(The #1 image on GIS for “friday grind”…seriously.)

It’s the usual post-April Fool’s holiday blues wind-down. We’re all just biding our time until Happy Hour, so here are a few shorties to keep you busy until then.

— The UFC is now making more fights official for UFC 85. The show is to go down on June 7th in London. We already know Chuck Liddell will face Rashad Evans in the lame main event, and we’ve followed the other rumors, so let’s take a look at the UFC’s official card as it stands now:

– Chuck Liddell vs Rashad Evans
– Fabricio Werdum vs Brandon Vera
– Martin Kampmann vs Jorge Rivera
– Mike Swick vs Marcus Davis
– Nate Marquardt vs Thales Leites
– Jason Lambert vs Luis Cane
– Thiago Tavares vs Matt Wiman

Other rumored fights for the event that have not been stamped with the UFC official approval yet include: Jess Liaudin versus Paul Taylor, Antoni Hardonk versus Neil Wain, and Ryo Chonan versus Roan Carneiro. This comes via MMAWeekly, but we’ll keep our eyes on it for you.

— BloodyElbow is reporting that the UFC Fight Night 13‘s ratings were — in a word — shitty. The show did a 1.1 rating, which is terrible if you know anything about ratings. For such a stacked card, this really sucks for MMA on free TV. It goes to show you the unfortunate need for a Kimbo/Brock Lesnar/Chuck Liddell as a main eventer.

“TUF 7″ pulled a 1.3 immediately after the 3-hour event, so the previous joint retained its audience and gained some reality show hounds, too. For whatever it’s worth.

— And file this one with the Too Drunk to Care Bureau. Fightlinker dug up a crack-head’s video of Ken Shamrock apparently jonesin’ for meth. Check it out if you dare:

I’ll give them a tip o’ hat for editing, but first — a few quick words to the meth-head:

1) Work on your spelling and punctuation
2) Work on a Ken Shamrock ‘roids video
3) Meth…we’re assuming the Ken Shamrock pictorial is meant as sarcastic?
4) You gotta’ hook-up?

Have a bitchin’ weekend.

(Would he also dominate at light heavyweight?)

—MMA News posted some quotes from Ed Suarez, the handler of superstar middleweight Anderson Silva and the UFC’s Interim Heavyweight Champ Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. The statements were made on “The Lights Out Show”, broadcast by TAGG Radio. Suarez had this to say about Anderson Silva:

“We would consider going up in weight…I don’t think there’s a middleweight in the world that could beat him…You’d have a hard time having a light heavyweight in the world that could beat him.”

And about his heavyweight, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueria, possibly fighting Fedor again:

“He (Fedor) hasn’t fought any top opponents over the past couple years…we would love to fight Fedor.”

[Note to Suarez: See Randy Couture's attempts to fight Fedor while contracted by the UFC.]

—Even more quotes were dropped recently, and if Renato “Babalu” Sobral is to be believed Tito Ortiz and Lyoto Machida won’t be battling afterall. The controversial fighter had this to say to Punch Drunk Gamer:

“I heard that Tito is not going to fight him anymore, so they are going to have to find another opponent for Machida. I got the news a couple of days ago that he was fighting someone else. I don’t know about Tito man……he is a celebrity. He makes a lot of money outside of fighting so I don’t know if he really wants to fight.”

—Chuck Liddell has confirmed he is officially signed to fight Mauricio “Shogun” Rua on June 7th. Although the event details have not been officially announced by Dana & Co., the Iceman has pinpointed the date. The fight is expected to be the main event.

Dave Meltzer over at Yahoo! Sports has his own version of FMK today. The contestants being MMA, boxing and pro wrestling (okay, it’s impossible to properly play FMK with an entire sport, but go with it). He rambles on for what seems like hours and covers much of what we already know – that MMA is growing rapidly, but douches like Mayweather and De La Hoya keep boxing at the forefront with their hordes of mindless fans. And rednecks keep procreating at a rapid pace, thus keeping pro wrestling afloat.

However, he does a decent job of breaking down the numbers, mainly the TV stats. While the PPV numbers are not yet available for UFC 78 and 79 (how long does it take them to print out their numbers anyway?), the expectations are that both events will be in the top 15 PPV events of the year. Why top 15, you ask? Because that’s what Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer gave us:

1. Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya/Floyd Mayweather, May 5: 2,400,000
2. Boxing: Mayweather/Ricky Hatton, December 8: 850,000
3. WWE: Wrestlemania, April 1: 760,000
4. UFC: Chuck Liddell/Quinton Jackson, May 26: 675,000
5. UFC: Tim Sylvia/Randy Couture, March 3: 540,000
6. UFC: Couture/Gabriel Gonzaga, August 24: 520,000
7. UFC: Liddell/Keith Jardine, September 22: 475,000
8. UFC: Tito Ortiz/Rashad Evans, July 7: 425,000
9. UFC: Anderson Silva/Travis Lutter, Feb. 2: 400,000
10. UFC: Georges St. Pierre/Matt Serra, April 7: 400,000
11. Boxing: Manny Pacquiao/Marco Antonio Barrera, October 6: 350,000
12. WWE: Summerslam, August 26: 344,000
13. Boxing: Miguel Cotto/Shane Mosley, November 10: 340,000
14. UFC: Anderson Silva/Rich Franklin, October 20: 325,000
15. WWE: Royal Rumble, January. 28: 314,000

If you’re bored this weekend and there’s not an “I Love Lucy” marathon polluting your TV screen, here’s something with which you can pass the time. Yesterday and again today, BloodyElbow did cool breakdowns of the latest rankings in MMA. Their overviews didn’t include the rankings for 5oz of Pain or MMA on Tap, but they included them in updates. To check out those rankings, follow the links we have for you. Kid Nate observes the obvious domination the UFC has on the rankings, especially the light heavyweight division. Pretty much across the board.

UFC 79: Nemesis fighters will suck in their guts for their official weigh-in this Friday, December 28 at 7 pm (EST). It’ll go down at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas and is free to attend if you happen to be in Sin City. If you want to check it out on-line, you can watch it live at UFC.com, Yahoo!Sports.com, FOXSports.com and NBCSports.com.

Bodoglife

• Chuck Liddell (-105) vs. Wanderlei Silva (-125)
• Georges St. Pierre (-240) vs. Matt Hughes (+190)
• Ryoto Machida (-125) vs. Sokoudjou (-105)
• Melvin Guillard (-260) vs. Rich Clementi (+200)

BetUS

To get yourself good and educated about the whole process, MMA Betting Blog and MMA Junkie has some good info.

Though some MMA fans are ragging on the UFC 78 lineup for having a weak main event*, UFC 79 looks like it’ll make up for that starless night like a motherfucker. How stacked is this card (aka “Nemesis”)? Well, we already knew about the Serra vs. Hughes grudge match**, and the historic light heavyweight meeting between Chuck Liddell and PRIDE legend Wanderlei Silva. But yesterday, Bubba the Love Sponge (I know, bear with me) reported that Dan Henderson may be fighting in December — and at middleweight (a wise move after his loss to Quinton Jackson in his UFC debut). What this means is: 1) Nemesis has the potential to be one of the greatest UFC cards of all time, and 2) With PRIDE now absorbed into the UFC, it’s all becoming one big Circle of Life (no, I will not link to that Elton John/Lion King video). Let’s run down the timeline…

12/9/00: Wanderlei Silva beats Dan Henderson (unan. dec., PRIDE 12)

11/9/03: Quinton Jackson beats Chuck Liddell (corner stoppage TKO, PRIDE Final Conflict middleweight semi-finals)

11/9/03: Wanderlei Silva beats Quinton Jackson (strikes TKO, PRIDE Final Conflict middleweight finals)

10/31/04: Wanderlei Silva beats Quinton Jackson for the second time (KO by knee, PRIDE 28)

2/24/07: Dan Henderson beats Wanderlei Silva to win the PRIDE middleweight title (KO by punch, PRIDE 33)

5/26/07: Quinton Jackson beats Chuck Liddell for the second time to win UFC light heavyweight title (strikes TKO, UFC 71)

9/8/07: Quinton Jackson beats Dan Henderson to retain UFC light heavyweight title (unan. dec., UFC 75)

So from these fights, it could be inferred that Silva > Jackson > Henderson > Liddell. What we really need to see, therefore, is a re-rematch between Silva and Jackson, to determine if Rampage really deserves his UFC belt. Hopefully Dana White can make that happen if Wanderlei can give “Mr. Rock Star Lifestyle” his third-straight loss.

* For the record, I’m psyched for Bisping/Evans, and all you Count-haters can suck my eggs.
** I see this one going the same way as Ortiz/Shamrock after TUF 3, with the frustrated hothead coach so frustrated and hotheaded that he can’t fight properly in the Octogon — Serra for shocking upset #2.