Rashad Evans

(Look, Dana isn't saying that you guys have to hate each other; he's just saying that he could understand why Thiago might be upset about some of the things Rashad may or may not have written about him on the Zuffa office's bathroom wall.)

It's the first rule of fight promoting, and the UFC knows it better than anyone: when life gives you staph infections, make staph infectionade.  Only, you know, don't call it that.  After losing Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira off the UFC 108 card, and with him their main event feature attraction, the UFC has responded by pushing the Rashad Evans-Thiago Silva bout to the top spot and rebranding it a "grudge match."  They don't go into much detail to explain the grudge part of that phrase, but we can probably assume that they're going to be using the old 'you beat my teammate and now I must beat you' angle. 

In reality, Evans and Silva have expressed nothing but gentlemanly respect for one another's skills, with the only hint of a grudge coming from Evans' remark that Silva gave him "a nasty look" after defeating Keith Jardine.  Ken Shamrock-Tito Ortiz it ain't, but at this point the UFC is probably just grateful to have two warm, relatively healthy bodies to put in the cage on January 2nd. 

As for Big Nog, he apologized to his fans but wisely noted "I have learned from my mistakes, and I'm not going into a fight unless I can give 100% my best performance."  Nog is currently getting medical treatment in San Diego, according to the UFC, and we wish him a speedy recovery. 

(Nelson vs. Wren. Props: CreativeProjectTV)

With seven of his guys advanced to the quarterfinals, Coach Rashad decides that the fairest way to proceed is for him to take a hands-off approach. Everybody will train together, but there won't be much coaching anymore. The guys are on their own.

Roy Nelson and Justin Wren are friends. Roy wants to get their fight over with so he can go back to giggling and shooting the crap with his homey, and he feels bad that he'll have to take Justin's dream away.

Matt Mitrione's brain hurts, even more than usual. He dry-heaves at the house, and can barely stay in a sitting position in the van. Wren thinks he's milking it. Kimbo says "he already has sand in his vagina. He already pulled out by going to the hospital." If he can't continue, Dana says he and the coaches will decide "who the alternate is who deserves to be in there." Deserving or not, we all know it would be Kimbo Slice. But nobody seems to mind the favoritism. Rampage is pulling for Kimbo to return because he's improved so much during his time in the house. Kimbo says he's a fight contractor, putting tools in his belt to build a solid fight foundation, and if he gets a chance to put his haymakers on you, you a done-dada.

Mitrione vs. Junk, TUF 10 - Watch more Funny Videos

The hate train continued on last night's ep of The Ultimate Fighter, which opened up with the coaches mocking each other's losses. Rashad imitates Rampage getting wrecked by Wanderlei Silva in their first fight, and Rampage imitates Rashad's "stanky leg" routine against Machida. Rampage calls Rashad "Gayshad." Rashad calls Rampage a whiny bitch. God, I could watch this all day.

So, back to business. Rashad picks Matt "Meathead" Mitrione to fight Scott Junk, who is frighteningly amped up in the staredown. Dana White likes Scott in the fight, because of all his experience. By default, Mike Wessel vs. Marcus Jones will be the final fight in the round-of-16.

Directly after the picks, Rampage and Rashad get into it again. You can watch the scene here, but basically, Rashad says he's going to make Rampage quit just like he quit in the competition (!), and Rampage says that it's his fighters who have quit, not him. (Cut to a very hurt-looking Kimbo Slice.) Rampage repeats that he's not a coach, but he brought some dudes who can coach, and they're doing a great job, ain't that right? (Cut to a very confused looking Wes Shivers and Zak Jensen.) The coaches nearly come to blows. Rashad has one shoe off, totally ready for it. Rampage: "Take both shoes off. I'm in your face now. Touch me. Please."

If you were hoping that Dan Henderson's contract negotiation breakdown with the UFC would lead him to abandon his patented understated, laconic style in favor of calling Dana White a stingy bastard and accusing Anderson Silva of shucking and ducking, you're about to be disappointed.  In his latest interview, Hendo confirms DW's characterization of the talks as having reached a stalemate, but says he still thinks he's worth more and can get more than what the UFC is offering him, and dammit, come February he's fighting somebody, somewhere.  Dan has a good point when he says he's not too keen on seeing a guy who he beat, and who has never even fought as a middleweight in the UFC, jump ahead of everybody else for the title shot.  But hey, like Vitor Belfort already said, he's just working from the neck down like everybody else in the UFC.

After the jump, Natasha Wicks tries on the five best/sluttiest Halloween costumes she can find, and "Rampage" Jackson puts in overtime busting Rashad Evans' balls on tonight's episode of "The Ultimate Fighter."

(You may not like Tiki's signature facial hair design, but you have to respect the amount of work he's willing to put into it just to let the world know that he is not to be taken seriously. Photo by Esther Lin.)

If you saw the confrontation between Rashad Evans and Team Rampage assistant coach Tiki Ghosn that was edited out of a recent episode of “The Ultimate Fighter,” then we don’t have to tell you that things got heated in a hurry.  Just like a family reunion, one minute it’s idle talk and the next minute we’re headed out to the parking lot for a fight.  Cooler heads, as they often do, prevailed in the end, and no “Never Back Down”-esque parking lot fight occurred, but Tiki wants you to know that a) he was definitely going to do it, and b) Evans is obviously scared of him: 

“Rashad is a good fighter; I’m not going to tell you any different, but at the same time he's an asshole and I want to shut his face up. Seriously, Rashad hasn’t faced the caliber of strikers I have in my career and only after he fights a couple of top end elite strikers can he talk - until then he has no business criticizing me. It got old real fast watching him get in our faces just to play up to the cameras, so I said 'you know what lets settle this outside like men'. Of course he backs down and starts running his mouth to get out of the situation - I could see the fear in his eyes when we were making our way to the parking lot, he doesn’t want to mix it up with me at all. Seriously, I was seconds away from laying him out but I had to restrain myself because the cameras were rolling.”