(Clay Guida’s party-animal status: Unchanged. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com)

Now that we’re halfway through a six-week stretch featuring a UFC or Strikeforce event every weekend, it might be time to take a deep breath, drag out a semi-retired recurring feature, and assign some totally meaningless scores to some of the notable trends and fighters we’ve seen lately. Who’s up, who’s down, and by how much? Well…

The UFC heavyweight division +113
Some have already labeled Shane Carwin’s loss at UFC 131 the “end of an era” for gargantuan heavyweights. (Didn’t last long, did it?) At the top of the division, we’re left with two guys who are smaller, faster, and better-conditioned than their predecessors; Velasquez vs. Dos Santos could be an all-time classic. Meanwhile, prospects like Travis Browne and Dave Herman continue to add depth at 265.

Cageside monitors -98
Nope, the judging in this sport still sucks, and the problem doesn’t appear to be technological. When you have shit for brains, every angle is a bad angle.

(Legal Disclaimer: Actual Bud Light contest winners will not be nearly as attractive as the people featured in this commercial. Props: officialbudlight)

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…

- Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza to Defend Strikeforce Title Against Luke Rockhold (5thRound)

- UFC 131 Tickets ‘Cannibalized’ by Vancouver Canucks NHL Finals Run and More (MMA Mania)

- Shane Carwin on Dos Santos: I’m Going to Knock Him Out or Tap Him Out and Feel No Remorse For It (LowKick)

- UFC 131 ‘Dos Santos vs. Carwin’ Pre-Fight Interview: Kenny Florian (MMA Convert)

- The 13 Strangest Fighting Styles to Ever Grace UFC’s Octagon (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

- Five Lessons: ‘TUF 13′ (NBC Sports MMA)

- Downes, Cope, and Kingsbury Top TUF 13 Finale Medical Suspensions (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Fight Journal: ‘Mayhem’ Miller Edition (MMA Fighting)

- Now You Can Watch Hector Lombard Give Joe Doerksen a Harry Potter Scar (MiddleEasy)

- “Combate Extremo” CEO Michael Shoffner talks about MMA in Mexico (TheFightNerd)

(GIF is after the jump, courtesy of IronForgesIron via MiddleEasy.)

“I figured him to be tough, but I did hear his arm pop three times when I had the deep kimura. I was trying to finish or break his arm, and I was telling the referee, ‘Hey, it’s broke, it’s broke’, but he is a tough guy. It didn’t really surprise me, but man, props to him.”

- So says Jeremy Stephens (to HeavyMMA) who nearly went home with the arm of Roufusport lightweight prospect Danny Downes during the second round of their preliminary card bout on Saturday night. Stephens eventually gave up on the kimura when Downes wouldn’t tap, but continued to beat the tar out of him en route to a unanimous decision. (30-26 x 2, 30-27)

(The Albuquerque Hair Monster sucks Anthony Pettis‘s arm into its deadly grasp. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

Congrats to CagePotato commenter “J_Spice” for making the most accurate prediction in last week’s fight-picking contest. His picks were:

- Clay Guida def. Anthony Pettis via unanimous decision 30-27 x3 [an exact match]
- Tony Ferguson def. Ramsey Nijem via K.O. 3:11 rd 1 [just 43 seconds away from the actual time of stoppage]

So, Spiceman, if you’re reading this, send your name and address to contest@cagepotato.com and we’ll hook you up with your $50 credit to MMAOutlet.com. The rest of you, be sure to swing on Thursday for another chance to win!

Well, they can’t all be homeruns — but mad respect for trying. Gif courtesy of IronForgesIron.com.

Pettis, and his hopes at a title shot, come crashing down (pic: MMAFightNews.net)

Judging from the sparse commentary throughout last night’s live blog, most of you were out sipping $20 Manhattans and discussing the latest issue of The New Yorker while a few of us sat on the couch watching free cage fights and loathing ourselves. It’s cool. You know what you did was wrong, and you came back home to us. We forgive you, and we’ll give you the gist of what went down.

It only took three minutes and fifty four seconds to send ten weeks of buildup crashing to the mat. The bout between Tony Ferguson and Ramsey Nijem was competitive, with both men finding a home for their hands, but Ferguson was able to employ his collegiate wrestling experience and the time spent with Lesnar’s camp after the show to dictate the fight and set the pace. Following a couple of successful takedowns, Ferguson flipped Ramsey’s switch with a left hook and Season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter crowned its asshole champion.

(Kyle Kingsbury is wearing that rainbow fanny-pack in honor of all the brave men and women who gave their lives defending our freedom in the Candyland-Disco War of Sissystan. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle. For more photos from this album, click here.)

TUF 13 reaches its conclusion tonight, with “Stripper” Ramsey Nijem facing off against “Jerkwad” Tony Ferguson for the mythical six-figure contract and glass trophy. Plus: Anthony Pettis makes his official UFC debut against Clay Guida in a guaranteed thriller with lightweight title implications, the suddenly-badass Kyle Kingsbury looks to put Fabio Maldonado’s 11-fight win streak to an end, and much more.

If you’ve got nothing better to do, it’s not a bad way to spend a Saturday night. (If you do have something better to do, count yourself lucky, and come back later to let us know what the outside world is like.) The action is already underway at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas — and streaming live on Facebook — but we’ll save the spoilers until the end of the night, because some of you crybabies get sooooo sensitive. Round-by-round results from the Spike TV broadcast will begin to pile up after the jump starting at 9 p.m. ET; refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

How he hangs a hammer from those things we’ll never know.

It’s fair to say that this season of The Ultimate Fighter didn’t live up to expectations. Despite the inclusion of pay-per-view juggernaut Brock Lesnar, this season posted some of the lowest ratings in the franchise’s history. And yet again, the show’s momentum was halted by the revelation that the coaches would not be facing off at the end of the season. But tonight the UFC has a golden opportunity to make chicken salad out of chicken shit with a night of free fights on Spike TV. The UFC announced last night via Twitter that six prelim fights will be aired on Facebook at 6:30pm (Eastern). Tell us who you got in the comments, and if you’re up early enough there still may be time to enter our MMAOutlet.com UFC Fight-Picking Contest.

Results from last night’s weigh-ins are after the jump.

Dammit, who are all you guys again?

Say what you will about The Ultimate Fighter (not like you need an invitation), but the finale shows tend to be pretty damn fun. This season, we actually have two fairly solid finalists, a dynamite co-main in Pettis-Guida, plus a handful of other matchups calibrated for striking showdowns and crowd amazement.

Here’s a quick and dirty rundown of the fights scheduled for this weekend, with a few of those fancy moving pictures that you like so much. Who ya got?

Ramsey Nijem

VS

Tony Ferguson

Well, either this fight is the one you’ve been waiting for, or you’re just wondering what these two nobodies are doing on your UFC card. Tune in to find out which guy gets a contract with the UFC. (Spoiler Alert: It’ll be both of them.)

While surfing the web for a new lovemaking mask, I stumbled across MMAOutlet.com, and it’s quickly become my go-to spot for MMA gear online. Now, MMAOutlet wants to give two $50 store credits to the Potato Nation, which you can use on their wide selection of MMA shorts, MMA gloves, Jiu Jitsu gis, and loud-ass t-shirts. But as usual, you’ll have to burn some calories to win a prize. So how’s about a little fight-picking action, for old time’s sake?

This Saturday night, the TUF 13 Finale will go down on Spike TV, headlined by Clay Guida vs. Anthony Pettis, and Tony Ferguson vs. Ramsey Nijem. If you want a shot at a $50 credit from MMAOutlet, here’s what you need to do…

(Damn, Arianny. Him too?)

After out-pointing Michael Johnson last December to win the TUF 12 lightweight trophy, Jonathan Brookins is gearing up for his first post-TUF opponent in the UFC. MMA Junkie reports that the super-chill bro-dog with the funky hair will take on Jeremy Stephens at the TUF 13 Finale (June 4th, Las Vegas). Stephens is 6-5 in the Octagon (19-6 overall), and most recently knocked Marcus Davis out of a job at UFC 125. Despite Stephens’s spotty record, he’ll be a tough challenge for Brookins, whose biggest weakness seems to be his standup defense; against an explosive power-puncher like Stephens, that could be a problem.

In other UFC booking news…

(If Roop can kill a zombie, he has the potential to do the same to a grappler from Plympton, Mass. Still, this is Grispi’s fight to lose.)

According to a report by The Boston Herald, Josh Grispi’s booby prize for losing to Jose Aldo’s UFC 125 replacement, Dustin Poirier, will be the fighter current number one contender Mark Hominick recently beat to leapfrog “The Fluke” to a title shot.

(Video courtesy YouTube/MMACanada)

MMACanada caught up with Clay Guida in Edmonton over the weekend where they asked him about his upcoming bout with former WEC lightweight champ Anthony Pettis at the TUF 13 finale June 4. According to "The Carpenter" Pettis is a solid prospect, but he’s in for a rude awakening when he makes his UFC debut.

"It’s a very exciting fight. Anthony Pettis has a lot of hype around him right now. He’s a very advertised fighter. The kick heard around the world. ‘Showtime’ is gonna be ‘No Time’ once I get in there. I’m really excited about it. [He's a] very tough kid, but the WEC and the UFC merger is gonna show you what the UFC’s all about."