Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

By Elias Cepeda

With a somewhat forgettable year thankfully coming to an end, UFC 155 looked to excite fans, promote contenders and get everybody ready for a new year. This card did exactly that. Not to reach into our bag of clichés so early into the aftermath, but UFC 155 really sent 2012 out with a bang, and set the bar high for upcoming cards in 2013.

With as many solid fights as took place Saturday in Las Vegas at UFC 155, Jim Miller and Joe Lauzon’s three round battle was recognized by the UFC brass as the Fight of The Night and each man earned an extra $65,000 for their effort. The lightweight contenders should also be in consideration for Fight of The Year lists everywhere.

If it is, Lauzon will be competing with himself for his incredible fight last August against Jamie Varner. JLau may have lost the decision against Miller on the judge’s score cards, two rounds to one, but deserves credit for coming back from being bullied, beaten and bloodied badly in the first round by Miller in the first round and finishing stronger in the final two rounds.

On the strength of his aggressiveness and multiple submission attempts to close out the second and third rounds, this writer believes that a very reasonable judge could have scored the bout Lauzon’s way instead of Miller’s. As it stands, both men were impressive in their own ways and, *reaches back into the bag of applicable clichés* there simply were no “losers” in this one.

Miller has always shown excellent boxing skills but he may have been sharper than ever before against Lauzon in the first and second rounds, scoring almost at will with shots to the body and head, as well as knocking Joe down repeatedly with a nasty inside leg kick. His dirty boxing from the clinch was masterful, using punches, knees and elbows to hurt and cut open Lauzon over and again.

(What a crazy year it’s been. Just think, four weeks ago that bald guy in the middle was actually homeless. / Photo courtesy of Esther Lin’s UFC 155 weigh-in set on MMAFighting.com)

UFC 155 might not be as epic as some of the UFC’s previous end-of-year cards (you can blame the injury curse for that), but any time the Heavyweight Championship of the World is at stake, it’s must-see TV.

Tonight, defending champ Junior Dos Santos will try to keep the train a-rollin’ in a rematch with his old pal Cain Velasquez. Meanwhile in the co-main event, lightweights Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller will gobble up as many performance bonuses as they can get their little hands on. Plus, six middleweight contenders — including Tim Boetsch, Alan Belcher, and Chris Leben — will swing their ham-hock fists at each other, in the hopes that the most popular kid in school might notice them. Lotsa luck, ladies.

Running our final liveblog of the year (!) will be none other than Elias Cepeda, who will be updating you with round-by-round results after the jump starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and please share your New Year’s resolutions in the comments section.

(“Aw thanks bro, these chips are so clutch. Say, you’re not an undercover cop, are you?”/ Props: CombatLifestyle)

Already smacked down by injuries to Forrest Griffin, Chris Weidman, and Gray Maynard, December 29th’s once-epic UFC 155: Dos Santos vs. Velasquez 2 card just got hit with another pair of withdrawals, less than two weeks before showtime.

First up: Cody McKenzie, the affable guillotine-choker who got gut-shot KO’d by Chad Mendes in his last appearance in July, has pulled out of his preliminary card bout with Leonard Garcia due to an undisclosed training injury. The UFC is currently searching for a replacement opponent for Garcia, who is looking to rescue his career after losing his last three matches. We’ll update you if/when Bad Boy gets a new booking. Update: Garcia will be fighting Max Holloway, who has won his last two fights against Pat Schilling and Justin Lawrence.

Speaking of undisclosed injuries, Czech wrestler Karlos Vemola is out of his main card match against Chris Leben, and will be replaced by Strikeforce vet Derek Brunson. After winning his first nine pro fights, Brunson has dropped his last two, a knockout loss to Ronaldo Souza and a decision loss to Kendall Grove. Leben vs. Brunson will remain on the UFC 155 main card, and will mark Leben’s first UFC appearance since his TKO loss to Mark Munoz in November 2011, and subsequent one-year suspension for oxycodone and oxymorphone. The Crippler is currently taking it one day at a time.

UFC 155′s bruised lineup is after the jump. Check it out, and ponder what could have been…

(Beltran, as re-imagined by Sega.)

Last weekend’s Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman card was easily one of the most entertaining top-to-bottom cards in recent memory, providing us with a lightning quick (also, completely predictable) finish in the main event and an even quicker knockout in the co-main. But as is typical for a Strikeforce event, the night was not without controversy and a few judgmental errors. Herb Dean went completely against character when he botched the call in the Adlan Amagov/Keith Barry fight, and the decision to place former title challenger Meisha Tate’s comeback bout against Julie Kedzie on the prelims was nothing short of baffling.

But greater than witnessing Ronda Rousey‘s sixth straight first round armbar, greater even than OSP’s one-punch knockout of T.J. Cook, was that of referee Mike Beltran’s epic mustache. An “epistache” if you will. Why Beltran decided to become a referee instead of claiming his place atop the Whisker Wars podium is beyond us, but his hard work and dedication can not and will not be overlooked by us here at CagePotato. So join us after the jump for a brief GIF tribute to Beltran’s glorious stache, along with several gifs from the night’s fights, courtesy of the UG.

(Props: AllTheBestFights)

Ronaldo Souza‘s recent fights have proven that his standup skills are catching up with his tremendous ability on the mat — and his striking improvement reached an important milestone on Saturday night, when he scored the first lights-out K.O. of his nine-year fight career.

“Jacare” faced 9-1 Jackson’s MMA product Derek Brunson on the main card of Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman, and in Liddell-esque fashion, Souza found his opponent’s chin with a back-pedaling counter-right that dumped Brunson on his face. A few more follow-up shots, and it was all over. Even more impressive than Souza’s finishing power was the fact that he stopped throwing as soon as he saw that Brunson was unconscious — even if referee Mike “Stache God” Beltran clearly wanted the fight to keep going.

But Souza vs. Brunson wasn’t the only great knockout from this weekend’s Strikeforce card. After the jump: Ovince St. Preux’s one-punch shutoff of T.J. Cook.

(“You want to go somewhere else? That creepy fat guy has been staring at us all night.” / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle. For more pics from this set, click here.)

Tonight, we’re gonna have ourselves a real good time, we feel ali-hi-hi-hiiiive. Ronda Rousey — the lightning-rod heel-champion of women’s MMA — will attempt to defend her Strikeforce 135-pound title against former champ Sarah Kaufman, most likely by first-round armbar. (The winner will face Cris Cyborg immediately afterwards in the parking lot.) Before that, we’ve got a bunch of men’s fights that seem way less interesting by comparison. For instance, former Strikeforce middleweight champion Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza is in the co-main event spot against 9-1 middleweight Derek “The Human Blanket (!)” Brunson, while Tarec Saffiedine, Roger Bowling, Lumumba Sayers, and Ovince St. Preux round out the crew of featured fighters who you might have heard of before.

Handling the thankless job of spelling out all these names in tonight’s liveblog is CagePotato weekend warrior Anthony Gannon, who will be providing round-by-round results from the Showtime main card broadcast after the jump, beginning at 10 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest and please make your presence known in the comments section.

“It’s okay. He probably didn’t know you were a Strikeforce fighter when he told that last joke…”

Strikeforce is continuing to add fights to its August 18th card, which will go down at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California. Headlined by Ronda Rousey’s first title defense against Sarah Kaufman, the promotion has announced three more bouts for the event.

It may be an exercise in futility to rank Strikeforce bouts in terms of significance, but there are still some interesting matchups on this card. Perhaps the most intriguing of the three recently announced matches is a middleweight showdown between former champion Ronaldo Souza and Derek Brunson. Since losing the strap to Luke Rockhold last September, ‘Jacare’ scored a third round arm-triangle choke over Bristol Marunde in March. Jacare looks to maintain momentum with a win over NCAA D2 All-American wrestler Derek Brunson, which is far easier said than done. Brunson is coming off of an extremely close loss to Kendall Grove at ShoFIGHT 20 two weeks ago after accepting the fight on four days’ notice. That fight, which was the first loss of Brunson’s career, could have easily gone his way. Expect a close fight here.

It’s easy- perhaps even a bit lazy- to compare the embattled MMA fighter Drew Fickett to the similarly troubled Scott Hall. In their primes, both men performed on their respective sport’s biggest stages against recognizable names. In Fickett’s case, this meant a run in the UFC and notable victories over Dennis Hallman, Kenny Florian, Josh Neer, Josh Koscheck and Kurt Pellegrino.

Yet it’s arguable that both men are more famous for their self-destructive, chaotic lifestyles outside of sport than they are for their accomplishments. Both men have well documented struggles with addiction, have been fired from major promotions over their drunken antics and have attempted to stay relevant in their respective sports with increasingly tragic results.

Case in point: Last night’s ShoFIGHT 20, which took place on the campus of Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. The show was essentially a who’s who of washouts from bigger promotions, which included (aside from Fickett) John Gunderson, Karo Parisyan, Kendall Grove, Lyle Beerbohm, Marcus Aurelio, Charles Bennett, “Smilin’” Sam Alvey and Roli Delgado. This card saw Fickett matched up against submission specialist Jonatas Novaes.

(Do over? Photo courtesy of MMAJunkie)

With the news today that Derek Brunson has failed his medicals and as a result has been forced out of his March 3 main card bout with Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza at the upcoming Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey show in Columbus, OH, it appears that one prime candidate for the bout is very interested in stepping up on just over two weeks notice: Tim Kennedy.

Kennedy, who still has a bitter taste in his mouth from the unanimous decision loss he suffered against Souza back in August 2010 at Strikeforce: Houston responded to questions on Twitter today regarding his desire to take the bout and said he is in shape and ready to go if he gets the call to rematch the Brazilian submission specialist.