(Jimmo will trade his precious metal to finally test his mettle in the UFC)

The UFC announced today that it has signed Maximum Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion and CagePotato guest blogger Ryan Jimmo to face Czech wrestler Karlos Vemola on the inaugural UFC on FX 1 card January 20 in Nashville, Tennessee.

“The Big Deal” will put his 16-fight undefeated streak on the line as he steps into the Octagon for the first time against Vemola, who is 1-1 in two UFC starts.

(Clements v. Travis Briere, end comes at the 2:44 mark.)

Aside from The Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale, December 3rd also features an interesting welterweight battle between UFC veteran Rich Clementi and up and coming KO artist Chris Clements under the Score Fighting Series promotion. And after doing a quick check-up on Clements, we thought he was a guy that was worth talking about, so let’s, shall we?

“The Menace” is a 9-4 product fighting out of Ontario, Canada who has collected all 9 of those wins by way of KO or TKO inside the first two rounds. He often trains with the likes of Mark Hominick and Sam Stout, because there can only be so many MMA gyms in that tundra known as Canada, am I right or am I right? *High fives self*

A little known fact about Clements: he is the man responsible for retiring UFC vet Jonathan Goulet back at Rinside MMA-Payback in November of 2010, the video of which is after the jump.

(Oh Kyle, if only you knew how ironic that tattoo is about to look.) 

There is a Russian proverb that roughly goes, “He that is afraid of bad luck will never know good.” And it is a rare bit of good sense from our Russki comrades; we should not live in fear of things beyond our control like luck, but rather have the confidence in ourselves to believe that our hard work will eventually pay off, be it in fame, fortune, or fiine women. But for every bit of good luck we have, some poor sap out there has a much, much worse day because of it. Like the Mortal Kombat tournaments, these gentlemen’s misfortunes are necessary to maintain the order between realms, so it is to these brave souls that we pay tribute.

We’re talking about those guys who just happened to be on the losing side of a future champion’s debut, or got crushed before they could even get their footing. We’re talking about guys who put their hearts and souls into a sport for years, only to have their debut in the sport’s highest promotion be overshadowed by someone that was just on another level.

So, without further ado, here are the six unluckiest sons of bitches that the UFC has ever seen.

#6 – Alex Soto

Who he drew: 20 year old bantamweight phenom Michael “Mayday” McDonald at UFC 139

How it went down: Let us start with the most recent. Before entering the octagon, Alex Soto was 6-0-1 over local to mid-level competition. Mcdonald, on the other hand, was a 13-1 fighter out of California that had split a pair of contests with former WEC featherweight champion Cole Escovedo, and had scored wins over legitimate UFC competition in Edwin Figueroa and Chris Cariaso. On paper, it was going to be a tough debut for Mr. Soto. In the flesh, it was actually much, much tougher.

McDonald swarmed Soto with a barrage of technically proficient and perfectly placed punches that had him looking for a way out early. And McDonald was kind enough to offer that way out, via Soto’s consciousness. Turns out, there wasn’t a mountain high enough, a valley low enough, or a river wide enough to keep McDonald from getting to Soto, and a series of particularly brutal uppercuts later sealed the deal. The end came just 56 seconds into the first round. Soto is more than likely still dusting out the cobwebs to this day, whereas Michael McDonald has taken up a career singing backup vocals for everyday conversations.

Join us after the jump to hear the stories of five other guys who had their wings broken before they could even learn to fly. 

 
(A classic battle of style vs. SUBstance.)

Fresh off his upset Submission of the Night victory over Melvin Guillard at UFC 136, Joe Lauzon was quick to respond when called out by former WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, who scored a decision victory over Jeremy Stephens at the same event. Well it looks like “Showtime” will be getting his wish, as the two have been booked to lock horns at UFC 144, in what could easily be a Fight of the Night match-up. Prior to their 136 victories, Lauzon scored a quick and nasty kimura victory over Kurt Warburton at UFC Live 4 whereas Pettis was wrestlefucked into oblivion by Clay Guida at the TUF 13 Finale in June. This is the point where I’d normally say that a victory here would rocket either man near the top of the lightweight ladder, but considering that the division is currently more crowded than a So-Cal Quinceanera, let’s just say that a victory here will keep either man…from losing.

Dana White’s video blogs, though sporadic, have taken an increasingly interesting turn in that they are now largely made up of post-fight footage from UFC events rather than the day-to-day extravagance that is “The Baldfather’s” life. As with his UFC 136 vlog, Dana gives us a brief introduction and wishes us a happy Halloween before throwing us behind the scenes of UFC 136 to witness the agony of defeat firsthand.

Particularly tough to watch is that of Melvin Guillard, who, after having his lightweight title aspirations choked out of him by Joe Lauzon, completely loses his shit backstage, throwing a chair across the room before breaking down on his hands and knees as the doctor’s try to attend to him. Even Joe Warren had to look away.

Join us after the jump for some other musings from this week’s vlog:

(Punch-face: Where ‘herp’ meets ‘derp’. Photo via Cagewriter.)

Of the 11 bouts hosted at UFC 136, eight went to the judges — which made the other three seem even more special by comparison. In case you missed ‘em on Saturday, take a look back at the two dramatic submissions and one classic knockout from “Edgar vs. Maynard III.”

GIFs are after the jump, via IronForgesIron.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/UFC)

Just a friendly reminder that we will have the live stream of today’s UFC 136 weigh-ins from Houston, Texas starting at 5:00 pm ET.

There’s a pretty good chance that at least one fighter is getting shoved during the festivities. Unfortunately we likely won’t hear from Stann or Sonnen since Joe Rogan typically only interviews the main event participants, so we’l have to settle for listening to Maynard say that Frankie has his belt and to Edgar say he’s sick of fighting Gray.

Time for a few friendly wagers in the comment section.

In the early days of The Ultimate Fighter, simply spraying water on a sleeping person was considered a brilliant prank. But after 14 seasons, the bar has been steadily raised for in-house trickery, to the point where even the coaches are now gleefully stripping cars of their tires. We thought we’d pay tribute to the TUF prank tradition by running down the most infamous pranks of the show’s history. Enjoy, and let us know if we’ve left out any of your favorites…

The Pink Room (Season 10)

See, this is what I’m talking about. Any moron can piss on a bed — but it takes a man to spend all afternoon painting walls pink and arranging stuffed animals in vaguely sexual poses. The best moment is at the very end, when Rashad Evans comes to the realization that the pacifier he’d been sucking on had definitely been up Tiki’s ass at some point.

See also: The Chickenmobile, The Team Portrait

(Stock-trader vs. Wall Street protester — who ya got? Photo via MMA Mania)

Want to make some real money this weekend? Then come over to my place on Saturday afternoon and be prepared to clean some toilets. Want to make some hypothetical, for-entertainment-purposes-only money this weekend? Then check out the latest UFC 136 betting lines (via BestFightOdds) and read our gambling advice after the jump.

PPV Main Card
Frankie Edgar (-125) vs. Gray Maynard (+120)
Jose Aldo (-320) vs. Kenny Florian (+301)
Chael Sonnen (-255) vs. Brian Stann (+227)
Nam Phan (-210) vs. Leonard Garcia (+208)
Melvin Guillard (-312) vs. Joe Lauzon (+310)

Spike TV Prelims
Demian Maia (-275) vs. Jorge Santiago (+245)
Anthony Pettis (-277) vs. Jeremy Stephens (+250)

Facebook Prelims
Joey Beltran (+190) vs. Stipe Miocic (-210)
Tiequan Zhang (-120) vs. Darren Elkins (+115)
Aaron Simpson (-313) vs. Eric Schafer (+300)
Steve Cantwell (-135) vs. Mike Massenzio (+130)

We’ll begin…at the beginning:

(Video courtesy of YouTube/Heavy)

Heavy.com’s Megan Olivi caught up with Dana White following the UFC 136 press conference today and picked the UFC president’s brain about a few hot topics that have been swirling around MMA blogs and messageboards as of late.

White gave some insight into how he expects the UFC’s first dual event to go down, logistically, and shared his thoughts on what title implications certain bouts from UFC 136 might have including Stann versus Sonnen and Lauzon versus Guillard. He also mentioned that the future of Strikeforce could be determined this week as Showtime will likely announce whether or not it intends to re-up with the now Zuffa-owned promotion.

(Jon Jones buys his first new car — a $190,000 2012 Bentley. For more pics of the UFC light-heavyweight champ’s new ride, head to MMAConvert.)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. Starting today, we’ll be giving you guys short previews of each article we link to. We vouch for this stuff, so click, okay?

- My First Fight: Kenny Florian (MMA Fighting)
“Looking back, it’s crazy. The way that I trained, the way I ate, it was terrible. It was so far from what I do now…Ignorance is bliss, I guess, even when I was fighting on The Ultimate Fighter, weighing in at a chubby 178 pounds for a [185-pound fight], it was all kind of like I was just too dumb to know better.”

- Culinary Workers Union Creates Anti-UFC Website (The Fight Nerd)
“Maintained by the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, the website uses the acronym of UFC to stand for “Unfit For Children” instead of the “Ultimate Fighting Championship.” Dana White’s many rants are listed in detail on this page across a series of sub-categories, including “Obscenities,” “Slurs” which features many of the comments DFW directed at Loretta Hunt among others, “Cheap Shots” which focuses on remarks about random people involved in entertainment and sports, and “Other $#@%!!!” which documents rude comments that UFC fighters have said about others, including Chael Sonnen’s negative thoughts on Brazil.”

- Hired Hero: An Interview Exclusive With UFC 136 Fighter Brian Stann, Part Two (MMA Mania)
“The fact of the matter is, I don’t care who you are. If I hit you on the chin, there’s a good chance you’re going out. Anderson possesses that same ability. He’s only a man. I don’t put any fighter on a pedestal of being unbeatable. I train with guys like Jon Jones every day who is every bit as devastating.”

(You don’t *have* to cover your face when you wear this shirt in public — but it couldn’t hurt. Props: Punch Buddies)

After Tuesday’s pep-talk, I’m happy to report that you guys got your acts together and started to produce quality work. So after sifting through the most recent wave of submissions for our Punch Buddies photoshop contest, we’ve chosen five runners-up, as well as two winners who will score “Young Assassin” t-shirts. Check out the Melvin Gulllard-themed brilliance after the jump.

(This is the current front-runner. Seriously. This. / Props: Jeffrey T.)

Guys, we need to talk. Last week we launched a photoshop contest with Punch Buddies, asking our readers to brainstorm some other folks who need to feel the wrath of Melvin Guillard. Man is it not going well. After the jump, you’ll find four more recent submissions. These include: Two examples of Melvin dealing with folks who are already dead (classy!), Rupert Murdoch palming Melvin’s head like a basketball (not exactly what we’re going for here), and a photo-collage that looks like it was created by an insane person. So if you want a Punch Buddies Young Assassin shirt, it won’t take much effort to steal this thing. Please e-mail your entries to submission@ngaugeinc.com by Thursday night. Good luck.

(Image courtesy of NGAUGEinc.com)

That, my friends, is the first design from a new t-shirt line called Punch Buddies — brought to you by NGAUGE, the madmen previously responsible for Trash Talkin’ Kids. (Ed. note: TTK was literally sued to death shortly after we featured them on this site. Hopefully we can keep this new brand a secret from Hitler and Bin Laden’s lawyers.) Y’know, we’re big fans of Melvin Guillard, and we appreciate the subtle humor of this “Young Assassin” shirt. I bet you didn’t even notice that lynched klansman on fire in the background. So ironic!

Two questions: 1) Do any of you have the balls to actually wear this shirt in public? And for the brave souls who answered “yes,” 2) Would you be willing to enter a photoshop contest to get one?

“Me? Fight at 145? Sure thing, chief. I’ll get right on that.”

In keeping with the mantra “everything’s bigger in Texas”, Zuffa announced last night that the increasingly awesome card for UFC 136 has just gotten awesomer. In addition to the Lightweight Championship do-over between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard, Jose Aldo will be putting his gold on the line against Featherweight newcomer Kenny Florian on October 8^th.

After a shaky first bid at 145lbs that saw Florian score a decision victory over Diego Nunes, some wise souls had recommended one more warm-up bout for KenFlo before he challenge for the belt, but the fates had other plans. A title defense against Chad Mendes was scrapped so Aldo could nurse lingering injuries, and rather than ‘Rashad’ himself on the shelf Mendes opted to take another bout in the meantime. Now recovered, Aldo will look to redeem himself from the sluggish, illness-inspired decision beatdown he put on Homminick with a return to violent form.

Another exciting addition to the card is after the jump.

(Goldie and Rogan get their groove on during the UFC 132 prelims. Props: atran416)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. (Welcome aboard, MMAPayout and FightOpinion!) E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

- UFC 132: Payout Perspective (MMAPayout)

- Urijah Faber Considers Adapting His Fight Style Based on How MMA Judges Score Fights (FightOpinion)

- ‘Krazy Horse’ Bennett: “When I Got 22 Losses, I Realized That I Needed to Train” (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

- This Guy Learns the ‘Tap or Snap’ Rule the Hard Way (MiddleEasy)

- Why Tito Ortiz Winning Is a Good Thing (MMA Convert)

- UFC 134: Overweight Forrest Griffin Wants to Go Hard for 15 minutes Against ‘Shogun’ Rua (MMA Mania)

- Brian Bowles Hand Not Broken in UFC 132 Win, Wants Dominick Cruz Next (MMA Fighting)

- Fistic Fireworks: Ten Moments in the UFC’s Fourth of July History (Five Ounces of Pain)

- 4th of July Treat: Miesha Tate at UFC 132 (LowKick)

- Melvin Guillard Puts Belt Before Brothers…And Mother (5thRound)

- A Day in the Life of Jeff Monson, Part 8: Jeff Gets a New Tattoo (TheFightNerd)

- UFC 132: Five Lessons Learned (NBC Sports MMA)

(We know, Urijah. Sometimes we spend an entire hour working on a blog post, and our browser decides to crash just as we’re finishing it up, and when we go back into the CMS the post has completely vanished and we’re struck with that feeling of pure disappointment and frustration, knowing that we have to do it all over again. So, yeah, we can totally relate. / Photo courtesy of MMAFighting)

UFC 132 was as bizarre as it was thrilling. Now that we’ve wrapped our heads around it for the most part, it’s time to look ahead and see if we can think up some future matchups for Saturday’s notable winners and losers. Let us know how you feel in the comments section — and hey, happy 4th of July!

Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber: Immediate rubber match. It’s not the most essential of immediate rematches, but the fight was close enough to warrant it, and there’s really no bantamweight contender right now who deserves it more than Faber. Brian Bowles thinks he’s the guy, but I can’t forget that two fights ago he was beaten up by Dominick Cruz worse than anybody’s been beaten up by Dominick Cruz, ever.

The other name being thrown around in the aftermath of UFC 132 is Demetrious Johnson, who’s coming off decision wins over Miguel Torres and Kid Yamamoto. Impressive? Of course. Still, Johnson has never been on the main card of a UFC event, and promoting him as a headliner could be a tough sell. Give Mighty Mouse one more fight to establish himself — or hurry up and create that long-rumored flyweight division so the diminutive Johnson can dominate there.

Chris Leben: There’s no limit to the brawling abilities of a sugar-free Cat Smasher. Leben vs. Wandy was a bit of a stunt-fight, and now that Leben has emerged victorious, he should return to a more conventional contender track. The first name that comes to mind is Mark Munoz, who’s riding a three-fight win streak, most recently outpointing Demian Maia last month at UFC 131 — although Vitor Belfort could also be a great matchup for Leben, as long as the Phenom can get past Yoshihiro Akiyama next month in Philadelphia.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/IronForgesIron)

Even if you aren’t looking forward to the main event of Saturday’s UFC 132: Faber vs. Cruz this upcoming long weekend, there is much more to excite you about this card even with BJ Penn and Jon Fitch out with injuries.

Check out what goodness 132 has in store for you and the remainder of the countdown show after the jump.

(Wanderlei Silva: You couldn’t last five minutes in this man’s world.)

UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber goes down Saturday night in Las Vegas, and in case you’re feeling some MMA fatigue after five consecutive weeks of events, let us remind you — this card has the potential to be a real son-of-a-bitch. Familiarize yourself with the lineup here, and get your juices flowing again by watching some career highlights from the fighters on the card. Enjoy…

(Ryan Bader vs. Keith Jardine, UFC 110, 2/21/10)

(Melvin Guillard vs. Dennis Siver, UFC 86, 7/5/08)

(Bader beat him. K-Sos beat him. Lawlor beat him. Now he’s one of the toughest prospects in the light-heavyweight division — proving once again that shaving your head is always a good career move. Photo props to UFC.com)

Not to pee-pee on Tony Ferguson‘s parade, but winning The Ultimate Fighter is no guarantee of success in the UFC. On the other hand, getting eliminated while in the TUF house is no guarantee of failure either. In fact, some of today’s most dangerous UFC contenders are guys who entered the promotion through the reality show, but didn’t even get to fight for the glass trophy. In the wake of Saturday’s TUF 13 Finale, here’s how I’d rank the Top 10 non-finalists from The Ultimate Fighter, based on their current standing in the promotion…

#1: Gray Maynard

On TUF: Was choked out by Nate Diaz in the semi-finals of season 5.
These days: Drew with Frankie Edgar in his first lightweight title challenge in January, but will get another crack at the belt later this year. His pair of title fights against Edgar follow an eight-fight win streak in the Octagon, which included a decision win against Diaz in a rematch last year.

#2: Josh Koscheck

On TUF: Lost a split-decision to Diego Sanchez in the semi-finals of season 1.
These days: A perennial top contender in the welterweight division, Kos will be one of the front-runners for the belt if GSP ever leaves the division; until then, he’ll just have to be content with being “right up there.”

A number bookings for upcoming UFC events have being reported by various sources in the past 24 hours.

Heavy.com broke the news yesterday afternoon that former CagePotato.com The Ultimate Fighter 11 blogger Rich Attonito will try to prove the theory that Matt Brown has incriminating blackmail-worthy photos of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva when he attempts to hand the Seattle, Washington fighter his fourth straight UFC loss at the TUF 13 finale on June 4 in Las Vegas. Attonito will be hungry to rebound from a unanimous decision loss to David Branch he incurred at the TUF 12 finale in December.

(In hindsight, this probably wasn’t the smartest name for Hesdy’s supplement brand.)

It might be a while before Hesdy Gerges is able to rematch Badr Hari, unless “The Golden Boy” breaches probation on his 2010 assault charge and ends up back in jail with “Fightersheart.”

According Parool.nl, Dutch SWAT team members kicked in the door of the It’s Showtime heavyweight champ’s apartment in Amsterdam today and arrested Gerges, who was sleeping at the time, as part of a cocaine trafficking ring in Belgium. Besides the K-1 standout, four other suspects were also detained as authorities searched 10 properties belonging to Gerges, confiscating several weapons, ammunition and computers.

("Tell me the truth, does this haircut make me look washed-up?" PicProps: MMA Convert)

It was just a matter of time before some intrepid MMA journalist got to Kenny Florian to get his response to all that shit Melvin Guillard was talking before Fight for the Troops 2. During his appearance on our own Bum Rush podcast (and a bunch of other shows) Guillard quipped that he no longer considers Florian a top contender for the UFC title and said he thinks KenFlo should get out of the way and let some new blood have a chance. “I’ll fight Kenny Florian,” Guillard told us, “but to be honest with you, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say he’d be a pretty easy fight for me." Damn, playa. Really?

On Monday, Al Pepe of ProMMA Radio invited Florian on the air to play him some clips of Guillard talking crazy. As always, Florian was gracious and well-spoken, but when the topic of “The Young(ish) Assassin” came up, you could hear a hint of irritation creeping into his normally composed broadcast voice. Dig it, after the jump …

We had Melvin on last week’s episode of The Bum Rush Radio Show and he had some interesting things to say about the affect of his move to Team Jackson, his plans for 2011, his desire to be on TUF again and how overrated he thinks Kenny Florian is.

Check out what the self-dubbed "More Mature Assassin" had to say after the jump.

(We don’t really have to crack a joke about this position, do we? PicProps: Yahoo Sports)

Credit where credit is due: Melvin Guillard absolutely steamrolled Evan Dunham last night. He came out and simply blitzed the former lightweight golden boy with his speed, clipping him with an early right hand that Dunham never appeared to recover from. By the time Guillard put a fork in him a couple minutes later with a trio of knees along the fence – the last, clearly illegal one “just a technicality” the broadcast team immediately assured us – he’d managed to further scramble the already muddy lightweight ranks. Now watch Anthony Pettis lose to Clay Guida at the “TUF 13” finale and George Sotiropoulos lose to Dennis Siver at UFC 127 and we’ll really be in trouble.

However — (*clears throat*) – let’s not get carried away here. Let’s not get too crazy. Let’s not do the thing we seem to always do when a guy wins a big fight and start to completely overvalue Guillard based on this one performance. What he proved with his beating of Dunham on Saturday night was either one of two things. One, it could be that Greg Jackson is helping him to finally harness the physical tools he’s possessed from the beginning and has Guillard on the verge of becoming something special in the lightweight division. Or two, he was just a terrible match-up of styles for Dunham.

(Creepiest job shadow ever. PicProps: UFC.com)

The fighters are locked and loaded. We can only assume that by now Evan Dunham has eased off the bender he no doubt went on after his beloved Ducks shit the bed in the BCS championship. Obviously, Melvin Guillard has found a suitably enormous wristwatch to complement his main event status. The troops have surely been drinking all day and we the audience have once again collectively decided to ignore the obvious irony of benefitting the survivors of traumatic brain injury with a show where the desired outcome often includes closed head trauma. In other words, as Bruce Buffer might say, it’s time.

We’ll be live starting at 9 p.m. EST. Be sure to hit refresh early and often for the latest updates.

With Ben on vacation this week, Mike takes the wheel of the show with Chad riding shotgun. Besides running through some of the week’s top news, the guys run down Saturday night’s UFC Fight for the Troops card which will feature our three guests on the show, Cody McKenzie, Melvin Guillard and Pat Barry.

As always,  The Bum Rush is available on iTunes or via direct download by right-clicking HERE.

If you like the show, all that we ask is that you continue to listen, tell a friend or 500 and give us some positive feedback in iTunes. And if you can’t stand listening to the three of us pretend to know what we’re talking about, then leave some comments below so we can work to make the show better for you.

(The best bodyguards are the ones that just look like random fat guys. Photo courtesy of Kenny Florian’s Facebook page.)

We’ll let Kenny break the bad news himself:

It is with deep regret that I will not be able to compete in my scheduled fight against Evan Dunham on January 22nd, due to a knee injury I sustained during training this morning. Although I have not had an MRI as of yet; the doctors are cautiously optimistic that it will not require surgery. I want to express my sincere apologies to the fans, the UFC and Evan for not being able to compete at UFC Fight Night 23: Fight for the Troops 2. Since early September, I have been training for this fight. Evan is a great fighter and has undoubtedly been working very hard towards this fight as well. Plus, it is a big disappointment that I will not be able to fight in the octagon for the brave soldiers that fight for us. I am determined to return to the octagon in the first half on 2011. Accordingly, I will keep you all updated.

The Fight for the Troops 2 main event was to be Florian’s return to the cage after his tough unanimous decision loss against Gray Maynard in August. Dunham most recently dropped a controversial split-decision to Sean Sherk at UFC 119 — but luckily, he already has a replacement opponent lined up for January…

(Guillard prepares for battle at UFC 109. Believe it or not, there’s a shriveled-up old white man under that mask. Photo courtesy of URDirt.com)

Coming off a split-decision victory over Jeremy Stephens at UFC 119 last month — his third straight victory in the Octagon — UFC lightweight contender Melvin Guillard already has his next fight booked. As the Young Assassin tweeted last night: "Ok world an @Young__assassin fans the next fight is set for JAN 22,2011. FORT HOOD ,FIGHT FOR THE TROOPS."

Though he didn’t name an opponent, MMA Junkie claims that Guillard will be meeting well-traveled veteran Yves Edwards, who won a decision over John Gunderson last month in his UFC return fight, following a four-year absence from the organization. Junkie also pegs Charlie Brenneman vs. Amilcar Alves to the event.

If Guillard’s announcement turns out to be accurate, the January 22nd show at Fort Hood will be the UFC’s second "Fight for the Troops" event, following their December 2008 visit to Fort Bragg, which left Corey Hill with a broken leg, Razak Al Hassan with a broken arm, and Brandon Wolff with a cartoonishly lumped-up head. Talk about setting the bar high…

(Cyrille the Snake’s early kickboxing highlights. Props: Gorgeous PX)

UFC 114: Rampage vs. Evans goes down this coming Saturday in Las Vegas, with two new faces casting their fates to the wind in the prelims, both of whom have peripheral connections to TUF 9. Who will survive and what will be left of them? Get to know the guys below, and swing by MMA Fightpicker to make your UFC 114 predictions…

CYRILLE DIABATE (LHW)
Experience: 16-6-1 record competing around the world for promotions like Cage Rage, 2H2H, PRIDE, and ShoXC. Has won nine of his last ten fights, with eight of those wins coming via stoppage in the first two rounds.
Will be facing: Luis Cane (10-2 w/1 no-contest, 3-2 UFC)
Lowdown: A veteran kickboxer and mixed martial artist, "The Snake" has been putting the hurt on people since the ’90s. Diabate spends part of his time training at Team Quest in Temecula, and appeared on TUF 9 last year as Team USA’s striking coach, but is doing most of the preparation for this fight in his native France. Standing 6’6", he tends to rely on his endless reach and striking prowess, but says he’s been concentrating on wrestling recently to become a more complete fighter. He hasn’t lost an MMA match since September 2006, when he was nearly stomped to death by Mauricio Rua at PRIDE Final Conflict Absolute.