#6: James Irvin vs. Houston Alexander @ UFC Fight Night 14 (4/2/08), 8 seconds

If you compiled James Irvin’s best and worst moments, you’d probably have the craziest MMA highlight reel ever. After all, this is the guy who took out Terry Martin via flying-knee, fell through the cage against Bobby Southworth, was whipping Thiago Silva’s ass until his knee exploded, and became Anderson Silva’s first light-heavyweight victim. And even with all those wild finishes, the Sandman may be remembered best for the out-of-nowhere knockout victory he scored over poor Houston Alexander at UFC Fight Night 13 last April. Honestly, who leads off a fight with a Superman punch? As crazy as it sounds, that was Irvin’s game-plan from the beginning. It’s hard to predict what he would have done next if Alexander survived that punch. A spinning-backfist, perhaps? A sudden and unexplained case of total paralysis, maybe? You just never know with this guy.

Honorable mentions: Don Frye vs. Thomas Ramirez @ UFC 8 (2/16/96), and Jonathan Goulet vs. Travis Axworthy @ TKO 29 (6/1/07) — which also lasted 8 seconds

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

Multiple sources are reporting that the upcoming welterweight title match between WEC champ Carlos "Natural Born Killer" Condit and top contender Brock Larson — scheduled for WEC 39 on March 1st — has been canceled, with Condit on the verge of moving to the UFC. Though Five Ounces of Pain first reported the news, their claim that the Condit/Larson bout was scrapped due to an injury sustained by Larson is being refuted by MMA Weekly, who says that Condit was the one who first dropped out of the Corpus Christi WEC show due to a sprained wrist.

At any rate, it seems the UFC has decided that this might be a good time to bring Condit up to the big leagues; Condit is on an eight-fight win streak and hasn’t lost since June 2006. The current rumor is that he’ll be facing Martin Kampmann at UFC Fight Night 18 (April 1st, Nashville), and it’s been speculated that this is the first step towards the elimination of the WEC’s welterweight division; the WEC discontinued its middleweight and light-heavyweight classes late last year, with the UFC signing standout fighters Brian Stann, Steve Cantwell, and Chael Sonnen.

In other UFC news…

— Replacing the injured Amir Sadollah against Nick Catone at UFC Fight Night 17 (February 7th, Tampa) will be UFC newbie Derek "The Gentleman" Downey, a Utah-based fighter who has built up a 10-3 record fighting in regional promotions. Nine of his 10 wins have come by first-round stoppage.

— Houston Alexander is getting another chance to prove himself after taking his third-straight first-round loss to Eric Schafer last September. The Assassin will be returning at UFC 98 (May 23rd, Las Vegas) against Andre Gusmao, the former IFL standout who dropped a decision to Jon Jones in his Octagon debut at UFC 87.

The final results of our latest caption contest, as the polls closed at 8 a.m. ET:

JTho (25%, 113 Votes)
RTS (20%, 91 Votes)
JoseMonkey (14%, 63 Votes)
Ted Nutmeg (11%, 48 Votes)
The king adrock (8%, 34 Votes)
PHISTAKUFFS (7%, 33 Votes)
Geriatric Peon (6%, 26 Votes)
Horror Fighter (5%, 21 Votes)
Baba (4%, 17 Votes)
Jordan (1%, 6 Votes)

JTho and RTS, send your addresses to feedback@cagepotato.com and we’ll send those signed copies of Rachelle Leah’s Playboy issue out to ya right away. High fives to all the finalists; if you didn’t win, you can still get a digital version of the entire issue here. Don’t give up, Horror Fighter!

(Images courtesy of this week’s caption contest.)

Voting — it’s so hot right now. In honor of next week’s election (and to prevent some of the inevitable bitching), we’re gonna go back to having you guys vote for the winners of these things. Remember, two copies of the November issue of Playboy signed by Rachelle herself are on the line, courtesy of Playboy Digital. And the nominees are…

Ted Nutmeg: In a bittersweet moment, Lyoto realized that standing next the chick in the red skirt is the closest he’ll ever come to scoring a knockout in the UFC.

PHISTAKUFFS: “Tito better be careful parking the car!”

RTS: Chick 1: “My man is a technician in bed.”
Chick 2: “Sounds great!”
Chick 1: “It’s actually quite boring.”
Chick 2: “My man is a knock out artist.”
Chick 1: “That sounds good.”
Chick 2: “He only lasts a minute, if that.”

Baba: Somewhere, Anderson and Thiago Silva are laughing in the midst of a Timberland shoot.

The king adrock: For the first time in career, Machida pressed the action.

JTho: After three grueling days and countless different models, the photographer was finally able to keep Alexander’s knees from buckling, and Machida from back pedaling out of the shot.

JoseMonkey: This photo was taken just moments after someone yelled, “Hey douchebag!”

Jordan: “Ok, next question….what the fuck are you looking at?”

Geriatric Peon: The Transvestite Realization Face

Horror Fighter: “All right, take ‘em off. It’s time to do the Condom Depot photos now.”

Cast your vote in the poll on the right side of the page. The two captions with the most votes by 8 a.m. ET on Monday win magazines. You are welcome to cast write-in votes in the comments section below, but if they aren’t shown above, they probably weren’t that funny. So please do your civic duty as a CagePotato reader, and good luck to all the nominees!

(The November issue of Playboy, on newsstands now. To get a digital version of the entire issue, click here.)

I promised you all a sexy caption contest this week, and I’m a man of my word. Dig this — the lovely and talented Rachelle Leah has given two signed copies of her Playboy issue to CagePotato.com, and we’re giving them away to the two readers who provide the funniest captions to the photo after the jump. Feel free to enter more than once, but please get all your captions in to the comments section by 6 p.m. ET on Thursday. Good luck, and be brilliant…

(Somehow, even in these bleak economic times, this man still has a job.)

Houston Alexander has apparently heard internet rumors to the effect that he’s been dropped from the UFC or has fired his entire coaching staff or desperately needs to learn the ground game. Oh, wait. That last part’s not a rumor. Anyway, the point is, he’s sick of it. So to clear the air and talk directly to fans without the filter of the MMA media, he turned to the Fight Magazine MMA blog:

People keep asking me what my plans are, they have read things all over the internet about my future with the UFC and how I am firing my coaching staff. So I thought I would address the rumors and my upcoming plans.

NO – I have not lost my UFC contract.

NO – I have not fired my coaching staff.

NO – I am not going to step down and fight for smaller organizations.

The loss last month was tough, but life goes on. People need to remember that I have only been fighting professionally for a year and a half. I have made great strides during that time, as well as faced some setbacks. My training will continue and we are looking at visiting some of the larger camps for additional training and strategy for my next fight. I have a lot to learn and am hoping to have everything straightened out before I enter the cage next time.

Look Houston, you seem like a nice guy so it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for you, but maybe the part about firing your coaching staff isn’t so crazy. If three straight losses isn’t a sign that something needs to change, I don’t know what is. And as for strategy, it should probably include either getting really good at jiu-jitsu really fast, or at least developing a top notch takedown defense. After what we’ve all seen in your last few fights, you can bet that everyone you face will be intent on getting the fight to the ground until you prove that it’s a bad idea.

(Why you so mad, Nate? By Stockton standards, you rich!)

Official salaries for last week’s Ultimate Fight Night 15 were released today by the Nebraska State Athletic Commission, and not surprisingly it was Nate Diaz who made off with the most cheddar (that’s what the kids call money these days, right?). Here’s the full breakdown. Each winning fighter’s salary represents a doubling of his base pay:

Nate Diaz: $40,000
Josh Neer: $9,000
Clay Guida: $26,000
Mac Danzig: $15,000
Alan Belcher: $26,000
Ed Herman: $16,000
Eric Schafer: $12,000
Houston Alexander: $13,000
Alessio Sakara: $34,000
Joe Vedepo: $3,000
Wilson Gouveia: $36,000
Ryan Jensen: $4,000
Joe Lauzon: $20,000
Kyle Bradley: $4,000
Jason Brilz: $6,000
Brad Morris: $4,000
Mike Massenzio: $6,000
Drew McFedries: $16,000
Dan Miller: $10,000
Rob Kimmons: $5,000

Some quick thoughts…

(Alexander vs. Schafer; props to MMA Scraps)

From Yahoo! Sports via MMA Mania:

“The crowd was so loud that I couldn’t hear my corner. If I heard them and knew, you know, there are 10 seconds left, five seconds left, whatever, I would have tried to hung in there a little longer and survived. But it was so loud and these people were supporting me so much, I couldn’t hear and I had to tap.”

Hear that, Cornhuskers? It’s your fault.

Watching the Alexander/Schafer fight again, a few things occur to me…

— The first big knee Alexander caught Schafer with at the 0:20 mark was borderline illegal. The second one was absolutely illegal. Coincidentally, the penultimate strike he landed on Keith Jardine during their fight last May was also an illegal knee. The dude’s been getting away with murder.

— Alexander still has no idea what to do when he’s mounted. It may be time to find a new training camp. (I hear the guys at Wolfslair Academy are very friendly…)

— Houston’s lack of aptitude on the ground shouldn’t take away from Schafer’s accomplishment; that arm-choke was fucking superb. Watch the way he sets it up from 4:33 until the tap. Still, Red won’t have too much of an impact in such a stacked division — a drop to middleweight might be in order.

(For those about to get knocked the eff out, we salute you. Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly.)

FUCKIN’ HUSKERS!!! Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business. “Ultimate Fight Night: Diaz vs. Neer” is going down in Omaha as we speak. But since it’s airing on tape-delay in most of the country, there might be some spoilers after the jump; feel free to come back when it’s 8 p.m. in your time zone. And please leave plenty o’comments now that leaving comments on this site isn’t such a pain in the ass. Click the “More” link when you’re mentally prepared, and refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest from the Omaha Civic Center.

(P.S.: Stockton, son. Stockton California.)

(Don’t stop believing. Photo courtesy of Fighters.com.)

— Evan Tanner’s memorial will be held at 2 p.m. on September 27th at the Civic Center (401 South Buchanan Street) in Amarillo, Texas. Tonight’s Ultimate Fight Night broadcast will be dedicated to Tanner, and an Evan Tanner tribute show will be airing soon on Spike.

— Even though the ink on Houston Alexander’s new five-fight contract extension hasn’t even dried yet, Dana White admits that if the Assassin loses against Eric Schafer tonight, he’ll need to leave the UFC for a while to rack up some wins in other promotions.

— Roger Huerta’s loss to Kenny Florian last month was very hard on him emotionally, and he’s desperate for a rematch. In an interview with Fighters Only Magazine, he also seemed to imply that he’ll be leaving Greg Jackson’s team: “I would like to go back to the way I used to train, with the people I used to train with. Those guys were like brothers to me, not just trainers.”

— TUF 7 finalist C.B. Dollaway will reportedly return to the Octagon at UFC 92 (December 27th, Las Vegas) against middleweight veteran Jorge Rivera. Dollaway is officially 1-1 in the UFC at this point, after being submitted by Amir Sadollah via armbar at the TUF 7 finale in June, then submitting Jesse Taylor via Peruvian neck tie at “Silva vs. Irvin” in July.

— Speaking of fight bookings, Mike Swick and Jonathan Goulet have agreed to fight each other at the Ultimate Fighter 8 finale on December 13th. Both men have won their last two fights in the UFC.

— Round 5′s new Sean Sherk collectible figure doesn’t really look like Sean Sherk. But the Wandy and Spider figures are definitely worthy of being displayed in your cubicle.

(‘I came to chew bubblegum and represent the 209. I am all out of bubblegum.’)

No one can see the future, but as long as we’re going to speculate as to how things will turn out in Omaha on Wednesday (and let’s face it, we are), we might as well go all the way with predictions so specific they can’t possible come true….or can they?

Nate Diaz vs. Josh Neer

Despite his impressive performances since coming off “The Ultimate Fighter,” the UFC doesn’t seem interested in moving Diaz up in competition. Instead they move him laterally, pitting him against the journeyman Neer, who Nate’s big bro already beat. It’ll be no easy task for Diaz to top his double-birdie performance against Kurt Pellegrino, but he’s a showman. Diaz will get bullied around the Octagon by Neer early on, but at some point he’ll remember he’s the better submissions fighter. The thought will dawn on him all at once and he’ll jump on Neer’s back, lock in a standing rear-naked choke, and extend his middle fingers on either side of Neer’s head as he submits.

When will it happen: 3:17, round two.

What to watch for: the look on Joe Rogan’s face when he has to interview Diaz after the bout and ask him to talk us through the Bud Light replay. What isn’t bleeped out will be completely unintelligible.

Mac Danzig vs. Clay Guida

This is the kind of fight worth getting excited about. The stoic, cerebral Danzig takes on Enkidu, the wild man of the woods (officially known as Clay Guida). It’s the classic highly-technical vegan vs. tough-but-crazy caveman battle. Danzig will start overly cautious and be initially overwhelmed as Guida wades into him with reckless abandon. But as the fight wears on Danzig will start to figure things out, striking and circling and wearing Guida out with knees to the body. Then Guida will freak out, charging right into a triangle choke, and his face will be blocked by his hair as it changes colors before he finally consents to tap.

When will it happen: 2:03, round three.

What to watch for: Guida’s brother, who failed to make weight for his first “Ultimate Fighter” bout and was reportedly kicked off the show for it, will appear on camera at some point looking sad and not eating.

“UFC Fight Night: Diaz vs. Neer” goes down this Wednesday at the Omaha Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska. You can watch the action on Spike TV beginning at 8 p.m. ET/PT — conveniently, right before the premiere of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir. To begin the psyche-up process, here are the fighters from the card’s three key fights, discussing their matchups. Diaz/Neer is above, Danzig/Guida and Alexander/Schafer are below; props to BloodyElbow. The full lineup for the event is after the jump.

(The brothers Florian: 98-pound weaklings welcome.)

— The UFC has inked a new five-fight contract extension with Houston Alexander. Sure, that’s a little strange given that The Assassin has lost his last two fights, but they can always tear up his contract if he loses two more. That’s the beauty of drafting contracts that aren’t really worth the paper they’re printed on. Alexander will try to get back to knocking other people out at UFC Fight Night 15 (September 17th, Omaha), where he’ll take on Eric Schafer.

— Speaking of UFC Fight Night 15, Jeremy Horn has been forced to pull out of the event due to a wrist injury. Replacing him in his scheduled bout against Wilson Gouveia will be Ryan Jensen (13-4, 0-2 UFC).

— Kenny and Keith Florian promise that their new MMA gym is “definitely not going to be one of those hardcore MMA places,” and is geared towards those with no desire to become a pro fighter.

— Arianny Celeste and Edith Labelle are featured in E!’s “12 Sexiest Jobs in Vegas.”

— Yoshiyuki Yoshida is the first opponent that Karo Parisyan has total respect for as an athlete. But he’s not coming to lose, bro.

(Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

“It was interesting…karma comes around. Honestly what I thought of it was that Karma’s a bitch with a red dress.” — Houston Alexander on James Irvin’s loss to Anderson Silva. Alexander also told TheMMANews that he’s renewed his UFC contract for an additional four fights.

“Joe Silva was telling me to lose some weight and gain some muscle. He said I need the UFC look.” — Roy Nelson on the UFC’s “No Fatties” policy. Luckily, Affliction is a judgment-free zone.

“We know how to beat Anderson Silva. The only way to beat him is to push the pace. Go forward all the time. You can’t let him get confident and comfortable in the centre of the Octagon. You have to push the pace for five minutes every round. If I do that, I can catch him. I’ll take care of him.” — Famous last words from Patrick Cote.

“I would fight any one of the UFC lightweights, but the problem is that I will never put my foot in the octagon after they (UFC) tried to be funny. I would rather have bleeding hemorrhoids than fight for the UFC. The Japanese MMA audience is the best in the world. They make magic! I would rather have one true Japanese MMA supporter than one million fake mainstream supporters that will turn their back on you as soon as you lose a fight. I don’t care about things that are mainstream.” — Joachim Hansen, who was offered half his contracted salary by the UFC after Zuffa bought PRIDE.

“I think that shot pretty much changed the whole dynamic of the fight. I sure would like to know what would have happened if it hadn’t landed. Once that right hand landed it was like I was fighting half blind, or pretty much blind at that point. It was all pretty much downhill from there. I just tried to come back and mount some type of offense. Unfortunately, I was never able to mount anything that significant…After getting rocked with a shot like that, and not being able to see, you’re more in survival mode.” — Heath Herring on the fight-opening punch from Brock Lesnar that sent him ass-over-teakettle.

(Photo courtesy of myspace.com/nathandiazmma.)

The UFC’s next “Fight Night” card on SpikeTV will reportedly go down September 17th at the Omaha Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska, and matchups are beginning to be sorted out. TUF 5 winner and Stockton-repper Nate Diaz has agreed to fight Josh “The Dentist” Neer in a lightweight bout on the main card; Diaz has gone 4-0 in the UFC since his reality show stint, including a legendary no-hands triangle choke victory over Kurt Pellegrino at UFN 13, while Neer (24-6-1, 3-3 UFC) last defeated Din Thomas by decision at the same event, and holds notable wins over Joe Stevenson and Melvin Guillard.

Omaha’s own Houston Alexander is also expected to appear, taking on Eric Schafer. The fight marks Schafer’s return to the Octagon after picking up a couple of wins in the Gladiators Fighting Series organization; he’d previously dropped two in a row to Michael Bisping and Stephan Bonnar. A middleweight fight between Ed Herman and Alan Belcher has been rumored as well.

In other UFC news…

— Dana White has denied that his mind-blowing announcement is related to New York MMA regulation. Epic Fail averted, for now.

— BloodyElbow is floating a rumor that Anderson Silva and Yushin Okami could fight in October, at the UFC’s next U.K. show. We’d rather see the Spider in a light-heavyweight super-fight, but sure, why not, clean out the division once and for all.

— French welterweight David Baron has reportedly signed with the UFC. Baron is the former 168-pound champion of Shooto Europe who most recently pulled off a huge upset at Shooto Tradition 1 by submitting Hayato Sakurai in the first round.

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

We give the UFC props for not shredding Houston Alexander’s contract as soon as he took his second consecutive first-round knockout loss last month against James Irvin, but even the most compassionate among us would agree — if it happens again, he’ll be heading out the door. D-Day for “The Assassin” is now looking like September 17th; MMA Junkie reports that Alexander has agreed to a bout against Eric Schafer at UFC Fight Night 14. Schafer made his Octagon debut at UFC 62 with a submission win over Rob MacDonald, but lost his next two bouts via TKO to Michael Bisping and Stephan Bonnar. “Red” has since rallied in the Gladiators Fighting Series organization, where he’s posted back-to-back wins. Alexander had reportedly been offered several fights in August and September before settling on the Schafer matchup.

In other UFC fight-booking news, MMAMania passes along a rumor that a middleweight match between Ed Herman and Alan Belcher will also be on the UFN 14 card. Both men are coming off losses, to Demian Maia and Jason Day, respectively. And speaking of middleweights, a fight between Alessio Sakara and Rob Yundt has been added to the undercard of The Ultimate Fighter 7 finale on June 21st. Rob Yundt lost his Octagon debut to Ricardo Almeida at UFC 81 after taking the fight on very short notice. Sakara is 3-4 with one no-contest in the UFC, and was most recently dropped by Chris Leben at UFC 82.

We should be able to post more UFN 13 fight vids soon, but here’s a couple to tide you over. Check ‘em out quick before they’re pulled.

James Irvin vs. Houston Alexander (fight starts at the 2:02 mark)

Nate Diaz vs. Kurt Pellegrino (fight starts at 1:37; “look fuckers, no hands” choke starts at 9:44)

Case of beer? Check. Piss bucket? Check. Well then, we’re ready to roll! Click the “more” link and refresh the page every few minutes to get the latest updates from the “Bloodbath in Broomfield” (a.k.a. UFN 13).

(Y’all know who it is.)

Man, the UFC really, really, really wants you to watch the season premiere of The Ultimate Fighter. You know how we told you that UFC 83 was canceled, and the Alexander/Irvin and Bisping/McCarthy fights would have to be re-scheduled? Well, it looks like Houston Alexander will be facing James Irvin at the UFC’s Ultimate Fight Night 13 on April 2nd, a live lead-in to the TUF 7 debut that’s also expected to feature the following bouts:

Kenny Florian vs. Joe Lauzon
Stephan Bonnar vs. Matt Hamill
Karo Parisyan vs. Thiago Alves
Spencer Fisher vs. Marcus Aurelio
Clay Guida vs. Samy Schiavo
Tommy Speer vs. Anthony Johnson
Josh Neer vs. Din Thomas

Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick. Ken-Flo/Lauzon, Bonnar/Hamill, and Parisyan/Alves are already on the promotional materials, so they’re probably safe from being stuck on the undercard. But since Fight Nights are generally set up with only three or four fights scheduled for the live main card, UFC stars like Alexander, Spencer Fisher, Clay Guida, and TUF 6‘s Tommy Speer may be relegated to dark matches. Let’s hope for a lot of quick knockouts, UFC 80-style, so we can see as many of the fights as possible.

For real though, why can’t UFC 81, a pay-per-view card, have some action like this? “Breaking Point”‘s main event may turn out to be a boring disappointment, and the “co-headlining event” is getting by on hype alone. Quick poll: How many of you are psyched for Horn/Marquardt, Almeida/Belcher, or Tibau/Griffin? Those are freakin’ Fight Night-caliber matches. I’d happily pay to see Guida, Alexander, and Speer fight again — UFC 81′s main card, on the other hand, I’m not so happy about.

MMAJunkie has learned that UFC 83 — likely to go down March 8th in London — will feature the return of Houston “The Assassin” Alexander, who has accepted a fight with James Irvin. Alexander is coming off a loss to Thiago Silva at UFC 78, his first defeat since his pro debut in June 2001. Irvin (13-4, 3-3 UFC) recently fought in the undercard of UFC 79, taking a win by disqualification after Luis Cane kneed him in the head while he was on the ground; he also made Terry Martin look like a bitch at UFC 54.

No offense to the journeyman skills of James Irvin, but this matchup proves that the UFC wants to get Alexander back on the winning track — preferably with another first-round knockout, like he had against Keith Jardine and Alessio Sakara in his first two fights in the Octagon. Between his aggressive style and touching personal story (single father, six kids, donated kidney, yada yada), UFC fans love the Assassin, and were bummed when Silva exposed his lack of a ground game and GnP’d his lights out. Putting Alexander up against Irvin basically means handing him the “Knockout of the Night” bonus on a silver platter. Why else would James Irvin get a fight so quickly, after his non-performance last month? And here’s a question — is Thiago Silva being punished by the UFC for derailing Houston Alexander’s hype train and delaying his path to a title shot? Houston’s getting another fight, and James freakin’ Irvin is getting another fight only two months and change after his last one. But you don’t hear much about Thiago lately…

“The Assassin” in an interview with PunchDrunkGamer.com about his UFC 78 fight against Thiago Silva:

“It’s not like I don’t know any jiu-jitsu, because I actually do and I’m actually really good at it.”

‘Scuse me? The dude was as confused on his back as my ex-wife. But he did shed light on how he maintains his famously jacked physique:

“The day starts about 5:30 in the morning; I get to the gym about 6. We do a lot of conditioning, loosing up, simple stuff in the morning like a lot of sparring, stretching, and endurance stuff. Then after about an hour and a half of light conditioning I’ll take the kids to school. Then I go back to the gym at about 10 and work out for another hour and a half, do some light lifting, sparring, techniques, a little bit of everything…I do a lot of circuit training, a lot of dumbbells, a lot of pushups, sit-ups, general stuff. There’s no big secret, just a lot of pushups and sit-ups in different forms, a little bit of everything…I throw tires up the hills – heavy diesel tires up the hills. A lot of people will throw them in parking lots but we like to throw them up hills. The bigger tires, the tractor tires, we flip. We do a lot of sprinting too, a lot of vertical jumping, and a lot of stuff to strengthen the legs It’s actually a lot of basic stuff that anybody who’s training should be doing, besides throwing the tires, or hammering tires.”

In other words, quit your day job and don’t sleep. Live near a hill. Raid a junkyard if you have to.

According to MMAJunkie.com, Houston Alexander is already back in the gym with his coach Mick Doyle, trying to figure out what the hell went wrong on Saturday night and how to prevent it from ever happening again. They’ll surely be watching this video on repeat, which shows just where things fell apart. Instead of coming out swinging in his usual wildman style, Alexander calmly stalked Thiago Silva at the start of the first round before falling into a clinch. From there, Silva’s Chute Boxe jiu-jitsu skills take over, and Alexander is brought to the mat and mounted. Referee Dan Miragliotta steps in when Alexander seems to lose consciousness, but lets Silva haul off a few more times just to be sure. Not that I blame him — I certainly wouldn’t want those Jersey savages hounding me about an early stoppage…

You know a UFC card is dull when John McCarthy, Herb Dean, Steve Mazzagatti, and Mario Yamasaki all have better things to do. No knock on the reffing abilities of Dan Miragliotta and Kevin Mulhall — or the lovely state of New Jersey — but nearly everything about UFC 78 was substandard, and every fighter proved that they weren’t quite ready for the big show. Let’s get through it…

[Lightweights] Frankie Edgar def. Spencer Fisher via unanimous decision

[Middleweights] Ed Herman def. Joe Doerksen via K.O. (punch, third round)

[Welterweights] Karo Parisyan def. Ryo Chonan via unanimous decision

[Light heavyweights] Thiago Silva def. Houston Alexander via TKO (punches, first round)

[Light heavyweights, main event] Rashad Evans def. Michael Bisping via split decision

Full report to come tomorrow, but here’s a sneak preview: This was the dullest and most disappointing UFC event I’ve ever seen. And that’s not just sour grapes because my prediction* turned out to be inaccurate. Name me one UFC card in the AF era that was worse than this one.

* If my dream wasn’t a foretelling, what do you think it meant? (There’s no “MMA” entry in my dream dictionary.) I’m open to all (most) suggestions.

(Ed Herman)

CBSSports.com has a great preview of Saturday’s UFC card, where all of the match-ups (including the ones in the undercard) are analyzed by MMA writers Denny Burkholder, Sam “WAMMA” Caplan, Todd Martin and Ben Fowlkes. If you have some free time, check it out. If not, we’ll summarize:

— Nobody thinks Michael Bisping stands a chance against Rashad Evans.
— Ditto for Thiago Silva against Houston Alexander.
— Even though Joe Doerksen beat him when they met at SF 7 in 2004, Ed Herman gets the edge in their rematch tomorrow.
— Todd Martin calls a Karo Parisyan victory over Ryo Chonan his “lock of the night.”
— Sam Caplan predicts Edgar/Fisher will be the best fight of UFC 78.
— Thiago Alves, Joe Lauzon, Marcus Aurelio and Akihiro Gono will be sure things in their respective fights. (Man, it’s like these MMA writers share a brain…)

That ESPN.com profile of Houston Alexander has inspired me to track down his fight against Keith Jardine from UFC 71 and post it for y’all in its entirety. Check out Houston springing up from a knockdown and dirty-boxing Jardine into unconsciousness. If he can operate on this level on Saturday, Thiago Silva doesn’t stand a chance. Two more things to keep in mind:

1) If it wasn’t obvious during his fight with Chuck Liddell, this video makes one thing abundantly clear — Keith Jardine is one awkward-ass fighter. He basically limps out to meet Alexander, and shakes his arms at eye level in what Joe Rogan describes as “the chimpanzee approach.”

2) That last knee from Houston? Quite illegal. But hey, Jardine was probably going to lose anyway…

UFC 78 is only two days away (!), and ESPN.com is doing its part to pump it up. Check out these videos on some of the night’s key fighters and get psyched.

(“I think I do just about everything better than Bisping.”)