(DO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO THE GIRL, JUST DON’T HURT ME.) 

Meet Nandor “The Hun” Guelmino, a.k.a the man Josh Barnett will face in his final Strikeforce appearance at the hilariously mistitled Strikeforce: Champions event on January 12th. As you might have noticed, he is a terrifying individual who looks something like the freakish offspring of The Tall Man, The Silver Surfer, Imhotep, and an eighty pound bag of cement. With a record of 11-3, Guelmino has collected 7 straight victories not by consuming the souls of his opponents before pulling their spinal chords through their assholes as one would imagine, but rather by two earthly TKO’s, three submissions, and a pair of decisions. At 6’3” and just over 230 pounds, perhaps the most freakish thing about Guelmino is that he will actually be giving away some size to Barnett, who usually weighs in at just under 250lbs.

Having collected 6 victories by way of submission, it will be interesting to see how Guelmino will deals with the aggressive grappling attack of a guy like Barnett. My prediction: By lifting Barnett above his head, putting him in The Torture Rack, and spiking him through the canvas like a football. He will then grab the microphone from Gus Johnson and proclaim himself to be Ashta, Devourer of Worlds before unleashing a hellish sand monster in his likeness that descends upon the audience and wipes them out in one final flurry. Despite the massive loss of life, the moment will ultimately be declared a bit of redemption for Strikeforce.

Get familiar with “The Hun” after the jump.

Clearly, there are zero inappropriate jokes to be made here.

In the territorial days of professional wrestling, the loser leaves town match was a way for wrestling promoters to wrap up a storyline when one of the wrestlers left his company for a rival promotion. Even though MMA is much different from professional wrestling, our sport still books these fights every so often. It isn’t exactly uncommon for the UFC to book fights between two not-quite-contenders, where the losers receive a pink slip and a call from Ray or Bjorn.

Case in point: The UFC announced yesterday that featherweights Leonard Garcia and Cody McKenzie will meet up at UFC 155. With both men being a combined 3-7 in their last ten fights (2-8 if you aren’t blind, deaf and dumb), and both coming off of less-than-impressive losses, the loser of this fight will almost certainly be spending time outside of the UFC.

On paper, Leonard Garcia is heading into this bout in worse condition than his opponent. Garcia has only won once in his last five fights, and that victory was a total bullshit decision over Nam Phan. The only thing that may save Garcia is the fact that he’s usually entertaining in defeat – his Zuffa career includes a total of five Fight of the Night awards, one Knockout of the Night and 2010′s Fight of the Year, a total bullshit victory over The Korean Zombie at WEC 48. Oh, and if you haven’t noticed, judges have an inexplicable love for the guy.

If it wasn’t already crystal clear that former pound for pound boxing great Roy Jones Jr.’s near twenty-five year career had gone on for far too long, Thursday it was announced that he will fight Kevin ‘Kimbo Slice’ Ferguson in Jamaica in December. This fight that no one asked for and that no self-respecting athletic commission would sanction is apparently being made possible by something called Giomax Entertainment Company and Stewart’s Auto Sales.

Yup.

Jones went the first fourteen years or so of his professional boxing career without a real loss (He was disqualified for hitting Montell Griffin while he was down in 1997 and promptly KO’d him when they re-matched five months later) and dominated multiple weight classes on his way to being considered, at times, the world’s best boxer, pound for pound. But since 2004 Jones has gone 7-7, with four of those losses being ugly knockouts or TKO’s.

(Suck it, Javier Sotomayor.) 

In what will either make for a triumphant or disastrous turning point in Eddie Alvarez’s career (specifically, his marketability), the former Bellator lightweight champion has been booked to take on Brazilian knockout artist Patricky “Pitbull” Freire at Bellator 75, which goes down on October 12th at Caesar’s Windsor in Canada.

After collecting seven straight wins under the Bellator banner (6 by way of stoppage), Alvarez lost his lightweight strap in dramatic fashion, falling prey to a fourth round submission in a battle for the ages at Bellator 58 to Michael Chandler. Most recently, Alvarez earned some much sought after revenge when he battered and dispatched Shinya Aoki in the first round of their Bellator 66 throwdown, and immediately began  making his case for a potential spot amongst the UFC’s ever growing lightweight roster thereafter. It just goes to show what beating up a man in multi-colored pastel tights can do for one’s confidence.

(And to think, if I hadn’t accidentally called Dana “Baldfather” during that interview, I’d be fighting Ben Henderson right about now.) 

When we first heard word that Strikeforce was considering booking a completely unnecessary fourth match between lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thompson, we more or less saw it as a sign that Strikeforce’s lightweight division, not unlike their heavyweight, welterweight, and pretty much every other division, was simply biding its time until the UFC inevitably absorbed it. We were elated to find out shortly thereafter that Thompson was making the whole thing up, possibly under the belief that if the rumor gained enough steam, Scott Coker would sit idly by and let the match happen again and again until Thompson finally emerged victorious.

Fortunately, someone had good enough sense to book Melendez a fight against top contender Pat Healy on September 29th instead, which will make for Melendez’s fifth title defense should he be successful. Although Healy can’t hold a candle to Thompson as far as turning in exciting performances goes (Thompson’s snoozer against K.J. Noons outstanding), it will be nice to see Melendez finally face off against the only other lightweight in the division who stands at least a snowball’s chance in Hell of beating him.

More details after the jump. 

“Okay Chael, I got right into the triangle defense you taught me! Now what?”

File this one under “Better (I guess) late than never.”

TMZ is reporting that former WWE Champion Dave Bautista – better known by his incredibly clever stage name “Batista” – has inked a deal with Rhode Island’s CES MMA. He will be making his professional MMA debut on October 6, which will take place at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

His opponent is thirty-three year old Rashid “Smash” Evans, who will also be making his professional MMA debut. Evans went 3-2 in amateur competition, with his most recent victory being a second round submission via strikes victory over Brett Jenkins at Barbarian Fight Club “2012″ in January.

(It may not be the most conventional fight attire, but we’ll give Miesha a ton of fap style points for the effort.) 

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a few short months since Miesha Tate nearly had her arm torn in two by Ronda Rousey in the their bantamweight championship showdown on March 3rd. It was undoubtedly one of the most heated (not to mention hyped) fights in WMMA history, and did not disappoint once the caged door closed. As it turns out, despite the fact that Meisha ended up coming short and losing her belt in the process, the fight didn’t even come close to squashing the beef between her and Rousey. How appropriate then, that it was recently announced that the former champ has been booked to take on Julie Kedzie at the same event that Rousey will attempt to defend her belt for the first time against Sarah Kaufman.

Is this just an attempt by Strikeforce to pack as many exciting fights as possible into their ever-decreasing number of cards, or rather an elaborate ploy to set up another post fight brawl that will in turn hype the inevitable rematch between Rousey and Tate?

(Take it easy, Todd, it’s not like you’re Anthony Johnson or somethin’.) 

We’ll give the fellas behind Super Fight League this, aside from their overly-lavish-yet-somehow-clusterfucked-production, their motocross-sized ring, and their pants-shittingly terrible theme song, they manage to book some intriguing matchups every now and again. Considering how green of a promotion SFL is, we’d almost consider throwing our support behind them if they didn’t insist on cancelling out those interesting matchups with ones involving Bob Sapp or Bobby Lashley on every other card. But today, we can put another check in the “You have our attention” column for the Indian promotion, as it has been announced that former UFC slugger Todd Duffee and Heavyweight submission/anarchy specialist Jeff Monson have been booked to throw down in the headlining bout of SFL’s fourth event.

Okay, so it’s not a match that will likely make your butthole pucker with excitement, but it’s a huge step up from their last headliner, and that counts for something, right?

We last saw the “official” record holder for fastest UFC knockout in action at Super Fight League’s second event, where he successfully knocked the poop out of Neil Grove in just over 30 seconds, snapping a two fight skidmark in the process. In case you haven’t noticed, the overarching theme of this article is all things related to feces. Just go with it.

Monson, on the other hand, is coming off a first round submission via North-South choke over Denis Komkin at the same M-1 Global event that saw Fedor Emelianenko nearly retire Pedro Rizzo from the waking world before announcing his own retirement from the sport shortly thereafter. Perhaps the most interesting angle of this match is that Monson has never been truly KO’d before, unless you count that time his ex-girlfriend nearly knocked him out of MMA competition for a decade by leaking those photos of him desecrating the Washington State Capitol building. In fact, Monson hasn’t even been finished in over 5 years (a third round TKO loss to Pedro Rizzo back in September of 2007), so Duffee can really make a statement if he is able to put away a guy like “The Snowman” considering not even Daniel Cormier was able to do so.

Videos of both fighter’s most recent performances are after the jump. 

(Duane, how many times do I have to tell you to STOP SLEEPING ON THE JOB??!!!!)

Well, well, well…it looks like the UFC has finally delivered a free card matchup that doesn’t make us yearn for the days of Arlovski/Sylvia III. Word just broke (and by just, we mean a good six or seven hours ago) that veteran strikers Duane “Bang” Ludwig and Che Mills have been paired up for UFC on FUEL 5, which goes down on September 29, 2012 at the Capital FM Arena in Nottingham, England and features a headlining matchup between heavyweight contenders Stefan Struve and Stipe Miocic. Mills broke the news via his Twitter:

After stringing together a pair of wins over Nick Osipczak and Amir Sodallah to save his UFC career, Ludwig again finds himself with his back against the wall. He has dropped his last two contests to Josh Neer (via Ambienotine) and Dan Hardy (via lead left hook of death) and could be looking at his final fight under the promotion if he is not successful against Mills.

(Cote has never been the same since the night he had a run-in with Rousimar Palhares’ doppelganger.) 

When all is said and done for the human race, there will be three rivalries that stand above them all in the footnotes of history: America vs. The Brits, Germany vs. Everybody, and now, Canada vs. Vietnam. Though there hasn’t been a feud between the two on the level of the Hatfields and McCoys yet, things are about to change. Why, you ask? Well, it has just been announced that Canada’s own Patrick Cote will be returning to the octagon to face Vietnamese-born San Shou expert Cung Le at UFC 148. The war that will inevitably result from this pairing will easily go down as the most significant clash Canada has gotten into since the Hans Island dispute with Denmark in the early 80′s.

Cote will be filling the void left by Rich Franklin, who recently vacated his fight with Le to face Wanderlei Silva (again) at UFC 147 in Vitor Belfort’s absence. Cote has not fought in the UFC since October of 2010 at UFC 121, where he dropped a unanimous decision to Tom Lawlor, his third straight loss in the promotion, and was subsequently released.

Since exiting the promotion, Cote has strung together four straight wins, including a most recent first round knockout of Shooto/IFL vet Gustavo Machado, a win that we speculated could earn him a trip back to the UFC. And damn it, it feels good to be right for once.

Check out a video of Cote’s most recent performance after the jump. 

(This one is for The Number 23, and the next one is for that God damn penguin movie!) 

Yep, that’s right. None other than former middleweight champion Rich “Ace” Franklin will be the man to fill in for Vitor Belfort against Wanderlei Silva in the main event of UFC 147. The fight will be contested at a catchweight of 190 pounds. Sound familiar? That might be because these two met at UFC 99 back in June of 2009 at a catchweight of just five pounds heavier (a.k.a Rumbleweight, Franklinweight, Moneyweight, or 195 lbs.). The fight was an action packed affair that saw “Ace” emerge victorious by way of unanimous decision.

As you may recall, Franklin was originally expected to take on Cung Le at UFC 148, who has now been left without an opponent. After Vitor was forced to withdraw from his rematch with Silva due to a broken hand, however, everyone from Alan Belcher, who also injured himself in the meantime, to Michael Bisping, who Wanderlei already defeated by UD in his UFC middleweight debut back at UFC 110, were being pegged as potential opponents, even in light of Bisping/Boetsch already being announced.

Though this matchup will more than likely make for an exciting fight (being that their first scrap took home FOTN honors), we may be looking at the possibility of UFC 147 being demoted from a pay-per-view to a free card at this point. And here’s why.

(The key to defeating Marcus Jones? A few drops of barbecue sauce on your glove, believe it or not.) 

Ever since dropping a unanimous decision in a snorefest to Cheick Kongo at UFC 137, a loss that snapped a five fight win streak that included vicious (T)KO victories over Christian Morecraft, Tim Hague, and Kimbo Slice, TUF 10 veteran Matt Mitrione has been M.I.A. He hasn’t returned any of our phone calls, and he damn sure hasn’t left us any messages, so we just assumed he was taking a really long vacation on a mysterious, remote island that had yet to develop cell phone technology…like Australia. Because surely no one would willingly ignore us, right? RIGHT?!

…

Ahem. Well, most of you will be happy to know that “Meathead” will be returning to action at UFC on FOX 4 against Rob Broughton. Who is Rob Broughton, you ask? He would be the British gentlemen with the, let’s call it “Fedorian” physique, who is currently 1-2 in the octagon. After scoring a debut victory (via third round rear-naked choke) over a juiced up Vinicius Quieroz, “The Bear” has dropped a pair of unanimous decision victories to Travis Browne and Philip De Fries at UFC 135 and UFC 138, respectively. He also holds notable victories over Neil Grove (via decision), Robert Berry (via TKO), and James Thompson (via WTFdoyouthink).

Contain your excitement. CONTAIN IT.

UFC on FOX 4 goes down from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California on August 4th.

Since we kind of have to ask this, who you got?

-J. Jones

(And for my next trick, I will enter a state of comatose using only a roided man’s fists and sheer determination.) 

On the heels of a devastating one-punch knockout at the hands of Muhammed Lawal in September, it looks like Roger Gracie will make his moderately-anticipated middleweight debut at an upcoming Strikeforce event in July. Rejoice. Across the cage from the Jiu-Jitsu phenom will be none other than UFC veteran and member of the undead army, Keith “The Dean of Mean” Johnson Jardine. Jardine has had a rough run of things as of late, dropping six of his last nine including a recent ill-fated title bid against Luke Rockhold in January.

But a matchup with Gracie is one that Jardine stands a better chance of winning than any fight in recent memory, believe it or not. Jardine has never been submitted in professional competition, and Gracie’s complete lack of the kind of striking game that has felled Jardine in the past might just make for a victory over a big name that has eluded “The Dean” since his UFC 89 split-decision win over Brandon Vera. In fact, the closest Jardine has even come to scoring an upset victory in recent years was his Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley performance that saw him fight to a majority draw with the heavily favored Gegard Mousasi.

Though it was previously reported that Gracie was on his way up to the UFC, those rumors were quickly squashed by UFC President Dana White, who stated, “[expletive] that [expletive] you [expletive] [expletive] Samuel L. Jackson [expletive] smartphone [expletive] hotspacho [expletive].” Something like that. *

In other fight booking news…

(Sapp’s most recent effort attempt ”showing” against James Thompson. How do you know it’s a Bob Sapp joint? Because the introductions are twice as long as the fight.) 

In the difficult economic times that we are currently experiencing, Bob Sapp’s continual ability to stay employed as a “fighter” is nothing short of inspiring. And by inspiring, we mean infuriating. The man has fought nine times in the past three years, totaling just over fifteen minutes of ring time. There is not a doubt in any of our minds that the time he spent training for those fights was less than half of that. He has lost all but one of those contests, and word has it that the one man he defeated committed Sepukku shortly thereafter. Yet he continues to get work. He lost his last fight by submission due to (fake) leg injury, and tapped out to approximately two punches thrown by a BJJ expert in the fight before that. Yet he continues to get work.

Perhaps it is a sign, like the popularity of Jersey Shore or Nicki Minaj, that our culture has truly done a 180 in terms of what we consider worthy of our attention. Where in days past, it was a person’s abilities that brought them into the public eye, it seems now more than ever that we as a society are fixated with people who lack any discernable talent whatsoever.

Bob Sapp is living, breathing proof of this phenomenon.

Thankfully, it looks as if Sapp may finally be forced to take on a fighter who could make him reconsider his line of work altogether; someone who could possibly knock Sapp out cold before he gets the chance to call it quits. That man is none other than UFC veteran Soa Palelei, who is scheduled to take on Sapp at Cage Fighting Championships 21 on April 20th.

If there is a God, he will not allow Bob Sapp to walk away from this fight completely intact.

(Busto vs. Anjo at UFC 25, or, before the UFC’s commentating team knew what an arm-triangle choke was.) 

Former UFC Middleweight Champion Murilo Bustamante will be returning to action for the first time since 2010 on March 31st when he headlines Amazon Forest Combat 2. And if that sentiment alone doesn’t give you a fearection, then get this: the man he will meet across the cage is none other than the same one he took the UFC Middleweight title from, Dave Menne.

Not since Abbott/Ferrozzo II have we been so excited.

One of the founding member of Brazilian Top Team and a twenty year MMA veteran, Bustamante’s grappling accolades are extensive to say the least, including four Brazilian National BJJ Championships, a 1999 Mundials World Championship, and several appearances in the ADCC World Submission Wrestling Championships. After defeating Menne back in January of 2002 at UFC 35 by second round TKO, Bustamante would defend the belt once, submitting Matt Lindland with a guillotine in the third round of their UFC 37 title fight. Financial disputes with the UFC, however, would force Bustamante to vacate the title shortly thereafter and sign with PRIDE FC, where he would go 4-5 against the likes of Dan Henderson, Ikuhisa Minowa, and Quinton Jackson. Bustamante will be looking to erase the memory of his last performance, an abysmal second round TKO due to retirement loss to TUF 7 alumnus Jesse Taylor at Impact FC 2 in July of 2010.

Join us after the jump to hear Bustamante’s thoughts on his upcoming rematch with Menne, as well as his pick for a future opponent that will make the PRIDE fan within you channel Lenne Hardt. 

(Photographic proof that EVERYTHING in India ends in choreographed dance.)

Their name is Super Fight League, and when you click on the main page of their website, you will immediately be serenaded by a theme song that can only be described as…divine. Seriously, it’s like Eddie Van Halen, Lil Jon, and Sean Paul drank paint thinner, blew coke, and played Star Fox until this song came out. THAT’S HOW EPIC IT IS.

Anyhow, aside from being India’s very first MMA promotion, Super Fight League will also go down in MMA history as the first promotion to sign an exclusive deal with Youtube. Awesome, right? You want to know what’s even more awesome? Their very first card will be headlined by a heavyweight clash between James Thompson and Bob Sapp. Yes, that Bob Sapp.

Check out the awesome promo after the jump.

Thompson looks to stay undefeated against Matt Brown at UFC 145

We’re barely one week removed from UFC 143, yet two welterweights who were victorious on the card have been signed to fight at UFC 145. The UFC has announced that TUF 7 veteran Matt Brown has agreed to a bout with Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson.

Matt Brown managed to buy himself more time in the UFC with a second round TKO over Chris Cope at UFC 143, improving the UFC record of “The Immortal” to 6-5. On the other end of the spectrum, Stephen Thompson made an impressive first impression on viewers with his first round head kick knockout over Dan Stittgen. The victory improved his record to 6-0, and also earned him Knockout of the Night honors.

(Are you there God? It’s me, Cowboy…)

A lot of fight booking action today, Potato Nation.

Before dropping a unanimous decision to Nate Diaz at UFC 141, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone had arguably the best 2011 of any fighter out there, scoring victories over Paul Kelly, Vagner Rocha, Charles Oliveira, and Dennis Siver, three of which came by way of stoppage. And although he ended the year on a loss, Cerrone will be looking to start off 2012 with a big win when he takes on 60 fight veteran Yves Edwards at UFC on FX 3, which goes down at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia on May 15th.

After suffering one of the most brutal knockout losses of 2011 at the hands of Sam Stout, Edwards has gone 1-1 in the UFC, picking up a second round TKO over Rafaello Oliveira at UFC Live 6 before being outpointed by TUF 13 winner Tony Ferguson at the TUF 14 Finale in December. Edwards will likely be a considerable underdog going into this one, so Yves, for the sake of the Thugjitsu nation, lay off the KC Masterpiece.

And in other UFC on FX news…

Gaudinot vs. Lineker should provide a clear contender for the coveted ‘Worst Hair in Professional Sports’ title.

Presumably after enduring three rounds of fatigued middleweights Chris Weidman and Demian Maia leading off UFC on FOX 2, the UFC brass figured it would be a good idea to show off its smaller fighters to the casual fans. For the organization’s third effort on FOX, the UFC will showcase two of its smallest fighters on the roster. Yesterday, the UFC announced a matchup between flyweights Louis Gaudinot and John Lineker has been booked for UFC on FOX 3.

As a bantamweight cast member of TUF 14, Louis Gaudinot lost to Dustin Pague in the fan voted “Fight of the Season” before losing his UFC debut to the much larger Johnny Bedford. As expected, Gaudinot is returning to flyweight, where he went 5-1 before his UFC career.

(This is where we’d normally make some sort of Geico Caveman reference, but those jokes, like the commercials, have been played out to the point of eye-gouging redundancy. So, uh…beauty and the beast?) 

Though they may not get your engine revving, a couple of sure-to-be-undercard bouts have been booked for the UFC’s debut on FUEL TV, the first of which being a featherweight match-up between grappling wizards Jonathan Brookins and Rani Yahya. After lateral dropping his way through season 12 of The Ultimate Fighter, Brookins recently saw a four fight win streak snapped at the hands of featherweight contender Eric Koch in a three rounder reminiscent of Couture vs. Vera that saw Brookins unable to get Koch to the mat.

Yahya, on the other hand, is likely fighting for his future in the UFC. Just 1-3 in his past four, with the lone win coming against a struggling (and last minute replacement) Mike Brown, we last saw Yahya on the losing end of a unanimous decision to Jose Aldo‘s next challenger, Chad Mendes. Prior to the Brown win, Yahya was outclassed by Takeya Mizugaki in another decision at WEC 48 and TKO’ed by future flyweight champ Joseph Benavidez at WEC 45.

(Mike who? Well, if there’s an ass that needs motorboating, I’ll be there.) 

When Carlos Condit was called up to face Nick Diaz for an interim title shot at UFC 143 in the wake of Georges St. Pierre’s knee injury, one person who felt left out of the mix was none other than former title challenger Josh Koscheck, who was originally scheduled to face Condit at the same event. Kos later tweeted that he would indeed be fighting at UFC 143, possibly as a middleweight. But now it seems that the TUF 12 coach will be fighting back at welterweight against up-and-comer Mike Pierce, who recently announced the match-up via his Twitter.

Pierce is coming off an entertaining three round shellacking of Paul Bradley at UFC on FOX 1, and is perhaps best known for actually managing to mount some offense against Koscheck’s AKA teammate Jon Fitch in their battle back at UFC 107, a feat that has been deemed nearly impossible at this point in Fitch’s career. Pierce is 5-2 in his octagon run thus far, including the aforementioned loss to Fitch and a split decision loss to Johny Hendricks at UFC 133, as well as wins over Brock Larson, Amilcar Alves, and Kenny Robertson.

 
(A classic battle of style vs. SUBstance.)

Fresh off his upset Submission of the Night victory over Melvin Guillard at UFC 136, Joe Lauzon was quick to respond when called out by former WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, who scored a decision victory over Jeremy Stephens at the same event. Well it looks like “Showtime” will be getting his wish, as the two have been booked to lock horns at UFC 144, in what could easily be a Fight of the Night match-up. Prior to their 136 victories, Lauzon scored a quick and nasty kimura victory over Kurt Warburton at UFC Live 4 whereas Pettis was wrestlefucked into oblivion by Clay Guida at the TUF 13 Finale in June. This is the point where I’d normally say that a victory here would rocket either man near the top of the lightweight ladder, but considering that the division is currently more crowded than a So-Cal Quinceanera, let’s just say that a victory here will keep either man…from losing.

(Our thoughts exactly, Diego.)

This would appear to put to rest not only Royce Gracie’s aspirations to rematch Matt Hughes at UFC: Rio, but also an immediate bout for Diego Sanchez against any of the numerous dudes he’s been beefing with on Twitter: The horse’s mouth itself – UFC.com – confirmed on Thursday that Hughes and Sanchez will face-off at an event to be named later, likely in the fall. So that’s weird.

We might’ve thought Sanchez deserved better, after squeaking by Martin Kampmann via relentless disregard for his own face at the latest UFC on Versus show. Meanwhile, Hughes – who is 37 – has recently grumbled about retirement and appeared to indicate he’d only like to fight fellow old guys who he might actually be able to beat from here on out. This appears to be an odd little piece of matchmaking for both guys.

("I’ll take Gilbert Godfried for the win, Joe." PicProps: UFC.com)

Those of you who were paying attention to Phil Davis’ Twitter account this week (and really, why wouldn’t you be?) already knew that the light heavyweight up-and-comer recently inked a bout agreement he was just dying to tell us all about. Now, it seems he won’t have to. Those damned internet websites are at it again, citing “sources close to the event” saying that Davis will take on Matt Hamill at the already stacked UFC 129 in Toronto. And why not? Hamill’s the dude the UFC traditionally likes to run up against its 205-pound prospects (and sometimes, its 205-pound graybeards) to see what they’ve really got in the tank. Makes sense to us.

Also on the horizon, it’s reported that fresh off showing his lack of social skills against Brandon Vera at UFC 125, Thiago Silva will step in the cage against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson at UFC 130. Both guys are coming off wins and it’s conceivable that the winner of that bout could be added to an ever-growing list of title contenders at 205-pounds.  But wait, that’s not all. After the jump some other alleged upcoming dates in the Octagon.