(Guess if they’re gonna let *somebody* fight Bisping, it might as well be somebody we like.)

When last we heard from Tim Kennedy, he’d just completed the MMA equivalent of sinking a two-foot putt by choking out Melvin Manhoef in Strikeforce, then went public with his lament that he hadn’t been the one to administer an in-home eye exam to Osama bin Laden. Y’all know we’ve always liked Kennedy. Seems like a super cool dude and admittedly there’s something fascinating about a guy whose typical day might just as easily include either choking out a Dutch-Surinamese kickboxer or smoking the world’s top terrorist. Give or take.

It’s exactly that admiration that led us to be a bit disappointed this week when we heard about Kennedy offering to fight Michael Bisping over at MMA Weekly. Calling out Bisping is one of the more played-out moves a well-known middleweight can make, after all. When we saw Kennedy saying it, we assumed it was just another case of a guy trying to make his bones off Bisping’s inflated reputation and general overratedness. Truthfully, there probably is some of that at work here. But then we started digging into Kennedy’s quotes and realized that A) He’s offering to fight “The Count” basically for free (PR bump notwithstanding) and B) He seems driven to do it out of moral obligation, more than anything else. As far as we’re concerned that – as long as he’s not just bullshitting us – is pretty cool.

(“I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen.” Pic: ESPN)

During the four years, four months and 16 days that Anderson Silva has had the middleweight title on lockdown, the UFC’s light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions have combined to produce 10 different champions. Think of it this way: Silva won the title by pulverizing Rich Franklin at freakin’ UFC 64, the same event where Sean Sherk defeated Kenny Florian to become the first lightweight champion since 2003. It was also just a few months after Michael Bisping defeated Josh Haynes to win season three of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Kinda seems like a lot has happened since then, huh?

Well, not at middleweight. Middleweight has been a rock – an unchanging, unshakable rock that sometimes seems so maddeningly bored with its own immovability that it just sits there and stares at its opponents for five tedious rounds. Silva’s dominance has been so thorough that it alone kind of makes ranking MMA’s top five 185-pounders an exercise in futility. Half the guys in the Top 10 have already been defeated by the current champ and lot of the other guys either don’t seem worthy or fight in other organizations. Still, we ranked ’em. Why? Because they were there, son, because they were there …

Anderson Silva is a tough nut to crack. We know he doesn’t want to fight friends, and we know he doesn’t want to fight guys he’s already beaten, and we know he doesn’t want to fight guys who got middleweight title shots in the UFC without ever competing in the UFC at that weight class. New #1 contender Chael Sonnen doesn’t fit into any of those categories, so you’d think there wouldn’t be a problem. But as Silva’s manager Ed Soares has proven, you can find an excuse to duck pretty much anybody:

(Props: MMA Fighting)

During the six-month layoff following his last title defense against Thiago Alves, Georges St. Pierre has been in the gym, getting even more jacked. Now walking around at 193 pounds of lean muscle, GSP is contemplating a move up to middleweight, and discusses what that would entail in the interview above. First off, he’d have to get even larger, and he’d do it through diet, not steroids, which is good to know. Also, the move would be permanent; he’s not interested in the back-and-forth weight-hopping done by guys like Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson. But like so many other UFC stars, he has no interest in fighting his friends and training partners, which include Nate Marquardt, Patrick Cote, and Denis Kang: "If I’m in mount position, and it’s time to land that big hellbow that will leave a scar on the forehead of my friend and knock him out cold with cerebral damage, if he’s my friend I will never do that." Good Lord, whatever happened to putting personal loyalties aside in the name of a paycheck?

Related: Diego Sanchez reportedly posted the message "Going back to 170" on his Facebook page last night, but it has since been removed. According to Sanchez’s manager, Jeff Clark, no decision has been made at this time regarding what weight class he will compete in next.

From Sportsnet.ca:

Marquardt is on a three-fight win streak, most recently knocking out Demian Maia in 21 seconds at UFC 102. Sonnen has won his last two, scoring unanimous decisions over highly-regarded middleweights Dan Miller and Yushin Okami. It’s an interesting matchup that raises some important questions: First off, does this mean that Dan Henderson has officially left the UFC? Last week, Dana White said he was certain that Henderson had been signed by Strikeforce, though his manager denied it. And hey, would Chael Sonnen get the next shot at Anderson Silva (after Vitor Belfort gets his) if he manages to pull off an upset against Marquardt? Good Lord. Thanks a lot, Hendo.

The current lineup for UFC 110 (February 21st; Sydney, Australia) is after the jump…

(Leites smashes Pete Sell at UFC 69. Photo courtesy of miyanville.com.)

According to MMA Junkie, UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva and Thales Leites have verbally agreed to face each other at an April event (update: IntheGuard.tv says it’ll be UFC 97 on 4/18), though bout agreements have not been signed yet. As the story goes, the UFC is hoping to replicate the success of UFC 83 by returning to Montreal for the card, one year after "Serra vs. St. Pierre II."

This of course means that Silva won’t be headlining UFC 95 (February 21st, London), and it means that his next match won’t be one of those "superfights" that people love so much. Not taking anything away from Thales Leites, who’s obviously very talented, but does anybody believe that he’s truly the #1 contender in the UFC’s middleweight division? Though Leites is on a five-fight win streak — just like Patrick Cote was when he got his title shot — the only big name he’s beaten during his current run is Nate Marquardt, and he would have lost that fight if Marquardt didn’t have two points deducted for illegal strikes; one judge still scored the fight for Nate.

Now that Dan Henderson is (temporarily?) back at light-heavyweight, I see two guys ahead of Leites in the middleweight title picture…

(Can a WAMMA belt be far behind? Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Though most casual MMA fans had never heard his name until this year, Gegard Mousasi (24-2-1) made his presence known in a big way during DREAM’s recent middleweight grand prix, cutting through highly regarded fighters Denis Kang, Melvin Manhoef, and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza to win the championship. Now he’s widely acknowledged as one of the best middleweights in the world — which is why we were hoping he’d be signed by the UFC to add some extra heat to their 185-pound division, and maybe challenge Anderson Silva for the belt one day. All that shit will have to wait, unfortunately, because it looks like Affliction got to him first. As he told Fighters Only Magazine:

“I’m going to train with Fedor in preparation for Affliction in January. I think it is Fedor against Josh Barnett and they want me to fight Vitor Belfort.”

Mousasi is part of the Red Devil International team and he shares a manager with Fedor in the shape of Vadim Finkelstein…

Affliction has yet to reveal a line-up for its January event but Vitor Belfort has told Brazil’s Tatame magazine that he has been contacted and offered a fight.

If Mousasi continues to perform like he has over the last two years, he should have no trouble whipping Belfort, Matt Lindland, and whoever else Affliction has under contract at 185. And now he’s training with Fedor too? Forget about it.

Mousasi’s claim that Emelianenko will skip straight to a fight with Barnett in January — foregoing the Arlovski/Barnett eliminator match altogether — is also interesting, but as with all rumors related to Fedor and fight-booking, we’ll believe it two weeks after it happens.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

(Arianny’s feeling a little outgunned. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

It’s at least two fights overdue, but Jason Lambert is finally doing the right thing and dropping to 185 pounds for his next fight, which will take place at UFC 88 (September 6th, Atlanta) against Jason “Dooms” Day. Though he holds impressive wins against Terry Martin, Matt Horwich, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, and Dan Quinn, “The Punisher” has had it rough lately, suffering three KO/TKO losses in his last four fights; he was most recently outslugged by Luis Arthur Cane at UFC 85 in June. It seems likely that the drop to middleweight was a direct order from the UFC, and if he can’t make it happen at the lower weight, he’ll probably be kissing his contract goodbye. The situation is nearly as desperate for Day, who needs a solid win to prove himself after getting steamrolled by Michael Bisping, also at UFC 85.

Lambert’s interesting physique contributed to my most recent Rule of Fight Prediction: If there’s a flabby-looking guy fighting a jacked-looking guy, bet against the chubbo. Had I known this before UFC 85, I wouldn’t have thrown down on Lambert and Eddie Sanchez, and maybe I wouldn’t have had to spend an evening wearing a plastic tank top. (Note: the No Fatties Rule is often trumped by the Nelson Exception.)

Somewhat Related: DEEP Megaton GP Fight Videos

(Props: BloodyElbow)

It’s surprising how similar Anderson Silva’s new light-heavyweight build looks compared to his old middleweight frame. In fact, trying to spot the differences between these two pictures is like playing the most boring game of Photo Hunt ever. Sure, his stomach is a little more filled out now and he changed his shorts, but then it gets a little tricky. Does his neck look bigger, or is that just the lighting? Is he retaining water in his ankles?

(Rich and some of his “fishing buddies” at the Cornhole Throwdown.)

According to his manager Monte Cox, former UFC middleweight champ Rich Franklin is considering a move back up to light-heavyweight, due to his defeats against Anderson Silva and because beating any remaining contenders in the UFC’s middleweight division would be bad for the league. Franklin competed at light-heavyweight for the first 19 matches of his 27-fight career, suffering only a single loss at 205 to Lyoto Machida in 2003. Said Cox:

“He’s fought almost everybody in the 185-pound division. There are some guys that he could fight, but if he beats them it knocks them out of title contention. And nobody is looking to see Rich and Anderson Silva 3 right now, including me…He’s not helping the 185-pound division right now by beating everybody up in it…We’ve talked about going to 205 and how would he match up with some of those guys, with a Forrest Griffin or a Keith Jardine. I think there’re some really good fights. There’s a whole bunch of 205′s that I think would be interesting.”

Agreed, for the most part. You wouldn’t want to put Franklin up against Michael Bisping, and have Ace knock off the last remaining marketable contender to Silva’s belt. But it would be a tragedy if Franklin left the 185-pound division before taking on Dan Henderson — though with few logical fights out there for Henderson as a middleweight, Hendo may eventually move back up to light-heavy as well, so who knows.

What’s more certain is the financial logic behind such a move. Just before his UFC 77 rematch with Anderson Silva, Franklin signed a six-fight deal that would pay him more than the $45,000 base salary he was previously bringing in, beginning with his next fight. Salary figures from UFC 83 haven’t been released, so we don’t know the exact figure at this point, but if Franklin’s per-fight salary is now approaching the six-figure mark, the UFC would want to put him in high-profile fights to draw more revenue from pay-per-view buys and live gate. Booking Franklin against Travis Lutter probably doesn’t represent the best return on investment, in other words. But with the UFC’s light-heavyweight division packed with stars, there are a lot of big-money matchups to be made at 205. Who wouldn’t want to see Ace take on the loser of Rampage/Forrest?

Joe “El Dirte” Doerksen has become the latest UFC middleweight — after Kalib Starnes and Travis Lutter — to be released from his fight contract as part of the league’s roster cuts. Doerksen’s recent TKO loss to Jason MacDonald at UFC 83 brought his UFC record to 1-5 (and 38-12 overall). As he told Sportsnet.ca:

“(The UFC officials) made it very clear they’re very happy with the way I fight and they want me to come back. But they need me to go put a couple of wins together (first)…I’ve come and gone several times over my career and I’m sure I’ll be back again. It’s not really devastating news. It’s just the cycle I have to go through….I’m just going to go out and do what I always do, put five or 10 wins together and come back and try again. At the end of the day, I know the fight was very well received by the fans and that’s the most important thing to me personally.”

Doerksen has scored notable wins over Lee Murray, Denis Kang, Chris Leben, and Ed Herman outside of the UFC, but seemed to be cursed inside the Octagon. After losing his UFC debut against Joe Riggs at UFC 49, he came back to submit Patrick Côté at UFC 52, but then picked up two more losses against Matt Lindland and Nate Marquardt. Doerksen won six straight fights outside of the UFC before Zuffa took another chance on him, putting him up against Paulo Filho for the vacant WEC middleweight title (which he lost), then giving him UFC fights against Ed Herman and MacDonald (both of which he lost).

No matter how gently the UFC let Joe down, it’s hard to imagine someone with his Octagon track record being given another shot unless he can put together a monumental win streak. Good luck out there, brotha…

Just as the UFC couldn’t come to terms with Fedor Emelianenko partly because they wouldn’t allow him to compete in the Sambo tournaments that he periodically steamrolls through, a deal with top 10 middleweight and ATT member Denis Kang was also nixed over an equally minor request for competitive freedom. As MMAJunkie reports:

“Yes, we were (negotiating with the UFC),” Kang said. “I would have loved to fight in the UFC. I would love to fight in North America and not have to travel 12 hours for a change. At the end of the day, it came down to where I want to be represented at the moment and who was offering the best contract.”

The best contract, it seems, was one that would allow the half-Korean fighter to compete in South Korea’s SpiritMC organization on an annual basis. Kang has fought 10 times in the organization since 2004, winning all 10 fights, and is still the SpiritMC heavyweight champion.

However, the UFC requires exclusive contracts, which prohibit fighters from competing in other organizations. Such a limitation would have alienated many of Kang’s fans.

“SpiritMC was only asking that I fight for them once a year,” Kang said. “That’s one of the things that I really, really wanted to do — to keep my SpiritMC title and keep my fan base in Korea, which is really important to me.”

We’ve said it before: Now is not the time for the UFC to be stonewalling in regards to exclusivity, when their fighters are beginning to smell the money elsewhere (and specifically when there are virtually no contenders left in the UFC’s middleweight division). We understand the need for exclusive contracts — you wouldn’t want one of your stars building value for another brand, or getting injured while fighting elsewhere, or taking an image-harming loss against lesser competition. But there are exceptions where the benefits would far outweigh the costs. Even if Fedor Emelianenko were to lose in a Sambo tournament halfway around the world (an unlikely scenario to begin with), there are few American UFC fans who would see it, or care all that much, and the same goes for Denis Kang crushing cans in Korea. SpiritMC is not a competitor to the UFC; technically, Sambo isn’t even the same sport. Wouldn’t the UFC’s wisest move be to start handling these things on a case-by-case basis?

Round 1:

Round 2:

Round 3 (demoralizing leg sweep at the 2:25 mark; arm-breaking leg-kick at 4:57, Cung’s meddlesome girlfriend at 7:30):

UPDATE: The round 3 vid has been taken down. You can watch the whole fight here.

Final thought: Remember that stuff about Frank not being dumb enough to stand and trade with a superior striker? We will never doubt the stupidity of any member of the Shamrock clan ever again; that’s a promise. And so goes the last remaining shred of marketability for Blood Brothers…

Despite absorbing a slew of body kicks and a shoulder-lock attempt in the second round that nearly had him tapping, Ryan McGivern got the better of Matt Horwich during their IFL middleweight championship match on Friday and took the fight to a unanimous decision. So, Horwich loses his belt after just a two-month reign, and the title now goes to a guy who’s 4-4 in his last eight fights.

The UFC has announced via a profile article on Michael Bisping that the former light-heavyweight TUF winner will officially make the wise drop down to middleweight. As the story goes:

The drop down has been a long time coming for the British striker. While other top light heavyweights walk around at over 230 pounds when not in training camp, Bisping, one month and many hearty meals removed from fighting at UFC 78 in New Jersey, weighs only 211 pounds…

Bisping said: “Dana thought it was a great idea, he said I’d be ‘a monster’ down at middleweight. In fact all sorts of people like Rampage (with whom Bisping is close) were telling me this was the best thing for my career. Really, I knew middleweight was the place to be. When I went to train with Rampage in America over the summer, when we’d go eat he’d have half a lettuce leaf; I’d have a pizza or a couple of foot-long Subways and a couple of sneaky cookies.

Not sure what “sneaky cookies” are, but if they’re anything like “ookie cookies,” then yes, Bisping should stop eating them. And by the way, Mike, it’s not cool to pig out in front of your bro when he’s trying to cut weight — though the “My Dinner With Rampage” scene I’m envisioning is so entertaining it should get its own Odd Couple-esque sitcom:

Rampage (to waitress): Lemme get, ah…I want that salad. Dressin’ on the side.

Bisping (to waitress): Roit, I’ll ‘ave two foot-long Subways, luv. Double-meat, double-Swiss. Yeah, safe.

Waitress: Subways?

Bisping: Roit, Subways. Subways. Subway fookin’ sandwiches.

Waitress: Sir, this is not a Subway. We don’t serve—

Bisping: Roit, look — two foot-long bread-loaves. Roast beef, turkey, ham. Lettuce, pickles, black olives. Spicy mustard, mayo. As much Swiss cheese as you ‘ave. Got all that? Brilliant, now do it twice, luv, and quickly. I ‘aven’t eaten in 45 minutes.

Waitress: I’ll see what I can do. [she leaves]

Bisping: Yeah, you see what you can do. Bloody coont.

Rampage: Maaaaaaan…two Subways? How you gonna do me like that?!?

[cue laugh track, cut to black]