(If you haven’t already seen this video of TUF 10 castmember Justin Wren introducing his arm-hair and beard to a village of astounded children in the Congo, watch it, because it’s awesome. Props: Justin Wren on YouTube)

UFC on FUEL TV 8: Top 10 Facts You Need To Know (FightDay)

Must-See GIF: Adrian Cruz’s Scarf-Hold Armlock From Bellator 91 Prelims (Reddit_MMA)

UFC Star Nick Diaz Says GSP Is Crazy: ‘I Would Be Asking for Anderson Silva’ (BleacherReport)

UFC On FUEL TV 8′s Hector Lombard Fearful Of Boring Fight And Possible Release (MMAJunkie)

Veteran Jason MacDonald Retires From MMA (MMAFighting)

Q&A With Cro Cop’s Former Manager: The Man Who Brought Down PRIDE, Part 1 (LiverKick)

Tae Kwon Do Master Nails the Flying Quadruple Hurricane Kick (Break)

The 50 Most Unbreakable Records in Sports History (Complex)

Cleavage Wars: Oscars Edition (KillerFries)

Inside the Mind of Porn Star James Deen (MensHealth)

7 Things I Hate About Skyrim on Xbox 360 (EgoTV)

Accidentally Rich: 3 Inventions That Started As Mistakes (DoubleViking)

Girls With Gorgeous Faces, Part 4 (WorldWideInterweb)

(Click chart for full-size version. For previous Databombs, click here.)

By Reed Kuhn, @Fightnomics

The UFC Middleweight division has long been ruled by the most feared and successful striker in MMA history, champion Anderson Silva. And perhaps more so than in smaller divisions, striking has been a good predictor of success at Middleweight. So examining this division in core striking performance metrics should provide good insight to how fighters will fare against each other in standup. A full explanation of the chart and variables is included at the end of this post.

But first, let’s see how the whole division stacks up against each other, and look at the winners and losers.

The Winners

Sniper Award: Two fights into his UFC career, cross-trained Dutchman Michael Kuiper has landed 49% of his power head strikes. We’ll see if he can maintain this in his upcoming matchup with veteran brawler Tom Lawlor in Sweden. Honorable mention must be given to Anderson Silva who has maintained 40% accuracy over his lengthy and dominant career. And also noteworthy is Italian boxer, Alessio Sakara, currently on the bench for health reasons.

Energizer Bunny Award: Strikeforce veteran Roger Gracie has been almost doubling the striking output of opponents on his way to a string of submission wins in typical Gracie fashion. Some grapplers use strikes to set up their mat-work, others don’t. Honorable mentions go to former champ Rich Franklin, and Strikeforce champ and crossover contender Luke Rockhold, who each tend to outpace their opponents by over 80%.

Biggest Ball(s) Award: The UFC record holder for knockdowns is Anderson Silva. He is literally the best in the business at dropping dudes. Statistically, when Silva lands a power head strike, there’s a 27% chance it will result in a knockdown, which is just ridiculous. These skills have won him Knockout of the Night honors seven times in the UFC.

(If James Irvin was a super-hero, his arch-nemesis would be Dr. Fitchtopus. / Photo courtesy of fcfighter.com)

Last week, we described Stefan Struve as “one of the least decision-prone fighters on the UFC roster,” and after he ended yet another fight this weekend before the final bell, we started to wonder — how accurate was that statement, anyway? And who else ranks near the Dutch heavyweight in terms of low decision ratio within the Octagon? So, we assembled a list of the UFC fighters (past and present) who have been least likely to meet the judges; for the purposes of this list, we only considered fighters who have made at least eight UFC appearances.

[Update: After having some knowledge dropped on us by @MMADecisions, we've expanded this list beyond a top-ten.]

As it turns out, Struve comes in at #5 among active UFC fighters, and shares the same decision ratio (8.33%) as Royce Gracie. But there are 11 fighters in front of him on the all-time list, led by welterweight crowd-pleaser DaMarques Johnson, cursed slugger James Irvin, and UFC pioneer Don Frye, who all managed to make it through 10 UFC appearances without ever going to decision. And now, the leaderboard…

DaMarques Johnson: 10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
James Irvin: 10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Don Frye: 10 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Drew McFedries: 9 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Charles Oliveira: 8 UFC fights*, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Ryan Jensen: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Jason Lambert: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Gary Goodridge: 8 UFC fights, 0 decisions, 0% decision ratio
Jason MacDonald: 14 UFC fights, 1 decision, 7.14% decision ratio

(Stay away from the light, Dustin! Stay away from the light!) 

Ladies and gentlemen of the Potato Nation, the end times are upon us. Last night, a quiet, unassuming man named Chan Sung Jung escaped from a remote Korean testing facility and wound up in Fairfax, Virginia. Needing to fulfill certain diversity requirements that had long eluded them, the people of Fairfax embraced and accepted him with open arms, completely unaware that he was in fact patient zero of a zombie-like virus that would spell the untimely demise of the human race. Those ignoramuses.

Before they even knew what had hit them, reports of strange occurrences were popping up from county to county, then state to state. Having caught the latter half of the movie Outbreak on TBS just a few weeks prior, the people of Fairfax knew that they had to capture the source of the disease if they were ever to restore order to the chaos they had created. So they sent forth their bravest virologist, a man by the name of Dustin Poirier, to subdue the host and bring him back for testing. Early reports claimed that “The Diamond” would have little to no trouble accomplishing this feat, as he had successfully extinguished every threat placed before him since joining the Zuffa corporation.

How wrong they were.

For nearly twenty minutes, the two engaged in an all out war of attrition, one that would determine the very fate of mankind. He put up a hell of a fight, but as much as it saddens us to say this, we are officially doomed. Poirier was infected by “The Korean Zombie (virus),” and chances are that you will be soon as well. Early symptoms include raucous use of the phrase, “HOLY SHIT BRO”, an ability to absorb a tremendous amount of punishment, $80,000 cash, drowsiness, and cramps.

(I’ll show you Linsanity, you racist sonofabitch!) 

Perhaps it’s because we are truly spontaneous creatures at heart, but we are more excited for tomorrow night’s UFC on FUEL broadcast than perhaps any other free card in as long as we can remember, if only because it gives us an excuse to do something on a Tuesday night that we normally save for the weekends ie. drink, shout at the TV until our ears bleed, and gamble away the money we have yet to even earn. And since we don’t want to be the only MMA fans waiting in line at the soup kitchen come next week, we figured we’d drag you all down with us. Because, honestly, it’s neither as easy or as fun to start a soup fight with the homeless by yourself. Anyway, check out the betting lines below, courtesy of BestFightOdds, and join us after the jump for our more-or-less comprehensible advice.

MAIN CARD (FUEL TV)
Chan Sung Jung (+270) vs. Dustin Poirier (-330)
Amir Sadollah (-185) vs. Jorge Lopez (+160)
Donald Cerrone (-255) vs. Jeremy Stephens (+215)
Yves Jabouin (-235) vs. Jeff Hougland (+195)
Igor Pokrajac (+145) vs. Fabio Maldonado (-165)
Jason MacDonald (+200) vs. Tom Lawlor (-240)

PRELIMINARY CARD (Fuel.tv, 5:30 p.m. ET / 2:30 p.m. PT)
Cody McKenzie (-105) vs. Marcus LeVesseur (-115)
Brad Tavares (-175) vs. Dongi Yang (+155)
T.J. Grant (-400) vs. Carlo Prater (+325)
Rafael Dos Anjos (-280) vs. Kamal Shalorus (+240)
Jeff Curran (-135) vs. Johnny Eduardo (+115)
Alex Soto (+200) vs. Francisco Rivera (-240)

Thoughts…

(Full press conference video, via YouTube.com/UFC. Man, Nick Ring is like a *god* in that town.)

Today’s UFC press conference in Calgary resulted in a tidal wave of major announcements, highlighted by two title-fight bookings and confirmations of three Canadian events in 2012. Here’s what we’re looking at…

- The middleweight championship rematch between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen will take place at an 80,000-seat soccer stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, not Sao Paulo as originally reported. [Ed. note: R.I.P., Chael.] The exact venue hasn’t been confirmed yet, and the event is expected to take place at UFC 147 on either June 16th or June 23rd. It will be the third time in 10 months that Rio will host a UFC event. We’ll be keeping our eyes out for this guy.

- For the third year in a row, the UFC will hold three events in Canada this year: UFC 149 in Calgary (7/21), UFC 152 in Toronto (9/22), and UFC 154 in Montreal (11/17). No matchups have been scheduled for the Toronto and Montreal shows, although welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre said he’d like to compete at UFC 154 if his knee-surgery recovery allows it.

(“We may even have Justin Bieber at the show as a special guest.”)

Just a friendly reminder that the UFC is holding an impromptu press conference today in Calgary, Alberta to announce its next Canadian show and that we’ll have the live stream starting at 2:00 p.m. ET. On hand for the open event will be UFC president Dana White, director of Canadian operations Tom Wright and Alberta-based fighters Mitch Clarke, Jason MacDonald and Nick Ring.

It’s expected that the main event for the July 21 show, which will be announced as UFC 149, will be a featherweight championship bout between 145-pound kingpin Jose Aldo (21-1) and former TKO, Shooto and Sengoku champ Hatsu Hioki (26-4-2), however an announcement will likely not happen at today’s presser.

In related news, a Canadian senator introduced a bill into Parliament yesterday that would see MMA legalized nationwide. Section 83 of the Canadian Criminal Code as it currently stands deems prizefighting illegal, which is why some provinces and territories have been reluctant to allow events in their jurisdiction in spite of the fact that others have amended the rules due to different interpretations of the archaic law.

Check out the UFC web player after the jump.

(“Like Miesha, Poirier will get to have his cake and eat it too.”)

It looks like the best way to get the UFC’s attention these days is to call out an opponent on Twitter.

Dustin Poirier mentioned via Twitter two days ago that he would like a fight with “The Korean Zombie.” Today UFC officials announced that the pair will square off in the main event of UFC on Fuel 3 May 15 at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia.

(Dude. Don’t even get me started about mustard water. / Props: hypeordie)

After knocking out Christian Morecraft at UFC on FX 1 last month, Pat Barry has booked his next fight. The heavyweight kickboxer will face Lavar Johnson on the main card of UFC on FOX 3, May 5th in New Jersey, which will officially be headlined by a five-round lightweight contest between Nate Diaz and Jim Miller.

Lavar Johnson scored the Knockout of the Night during last weekend’s UFC on FOX 2 card, by smashing Joey Beltran in the first round of their preliminary card meeting. The win snapped a two-fight losing streak that Johnson had carried over from his stint in Strikeforce. His upcoming scrap with Barry seems like a way for the UFC to guarantee some much-needed excitement for their next FOX broadcast. As for Barry, it’s an opportunity to bump his UFC record over .500 and secure back-to-back victories for the first time in his UFC career.

In other May booking news…

Our thoughts exactly. Props: MMAMania

Coming into last night’s UFC Fight Night 25, Jake Shields was in a lose-lose situation. He was presented with an opponent, Jake Ellenberger, who was facing his first real step up in competition. A victory over him wouldn’t necessarily propel Shields back to the top of the welterweight division. If Jake Shields lost, well, Jake Shields isn’t going to lose this one so let’s not worry about it. Last night was going to be Jake Shield’s first step towards living up to the hype that surrounded him when he entered the UFC and getting back in the mix for a shot at the welterweight title. There was only one problem: That didn’t happen. In just under one minute, Jake Ellenberger practically ended the Jake Shields era.

This isn’t to say that it’s over for Jake Shields, or that he still can’t work his way back to relevance in the welterweight division. But it’s certainly over for the myth that Jake Shields is still one of the top fighters out there. Last night, Jake Shields couldn’t implement his game plan because Jake Ellenberger was able to stuff his takedown attempts. It wasn’t “What did Shields do wrong”; it was what Ellenberger did right. He was the better fighter, plain and simple. And let’s not entertain the thought of “early stoppage” any more than we had to after hearing Jake Shields imply it last night. When you take a knee directly to the chin, immediately turtle up, and then try to grapple with the referee who pulls your opponent off of you, you have no business saying that the fight was stopped early. If you didn’t think Shields was out when you first watched that fight, watch it again while you still can.

(Man, you know Dana’s heart isn’t in this one when he can’t even be bothered to put on a funky t-shirt. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle. For more photos from this album, click here.)

We told you why you should watch, and we told you how we think it’ll go down. At this point, it’s in God’s hands.

Tonight in New Orleans, Jake Shields and Jake Ellenberger will lock horns in a pivotal welterweight contest. Will Shields shows flashes of his old submission-machine self, or will Ellenberger spoil the party in the Big Easy?

Plus: Middleweights Alan Belcher and Jason MacDonald kick off the main card, and Court McGee and Jonathan Brookins take the next steps in their post-TUF careers. Meanwhile on pay-per-view, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is boxing Victor Ortiz, and hell, maybe we’ll give you updates on that one as well.

Live round-by-round updates from the Spike TV broadcast of “UFC Fight Night: Shields vs. Ellenberger” will be piling up after the jump starting at 9 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest. Here, we, go.

(McGee vs. Yang, the middleweight showdown that UFC fans have been…wait a minute, remind me again who Yang is?)

Unless you’re one of those Bud Light ‘Battle on the Bayou’ contest winners, you’re probably not overly excited about Saturday’s “Shields vs. Ellenberger” UFC event on Spike. Boxing already has Saturday night locked up, with Floyd Mayweather‘s ring-return against 24-year-old WBC Welterweight champ Victor Ortiz, and it feels like UFC Fight Night 25 will be an overlooked prelude to next week’s Jones vs. Rampage card.

But let’s not admit defeat so soon. We’ll be liveblogging the Shields vs. Ellenberger main card on CagePotato.com starting at 9 p.m. ET, and it would be nice if a few of you showed up to keep us company. Could it be one of those “crap on paper, bonkers in reality” events? Who knows, but consider the following…

All Eyes on Jake: So far, Jake Shields‘s UFC career has consisted of an underwhelming (and razor-thin) split-decision victory over Martin Kampmann, and a rout at the hands of Georges St. Pierre. His dominant stretch of eight-straight stoppage victories in 2006-2009 are a distant memory in the minds of MMA fans, and he needs a dramatic win here, badly. Shields’s dance partner, Jake Ellenberger, has been spent years fighting for recognition, and with four straight Octagon wins over serious competition, he’s starting to get it. Stylistically, the fight might not be a barn-burner, but it could have career-altering implications for the headliners.

By Jason Moles

“We the people of CagePotato.com, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Bans, insure comments section Tranquility, provide for the common noob, promote the general Lack of Welfare, and attempt to secure the Blessings of Dana to ourselves and our readers, do ordain and establish this Comparison of fighters and fireworks for the Potato Nation.”

There are plenty of MMA fighters out there who love to bring the pyrotechnics to the cage, lighting up their opponents for the enjoyment of the fans and the pleasure of a paycheck. In honor of Independence Day weekend — and our new friends at Wild Turkey — here’s a list of actual 4th of July fireworks that remind us of some well-known scrappers. Celebrate safely, and please try not to lose any fingers.

Snap-n-Pops (aka bang snaps, snappers, or whip’n pops): Corey Hill, Jason MacDonald, Razak Al-Hassan, Tim Sylvia

Call ‘em what you want, these small novelty fireworks are perfect for youngsters. You throw them against a wall, floor, or sleeping grandparent, and they make a satisfying POP! Cool, huh? It’s hard not to think of a ‘Snap-n-Pop’ and not think of these guys, whose limbs unfortunately made the same noises in their past fights.

Roman Candles: Clay Guida

Excitement. Power. Flash. Seemingly unending performance. Fun. Clay ‘The Carpenter’ Guida is more than your average firework. Hey may not blow up any doors but rest assured he’s always going to be a crowd favorite. No one has ever had a Roman Candle war or watched a Guida fight and not had the time of their life. For every colorful ball that is emitted from the candle, Guida whips his hair back and shoots in for a takedown. Regardless of what happens, they both just keep going until the final bell. When messing around with either, be careful; someone usually ends up a bloody mess.

(“I’m fighting Jason who??”)

The UFC announced today that UFC middleweight contender Alan Belcher’s first fight back from a career-threatening eye injury will be against New Glasgow, Nova Scotia native Jason MacDonald in the Biloxi, Mississippi native’s backyard of New Orleans, Louisiana on September 17. The event is aptly named UFC Fight Night 25: Battle on the Bayou.

4-1 in his last 5 outings including wins over Wilson Gouveia, Patrick Cote, Denis Kang and Ed Herman and a questionable split decision loss to Yoshihiro Akiyama, Belcher (16-6) was mentioned as a potential championship contender before a detached retina sidelined him for almost a year. Although MacDonald (25-15) is by no means a cake walk fight for Belcher, it’s likely that the bout with the recently re-signed Canadian is thought of by the UFC brass as more of a tune-up fight for “The Talent.”

(UFC middleweight Jason MacDonald and a Potato Nation All-Star. Props: Brian J. D’Souza)

Thanks again to all the beautiful people who swung through Shoeless Joe’s in Toronto on Thursday night for our UFC 129 ‘Banned’ Meetup. We had an amazing time, and it was cool to put some faces to screennames. (If you think we should do it again in Houston, say ‘aye’.) We have one request, though. We saw a lot of you snapping photos all night of you and your friends rocking the Free CagePotato t-shirts. Well, we want those photos. Me and Mike would have taken some pictures ourselves, but we were too busy shaking hands and kissing babies.

So, if you have any photos of yourself or your crew rocking our shirts at the pre-party, or at the Fan Expo, or at UFC 129, please post them on our Facebook wall or e-mail them to contest@cagepotato.com. We’ll post our favorites later in the week, and the best one will receive a souvenir GSP headband personally signed by Arianny Celeste and Brittney Palmer. (You can gaze upon its glory right here.) Thanks for the help guys.

After the jump: A video highlight-reel from the party, edited by our pal Brian J. D’Souza, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that nobody should try to interview Ben Goldstein while he’s been drinking. Seriously.

(Forget it Dana. He’s coming with me to Hollywood.)

Jason MacDonald’s loss will be fellow Canadian Jesse Bongfeldt’s gain as the Kenora, Ontario native will now step in for "The Athlete" who was forced to pull out of his UFC 124 bout with Rafael Natal due to a re-injury to the leg he broke at UFC 113 in May.

The opponent change was revealed by Natal’s management group Dominance MMA who announced the news via Twitter and Facebook today.

12-1 in his last 13 outings, Bongfeldt (21-6), who is the former Rumble in the Cage and TKO champion has not lost since getting TKO’d by Jonathan Goulet in 2007. His biggest win saw him defend his TKO welterweight strap by tapping out submission specialist TJ Grant with an armbar in 2008 at TKO 32.

Bongfeldt took time off from fighting following the Grant bout in 2008 after the birth of his son and relocated back to Ontario from Calgary where he spent several years training alongside UFC veteran Jason Day at Canadian Martial Arts Centre under trainer Lee Mein.

(MacDonald giving new meaning to "The agony of defeat.")

In his Sportsnet.ca blog today,  UFC middleweight Jason MacDonald details the surgical procedure he underwent to to repair the gruesome injury he sustained in his UFC 113 fight with John Salter this past Saturday night in Montreal. According to "The Athlete," surgery took three times longer than expected because the damage was worse than x-rays initially revealed, but he is optimistic he’ll be back fighting by the fall.

(GIF of the break after the jump)

(Props: WatchKalibRun)

It wasn’t shown on Saturday night’s pay-per-view broadcast, but Jason MacDonald‘s return to the Octagon at UFC 113 didn’t exactly go as planned. Midway through the first round of their prelim fight, John Salter scored a takedown against MacDonald, whose left leg snapped underneath him in horrifying, Joe Theismann-esque fashion. The result? A broken tibia and fibula, and a dislocated ankle. Get well soon, Jason. "The Athlete"’s overall UFC record dropped to 5-6 following the TKO loss via injury, while Salter picked up his first UFC win. And as you can see, he was pretty damn pleased with himself.

MacDonald wasn’t the only fighter who left Montreal busted up. Patrick Cote broke his right hand in his losing effort against Alan Belcher — a terribly unfortunate outcome for a guy who was already coming back from a year-and-a-half of injury inactivity.

Let’s Get It On! MMA, the new tournament format mixed martial arts promotion owned by Elaine McCarthy, wife of acclaimed referee “Big” John McCarthy kicks off its first season tonight in Canada. Featuring tournaments in two weight classes – welterweight and lightweight – the winner of each division of the round robin will earn a contract with Strikeforce to compete in their Challenger series as well as a $25,000 paycheck.

Speaking to Sportsnet MMA columnist James Brydon, McCarthy, who was the event coordinator at several early UFC events explains that tourney will split time between Edmonton, Alberta and Gatineau, Quebec and will feature nine events. She says that although there are other promotions out there that follow the tournament format, none feature a region versus region format like LGIO.

(You know it’s a meaningless fight when the promoter starts nodding off. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

If you like to keep tabs on the careers of UFC washouts, tonight’s "Maximum Fighting Championship 22: Payoff" show in Edmonton is a great opportunity to see a bunch of them in action. Headlining the event will be a middleweight clash between submission specialists Jason MacDonald (21-12, fired from the UFC earlier this year after back-to-back losses to Wilson Gouveia and Nate Quarry) and Travis Lutter (9-5, fired from the UFC last year after back-to-back losses to Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin). It will be Lutter’s first fight since the Fraklin match, which took place nearly 18 months ago.

Also on the card, welterweight veteran John Alessio (25-13, 0-3 in the UFC) takes on Luigi Fioravanti (15-5, fired from the UFC after his loss to Anthony Johnson in February), while light-heavyweight David Heath (13-5, axed by the UFC after three straight losses in 2007-2008) rumbles with TUF 3 also-ran Mike Nickels. Plus: Marvin Eastman, Pete Spratt, and a lightweight meeting between Antonio McKee and Carlo Prater that was supposed to be a title fight until Prater missed weight. Folks, it doesn’t get any more average than this — you may or may not want to miss it.

MFC 22 will be broadcast live on HDNet beginning at 10 p.m. ET. The complete lineup and weigh-in results are after the jump…

(Photo courtesy of Spike.com.)

With Houston Alexander out of UFC 98 due to a hand injury, it has been announced that "The Polish Experiment" will be stepping in to replace him against Andre Gusmao. Krzysztof Soszynski is 2-0 in the UFC since his stint on TUF 8, with both of his wins by kimura submission; he most recently took out Brian Stann at UFC 97 last month, meaning he’s only getting a five-week turnaround between fights. Gusmao, on the other hand, hasn’t fought since he dropped a unanimous decision to Jon Jones in his UFC debut last August. Will the longer break be a benefit for Gusmao, or will the Brazilian get armlocked out of his UFC contract?

In other Octagon news…

(Nate Quarry [left] shows off the move that made him famous. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com.)
 
The UFC returns to Montreal on April 18th for UFC 97, headlined by the shrug-worthy title fight between Anderson Silva and Thales Leites, and the somewhat more compelling light-heavyweight battle between fading legends Chuck Liddell and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. Here’s some of the supporting bouts that we’ll be seeing on the card…

— Jason MacDonald vs. Nate Quarry (MW): MacDonald is coming off a first-round submission-via-strikes loss to Wilson Gouveia at last month’s TUF 8 finale, and hasn’t been able to put together two wins in a row since 2006. Quarry became Demian Maia‘s latest strangulation victim when he succumbed to a rear-naked choke at UFC 91 in November. The win-or-get-fired threat level on this one has been raised to Orange.

— Luis Cane vs. Steve Cantwell (LHW): Though Cane was originally rumored to face Keith Jardine in his next fight, the Dean of Mean was booked to headline UFC 96 (March 7th, Columbus) instead. Cane will instead be taking on reigning WEC light-heavyweight champ Steve Cantwell, who famously snapped Razak Al-Hassan’s arm at last month’s "UFC Fight for the Troops," then gloated about it afterwards. Cane is coming off of impressive TKO victories over Jason Lambert and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, while Cantwell is on a four-fight win streak, dating back to his time in the WEC.

(Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans)

(Nate Marquardt vs. Martin Kampmann)

(Dan Henderson vs. Rousimar Palhares)

(Tavares and Pellegrino now have enough money to open the hair salon they’ve always dreamed of. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

The UFC doled out $60,000 bumps to the following fighters for their valiant performances at last night’s “Breakthrough”:

Knockout of the Night: Rashad Evans, obviously, for knocking Chuck Liddell into the 8th dimension.

Submission of the Night: Jason MacDonald for his rear-naked choke of Jason Lambert — and for scoring the only submission on the card.

Fight of the Night: Kurt Pellegrino and Thiago Tavares for their wild (and unfortunately untelevised) three-rounder that Pellegrino took in a unanimous decision.

UFC 88 quick results:

Rashad Evans def. Chuck Liddell via KO, 1:51 of round 2
Rich Franklin def. Matt Hamill via TKO, 0:39 of round 3
Dan Henderson def. Rousimar Palhares via unanimous decision
Nate Marquardt def. Martin Kampmann via TKO, 1:22 of round 1
Dong Hyun Kim def. Matt Brown via split decision
Kurt Pellegrino def. Thiago Tavares via unanimous decision
Tim Boetsch def. Michael Patt via TKO, 2:03 of round 1
Jason MacDonald def. Jason Lambert via submission (rear-naked choke), 1:20 of round 2
Ryo Chonan def. Roan Carneiro via split decision

(‘Sup, pussies.)

It’s that time again, Potato Nation. Cage Potato’s two Bens square off on a host of issues swirling around UFC 88, including what’s to become of Rich Franklin as a light heavyweight, who has the best chances to score an upset on Saturday night, and more. Let’s get it, as they say, on.

Does Chuck Liddell really deserve a title shot if he beats Rashad Evans?

Goldstein: A two-fight win streak isn’t much, but it’ll be more than any other top-tier UFC light-heavyweight contender can boast on Sunday morning, with the exception of Lyoto Machida and Thiago Silva — and one of those guys is going to take his first loss next month. The question really is: Who deserves it more, Chuck or the winner of that all-Brazilian eliminator match?

In terms of creating a title fight that fans want to see, Liddell has to be at the front of the line. Chuck vs. Forrest will get fans insanely fired up. The alternative is watching Forrest and (probably) Machida dance around each other for five rounds — I have my doubts about the entertainment value of that matchup. And not to play the race card, but I understand why an American MMA organization is hesitant to create a situation where three of its five champions, as Mike Goldberg would say, “speak the Portuguesa.” (I’m counting Big Nog as one of them, of course; he’s my pick to come out on top of the imminent four-man heavyweight “tournament,” but that’s another debate.)

Chuck’s been unwaveringly loyal to the UFC during his career, and he deserves to be treated well in his final years with the company. If that means jumping ahead of someone who may deserve it more in terms of merit, so be it. Though if they want to put Liddell against Anderson Silva in December before he gets a shot at the belt, well, that’s cool too.

Fowlkes: When it comes to the UFC and title shots, I like to remind myself of a line from the movie Unforgiven: deserve’s got nothing to do with it. In a perfect fighting world, the fight would be set up so that the winner gets a title shot, regardless of who that is. But we both know that even if “Sugar” wins he’s not shooting to the top of the list. So the question is, would beating Evans be enough to reasonably justify putting Liddell up against Forrest Griffin next, which is the fight the UFC really wants to make?

(“The Athlete” is ready to get back after it.)

- Jason “Dooms” Day has been forced to pull out of his UFC 88 bout with fattie-turned-middleweight Jason Lambert because of a biceps injury, but those of you who are fans of seeing Lambert’s man-boobs in the Octagon needn’t worry. Jason “The Athlete” MacDonald is stepping in as a replacement for Day, despite the fact that he just went three rounds in a losing effort against Demian Maia at UFC 87. Good move for MacDonald. If you can’t win ‘em all, the next best way to keep the UFC happy is to fight ‘em all, especially when called upon on short notice.

- Poor Nate Quarry just can’t catch a break. After coming back from a nearly career-ending back injury only to be forced to chase Kalib Starnes in circles, Quarry has now been sidelined with an eye injury that is strangely not related to fighting. Apparently Quarry was at a party where people were hitting golf balls into the woods — like you do, just for kicks — and he accidentally walked into someone’s backswing. Despite breaking the Orbital Floor bone in his eye, Quarry is not seriously hurt, though he will be kept out of action for at least a few more months.

- American Top Team coach Andrei Benkei is leaving the squad due to “ideological disagreements” with head coach Ricardo Liborio. Benkei told Tatame that he’ll still work with several high profile ATT fighters like Thiago Alves and “Bigfoot” Silva, among others, but it’s been reported that Benkei disapproved of the way Liborio was turning ATT into “a big McDonald’s” by selling its name to karate gyms. For shame, Ricardo. Karate gyms? That’s the MMA gym equivalent of giving hand jobs in the Wal-Mart parking lot. You never need money that badly.

- It’s not MMA news, but it’s worth mentioning: Sumo wrestling has been rocked by a drug scandal. A totally lame drug scandal. Russian Sumo wrestler (they exist?) Soslan Aleksandrovich Gagloev was arrested for possessing a third of a gram of weed. According to CNN, it’s “enough to land him in prison on a diet of forced labor for five years if he’s convicted.” Five years for a third of a gram in Japan? Nick Diaz should really be informed about that before returning to fight for Dream again.

(Props to MMA Mania for the poster image.)

— Kenny Florian doesn’t plan on sitting out until BJ Penn decides to defend his lightweight belt; he’ll be fighting one more time this year, no matter what. “(Penn) made the decision that he wants to fight GSP and I tell you what as a fan I want to see that fight,” Florian said during an appearance on MMA Weekly Radio. “It’s a risky move and some people have criticized me for it, but I still want to get another fight in…before the year’s end and I want to fight someone tough.”

— All signs are pointing to Cheick Kongo as Brock Lesnar’s next opponent. And why not UFC Hall-of-Famer Mark Coleman, who was originally supposed to take on Lesnar at “Seek and Destroy”? According to Dave Meltzer: “The basic story is this…Coleman really doesn’t want the fight.”

— UFC 90 (October 25th, Chicago) will see the Octagon debut of Matt Horwich, the Team Quest product and one-time IFL middleweight champion. He’ll be given a very tough test against BJJ ace Ricardo Almeida, who’s coming off a split decision loss to Patrick Cote at UFC 86. The UFC has also announced a UFC 90 middleweight matchup between Goran Reljic and Thales Leites.

— Even Jason MacDonald doesn’t know why he decided to fight Demian Maia on the ground: “It was a stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid fight on my behalf. And I take the full blame 100 percent for it. I’ll take it right on the forehead like I took those hundred elbows from Maia.”

Give ‘em a look while they last…

(St. Pierre vs. Fitch; props to MMA Linker)

(Lesnar vs. Herring; props to MixedMartialArtVideos)

As previously reported, Jason MacDonald picked up the $75,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for his handling of Joe Doerksen at UFC 83. In case you haven’t seen it, the video is above (and if the vid goes down, there’s an animated gif of the fight’s end after the jump). MacDonald put on a brave performance, white-knuckling through a deep kimura attempt by Doerksen in the first round, before taking Doerksen down early in the second and clubbing him with elbows until the fight was stopped.

Well, sort of stopped. Check out the 8:37-8:46 mark — it looks like Mazzagatti tries to stop the fight, but MacDonald presses on and throws three more punches into the face of Doerksen, who’s clearly unconscious by that point. Big John (or even Big Dan) would have thrown MacDonald across the cage, but Mazzagatti can only ineffectually flap his arms. Maybe it was bad sportsmanship by “The Athlete,” maybe bad reffing is to blame; in any case, I don’t think this chaotic moment should have earned anybody 75 large.

(Behind every great man is a woman with three kinds of hepatitis.)

It looks like all we’re gonna do on CagePotato today is post videos and talk about UFC fight bookings. But I hear that’s a good cure for a case of the Mondays, so unless there are any objections, here’s some other notable stuff that we either overlooked earlier, or has popped up since.

— B.J. Penn/Sean Sherk will likely go down at UFC 85 on May 24th in Las Vegas. According to Penn, Sherk is “dead.”

— This questionably sourced post on MMAFightline.com claims that the UFC is in talks to sign three of the biggest stars of Japanese MMA: Takanori Gomi, Hayato “Mach” Sakurai, and Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto. Marcus Davis called out Gomi after his victory at UFC 80, and getting Sakurai in the UFC’s lightweight division would give Mac Danzig an opportunity to avenge his last loss. Yamamoto fights at 143 pounds, so Zuffa would be wise to sign him to the WEC in order to set up a match with Urijah Faber; Faber wants to fight Yamamoto more than anyone else.