(“Sorry Frankie, but based on the terms of your pay-per-view bonus scale — as clearly stated in your contract — you actually owe us $10,000.“)

It wasn’t just UFC 150‘s live-gate that fell way below expectations. According to a new report from Dave “Doom ‘N’ Gloom” Meltzer, last weekend’s Edgar vs. Henderson 2 card pulled in an estimated 190,000 pay-per-view buys. Judging by the MMAPayout.com Blue Book, that would make UFC 150 the second worst-performing UFC PPV since February 2006. And what’s the #1 worst-performing card of the last six years? The UFC 147: Silva vs. Franklin 2 show from just two months earlier, which took in only 175k buys. (UFC 149: Faber vs. Barao didn’t fare much better last month with a modest 235k buys.) Sorry Fric and Frack, Christmas has been canceled this year.

A couple caveats:
Keep in mind that there was a technical issue on Saturday night where DirecTV subscribers were unable to order the UFC 150 broadcast by phone or computer, although they could still order it via their remotes, according to reports. Plus, Bendo vs. Frankie ran up against the penultimate night of the 2012 Olympics, which may have stolen a few more viewers.

That being said…

(They were so young, so…innocent. OK, maybe just young.) 

If you are in need a pick-me-up, then boy do we have some good news for you. Chances are, if you ordered tickets to UFC 149, you are a sad panda bordering on manic depressive at the moment. Every single main card fight has been changed from its original pairing, leaving us with a headlining battle for a belt that has no value outside of Narnia, where its gold could possibly be smelted into a dagger of some sort and used to smite an enemy with extreme righteousness.

But praise the Gods, an angel from on High has been sent to repair this weak, starving card as best as she can with only the power of her presence, like a stacked Mother Teresa if you will. That woman is former UFC ring girl Rachelle Leah, who will be making her triumphant return to the octagon at UFC 149. We last saw Ms. Leah at UFC 111, where she turned in perhaps the single greatest night of card carrying the sport has ever seen. Check out a few of our favorite photos of Rachelle after the jump, and be sure to follow her on Twitter.

(No, you can’t do that… you can’t triple jab a double jab, you can’t triple jab a double jab! Ace!)

Perhaps this news shouldn’t be all that shocking, considering that MMA is as popular in Brazil as, well, pornography is in Brazil. In either case, you might be surprised to learn that the incredibly weak lineup of UFC 147, which faced enough injury withdrawals to give Joe Silva a heart attack twice over, drew in over 20 million viewers, as reported by Tatame.com. That’s only three million less than UFC 142 brought in back in January, which featured Jose Aldo’s destruction of Chad Mendes, Edson Barboza’s destruction of Terry Etim, and Anthony Johnson’s destruction of a nearby Chima Steakhouse.

(I repeat…not a winner. / Props: w9 and MiddleEasy)

Chael Sonnen has a rather unique relationship with the people of Brazil. He brutally mocks them for being uncivilized savages, and they get so angry that they just want to make his sweet little ass pay, you know? This bizarre dynamic reared its ugly head again at UFC 147 on Saturday night, as a local fan unrolled a photoshopped poster that seemed to imply that…well, I don’t think this really needs any further description. Thank God for that UFC belt, or Shane Diesel would be suing for trademark infringement right now.

As Joe Rogan explained on the UG, “Someone from the crew looked up at that one, and said ‘Did you see that poster? Anderson is holding Sonnen like a baby!’ I looked up at it, and I was like, ‘What the fuck do you do with babies that makes you think that’s a baby?’”

Good question. So can any of you make an even more insulting photoshopped poster for UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen 2? If so, send it to contest@cagepotato.com and God help us, we might post the best ones next week.

By Elias Cepeda

Card subject to change.

UFC 147′s main event provided the most fireworks of the night but other than that, it was the under card that shone brightest. Rodrigo Damm earned his first win in the UFC’s featherweight division with a rear naked choke submission win in the first round over Anistavio Medeiros de Figueiredo.

Damm took home Submission of the Night honors and the accompanying $65k bonus check. Marcus Vinicius won the KO of the night award and bonus money for his come from behind win over Wagner Campos in the final stanza of their bout. Vinicius used knees to the head and body to drop Campos and finished with nasty punches on the ground.

TUF Brazil Final Matches

Four young Brazilian prospects got the opportunity to become the next “Ultimate Fighters” last night, and in front of a raucously supportive gigantic crowd inside the nation’s largest indoor stadium, no less. Given the fighters’ Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu backgrounds, and relative inexperience, we saw a new phenomenon on display during the TUF Brazil finals – guys that can’t yet wrestle very well and are largely uncomfortable striking on their feet.

By Elias Cepeda

(At UFC 147 Rich Franklin proved that he could survive even the most brutal of hair cuts and go on to win in impressive fashion)

Sometimes, while covering an event, the perfect story book ending intersects with what a writer personally wants to see happen. But most of the time, it doesn’t. At UFC 147, it nearly did, sort of.

It is time I stop hiding it because you’d undoubtedly see through me at some point, potato nation – I am a huge Wanderlei Silva fan. If he’s not my all-time emotional favorite, he’s no worse than at the 3 spot. As such, I enjoyed seeing him tear fighters apart as Pride contender and champion and, for the past six years, have watched him fight with more and more trepidation each time out, worried that the brain damage he’s sure to have accrued over two decades of professional fighting was growing with each knock out loss or even hard punch landed to his tattooed dome.

But even when a slugger’s reflexes have slowed and their chin softened, their power stays with them. So, since Wanderlei insisted on continuing to fight, and he took on Rich Franklin in the main event of last night’s UFC 147, I secretly hoped that Wand could stay safe on the feet long enough to land a bomb of his own and put Franklin out.

What a note that would be to go out on for Silva – returning to his home country to fight for the first time in twelve years, as a legend and champion, and avenging a loss in dramatic fashion in front of the largest indoor stadium crowd in Brazil. Perhaps then Wand could be convinced to retire and move on to an ambassador role for the surging sport and UFC organization in Brazil and across the globe.

I didn’t think any part of that scenario was likely, the playing it strategic and safe, the winning, the retiring, but I hoped. However, the Wanderlei Silva we saw Saturday night was much better than any we’d seen in some time and he nearly toppled Franklin before ultimately losing a unanimous decision.

(“You look very familiar, bro. Verrrrry familiar.” / Image via buzzbox.com)

The UFC makes its first stop in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, tonight for an extraordinarily cursed card that, let’s face it, we probably wouldn’t be watching if it wasn’t our job. Wanderlei Silva is fighting Rich Franklin again, this time at a 190-pound catchweight. (Also known as “middleweight plus.”) Fabricio Werdum is battling fellow big-man Mike Russow. And some guys from TUF Brazil are fighting too, although not all of the ones who should be. It is what it is. I’m guessing that very few of you will be buying this card, but if you’re out doing something more interesting tonight, please use your smart phones to follow along when you can.

Handling the thankless liveblog duties for this evening is Anthony Gannon, who will be layin’ down round-by-round updates from the UFC 147 pay-per-view main card after the jump, beginning at 10 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest. And to prevent this from becoming the least-commented CagePotato liveblog of all time, I encourage you to use the comments section to discuss anything that comes to mind. Seriously, it doesn’t have to be UFC related. I’ll give you a topic to start off with: Germany invaded Poland earlier today. Do you think America should get involved?

(Wanderlei after hearing Chael Sonnen dismiss churrascarias as “jungle bar-b-que”)

Few fighters embody the philosophy of “don’t talk about it, be about it,” more than former Pride middleweight champion Wanderlei Silva. “The Axe Murderer” has always preferred action over rhetoric and so trash talk from him has been rare over the years.

That’s what makes it so fun when he actually does talk smack. About a month ago I interviewed Wanderlei for the UFC and Yahoo! Sports about his upcoming UFC 147 main event, which takes place tonight. At the time he was scheduled to rematch his nemesis Vitor Belfort, but now he’s fighting Rich Franklin. The animosity Wanderlei has for Vitor is such that he had no problem talking trash about him. Unfortunately, when the opponents changed, those quotes were lost to the world…until now.

Below is not a traditional interview, but rather Wanderlei Silva trash talk highlights from that conversation in May. When prompted, Wanderlei had a lot to say about Chael Sonnen and Vitor Belfort both, ranging from topics of respect, to cowardice to the difference between “big balls,” and non-functioning testicles.

I enjoyed hearing it all from the man himself so much that I had to share it with you, taters. Bon appetite.

(Props: @ewillphoto via ThePeoplesCecil)

Perhaps “cluttered” is the best word to describe this weekend’s action. After all, that’s the same word that you would also use for your bedroom floor: There’s a lot of stuff on it, but there’s not much there that you couldn’t live without. This weekend, we have a lot of MMA available to us, such as UFC on FX 4, UFC 147 and Bellator 71. But despite the quantity of the fights available to us, there seems to be very little in terms of fights with immediate significance. It’s one thing when ratings are slipping, it’s another thing when your promotion has to offer full refunds for an injury plagued card, and it’s yet another thing when the only attention your promotion gets for an upcoming card revolves around the wife beater you recently inked a deal with.

But have no fear; this floor isn’t entirely covered in dirty socks, empty bottles and condom wrappers. There are some interesting tussles worth watching (notice we didn’t say pay for), which we’ll make the argument for after the jump. Or you can just join us later for our liveblogs of UFC on FX 4 and UFC 147. That works, too.

Did that title totally blow your freakin minds?! We know it did, but for those of you who still remain on the planet Earth after reading it, prepare yourselves for a double dose of down and dirty gambling advice. Thanks to a pair of back-to-back cards and an injury curse the likes of which we’ve never seen before, this weekend’s UFC on FX 4 and UFC 147 events have just enough interesting matchups between them to help you prosper during the greatest American depression since the last great American depression, so lets do some (betting) lines!

UFC on FX: Maynard vs. Guida
Gray Maynard (-305) vs. Clay Guida (+275)
Spencer Fisher (+260) vs. Sam Stout (-290)
Brian Ebersole (-240) vs. T.J. Waldburger (+200)
Ross Pearson (-180) vs. Cub Swanson (+165)
Hatsu Hioki (-185) vs. Ricardo Lamas (+155)
C.J. Keith (+225) vs. Ramsey Nijem (-285)
Joey Gambino (-115 ) vs. Steven Siler (-115)
Rick Story (-380) vs. Brock Jardine (+290)
Luis Ramos (+145) vs. Matt Brown (-175)
Chris Camozzi (+175) vs. Nick Catone (-245)
Ricardo Funch (+375) vs. Dan Miller (-515)

UFC 147 
Rich Frankin (-170) vs. Wanderlei Silva (+150)
Cezar Ferreira (-260) vs. Sergio Moraes (+200)
Rony Mariano Bezerra (-280) vs. Godofredo de Oliveira (+220)
Mike Russow (+400) vs. Fabricio Werdum (-500)
Yuri Alcantara (+220) vs. Hacran Dias (-280)
(all figures courtesy of BestFightOdds) 

Thoughts…