to provide entertaining fights, not wrestling matches. If I’m not active on top, I’ll back out and stand up. The happiness of the fans is what pays the bills and I’m aware of that.” Hendricks has recently been training at Striking Unlimited in Las Vegas.