(Goyito and Kim Winslow: One sword-swallower short of a freak-show. / Photo via Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)

Seems like it’s been a while since we’ve had a good-old-fashioned staph outbreak in the world of MMA. The latest victim of the nasty bacterial infection is Erik “Goyito” Perez, the bantamweight up-and-comer who was slated to face TUF 14 vet Johnny Bedford on the UFC 159: Jones vs. Sonnen prelims this Saturday in Newark. Perez, who holds a 3-0 UFC record with all wins by first-round stoppage, was hospitalized over the weekend with a severe staph infection in his leg. No word yet on a timetable for Perez’s return; let’s just hope his infection hasn’t reached Randleman or McFedries levels of grossness.

Replacing Perez on less than a week’s notice is Team Alpha Male’s Bryan Caraway, who’s coming off a split-decision loss to Takeya Mizugaki at UFC on FUEL 8 in March. Miesha’s boyfriend will need to come correct against Bedford, who’s officially 2-0 in the UFC with both wins by KO/TKO. So will Caraway follow in the footsteps of his teammates’ recent success, thanks to the addition of striking coach Duane Ludwig? And will you care enough to watch it?

(Using so-phisticated technology, Jurassic Park scientists were able to extract the preserved blood from Munoz’s bone spurs and BINGO! Dino DNA. Photo via Munoz’s Twitter.) 

Fact: Chris Weidman hits so hard that his victims often fail to quantify the force of his punches until weeks and sometimes months after they’ve been hit. Just ask middleweight contender Mark Munoz, who received such a vicious beating at the hands of Weidman last July that his bones began to disintegrate over the course of the year in an attempt to deal with the shock. Hell, even Weidman’s body cracked under the pressure of possessing two pipe bombs for hands. So it’s quite fitting that, almost a year to the day after their clash at UFC on FUEL 4, both Weidman and Munoz have been booked to return to action at UFC 162. 

While Weidman is already scheduled to face off against Anderson Silva for the middleweight title in the evening’s main event, Munoz will taking on the man Weidman was expected to face at UFC 155, Tim Boetsch.

If you recall, Weidman’s teammate, Costa Phillipou, quickly stepped in as a replacement against Boetsch at UFC 155 and managed to successfully cut “The Barbarian’s” title hopes right out from under him with a series of eye pokes and headbutts that were eventually declared a third round TKO. Prior to the loss, Boetsch had racked up 4 straight wins in the middleweight division over the likes of Hector Lombard and Yushin Okami among others. Will ring rust play a factor in Munoz’s return to the octagon, or will Boetsch launch himself right back into the short list of contenders at middleweight with a win here?

Munoz vs. Boetsch is just one of several exciting matchups to be announced within the past few hours, so join us after the jump to check out the chronologically-sorted list.

(I don’t care what they’re arguing about. I’m always going to side with the guy who’s not wearing bikini briefs. / Photo courtesy of Esther Lin’s UFC 155 weigh-in set on MMAFighting.com)

As an appetizer to tonight’s UFC 155 pay-per-view blowout, the UFC has slated four promising preliminary matchups on FX, featuring battle-tested sluggers (Melvin Guillard vs. Jamie Varner, Brad Pickett vs. Eddie Wineland) and streaking rising stars (Erik Perez vs. Byron Bloodworth, Michael Johnson vs. Myles Jury), all looking to close out 2012 with a bang, bro.

Handling the liveblog for this leg of our journey will be Anthony Gannon, who will be jotting down round-by-round results after the jump beginning at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and if you’re watching along with us, shoot us your own thoughts in the comments section.

(A bit of insider info: The tattoo on Koch’s right arm stands for Zeitgeist, while the one on the left stands for Honey Boo Boo child. True story.) 

It may not come as a shock to any of you, but needless to say, UFC 155 a.k.a the UFC’s annual New Year’s Eve card is looking pretty stacked at this point. Sure, we will lose at least half of these fights to injury, but for the time being we are going to revel in these awesome matchups God damn it and there’s nothing you can do to stop us la la la la we can’t hear you!

Just last week, we announced that Phil Davis would be stepping in to replace Chael Sonnen against Forrest Griffin in the night’s co-main event, and today, a whole slew of interesting matchups were announced, starting with Erik Koch vs Ricardo Lamas.

If you recall, Koch has spent roughly ten years on the shelf due to injury, yet despite this, was in line to receive the next shot at Jose Aldo. Then Jose got injured, then the bout was rescheduled, then Koch injured himself again, then Jose got injured again. My God, that was as depressing an assessment of the current UFC landscape as I’ve ever written. In any case, it appears that Koch will finally return to action on New Year’s against fellow top contender Ricardo Lamas, who is fresh off a victory over Hatsu Hioki at UFC on FX 4. Koch and Lamas find themselves in a very similar position coming into this fight — both are relatively unknown by casual fans yet will likely earn the next featherweight title shot with a win — so expect both guys to try and make a statement with this fight, or at the minimum, talk a lot of shit to Jose Aldo afterward.

In other UFC 155 news…