(Paul Daley shows off a completely different kind of punch face.)

There was a time when fighting Matt Hughes meant signing up to get slammed through the mat before being mercilessly pounded on and dominated in a way that makes even tough guys want to go cry in the shower.  Now, instead of being a feared force in the UFC’s welterweight division, he’s the guy everyone wants to fight, preferably soon, before anyone else has a chance to put a beating on him and claim whatever is left of the Hughes luster.  It’s not enough of an indignity for a former champ to have every 170-pounder at AKA putting his name in the streets, now Paul Daley is doing it too:

“I want to fight Hughes, firstly because he’s a legend and second he’s former welterweight champion. He has a win over the current welterweight champion, and he has all the skills to exploit my weaknesses that the media and my ‘fans’ so often talk about. …I want Hughes, I don’t see why he wouldn’t want to fight me, unless he thinks he’s gonna lose.”

First of all, Daley’s two reasons for wanting a fight with Hughes are really one reason: Matt Hughes has a big name.  But he does have a point when he says that Hughes has the tools to help us find out if Daley’s ground game is truly as weak as advertised.  At least, the old Hughes had those tools. 

(Props: Esther Lin)

With a full 13 bouts scheduled for UFC 103, fight fans are going to get their money’s worth tomorrow night in Dallas. Six fighters will be stepping into the Octagon for the first time, most of them trying to make the transition from hometown hero to big-time player. Read on to get acquainted with all the new faces, from Semtex to Tractor to Carny...

PAUL DALEY (WW)
Experience: 21-8-2 record, with 16 wins by KO/TKO. Was the former welterweight champion of Cage Rage. Holds stoppage victories over Duane Ludwig, John Alessio, Jess Liaudin, and Xavier Foupa-Pokam.
Will be facing: Martin Kampmann (15-2, 6-1 UFC)
Lowdown: You should already know about this guy. He knocks dudes out, and has never been knocked out himself. Still, if Kampmann can get this one to the ground, it’s a wrap. UFC.com tries to put a positive spin on the reality of the situation: "Chances are, when Paul ‘Semtex’ Daley is around, you’ll either witness a Knockout of the Night or Submission of the Night."

STEVE LOPEZ (LW)
Experience: 12-1 record, primarily in Midwestern regional leagues. Holds a submission-via-strikes victory over The Gooch. Last competed in October 2008, when he scored a decision win over Alejandro Villalobos.
Will be facing: Jim Miller (13-2, 3-1 UFC)
?Lowdown: A South Bend native and member of the Bulldog Fight Team, Lopez comes to this fight as a replacement for Thiago Tavares. The UFC first noticed Lopez when he tried out for TUF 9 — and injured his shoulder in the process. The former wrestler was inspired to try MMA when he saw The Smashing Machine, and made his pro debut in February 2007 at a four-man tournament, which he won via two consecutive knockouts. He just wants to get in there and scrap: “Win or lose, I hope the fans say ‘man, this kid’s tough – he’s got heart and he don’t back down.’ And this fight is the type of fight I’m looking for – Jim Miller, Roger Huerta, Tyson Griffin – I’m looking for grinders. Those just have Fight of The Night written all over them. I’m not afraid to stand and bang, and I can take a whuppin’. We throw down hard in practice, I’ve never been knocked down, and these are the fights that interest me.”

(Sometimes you play the cards, and sometimes the cards play you. Photo courtesy of FullTiltPoker.)

Mike Swick has confirmed to CagePotato.com that he suffered an injury in training, and has been forced to pull out of his #1 welterweight contender match against Martin Kampmann at UFC 103 (September 19th, Dallas). As Swick explained on Twitter, "I got foot swept while sparring this week and lost my legs. Landed on back of my head and neck and suffered a pretty bad concussion."

Replacing him will be Paul Daley, the well-regarded British striker who was slated to make his Octagon debut on the same card against Brian Foster. As Daley allegedly told our least-favorite tabloid: "I came to the UFC to fight the best, and that’s what I am going to do. Kampmann is on a roll with the UFC, but I will roll over him. Semtex is going to explode onto the UFC’s welterweight scene at UFC 103."

Unfortunately for the UFC, they needed the Swick/Kampmann fight to produce a legitimate contender for Georges St. Pierre. Though GSP has no desire to return to action before January, he could be looking at an even longer layoff as the welterweight contender picture gets sorted out. (Logically, Swick would fight the winner of Kampmann vs. Daley, and the winner of that fight would take on GSP sometime in the spring.) The UFC 103 lineup currently looks like this:

(This is a picture of Brian Foster. It is what it is. Props to thehitsquad.com.)

In our almost-daily update of fighters who were supposed to compete at Affliction: Trilogy…

— New UFC welterweight acquisition Paul "Semtex" Daley is expected to make his Octagon debut against H.I.T. Squad product Brian Foster (10-3) at UFC 103 (September 19th, Dallas), according to MMA Weekly. Foster is currently on a three-fight win streak, and eight of his ten career wins have come by first-round stoppage. UFC 103 will be headlined by Rich Franklin vs. Vitor Belfort, which will now be at a catchweight of 195 pounds.

(In retrospect, Dan should have never accepted that "Hertz Donut." Photo courtesy of AllElbows.)

The feeding frenzy continues, as the WEC and UFC have reportedly picked up a few more solid additions in the wake of Affliction’s demise. Here’s the latest…

— According to Sherdog, the featherweight bout between Javier Vazquez and L.C. Davis that was supposed to take place during the undercard of "Trilogy" will now take place at WEC 42: Torres vs. Bowles (August 9th, Las Vegas). Vazquez (13-2) is a former King of the Cage and Gladiator Challenge champion who most recently choked out Mark Kergosian in 19 seconds at last month’s Ultimate Chaos show; it was just his third fight since 2003. Davis (also 13-2) is an IFL vet whose most recent decision loss to Michihiro Omigawa at Sengoku 7 in March dropped him from our featherweight top ten list.

(Props: drunkenunicorn)

According to Fighters Only, the UFC has just rescued Paul "Semtex" Daley from Affliction’s wreckage, signing the British 170-pounder to a four-fight contract. Daley, who was scheduled to fight Jay Hieron on the undercard of "Trilogy" before the event was canceled, is the former Cage Rage welterweight champion, and sports a record of 21-8-2, with 17 of his wins coming via stoppage due to strikes. He holds notable wins over Duane Ludwig, Jess Liaudin, Xavier Foupa-Pokam, and John Alessio. As FO explains:

(In light of this fight being moved from a ring to a cage, "Babalu" would now like to amend his statement about where Mousasi will be peeing.)

Good news, fight fans.  Attempts at salvaging the wreckage of the cursed S.S. Affliction have already resulted in the resurrection of one main card bout.  The scheduled fight between Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Gegard Mousasi has now officially been picked up by Strikeforce for their August 15 event in San Jose.  Strikeforce sent out a press release announcing the addition this afternoon, and confirming that Sobral’s Strikeforce light heavyweight championship will be on the line.  Naturally, this puppy has been added to the televised portion of the card, so the outlook just got a little brighter for Strikeforce despite some recent holes appearing in the lineup.

So there’s one good fight we’ll still get to see.  Now Strikeforce’s big question is what to do about Nick Diaz, who lost his scheduled opponent when Joe Riggs had to pull out.  At least two good welterweights just had their calendars free up when the Affliction cancelation left Jay Hieron and Paul “Semtex” Daley without a place to beat each other up.  Might one of them swoop in to try their luck against Diaz?  We’re expecting to hear something on that one soon, so don’t wander off…

("Hell yeah, bro, and I didn’t even have to get that colonic!" Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle. For more from this set, click here.)

Weigh-ins for UFC 95 went down earlier today at London’s Dominion Theatre, with all fighters coming in at or below their limits. The only interesting results were in the heavyweight class, where Neil Grove made his 28-pound weight advantage official, and Stefan Struve managed to pack on enough bulk onto his Mr. Fantastic-esque frame to come in three pounds heavier than his opponent, Junior Dos Santos. Full results are below:

Diego Sanchez (156) vs Joe Stevenson (155)
Rory Markham (170) vs Dan Hardy (170)
Wilson Gouveia (185) vs Nate Marquardt (185)
Chael Sonnen (185) vs Demian Maia (184)
Paulo Thiago (169) vs Josh Koscheck (170)
Brian Cobb (155) vs Terry Etim (156)
Stefan Struve (240) vs Junior Dos Santos (237)
Mike Ciesnolevicz (235) vs Neil Grove (263)
Evan Dunham (154) vs Per Eklund (155)
Troy Mandaloniz (168) vs Paul Kelly (169)

Remember, we’ll be liveblogging the Spike TV tape-delayed broadcast starting at 9 p.m. ET; check local listings to see when the event will kick off in your ‘hood.

Semi-related: Former Cage Rage welterweight champ Paul Daley missed weight for his Maximum Fighting Championship 20 match tonight against Nick "The Goat" Thompson, and will forfeit 25% of his fight purse to Thompson. It’s the second consecutive time that Daley has weighed in over his 170-pound limit; in December he came in four pounds over for a fight against John Alessio at MFC 19. HDNet will broadcast tonight’s MFC event — which will feature UFC vets David Heath, Solomon Hutcherson, Rory Singer, and a welterweight title fight between Ryan Ford and Pat Healy — live at 10 p.m. ET.

(Torres poses with victim Yoshiro Maeda after their epic battle last June. Photo courtesy of koolpaw.)

#1 bantamweight /#5 pound-for-pound fighter Miguel Torres will reportedly make his next title defense at WEC 40, which will be held April 5th in Chicago; the venue will be announced soon. Unsurprisingly, his opponent will be Brian Bowles (7-0, all wins by stoppage), who clinched his #1 contender status last month by choking out Will Ribeiro at WEC 37 — the same event where Torres retained his bantamweight strap by beating the tar out of Manny Tapia. Ferocious local support should be behind Torres, who lives and trains in East Chicago, Indiana, and made his name by competing in small shows in the area. WEC 40 will also feature another bantamweight match between undefeated Joseph Benavidez and Jeff Curran, who is dropping a weight class after taking consecutive losses at featherweight to Urijah Faber and Mike Brown. The winner of the Torres/Bowles fight will likely take on the winner of the Benavidez/Curran fight in a title scrap later this year.

Remember, WEC 38 goes down this Sunday, headlined by Varner/Cerrone and Faber/Pulver II, and WEC 39 is scheduled for March 1st, featuring Mike Brown vs. Leonard Garcia and Carlos Condit vs. Brock Larson.

In other important non-UFC matchup news…

Spoiler alert: Ninja, Gina, Andrei, Jake, and Kimbo (!) are going to win, maybe all within the first round. If you’re curious about how exactly it’ll happen, read on. Hit that “more” link and refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest updates from the live CBS broadcast, comin’ atcha from the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. Seriously though, this is about to be some lopsided shit. Grab some beers.

Get this: At about 6:20 p.m. ET, MMA Rated passed along the word that Ken Shamrock sustained a cut above his eye in the last 24 hours while training, forcing him to pull out of tonight’s main event against Kimbo Slice. Frank Shamrock — who is handling commentary tonight for CBS — actually volunteered to step in as a last-minute replacement, but he isn’t licensed to fight in Florida, so EliteXC instead had their eyes on KOTC brawler/UFC castoff Seth Petruzelli, who was supposed to face Aaron Rosa on tonight’s undercard. Then, MMA Rated reported that a very shady doctor was found who cleared Shamrock to fight around 7 p.m., saving “Heat” from one of the greatest Epic Fails in MMA history. Well, we hope. MMA Weekly now says that the fight has a 50/50 chance of happening. Other sources say the fight is 100% dunzo.

Update: Ariel Helwani tells Ben Fowlkes (who tells me) that Seth Petruzelli is 100% in as Ken’s replacement. Wow. On the bright side, Kimbo is finally fighting a legitimate heavyweight who isn’t riding an eight-fight losing streak. This should be interesting…

Update #2: “JM” wins the t-shirt. Shoot your address and size to feedback@cagepotato.com, brah.

Here’s a preview of the welterweight title fight at EliteXC: Heat (October 4th; Sunrise, Florida). It doesn’t fire me up like “Hits and Chicks,” but hey, they can’t all be homeruns.

Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar face off on Sportscenter. Props to BloodyElbow.

A half-hour preview of Dream’s middleweight grand prix finals (September 23rd; Saitama, Japan), from HDNet Fights via Nightmare of Battle.

(“Semtex” makes sure photographers get a shot of his good fist.)

As you may have already forgotten, Elite XC’s next show on CBS is now less than a month away. They don’t seem too concerned with stuff like advertising or hyping it in the press, and are apparently relying on the Kimbo Slice-Ken Shamrock buzz to carry them through without much promotion. Kind of a ‘If you build a squash match, they will come’ type of attitude.

But thank God for Paul Daley. The now-I’m-retired-now-I’m-not UK fighter seems to be the only one really putting some effort into selling this thing. When discussing his bout with Elite XC welterweight champ Jake Shields, “Semtex” was, shall we say, forthcoming with his opinions:

He won’t remember much…just waking up I guess. I’m gonna be real mean in this fight, fuck Jake Shields, you’re going to see. I am stronger, I hit harder, I take punishment and he will not take me down, or hold me there for long if I make a mistake. This is gonna be a shock to those Jake Shields nut huggers. Once I am in that top ten, I’m coming after everyone above me….

I’m so pumped for the fight that I feel something is gonna go wrong, like he is gonna pull out or something…scared…I would if I was him. He don’t know what’s coming.

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(Noons: More elusive than Machida? Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

Jared Shaw has had enough. The EliteXC vice president told MMA Junkie that KJ Noons has been given one more day to accept an October 4th title fight with Nick Diaz. “A bout agreement has been sent to KJ Noons,” Shaw said. “He has until 5 (p.m. PT Thursday) to accept it, or he can face public opinion.”

In a longer interview with MMA Junkie posted yesterday evening, Shaw strongly criticized Noons and his management for their unwillingness to commit to the Diaz fight. Some highlights:

“I’m sitting here and I’m drinking from a carton of milk right now. And the EliteXC lightweight champion KJ Noons’ face is on the back of this milk carton because he’s missing in action. I can’t seem to find him.”

“Since day one [Noons' manager] Mark Dion has been insinuating that EliteXC has been out to get KJ Noons. I just can’t figure that out. When a guy appears on the very first card — and the very first fight gets knocked out in the very first round off the very first punch — and we’re there to hold his hand and pick him back up and put him right back on television in a main event on ShoXC? And then when he’s 1-1, get him right back into a main event situation for the world championship against Nick Diaz, the legend who beat Gomi, how are you going to say that we’re not trying to help your kid? What more opportunity could we give the kid?”

Paul “Semtex” Daley is as talented a fighter as he is mercurial a personality, so it should be no surprise that he manages to court some controversy even while he can’t decide whether he wants to retire or fight. The British welterweight has oscillated between the two in recent months, but came back to easily dispatch Bojan Kosednar in Cage Warriors this weekend.

Apparently, Pro Elite (which has a contract with Daley) was unhappy about the situation and tried to get Daley to agree to a fight on Elite XC’s July 26 show in Stockton, Ca. The problem is that Daley says they offered him a fight with Rory Markham, the ex-IFL slugger who is fighting on the UFC’s July 19 show. Confused yet? Good. Let’s see if Daley can sort it out for us:

“They [Pro Elite] did offer me a fight on the July 26th card against Rory Markham, who we all know has signed with the UFC, so I thought it was a ploy to stop me fighting on Cage Warriors. I felt that if I had accepted the fight, they would have just cancelled on me.”

“A lot of other guys had fought twice in the same month for two different promotions, a non-Pro Elite and then a Pro Elite event – I said look, I’ll fight July 12th and I’ll fight July 26th, not a problem. I feel confident in this fight and all being well I would get out uninjured and with a victory and I’d fly straight to America. They didn’t want to hear any of that.”

“If I had been Nick Diaz, it wouldn’t have been a problem. The guy smokes weed, starts riots on TV, doesn’t make weight, fights whoever the fuck he wants, and there’s no problem there. It’s a bit of a piss-take really.”

Oh man, he just said something about Nick Diaz that could accurately be described as negative. That’s the MMA equivalent of saying “Beetlejuice” three times. You just know Diaz is going to pop up out of nowhere with a semi-intelligible response any minute now.

Last night’s ShoXC Elite Challenger Series event didn’t produce much to get the heart rate above it’s normal lounging mode. Eddie Alvarez and Paul “Semtex” Daley were the main attractions for the Atlantic City, New Jersey show. They took on Ross Ebanez and Sam Morgan, respectively.

Alvarez had a large number of his Philly peeps in attendance as he worked over Ebanez with well-rounded precision. After a false alarm by the ringside med team, Alvarez finished off his opponent in the second round. The win took Alvarez to 12-1, the lone blemish on his record put there courtesy of Nick “The Goat” Thompson. Ross Ebanez dropped to 16-6.

Paul Daley’s bout went a little differently as Sam Morgan took him down a couple of times early in the fight. However, “Semtex” got back to his feet and the tide started to turn – and fast. A monster right elbow from Daley KO’d Morgan to a 19-10 record. “Semtex” took his record to 17-6-2 and afterwards guaranteed he would beat Alvarez – if/when they fight.

Oh yeah, and two chicks fought – which is always cool. Tonya Evinger trained with Ken Shamrock for almost two months before Friday’s fight with Julie Kedzie, who she wrapped up in a rear-naked choke early in the first round for her sixth win in nine fights. No word if Ryan Shamrock sparred with her.

Complete results:

-Eddie Alvarez over Ross Ebanez via TKO on strikes – Rd 2 (2:32)
-Paul Daley over Sammy Morgan via elbow strike KO – Rd 1 (2:12)
-Bao Quach over Bobby McMaster via unanimous decision
-Tonya Evinger over Julie Kedzie via rear-naked choke submission – Rd 1 (1:43)
-Kala Kolohe Hose over Frederic Belleton via KO (punch) – Rd 1 (4:32)
-Charlie Brenneman over Drew Puzon via split decision
-Wilson Reis over Zach Makovsky via side choke submission – Rd 2 (1:15)
-James Jones over Mark Getto via kimura submission – Rd 1 (1:12)
-Brett Linebarger over Sergio Vinagre via punch KO – Rd 3 (2:29)
-Matt Makowski over Joe Schilling via rear-naked choke submission – Rd 1 (4:01)