(Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

Some frighteningly dominant performances mixed with some very mediocre ones to form this edition of the Potato Index.  Our arbitrary numerical rankings system sorts through each fighter’s rise or fall after UFC 101.  Were we the only ones who locked our door and slept with the lights on after watching Anderson Silva?  Even then we had nightmares about his fade-away jab and woke up hearing his lengthy Portuguese shout-out echoing in our ears.  Freaky.

Anderson Silva +411
Simply finishing a fight and looking like his old self again would have been enough.  Instead Silva puts on a Jedi striking display and makes a top-ten light heavyweight look like a special needs child.  Might as well go up to 205 lbs. for good now.  The middleweights have suffered enough under his reign.

Forrest Griffin -276
Maybe the most embarrassing knockout ever, and that was after about three minutes of the most one-sided fight in recent memory.  Does it help to know that it came at the hands of the sport’s pound-for-pound best?  Probably not.  Feel better, FoGriff.

(Props: 0fficialbjpenn)

In a night filled with some less-than-thrilling matchups, at least Anderson Silva and BJ Penn remembered that they were in Philly — and for that, they were rewarded handsomely. Silva earned a $60,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for cleaning Forrest Griffin‘s clock in the first round of their light-heavyweight feature at UFC 101, while Penn scored a Submission of the Night bonus in honor of his fourth-round rear-naked-choke of Kenny Florian. Somewhat suprisingly, additional $60,000 Fight of the Night checks went to Silva and Griffin for their match, even though it wasn’t much of a fight. UFC 101 drew a sold-out crowd of 17,411 spectators for a live gate of $3.55 million, a combat sports record for Pennsylvania. Reportedly, almost 11,000 of those fans were already in their seats by the time the first preliminary match started.

During the post-fight press conference, UFC president Dana White announced that the UFC was looking to host an event at Boston’s legendary Fenway Park by next summer; the Massachusetts state senate passed a bill to regulate MMA last month. White also said that the UFC could add another event to its schedule in October, in addition to UFC 104 (October 24th, Los Angeles). Since Fedor Emelianenko is slated to make his Strikeforce debut sometime in October, the counter-programming motives are fairly obvious here. Game on…

(Kenny Florian gives a nod to the heavens as if to say, ‘Look out, deceased sports stars.  I’m about to send you a new roommate.’ Photo courtesy UFC.com)

With Shane Nelson/Aaron Riley pushed to the pay-per-view portion and the jail cells at the Wachovia Center presumably already filled to the brim, we are primed and ready to bring you UFC 101 results and fairly obvious observational humor.  The question is, you ready for this?  If the answer is yes, hit that ‘Read more’ button, playa.  If no, then move along and go back to Googling various combinations of “adorable kittens” over and over again, like any other Saturday night.  The rest of us will be booing along with the Philly fans.

Let’s do it.  Remember to hit refresh often, cause this train is only gaining steam.

(Smile all you want, John Howard, but don’t forget to close the back door. Otherwise the Barn Cat might get in.  That’s when all hell breaks loose. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

The preliminaries are fixing to pop off in Philly and we’ve got your UFC 101 results from the undercard right here.  If you need to be told that there are spoilers after the jump, and that you should probably not click ‘Read More’ unless you want to know what happened on the unaired portion on the UFC 101 fight card, then congratulations, you are an idiot of uncommon magnitude.  Everyone else, you know what to do.  Liveblog coming soon.

(Sure, the last few decades saw boxing’s world titles become diluted to the point of being almost meaningless, but it was a boom time for the gold and leather-working industries.)

Since talk has died down recently about Roy Jones Jr. fighting Anderson Silva once his obligations to the UFC are fulfilled, seems like a good time for a cheap publicity-grabbing trip to Philly, doesn’t it?  That’s why RJJ announced via press release late Friday afternoon that he’d be attending UFC 101 tonight to see this Silva guy in action for himself.  But lest you be tempted to think it’s just a formerly great fighter wanting to enjoy the work of a currently great one, you should note that a) he sent out a goddamn press release about it, and b) of that press release, one sentence mentions Jones’ desire to see Silva fight in person, while the other two and a half paragraphs are devoted to telling you when, where, and for how much you can see his next fight with Jeff Lacy.

In other words, Jones is trying to see if he can’t get a little bit of the media spotlight devoted to UFC 101 in general, and Anderson Silva in particular, to spill on him.  We could look at that as a sign that Jones is desperate for attention in the last few years of his flagging career.  I prefer to look at it as a sign that MMA and the UFC have gotten so big time that the boxing world definitely wants some of what we got.  Can you blame them?

Don’t forget that we’ll be liveblogging tonight’s event, bringing you UFC 101 results and commentary all night long.  Meanwhile, Cage Potato reader Lebowski1976 will be enjoying the action live and in person.  How ‘bout pouring some out for the homies who couldn’t be there tonight, Lebowski.  Then go get your picture taken with the new Octagon girl.