(That’s actually ketchup on James’s head. Randy tackled him so quickly that he didn’t even have time to put down the hot dog he was eating. / Photo courtesy of MMAFighting.com)

The UFC paid out $1,608,000 in disclosed salaries and bonuses to the fighters who competed at UFC 118, according to figures released by the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission. James Toney‘s whopping $500,000 salary led the payroll, putting him well ahead of fellow headliners Randy Couture ($250,000) and BJ Penn ($150,000). For you math aficionados out there, Toney earned over $2,500 per second in his UFC debut, which ended due to submission at the 3:19 mark of round 1. (Now calculate how much money you make per second at your job. Isn’t that hilarious?)

Keep in mind that the figures below don’t include additional compensation from sponsorships, undisclosed "locker room" bonuses, or cuts of the pay-per-view revenue that some UFC stars have in their contracts, which means that Randy Couture could have theoretically ended up with a bigger paycheck than James Toney. You know, if that helps you sleep at night.

Frankie Edgar: $96,000 (includes $48,000 win bonus)
def. B.J. Penn: $150,000

Randy Couture: $250,000
def. James Toney: $500,000

Demian Maia: $68,000
def. Mario Miranda: $8,000

Gray Maynard: $46,000 (includes $23,000 win bonus)
def. Kenny Florian: $65,000

(There he goes again, trying to steal the victory. Photo courtesy of CageWriter)

Here’s what we know: Frank Edgar will make his next title defense against Gray Maynard, who routed Kenny Florian on Saturday night. Dana White is done with James Toney, even though James Toney might not be done with MMA. Nick Osipczak, John Salter, and Gabe Ruediger could very well be receiving "Dear John" letters from the UFC as we speak. As for UFC 118‘s other winners and losers, their fates are yet to be decided. But as usual, we have a few opinions on the subject…

BJ Penn: The Prodigy spent 2007-2009 destroying all the top talent in the UFC’s lightweight division, then looked completely uninspired in two consecutive fights against Frankie Edgar. Either Penn has fallen off his game dramatically or Edgar is just a terrible style matchup for him — and we won’t really know the answer until Penn’s next fight. What’s obvious is that lightweight has been Penn’s most effective weight class in general, and going back up to 170 would be a terrible idea, especially while Georges St. Pierre still rules the roost. The UFC should give Penn a rebound fight against a name opponent who’s a little further down the ladder, but will test BJ’s desire to fight. That’s right, folks, it’s time for BJ Penn vs. Takanori Gomi II. Gomi is born-again after starching Tyson Griffin; add in Gomi’s history with Penn, and you have a co-headliner that any pay-per-view card would be lucky to have.

(VidProps: YouTube/Goossen Tutor Boxing)

Honestly, most of this video with James Toney from Saturday night is totally unintelligible. Unfortunately, it’s also reportedly the only post-fight interview with “Lights Out” since, like the true sportsman we all know him to be, he no-showed the official UFC 118 press conference after his embarrassing loss to Randy Couture. Toney may not have been man enough to face the MMA media after throwing zero standing punches en route to tapping out to Couture’s side check choke – pretty sure that’s what it was – three minutes, 19 seconds into the first round, but he did make time to sit down with Rodney Hunt from Goossen Tutor Promotions, a company that represents Toney in boxing. So, yeah, an in-house interview with a paid yes man. You probably know where this is going …

(Please princess, let me up!!   photo credit: USA Today)

It appears that the James Toney experiment has gone the way of the Kimbo Slice experiment, as UFC president Dana White announced at the UFC 118 post-fight press conference that the promotion is done with boxer crossover fights.

"It’s been a fun ride with James," White said as if delivering a eulogy about Toney’s dead UFC career. "It’s been very interesting. He’s a nutty guy." 

White pointed out that he didn’t go out looking for the fight, but when it came knocking on his door, he figured, "Why not?" 

"Listen, I didn’t try to sell this thing as, ‘Tune in on Saturday night, and you’re going to see the most spectacular battle and a war…I basically said what I was hoping would happen. Anything can happen in a fight. James Toney picked this fight. We’re not after boxing," White explained. "We’re not trying to attack boxing. I love boxing, and I thought this question was answered back in 1993, but I’ve got to be honest, as we got closer to the fight, my stomach hurt, and I was a little dizzy and I was nervous."

 
(So at $1,000,000, you payin’ me $4,219 a pound, sucka!!)

Well, Potato Nation, tonight’s the night we’ve been waiting for for months. The question on everyone’s mind will finally be answered: "Is Will Forte really leaving Saturday Night Live?"

OK so maybe that’s not the question on everybody’s mind, but it’s definitely bugging Will’s agent and his parents.

Ben and ReX13 are off schmoozing at the UFC Fan Expo, where I would have been as well if I could cross the border (more on that at a later date, but I will tell you it involves a bar brawl and a Bruce Lee instructional book I’ve owned since I was 13) and  Chad Dundas is off the grid attending an Amish wedding, which leaves me here to supply you guys with some play-by play action from tonight’s festivities in Boston.

The co-main event will undoubtedly produce some differing opinions on James Toney’s place in the grand scheme of the UFC’s heavyweight division and the main event should decide whether or not BJ Penn simply had an off night in Abu Dhabi.

Before we get to it, we’d like to announce the winner of our Boston UFC Fan Expo. The winning ticket is #031014. If this is your number, send photographic proof to contest@cagepotato.com and we’ll hook you up with a $100 gift card to MMAWarehouse.com.

Here’s a glimpse of our uber-popular booth from the expo. Don’t let VivaHate’s nonplussed expression fool you, everyone had a blast this weekend and we got a ton of footage and interviews from fans and fighters.

Results and play-by-play after the jump.
Strap in and get ready. It’s sure to be a rocky ride.

(“Yeah, I get it, ‘UFC 124: ‘Expendable,’ that’s really funny … no, seriously, I’m laughing on the inside.” PicProps: Sherdog)

Look, I didn’t mean to get you all in a tizzy with that crazy stuff I said earlier. Rest assured, gentle reader, odds are very good that Randy Couture applies one of his world-renowned Brazilian Joint Locks to James Toney tonight and takes home an easy victory, probably sometime in the first round. After that, we’ll all have our fun with Toney, figuratively poking him in his airbrushed belly as we ship him off to wherever it is old boxers go to die. We’ll all probably act very smug and superior on our Twitter accounts for a few days, too.

Deep down, though, Couture’s victory will not cure my unease. For some while now, I’ve been wondering if the worst thing that could happen to Randy Couture at this stage in his career would be for him to beat James Toney at UFC 118. This is all just conjecture mind you, but I can’t escape the notion that whoever wins tonight might ride a groundswell of mainstream publicity right into a fight with Jon Jones, probably at the UFC’s end-of-the-year (or maybe Super Bowl weekend) pay-per-view.

(Keep laughing, KenFlo. It won’t be so funny when “Lights Out” brings the side check kick down to 155. PicProps: Heavy.com)

Sunday morning, you wake up. Splitting hangover headache. You roll over and nausea sweeps through your body. You will yourself not to puke. “Where am I,” you think, “and who is this fat chick?” The night before is a total blur. There are significant gaps. You remember being at the bar, yelling unintelligible shit at a TV. Some guy you don’t know kept buying you shots. You might’ve left a bunch of voicemails for that girl you like. After that you must – wait — then it hits you. Holy fucking shit. Randy Couture fucking LOST to James Toney last night.

Scary though huh, PotatoNation? Consider the above paragraph a kind of public service announcement. Some don’t-let-this-happen-to-you type shit. Here at The Potato we are nothing if not realists. We believe wholeheartedly in expecting the best while preparing for the worst, or whatever the terrible cliché says we ought to do. For that reason, it’s probably a good idea that we all spend a few minutes considering the possibility that Toney might actually beat Couture at tonight’s UFC 118. You know, just in case. It won’t be easy, but we can get through this together.

(If you don’t look in his eyes, Randy, you won’t be hypnotized into standing and trading with him.)

Just a reminder that the weigh-ins for tomorrow night’s brouhaha in Boston will be live here at 4:00 pm. 

A number of questions will be answered, like:

Is James Toney really in shape?

Did Gabe Ruediger really quit cake?

Will Chandella give Arianny the stink eye for getting a Playboy cover?

UFC media player is after the jump.

(Video courtesy YouTube/MMAFighting)

There must be something in the water in Boston that’s making the fighters turn on Ariel Helwani. First BJ Penn questioned the MMA Fighting reporter about whether or not he liked him and now we have James Toney wrestling the microphone from Helwani after asking him if he dislikes boxing and calling him a clown.

"This guy’s a clown right here…Give me the goddamn mic….Give it to me," Toney said as he struggled to pry the microphone from Helwani’s hands.

When he finally did get the mic from Helwani, Lights Out tried to sign off from the interview.

"This is James Toney Reporting for this goddamn station, whatever it is," Toney deadpanned. "I’m outta here."

(Video courtesy YouTube/UFC StannFan1)

The hype behind this weekend’s James Toney-Randy Couture showdown has focused largely around the "Is MMA better than Boxing?" quandary, which, up until this point has never really been answered, and in my opinion really won’t be answered by this fight.

The question really should be "Who would win in a fight between a top-tier boxer and a top-tier MMA fighter?"

(This is actually where the UFC press conference is being held. No kidding. Inside that historic room, in front of the busts of those great American patriots, James Toney will tell Randy Couture "I’mma whip y’muhfuckin ass, prinsiss, y’fill’me." Photo courtesy of twitter.com/ArielHelwani)

Dana White, Frankie Edgar, BJ Penn, Randy Couture, James Toney, Kenny Florian, and Gray Maynard will appear and take UFC 118-related questions from the media at the Faneuil Hall in Boston today beginning at 3 p.m. ET. You can watch the proceedings live in the player after the jump. Go Red Sox.

(Instead of bringing a knife to a gunfight against Couture, Toney’s bringing an unarmed combat instructor)

If you caught the UFC 118 countdown show last night, you were introduced to James Toney’s new trainer, Kenpo karate black belt and hand to hand combat instructor Trevor Sherman.

I was kind of taken aback since the last I had heard Toney was working with the beloved former plaintiff of a CP court case, Juanito Ibarra.

It turns out Ibarra and Toney parted company back in May, and since we can’t afford to defend another frivilous lawsuit after paying for new CP smart cars for Ben and I, we’ll say it was Ibarra’s choice to leave and just leave it at that. It’s not hard to believe, since he’s never been a difficult person to deal with in the past.

(Video courtesy YouTube/UFC.com)

I’m not sure what the betting odds are set at but I’m thinking that its pretty much a lock that James Toney’s interview segments from the UFC 118 countdown show that premiers tonight will include closed captioning. Apparently even Chael Sonnen can’t understand anything that comes out of Toney’s mouth and he figured out Portugese from an iPhone application in an afternoon.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that his trash talk on the show will include a bunch of insults towards Randy about how "he’s no legend" and he’ll fill in the remainder of his segment by talking about how great he is, how he’s going to "turn Randy’s lights out" and by referring to Couture at every turn as "princess."

When James Toney meets Randy Couture at UFC 118 next Saturday, he’ll be attempting to prove the dominance of the "sweet science" over that weird stuff that gay skinheads do. Of course, he won’t be the first pugilist to try to beat an MMA fighter at their own game — boxing vs. martial arts challenge matches have been around since before "Lights Out" was born. Join us as we take a look back at the brave boxers who preceded Toney…and what became of them.

MILO SAVAGE vs. "JUDO" GENE LeBELL
December 2, 1963

Arguably the first sanctioned MMA match in American history, Savage vs. LeBell came together when legendary judoka/actor Gene LeBell answered a challenge from boxer Jim Beck, who claimed that a professional boxer could beat any martial artist. (Yep, they’ve been making the same boast for almost 50 years.) According to LeBell, he was expecting to fight Beck himself in the televised match, but his opponent was switched at the last minute to Milo Savage, a top-5-ranked light-heavyweight who was allegedly wearing brass knuckles under his fingerless speed-bag gloves, and was greased from head to toe. Despite the disadvantages, Gene sunk a lapel choke in the 4th round and put Savage to sleep. But as with most stories involving Judo Gene, the details are somewhat debatable; this Jonathan Snowden article debunks several aspects of LeBell’s version. Still, LeBell vs. Savage deserves credit as the first MMA-style fight on television, and set up a rivalry between boxing and martial arts that’s somehow still relevant today.

MUHAMMAD ALI vs. ANTONIO INOKI
June 26, 1976

It sounded like good, harmless fun — the greatest boxer of all time taking on Japanese pro-wrestling kingpin Antonio Inoki in an exhibition match in Tokyo. But in the days leading up to the show, bizarre rules were added that restricted certain attacks. Most notably, Inoki could only kick if he had one knee on the ground. So, he scooted around the ring kicking Ali’s legs for the entire 15-round duration. Ali only landed six punches the entire fight and went home with two blood clots and an infection. The bout was ruled a draw, and has garnered a reputation as one of the ugliest fiascos in the history of combat sports. Fun fact: The referee of this match? None other than mixed-fighting pioneer Gene LeBell.

(Is that Toney’s heart on his sleeve or his swollen tongue?)

I’m not a fan of 90% of MMA clothing. Somehow seeing fat accountants and skinny computer programmers wearing t-shirts covered in skulls, chains and dragons at sports bars on fight nights jaded me I guess. Tapout has become the new Vuarnet or No Fear.

I own a handful of promotions’ shirts as well as a few less gaudy brands, but most of them I was given or won in contests. 

What gets me is that there are fans who will wear just about anything if it says MMA on it, regardless of how terrible the clothing is.

(Video courtesy YouTube/MMAFighting)

I was beginning to think that all of the back-patting he was getting from his entourage and training partners was starting to make James Toney a bit delusional in thinking he was an actual MMA fighter, but after seeing this video, I have to admit I was wrong. Toney isn’t just a bit delusional. He’s completely delusional if he really believes that he has more than a puncher’s chance against former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion Randy Couture at UFC 118.

All of the half-hearted sledgehammer smacks and tire flips in the world won’t make up for the fact that he has only been training MMA for six months (though he claims he’s been training for nine) and Couture has been competing in the sport for thirteen years.

Regardless of how much Toney may be fooling himself, I enjoy trying to dissect his unintelligible ramblings and convert them into text — a task which I rank slightly higher on the difficulty scale than solving a sudoku puzzle. I’ve done so many of these transcriptions that I can listen to Toney talk and understand exactly what he is saying. I’m actually considering sending the UFC my resume in the hopes that I can be Lights Out’s Ed Soares and I can translate for him in his pre and post-fight interviews.

(Video courtesy YouTube/Sportsnet)

Don’t let the on-air smile and half-hearted chuckle fool you, UFC president Dana White doesn’t really think James Toney’s remarks about wanting to knock him out the next time he sees him are cute or endearing.

If you didn’t happen to catch the segment above broadcast on Rogers Sportsnet on the weekend with the luxury of subtitles, here’s what Toney said about Dana in an interview he did with BJPenn.com last week.

(Chuck Liddell and Heidi Northcott pose with what appears to be a wax figure of the dude who killed John Lennon. Photoprops: Fightlinker)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

– Opinion: Jon Fitch Has Earned His Title Shot (Watch Kalib Run)

– Randy Couture Isn’t Buying James Toney’s Tales of Gym Submissions (MMA Fighting)

– MMA Legend/Pop Star Genki Sudo Invades New York (MiddleEasy)

– King Mo: "I’m the Underdog Even Though I’m the Champ" (Five Ounces of Pain)

– Brock Lesnar & Mirko Cro Cop Recruit Pat Barry For Their Training Camps (MMA Convert)

– Top 10 Young Prospects in MMA (LowKick)

– Cain Velasquez Explains His "Brown Pride" Tattoo (MMA Scraps)

– Anderson Silva replaces Chael Sonnen as the world’s #1 middleweight following UFC 117. Wait, what? (FIGHT! Magazine)

– Bellator Fires Back, Counter-Sues UFC Over Jonathan Brookins’s Contract (Heavy.com/MMA)

– Reed Harris Previews WEC 50, Expects Brian Bowles to Return in November (Versus MMA Beat)