(Griggs might not have had the best ground game in the biz, but he made up for it in pure funkatude.) 

It must be spring, Potato Nation, because in order to make room for their new batch of Strikeforce fighters, the UFC has been doing a little cleaning out of their roster as of late. In total, 9 fighters have been axed as of this morning, including everyone’s favorite muttonchops aficionado, Chad Griggs. MMA Opinion has the full list, so join us after the jump to find out which fighters will no longer be punctuating the undercards of FUEL and FX events.

Chad Griggs: 11-1 before entering the UFC, Griggs’ lack of a ground game was quickly exposed in his debut, where he was choked out by Travis Browne in under three minutes at UFC 145. After dropping to light heavyweight, Griggs returned at UFC 154 to face PRIDE veteran and feared striker Cyrille Diabate. Those who were expecting a slugfest left disappointed, however, as Griggs was choked out in the first round again, just 15 seconds later than his first fight.

Marcus LeVesseur: Despite being one of the more decorated wrestlers to enter the UFC in some time, “The Prospect” quickly showed that he was simply not well rounded enough to hang in the sport’s highest promotion. After dominating the beginning of his UFC debut against TUF 12 alum Cody McKenzie, LeVesseur became McKenzietine victim #11 at just over three minutes into the first round. After scoring a snoozer of split decision over Carlo Prater in his next fight, Levesseur was absolutely savaged by Abel Trujillo at UFC on FOX: Henderson vs. Diaz.

(Props: RASTANITRO. Skip to 3:12 for the money shot.)

Though Yves Edwards was awarded UFC on FOX 5‘s official Knockout of the Night bonus for his beatdown of Jeremy Stephens, it was TUF Live contestant Daron “The Detroit Superstar” Cruickshank who produced the most dazzling KO on the prelim broadcast, with his second-round slaying of Henry Martinez. Honestly, that $65,000 should belong to Daron — walk-off knockouts and one-hitter quitters are awesome enough individually, but when they’re combined (with the traditional raising of the arms after the victor realizes what he’s done), the knockout becomes a thing of true beauty.

Cruickshank bumps his official UFC record to 2-0 as a lightweight, including his previous decision win over Chris Tickle. Any ideas on who he should fight next?

“Where I come from, people who lose close fights retire.” Props: UFC.com

While watching UFC 143 from the comfort of my favorite dive bar last night, I knew that MMA fans would be waging war on the internet over the fights that went the distance. Between the two point deduction that cost “Bruce Leroy” his fight against Edwin Figueroa and Josh Koscheck’s close fight with the “undeserving” Mike Pierce, I knew that I could expect a long-winded, philosophical debate over what constitutes a fight and what doesn’t- whether abstract concepts like “control” and “aggression” mean more than punches thrown, and whether takedowns earned and stuffed negate an inferior striking display. Naturally, this debate would include a lot of ad hominems and off topic ranting, because that’s just par for the course online.

And that was before the main event of the evening, which saw Carlos Condit earn a close decision over Nick Diaz. Carlos Condit used backward and lateral footwork while outstriking Nick Diaz, yet many fans felt that Nick Diaz should have won the fight. Before the fight even ended, the debate already began on whether “Octagon control” necessarily means “the guy moving forward”, and whether counter-punchers should automatically be considered less aggressive than their opponents. Judging from the comments sections of today’s articles, that debate won’t be ending any time soon.

Benjamin Disraeli once said that there are three types of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics. For the time being, let’s move our arguments about last night’s fights past the first two. Let’s now turn our focus towards the statistics from last night’s close decisions. FightMetric’s breakdowns of Riddle vs. Martinez, Figueroa vs. Caceres, Koscheck vs. Pierce and, of course, Diaz vs. Condit have been published, and are available after the jump.