Since it was such a success* last time, we thought we’d take another crack at predicting which fighters will pocket tomorrow‘s end-of-night bonuses. But first we’d like to predict the amount of the bonuses themselves. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the UFC’s Fight/Submission/Knockout bonuses have decreased from $55,000 to $50,000 to $35,000 over the last three pay-per-view events. After the last drastic reduction, the general opinion was that the amounts were going down to recoup some of the money lost to the UFC’s European expansion effort. Now that the show is back in the U.S., they can be a little more generous. And they will — but just enough to demonstrate improvement and shut people up. We’re saying the bonuses will be $40k each. Now let’s get to the fight card:

MAIN CARD
Tim Sylvia vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (heavyweights)
Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar (heavyweights)
Jeremy Horn vs. Nate Marquardt (middleweights)
Rob Yundt vs. Ricardo Almeida (middleweights)

PRELIMINARY CARD
Gleison Tibau vs. Tyson Griffin (lightweights)
Chris Lytle vs. Kyle Bradley (welterweights)
Marvin Eastman vs. Terry Martin (middleweights)
David Heath vs. Tim Boetsch (light heavyweights)
Keita Nakamura vs. Rob Emerson (welterweights)

Knockout of the Night: Eastman vs. Martin is a battle between two good fighters who have had terrible luck in the Octagon. The winner will prove that he still belongs there; the loser could very well be banished forever. Thus, we expect both men to come out swinging their asses off. We were tempted to give this a Fight of the Night nod, but it feels too much like a first-round-TKO kind of match. Marvin Eastman has been knocked out every time he’s fought in the UFC. Four of Terry Martin’s last five fights have resulted in KO/TKO victories — and we think he’ll do it again tomorrow night, picking up the bonus in the process. Dark horse: Kyle Bradley. If you want to talk about good fighters who have had rough times in the Octagon, Chris Lytle is Exhibit fucking A (34-15-4 MMA record, 3-7 in the UFC). There’s nothing to suggest that his fortunes will improve at “Breaking Point,” and his opponent Kyle Bradley is a guy who has been paying his dues in regional promotions as a knockout artist. His current seven-fight win-streak includes five first-round KO/TKOs, and he could be on his way to adding one more.

(Paul Taylor bashes Paul Kelly during their “Fight of the Night.”)

Things are tough all over, I guess. The UFC released its customary bonuses after UFC 80, but each one was only $35,000, a full $20,000 less than the bonuses handed out after UFC 79. This is the first time we can recall that the bonuses actually went down from one event to the next. We knew European expansion was a bitch, financially speaking, but it’s unfortunate that the fighters had to tighten their belts to recoup some of the costs. Anyway, here’s who got the extra cash:

Fight of the Night: Paul Kelly and Paul Taylor. Each Brit got $35k, primarily for the insane brawl that kicked off the first round; after that, it was fairly dull GnP domination from Paul Kelly, who won a unanimous decision.

Knockout of the Night: Wilson Gouveia earned $35k for his out-of-nowhere comeback blast of Jason Lambert.

Submission of the Night: B.J. Penn collected $35k by default for his rear-naked-choke of Joe Stevenson, UFC 80′s only tap-out.

Thus, I went 1-3 in my predictions. And commenter MattyLight owes commenter Olie $5. (Sorry buddy!) Feel free to work out the exchange in the comments section.

Start gathering the beer and microwavable pizza rolls: “Rapid Fire” goes down tomorrow night in Newcastle (3 p.m. ET, noon PT). We’ll be liveblogging the event with round-by-round updates, so be sure to swing by if you don’t want to shell out the money for pay-per-view.

Speaking of money, we’d like to be the first in the MMA blogosphere to make official predictions on who will be taking home the UFC’s traditional end-of-night bonuses, which were a hefty $50k/apiece at UFC 79. To refresh, here’s the lineup:

MAIN CARD
B.J. Penn vs. Joe Stevenson (lightweights)
Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Fabricio Werdum (heavyweights)
Marcus Davis vs. Jess Liaudin (welterweights)
Jason Lambert vs. Wilson Gouveia (light heavyweights)
Kendall Grove vs. Jorge Rivera (middleweights)
PRELIMINARY CARD
Antoni Hardonk vs. Colin Robinson (heavyweights)
Paul Kelly vs. Paul Taylor (welterweights)
James Lee vs. Alessio Sakara (light heavyweights)
Per Eklund vs. Sam Stout (lightweights)

Fight of the Night: Expect a relentless, violent war from Marcus Davis and Jess Liaudin. Not only are both men total sluggers, but they’re both riding significant win streaks that they’ll want to protect at all costs. One more win for Davis and he’ll start getting higher-level competition. One more win for Liaudin and people will finally know who he is. And it’s never a good idea to bet against Kid Bonus. Dark horse: Gabriel Gonzaga and Fabricio Werdum, if they’re firing on all cylinders tomorrow night. Both are coming off of terrible performances in embarrassing losses, and are looking to prove themselves. As for the main event, we see it going one of two ways: Penn wins by early submission (likely), or Stevenson grinds out a relatively boring decision (somewhat less likely). Either way, it won’t be Fight of the Night.

Submission of the Night: Penn, probably. Though if he beats Stevenson with just a simple armbar or rear-naked without any flash to it, the bonus may go to James Lee, a King of the Cage veteran who’s making his UFC debut at “Rapid Fire.” In his last 11 fights, Lee has racked up 10 wins with one no contest, and nine of those wins have been by submission. Known primarily as a boxer, his opponent Alessio Sakara will almost certainly be eating a tap-out loss.

Knockout of the Night: They don’t call him “Hands of Stone” for nothing. Though Sam Stout’s UFC record has been spotty, he was known for his knockouts in the Canadian MMA organization TKO, and we see him coming out on top of Eklund. Dark horse: Gabriel Gonzaga. If he could murder Cro Cop with a headkick, he could do it to anyone.

Make sense? Shoot us your own predictions in the comments section…

MMAJunkie has obtained salary figures for UFC 79′s fighters. The numbers are below; keep in mind that every winning fighter’s figure represents a doubling of their base salary, except for Chuck Liddell, who apparently earns half a million dollars per fight no matter what the outcome is.

MAIN CARD
Georges St. Pierre ($160,000 + $50,000 “Submission of the Night” bonus) def. Matt Hughes ($100,000)

Chuck Liddell ($500,000) def. Wanderlei Silva ($150,000) — both fighters received an additional $50,000 “Fight of the Night” bonus

Eddie Sanchez ($46,000 + $50,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus) def. Soa Palelei ($5,000)

Lyoto Machida ($60,000) def. Rameau Sokoudjou ($40,000)

Rich Clementi ($28,000) def. Melvin Guillard ($10,000)