If you caught last night’s weigh-ins and aren’t amped up for this event, something is wrong with you. No, it wasn’t as eventful as last weekend’s affair, but that’s a good thing as all bouts are expected to take place this evening.

Everyone lived up to their contractual agreements and made weight, and everyone lived up to societal expectations and played their respective roles to a tee. If psychotically tense staredowns are an accurate predictor of fights, only time stands between Chris Leben, Wanderlei Silva, and a brawl for the ages. Tito did his best high school bully impression, unsuccessfully trying yet again to make his opponent flinch during the face-off. As for Faber and Cruz, there’s nothing to be said between these two that a few hundred kicks and punches couldn’t say better.

After the jump, check out the Cruz-Faber and Bader-Ortiz weigh-ins and get the full results from the scales.

(That week off made Dana look 10 years younger. PicProps: MMAMania)

Just a friendly reminder that you can check out the UFC 132 weigh-ins right here starting at 7:00 pm ET.

This could be the last time we see “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” flexing in his underwear — unless of course you’re one of his Twitter followers (am I right, ReX?). Let’s place our wagers now who will get into a heated nose-bumping match and who won’t make weight.

Expect the staredown of the decade between Leben and Silva.

Check out the stream after the jump.

(Tito is not impressed about being at the back of the line)

Just a friendly reminder that we will be streaming the the UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber II pre-fight press conference starting at 4:00 pm ET.

Will there be any face-to-face drama between Faber and Cruz?

Will anyone recognize Wanderlei Silva?

Will Tito Ortiz put together more than two coherent sentences?

All of these questions and more will be answered after the jump.

(Wanderlei Silva: You couldn’t last five minutes in this man’s world.)

UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber goes down Saturday night in Las Vegas, and in case you’re feeling some MMA fatigue after five consecutive weeks of events, let us remind you — this card has the potential to be a real son-of-a-bitch. Familiarize yourself with the lineup here, and get your juices flowing again by watching some career highlights from the fighters on the card. Enjoy…

(Ryan Bader vs. Keith Jardine, UFC 110, 2/21/10)

(Melvin Guillard vs. Dennis Siver, UFC 86, 7/5/08)

(Props: MMATrailers6)

Okay, so it’s not the next UFC event on the docket — that would be this Sunday’s UFC Live: Marquardt vs. Story show — but we might as well start getting hyped for the next pay-per-view card. UFC 132 goes down July 2nd in Las Vegas, featuring a bantamweight title fight, a fan-friendly matchup of sluggers, and Tito Ortiz‘s ongoing quest for redemption. The extended video preview does a decent job of explaining why you should care, but as is usually the case with these things, the hype is based on a series of well-worn fight cliches. Lets run ‘em down…

“I’m not the same fighter I was then. Things are just different. It’s not the same anymore.” (Dominick Cruz)
When Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber first met in March 2007, the California Kid was the WEC’s reigning featherweight champ and the promotion’s first home-grown star. Cruz was a promising contender, but he was still a little green, and wound up getting choked out in under two minutes.

Cruz hasn’t lost a fight since, and now the roles are reversed; he’s the reigning champion (now at 135 pounds), looking to stave off a title challenge by his old rival. Admittedly, Cruz is a much better fighter in 2011 than he was four years ago. His footwork has developed into a dynamic, utterly unique style of controlled chaos; his integration of boxing and wrestling has become seamless, and maddening for his opponents.

The reason that “I’m not the same fighter” is a lame cliche, even when Cruz says it, is that it implies your opponent is the same fighter. Which he’s not, obviously.

Happy Monday, Nation. We hope you had a good weekend. No, really, we hope you’re in a good mood, since we’re presenting the second installment of Keyboard Warrior. Hopefully everyone had naked funtime last night, slept like a baby, and had a great breakfast this morning. Otherwise, we imagine there will be lots of very not-nice things in the comments.

We’ve changed up the appearance of KBW, making it look more like a typical MMA forum, complete with the kind of critical information any Keyboard Warrior should have for important discussion, like join date and number of posts. Maybe now it won’t seem like we’re blatantly ripping off other peoples’ ideas.

You can read the first episode here (all two pages of it), check out number two, and then you’re welcome to leave suggestions, ideas, and odes to our greatness below.

Thanks again to WithLeather and @MrBrandonStroud for letting us blatantly rip off their ideas.

[RX]

(Weirdest part is, the Portuguese language doesn’t even have a phrase that means “dress shoes.”)

Just one of the many, many problems inherent in ranking MMA’s top “pound-for-pound” fighters – aside from the obvious fact these lists are 100 percent fantasy-based and therefore flatly ridiculous to begin with — is that a lot of people can’t even agree what the phrase “pound-for-pound” actually means. Does it simply provide a method for comparing the best fighters in the world across different classes? Does it purport to measure a fighter’s dominance relative to his size? Does it envision a bizzaro world where everyone is the same height and weight? And if so, does a 135-pound Fedor Emelianenko still have that ribbon of fat around his gut? Fuck if we know.

Fact is, pound-for-pound lists are really just a study in speculative fiction. Rather than trying to rank a bunch of fighters who will never actually fight we’d probably be better off writing a sprawling, dystopian novel presupposing that the Nazis won WWII, Custer didn’t die at the Little Bighorn and that during the summer of 1985 a 27-year-old Dan Severn accidentally stepped on a butterfly during his morning jog through Ann Arbor, setting off a chain reaction that caused Jon Jones never to be born at all. I guess what we’re trying to say is, things are about to get real theoretical up in this bitch. Like, comically subjective and shit.

Still, even if we can’t claim to know exactly what these rankings are trying to achieve, we do know one thing: Our carefully cultivated demographic information tells us you motherfuckers loves you some lists. And in that, we must oblige …

With the announcement yesterday that BJ Penn had to pull out of UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber, the leading candidate to fill in against “The Prodigy,” Carlos Condit (26-5) has now been matched up with durable South Korean fighter Dong Hyun Kim (14-0-1 1NC).

The UFC announced the pairing today.

(When Carlos Condit asked how bad you wanted to see him fight BJ Penn, he meant that shit rhetorically. Pic: Sherdog)

This week’s revelation that Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber will headline July’s UFC 132 with their bantamweight title scrap (and for some reason, apparently not coach “TUF 14″) doesn’t necessarily mean bad things for those of us who still want to see BJ Penn included in some way. It just means that – in the wake of Jon Fitch tearing up his shoulder during training – the UFC doesn’t know who to match him up against yet. As we told you last week, former WEC champ Carlos Condit has been publicly campaigning to fight Penn, but the UFC has so far been mum about that idea. At this point, it sounds like Condit is going a little OCD on it.

“I’m not really sure what’s holding it up right now,” Condit manager Malki Kawa told MMA Weekly. “Hopefully Condit’s the guy they call to do it. I don’t know if there’s a better fight than Condit for him, but we’re excited about the opportunity and hopefully, if Joe Silva, B.J. Penn, and the UFC feel like it’s something they want to do, Carlos is itching. He texts me every day, ‘Any word on B.J.?’ I’m hoping that’s what happens for him.”

(All this talk of finances is really harshing Urijah’s mellow. Pic: CageToday)

Props to our BFFs over at Bloody Elbow for pointing out an odd little singularity in the early UFC 132 betting lines this morning. After bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz and challenger Urijah Faber opened at matching -120 odds, early money appeared to push Faber to as much as a -160 favorite before Cruz stormed back to flip-flop the line. As is it stood in the a.m. on Monday, Cruz was now a -160 favorite, while Faber was a +120 dog, exactly the opposite of where they’d been less than 24 hours earlier.

But what does it all mean, you ask? Well, one of two things: Either the knee-jerk, hair-trigger gamblers blew their wad on Faber only to have opportunists go heavy on Cruz as soon as he became an underdog … or the chimpanzees who get paid to do data entry at these gambling sites screwed it up to begin with. Either way, we know you’re dying to hear more …

(Munster Mulisha! Pic: MMA Convert)

There was good reason for Jose Aldo to immediately start gobbling up the headlines after the UFC crowned him and Dominick Cruz its newest champions at the beginning of this year. Aldo after all has been known to suspend the rules of space and time during his fights and in one of his two most recent performances, ground the former consensus GOAT’s lead leg into andouille sausage. Still, with all the attention afforded the featherweight champ these past few months, we couldn’t blame bantamweight kingpin Cruz if he were sitting around right now mumbling something like “Wait ’till they a get a load of me.”

Because, while Aldo has been tabbed the immediate breakout superstar of the lighter weight classes, Cruz has certainly been no slouch. His unique blend of evasive footwork and striking has so far been a riddle no one at 135-pounds can unravel. Slated for a second bout with Urijah Faber at UFC 132, Cruz will get the stiffest test of his career during his first Octagon appearance. That bout could potentially see a realignment of the bantamweight Top 5. Until then, here’s how we see the cream of the 135-pound crop …

(Well now I want to see Dominick Cruz as Backin’ Up Lady. Props: twitter.com/UrijahFaber)

The UFC announced on Saturday that the bantamweight title fight between Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber will go down at UFC 132, July 2nd at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Since taping for TUF 14 is expected to take place sometime this summer, it seems unlikely that Cruz and Faber will be tapped as coaches for The Ultimate Fighter‘s first bantamweight/featherweight season.

The two former WEC stars have shared some bad blood since the lead-up to their first fight at WEC 26 in March 2007. Upset that he wasn’t featured on the event poster, Cruz signed his name over Faber’s face — which the California Kid perceived as a sign of disrespect. Faber went on to score a guillotine choke victory in just 98 seconds, retaining his featherweight title.

“In Mirko’s case, GTL means “Going to Lose”.

It may be too early to declare that a new era has begun, but last night proved that the old one is on life support. The Prudential Center is used to watching some pretty lopsided beatdowns, but even the hometown crowd seemed surprised at what they were watching. Unlike the Nets, fans actually expected Shogun to put up competitive effort.

Last night was business as usual for the newly crowned LHW champion, Jon Jones. Shogun, who landed only eleven strikes all night, was outclassed in literally every aspect of the fight. It’s no exaggeration to say that Jones made Shogun look like the 23 year old fighting a legend of Pride. For that matter, it’s barely an exaggeration to say that Jones made Shogun look like the untrained mugger he stopped in the park earlier that day. It’s tempting to prematurely declare the Jon Jones Era after last night. But let’s wait until he defends the belt first.

(In slo-mo for your convenience. Props: kemist. Full-speed gif is at the end of this post.)

Let’s get this out of the way: The cage-spring head-kick that Anthony "Showtime" Pettis landed on Ben Henderson in their lightweight title fight at last night’s WEC 53 event was 1) The greatest kick in MMA history, 2) Maybe the most impressive knockdown in MMA history, and 3) Further proof that Pettis is one of the most exciting 155′ers in the universe. (He’s also punched his ticket to challenge for the UFC lightweight title against either Frankie Edgar or Gray Maynard, who both look dull as hell by comparison.)

We already knew Pettis was capable of stuff like this, but to have the balls to throw that kick in the fifth round of a title fight? If he planted his foot wrong, the video above might be titled "Ultimate Fail." Instead, he clinched the match on the judges scorecards with absolute authority. Said Pettis after the fight: “Duke Roufus plays with us, and we try these new kicks. He told us if one of us lands it in the cage that he would take us to dinner. So he owes me some dinner.”

The main event earned both men $10,000 Fight of the Night bonuses. As action-packed as the "Henderson vs. Pettis" broadcast was, the unaired prelims were equally hardcore, producing five first-round stoppages in seven bouts…

(Quick prediction: Dominick Cruz will win his fight via DQ [eye-pokes/mohawk]. Photos courtesy of the WEC 53 Weigh In Pics gallery on CombatLifestyle.com)

Well folks, the next time you see these guys, they’ll be wearing UFC gloves, slugging it out in a slightly-larger cage and picking up every Fight of the Night bonus they can get their slightly-smaller hands on. Tonight, the WEC says farewell with two title fights and their usual assortment of relentless scrappers. Round-by-round updates from the Versus broadcast will be accumulating after the jump beginning at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

After nine-and-a-half years of thrilling events, Wold Extreme Cagefighting will take its final bow tonight at the Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona. But even aside from the historical significance, there will be a lot on the line at WEC 53. In the main event, Ben Henderson and Anthony Pettis battle to become the UFC’s #1 lightweight contender. Dominick Cruz and Scott Jorgensen meet to determine the UFC’s first-ever 135-pound champion. And a host of top 155′ers like Donald Cerrone, Chris Horodecki, Kamal Shalorus, Zhang Tie Quan and Jamie Varner will be fighting to keep their jobs in an unforgiving post-UFC-merger market.

CagePotato.com will be liveblogging the Versus broadcast beginning at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT. Come back for all the live results, and to share your fond memories of one of the greatest MMA promotions to ever do it. WEC 53′s full lineup is after the jump…

(After Nate Diaz has sex with a guy, he will rip their heads off. Props: YouTube.com/FreeFights4You)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

– Ailing Cruz, Upstart Jorgensen Aim for History Books at WEC 53 (Versus MMA Beat)

– ‘Strength and Honor’: Ben Henderson vs. Anthony Pettis Hype Video (MMA Scraps)

– Stefan Struve Wants to Get to 280 Pounds for Lesnar, Carwin, Etc. (MMA Fighting)

– The 10 Best Fights in WEC History (Heavy.com/MMA)

– Watch This Preview of ‘The Saint of Stevia: The Legend of Dan Quinn’ (MiddleEasy)

– Kimo-Therapy: UFC Veteran To Assist the Needy This Christmas (FightMagazine)

- Frank Mir vs. Brendan Schaub Expected for March 2011 (LowKick)

– Jens Pulver Not Done Yet, Plans to Fight in January (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Roger Huerta Saves Little Girl’s Life, Proves Status As Superhero (SBNation.com/MMA)

– Fedor Emelianenko: If I Never Fight In The UFC, They Will Be Sorry, Not Me (MMA Convert)

Every year, a handful of MMA fighters ascend from obscurity to contendership, from prospect status to championship gold — from nothing to something. In honor of The Warrior’s Way, which hits theaters next Friday, we’d like to salute MMA’s breakout class of 2010, whose careers exploded this year, and who are all poised for even larger accomplishments in 2011.

PHIL DAVIS

Notable 2010 victories: Brian Stann (unanimous decision, UFC 109), Alexander Gustafsson (submission R1, UFC 112), Tim Boetsch (submission R2, UFC 123)
Between his pink shorts, action-figure physique, and aggressive grappling, Mr. Wonderful has become an unmistakable figure in the UFC’s light-heavyweight division. A year ago, he was a relatively unknown 4-0 prospect trying to re-invent himself as a cage-fighter after a brilliant collegiate wrestling career at Penn State, which culminated in a 2008 NCAA title. Davis made his Octagon debut this February, and has since sent four straight opponents back to the drawing board, beginning with former WEC champ Brian Stann, and ending with a Submission of the Night performance against Tim Boetsch. Having proven himself against gritty veterans and promising rookies, we’re about to find out if Davis can keep his dominant run going against the next level of UFC contenders.

COURT McGEE

Notable 2010 victories: Kris McCray (submission R2, TUF 11 Finale), Ryan Jensen (submission R3, UFC 121)
Court McGee’s life is an object lesson in never, ever giving up, no matter how dire the circumstances. A former drug-addict who was declared clinically dead after an overdose in 2005, McGee got clean and devoted his life to MMA. His stint on The Ultimate Fighter 11 this year was almost cut short after he lost a bum decision to Nick Ring, but McGee re-entered the competition as an injury replacement, and went on to choke out James Hammortree, Brad Tavares, and Kris McCray to earn the season’s middleweight trophy. In his first post-TUF test at UFC 121, he survived getting bombed out on by Ryan Jensen in the first round, and turned the momentum around when Jensen began to fade in round two. In the end, Jensen was tapping like the rest of them, and Court McGee had secured his reputation as one of toughest (and most likable) bastards TUF has ever produced.

(Props: MMAFighting)

The cat’s out of the bag, and the "major announcement" turned out to be pretty damn major after all. Dana White announced during a media call today that the UFC is absorbing the WEC beginning in January 2011; the UFC will now feature seven championship weight classes. Here’s how it’ll work…

– Jose Aldo is automatically the UFC Featherweight Champion; he’ll defend his UFC featherweight title at UFC 125 on January 1st against a yet-to-be-determined opponent.

– WEC 53 (December 16th; Glendale, Arizona) will be the final WEC event. The winner of the bantamweight title fight between Dominick Cruz and Scott Jorgensen will become the UFC Bantamweight Champion. The winner of the lightweight title fight between Ben Henderson and Anthony Pettis will automatically face the winner of Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard at UFC 125.

(Props: YouTube.com/Heavy)

— If you thought last night’s WEC main event wasn’t as close as the judges scored it, Dominick Cruz would respectfully agree with you. As the reigning bantamweight champ said after his fight with Joseph Benavidez (skip to the 2:59 mark above): 

"In my humble opinion, I thought I won all the rounds…I think that the crowd has a big part to play in the judges’ opinion sometimes. Also, he caught me with a real slick knee up against the cage that made me bleed real bad. I would assume the blood could have swayed the judges a little as well."

Benavidez was also surprised that one of the judges saw it his way: "I figured I didn’t do enough to win, but I wasn’t watching the fight, so when the judge did say my name it was quite a surprise. I was like "wow, could this happen? Is this, like, the work of God or something?" For the record, FightMetric gave every round to Cruz for outpointing Benavidez in striking (103-46 total) and takedowns (5-0 total).

— $10,000 performance bonuses were handed out to the following fighters…
Knockout of the Night: Newcomer Maciej Jewtuszko for using a spinning back elbow and a pair of nasty uppercuts to wreck Anthony Njokuani in 96 seconds.
Submission of the Night: Anthony Pettis for finishing Shane Roller via triangle choke with just nine seconds left in the fight, after wearing Roller down with his impressively-flashy striking attacks. (How ’bout that capoeira head kick in round one?)
Fight of the Night: Scott Jorgensen and Brad Pickett for their 15-minute smash-up which went all over the cage and didn’t slow down for one second. Round two was easily one of the best MMA rounds of 2010.

(Benavidez must be standing on the stack of cash he gave Nelson Hamilton before the fight)

Well WEC 50: Cruz vs. Benavidez II is in the books and in usual WEC fashion, the card didn’t disappoint.

The fact that six out of 10 fights on the card went to the judges’ scorecards is a testament to the WEC matchmaker Sean Shelby’s adeptness, because even the bouts that went the distance were wars of attrition in which both fighters left everything in the cage.

A few up-and-comers climbed further up the title contention ladder while a few others dropped a few rungs down, but none of the fights were disappointing.
The only real question mark of the show was which fights the judges were watching as they seem to have decidedly different opinions on who won a few of the bouts.

In the main event of the evening, bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz controlled the majority of action, possibly losing two rounds of the five round title affair to challenger Joseph Benavidez. Benavidez landed a handful of power shots throughout the bout, but it was Cruz’s takedowns that were the real deciding factor in the fight.

Personally, I had the fight at 49-46 for Cruz, but it arguably could have gone 48-47 depending on how you look at round two. For Nelson "Doc" Hamilton to score the the bout 48-47 for Benavidez it makes me wonder if he was watching America’s Got Talent on his iPhone instead of watching the fight.

(Whatever Benavidez throws at him in the cage, it won’t be nearly as intense as that horrible freakin’ ice bath. Props: YouTube.com/fightmagazine)

Headlining tomorrow night’s WEC 50 card on Versus is Dominick Cruz (15-1) attempting his first bantamweight title defense against old rival Joseph Benavidez (12-1). Cruz won their first meeting at WEC 42 by unanimous decision. Will he be able to repeat the performance, or is Joe B gettin’ that belt? Let’s go to the stats…

AGE
Cruz: 25
Benavidez: 26
Advantage: Even

HEIGHT
Cruz: 5’8"
Benavidez: 5’4"
Advantage: Cruz. Seriously, Ariel Helwani looks like a giant standing next to Joe. Though to be fair, Miguel Torres is 5’9", and Benavidez wrecked him.

FINISHING PERCENTAGE
Cruz: 44% (7 out of 16 fights ended in stoppage victories)
Benavidez: 77% (10 out of 13 fights ended in stoppage victories)
Advantage: Benavidez

(Cruz and Benavidez’s first meeting last August: Dominick may have gotten the nod for Octagon control, but Joe definitely had the mad-dogging advantage. Photo courtesy of SI)

Next Sunday’s WEC 49 might be low on marquee fights, but the organization will be making up for it in a big way at their August 18th show, which is slated to go down in Las Vegas. As reported yesterday, former featherweight champ Urijah Faber will make his bantamweight debut at the event, following a 2-3 stretch in his last five fights — including an agonizing loss to Jose Aldo in his last title challenge. Faber’s opponent is expected to be Takeya Mizugaki (12-4-2, 2-2 WEC), who made his WEC debut in a memorable five-round war against Miguel Torres last year, and has since picked up decision victories against Jeff Curran and Rani Yahya. Faber has stated in the past that he cuts very little weight to make 145 pounds, and a drop to 135 wouldn’t be a problem for him.

Headlining the card will be an even more important bantamweight scrap: Dominick Cruz‘s first title defense against Faber’s teammate Joseph Benavidez, who Cruz previously outpointed at WEC 42. Cruz became champion in March thanks to a brilliant striking performance against then-champion Brian Bowles. Benavidez earned his title shot by choking out Miguel Torres at the same event, and hopes to avenge the only loss on his record. The 8/18 show — which we’ll refer to as WEC 50 until further notice — will be broadcast on Versus.

Semi-related: The day before he handles color-commentary duties for WEC 49, Kenny Florian will be working the booth for the TUF 11 Finale.

(Video courtesy YouTube ProMMARadio)

In an interview with ProMMARadio this weekend, former WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber confirmed that he will be dropping down to bantamweight to test the 135-pound waters.

 “From the sound of things, they want me to go down to 35. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time — go down and have some fights down there. So, I’ll probably have a couple of fights down there and maybe go back up to 45; we’re not real sure yet."

The newest episode of ESPN’s "MMA Live" wasted no time in exploring the question that’s on everybody’s minds, ‘Is Brian Bowles a total pussy for giving up his title because of a broken hand at WEC 47?’  Okay, maybe they didn’t put it exactly like that, but hey, I guess something about wearing a suit makes you feel like you can’t say the word pussy directly into a camera.  Rashad Evans says he wouldn’t have thrown in the towel and relinquished his belt over some measly broken bones, while Pat Miletich plays it a little closer to the vest, opting to keep his mind on his money and his money on his mind.  That’s when the new champ, Dominick Cruz, shows up to give his two cents:

"To me, if I break my hand, if I break my foot, I’m fighting until I…you have to push a button on me or put me to sleep to get me to stop. I ain’t going to stop for nothin’."

Cruz goes on to reveal that his foot was initially thought to be broken, but isn’t, and he’s also currently sporting a cast for what may or may not turn out to be a fractured wrist.  In other words, he’s not calling Bowles a pussy, he’s just saying that it’s not something he would have done, on account of he is not a total pussy.  Tough, but fair.  

(Props: FightersOnlyMagazine)

At WEC 47‘s post-event press conference, MMA legend Jens Pulver discussed the pride he feels in watching the lighter weight-divisions develop into popular, exciting products — even if the level of competition in those divisions has officially passed him by. "I’m just a proud old man," Pulver said. "I’m a proud poppa, I guess, I’m the godfather of this stuff, and it’s a good place and a good way to go." The younger fighters in attendance took some time to talk about what Jens meant to them as featherweights and bantamweights following the trail that Lil’ Evil blazed…

Scott Jorgensen: "Jens is one of the guys that kind of got me interested in MMA as an actual sport that I could compete in…The guy’s the greatest guy ever. He’s sincere, he’s from the heart, what he says he means. I don’t have a bad word to say about him, he’s the best, man. I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without people like Jens."

(Looks like someone deserves a lollipop for being such a brave boy. Photo courtesy of Brian Bowles‘s Twitter.)

Fans were treated to a night of upsets at WEC 47, as favorites Brian Bowles and Miguel Torres both went down to unceremonious defeats in Columbus, Ohio. As you see in the above photo, Bowles wasn’t kidding about that injured hand. He claims to have broken it on the very first punch he landed, which then threw his whole game off and eventually prompted him to relinquish his title when he couldn’t continue past round two. That makes Dominick Cruz your new 135-pound champ, and the way the title’s been bouncing around lately he better get all the enjoyment he can out of it while it lasts.

In another minor shock, 5’4” Joseph Benavidez swarmed all over former champ Miguel Torres before securing a guillotine choke in the second round that forced Torres to tap out. With the victory, Benavidez claimed the $10,000 bonus check for Submission of the Night. The other bonus awards went to Anthony Pettis for his Knockout of the Night-winning finish of Danny Castillo, and to George Roop and Leonard Garcia, who earned Fight of the Night in a three-round draw during the prelims.

(Wait a minute, Brian Bowles was hanging out with Don Frye last night? I hope it’s not too late to change my FightPicker bet, because there’s no way Bowles wasn’t hung over and short one kidney this morning. Photo courtesy of the WEC 47: After the Weigh Ins gallery on CombatLifestyle.com.)

WEC 47 kicks off on Versus at 10 p.m. ET, featuring the bantamweight title fight between Brian Bowles and Dominick Cruz, plus Miguel Torres vs. Joseph Benavidez and Jens Pulver vs. Javier Vazquez. Follow us on Twitter tonight for updates, and let us know how you’re feelin’ in the comment thread below. Okay? Let’s have some fun tonight…