(Zombies don’t make eye-contact. It’s, like, way too intimate. / Photo via MMAFighting.com)

Tonight, UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo returns to his homeland to take on South Korean crowd-pleaser Chan Sung Jung — a name that has become synonymous with fast-paced brawls and insane finishes. Will Aldo end the night embraced in the sweaty arms of his countrymen, or will the Korean Zombie put a gruesome end to the champ’s 15-fight win streak?

Also on the UFC 163 lineup: Phil Davis has the honor of being the only American on the pay-per-view card as he tries to put his hands on Lyoto Machida, and former UFC middleweight title contender Thales Leites returns from four years in exile in a fight against British banger Tom Watson. Plus, Cezar Ferreira and John Lineker gobble up some fresh meat.

CagePotato liveblogger supreme Anthony Gannon will be firing off round-by-round results from the “Aldo vs. Korean Zombie” main card after the jump, beginning at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and please drop your own thoughts in the comments section.

By Adam Martin

There doesn’t seem to be much buzz about UFC 163, but when you look at it deeper, it’s actually a fairly intriguing card with a number of hidden storylines buried amidst all the injuries and lineup-changes. Here are five reasons why what happens at UFC 163 actually matters.

Aldo vs. Jung: A Fight That May Change The Face Of Not One, But Two Divisions

Not many people are talking about this, but UFC 163’s main event featherweight title fight between champion Jose Aldo and challenger Chan Sung Jung is one of the rare fights that could have an immediate impact on multiple weight classes.

If Aldo wins, he’ll be on a 16-fight win streak, and it’s quite possible that he’ll make the decision to move up to 155 pounds, something that he has hinted at doing for a long time. Now 26 years old, Aldo is finding it harder to make the weight cut down to 145 pounds, and if he can beat Jung in spectacular fashion this weekend, he might tell the UFC he wants to make a run at lightweight.

If he does go to 155, expect Aldo to receive an immediate title shot, which would mean TJ Grant would be out on the sidelines yet again as Aldo would most certainly face the winner of the UFC 164 main event between Benson Henderson and Anthony Pettis later this month.

Of course, it’s possible that Aldo stays at 145 and keeps defending his belt against new challengers such as Ricardo Lamas, but I honestly think a move to 155 isn’t as far away as some think it is.

And if Jung shocks the world this weekend and becomes the man to end Aldo’s streak? Well, Aldo could still move up to 155, or he could stay at 145 and possibly get an immediate rematch since he’s been such a dominant champ at the weight. It’s really his call.

At the end of the day Aldo is going to have some big decisions to make after UFC 163, and they’re decisions that the whole MMA world is going to be interested in. Now, let’s wait and see what happens.

Does The Machida vs. Davis Winner Earn A Title Shot?

You gotta love how the UFC continues to promote Chan Sung Jung’s awesome nickname above his actual name for every event he headlines, to the point that the casual fan probably couldn’t tell you who Jung was without first being informed that he was in fact “The Korean Zombie.” Who knows, maybe the UFC is hoping to reel in some last second buys from drunk shut-ins who thought they were ordering a Syfy movie On Demand — it wouldn’t be the first time that the two entities combined forces. If only Wanderlei Silva was a featherweight, we would all be talking about how Axe Murderer vs. Korean Zombie made DinoCroc vs. Supergator look like Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus* around the water cooler on Monday.

I apparently cannot stop rambling today, so let’s wrap things up here. Starting at 3 p.m. EST, the weigh-ins for UFC 163 will be going down from the HSBC arena. We will be hosting a viewing party of said weigh-ins, complete with popcorn (BLAST-O-BUTTER, obvs.), footy pajamas and your mom. Will Jose Aldo triumphantly sprint into the crowd after making weight? Will Phil Davis or Lyoto Machida do anything to convince us that their fight won’t suck? Tune in and find out!

(Amanda Nunes: Like Michael Chandler if he didn’t spend upwards of 30 seconds playing pattycake with his opponents.)

It’s been awhile since we’ve familiarized you guys (and ourselves) with the hard-working underlings of an upcoming UFC card, but with so many foreign faces throwing down at UFC 163 this weekend, we decided to dust off an old feature for the sake of education. Don’t worry, this article will contain more knockout videos and fart jokes than it will actual information, as per the CagePotato decree.

Amanda “Lioness” Nunes
Experience: 7-3, with notable victories over Julia Budd (see above), Vanessa Porto, and Ediane Gomes. Despite her somewhat modest record, Nunes carries a wealth of experience fighting in top-level promotions such as Strikeforce and Invicta, where she went 2-2. We also hear that her farts smell like Febreeze. Specifically Mediterranean Lavender, which is odd considering she’s Brazilian and all.
Will be facing: Sheila “The German Tank” Gaff (10-5, 0-1 UFC)
Lowdown: Even having dropped two of her last three, the hard-hitting Nunes is arguably in a better position than her opponent, who is facing a quick turnaround after being dominated by Sara McMann in her own UFC debut at UFC 159. In a perfect world, we will see these two strikers throw caution to the wind and go all Merrill Hess on each another until one of them falls down. Actually, that’s the most likely scenario — three cheers for insanely high expectations based on preconceived notions of inequality!

By Dan “Get Off Me” George

This Saturday night, Zuffa heads to Rio de Janeiro — home of beautiful beaches and even more beautiful beetches (waka waka!) – where a seemingly unstoppable champion plans to defend his featherweight strap against a zombie. Come on, that’s gotta be worth sixty bucks. This may be a PPV light on star power, but we all know what happened the last time a card held in Brazil without much star power turned out.

And with each pay-per-view comes the best damn gambling advice you will find on the Internet (YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH), so join us as we break down some of the undercard as well as all of the main card bouts for UFC 163. All odds courtesy of BestFightOdds.

Undercard bouts:

Ian McCall (-380) vs. Iliarde Santos (+315)

In lieu of Demetrious Johnson’s performance last week, -400 for Ian McCall to beat Santos is parlay bound. Santos had trouble getting out of the gate in his UFC debut and will surely put up a stronger performance, but “Uncle Creepy” has fought 6 rounds (and even won a few!) with the champion in the division. There is always a possibility of the hometown judging playing the culprit or Ian having a mental breakdown whilst reflecting on his life as of late, but if McCall loses here, it will almost be worth losing the bet to see what happens next with him. McCall to win.

(“…AND ONCE AGAIN MACHIDA PROVES HE’S ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS AND ELUSIVE FIGHTERS IN THE DIVISION, LET’S KICK IT BACK TO CURT AND JAY IN THE STUDIO GRRRRAAAAAAHHHHGGH!!!”)

Newly-retired American hero Brian Stann has already lined up a gig covering college football for FOX Sports South this fall, but he’ll get a little more experience on the mic next month when he fills in for Joe Rogan at UFC 163: Aldo vs. Korean Zombie (August 3rd, Rio De Janeiro). Ariel Helwani first reported the news on last night’s edition of UFC Tonight, adding that a scheduling conflict is preventing Rogan from performing his usual color-commentary duties at the event.

As MMAMania points out, this will be the first time since UFC 134: Silva vs. Okami back in August 2011 that Rogan has been absent from a UFC pay-per-view card. (We can only assume that either Joe Rogan doesn’t like Brazil or Brazil doesn’t like Joe Rogan.) In the past, Kenny Florian has been the go-to guy when the UFC needs a substitute color-man, but it looks like the UFC wants to give this Brian Stann kid a shot and see if he’s got the goods. Will Stann be able to toss in relevant analysis in between Mike Goldberg’s endless plugs for Corn Nuts? And will you be paying to watch this two-fight card in the first place?

(Clint Hester sends Bristol Marunde into a graveyard spiral at the TUF 17 Finale. Photo by Esther Lin for MMAFighting)

Ladies and gents, we got ourselves a curse goin’. After losing three notable American fighters due to injury — Anthony Pettis, Josh Koscheck, and Robert Drysdale — we have even more UFC 163: Aldo vs. Zombie withdrawals to report today. Also falling off the August 3rd card in Rio are…

- TUF 17 castmember Clint “Headbussa” Hester, the Georgia-bred middleweight who was supposed to face TUF: Brazil winner Cezar “Mutante” Ferreira. Hester has pulled out of the main card bout due to injury, and Ferreira will now face 8-1 newcomer Thiago “Marreta” Santos.

- British flyweight Phil “Billy” Harris is also out of his scheduled main card bout (for undisclosed reasons) against Brazilian contender John Lineker, who will now be facing 33-3 veteran Jose Maria Tome.

Is it a coincidence that four Americans and one Brit have all pulled out of scheduled matchups against Brazilian fighters on this card? Yes. Do Brazilian UFC fighters have a notoriously high win-percentage while fighting at home? Sure. Should we file this under #boringconspiracies? Why the hell not.

The current UFC 163 lineup is after the jump. You know it’s a bad-sign when a barnraiser like Machida vs. Davis is by far the second-most-interesting match on this card…

(Drysdale’s most recent win, against DJ Linderman at Legacy FC 19 in April.)

The UFC’s current injury bug just sunk one of the most exciting promotional debuts of the year. As first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, jiu-jitsu phenom Robert Drysdale has been forced out of his light-heavyweight match against Ednaldo Oliveira at UFC 163 (August 3rd in Rio), reportedly due to a staph infection. [Ed. note: Oh God...I just let Robert swim in my pool. Fuuuuuu-.]

After racking up a laundry list of grappling titles including an Open-Division gold medal at the 2007 Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling World Championships, Drysdale began competing professionally in MMA in 2010, finishing all six of his opponents by first-round submission.

No word yet on when Drysdale will be ready to return to action, or if Oliveira — who kind of dodged a bullet, here — will remain on the card against a different opponent. If any gross photos of Drysdale’s staph infection hit the Internet, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Update: According to a Tatame report, Ednaldo Oliveira will remain on the card against Nova Uniao 205′er Francimar Barosso. Barosso has a 15-3 record, with 14 of his wins by stoppage, and once head-kick KO’d a dude in five seconds.

Related: MMA Fighter/Grappling Guru Robert Drysdale Talks Training, Fighting, Judging, and Body Hair

To help promote the featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung at UFC 163 (August 3rd, HSBC Arena, Rio de Janeiro), the UFC has released a key fight from each of the fighters’ careers on its YouTube page. Above, you’ll see Jung’s March 2011 rematch against Leonard Garcia, in which TKZ enacts a brutal revenge for the judging screwjob he suffered a year earlier.

After trading leather with Garcia for the majority of the first two rounds, Jung begins to step on the gas, landing a flying knee to Garcia’s grill and pouncing when Bad Boy slips to the mat. From there, it’s nasty elbows from the top, a scramble for back control, and the first “twister” submission in UFC history — with just one second remaining in the round.

After the jump: Jose Aldo wins the WEC featherweight title in November 2009 thanks to a second-round TKO of Mike Brown. Aldo would go on to defend the WEC belt twice against Urijah Faber and Manny Gamburyan, before kicking off his current reign in the UFC. So answer me this — will Jung be Aldo’s toughest challenge in the UFC thus far, or will the champ be celebrating another victory in the cheap seats?

(Let me guess…motorboating accident? / Photo via Getty)

Has the UFC injury bug emerged from its slumber to tear some more upcoming events to shreds? The latest fighter to be struck down is welterweight veteran Josh Koscheck, who has been forced to withdraw from his meeting with Demian Maia at UFC 163: Aldo vs. Korean Zombie (August 3rd; HSBC Arena, Rio de Janeiro) due to an undisclosed injury.

When this fight was originally booked, we thought it might be the UFC’s way of getting rid of Kos. (Maia is on a three-fight win streak at 170 pounds, Koscheck has lost his last two, and the fight is in Brazil, for God’s sake.) So maybe this injury was a blessing in disguise — unless the UFC just re-books Koscheck vs. Maia for their next Brazilian event.

UFC 163 will proceed with 12 scheduled bouts instead of 13. The current lineup is after the jump…