By CagePotato contributor Jason Moles

During the illustrious eighteen-year history of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, we’ve witnessed countless brutal beatings, killer knockouts, and spectacular submissions. Simply put, we’ve witnessed a ton of holy $&*% moments!

I’m sure you have your favorites that you’ll share with your grandkids when you’re sitting in the old man’s chair. But have you ever stopped and asked yourself which moments in the past two decades were the biggest on a large scale? Well I did and I went to the largest scale imaginable: the almighty Google and here’s what I found. Remember, Google doesn’t have emotional or monetary interest at stake here. These moments are the ones that have generated the most web traffic via searches, not which ones impacted the sport the most.

5.) St. Pierre Beats Shields at UFC 129 – 04/30/2011

Why it’s ranked: Jake Shields left Strikeforce as champion so essentially casual fans and mainstream media alike viewed this as the first major inter-promotional, champion vs. champion fight. Georges St. Pierre, reigning UFC Welterweight champion and winner of nine straight came out on top of Shields who was riding a fifteen-fight win streak over the past five years.

The UFC went all in on this one hyping this event with the normal Countdown shows in addition to a pretty sweet commercial, the Primetime series, and a flyer in my mailbox reminding me to order the PPV. It was a huge moment in both men’s career primarily because it was the first tough competition either had faced in quite some time up to that point.  The underlying reason this mattered so much is that we all wanted to see the GSP vs. Silva super fight.

(In the edited-for cable version, Lesnar says "I’m gonna drink a [Bud] Light because Bud Light [is the best], and I might even [do something special for] my wife tonight.")

The first stage in Dana White’s plan to destroy Strikeforce and piss on their ashes comes this Saturday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, as Spike will air highlights from UFC 100. The replay card will look like this:

Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir
Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping
Alan Belcher vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama
Stephan Bonnar vs. Mark Coleman
Shannon Gugerty vs. Matt Grice
Jon Jones vs. Jake O’Brien

("I’m Something St. Something, bitches." Photos courtesy of this set on Combat Lifestyle.)

Just a little visual counterpoint to yesterday’s post about Georges St. Pierre’s post-UFC 100 drinking binge. Pics of Shonie Carter‘s gold speedo await you after the jump.

(For Pete’s sake, the guy’s a world champion. Either get him a proper drink or at least put some tequila and an umbrella in that bad boy.)

Georges St. Pierre has updated his Yardbarker blog with tons of fun info about his UFC 100 experience, including a description of what it felt like to tear his groin all up trying to submit Thiago Alves, and how, despite the pain, he insisted that John Danaher demonstrate what he did wrong in the fight as soon as they got backstage (still think Vaseline is the secret to this guy’s success?).  But the best part is when he tells us how he celebrated the victory:

The next day I went at a pool party at Rehab with all my friends who came to support me. We had a booth (cabana) and it was great spot in the place. I drank so much that I forgot my whole name. It was very cool because at one time, Thiago Alves showed up with his entourage and came in my booth (cabana) and drinking with me and congratulate me for the fight. I thought he was a class act and that prove that he was a real professional athlete and a real good person and a gentleman. I really appreciated it, he’s a great fighter and also a great gentleman, and we had a good time drinking together.

The UFC 100 installment of our pickoff contest came down to a two-man dogfight between SCM (aka 831 Son) and Arejay (aka RJeezy), who both produced scores of 17, picking every fight correctly except Coleman/Bonnar and Lawlor/Dollaway. As we wrote in the announcement of the contest’s final round:

SCM had four three-pointers, compared to Arejay’s three threes, meaning that SCM is the big winner, and will get a copy of Victory Belt’s "Machida-Do Karate for Mixed Martial Arts" 4-DVD box set. So, SCM, please e-mail feedback@cagepotato.com with your address, and we’ll get the set right out to you. And props on predicting the length of the Lesnar/Mir fight within three seconds, even if it wasn’t the shortest fight of the night. Thanks to Victory Belt, and to everyone who played. You’re all winners in our book.

Photos courtesy of The Las Vegas Sun, UFC.com, Sherdog, and MMA Weekly. Click all for larger images; lots more after the jump.

(Props: MMA Fanhouse)

Win or lose, you can always count on Mark Coleman to give up the emotions after a fight. Taking home his first win in over three years against Stephan Bonnar on Saturday, the Hammer was elated. In the video above, Coleman tells us that he can’t stand being called an old man, and guarantees he’ll be a factor in the UFC light-heavyweight division now that he’s changed his mindset and the way he trains. He also denies gassing out at UFC 100: "I always look tired, I’m playing possum…I was fresh, I got better as the fight went on." You can watch the fight here to see just how fresh he looked.

(Say what you will about his sportsmanship, his howler monkey impression is unassailable.)

Let’s get one thing straight: Brock Lesnar acted like a jerk on Saturday night.  Even by Lesnar standards, which have a certain expectation of jerkishness already built in, he conducted himself poorly.  First he got right in Frank Mir’s face mere seconds after TKO-ing him, just to let us know that he had no intention of being a gracious winner.  When the fans didn’t care for that, he gave them the old double Stockton Heybuddy and implored them to keep booing.  He finished by embarrassing a UFC sponsor and making tentative plans to get on top of his wife, who had to be as flattered as a stripper asked to work the lunchtime shift when she heard that one.

But the question is, with the increased media visibility of this event and this fight, did Lesnar do damage to MMA’s credibility as a real sport in the eyes of mainstream media and casual fans?  The answer is, not unless they’ve never seen pro sports before.

("And I’ll be taking your lunch money every morning, got it geek?")

The UFC paid out $2,190,000 in disclosed salaries and bonuses for Saturday’s UFC 100 show, with the victorious Brock Lesnar, Georges St. Pierre, and Dan Henderson taking home just over half of the total. Lesnar and St. Pierre also earn a percentage of the pay-per-view revenue, which isn’t reflected in the list below; according to MMA Junkie, Lesnar will make about $3 million from the fight even before the majority of his sponsorship money is tallied. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. The salary figures are below:

– Brock Lesnar: $400,000 (no win bonus)

– Georges St. Pierre: $400,000 (includes $200,000 win bonus)

– Dan Henderson: $350,000 (includes $150,000 win bonus, $100,000 Knockout of the Night bonus)

– Yoshihiro Akiyama: $160,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus, $100,000 Fight of the Night Bonus)

– Michael Bisping: $150,000

– Alan Belcher: $119,000 (includes $100,000 Fight of the Night Bonus)

– Tom Lawlor: $116,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus, $100,000 Submission of the Night bonus)

– Mark Coleman: $100,000 (includes $50,000 win bonus)

(Props: Fox Fight Game)

If you can get past the ill-conceived idea to interview Dana White during a point in the UFC 100 live show that is so loud you have to shout directly into his ear in order to be heard, and then capitalizing on that opportunity by asking such probing non-questions as “Congratulations!” and “Frank Mir really has nothing to lose tonight,” you’ll see a little footage of the aftermath of a Octagonside shoving match between “Rampage” Jackson and Rashad Evans.  Dana White seems all too accustomed to this stuff, which should tell us something about the way the next season of TUF is going to turn out.

These are two guys who know they are going to be paid very well to fight one another in a few months, and yet here they are tussling for free in the seats at the UFC’s biggest event, basically making a sideshow of themselves.  Either this is the most committed effort to hype a fight ever, or these guys really do hate each other.  Regardless, you gotta keep it together during an event where you’re basically a spectator/PR vehicle for the UFC.  Otherwise Dana White is not going to take you knuckleheads anywhere.

(Lesnar-Mir provides a chilling preview of Lesnar-Sable later on that same night. Photo courtesy of USA Today.)

It’s time to see who’s up and who’s down after an epic weekend, and the Potato Index’s arbitrary numerical rankings system is here to help.  It’s like the stock market, only dumber.

Brock Lesnar (the fighter) +117
Sure, it was all brute force and not a lot of flashy technique.  And yes, he resembled a schoolyard bully more than a martial artist.  But the fact is Lesnar got the job done, and in convincing fashion.  Now the question is, could he beat someone his own size?

Brock Lesnar (the person) -56
We honestly didn’t think it was possible for Lesnar to hurt his own image so much even in victory.  But disrespecting everyone you can think of, from your opponent to a UFC sponsor, and then ending by suggesting that you might “get on top of” your wife (that really sounds like a satisfying sexual experience for her, BTW) is a good way to go about it.  Press conference apology was a good idea, but way too half-assed to make a dent.

("And another thing: I’m drinking Jose Cuervo tonight because Cazadores won’t pay me, and I’m going to see a matinee showing of Up tomorrow because fuck Tarantino." Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Aside from Mark Coleman rising from the grave to win a decision over Stephan Bonnar, and Tom Lawlor punking CB Dollaway in 55 seconds, there weren’t many major surprises at UFC 100 — so we’re expecting some impressive scores for the final installment of our ongoing pick-off contest. If you kicked ass with your UFC 100 predictions, please share your total in the comments section below. We’ll be verifying the top scores soon and announcing the second winner of the Lyoto Machida "Karate for Mixed Martial Arts" DVD set in a couple days. Click here for a cheat sheet on the results, and thanks to everyone who participated!

Note to ‘PauloThiagoSilva’: We still have a Sityodtong t-shirt waiting for you, so hit us up at feedback@cagepotato.com if you want it.

Our Twitter buddy Shane Carwin let some of his true feelings about Brock Lesnar be known after last night’s showing at UFC 100.  While "Darwin" Carwin had been trying to play things pretty close to the vest about potential future heavyweight match-ups, it seems like Lesnar’s complete lack of respect for everyone within the range of his vision during last night’s main event rubbed him the wrong way.  He went into greater detail on his website:

The flipping off of the fans that just lined your pocket with millions of dollars is just LAME. He may be a Champion but he has a long ways to go before he earns the respect of a Champion. The fans are why we do this Brock, this sport is not about fat paychecks and drama it is about hard work and sacrifice for a shot to do what you did last night. It doesn’t matter how much money you make if you can’t earn your peers respect and the respect and love of the greatest sporting fans in the world. We have no scripts in this sport, no pre-determined earning amount and no pre-determined outcomes. It doesn’t matter if you win or loose it matters how you win or loose.

(Props: Fox Fight Game)

Other notes coming out of the UFC 100 aftermath…

(Uncontrollable giggling is probably not the reaction Brock had in mind when he got that tattoo. Photo courtesy of MMA Junkie.)

Maybe you’ve been a fan since Gerard Gordeau kicked Teila Tuli’s teeth into the second row. Maybe you’ve been a fan since Griffin and Bonnar threw down at the first TUF finale. Maybe you’re here because "UFC 100" has been a Trending Topic on Twitter all day. Whoever you are, we welcome you.

The menu for tonight: Brock Lesnar seeks Ultimate Validation against the man who humiliated him in his UFC debut. Georges St. Pierre meets the strongest, hungriest, scariest challenger of his title reign. Dan Henderson defends his country’s reputation against the British Invasion. A semi-famous blonde will hold a ring card and blow kisses to the camera. Smart-ass fans may or may not chant "Fedor!" after the final match. Minds will be blown, hearts will be broken, pants will be shat. Are you ready? Are you ready?

Round-by-round updates from the pay-per-view broadcast are after the jump. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest. Start stretching, Bruce…

(Now all he needs to do is fight CB Dollaway with one boxing glove. Photo courtesy of the UFC 100: Weigh Ins set on Combat Lifestyle.)

Spoilers after the jump…

(‘Anyone here order a nice, cool glass of sexy?’)

Let me begin this installment of the UFC scene report with a message for that twelve-year-old kid who thrashed me at UFC Undisputed during yesterday’s Fan Expo: You got lucky.  Lucky that the game designers gave Wanderlei Silva a flash chin and “Rampage” Jackson a ridiculously powerful left hook.  Lucky that you don’t have a job and you get to sit around playing video games all day.  Lucky that I’m too nice a guy to slap a kid in the mouth for gloating after his one-punch KO victory.  

Now that that’s taken care of, let’s move on.

I’ve been to one or two UFC’s in Las Vegas by this point, Potato Nation, but I’ve never seen it like this.  The Fan Expo was a massive throng of humanity, and not just the kind of typical MMA fan humanity that you might expect.  Sure, I did see an infant with a Chuck-hawk, but I also saw a woman in her fifties get really excited when Shane Carwin showed up at the Warrior Wear booth.  I also watched two teenage girls trying earnestly to figure out whether Paulo Thiago was someone they should try to get their picture taken with, before ultimately deciding to take a photo with a cardboard cut-out of Brock Lesnar instead.

(The man must be stopped. Photo courtesy of the UFC 100: Weigh Ins set on Combat Lifestyle.)

(Angry Brock is angry.)

As mentioned earlier, the editors of CagePotato.com will be taking their beloved "Ben vs. Ben" feature to satellite radio today at 6 p.m. ET on the "SIRIUS Fight Club" show — tune into Sporting News Channel 127, or channel 105 if you’re an XM subscriber.  We’ll run down UFC 100‘s main card, discuss tributes we’d like to see during tomorrow night’s event, and respectfully compare the merits of the Octagon Girls. You don’t want to miss that.

Also, you have about 7 hours left to submit your predictions for the Lyoto Machida "Karate for MMA" DVD pick-off contest. Wouldn’t you like to learn karate in the comfort of your own home? Then get on it, and be sure to have your score counted up by Monday.

How do you know when you’ve really accomplished something in life?  You get on the Dana White UFC 100 video blog.  Then it’s all groupies and limousines after that, or so we’re hoping. 

Here’s the latest installment of the Danavlog, and you can skip all the other crap and go straight to the end, where he watches our now world famous video of "Rampage" Jackson dry humping Cage Potato correspondent Heather Nichols.  Dana laughs it off with a that-crazy-Rampage kind of expression, but it seems like Heather wasn’t quite as amused.  Si.com talked to her about what was going through her mind during this incident, and she assured them that no, she wasn’t enjoying it, but dammit, she was just trying to be a professional and get the job done, by God.  For the record, she took it better than either of us would have.  We just don’t have what it takes to be sexually assaulted by a pro fighter, at least not after that crazy night in Minsk with Andrei Arlovski.

(This ought to confuse the hell out of the over-70 Keno crowd.)

Just in case you can’t catch us doing our Ben vs. Ben thang on Sirius Fight Club today at 6 pm EST — and you better have a good excuse for that — we now present to you another installment of our bad faith arguments.  Just like UFC 100, shit is epic, son.

If Lesnar beats Frank Mir and unifies the UFC’s heavyweight titles, does that mean we’ll all have to accept him as the legitimate champ, despite his 4-1 record, or will his career be a never-ending struggle for acceptance until he beats Fedor in a climactic street fight?

BF: If Lesnar beats Mir in convincing fashion – meaning without the help of bad officiating, bad judging, or bad breaks – then everyone who keeps insisting that Lesnar is overrated or undeserving is going to have to suck it up and deal.  Beating Mir would prove that he’s not just a big, strong, freakish brute with a bad tattoo.  I mean, he’ll still be all those things, but he’ll also be the undisputed UFC heavyweight champ, who has avenged his only career loss.

(Props: "ultimate tapout")

(Props: This set on Combat Lifestyle)

Not to alarm any of you Georges St. Pierre fans, but Rush has been looking rather lumpy lately. Though he’s made no mention of it in the run up to his UFC 100 fight against Thiago Alves, GSP has been walking around with a cartoonishly swollen elbow — possibly due to bursitis, an inflammation caused by repetitive movement and trauma that may have previously played a role in Marcus Davis’s loss to Mike Swick. Will the injury slow down the welterweight champ, or will GSP use that nasty thing as a club to bash Alves’s teeth down his throat?

(Props: MMA Fanhouse)

Things that Brock Lesnar has no patience for:

— Allegations about his steroid use
— Sodomites
— Steve Mazzagatti
— Press conferences to promote his own main event

The UFC heavyweight champion, upset about a cheap chair and having to talk to a group of strangers, tried to exit the building after being introduced at a UFC 100 press conference held yesterday. Luckily, Dana White was there to chill him out. As DW later told Versus.com, "I’m telling you, nobody wants my job. Everybody thinks it looks good; it’s no fun. Try telling a 400-pound guy to sit down."

Note to Brock’s cornermen: You’d better invest in a quality stool, or Lesnar just might forfeit between the first and second rounds.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Trailer #2 – Watch more free videos
(Props: ScreenJunkies)

Almost as epic as tomorrow’s UFC event? The fact that Quentin Tarantino has a new movie coming out next month called Inglourious Basterds, about a cabal of Jewish-American soldiers who go around scalping Nazis during World War II. And apparently it will be the "exclusive movie partner" of UFC 100. We just got this note from the company that’s helping to promote it:

Well, we dig Tarantino and the UFC and Twitter, so why not? Just one more thing to keep your fingers busy during our liveblog tomorrow, which kicks off at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET. Don’t miss it!

(Another installment in the series: Situations That Would Be Terrifying in Prison.)

It’s finally time for the big show and some big bets, which means all the money we’ve saved not paying our court-mandated child support is really going to prove useful.  Not that you need the thrill of online wagering to get you pumped for a fight card this big.  Sort of like how you don’t need to drink to have a good time.  But as long as the option exists…

Our odds today come from BestFightOdds.com:

Brock Lesnar (-220) vs. Frank Mir (+201)
Georges St. Pierre (-285) vs. Thiago Alves (+280)
Jon Fitch (-400) vs. Paulo Thiago (+377)
Dan Henderson (-205) vs. Michael Bisping (+190)
Yoshihiro Akiyama (-237) vs. Alan Belcher (+220)
Stephan Bonnar (-320) vs. Mark Coleman (+300)
Jim Miller (-164) vs. Mac Danzig (+160)
Jon Jones (-400) vs. Jake O’Brien (+350)
Dong Hyun Kim (-250) vs. TJ Grant (+250)
CB Dollaway (-205) vs. Tom Lawlor (+205)
Matt Grice (-125) vs. Shannon Gugerty (even)

So where’s our money going?

(Apparently LookOutAWhale is not a Bisping fan. Ouch.)

You want to know how close the Fertitta’s came to giving up on this zany UFC experiment?  Then read this insightful article by Neil Davidson, which effectively portrays Dana White as a man with the virtues of his faults.  For example, there was the time he fired the entire production crew for not doing things just how he wanted.  Kind of makes sense that the same guy who built the industry leader by kicking asses and micro-managing his way to the top can also be more than a little too controlling at times.  (See also: Sponsor Smackdown)

In other news…

(We haven’t seen a meeting of the minds this powerful since the Potsdam Conference. Hi-yo! What, no history teachers read this site?)

Good news, New York MMA fans.  No, Bob Reilly hasn’t been crushed by a large rock, but almost as good.  Thanks to the fine people at the MSG Fight Club, we’re giving away two free passes to the UFC 100 viewing party at Radio City Music Hall this Saturday night.  Not only will our lucky winner get to watch Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir go at it in high-def on a 70′x35′ screen, there’s also an exclusive autograph session with Matt Hamill and Frankie Edgar for the first 200 fans in the door, plus a general Q&A with them before the fights go live at 10 pm EST.  All you have to do is caption the above photo in a manner that we deem most amusing.

If you aren’t clever enough to win, you can still get tickets at a 10% discount by going here and entering the code: UFCFACE.  So worst case scenario, you watch UFC 100 on a ridiculously big screen for less than the price of ordering the pay-per-view yourself. 

We’ll announce the winner tomorrow, and since we realize that even you non-New Yorkers can’t resist trying your hand with this one, how about including something in your entry to let us know if you could actually attend this thing or not.  (And if the reason you can’t attend is because you’re in Vegas, keep your eye out tomorrow for info on how you can get into our pre-fight party with Fight Magazine at Tryst nightclub.)  Now have at it Potato Nation, and don’t let us down. 

(He knew that if he lost to a guy with a bleached-blonde ‘fro all the murderers and crooks back home would never let him live it down.)

One of the genuinely interesting fights that’s being largely overshadowed by all the epic-ness on the UFC 100 fight card is the Jon Fitch/Paulo Thiago Battle for the Honor of the American Kickboxing Academy.  Or, if you prefer, you can think of it as our opportunity to find out whether Thiago is for real, or just a guy who landed one lucky punch on Josh Koscheck.  Either way, the fun story on Thiago is his day job as a BOPE officer in Brazil, which is basically a special forces police unit with the coveted title of “deadliest military force in Latin America.”  

Here’s what Thiago had to say about his work to Fighters Only:

“I live through ordinary situations for a person who chose such an occupation,” Thiago shrugs when asked about his day job. “We pray for action like shooting or whatever. I cannot use the aggressiveness like in MMA but I had to submit and strike many times during my job. I don’t like to hurt people but I had to fight them.”

(Props: YouTube.com/UFC via MMA Fanhouse)

"This is our time. This is our sport. And we’re just getting started." — So intones the narrator of this official tribute to the UFC’s evolution. Maybe it doesn’t rock as hard as the Bowie-soundtracked fan-made compilation we showed you earlier, but with three days left until UFC 100, it’ll help get you in the proper reflective mood.

(No, B.J.  That does not count as working on your clinch game.)

There are any number of concerns one might have about B.J. Penn’s readiness when he shows up to fight.  That he might be suffering from ‘overtraining’ is typically not one of them.  And yet, without a hint of irony, that’s what Penn says he is effectively guarding against for his UFC lightweight title fight with Kenny Florian at UFC 101.  As he tells AroundHawaii.com (via MMA Mania):

“The training’s going great for UFC 101. I’m making sure not to overtrain. And, you know we started a couple months ago, and I’m training with Marv Marinovich, and we’ll be spending our last 8 weeks in California with a bunch of good training partners, with Marv Marinovich there, Jason Parillo will be there, Rudy Valentino’s gonna fly up, so I feel VERY good about this training camp.”

Well, that’s a load off our minds.  In a related story, Thiago Alves assured reporters that he wouldn’t come in underweight for his fight with Georges St. Pierre at UFC 100, while Mark Coleman vowed not to be too young and vivacious for his bout with Stephan Bonnar.