(Matt Riddle: So cool that he can make fun of British people while paying tribute to them at the same time.) 

To put it as politely as possible, UFC 149 was a pessimist’s utopia (not to mention an ad-libbers). Cheick Kongo brought the same lackluster gameplan into his fight with Shawn Jordan as he did against guys like Paul Buentello, Matt Mitrione, and Travis Browne, more or less proving that Frank Mir made good on his promise to “change Kongo as a fighter” back at UFC 107. Personally, I was not around to catch the abortion of a “fight” that was Lombard/Boetsch live, but my heart goes out to those of you who were. Lombard’s performance was so outright bizarre that if he were to come out with a Rampage Jackson-esque conspiracy theory about Canadians poisoning his food in the next couple of days, I would be inclined to believe him.

But amidst all of the despair, the dreck, and the gloom, there was one man who simply refused to be held down: Matt f*cking Riddle. Perhaps no one defies the pessimistic nature of many, if not most, MMA fans in the online community more than Riddle, who has shown a willingness to throw a winning gameplan aside for the sake of the fans entertainment on several occasions. Wide-eyed and perpetually grinning throughout nearly all of his fights, Riddle most closely resembles this generation’s Chris Lytle, and his balls to the wall performance against Chris Clements undoubtedly proved that, win or lose, he is main card material.

But greater than his sunny disposition, greater even than the split second securing of that arm-triangle choke in the third round, was the hilarious rant he delivered at the UFC 149 post-fight press conference. When asked why he wanted a piece of Dan Hardy by a reporter, Dana White made a halfhearted joke about the fact that Riddle hated British people, totally unaware of the Spicolian jeremiad that was about to follow.

A video of Riddle’s call out, along with Hardy’s response, awaits you after the jump. 

Fact: You had a 63% better chance of seeing a fight at a Calgary Flames game than you did at UFC 149, according to a study I made up for this caption. Props: The Calgary Sun

When I first sat down to write this aftermath, I wrote five paragraphs of a Jim Cornette rant about how dreadful the main card of UFC 149 was to sit through. Even the most jaded UFC fan boys – the types who comment “Its fights stop complaneing ur not real UFC fan if u dont liek this TapouT tribal tatz NEVER BACK DOWN!!!!!” on YouTube videos of Jacob Volkmann vs. Antonio Mckee- would be hard-pressed to say that UFC 149 was worth watching, let alone paying for. Then I realized that that wouldn’t be fair. Not because a longwinded rant about boredom isn’t a fair assessment of the main card, but rather it isn’t fair to the fans to force them to relive the lowest of the low points from last night. We can all agree that the less that is written about the main card, the better.

So in that spirit, I give you the first ever Cage Potato Fill-In-The-Blank aftermath. Simply pick one of the applicable fighters listed below and plug his name into the blanks. The result will be a mostly accurate analysis of both his performance last night and the future ramifications brought on by it. Enjoy.

Applicable Fighters*: James Head, Brian Ebersole, Cheick Kongo, Shawn Jordan, Tim Boetsch**, Hector Lombard.

I know that the Polly Pessimists and Debby Downers who make up the MMA media are often too hard on fighters, but in this case it’s well deserved: The performance of __________ at last night’s UFC 149 absolutely sucked. He let a golden opportunity slip through his fingers, and seemed perfectly content with this while doing so. If last night was a first date with a perfect ten, then he showed up in sweatpants, took her to Whataburger and then asked for gas money on the ride home.

We don’t have an easy way to break this to you, so we’ll just come out and say it: Afghan knockout artist Siyar Bahadurzada has been sent to live with our friend who owns a farm upstate. He’ll be able to frolic in an open field to his heart’s desire, and he’ll have plenty of friends to play with. Because of this, he won’t be fighting at UFC 149 against Chris Clements.

Just kidding, he’s out with an undisclosed injury. What, you actually believed your parents when they told you your dog was living on a farm upstate? That’s adorable.

(Well if you’re trying to give yourself a hernia and a dislocated jaw, then by all means, keep doing what you’re doing.)

As if the loss of one high-profile Thiago wasn’t bad enough, UFC 149 (July 21st; Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is now short two Thiagos, with welterweight Thiago Alves having to withdraw due to an undisclosed injury.

Replacing him in his scheduled match against Afghan knockout-machine Siyar Bahadurzada will be Canadian striker Chris Clements, the MMA record-holder who out-pointed Keith Wisniewski in his Octagon debut at UFC 145. (Fun fact: Bahadurzada was himself a replacement for Yoshihiro Akiyama against Alves. And round and round it goes.)

Based on the way that Bahadurzada smoked Paulo Thiago in his own UFC debut back in April, we have a feeling that Clements could be in deep do-doo here. And speaking of potential mismatches…

On May 5th, 2006, Canadian welterweight Chris Clements (1-1 at the time) met a first-time fighter named Lautaro Tucas at TKO 25 in Montreal. Putting his lack of experience on full display, Tucas opened the fight by skipping madly across the ring at Clements, his arms draped at his sides. Clements loaded up a right straight and immediately knocked Tucas out cold.

The stoppage was recorded at 0:03 of round 1 — the first three-second knockout in MMA history, establishing a record that has yet to be broken in professional competition. (In case you’re wondering, Kid Yamamoto’s famous flying knee was officially marked as four seconds, and the Harris/Fuller fake-tap backfire KO was recorded as five seconds, even though they both seemed to end just as immediately as Clements vs. Tucas.)

Tucas never fought again, but Clements — now 10-4 with all of his wins by KO/TKO — continued to compete in Canada, and is finally making his Octagon debut this Saturday at UFC 145 in Atlanta. Currently riding a four-fight win streak that includes stoppages of UFC vets Rich Clementi and Jonathan Goulet, Clements will be part of UFC 145′s Facebook prelims broadcast, facing off against Keith Wisniewski (28-13-1, 0-2 UFC), the Indiana-based journeyman who’s perhaps most famous for getting his arm snapped by Shinya Aoki.

After the jump: Two more examples of Clements’s freaky power.

(Clements v. Travis Briere, end comes at the 2:44 mark.)

Aside from The Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale, December 3rd also features an interesting welterweight battle between UFC veteran Rich Clementi and up and coming KO artist Chris Clements under the Score Fighting Series promotion. And after doing a quick check-up on Clements, we thought he was a guy that was worth talking about, so let’s, shall we?

“The Menace” is a 9-4 product fighting out of Ontario, Canada who has collected all 9 of those wins by way of KO or TKO inside the first two rounds. He often trains with the likes of Mark Hominick and Sam Stout, because there can only be so many MMA gyms in that tundra known as Canada, am I right or am I right? *High fives self*

A little known fact about Clements: he is the man responsible for retiring UFC vet Jonathan Goulet back at Rinside MMA-Payback in November of 2010, the video of which is after the jump.

#1: Chris Clements vs. Lautaro Tucas @ TKO 25 (5/5/06), 3 seconds

Just two days after Norifumi Yamamoto thrilled a Tokyo crowd with his four-second flying-knee KO against Kazuyuki Miyata, an eerily similar knockout took place in Montreal. Except this time, it was the dude sprinting across the ring who got himself KTFO — and in only three seconds, making this the fastest MMA knockout ever. We can only assume that Lautaro Tucas watched the Yamamoto/Miyata fight and thought, “Hey, I bet I could do that too.” But Chris Clements saw it coming, and stepped in with a sledgehammer right hook just as Tucas was leaving the ground. Tucas’s lifeless body flopped into the ropes, upon which Clements slugged him in the head three times. Awesome. Fun fact: Tucas never fought again after that night. We’re not sure if that’s because he switched to a less painful profession, or because he committed seppuku to make up for the shame he caused his family, but either way, it had to be done.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…