(Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle’s UFC 111 weigh-in gallery, where you can also see a jacked Frank Mir and fine-looking Rachelle Leah.)

The only time weigh-in stories are ever not completely boring is when someone misses weight by a large margin or when something weird happens. The pushing and shoving that sometimes goes on? Even that has started to get somewhat commonplace, and more often it can be accurately described as ‘jostling.’ So what we truly need in order to have something to talk about is for someone to show up heavy, or possibly with red contact lenses. Fortunately, the UFC 111 weigh-ins had both.

Dan Hardy wore an ‘I Hate Dan Hardy’ t-shirt complemented by evil red vampire eyes, and Rory Markham came in six pounds over the upper limit for his welterweight bout with Nate Diaz. Markham will reportedly be fined $1,000 (or 12.5% of his show money) for his lack of carb-control, while Hardy somehow gets off free for treating the weigh-ins like a half-ass rave. I tell you, there’s no justice in this world.

Full weigh-in results are after the jump.

(This is either the line-up for a great game of MMA Fightpicker, or the worst folk music trio in history.)

It’s one thing for us to beat up on one another with our weekly MMA FightPicker game, but do we have what it takes to out-prognosticate an actual UFC fighter? To help us find out, “Ultimate Fighter” winner Roy “Big Country” Nelson, who will be taking on Stefan Struve at UFC Fight Night 21 next Wednesday, has graciously agreed to throw his hat into the virtual Octagon this week and go head-to-head with us on UFC 111 picks. For that we are indebted to him, and so we remind you to check out his official site as well as his Tapout signature t-shirt, and we also thank Superaction, Spike TV, and MMA Glory Talent.

Remember, this week’s FightPicker has changed some with the removal of Thiago Alves and the reshuffling of Ben Saunders, so don’t forget to adjust your picks accordingly before tonight’s 11:59 PM PST deadline. Now…it’s decision time.

St. Pierre vs. Hardy at UFC 111: Who will win?
BG: Georges St. Pierre. You’d have to be a grown retard to think otherwise.
BF: Seeing as how I am not a grown retard, I can’t disagree. Hardy has a tough night ahead of him.
RN: St. Pierre – He has shown himself to be more well-rounded, but Hardy does have the puncher’s chance.

(Video courtesy of ESPN.com)

You want to know how focused Georges St. Pierre is for his fight with Dan Hardy at UFC 111? Not only is he not even considering the possibility of a life that continues beyond this Saturday night, he hasn’t even bothered to pay attention to the passage of time.  He still thinks it’s January.  God knows what year he might believe we’re living in.  Doesn’t matter.  He’s only thinking about finishing Hardy and making it a "clean" victory.  Whether they’re fighting for gasoline and life credits in some futuristic hellscape, or whether they’ve traveled back to a time when Hardy’s post-fight wounds will be treated by a series of magic spells — the point is, GSP doesn’t care.  All he knows is he’s got a job to do on Saturday, playa.  Wouldn’t want to be Hardy right now, sitting around his hotel room and looking at the calendar like some chump.

After the jump, Frank Mir talks about Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin (who ESPN lists as 6’5"), and can’t help but get that old smirk on his face when the death threat comments get brought up.

(Photos contributed by Serafin Santiago Jr.)

In honor of the UFC throwing a card in Newark this weekend, the UFC hype-train made a big stop in New York City yesterday to hold a public press conference at the legendary Radio City Music Hall. Though the four headlining fighters were supposed to be in attendance taking questions and posing for pictures with fans, Shane Carwin was stuck in Long Island finishing up his medical licensing paperwork. Oddly enough, welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre seemed to get the least love from the raucous mass of NY/NJ fans. They loved Dan Hardy for being an underdog who trains with Matt Serra. They loved Frank Mir for embodying the Jersey Shore juicehead ideal, even though he’s a lifelong Las Vegas resident.* They swung off of Dana White’s nuts, uncomfortably.** If you live in the New York area but can’t make it to UFC 111, Radio City will be hosting a viewing party on Saturday night, featuring appearances by Chuck Liddell, Matt Serra, Stephan Bonnar, and a freakin’ ginormous screen. Some important notes from yesterday’s presser are after the jump…

(Nothing to see here but me yappin’ with Steve Cofield and Dave Farra about how to lose money most efficiently at UFC 111.)

For those of you lucky enough to snag tickets to UFC 111 before they sold out, you get to play an entirely different kind of betting game in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday night. We like to call it, ‘Mugged or Propositioned?’ It’s simple, really. You try and guess whether you will be mugged, or offered drugs and/or the services of a prostitute. Both are bound to happen eventually, but the key is to peg which one will happen first. You don’t win anything if you guess right. That’s why this game sucks.

As usual, the best odds on the internet come to us from BestFightOdds.com:

Georges St. Pierre (-650) vs. Dan Hardy (+638)
Frank Mir (-140) vs. Shane Carwin (+130)
Ben Saunders (-155) vs. Jake Ellenberger (+148)
Jon Fitch (+140) vs. Thiago Alves (-145)
Jim Miller (-332) vs. Mark Bocek (+310)
Nate Diaz (-275) vs. Rory Markham (+250)
Ricardo Almeida (-138) vs. Matt Brown (+135)
Kurt Pellegrino (-165) vs. Fabricio Camoes (+160)
Rodney Wallace (-120) vs. Jared Hamman (-103)
Rousimar Palhares (-237) vs. Tomasz Drwal (+211)
Matthew Riddle (-217) vs. Greg Soto (+190)

The breakdown…

(Now you see some incoherent scrawling, now you don’t.)

Whether you’re putting together a fight poster or the cover of Teen Vogue, airbrushing is just something you do.  I mean, you didn’t think Georges St. Pierre‘s cheekbones were really that breathtaking, did you?  But UFC 111 is the first time in recent memory that a fighter’s tattoos have been airbrushed out.  Above you see one version of the UFC 111 poster featuring Dan Hardy‘s Sanskrit tattoo of a Tibetan Buddhist prayer, and another version with his stomach looking as clean as the belly of a starless Sneetch.  So what gives?

According to what Dana White told fans at a Q&A session in Toronto today, it’s because he doesn’t want any trouble with the Chinese government, which, if you hadn’t heard, is kind of sensitive to anything having to do with Tibet.  As White explained:

"I’m trying to get into China. I don’t need anti-Chinese government stuff on my fighters."

In the March issue of Fight Magazine, Hardy explains that the tattoo — which reads "Om mani padme hum," and supposedly means, "Hail the jewel in the lotus" — serves two purposes.

(Props: KingHillerx)

In case you missed it, here’s last night’s installment of Spike’s UFC Primetime hype-series, which opens in a Long Island Hooters, where Dan Hardy can somehow smell Georges St. Pierre‘s fear over the pungent aroma of hot wings and urinal cakes. Hardy has come out to New York early to get acclimated with the time zone and funny accents of the American East Coast. Acting as his spirit guide is former UFC welterweight champ Matt Serra, who is helping Hardy work on the positions that he’ll surely be placed in against GSP, and lending him some of his lovable underdog magic. Back in Montreal, we learn a little more about Tristar Gym trainer Firas Zahabi, his obsessive work ethic, and his cute wife. Nate Marquardt and Kenny Florian stop by to add some star power to St. Pierre’s camp. (Ferrum Ferro Acuitur, bro.) Our buddies Ariel Helwani and Randy Gordon interview Hardy about training with monks; turns out Hardy really is a martial artist, even if he doesn’t walk out to the Octagon in his pajamas. Part 2 is after the jump. Give it a look before it’s pulled…

Now this is more like it.  Dan Hardy and Georges St. Pierre alone might lend themselves too easily to pre-packaged storylines, but Matt Serra is a born freakin’ entertainer over here.  This clip is forty seconds long and still he manages to do/say more interesting things than either Hardy or GSP managed in the entirety of the first episode.  You gotta love the guy for that.  It’s almost enough to make me want to watch this one live instead of on my DVR tomorrow morning while eating leftover Chinese food and nursing a severe hangover.  Almost.

Just in case this short clip isn’t enough entertainment to make the afternoon pass more swiftly, follow me after the jump for some totally gratuitous old school Wanderlei Silva ass-kicking action.  There’s no real reason for it.  Except that it’s awesome.

Rememer the "UFC Primetime" series that premieres tonight?  Well, in a continued effort to generate buzz before the first episode, the UFC has put out a couple clips of what they’re calling "unseen moments" from the show.  Of course, they’re not at all unseen now that the UFC has put them on their official YouTube page, but you get the point.  It’s footage they weren’t going to use anyway, and it’s supposed to make you want to watch the show, which is in turn supposed to make you want to buy the  UFC 111 pay-per-view or pay $25 to see it at a movie theater. 

Trouble is, this stuff is painfully boring.  We’re talking Jim Jarmusch levels of boring here.  As in, a two-minute clip of Georges St. Pierre talking about a bet he made with a friend for really uninteresting stakes, followed by him calling that friend and discussing those uninteresting stakes all over again.  We realize it’s throwaway footage, but damn.  I’m supposed to bump "16 and Pregnant" off my DVR queue for this?

After the jump, GSP does some push-ups and drills and stuff.  It’s exactly as interesting as that sentence makes it sound.

(Props: YouTube.com/UFC)

The welterweight title fight between Georges St. Pierre and Dan Hardy headlines this month’s UFC 111 card (March 27th, Newark), and both fighters will be featured in a new three-part weekly UFC Primetime special which kicks off tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Spike. The UFC hasn’t put together a Primetime show since January 2009, when BJ Penn vowed to go "to the death." Hardy probably won’t get that dramatic with his trash-talk, but he will be landing his shots:

Primetime gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the fighters’ training camps — from Hardy’s Rough House team in Nottingham to St. Pierre’s home base in Montreal — as well as their personal lives. To promote it, the UFC’s YouTube account has posted a very short clip of GSP jumping over a bar. Hmm. Well, I wasn’t planning on spending $45 to watch Georges beat the crap out of a +500 underdog, but now? Now you’ve got my attention.

(At least he’s got a sense of humor. That’s the second best thing to have in a fight with GSP. The first? Excellent takedown defense.)

At this point, we have to assume that Dan Hardy knows he won’t be the fan favorite heading into his title fight with Georges St. Pierre at UFC 111. As a 5-1 underdog, he won’t be the betting favorite either, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still have a little fun. The problem is, there’s really not that much trash you can talk to GSP. Not only are there very few evident weaknesses in his game, but as a person he’s almost painfully non-offensive (unless you happen to be B.J. Penn). So what does Hardy do? He goes after the people who say he hasn’t earned his shot at the champ. Fortunately for him, there is no shortage of them.

On his blog at ThisIsNottingham.co.uk, Hardy took aim at his critics and held absolutely nothing back.

On Mike Swick: “It’s funny Swick is now moaning that I didn’t deserve this shot. Swick should have kept his mind off me and on his last opponent, Paulo Thiago, and maybe he wouldn’t have been beaten again.”

(I don’t know Marcus, I thought some of those photos were quite fetching.)

Marcus Davis has deleted his Twitter remark wishing Dan Hardy death via AIDS, and attempted to explain away the “Dark&Bad taste” comment by pointing out that Hardy was at least partially responsible for some unflattering photoshops of him. To what extent Hardy is to blame for the exact homosexual nature of those efforts is debatable, but what seems pretty clear is that, at least in Davis’s mind, those were worse than wishing death upon someone. Just when you think he might have realized that it’s a bad idea to get into this sort of thing at all, he follows it up by tweeting, “Would it have been better if I said hit by a car?”

When you really think about it, that’s a tough one. Getting hit by a car doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as being killed by a car, so there’s that. But if we assume that Davis would also wish for Hardy to die of his injuries, what then? At least someone who gets AIDS has a chance to say goodbye to their family and gain a new perspective on the circle of life and other such bullshit before they pass. The person killed by a speeding Audi doesn’t ever get the opportunity to set his past wrongs right. Then again, he also doesn’t have to suffer in hospital rooms or get all weak and lesion-y like Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia."

And thus has a man nicknamed “The Irish Hand Grenade” plunged us into a philosophical quandary with a couple of garbled sentences. Really makes you wonder what Jean-Paul Sartre could have accomplished if he had lived to Twitter.

(Uh-oh.)

Yeah, that’s Marcus Davis on Twitter, publicly stating that he hopes Dan Hardy dies of AIDS.  And yes, it does appear to be his official Twitter account and not a fake.  He has over 10,000 followers, links to his official website, mentions biographically correct information about himself from time to time, misspells a few words but not so many that it could be an attempt at humor, and for the most part remains just as tedious as most MMA fighters on Twitter.  In other words, if it’s a fake the guy has been playing it really cool up until now.  If that was all a ruse just to make this one AIDS comment and blow his cover, we’re going to have to say that he just wasted a lot of time.

The comment was made in response to a fan (BIGfield948, who we assume is still pissed that Bigfield69 was taken) after he expressed a desire to see Davis/Hardy II in the U.K.  The missive you see above is Davis’s response, so it’s not as if this was taken somehow out of context.  The question is, if we accept that this is really Marcus Davis and he really did say that he hopes Hardy dies of AIDS, what conclusions can we jump to in an irresponsible, reactionary fashion?

I spoke to Mike Swick this week for an SI.com article on his attempt to get back in the title picture after the loss to Dan Hardy.  While Swick admits he lost the fight, he says he can’t accept that Hardy might be the better fighter, and wants a rematch somewhere down the line to prove it.  When asked if Hardy deserves the shot at GSP after winning the decision at UFC 105, Swick joined Nate Marquardt, Rory Markham, and a chorus of other observers in saying absolutely not:

"The thing about this sport is, there are so many variables that go into it. He did beat me. And if I would have won then I would have been the No. 1 contender, so you can look at it that way. But just because he won that fight, I don’t think that means he deserves a title shot. He’s only had three fights in the UFC and he’s only had one finish. He hasn’t had the same road that a lot of the top welterweights in the UFC have. Even though he beat me, I have to say he doesn’t deserve it. If he thinks he does, I’m sorry, but he’s wrong."

I also talked to Swick about the newest addition at the American Kickboxing Academy, Herschel Walker.  It’s one thing for Strikeforce and their employees to insist that he has what it takes to hang with the pros, but what has the longtime AKA fighter seen from him in the gym?

(Can one gym even hold that much badass?  Magic eightball says, ‘Outlook not so good.’)

As UFC welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre puts on more weight and continues to dominate every 170-pounder in his path, finding sparring partners who can push him is apparently becoming more of a problem.  In a talk with Heavy.com, Tristar Gym owner and longtime GSP trainer Firas Zahabi says that he can’t even put him up against other fighters his own size in training anymore, adding "It’s getting scary.  Georges is getting better and better, believe it or not." 

That’s why he’s looking to add a new face to St. Pierre’s training camp: Strikeforce light heavyweight champ Gegard Mousasi.

Since he mentioned it no less than twice in the interview, we’re assuming Zahabi is serious about getting "The Last Gypsy" in the gym with GSP.  If it happens, we can only hope that the cameras are there to capture it for "UFC Primetime."  Though who are we kidding, St. Pierre-Mousasi is a sparring session worthy of pay-per-view.  Maybe they should just film it and keep it in the can.  That way, if GSP runs through Dan Hardy too quickly, they can go ahead and add it to the broadcast to make the fans feel like they got their money’s worth.  As an added bonus, it seems like the kind of thing that would really, really piss off M-1 Global.

(‘Of course I’m wearing me bandana. I’m not going to walk around during flu season without taking the necessary precautions, now am I?’)

Ever since the first installment of "UFC Primetime" in the run-up to last January’s Georges St. Pierre-B.J. Penn fight blew our collective minds, we’ve been waiting for Spike TV and the UFC to get together on another collaboration of slow-mo walking and carefully crafted storylines.  Surely, we thought, they were waiting until they had an especially compelling title fight.  Or, as we learned in an email from Spike TV today, a title fight that most people expect to be a total squash match.

Beginning on Wednesday, March 10, Spike will run a three-part "Primetime" series to hype the UFC 111 main event bout between GSP and Dan Hardy.  Presumably this will be where they attempt to sell us on the idea that Hardy offers a considerable challenge to the welterweight champ, and that the oddsmakers who currently have St. Pierre pegged as a 6-1 favorite have no clue what they’re talking about.

The show is bound to be visually compelling with great production values, so it will still be worth watching.  But didn’t we already get all the backstory we needed on GSP last time?  And wouldn’t it be more fun to see this done for a future fight that seems a little more competitive?

(For reference: St. Pierre vs. Serra 1, UFC 69, 4/7/07.)

From an interview with #1 welterweight contender Dan Hardy on Sherdog:

(Don’t worry, buddy, Cory Booker has done wonders with the murder rate.)

If MMA Fanhouse is to be believed, Georges St. Pierre‘s next welterweight title defense against Dan Hardy won’t go down in Canada, Las Vegas, or the U.K. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, the scrap will instead go down in March at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. It would be the UFC’s first visit to Jerz since UFC 78. Fanhouse offers the only possible explanation:

Following UFC 105, Hardy told reporters "I’ll fight [GSP] in Canada, in Vegas, in the U.K., on the moon, in a phone box on the corner, in the car park. As long as he brings his belt along for me to take off, I don’t really mind. This is a great opportunity and I’ll fight him anywhere." He then added, "Well, anywhere but Newark, obviously. Good Lord, man, have you seen that place?"*

* Clarification: Hardy didn’t actually say this last bit. Our apologies to any Brick City residents who took this seriously…

(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…

(Like a kid on freaking Christmas. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle’s UFC 105 press conference gallery.)

We can stop lamenting the lack of psychologically screwy antics from Dan Hardy, because "The Outlaw" kicked it up a notch during the UFC 105 press conference in Manchester.  Hardy showed up to present a "Runner-Up" trophy to Mike Swick in advance of their bout on Saturday and Swick, as you can see, was pretty excited about the whole thing.  But just when you think you’ve played a clever little joke on Swick, he turns it around on you:

"I want to thank Dan Hardy for this trophy.  It means a lot.  Coming runner-up in a press conference is pretty cool.  I just want everyone to know that I’m giving this right back to him after the fight.  My corner guys will carry it to the Octagon.  But I’ll keep it for now."

And just like that, the jokester becomes the fool.  If Marcus Davis and his indignant rage demonstrated the exact wrong way to deal with Hardy’s ribbing, Swick’s grinning reversal is probably the perfect blueprint for how to take Hardy’s jokes in stride.  Plus, how sweet is it going to be if Swick manages to knock Hardy out and then present him with that trophy when he comes to?  Answer: extremely sweet.  

(Props: MMAVIDS09 via Bloody Elbow)

After the controversial ending to Machida vs. Rua, the UFC is looking to bounce back hard in their next event (November 14th; Manchester, England), which features three very compelling bouts on the main card. Headlining UFC 105 will be Randy Couture‘s return to the light-heavyweight division against Brandon Vera, who describes the match as "what we’ve been training for since day one." A win for Vera may finally establish his legitimacy at 205; a win for Couture staves off retirement for at least one more fight and puts him on the path to a title shot.

Supporting the main event will be Michael Bisping vs. Denis Kang. Bisping is looking to erase the memory of his knockout loss to Dan Henderson in July, while Kang wants to introduce himself to UFC fans in this fight (despite the fact that he’s already fought in the Octagon twice) and feels he can do everything better than the Count. Also, Mike Swick and Dan Hardy meet up in a classic U.S. vs. U.K. battle. Hardy has been training his boxing with Freddie Roach — could it be the advantage he needs to survive Quick’s onslaught?

The full UFC 105 lineup is after the jump…

Tekken 6 MMA Boxing Live Action Trailer – Watch more Game Trailers
(Props: Break.com Game Trailers)

Above is the live-action trailer for Tekken 6, which succeeds in being awesome despite the fact that the game itself is only briefly shown at the end. The gist is, fighters from all walks of life — Josh Barnett, Dan Hardy, and Evander Holyfield, among others — discuss what drew them to fighting and why they do it. I guess they’re supposed to represent the different styles and mindsets in the video game, though the montage fails to include boxing kangaroos or a sentient wooden training dummy. There is, however, a Tekken 6 character that’s clearly based on Roy Nelson.

(What a difference five months makes. Now, Swick and Hardy are mortal enemies, Edith has been replaced by a blonde, and Jon Fitch is currently living in Seattle as "Joan Fitch." Photo courtesy of MikeSwick.com.)

In our exclusive interview with Mike Swick yesterday, Quick referred to Dan Hardy as a "good guy" and a "very genuine person," but still vowed to beat him up on November 14th. Luckily, Hardy feels the same way. Here’s his assessment of his next opponent from UFC.com’s official announcement of the match:

(King of the world.)

While a concussion sustained in training cost him a chance to fight Martin Kampmann to determine the UFC’s top welterweight contender, Mike Swick didn’t have to wait long for another fight offer to come his way.  The AKA product has agreed to face Dan Hardy at UFC 105 in Manchester, England on November 14,  and the winner will likely get the next shot at Georges St. Pierre’s title.  We called up Swick to discuss the news, and to ask him some other pressing questions, like, what’s up with AKA fighters and their fixation on calling out Matt Hughes?  As usual, Swick did not disappoint.

So you and Dan Hardy at UFC 105.  Is this official, bout agreements signed and everything?

Yeah, I signed it right when it came in.

What did you think when they offered you Hardy?

I was excited just to get the opportunity.  I actually agreed before I knew who it was.  The UFC just called me and asked if I’d like to fight on November 14 and I said yes.  Then later my manager called as well and said that there was an injury and they needed a replacement, and I told him to tell the UFC that whoever it was they had in mind, I’d fight him.  So the UFC came back and said it’s Dan Hardy, or if for some reason Dan Hardy can’t make the fight it could be someone else, and I said yeah, let’s do it.  I’m just excited to get back in there.  I didn’t want to have to wait until January.

(Images courtesy of Dan Hardy’s Facebook page and Mike Swick’s Twitter feed, via BloodyElbow.)

UFC president Dana White has confirmed to MMA Fanhouse that a welterweight fight between Mike Swick and Dan Hardy is in the works, with the winner potentially getting the next shot at Georges St. Pierre’s belt. Though the bout hasn’t yet been tied to a specific event, UFC 105 (November 14th, Manchester) seems likely, as British fan-favorite Hardy was already rumored to face Dong Hyun Kim on the card, while Swick has expressed a desire to return to action quickly after a concussion suffered in training scrapped his scheduled fight against Martin Kampmann at UFC 103.

Mike Swick (14-2) has been a perfect 4-0 since dropping to the welterweight division, winning decisions over Josh Burkman and Marcus Davis, and impressive stoppage victories over Jonathan Goulet and Ben Saunders. Dan Hardy (22-6, 1 no contest) has also been on a tear since he signed with the UFC last year, earning split-decisions against Akihiro Gono and Marcus Davis, and knocking the daylights out of Rory Markham at UFC 95.

Though Georges St. Pierre is still rehabbing the groin injury he suffered in his decision win against Thiago Alves in July, he expects to be ready for action by early next year.

(Davis continues to deftly straddle the fence between being an "American Fighter" and an "Irish Hand Grenade," but how long can his loyalties remain divided?)

It’s funny, Dan Hardy was the one who started the war of words prior to UFC 99, but now that the fight’s over it’s Marcus Davis who won’t let it die.  After refusing to shake Hardy’s hand in the Octagon and fuming over the split decision loss as he stormed out of the arena, Davis claimed that Hardy admitted backstage that he lost the fight (which Hardy naturally denied, because that’s just what you do in that situation).  Now Davis is basically demanding a rematch before the year is out, on the grounds that he won 12 of the 15 minutes in their fight:

Far be it from us to suggest that the animosity between Dan Hardy and Marcus Davis is anything but 100% genuine – just listen to Davis digging deep into the lessons of his childhood to assert that he really does hate Hardy – but does anyone else feel like we’re really getting the old hard sell on this one?  This nearly ten-minute video from the UFC details the history and relevant talking points of the rivalry between the two, and while it’s fun to hear two men who are actually going to fight talk about the intensity of their dislike for one another, it’s getting to be a pretty familiar story.

(Props: MMA Mania)

Rivalry is the over-arching theme in this in-depth video preview for UFC 99 (Cologne, Germany; June 13th). First we have Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva, with much being made of Franklin’s decision to train with Wandy’s anti-BFF, Anderson Silva. Ace considers the Axe Murderer to be just as dangerous now as he was in PRIDE, and looks forward to a stand-up war. Wanderlei just wants to get past Franklin so he can settle up with Anderson once and for all.

In a card that’s moderately stacked with names like Mirko Cro Cop, Cain Velasquez, Cheick Kongo, and Caol Uno, it’s suprising that Marcus Davis vs. Dan Hardy is being treated like the co-main event here. But these two got beef. Hardy thinks Davis is a fake Irishman, and Davis thinks Hardy is a douchebag with a stupid red mohawk. Will their combined hatred produce a Fight of the Night?

After the jump: Some vintage California Kid from December 2005, in honor of his rematch with Mike Brown being just nine days away…

Props to MMA Weekly, UFC.com, The Sun, and the “UFC 95: The Aftermath” set on Combat Lifestyle.