(Photo courtesy of NewMexicoBoxing.com.)

The UFC has officially announced five bouts for the supporting card of their historic UFC 100 event, which goes down July 11th at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas; tickets go on sale to the general public tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. Here’s what the lineup looks like so far, according to UFC 100′s fight card page on UFC.com:

Main Card
Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir (for unified heavyweight championship)
Georges St. Pierre vs. Thiago Alves (for welterweight championship)
Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping (MW)
Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Alan Belcher (MW)

"May not be broadcast"
Jon Jones vs. Jake O’Brien (LHW)
Dong Hyun Kim vs. Jonathan Goulet (WW)
CB Dollaway vs. Tom Lawlor (MW)
Matt Grice vs. Shannon Gugerty (LW)

For some reason, the light-heavyweight match between Mark Coleman and Stephan Bonnar isn’t listed on UFC.com, even though Amir Sadollah confirmed the fight during an "Inside the Octagon" segment on Wednesday’s installment of The Ultimate Fighter. In addition, welterweights Jon Fitch and Paulo Thiago have reportedly agreed to meet at UFC 100, while a new report from MMA Weekly claims that a lightweight bout between Mac Danzig and Jim Miller will also be added to the card.

Brock Lesnar talks with "Inside MMA’s" Ron Kruck about Frank Mir and that silly "make believe" belt that Mir took off of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.  Isn’t it adorable the way Frank thinks that hunk of metal and leather is real?  Just precious.

Joe Rogan swigs Diet Coke and waxes philosophical about the Chuck Liddell of old and the old Chuck Liddell of the present ("the guy’s thirty-nine years old, cut him some slack").  Honestly, it’s a pretty candid assessment of where Liddell and Shogun Rua are at this point in their respective careers, if perhaps a little too apologetic on Shogun’s behalf.  Rogan didn’t seem as willing to make excuses for Rua’s poor conditioning back when he was burying him from the broadcast table at UFC 93.

After the jump, something extremely disturbing, and at the same time boring.

#10: Shinya Aoki’s Flying Guard Pull/Japanese Backpack

(Aoki vs. Cavalcante and Moore, respectively.)

When you fight Aoki you know he wants to get things to the ground, and he knows that you know it.  Takedowns and sweeps can be hard to come by against an opponent looking to defend them and almost nothing else, so Aoki has had to find other , more creative ways of getting the fight where he wants it, even getting thrown and briefly mounted from time to time.  One of our favorite maneuvers is his flying guard pull.  It may look silly, but more often than not you’re coming down with him and playing the ground game.  If you defend that, he can always jump on you from behind like a kitschy Japanese backpack.  Think "Hello Kitty," only way more dangerous. 

#9: Matt Hughes‘ Slam

(Hughes KO slams Newton at the 1-minute mark, Frank Trigg gets his at 3:20.)

When wrestlers first emerged as a dominant force in MMA they faced an obvious problem: nothing in their background had prepared them to finish fights.  In the UFC, pinning dudes will just get you boos and a call for action from Big John, so you’d better come up with something else.  Matt Hughes did, and that something was his farmboy slam.  He knocked Carlos Newton out with it at UFC 34, and used it as a staple in his game for years.  Even if it was rarely as effective in ending fights as it was against Newton, it still looked cool when he walked across the cage with an opponent on his shoulder like a sack of flour, and it sure got the fans fired up, like it did in Hughes’ dramatic comeback victory against Frank Trigg at UFC 52.

(Mir talks with the Jiminy Glick of sports interviewers at the Arnold Classic.  Props: MMA Fanhouse.)

Reports are coming in from all sides regarding Frank Mir’s readiness to fight Brock Lesnar at UFC 98.  Dana White says he still doesn’t think the fight is off, while Mir is saying otherwise.  

Sources tell us that Mir’s camp asked the UFC not to announce the fight earlier this week since the champ had just had knee surgery that would prevent him from training other than on a treadmill or in a pool for 4-6 weeks.  The UFC apparently ignored these wishes and announced the fight anyway, which they’ll probably have to scrap if they can’t convince Mir that it’s no biggie for him to be unable to train before the biggest fight of his life.

So what will the UFC do for a main event in May?  The rumor is they may try and replace the heavyweight bout with Rashad Evans making his first title defense against either “Rampage” Jackson or Lyoto Machida.  If true, it would salvage the May event, while also finally indicating that the UFC is no longer in denial about the Mir-Lesnar fight is off.  As any therapist will tell you, acceptance is a painful but necessary first step.

(Well, it didn’t really look like these two BFFs wanted to fight anyway.)

FiveOuncesofPain breaks it:

A follow-up report by MMA Mania called it a knee injury, not a back injury, but the situation remains the same — UFC 98′s headlining bout has gone from Lesnar vs. Mir to Hughes vs. Serra. Unless, of course, the UFC throws in a replacement for Mir. (The winner of Gonzaga/Carwin, anybody?) But with the rivalry and dual titles that Lesnar and Mir have accumulated in the last year, it’s hard to imagine that the UFC would risk giving Lesnar a loss and killing the heat behind the matchup. Stay tuned…

(Image courtesy of the UFC.)

From a new bulletin on UFC.com:

This matchup has always been interesting because the position where Lesnar is the strongest (slugging from the top) alligns with the position where Mir is the strongest (subbing from the bottom). So it’ll be interesting to see if Brock opts for the same strategy this time around — taking Mir to the mat right away and trying to overwhelm him with ground-and-pound. As he learned at UFC 81, that’s a good way to get caught in a freak kneebar.  Could we be seeing an epic standup war in the rematch?

          
(Not pictured: Chuck Liddell’s bloated-stomach attachment. Photos courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

If you still play with dolls (or have children that do), you may be interested in JAKKS Pacific’s upcoming line of UFC-related action figures and accessories, which will hit stores this fall. MMA Weekly passes along this press release laying out the details:

(Props: The Garv)

According to the profile on Anderson Silva in the current issue of Fight! magazine, the Spider actually started his MMA career 0-2; he lost his first match against Fabricio Marango before dropping a decision to Luis Azeredo, a fight that most databases list as his official debut. It wasn’t until Silva’s third attempt — a 66-second TKO of Jose Barreto at a Meca event in August 2000 — that the UFC’s current middleweight king tasted victory. The fight would be the first in a nine-fight win streak that saw him score victories over Hayato Sakurai, Roan Carneiro, and Carlos Newton, establishing him as an up-and-comer with enormous potential. Video of the Silva/Barreto fight is above. It ain’t much, but every legend has to start somewhere.

Below: A recent TV profile on Brock Lesnar, where a haggard-sounding, Busey-esque narrator takes us through Lesnar’s sporting life, beginning with some great footage of his college wrestling career. 

(Props: MMA Mania)

Yeah, Brock Lesnar and I are friends on Facebook.  We’re also both friends with Fedor Emelianenko, and probably a lot of people we went to high school with who we were never friends with in real life, but that’s Facebook, isn’t it?  The point here is, check out Brock’s status.  If nothing else, this thing that claims to be his Facebook page thinks he is now officially fighting Frank Mir at UFC 98 in May, as previous rumors have suggested.

Fortunately, Brock has helpful friends like Paul Wallin there, who livens all of our days with a cute little Mir-is-a-pussy joke that’s straight out of eighth grade.  Real nice.  Nothing says, "I have no actual experience with women or their genitalia" quite like that old classic.

And don’t worry, one of Brock’s other Facebook friends has already warned him to beware of the "angle lock."  Hear that, Mir?  Looks like someone just gave away your whole game plan.  Now what?

(UFC 97: Big Building vs. Lightning Bolt. Tickets now available at ConvolutedMetaphor.com.)

Hey, sorry we haven’t done t-shirt giveaways in a few weeks — that’s on us, player. But there’s been a lot of commenter brilliance happening lately, so let’s do this…

Lysol on "Rampage Pleads Guilty to Reckless Driving…": I want to see two guest lectures in the near future: The Importance of Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise by Rampage Jackson and Black Belt Jiu Jitsu Grappling by Tank Abbott.

??? on "Kimbo Slice Has a ‘Boxing Machine’":
http://i713.photobucket.com/albums/ww133/CrushCo/Kimbo.jpg
[Ed. note: This comment somehow disappeared from the post, so we don't know who sent it in or what the exact setup was, but it was something along the lines of "Check out the prize I got from playing this game," and it was kind of amazing.]

John Kimble on "This Just In: MMA Is Finished, XARM to Take Over": Lyoto Machida and Kalib Starnes would be awful at this.

And finally, this idiot-savant-like exchange on our current poll:

If you happen to be any of these people (except for the multiple Anonymouses, because if you can’t come up with a clever screen-name, you’re ineligible to win) and you want a CagePotato "Hall of Fame" t-shirt, send your name, size, and address to feedback@cagepotato.com. And have a great day!

(If God intended for man to fly, we would all have been born with Gonzaga’s foot in our gut.)

Gabriel Gonzaga and Shane Carwin have signed to face each other at UFC 96, which should make for exactly the kind of test we’ve wanted to see Carwin in ever since he knocked Christian Wellish’s mouthpiece into the peaceful night sky at UFC 84.  Carwin is 10-0 with two first-round wins by total destruction in his only two UFC fights, and Gonzaga is 2-2 in his last four fights, including a submission win over bottom-dweller Justin McCully and a TKO of one-and-done UFC newcomer Josh Hendricks.

So why is Gonzaga’s camp so convinced this fight with Carwin should earn “Napao” a shot at the winner of Frank Mir-Brock Lesnar II?

“It’s going to be a tough fight and [if he wins] Napao (Gonzaga) will have [earned the right] to face the winner of Mir vs. Lesnar,” Gonzaga’s trainer, Marco Alvan, told Brasil Combate.

The concept of having earned a title shot is already a vague one in the UFC, and only more so in the heavyweight division.  Consider that Brock Lesnar earned his shot by going 1-1 in his only two UFC fights, defeating mid-level heavyweight Heath Herring via decision to seal the deal.  Frank Mir earned his shot by beating Lesnar back when he only had one fight to his credit.  In other words, earned has nothing to do with it.

(Photo courtesy of Fight Sport.)

Now that an eventful 2008 is in the books, Alistair Overeem tells DreamFighters.com that he plans to take a little rest, go on vacation, and maybe even swing on over the Ireland to catch UFC 93 on January 17th.  Lest you think it’s purely a sight-seeing trip, the Dutch fighter says his management team has been in talks with the UFC and Affliction, and Overeem says he’s up for fighting everyone from Fedor Emelianenko to Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir.  

After seeing a very bulky Overeem destroy Badr Hari on New Year’s Eve, we can’t deny that we’d like to see him added to the UFC’s heavyweight stable.  Even signing with Affliction would offer him a fresh list of opponents and probably a nice paycheck, though who knows for how long.  But you put a guy like Overeem into the UFC’s heavyweight division and suddenly you have a lot of interesting match-ups on the horizon, and they’d be particularly helpful in the UFC’s European expansion attempts.

Overeem isn’t the only one thinking about stepping into the Octagon, however, as his old rival Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic says he’ll likely retire in 2009, and would like to have one more fight in the UFC before he does.

#5: Affliction: Banned, 7/19/08

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog)

Sure, the pacing was a little shaky, and the picture quality for the pay-per-view broadcast was kind of dark, and apparently some of you don’t think that Megadeth’s Rust in Peace is one of the most kickass records ever released. But you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Affliction’s debut MMA show gave us a supernova of heavyweight star power, featuring Fedor Emelianenko’s 36-second destruction of Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski’s beatdown of Ben Rothwell, and Josh Barnett’s redemptive KO of Pedro Rizzo; elsewhere on the card, we got to see Matt Lindland, Babalu Sobral, Vitor Belfort and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in action. The organization has since turned into a bit of a shit-show, but with Banned, they gave us nearly everything we could have hoped for.

#4: UFC 87: Seek and Destroy, 8/9/08

(Photo courtesy of ESPN)

The UFC’s visit to Minneapolis proved the following…
— Brock Lesnar is an absolute beast. His takedowns can’t be stopped, and his punches tend to break facial bones. He will mock you after he beats you.
— Kenny Florian is a fantastic fighter, and worthy of a title shot; Roger Huerta maybe had a little more hype than substance.
— Demian Maia is one of the most talented submission specialists in MMA, in any organization, in any weight class. His choke-out of Jason MacDonald gave him his third-consecutive Submission of the Night bonus.
— Ben Saunders might actually be a contender one day.
— Jon Jones is athletic and explosive. I’m sorry, but the clichés are true sometimes.
— Jon Fitch is one tough son-of-a-bitch.
— If you’re fighting Georges St. Pierre, tough ain’t enough.

(There may be only one man on earth who can make the Santa hat look cool.)

I don’t want much this holiday season.  Well, besides that Red Ryder BB Gun I ask for every year.  And a pony.  But there are some fights I’d like to see in 2009, and while I don’t think that mall Santa I tried to talk to is going to be any help (let’s just say it got heated and we both said some things we didn’t really mean), I’m holding out hope that the powers that be will hear my pleas and make some of these happen.  

Here’s my wish list of ten fights for 2009.  Some are very likely.  Some are just barely feasible.  But I tried to stay away from the downright impossible, hence the absence of Fedor vs. The Highlander.  Feel free to let me know all about what’s on your list in the comments section:

1. Anderson Silva vs. Georges St. Pierre: Whether GSP beats Penn or not (magic eight ball says, “all signs point to yes,”) this has the potential to be the UFC’s biggest superfight ever.  They have precious few opportunities to settle pound-for-pound debates, but this is their best shot.  If MMA becomes legal in New York this year, as it probably will, this fight could do a Jay-Z and sell out the Garden in a day.

2. B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian: Perhaps no fighter in the UFC has improved so much by sheer force of will as KenFlo.  Penn is the lightweight champ, and he deserves to be, which is why I really wish he’d stop chasing fights in other weight classes and set his sights on defending that title.  Winning a belt is great, but defending it is how you cement your status as a dominant champ.  Penn probably beats Florian in a tough fight, but there’s only one way to find out.

3. Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett: If he beats Arlovski, this is the only realistically possible bout for Fedor that would still be compelling.  I know they’re friends and all, but Affliction is starting to feel like a narrowing path leading only to this fight.  Hopefully all parties concerned – Affliction, Barnett, Fedor, Fedor’s management team – can hold it together long enough to make it happen.

(‘Poor bastard never stood a chance.’)

Frank Mir says it’s important for a fighter to be honest with himself.  Judging from his conversation with Michael David Smith at MMA Fanhouse, however, it seems more like he thinks it’s important to be honest with himself some of the time, when it’s convenient to do so.

Despite the fact that Mir’s bout with Brock Lesnar seemed to be going against him in the early minutes, he’s positive that he’d win a rematch.  Really positive:

"Brock Lesnar will never be able to beat me because he has no submission skills," Mir told me. "What’s he going to do, knock me out? No one has never knocked me cold. What’s he going to do, arm bar me? No way. He is powerful. He is big. But martial arts isn’t filled with guys from the NFL. Lesnar had to grab the cage not to get taken down by Randy Couture, who’s 220 pounds. Lesnar isn’t the phenom that everyone makes him out to be. He started at 30. Have you ever seen a boxer start at 30 and become a world champion?"

I’m not sure what Mir means by “no one has never knocked me cold,” but a quick look at his record reveals three TKO losses.  One of them was in 2006 against Brandon Vera, who hasn’t won a fight by TKO since.  Another was to jiu-jitsu specialist Marcio “Pe de Pano” Cruz, which Mir describes as his “pussiest moment.”

But whenever Mir talks about Nogueira and his chances in that fight, it really doesn’t sound like he’s quite as confident.

(Somebody kill that motherfucker.)

It’s Thanksgiving today, the most gluttonous of all holidays.  So while we play touch football in the yard and gorge ourselves on turkey and potato-based dishes, you can enjoy a little Ben-on-Ben action, with debates covering everything from the future of the heavyweight top ten, the aftermatch of the Jon Fitch debacle, how we prefer to clog our arteries every year around this time, and more.  Enjoy.

Let’s say Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira beats Frank Mir next month (obviously). But let’s also say Brock Lesnar manages to beat Big Nog in the belt-unification match next year. If this nightmare scenario were to become a reality, would you rank Lesnar as the #1 heavyweight in the world, or is it still Fedor until he dies or gets beat?

Goldstein: Christ — it depresses me that we’re actually discussing Brock Lesnar as the potential #1 heavyweight in the world. Do not let us down, Nog!

Anyway, I’m going to say Lesnar would have to be placed at #2 in that situation, not #1, and it’s really just on general principle. No fighter with a 4-1 record should be ranked #1 — even if they’ve beaten two top-five fighters back-to-back — unless they’ve beaten the previous #1 fighter in the world in their division (Emelianenko, in this case). Of course if Andrei Arlovski beats Fedor in January, things go into flux a bit, but I’d say Arlovski moves into the #1 spot at that point, and keeps it even if Lesnar goes on to beat Nogueira. (Does your brain hurt yet from this hypothetical bullshit, or is it just me?)

But who-beat-who-when stats are just one aspect of creating rankings — the other part is infuriatingly subjective, and has to do with talent, and personal opinions on how a certain top-10 fighter would do against other top-10 fighters. And if you want my opinion, here goes: Fedor Emelianenko is worlds more talented than Brock Lesnar at this point. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with M-1’s bluster that Brock wouldn’t last a round with Fedor, but I strongly doubt he’d get his hand raised at the end of the fight. So how could I in good conscience call Lesnar the best heavyweight in the world, even if he does follow his win over Couture with a win over Nogueira?

Fowlkes: There’s a lot of inherent Lesnar hate in this discussion already, but since I’m willing to believe it has more to do with his record than his persona I’ll go along with it.  But let’s admit our bias here.  We don’t want Lesnar to be #1 because he’s still an MMA rookie who came out of the WWE and we’re afraid that if he climbs to the top so quickly, on sheer size and strength alone, not only will the diatribes that show up on the WWE website really get out of hand, but it will become harder to convince anti-MMA jerks that this is truly a nuanced sport.

(Photo courtesy of Arianny’s official website.  The rest of her Hawaii photos are, shall we say, bikini-tastic.)

While we wait patiently to hear just how many pay-per-views UFC 91 sold and whether it lived up to Dana White’s optimistic prediction of 1.2 million, White is already off and running with his next oversized claim.  This one,  not surprisingly, revolves around UFC 94’s B.J. Penn-Georges St. Pierre superfight:

"I’m just coming off a promotion where I got done saying it’s the biggest fight in UFC history in terms of most pay-per-view buys," White said. "I truly believe this fight has the potential to break that. BJ and Georges are heavyweights when it comes to star power."

Is this what we’re going to do every time now?  Has Dana White become a boxing promoter, calling every fight the biggest fight ever, until the next fight?  I realize he’s talking to a Honolulu paper so he has to say some of this stuff, but words mean things.

MMA Payout sees this as an opportunity for us to find out whether the sport of MMA (two established champions, both pound-for-pound greats, neither of whom have been in the WWE) sells as well as the “spectacle” of MMA (Brock Lesnar against that other guy).  You’d like to say that it does, but then again you’d also like to believe that the cute waitress is being so nice because she actually likes you and not just because she works in the service industry and her kids need new shoes.

Gina Carano Interview – Watch more free videos

Our good friend Ariel Helwani of MMA Rated was kind enough to supply us with these exclusive video interviews that he conducted over the weekend. Above the lovely Gina Carano discusses her future, why she can’t run off to the WEC just yet even if Dana White decides he’d like her to, and what exactly was going on between her and Tonya Evinger in those infamous photographs we all enjoyed so much.

Randy Couture Interview – Watch more free videos

Randy Couture talks about his loss to Brock Lesnar, whether he’d consider heading back down to light heavyweight to get away from such beasts, and what’s next for “The Natural.”

After the jump, movie star Cung Le…

(One of MMA’s greatest rivalries is about to get a completely unnecessary epilogue. Photo courtesy of ko.susumug.com.)

Bloody Elbow and The Sun are both reporting that the UFC is currently in negotiations to have dethroned heavyweight champion Randy Couture and former light-heavyweight champ Chuck Liddell face each other for a fourth time in Cologne, Germany, on June 13th. As BE’s Michael Rome writes:

The UFC wants to have Randy on their [first-ever] Germany show because he speaks the language and can do all the promotion. The winner of the fight would face the heavyweight champion in a big fight at the end of the year.

Couture is uninterested in moving down to 205 where Forrest Griffin is champion and Wanderlei Silva is also a contender. Both are close to him and in his camp, and weight cutting takes a toll at his age…

For Liddell, the thought is that…whereas he would have to win a bunch of fights to get back at contention at 205, the heavyweight division is thin enough where he could jump in and be an immediate contender with a win.

It is believed internally that Couture/Liddell will draw better than Silva/Liddell, and they know that a potential Liddell/Lesnar match would probably be the biggest PPV in the history of MMA.

You can’t really argue with the business logic of angling for a Liddell/Lesnar superfight, what with Anderson Silva’s disappointing PPV numbers. And if Couture vs. Liddell IV goes like the previous two installments in 2005 and 2006 (which Chuck won via knockouts), the UFC will get their wish. But where does this leave the Spider?

(This is quickly turning into the “Weekly Bust Urijah Faber’s Balls Contest.” Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle, obvi.)

Between Brock Lesnar’s heavyweight championship win and Jon Fitch’s temporary firing, we probably had more comments posted on CagePotato this week than any other week in our history. I can’t know that for sure because I’m not going to sit here and count them. But you guys are really starting to chime in with your adorable little opinions, and we definitely appreciate it, so keep ‘em coming. Now the question is, who will be getting CP Hall of Fame t-shirts for going above and beyond? Answer:

Patrick on “WWE Gets Its Gloat On”: A little later on in that very same article, WWE.com writers were quoted as saying “also, most UFC fighters wear baggier fitting shorts and are not allowed to slather their hard, toned bodies with vasoline or baby oil, which makes UFC events far more difficult to masturbate to.”

TB on “Lil Fabie’s First Trip to the Strip Club”: Two and a half men

To be honest, that Urijah Faber post produced so much gold it was hard to choose just one standout. (Pat yourselves on the back OB&I, abenormal, and SB.) As for Patrick and TB, please send your address and size to feedback@cagepotato.com and we’ll get those shirts right out to you.

(“Screw it, nobody’s watching anyway.”)

I know, I know, you’re all antsy to learn how many pay-per-view buys UFC 91 took in, and whether Dana White’s estimate of 1.2 million was either strongly optimistic or batshit delusional. You’ll have to be patient, because numbers from UFC 90 are just coming out now — and they aren’t too encouraging. Says the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

The trending patterns as a prediction of the buy rate continued to be right on as the 10/25 show in Chicago headlined by Anderson Silva vs. Patrick Cote did 300,000 buys.

Silva has never been a big main-event draw, PPV-wise. His headlining appearances at UFC 82, 77, and 67 all translated to buys in the 330,000-350,000 range. But in the run-up to last month’s Chicago show, the UFC had been trying extra hard to push him over as a fan-favorite, frequently repeating the talking point that UFC 90 was your chance to see the world’s greatest pound-for-pound fighter in action. The Spike TV special Countdown to UFC 90 brought in a record number of viewers, which was seen as a great sign for the event’s performance on pay-per-view, though MMA Payout points out that the strong viewership could have been due to having a high-rated TNA wrestling show as a lead in.

(Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

M-1 Vice President Jerry Millen released a lengthy statement to the media last night congratulating Randy Couture for his return to competition as well as Brock Lesnar for his UFC heavyweight championship win, while lambasting the UFC for marketing their fighters as the best in the world — when clearly it’s M-1′s own fighter, Fedor Emelianenko, who should hold that distinction. And there’s no secret who Fedor wants to take on next to prove it:

Couture and WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko had publicly acknowledged a desire to fight each other multiple times over the course of the past year. While M-1 and Fedor remain interested in a match against Couture, we would also like to publicly state for the record that we would welcome a superfight between Fedor and Lesnar that would be held as a co-promoted event between the UFC, M-1, and Affliction Entertainment.

We’ve invited the media to speak with us today to not only make it clear we would welcome a Fedor vs. Lesnar matchup, but to act in a preemptive fashion to address the possibility that UFC officials will try and position Lesnar as the number one heavyweight in the world, much like they have tried to use a marketing ploy to brand Anderson Silva as the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

In the past, UFC president Dana White and Zuffa, LLC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta have tried to claim that Fedor was “overrated” and that his “record was irrelevant.” They make these claims in spite of the fact that Fedor holds career victories over UFC champions past and present. While we have tremendous respect for the contributions Mr. Fertitta and Dana have made to this sport, we do not believe they are sincere in their statements.

(Photo courtesy of Si.com)

Now that this crazy weekend of MMA action is in the books, it’s time to sort through the rubble of UFC 91 and figure out who’s up and who’s down. And how will we do that? Arbitrary numbers, baby. It’s the only way.

Brock Lesnar +482

The line of reasoning that says he’s too inexperienced to be deserving of a title shot simply doesn’t hold up after he wins by second-round stoppage. Even if you don’t think he beat the best Couture we’ve ever seen in the Octagon, he still looked positively terrifying in there. This guy can give lots of heavyweights lots of problems, particularly if he continues to improve. And if you’re one of the millions who hate him, well, you’re just playing right into his enormous hands.

Randy Couture -130

Maybe it was age that was Couture’s undoing. Maybe it was size and strength. Regardless, it’s hard to see how he will ever capture another UFC title. A fight against the loser of the Nogueira-Mir match would still be compelling, but time is running out. And fast.

Kenny Florian +274

He dismantled Joe Stevenson much the same way B.J. Penn did, if not more impressively. So why doesn’t Penn seem at all interested in fighting him? Whatever happens in Penn’s superfight with GSP, no lightweight has earned a title shot more than KenFlo and waited so long and so patiently for it. Come on, B.J. Let’s do eet!

(Props: Bloody Elbow)

Here’s a short preview clip of Virtual Mike and Joe discussing Brock Lesnar in the upcoming UFC 2009 Undisputed video game. For more sample clips of Lesnar, click here. A promo video for UFC 93: Franklin vs. Henderson is below, and grainy, hand-held footage of Fedor Emelianenko’s Sambo loss to Blagoi Ivanov awaits you after the jump.

(Props: Fightlinker)

(“It was a big, white, semi-truck. The license plate was JACKLINKS.”)

“The ref [Mario Yamasaki] was going, ‘Eh, is [Couture] OK?’ Mario was trying to give him time [to recover]. There’s a fine line between that and [allowing] too many punches. When I saw Randy go back down, I thought we had crossed that line.” — Dana White on the stoppage in UFC 91′s Lesnar/Couture fight, which some questioned as dangerously late.

“He came in a couple days ago and I introduced him to Manny and the other trainers. We picked out a time…and he’s gonna come in and start training with me. I hear he’s a great striker and I hope we can help him improve even more.” — Beloved boxing trainer Freddie Roach on his new protege, Anderson Silva.

“I’d fight him. The thing about a Machida fight that isn’t appealing to me is that stylistically, Machida is kind of a boring fighter. That’s not a putdown. He’s very, very effective. He’s good at what he does. He’s constantly backing away and forces his opponent into mistakes, and that’s how he catches you. In order to beat him, you really have to fight an intelligent fight, and I think that by not overcommitting yourself on things, it’s going to create a situation where you’re not putting on a fight that’s really exciting for the fans.” — Rich Franklin stating the obvious regarding a potential rematch with Lyoto Machida. Machida gave Franklin his first career loss via TKO at the Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye Festival in 2003.

(“Fruit smoothies are on me tonight, buddy!”)

The UFC paid out a juicy $1,358,000 in disclosed salaries and bonuses for UFC 91, with the night’s headliners walking away with over half of that total. The numbers are below; keep in mind that they don’t include income from sponsorships, undisclosed “locker room bonuses” or pay-per-view percentages, or deductions due to expenses such as insurance and taxes. And here we go…

Brock Lesnar: $450,000 (includes $200,000 win bonus)
Randy Couture: $250,000
Gabriel Gonzaga: $110,000 (includes $55,000 win bonus)
Dustin Hazelett: $88,000 (includes $14,000 win bonus, $60,000 Submission of the Night bonus)
Kenny Florian: $80,000 (includes $40,000 win bonus)
Jeremy Stephens: $76,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus, $60,000 Knockout of the Night bonus)
Jorge Gurgel: $70,000 (includes $60,000 Fight of the Night Bonus)
Aaron Riley: $68,000 (includes $4,000 win bonus, $60,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
Demian Maia: $40,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus)

(Lesnar: title belt, stitches, and all. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Dana White and the cast of fighters from UFC 91 were surprisingly forthcoming at the post-fight press conference on Saturday night, with one exception. Near the end of the Q & A session, a reporter asked Brock Lesnar what the essential differences were between being a UFC employee and a WWE one, from a business standpoint.

“Don’t answer that question,” White said to his new heavyweight champ, only half-jokingly. Lesnar said he wouldn’t. It got a laugh. Seems like these two are going to get along just fine. When someone brought up the possible Kimbo Slice-Brock Lesnar comparison, based more on the number of pro fights each man had than the quality, White was quick to shoot it down.

“It drove me crazy when people would compare him to Kimbo Slice. If I had hair I’d pull it out. He’s far from Kimbo Slice.”

“I don’t even know that guy,” said Lesnar, who had already claimed not to “have the internet” or even read newspapers when asked if he was discouraged by critics in the press. “Who is he?”

“You’re lucky,” said White.

(Maybe it’s just the camera angle, but Lesnar does appear to have a slight size advantage. Photo courtesy of The Sun.)

From WWE.com, not that I ever go there:

LAS VEGAS – In a stunning upset, Brock Lesnar became the first man to capture both the WWE Championship and the UFC Heavyweight Championship* when he defeated UFC fan favorite Randy “The Natural” Couture on Saturday night in Sin City…

For Lesnar, the road to UFC gold proved surprisingly short. Within roughly six months**, the former WWE Superstar climbed to the top of the ultimate fighting heap, capping his ascent with the upset victory over Couture.

Critics have noted that many of the fights on the UFC pay-per-view ended in the first round, leaving UFC producers scrambling to fill the three-hour event with content. The dearth of hearty competition*** left many viewers to watch less prestigious under-card fights and only served to bolster claims that UFC pay-per-view events can often be a “crap shoot”**** in regards to filling the full three hours.

(Props: LifeType1)

Props to MMAScraps. Get it while it lasts…