(Paul Taylor bashes Paul Kelly during their “Fight of the Night.”)

Things are tough all over, I guess. The UFC released its customary bonuses after UFC 80, but each one was only $35,000, a full $20,000 less than the bonuses handed out after UFC 79. This is the first time we can recall that the bonuses actually went down from one event to the next. We knew European expansion was a bitch, financially speaking, but it’s unfortunate that the fighters had to tighten their belts to recoup some of the costs. Anyway, here’s who got the extra cash:

Fight of the Night: Paul Kelly and Paul Taylor. Each Brit got $35k, primarily for the insane brawl that kicked off the first round; after that, it was fairly dull GnP domination from Paul Kelly, who won a unanimous decision.

Knockout of the Night: Wilson Gouveia earned $35k for his out-of-nowhere comeback blast of Jason Lambert.

Submission of the Night: B.J. Penn collected $35k by default for his rear-naked-choke of Joe Stevenson, UFC 80′s only tap-out.

Thus, I went 1-3 in my predictions. And commenter MattyLight owes commenter Olie $5. (Sorry buddy!) Feel free to work out the exchange in the comments section.

MAIN CARD
BJ Penn def. Joe Stevenson via submission (rear-naked choke), 4:02 of round 2
Fabricio Werdum def. Gabriel Gonzaga via TKO (punches), 4:34 of round 2
Marcus Davis def. Jess Liaudin via KO (punch), 1:04 of round 1
Wilson Gouveia def. Jason Lambert via KO (punch), 0:37 of round 2
Jorge Rivera def. Kendall Grove via TKO (punches), 1:20 of round 1

PRELIMINARY CARD
Sam Stout def. Per Eklund via unanimous decision — this was the only untelevised fight
Alessio Sakara def. James Lee via TKO (punches), 1:30 of round 1
Paul Kelly def. Paul Taylor via unanimous decision
Antoni Hardonk def. Colin Robinson via TKO (punch), 0:17 of round 1

I just have to know — CAN, YOU, *FEEEEEEL* IT!!!!!!!(?)

You know how this works. Click the “MORE” link and refresh the page every few minutes to get the latest updates on UFC 80: “Rapid Fire,” which comes to us live from Newcastle, England. All times ET.

This liveblog is brought to you by Negra Modelo and Debbie’s Killer Wings.

Start gathering the beer and microwavable pizza rolls: “Rapid Fire” goes down tomorrow night in Newcastle (3 p.m. ET, noon PT). We’ll be liveblogging the event with round-by-round updates, so be sure to swing by if you don’t want to shell out the money for pay-per-view.

Speaking of money, we’d like to be the first in the MMA blogosphere to make official predictions on who will be taking home the UFC’s traditional end-of-night bonuses, which were a hefty $50k/apiece at UFC 79. To refresh, here’s the lineup:

MAIN CARD
B.J. Penn vs. Joe Stevenson (lightweights)
Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Fabricio Werdum (heavyweights)
Marcus Davis vs. Jess Liaudin (welterweights)
Jason Lambert vs. Wilson Gouveia (light heavyweights)
Kendall Grove vs. Jorge Rivera (middleweights)
PRELIMINARY CARD
Antoni Hardonk vs. Colin Robinson (heavyweights)
Paul Kelly vs. Paul Taylor (welterweights)
James Lee vs. Alessio Sakara (light heavyweights)
Per Eklund vs. Sam Stout (lightweights)

Fight of the Night: Expect a relentless, violent war from Marcus Davis and Jess Liaudin. Not only are both men total sluggers, but they’re both riding significant win streaks that they’ll want to protect at all costs. One more win for Davis and he’ll start getting higher-level competition. One more win for Liaudin and people will finally know who he is. And it’s never a good idea to bet against Kid Bonus. Dark horse: Gabriel Gonzaga and Fabricio Werdum, if they’re firing on all cylinders tomorrow night. Both are coming off of terrible performances in embarrassing losses, and are looking to prove themselves. As for the main event, we see it going one of two ways: Penn wins by early submission (likely), or Stevenson grinds out a relatively boring decision (somewhat less likely). Either way, it won’t be Fight of the Night.

Submission of the Night: Penn, probably. Though if he beats Stevenson with just a simple armbar or rear-naked without any flash to it, the bonus may go to James Lee, a King of the Cage veteran who’s making his UFC debut at “Rapid Fire.” In his last 11 fights, Lee has racked up 10 wins with one no contest, and nine of those wins have been by submission. Known primarily as a boxer, his opponent Alessio Sakara will almost certainly be eating a tap-out loss.

Knockout of the Night: They don’t call him “Hands of Stone” for nothing. Though Sam Stout’s UFC record has been spotty, he was known for his knockouts in the Canadian MMA organization TKO, and we see him coming out on top of Eklund. Dark horse: Gabriel Gonzaga. If he could murder Cro Cop with a headkick, he could do it to anyone.

Make sense? Shoot us your own predictions in the comments section…