(Is that an Under Armour coat?  Wouldn’t that be more like Outer Armour?  Or just Armour?  I’m confused.)

According to his official website, Matt Hughes has spoken with UFC matchmaker Joe Silva and agreed to a May 23 fight with rival Matt Serra in Las Vegas. 

Hughes stresses that the bout isn’t "100% confirmed" yet, but he’s up for it and as long as Serra can work off his pasta weight without reinjuring his back there’s no reason they can’t finally settle this feud.  And honestly, it’s about time.  There’s only so long you can put something like this off until everyone, including the fighters, forgets why there was so much animosity to begin with.

Hold on, you thinking what I’m thinking?  Maybe Spike TV could run a special reality series that follows Hughes and Serra as they share a studio apartment together somewhere off the Vegas strip in the weeks before the fight.  Just imagine the hilarity.  Hughes is trying to read his Bible in peace at the end of a long day of training, but Serra is in the kitchen blasting Frank Sinatra and making a pizza pie in his underwear.  And just think of what will happen when Hughes discovers that Serra has been squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube!  Oh, these two will never get along.  At least that show couldn’t be any worse than Double Shot at Love.  It just couldn’t.

(It was going fine until the 1:57 mark. Then things get really uncomfortable.)

- Affliction can’t stop talking about how awesome they are. (Yahoo!)

- Thiago Silva is expecting a track meet against Lyoto Machida. (Tatame)

- Is the UFC phoning it in for UFC 93? (Fightlinker)

- Neil Grove to make UFC debut against Justin McCully. (Fighters Only)

- Tim Kennedy talks war and MMA. (Five Ounces of Pain)

- HIT Squad Dodgeball.  (Matt-Hughes.com)

- Rich Franklin trains for Dan Henderson. (MMA Mania)

- Gina Carano says she doesn’t get paid what you think. (AskMen.com)

- This is why you don’t run from the cops. (Break.com)

- 7 TV shows that really need to exist. (Screen Junkies)

- 10 things Tim Tebow should have put on his eye black. (Holy Taco)

- Skater owns bully. (Nothing Toxic)

- This is too adorable to ignore. (Hip to Code)

(One of several great WEC action shots from NBC Sports.)

- California’s drug-testing system is fixed already. (MMA Weekly)

- Chuck Liddell doing work with American Top Team, son. (Fighters Only)

- Josh Koscheck talks Yoshida bout. (CBS Sportsline)

- King of the Cage takes a swipe at Zuffa over Booyaa ban. (MMA Payout)

- British boxers exchange barbs over MMA. (The Sun)

- NBC goes Cung Le crazy this Saturday night. (MMA Mania)

- Diary of a madman who decides to train with Matt Hughes and the rest of the HIT Squad. (NewBreedFighters.tv)

- Flowchart guide to losing your virginity. (Holy Taco)

- Michael Bay’s Amazon wish list. (Screen Junkies)

- Street corner executive search. (Wall Street Fighter)

- Incredible diving basketball shot wins game. (Nothing Toxic)

(GSP is not impressed. Props: MMA Mania.)

- Is Shonie Carter trapped in a foreign land? (Fightlinker)

- Talking WEC meltdown, Pro Elite antics, and more on internet radio. (MMA Rated)

- Matt Hughes is not a white supremacist. (Bloody Elbow)

- Randy Couture scoffs at your insults. (Las Vegas Sun)

- Gina Carano and “Cyborg” Santos to sign together as package deal? (Fighters Only)

- Gomi reloading to headline Sengoku 7. (MMA Junkie)

- Mike Massenzio looking to use CB Dollaway as a stepping stone. (Fight Hype)

- The 10 best bourbons you’ve never heard of. (Holy Taco)

- How the iPhone beat the Blackberry. (Wall Street Fighter)

- Milla Jovovich to play alcoholic stripper…finally. (Screen Junkies)

- Dry ice bomb owns dad. (Nothing Toxic)

Maybe you don’t know this because you spend all day on the internet reading about pro fighting and watching old Pride highlight videos, but today is election day in America. It’s kind of a big deal. So much so that it even reaches over into the insular world of mixed martial arts, at least for a few hours.

Today Sherdog has an article that asks some notable fighters and trainers who they’re voting for. The answers are as varied as you’d expect from a group of MMA types. Chuck Liddell is voting for McCain because he’s rich and doesn’t want his taxes raised. His trainer, John Hackleman, is undecided, but he’s definitely voting against California’s Proposition 8 (a ban on gay marriage), because he’s got two fighters who are “half-gay.” Eddie Bravo isn’t voting at all because voting is an illusion and both candidates are working for the Illuminati. Thanks, Eddie. Things were getting a little too sane around here.

Just to prove how big time he is, yesterday Steve Cofield interviewed Barack Obama and asked him about, among other things, Matt Hughes’ criticisms of him. Obama responded that Hughes obviously hasn’t actually read his tax plan (no, Matt, watching Fox News doesn’t count as reading).

Fortunately, Matt Hughes has posted another screed, this time an editorial for a local newspaper written by friends of his. The newspaper did not publish it in their print edition, but Hughes is kind of enough to re-post it on his website, a portion of which appears after the jump.

(Swaying the important ground-and-pound voter block.)

Former UFC champ Matt Hughes received the prestigious Yale Chubb Fellow this week, which he described as, “just an award for being who you are and standing up for what you believe is right.” That’s one way of putting it, though it wouldn’t explain why Queen Latifah has yet to receive the award.

A slightly different description comes from Time magazine — “the prestigious fellowship was endowed by Insurance Executive Hendon Chubb (’95) to encourage student interest in public affairs” — but then that doesn’t explain why Hughes got it. Other recipients include Harry Truman, Jesse Jackson, Maya Angelou, and Adlai Stevenson. How Hughes fits in there, I have absolutely no clue.

Anyway, they brought him to Yale and gave him some money, which he then gave to the Rancho 3M Christian orphanage, so something good came out of it.

Hughes also discusses the presidential election in his recent blog entry. We already knew he was voting for John McCain, but here he takes some time to explain why, perhaps to sway those mythical undecided voters we keep hearing about. After the jump, the political endorsement that could turn the tide of the election.

(‘Fixing to go eat, son!’)

Thiago Alves got a chubby monkey off his back and made weight by squeaking just under the wire at 171 this afternoon. Good to see some people can put down the fork when the pressure is on (yeah, that was a shot at you, Gina). The only UFC 90 fighter not to make weight today was Josh Burkman, who weighed in two pounds over at 173 for his preliminary bout with Pete Sell. The sad irony is that the former middleweight Sell was the fighter people were expecting to have trouble making the cut. He hit 170 right on the button for what Goldstein expects to be UFC 90′s worst bout. Sure is off to a hell of a start.

Before today’s weigh-in, Matt Hughes spoke to fans and answered some questions, as he’s known to do. When asked about the Randy Couture/Brock Lesnar bout coming up at UFC 91, Hughes sided with Lesnar, saying: “The younger, stronger, better wrestler right now is going to win.”

He also said he’s voting for John McCain, for those of you who were wondering. Weird, I know. Full weigh-in results after the jump.

Here’s a little taste of Brock Lesnar’s appearance on ESPN’s E:60 tonight at 7 pm EST (which is like, now). The interview seems to be taking place in a barn for some reason. I’m sure it will all make sense when we see the whole thing. In other news…

- Luke Cummo was arrested and charged with “driving while impaired with drugs” in Lynbrook, New York last week. He wasn’t drunk, but was reportedly tested for a drug that officials would not name. Fightlinker says Cummo claimed, at least briefly, that he got a contact high from being in a room full of people smoking pot, and this was exacerbated by eating a bunch of chicken wings. Seriously. He’s pleaded not guilty, and we really hope he decides to represent himself in this case because that would be awesome.

- Matt Hughes says on his website that he talked to UFC matchmaker Joe Silva this week and he may finally get his shot at Matt Serra in April. He also went bowhunting and bagged a deer.

- The UFC sent out a press release today officially announcing three fights for the stacked UFC 92 event on Dec. 27. As expected, Rashad Evans/Forrest Griffin, Wanderlei Silva/”Rampage” Jackson, and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira/Frank Mir are on tap. Said Evans:

“Forrest fights from the heart just like me, and everyone underestimates Forrest until they get in there with him, like me. I think he and I are going to be like Ali vs. Frazier – this will be the first time we meet, but it won’t be the last, so I want to set the precedent.”

(Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

Ah, beautiful Omaha, Nebraska. Where any mention of the Cornhuskers is enough to work a crowd into a frenzy. I just returned from the Ultimate Fight Night 15 weigh-in, which was fairly uneventful except for the odd fact that every single fighter weighed in precisely on the mark. Every middleweight hit 185 on the button. Every lightweight, 155 exactly. You get the picture. It was eerie. Makes you wonder if the athletic commission here isn’t just phoning it in. One guy who seemed a bit nervous about the whole thing was Clay Guida, who stepped on the scale as if he were trying to sneak up on it. Maybe his brother’s troubles have him worried.

But the most interesting thing to happen at the weigh-in had nothing to do with the fighters on Wednesday night’s card. Before things got underway, Matt Hughes answered questions from the fans who arrived early. He talked at length about how good Robbie Lawler is, how he wouldn’t advise Lawler to fight Anderson Silva, but would like to see him face Georges St. Pierre, whose stand-up game is not as good as Lawler’s, according to Hughes.

“I know I want to see that fight,” he said. “I wouldn’t even want to corner Robbie. I’d just want to sit on the side and watch.”

But then, when the Q&A session was over, Hughes asked for a couple extra minutes on the mic. He said that he often gets asked about his most memorable story in the fight game, and then proceeded to share, unprompted, a tale from his “pre-Christian” days.

It seems Hughes was down in New Orleans and on Bourbon Street with Pat Miletich and some of the boys after a fight. He and Miletich got into a drinking contest, chugging beers out on the street with both fists. They had just finished slamming a couple and were walking down the street when Miletich stopped and bent over to puke in the street. Then he walked a couple steps, puked some more, then kept going, stopped, and puked some more. At some point, Miletich looked over at Hughes and pointed to the gaping space where his false teeth should be. Pat Miletich, MMA great, had just realized that he puked out his false teeth.

So what did he do? He walked back and sifted through each pile of vomit until he found them. And when he found them? He poured beer on them, put them back in his mouth, and kept going.

If you still care about the official weigh-in results after that, they’re after the jump:

While Fowlkes was dutifully liveblogging UFC 88, I was at New York’s 40/40 Club for a viewing party hosted by Matt Serra and his training buddies George Sotiropoulos and Pete “Drago” Sell. Between tense games of eight-ball, the Serra-Longo crew hung out with journalists and answered questions. At one point, I got my Canon PowerShot up in the Terror’s face and asked him about his health and his upcoming match with Matt Hughes; the video is above.

Major respect to MMAFacts.com — and their tireless efforts to get MMA regulated in New York State — for putting the party together, and to MMA Mania’s Jesse Holland for keeping me company at the bar during the fights. After the jump, a few pictures from the event…

(The stuff you find under Tommy Speer’s mattress.)

Former UFC welterweight champ Matt Hughes has been taking some heat for his remarks about the Georges St. Pierre-Jon Fitch bout, which he admitted to walking out on during UFC 87. But in a rare response to the media and the fans, Hughes updated his blog to address the criticism and set the record straight. Kind of:

I usually don’t do this, but I’m going to break my rule this time. There’s been so much talk about my last blog entry that it’s amazing. Some of it is legitimate thinking, some of it is just from idiots. I never said the GSP fight was boring, the reason I walked out was because I wanted to beat the crowd. I didn’t think Fitch was going to get back in the match and the fight wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. If you want, you can go look at my last blog entry and see that this is basically what I said. So people criticized me for leaving the fight early and said that was disrespectful to GSP, I disagree, I just wanted to get out of there.

Hughes also responded to a Yahoo! Sports blog entry by Steve Cofield that interpreted his ‘GSP-looked-small’ remarks to mean that Hughes was implying St. Pierre had been on steroids for previous bouts. While that might have been a little bit of a stretch, and Cofield admits as much, Hughes’ attempts at backtracking on his ‘boring’ remarks are hindered by the wonders of modern technology.

His exact words to interviewers with PWB Podcast: “I gotta be real honest though, I was kinda bored with the match.”

Woop. There it is.

- The fight poster for Dream.6 is pretty bad-ass. (SubFighter Forum)

- Talking Rampage, ShoXC, GSP and more on MMA Rated Radio. (MMA Rated)

- Forrest Griffin and Mac Danzig land acting gigs. (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Kenny Florian’s younger brother set to make amateur debut. (Fightline)

- UFC 83 DVD outsells Boston Celtics and Ric Flair, kind of. (MMA Payout)

- A little old school Matt Hughes-Dennis Hallman action. Real old school. (MMA Scraps)

- It’s Beer O’Clock, are you properly outfitted? (Holy Taco)

- Four steps to becoming a rich jerk. (Wall Street Fighter)

- “Iron Man” deleted scenes feature hot girls, not so much Iron Man. (Screen Junkies)

(Cain Velasquez: Don’t be scared, homey. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

— The arraignment of Quinton Jackson (which was supposed to take place today) has been postponed pending further investigation. According to an Orange County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson, “The district attorney’s office is responsible for filing charges and that case is still under investigation based on some new evidence that has been discovered…The recommendations of the police are taken into consideration, but it could be more charges or less charges, depending on what the evidence reports.”

— The Ultimate Fighter 7 winner Amir Sadollah will be back in the Octagon within the next couple months, against a yet-unnamed opponent. He’s moved from Virginia to Las Vegas to train with his old coach Forrest Griffin, and there’s no truth to the rumors of him dropping to welterweight.

— If his knee heals according to schedule, Matt Hughes should be settling his grudge with Matt Serra in January or February.

— The UFC is having a lot of trouble finding an opponent for Cain Velasquez. As Bloody Elbow’s Mchael Rome puts it, “[Velasquez] is very good, but he has no name value yet, so fighters don’t see any upside in facing him.”

— Brock Lesnar is subjected to some pretty dumb questions by the New York Times‘s Freakonomics blog; our own Ben Fowlkes gets a shout-out.

As we told you earlier this week, Matt Hughes was not at all impressed with Georges St. Pierre at UFC 87. His blog post about how boring he found the GSP-Fitch fight seemed laced with no small amount of jealousy. That’s somewhat understandable. A guy beats your ass twice, you may have some ill feelings towards him. But now Hughes is trying to claim that after GSP’s fight with Fitch (which Hughes walked out of halfway through) he does not deserve to be mentioned in the pound-for-pound debate. Has anyone told Hughes yet that GSP actually won that fight?

The hilarious thing is that Hughes also says B.J. Penn deserves to be considered among the best pound-for-pound. As in, the same B.J. Penn who Hughes (and GSP) beat. But GSP, who beat Hughes twice, convincingly, gets knocked out of the running for beating a guy who is ranked above Hughes in just about every welterweight top ten list in existence. You following this?

If only Hughes could bring himself to admit that, while he is a legend of the sport who was great in his time, that time is now over and St. Pierre is on top. Is that so hard? Probably, yeah. Especially for a guy like Hughes, whose stubborn unwillingness to believe that anyone could possibly be better than him has served him well in the past. Still, he’s got to let it go. Watching a former champ snipe at the guy who supplanted him is just sad. If Hughes really thought that GSP wasn’t any good, you know what he’d probably do? Beat him. I guess when that’s out of the question you settle for insults.

(Props: Yahoo’s Steve Cofield)

You may have noticed Matt Hughes sitting Octagon-side at UFC 87. At least, that’s where he was for most of the night. Turns out he didn’t make it all the way through the evening, and you can probably guess why. From Matt Hughes’ blog:

I went there really to watch one fight, probably not the one you’re expecting. I went there to watch Brock Lesnar. He is so interesting because he is so athletic as well as being so powerful. So that fight went just like I thought it would, Brock took him down whenever he wanted and on the ground he did whatever he wanted. I was also there watching my buddy, Roger, but he didn’t quite look the same. I don’t think him or Kenny fought their best fight on Saturday. Roger looked to have done a few things different and I would say that he needs to go back to what he was doing before.

The last fight of the night was Georges and Fitch. Georges didn’t look as big as he has before and he seemed like he had gotten tired from the first round. Fitch had the game plan of countering Georges and you just can’t do that. You can’t counter a quicker fighter. To be honest, halfway in the third round I got up and walked out of the arena and went to my hotel. The fight wasn’t the most exciting and I wanted to get out of there before everyone else was getting up to leave.

I’m sure Hughes’ decision to walk out of GSP’s first successful title defense halfway through had everything to do with the quality of the fight and not his personal feelings about St. Pierre. Yes, the GSP-Fitch fight did win “Fight of the Night”, but hey, if you stay all the way until the end you’re going to have a hell of a time getting back to your hotel. You’re also going to have to hear the words, “…and still UFC welterweight champion” and know they aren’t talking about you. You can decide for yourself which of those two things played a greater role in Hughes’ decision to walk out.

Well, pat yourselves on the back, people — who would have thought a simple, innocent picture of Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes, and their dates enjoying a log ride could be turned into something funny? First, the most honorable mentions:

MMA-hole: “You’re right Matt, this is *way* better than fornication!”

I’m confused: Jens kept telling Matt he didn’t want to ride up front.

reality: According to Cecil Peoples, the kid was the bravest one on the ride.

totaldb: Next week on Extreme Baptism…

jakey: “now son, which character from pirates of the carribean do you think i am?”

Roach: An up-close photo of Chuck Norris taking a dump.

And now, the winnah…

(You boys need a ride?)

Busy week for Matt Hughes. On his website the former welterweight champ revealed that he has a totally torn MCL and a partially torn PCL. He says he’s holding off on surgery in the hopes that the tears will repair themselves.

In other Hughes news, he settled out of court with one Jed Leist who alleged that Hughes had battered and assaulted him, among other things. Sherdog has the scoop:

The suit contended Hughes and/or other unnamed defendants “grabbed and placed” Leist in a hold “as to cause injury and damage.” Hughes’ actions were “unwanted, not consented or authorized,” by the plaintiff and inflicted “over his protests,” stated the documents.

Prior to the dismissal, Leist was seeking damages in excess of $10,000 per each charge plus attorney’s fees and additional expenses due to “severe humiliation, mental anguish and emotional distress.”

The suit also claimed Leist was both partially and permanently disabled from the alleged assault.

That’s weird. Assaulting people in public for no reason doesn’t sound like something Hughes would do. Oh, wait. There’s this extra little nugget of information:

10,000 BC comes out today on DVD and Blu-Ray, and Warner Home Video is providing one lucky CagePotato reader with a disc in the format of their choice. All you have to do to get it is provide a brilliant caption to the above photo of Matt Hughes, Chuck Liddell, some woman, and a terrified little boy enjoying a log ride. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but judging from the box cover it involves a battle between a caveman and a two-ton sabertooth tiger, and that’s good enough for me. Please submit your captions in the comments section by Friday morning at 8 a.m. ET; the winner will be announced shortly after. Good luck and God bless.

(Comin’ for that #1 spot…)

2008 is shaping up to be the busiest and most exciting year in MMA’s history — which is a great thing, unless you’re trying to keep your top ten lists current, in which case it’s a total pain in the ass. Though there aren’t many profound changes in the latest update to our Power Rankings page, recent events have caused some fighters to drop due to losses (i.e., Matt Hughes, Sean Sherk, Hayato Sakurai, Masakazu Imanari) some to jump up after big wins (Wanderlei Silva, Thiago Alves, Power Rankings newcomer Gegard Mousasi), and some to secure their already impressive positions (Lyoto Machida, Urijah Faber, Robbie Lawler). Give it a look, and click on each weight class for additional notes and to leave comments. And stay tuned, as Sunday’s DREAM.4 card could produce some changes in the middleweight list, and July 21st’s Affliction event could lead to a massive re-shuffling of the heavyweight deck.

(BG)

(Props: Five Ounces of Pain)

(“Boom! Another hit is landed…” The Pitbull mauls old-ass Matt Hughes. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Now that the adrenaline has subsided, we can have a normal conversation. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about since Saturday afternoon…

— Matt Hughes carved out a legendary career without ever being a particularly dangerous striker. And good for him, but the young fighters coming up these days will not stand for that shit. There’s no way you can compete at an elite level anymore without a complete game. Hughes never had one, and it’s now been fully exposed. After Alves stuffed Hughes’s takedown attempts during their fight, the former champ had no more weapons left, and it was only a countdown until the inevitable. I’m interested in seeing Hughes settle his grudge match with Matt Serra; I’m not really interested in seeing Hughes continue to be tooled by other athletic and well-rounded members of the UFC’s welterweight division.

— Michael Bisping looked deadly once again. Obviously he’d be wrecked by Silva, Franklin, or Henderson (or Marquardt on a good day), but he’d have to be the favorite against any other middleweight in the UFC. I’d guess he’s two wins away from a title shot, and luckily for him, Anderson Silva might not be around by the time he gets there. (The chatter is that Silva may move up to light-heavyweight for a marquee fight, but it’s totally unsubstantiated at this point, so don’t get your hopes up.)

— I don’t care what Jason Lambert needs to do to get down to 185 — stomach stapling, breast reduction surgery, whatever — he just needs to get there. He also needs to understand that his boxing sucks; just like in his fight with Wilson Gouveia, Lambert’s wild and sloppy haymakers led to his own damn self getting knocked out against Luis Cane. I think the biggest lesson I learned from “Bedlam” was that if there’s a noticeably out-of-shape guy fighting a guy in great physical condition, don’t bet on the fatty. (See also: Eddie Sanchez.)

(Bisping and Day: The love that dare not speak its name. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

The UFC is having an event in London right now, so I guess we pretty much have to cover it, huh. Anyway, spoiler alert: Round-by-round results from the live broadcast are after the jump. So raise a pint with us — we’re drinking on UK time today — and holla back in the comments.

(Nate Marquardt HL)

(Marcus Davis HL)

(Matt Hughes HL)

(Image courtesy of some homo.)

Ryan “Fightlinker” Harkness has cast his final picks in our UFC 85 ipecac bet rematch; you can check out his take on the Bedlam matchups here. I was a little nervous picking Hughes and Werdum to win because both matches could definitely go either way, but Ryan has set my mind at ease by picking Hughes and Werdum as well (though he picked them to end by stoppage, rather than my decision calls). Of course, there are some notable points of dispute. Such as…

Michael Bisping vs. Jason Day
I said: Bisping by storm.
Ryan said: “I’m all over Jason Day’s nuts. After watching him destroy Alan Belcher, I’m convinced that there’s no way Michael Bisping is gonna be able to take him out. Bisping nearly got taken out by Elvis Sinosic for god’s sake. So I anticipate one round of tenderization and then Bisping getting subbed out on top in the second.”

Marcus Davis vs. Mike Swick
I said: Davis in a wild one.
Ryan said: “Davis has been on an upswing and Swick has been on a downswing. But Marcus hasn’t faced the kind of opponents Swick has, and has turned into a cocky motherfucker to boot. I’m expecting Swick to come in with a smart plan: put him on his back and don’t give Davis a chance to use his hands. This fight is simply too important for Swick to try and trade.”

Hey, you want to hear something crazy? There’s another UFC event in like three days. And though it’s not the most thrilling card in recent memory, I’ll definitely be paying close attention, because Saturday marks the rematch of my vomit-video bet with Ryan Harkness of Fightlinker. (Read all the details/backstory here.) So these are the picks I’m going with, God help me. Let me know what you think in the comments section, and remember to come back here this Saturday at noon PT / 3 p.m. ET for our live results coverage.

MAIN CARD

Matt Hughes def. Thiago Alves via decision
Matt Hughes may be on the decline, and Thiago Alves is definitely on the come-up, but they haven’t passed each other yet, so to speak. Though Alves caught Karo Parisyan at UFC Fight Night 13, he’s failed in previous big tests against Spencer Fisher and Jon Fitch. Hughes may have trouble with Alves’s striking and youthful energy, and a submission victory is unlikely, but I can see the future Hall of Famer dominating the young challenger with his wrestling and grinding out a decision.

Michael Bisping def. Jason Day via KO/TKO, round 1
Michael Bisping only runs into problems when he’s matched up against big wrestlers; Jason Day is not a big wrestler. “Dooms” schooled Alan Belcher in his Octagon debut, but he has nothing on the Count, who looked impressively dangerous in his first middleweight match in April. Fun fact: All five of Day’s losses have come by first-round stoppage; why bet against the trend?

Marcus Davis def. Mike Swick via KO/TKO, round 2
The Irish Hand Grenade has said he’s not judging Mike Swick by his last performance, but I can’t get over the fact that Swick looked emaciated during the Burkman fight and fought like a pussy. Meanwhile, Davis is far more well-rounded than people give him credit for, and gets overlooked because he hasn’t been presented with a tough challenge yet. I expect Davis to rise to the occasion, big time, and extend his impressive win streak to 12. WAR HAND-GRENADE!!!

Nate Marquardt def. Thales Leites via submission, round 3
There are many who think Nate Marquardt is one of the top ten middleweights in the world. I’m not one of those people, but there’s no denying his submission prowess or his resume, which includes wins over Shonie Carter, Kazuo Misaki, Dean Lister, and most recently Jeremy Horn. Leites has good credentials and a great record, but Marquardt represents a large step up in competition for him. I think a jiu-jitsu showdown is inevitable, and Marquardt will eventually come out on top.

Fabricio Werdum def. Brandon Vera via decision
This might be the toughest fight to pick on the card. Brandon Vera is a dangerous striker, and who knows what would have happened if he didn’t break his hand during the Tim Sylvia fight (his first career loss). On the other hand, Werdum has gone toe-to-toe with much scarier strikers than Vera (Kharitonov, A. Emelianenko, and Arlovski among them) and avoided being knocked out. Werdum’s a little bigger than Vera, and better on the ground. I’m leaning towards the Brazilian because he has more ways to win, but it’s very hard to predict how, especially because neither fighter has ever been stopped. Could be a battle.

I guess you could call this CagePotato’s first original highlight reel. We rounded up the most insane TV commercials starring MMA fighters and stuffed them into a single video for your convenience and enjoyment. Some of them are beloved classics; some you’ve probably never seen before. Noticeably absent are the unauthorized Fedor Emelianenko honey-drink spot (because we’d like to avoid any rude letters from Fedor’s lawyers), and the Rich Franklin “Xyience Teacher” commercial (because it seems to have disappeared from the Internet). But if we’ve left out any other good ones, shoot us some links in the comments section. As Randy Couture might say, “Oh, you’re gonna like this.”

Our friend and content partner Ariel Helwani at MMARated just put up a great interview with Forrest Griffin, where the Ultimate Fighter coach and light heavyweight contender reveals that he’s been eating a lot of french toast lately, popping tons of valium, he really doesn’t care about TUF, and he digs Nick Cave, but not enough to actually pay for his music.

The official UFC 85: Bedlam trailer clip, featuring Matt Hughes, Thiago Alves, Michael Bisping, Jason Day, Brandon Vera, Fabricio Werdum, Nate Marquardt, Thales Leites, Marcus Davis, and Mike Swick.

HDNet Fights’ 86-minute “Best of 2008″ video; props to MMAScraps.

And also? You’re going to want to click that “More” link…

Matt Hughes and Thiago Alves have confirmed that they will fight in a headlining match at UFC 85. As Hughes posted today on his website:

June 7th, in England, I fight Thiago Alves. The fight is confirmed, it will be the main event for the card. Dana just called me with the news. Chuck got hurt and couldn’t fight, so he needed a replacement and called me and I said yes. More news as I get it. No matter what happens in this fight, I’ve got Serra next.

Alves (14-3, 7-2 UFC) is coming off an upset victory of Karo Parisyan at Ultimate Fight Night 13, after which he was told by UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, rather prematurely, that he was second in line to get a shot at the welterweight title after Jon Fitch. According to MMAWeekly, Alves previously offered to fight Hughes at UFC 79 when Matt Serra dropped out due to back injury, but Georges St. Pierre got the nod instead.

The chance of UFC 85 being shown for free on SpikeTV is slipping away, but with this match headlining — and Bisping/Leben, Swick/Davis, Vera/Werdum, and Evans/Irvin already booked — it’s definitely a card worth paying for.

11. Rashad Evans vs. Sean Salmon (UFC Fight Night 8, 1/25/2007)

10. Chris “Red Bull” Willems vs. Akoni Nakila (ROTR: Beatdown IV, 7/14/07)

9. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic vs. Aleksander Emelianenko (PRIDE: Final Conflict 2004, 8/15/2004)

You may have thought that Fedor’s bee story was the joke, but Matt Hughes is the one enjoying the April Fool’s Day hilarity. It’s not quite like Fightlinker’s pony tomfoolery, the Tommy Lee vs. Kid Rock UFC fight, or the bastard in the forums who kept Rick Rollin’ everyone — I got it twice and had to shut my computer down, Bastard — but here is Matt’s blog entry from today:

Well, for a long time I’ve talked about going up in weight class and I’ve decided to finally do it. Only I’m not going up to 185, I’m going up to 205 to fight Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in June. I’m bulking up now and packing on muscle and I’m thinking that it will be nice to not have to cut weight for a change. I think it’s a great match-up for me and I’ve told Dana that if I win this, then I want a shot at the 205 title next.

Sorry for the short blog this week, I’m here in Colorado helping Tommy get ready for his fight, so I’ll try to have more for you all next week. I just wanted to break the big news. -matt

You’d think Matt would’ve picked a fake opponent who hadn’t already backed out of a June fight because of injury for his “joke.” I also don’t want him to shoot me for pointing that out. So let’s take this a step further: imagine Matt going up even further in weight against, say the recently UFC-departed Tim Sylvia. I’d guess it would end in Matt running for his life.

Wonder what little Matty had in that backpack? Snacks, juice boxes, and the latest Harry Potter novel would be my guess. As for the other most hated fool from the UFC, it’s always fun to be reminded again about Big Tim’s fear of spiders and love of girlie drinks.

Happy Fool’s Day to all.