(‘Is this about those stolen Octagon bracelets you found in my locker?  Because I was just holding those for Baroni.’ Photo courtesy of The Sun.)

It’s a tough time to be licking your wounds in the UFC. In a move that likely has every fighter to post an ‘L’ on his record at UFC 109 sweating bullets, the organization has reportedly released the “next Anderson Silva,” the “Godfather of ground-and-pound,” and the guy who was on the wrong end of the UFC’s fastest knockout (officially, anyway). Let’s take them one at a time, shall we?

- Mark Coleman (1-2 in his most recent UFC run) lost a one-sided contest of MMA elders to Randy Couture during a week that saw him run out of gas on the 215 freeway and get heckled by Tito Ortiz in his post-fight interview. Losing your job after all that makes your life start to sound like a cliché country music song. Please just tell us that his dog is okay.

- Phillipe Nover (0-3 in the UFC) lost a unanimous decision to Rob Emerson on the UFC 109 preliminary card, which, when added to his kind of bullshit TKO loss to Kyle Bradley and his totally legitimate decision loss to Efrain Escudero in the TUF 8 Finale, pretty much guaranteed that he’d be cut. For a guy once hailed as a 155-pound Anderson Silva, he turned out to be an epic Octagon bust.

- Tim Hague (1-2 in UFC) lost a majority decision to Chris Tuchscherer in a prelim fight, making it his second straight loss after the seven-second KO against Todd Duffee. His lone win came via guillotine choke against Pat Barry, and even then he took a little bit of a beating to get it.

So, any big surprises? Not really. You could argue that Coleman, who is 1-1 in his last two and is the only one of these three who could legitimately call himself a legend, might deserve more of a chance to get back in the win column. But we all know that ‘legend’ is often sports shorthand for ‘old,’ and even if he did hang on it would likely only be for one more fight.

The big question now is whether he’ll slip into retirement gracefully or go out and Ken Shamrock it up in the minor leagues for meager paydays against nobody opponents. Everything we know about the fight game and the nature of economic despair says, almost certainly the latter.