(Thiago Alves learns the hard way why you should never take NyQuil before a big fight. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

UFC president Dana White confirmed late last night that the rematch between Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves — which was postponed from UFC 111 due to concerns over Alves’s brain — will now take place at UFC 115 (June 12th, Vancouver). The fight will come four years to the month after Fitch and Alves’s first meeting at UFC Fight Night 5, which Fitch won by second round TKO. Though the Vancouver card will feature a host of compelling matchups, a main event still hasn’t been officially announced. I mean, it’s not like Chuck Liddell will be fighting Rich Franklin, after Franklin comes in to replace Tito Ortiz on The Ultimate Fighter 11, right? Pay no attention to the leaked photo of the TUF 11 set after the jump!

(Chuck hates paparazzi as much as he loves huffing paint thinner. Photo courtesy of Zimbio.)

Though the UFC’s planned show in Vancouver nearly fell apart due to creative differences, it is finally official, according to a new announcement on UFC.com:

No mention of the reportedly-off fight between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz — make of that what you will. But even without the TUF 11 coaches battle, UFC 115′s supporting card is very compelling. Expected fights include Mirko Cro Cop vs. Pat Barry, Ben Rothwell vs. Gilbert Yvel, Paulo Thiago vs. Martin Kampmann, Carlos Condit vs. Rory MacDonald, Tyson Griffin vs. Evan Dunham, and Mac Danzig vs. Matt Wiman. 

(And he was really looking forward to shoving a foreign currency into the G-string of a foreign stripper.)

Plans to hold UFC 115 in Vancouver may have been thwarted, according to a report by the Canadian Press, and instead the UFC may be heading to Cincinnati in June. The report states that though the UFC has been pushing hard to get Vancouver to be more open-minded about their particular brand of unarmed combat, “the deal fell through because the UFC and the city could not reach an agreement on other details around the show.”

So help us, if this is about footstomps again, we’re going to lose it.

If the report is true and the UFC really is abandoning the dream of Vancouver for the gritty, oil-stained reality of Cincinnati, we have no choice but to revisit the rumor that Rich Franklin – not Tito Ortiz – will face Chuck Liddell at UFC 115. Dana White swears it isn’t true, and we all know that DW is not the type of man who would ever tell a convenient lie to help his business. Yet now the event that is supposed to feature the showdown between the two TUF coaches may be headed for Ace’s hometown. Seems just a tad bit suspicious, no?

("See? I am friend. Now get in van, please." Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Four months after he put Mike Swick to sleep at UFC 109 — thereby going up 2-1 in his one-man assault on the American Kickboxing Academy — welterweight rising star Paulo Thiago will step into the cage at UFC 115 (June 12th, tentatively in Vancouver) against highly regarded contender Martin Kampmann. "The Hitman" is coming off a first-round submission victory over Jacob Volkmann in January, and was slated to take on Ben Saunders at UFC 111, but lost a large piece of his face during training. Coincidentally, Thiago also holds a win over Volkmann, who has been absolutely thrown to the wolves during his brief time with the UFC. (FYI, "Christmas" Volkmann will have his win-or-GTFO match against Ronnys Torres at UFC Fight Night: Florian vs. Gomi on March 31st.)

UFC 115 will be headlined by Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz, and is expected to feature Mirko Cro Cop vs. Pat Barry, Ben Rothwell vs. Gilbert Yvel, Tyson Griffin vs. Evan Dunham, and Mac Danzig continuing his slow road back to contendership against Matt Wiman.

(Let’s hope that when Evan Dunham fights a friend, he stops after he hears the first crack.)

by Cage Potato contributor Matt Kaplan

The potential UFC 115 lightweight match-up between Evan Dunham and Tyson Griffin – both from the Xtreme Couture camp – has MMA’s spirited fan base once again weighing in on the topic of teammate vs. teammate.

As expected, reactions range from the pragmatic (‘It’s their job to fight.’) to the more provisional (‘No way, unless it’s for a title or a title shot.’). Neither a title shot nor top-contender status is on the line for Dunham vs. Griffin, but UFC brass has nonetheless matched two training partners against one another, just like it has said it would.

As the debate over teammate vs. teammate continues to spiral off into its natural oblivion, I reached out to a few fighters – including Dunham and Dan Lauzon, who is set to face former training partner Efrain Escudero at UFC 114 – to get their thoughts about having to stand across the cage from a guy they usually have in their corner.

(Proof that nobody looks cool when they’re about to sneeze. Photo courtesy of EdMulholland.com)

After his bloody win over Anthony Perosh at UFC 110, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic will still be getting a Duke Roufus-trained striker to stand and bang with at UFC 115, only new reports suggest that it won’t be Ben Rothwell, as previously expected.  MMA Scraps is reporting that Cro Cop and Pat Barry have been offered a chance to try and kick one another’s faces in when the UFC visits Vancouver.  Do we have to tell you that signing this fight is about as close as you can get to guaranteeing a highlight reel caliber knockout finish without actually paying one fighter to go in there and leave his chin wide open?  We didn’t think so.

But if Barry is getting Cro Cop, what of Rothwell?  The rumor is that he may now be getting Barry’s original opponent for UFC 115, Gilbert Yvel.  So basically, the stand-and-bang quotient just doubled.  Join us after the jump as we go ahead and get ourselves hyped for the awesomeness that awaits us.

(If this fight were in prison, we wouldn’t even have to think about who to bet our smokes on.)

Good news for all you members of the First Church of the Stand and Bang, heavyweight strikers Gilbert Yvel and Pat Barry are going to give you some of what you crave at UFC 115 this summer.  According to the Las Vegas Sun, both guys have agreed to a bout that hardly needs any gentlemen’s agreement about how it will go down.  Both fighters are known as much for their love of kicking and punching people as they are for their reluctance to engage in the ground game, so this should be a stand-up battle all the way, and probably one that won’t last very long.

Barry’s coming off a second-round TKO of Antoni Hardonk at UFC 104 in October, and Yvel got knocked out by Junior Dos Santos in his Octagon debut at UFC 108 earlier this month.  Yvel may have the experience advantage and a total willingness to fight dirty, but if he looks as sloppy against Barry as he did against Dos Santos he could be in for a rough night.  According to what he told the Sun, however, that was just first time jitters: