Brandon Vera

('Seriously Brandon, quit it. I'm not going to tell you again.' Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

The data is in for UFC 105, and now the Potato Index’s arbitrary numerical rankings system is here to tell you who’s up and who’s down after this weekend’s UK action.

Randy Couture +25
It goes down as another win on his permanent record, but it just as easily could have gone the other way.  He’s still great when it comes to executing a game plan, and any man who can bounce back from those kicks to the body is a tough S.O.B., but a methodical, debatable win over a mid-level 205’er doesn’t herald the dawning of a new age for Randy the light heavyweight.

Brandon Vera -21
As close as this fight was, Vera can’t complain.  He spent most of the bout with his back on the fence, and when he finally put Couture in trouble he let him off the hook rather than trying to finish him off.  Sorry, Truth.  Looks like the middle of the pack is where you’re going to stay.

(The word you're looking for is, Daaaamn! Props: MMA TKO)

Last night's UFC event in Manchester, England sure drew the locals out of their pubs, setting a new UFC record for attendance at a European event with 16,693 attendees for a live gate of more than $2 million.  That means the UFC had plenty of spare cash for bonuses, and they gave out $40,000 bumps to Michael Bisping and Denis Kang (Fight of the Night), Terry Etim (Submission of the Night), and Denis Siver (KO of the Night).  Etim was the easy choice, since he had the night's only submission, but we would have thought that Andre Winner earned a KO bonus with the memory-eraser you see above.  Siver's must have been truly spectacular, or else the UFC is using him as part of a money laundering scheme.  It's definitely one of those two.

Of course, the decision that handed Randy Couture the win over Brandon Vera at UFC 105 is already being called "controversial," though it was such a close three-round fight that we'd probably be hearing the same gripes if it had gone the other way.  Sure, Vera came the closest to finishing the fight, but that one burst of offense in the econd round was the most significant action of the fight.  Aside from that, it was a lot of Couture pressing Vera up against the fence, stifling any attempts at offense.  That's never going to be easy to score or even all that satisfying to watch.  One thing we can all agree on, though....

(When Logan saw the scarf, a chill went through her body. The beaten, bloodied man she saw in the alley — suddenly it all made sense. / Photo courtesy of the UFC 105: Weigh in Pics set on CombatLifestyle.)

By now, Randy Couture and Brandon Vera have already headlined UFC 105 in Manchester, England. Either Mike Swick or Dan Hardy has earned a title shot against Georges St. Pierre. Michael Bisping could have put on a heroic performance against Denis Kang in front of his fellow Brits, or he could have been exposed again. Maybe I already know what happened in these fights; if so, I'm not telling, at least not yet. Maybe you know as well, in which case we're flattered that you're here, but we're a little curious as to what you're doing on CagePotato on a Saturday night, reading descriptions of fights that you've already seen live in England or via an Internet feed, or at the very least spoiled for yourself on another website, especially when they're being shown right now on Spike TV, though if you live on the West Coast, the show won't even begin for another three hours. It's all a little mind-bending when you stop to think about it, so don't. Don't think. Simply flow, and flow simply. Exist only in this moment. Round-by-round updates from the UFC 105 Spike TV broadcast are after the jump. Refresh the page every few minutes to see the latest, and please leave your thoughts in the comments section. Now, let us watch fights...

I spoke with Brandon Vera for an SI.com article this week about his fight with Randy Couture at UFC 105 and what it would mean for him to beat a legend.  To hear Vera tell it, he realizes that he got a little too full of himself early in his career, but his new training partners have brought him back down to earth.  He says he's never trained harder for a fight in his life, but he still had some trouble trying to figure out how he's going to throw anything at Couture that the guy hasn't already seen:

"I was thinking, what can I do to Randy that he's never experienced before? I thought long and hard about it and it's tough because of who he is and how long he's been in the sport. But Randy's never fought anybody with kicks and shins like me. I only have to hit him three or four times each round with my shin, and it could change the fight. I'm going to hit Randy like he's never been hit before."

In other words, he's going to try to do to Couture what he did to Mike Patt.  But this begs the question, if Vera is so confident in his ability to break opponents down and put them away with his kicks, why didn't he try to do more of that in his last fight with K-Sos, which he won via a very narrow decision?  His answer might surprise you:

(Couture was under the impression that everyone would be wearing scarves in England, but now he just feels like a jerk. Thanks for nothing, Tim Gunn. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

First, let’s set aside a couple ugly rumors regarding betting on UK UFC cards.  There is no truth to the suggestion that your money, once you inevitably lose it by betting big on Shannon Gugerty, will go to Buckingham Palace’s “moat fund.”  Even if the event is in England, your squandered cash still goes to the same off-shore betting establishments as usual.  And no, those off-shore bookies aren’t going to then use the money to hire models to do bikini jiu-jitsu.  That’s old hat to them by now.  At this point the only way they can still feel alive is by renting that cabin in Canada where all the online bookmakers gather each year to hunt the ultimate prey: man!

Now that that’s out of the way, here are the most favorable UFC 105 odds on the internet, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Randy Couture (-105) vs. Brandon Vera (-103)
Mike Swick (-210) vs. Dan Hardy (+199)
Michael Bisping (+112) vs. Denis Kang (-117)
James Wilks (+138) vs. Matt Brown (-151)
Ross Pearson (+180) vs. Aaron Riley (-200)
Paul Taylor (+210) vs. John Hathaway (-240)
Terry Etim (-325) vs. Shannon Gugerty (+300)
Nick Osipczak (+265) vs. Matt Riddle (-290)
Paul Kelly (-320) vs. Dennis Siver (+300)
Alexander Gustafsson (+135) vs. Jared Hamman (-139)
Andre Winner (-325) vs. Roli Delgado (+325)

The breakdown…