(Gonzaga’s game-plan begins to fall apart at UFC 80; photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

How far the mighty fall: Once the UFC’s #1 heavyweight contender, Gabriel Gonzaga will reportedly be facing Team Punishment journeyman Justin McCully in his next bout, at UFC 86 (July 5th, Las Vegas). McCully will be looking for his second win in the Octagon, after defeating Antoni Hardonk by decision at UFC Fight Night 9 in April 2007; he hasn’t competed since then. The match is particularly important for Gonzaga, who’s been on a two-fight skid since knocking out Mirko Cro Cop at UFC 70. Not only did Gonzaga lose big matches to Randy Couture and Fabricio Werdum, he didn’t look impressive in either bout, leading some fans to question his heart. Fighting McCully is Napao’s last chance to redeem himself; if he doesn’t have a successful showing, you can bet he’ll be a victim of the UFC’s ongoing roster cuts.

In other UFC news…

— Due to a busted ankle, Alessio Sakara has been forced to withdraw from The Ultimate Fighter 7 finale (June 21st, Las Vegas). Replacing Sakara in his middleweight bout against Rob Yundt is Rob Kimmons, a 20-3 veteran of an alphabet soup of regional leagues who will be making his UFC debut.

— Yes, you heard that right. Karo Parisyan is the “gatekeeper” of the UFC’s welterweight division, according to Dana White. Ouch, buddy!

— The UFC just sent a cease-and-desist letter to Tito Ortiz for wearing the UFC’s championship belt on the cover of his new autobiography, This Is Gonna Hurt. The belt is “intellectual property of the UFC…as such, its use in promotional materials requires the company’s approval per the terms of its standard contract.” Now who’s the bitch?

(I like my ‘chino enemas with extra foam.)

For those of you unaware, the UFC had an event on Saturday – UFC 82. We’ve given you results & commentary, payouts, 7/11 encounters, Chuck-Heads, and more. And to cap off our thoroughly kick-ass coverage of it all, here are the traditional Monday-after suspensions.

The Ohio Athletic Commission has revealed that only four of the fighters from the event have been slapped with medical suspensions. Each of the fighters who got the on-hold ruling lost via KO or TKO, although no broken bones or lacerations were reported. Since, Yushin Okami has been said to have broken his hand while KOing Evan Tanner and Josh Koscheck possibly might have broken his as well while dealing Dustin Hazelett his TKO and subsequent medical suspension.

Evan Tanner pulled a 60-day suspension, while O’Brien, Hazelett and Sakara all got 30-day suspensions. Overall, pretty tame suspensions for a major MMA event.

However, the best suspension announcement was Luke Cummo’s caffeine overload suspension. Fightlinker “broke” the story early today that Luke Cummo had received a three-month suspension for having “extremely elevated caffeine levels beyond anything the commission had ever seen before.”

“Normally we don’t pay that much attention to the level of caffeine in a fighter’s blood,” said OAC commissioner Warren Petty. “But Luke Cummo’s readings were off the chart. At first we thought there must be a mistake with the test, but follow ups showed that our original findings were accurate. This guy must have been tripping balls in the Octagon.”

Oh, you had us until tripping balls, although I wouldn’t put it past the made-up OAC member, Warren Petty, to say something like that. The story went on to say 3-liter coffee enemas were to blame, but luckily MMA Weekly was johnny-on-the-spot and squashed this one – not that anyone was buying it after “tripping balls”. However, OAC executive director Bernie Profato wasn’t too happy about the hoax story and had this to say about the matter:

“I’ll be contacting the state’s Attorney General office (on Tuesday) to see what options we have in this type of matter because this is absolutely not true.”

I’m sure Zuffa will be filing suit soon as well.

Josh Koscheck vs. Dustin Hazelett, the best fight of the undercard. Awesome exchanges in the beginning, explosive finish at the end.

Andrei Arlovski vs. Jake O’Brien. Feel free to skip past the entire first round.

More fights after the jump…

(Chris Leben, not on his best day.)

Andrei Arlovski? Undercard!

Josh Koscheck? Undercard!

Diego Sanchez? Undercard!

Chris Leben and Alessio Sakara? MAIN CARD!

That’s right! The UFC has officially added a middleweight bout between Chris Leben and Alessio Sakara to next month’s “Pride of a Champion” event — which is all good, but due to a lapse in judgement, it has been slated for the main card, and the scheduled fight between Diego Sanchez and David Bielkheden has been dropped to the prelims. (The full UFC 82 card, as it stands now, can be seen here).

We already know why Arlovski is being given a potentially untelevised undercard match, and we’d love to know what Diego Sanchez and Josh Koscheck did to deserve their dark-card status. We can’t help but see the main-card placement of Leben/Sakara — both of whom are 2-2 in their last four UFC fights and not particularly popular among fans — as a clear message that Sanchez and Koscheck are no longer in favor. Have they been bitching about money lately too? Does Dana White blame Sanchez for driving away Ali Sonoma? Did the UFC realize that Josh Koscheck’s hair gives people nightmares? Maybe if Leben and Sakara were hometown boys it would make more sense, but Hawaii and Italy are a long way off from Columbus.

To be honest, we get why any fighter who drops two in a row (a la Sanchez) might need to do a little penance, but Koscheck is coming off his first loss in six fights — against GSP, no less — and that doesn’t make him less of a draw than Chris freakin’ Leben. So yeah, mighty suspicious. We’ll do some digging and let you know what we come up with.

Ending in one of UFC 80′s six KO/TKOs, the fight between light heavys Alessio Sakara and James Lee was by far the stupidest match of the night, with Lee’s relentless pursuit of Sakara’s leg actually drawing laughs from the crowd. We predicted this one to end with Lee submitting Sakara, but we didn’t plan on Lee throwing out his back. Slapstick comedy ensued. Check it out before the UFC goes on its inevitable video-pulling spree.