(Props: the UG)

Bruce Buffer may be the last sure thing left in the UFC.  Here’s footage of him introducing Anderson Silva at UFC 97 and making it into an event all its own.  Check out the hops on the Buff.  Who knew?  It used to be that Silva was guaranteed to give you your money’s worth.  With him not wanting to "risk" his belt, those days may be over.  At least Buffer still knows how to deliver.

After the jump, Ken Shamrock prepares to make his UFC comeback against an opponent who’s just his style.

(When he told her it was time to retire and give up the game for good, a tearful Paris Hilton told Dana: "But I am the game!" Only then did he fully understand the devils of fame and the ransom they demand. True story.)

- UFC president Dana White talked with Inside Fighting about the disappointing main event at UFC 97, and he also reiterated his commitment to keeping Chuck Liddell firmly in retirement, saying, “Believe me, it will be a fucking war if he tries not to retire, believe me.”  When pressed on other rapidly aging fighters who might need to be nudged into retirement, White admitted that Wanderlei Silva and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira “are right there too and yes, I will pull the trigger on them too.”  Dear God, he’s not going to kill them, is he?!

- A crazy rumor on the information superhighway says that Fedor Emelianenko and Shinya Aoki will square off against each other in a special grappling match at the “Deep M-1 Challenge 3rd Edition” in Japan on April 29th.  I’ll pause a moment and let that one sink in.  If true this would be completely insane, but to deny that we would totally want to see it would be to deny the very curiosity of the spirit that makes us human, and we aren’t about to do that.

(A brief glimpse of an offense. Photo courtesy of SI.com’s UFC 97 gallery.)

Since Anderson Silva doesn’t seem terribly interested in defending his UFC 97 performance against critics, and because his lack of English skills makes that difficult anyway, his manager, Ed Soares, has been doing it for him.  Soares said in a recent interview that he didn’t think Silva’s fight with Leites was “a bad fight,” and even partially blamed the UFC for putting a “one-dimensional” fighter against the champ.  He also made the case for Silva’s dominance by pointing out the lack of damage he took in the fight:

"After watching the fight on TV, I thought [Silva] fought a good fight. He didn’t finish him, but I thought he fought a good fight. Technically, I really didn’t see anything wrong with the way he fought. Who goes in there and fights five rounds with somebody and doesn’t even have a mark on his face? Not too many people can do that."

[…]

"I don’t know. People have to look at it that way instead of always thinking that Anderson is going to go in there and knock people out or submit them really quick. It just doesn’t happen sometimes."

Soares is right.  It is unrealistic to think that even Silva is going to finish everyone in spectacular fashion, especially if he’s facing an opponent who doesn’t want to engage with him.  But that’s only part of the problem. 

(Chuck picks the exact wrong time to go to his happy place.)

I know, I know — more Chuck Liddell stuff.  But remember Howard Davis Jr. saying that Liddell needed to work on avoiding right hands and keeping his eyes open when the punches are coming at him?  Well, Zak over at Watch Kalib Run found this picture of him doing neither, and it really drives Davis Jr.’s point home.  Turns out keeping your eyes open is pretty crucial to avoiding punches, and avoiding punches is pretty crucial to winning fights.

If you want to feel even worse for Liddell, TMZ has a somewhat strange video of his pre-fight warm-up (thanks to OB&I for the tip) and Fightlinker has a gif of Dana White nearly knocking Chuck down with a friendly slap on the back in the Octagon. 

If you want to be reminded that it wasn’t always depressing losses and the inevitable ravages of age for "The Iceman," we got you covered after the jump.

(Retired man walkin’. Props to MMA Scraps.)

Among the notable writers and fighters currently eulogizing Chuck Liddell’s career is UFC light-heavyweight champ Rashad Evans, who gave some quotes to FightHype about what the Iceman’s UFC 97 loss meant to him personally (props to BloodyElbow for the tip):

I’ll refrain from making any young lion/old lion analogies, but yes, we’ve finally seen the last gasp of the Tito/Randy/Chuck era of the UFC, and it’ll be a somber week for some MMA fans. The new generation has taken over in full force, led by fighters like Rashad Evans, Lyoto Machida, GSP, and Brock Lesnar. And maybe one of these days, Jon Jones is going to spinning-backfist Rashad Evans into a living death, and we’ll start talking about how great Sugar used to be until he started slowing down just enough for younger guys to pick him apart. It’s the circle of life. Still, this claim that Liddell was just frontin’ about working on the holes in his standup game? Well damn, dude. If you hope to hang with fighters who are more than ten years younger than you, you have to put in the work. The UFC front office doesn’t need any loafers.

(A tough night in so many different ways. Photo courtesy of SI.com)

Even our supercomputer had trouble dealing with the data from a bizarre main event at UFC 97.  We had to hit it with a broomstick a couple times just to keep it chugging.  Not a great Saturday night for the UFC, but at least it’s over now.  Let’s see who’s up and who’s down.

Anderson Silva -129
Against Cote, the computer was willing to cut him some slack based on past performances.  But two lackluster showings in a row, followed by an inability or unwillingness to comprehend why fans might have been unsatisfied, that equals a big drop.  Is this the Silva we can look forward to from now on?

Thales Leites -176
You get the opportunity of your lifetime and spend most of it flopping onto your back?  We think you’re going to regret that decision.  How Leites thought this strategy might yield a victory is a real mystery.  What the UFC can do with him now is another.

(Props: CageWriter)

Anderson Silva may not have had a problem with his performance at UFC 97, but Dana White wasn’t impressed, to put it mildly. Following Saturday’s excruciating main event, White sat down for an interview with Steve Cofield which quickly turned into an MMA version of Stewart/Cramer, with Cofield railing at the UFC prez for Silva‘s disrespectful showing, and White sheepishly taking the abuse. "I’m trying to wrap brain around this thing and figure this out, and I just cannot," White said. "I was seriously sitting in my seat going, ‘No, no this is not happening again’…I swear to God I wanted to leave tonight."

Echoing the thoughts of hundreds of thousands of screwed pay-per-view buyers, White said "I’ve never been embarrassed of a UFC fight like I was in the main event tonight." Dana now has the unenviable task of figuring out what to do next with Anderson Silva. The Spider is officially unreliable as a headliner (not that he ever drew big numbers), and Demian Maia’s impending title shot may have just gone up in smoke. Is a super-fight with Georges St. Pierre the only match that makes sense now?

Later in the interview, White re-states that Chuck Liddell is done fighting — for the UFC, or any other organization: "Yeah, he’s a big name, we could sell out arenas with him, we could still sell pay-per-views with him, but I don’t want to see that."

(Props: MMA-Core)

I don’t know about you guys, but where I come from we refer to the above behavior as "screwing around."  Clearly Thales Leites didn’t show up with the intention of bringing the fight to Silva last night, so he shares some of the blame for the most unsatisfying main event since, well, Silva vs. Cote.  But when Silva starts fighting like a sixth grade bully, more intent on making you look stupid than on actually hurting you, it’s hard to argue that he performed like a champ. 

Leites may have flopped around on the mat for five rounds, but what did any of us really expect from him?  Silva, on the other hand, is supposed to be the holy terror of the UFC.  We’re all very impressed at the cool stuff he can pull off during a fight, but we’re way more impressed when one of those cool things is knocking people out.

(Post-fight presser footage, via Versus.com)

Anderson Silva seems to be getting too used to disappointing fans.  Check the look on his face when a reporter takes him to task for not doing more to try and finish Thales Leites.  He seems more bored than anything else.  His manager and Chuck Liddell both get angry for him, but it’s as if Silva himself can’t be bothered with it.

Dana White will continue to defend Silva’s status as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter, and he has a lot of good points, particularly about Fedor being “at a buffet in Russia,” and not at all interested in proving himself against the best in the world.  But at the same time, if the world’s best fighter can’t entertain anybody but himself, what’s the point?  

This is the second straight time Silva has left us bored and confused with his performance.  He’s so concerned with fighting a “perfect” fight, he doesn’t care whether anyone actually wants to see it.  That’s a problem.  The UFC set a North American attendance record with 21,451 people packed into the Bell Centre last night, and yet the organization’s best fighter may have spent five rounds proving to the audience in the venue and at home that he isn’t concerned in the least with giving them their money’s worth.

(Young kid named Thales goes to jail for the first time, and gets thrown in a cell with a mean-looking dude named Anderson. Anderson says to Thales, "so do you want to be the mommy or the daddy?" Figuring he doesn’t have much choice, Thales says "the daddy." To which Anderson replies, "good, now come over here and suck mommy’s dick." True story. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

Let’s get ready to REDEEEEEEEEEM OURSELLLLLLVES! The Thunderdome has returned to Montreal’s Bell Centre, and the stakes are high. Can Anderson Silva make it a historic nine Octagon wins in a row? Who keeps their top-ten 205′er status in the Liddell/Rua fight, and who completes their dramatic flame-out? And…ah…who else is on this card again? Live round-by-round updates and commentary await you after the jump; refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest.

(Photo courtesy of this set on CombatLifestyle.com)

Spoilers after the jump…

CageWriter brings us this video of UFC 97‘s headliners weighing in yesterday in Montreal. Anderson Silva established his dominance during the face-off, coming so close to Thales Leites that the challenger had to take a step backwards (3:45 mark); he’s lucky the Spider didn’t give him two for flinching. Don’t forget to come back to CagePotato.com tonight as we liveblog the action beginning at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT.

Below: Yesterday’s edition of Dana White’s video blog, in which DW finally loses his UFC Undisputed championship title to Georges St. Pierre ("I think there was Vaseline on the controller"), hangs some more with his Army vet buddy, and gives his fighters the traditional F-bomb-laced pep talk.

(Yep, still painful to watch.)

Want to know how Chuck Liddell’s going to beat “Shogun” Rua at UFC 97?  Simple: keep his eyes open and avoid right hands.  That’s essentially what Olympic gold medalist boxer Howard Davis Jr., who helped train Liddell for this fight, told MMANews.com.  Davis said he spent a lot of time working with Liddell on “avoiding the right hand, slipping and blocking the right.”

That sounds almost so basic as to be stupid, but then you remember Liddell’s recent knockout losses to both Rashad Evans and “Rampage” Jackson.  The right hand counter did him in both times.  Now he’s got Davis helping him, so, problem solved?

(Props: MMA Fanhouse. Skip to 4:44 for the good stuff.)

At yesterday’s UFC 97 conference de presse (that’s fancy talk for press conference) Dana White made the bold claim that an Anderson Silva win over Thales Leites on Saturday night would solidify him as the greatest champion in UFC history.  In other words, if the guy who is a 5-1 favorite according to some bookmakers does what everyone expects him to do, this will prove that he’s the best.  

This is a difficult line of reasoning to follow.  If Silva wins at UFC 97 he’ll be 9-0 in the Octagon.  That’s a record.  It breaks the previous streak set by Royce Gracie and tied by Jon Fitch.  But there’s a reason why, even before Jon Fitch tied that record, none of us (with the exception of that one dude who stopped watching MMA in 1997) talk about Royce Gracie as the greatest champion in the history of the UFC.

It’s not just how many people you beat; it’s who you beat.

(‘No, it isn’t funny. What happened to the dress I bought you? The one with an actual neckline? It’s like you want people to stare or something. Oh, now I get it.’)

You know what time it is.  Time to get serious about the important questions surrounding UFC 97.  Questions like, ‘What the hell are we getting for our money here?’ and ‘What’s up with your stupid face, stupid?’  That’s right.  It’s Ben vs. Ben time.

What exactly does Chuck Liddell have to do to prove that he’s still got it?  Is anything less than a devastating KO going to be enough?
 
BG: It’ll either have to be a knockout, or an incredibly dominant decision victory where all three judges score it 30-24 and Shogun Rua‘s face looks like hamburger afterwards. Here’s the deal: There’s no way that Shogun could have magically set the clock back to 2005 in the three months since he barely defeated Mark Coleman at UFC 93, and I think we all expect a shabby performance out of him tomorrow night. So Chuck basically has to prove that although he may no longer be able to hang with younger, more complete fighters, his skills haven’t deteriorated as much as Rua’s have.

If both fighters turn in mediocre efforts, the UFC will have a hard time figuring out what to do with them. (You can’t cut the winner and the loser. Can you?) That was probably Dana White’s motivation for calling out Liddell in public and demanding a dazzling performance — if Chuck fails again, there’s no obvious next step with him, promotion-wise. Do you throw him against talented up-and-comers like Luis Cane and Jon Jones, who might smash his old ass?  Do you try to build him back up against complete cans? Either way, he won’t be in important fights anymore, and that may not be an option for the UFC, or for Chuck himself.

BF: The only way a decision victory would be enough for Liddell is if a) Rua fights like it’s the 2005 Pride GP all over again, b) Chuck still comes close to finishing him several times, and c) after the fight all we can talk about is what amazing heart and conditioning Rua showed in merely surviving that assault.

(He owns at least one working bicep.  That’s a good sign, right?)

Let me be real, son.  Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites is, on paper, the most one-sided UFC title fight since Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra I.  And yes, we know how that one turned out, but there’s still no plausible reason to believe that the Thales Leites we’ve seen in the Octagon could beat even the uninterested Anderson Silva we saw against Patrick Cote…or is there?

In the interest of trying to make UFC 97’s main event seem a little more competitive than the oddsmakers think it is, here’s our best attempt at making the very difficult case for Thales Leites.

1. Aside From His UFC Debut, He’s Never Lost an MMA Bout
Losing your Octagon debut is almost a rite of passage for young fighters, like getting screwed by a sponsor or doing something so cool it makes Joe Silva leap out of his chair.  Leites lost his first UFC bout via decision to the very credible Martin Kampmann in 2006.  Since then, dude’s been hanging nothing but W’s.  Okay, his win over Nate Marquardt was highly suspect, but his quick submission over Drew McFedries wasn’t. (Sidenote: how did he go from a win over Marquardt to a bout with McFedries, anyway?  Not exactly a step up in competition there.)

(After he was so excited about finally meeting Kevin Federline, Chuck was extremely disappointed to find out that K-Fed had a better picture pose than he did.)

The Gambling Addiction Enabler had a somewhat rough go at Strikeforce thanks to Frank Shamrock deciding to go ahead and get old out of nowhere (okay fine, in retrospect, probably should have seen that one coming), but he managed to cut his losses by picking Scott Smith to pull off the minor upset against Benji Radach.  With underdogs proving profitable, maybe your favorite compulsive gambler will have to take a long look at some of the major ones on the UFC 97 lineup.  Maybe put down a big bet on a certain middleweight challenger who nobody thinks has a chance in hell…

Odds today come from BestFightOdds.com:

Anderson Silva (-500) vs. Thales Leites (+456)
"Shogun" Rua (+170) vs. Chuck Liddell (-172)
Brian Stann (+151) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (-150)
Nate Quarry (+110) vs. Jason MacDonald (-110)
David Loiseau (-112) vs. Ed Herman (+110)
David Bielkheden (+240) vs. Mark Bocek (-255)
Antoni Hardonk (+275) vs. Cheick Kongo (-261)
Steve Cantwell (+265) vs. Luis Cane (-275)
Eliot Marshall (+120) vs. Vinny Magalhaes (-150)
Xavier Fouka-Pokam (+300) vs. Denis Kang (-300)
T.J. Grant (+177) vs. Ryo Chonan (-187)
Sam Stout (-125) vs. Matt Wiman (+120)

Best bets…

According to Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza’s manager, they’re planning on a fight “for the title” at Dream.9 on May 26.  Nothing is confirmed yet, Jacare’s manager told Tatame, but right now it looks like it will be a rematch between Jacare and “Mayhem” Miller for Gegard Mousasi’s vacated middleweight belt.  If true that would make for a tight turnaround for Miller, who’s slated to take on Kala Hose in Hawaii at Kingdom MMA on April 18.  Call it making up for lost time.  Or maybe he’s just assuming that it won’t take much out of him to whup on Hose in front of his Hawaiian peeps.

– As we saw earlier today, Dana White’s threats to step back from the limelight might be the slightest bit hollow, but ESPN plans to actually make him talk on video when they send their E:60 crew to Montreal for a story on his recent video blog controversy.  The piece will allegedly seek to compare White to the heads of other major sports organizations, asking what would have happened to them had they gone all nasty on a female sports reporter and her anonymous sources.  We just hope E:60 has learned from their past mistakes.  If they ask him about steroids, the interview’s over.

– Spike TV sent out another ‘in your face!’ press release today to announce that Saturday night’s replay of UFC 94 was the “#1 program among Men 18-34 in all of television (cable and broadcast) during its time period.”  The replay peaked at 2.4 million viewers for the main event and averaged 1.9 million over the three-hour broadcast, which, as Spike is kind enough to point out, bested HBO’s Winky Wright/Paul Williams bout, which drew a measly 1.5 million viewers.  What you’re wondering is, did they mention how it compared to Strikeforce’s viewership?  They did not.  But they know you’re thinking about it anyway.

– Remember the rumored bout between Mark Coleman and Stephan Bonnar?  The UFC made it official for UFC 100 today, but relegated it to the “may not be broadcast” prelims.  On one hand, that’s a hell of a place to end up after such a great career (talking about Coleman, obviously. I said great career, not one great fight).  On the other hand, if there’s one UFC card where you can feel okay about being pushed to the prelims, it’s that one.

We’ve already told you that Dana White will be giving the video blogs a rest after that faggot-thing blew up in his face (no homo), and now there’s this new video that basically confirms it…OR DOES IT?!? Give it a look, and get ready for the most stunning shock ending since The Happening. (Are you fucking serious? The trees did it?) Basically, Dana White is the new Lenny Bruce now, or something. It is he who is persecuted. Props for the Bob Dylan-reference, I guess.

Below: Street-gays respond to Dana White’s recent hate-speech. We had no idea Greg Jackson was gay, but there he is, on the left, at the 1:14 mark. Audio very NSFW. +1 for the cameo by the HotForWords chick @ 0:39.

(Props: RicoRado)

You’ve all heard the old joke…

"What’s the hardest thing about using Evite? Telling your dad you’re gay."

Well, you don’t have to be ashamed any longer. Our new friends at Manvite run a free online invitation service that focuses on manly pursuits like bachelor parties, poker nights, and cougar hunts. (Not this kind; this kind.) And if you go to their UFC 97 template, you’ll see that they were cool enough to stamp our logo and link on the invites. So if you were planning on organizing a viewing party at your house for this weekend, give Manvite a try and you’ll be able to fully customize your invitation and track responses. Do us all a favor and spread the word!

(ESPN talks redemption with "Shogun" Rua.)

While much has been made about the ‘dazzle me or hang ‘em up’ ultimatum that Dana White issued Chuck Liddell in the press, the man across from him in the Octagon is also in an obviously dire situation.  Mauricio “Shogun” Rua is 1-1 in the UFC and has yet to look like he belongs in a light heavyweight division thick with talented fighters.  But unlike Liddell, Rua’s problem isn’t that he’s slowing down as a natural side effect of age.  Instead he seems to have lost his explosiveness while at the same time developing the cardio of a toddler.

There are two commonly offered explanations for why this happened to the man who looked like Pride’s best 205-pounder just a couple years ago.

1) Knee injuries, followed by surgeries and rehab, have left him with too little time to train hard, resulting in him fighting at far less than 100%.

2) Now fighting in the UFC and subject to actual drug tests, he has to perform without the oft-rumored pharmaceutical assistance that was said to be rampant in Pride.

(Foupa-Pokam’s most recent fight, against Kyacey Uscola at PFC 12 in January. The KO comes at the video’s 8:12 mark.)

UFC 97: Redemption goes down this Saturday in Montreal, and among the card’s horde of Brazilians, Canadians, and TUF vets are three dudes who will be looking to prove themselves in the Octagon for the first time. These are their stories…

***

BRIAN STANN (LHW)
Experience: 6-1 record primarily in the WEC, with all wins by first-round TKO. Holds victories over Aaron Stark, Steve Cantwell, and Doug Marshall.
Will be facing: Krzysztof Soszynski (16-8-1, 1-0 UFC)
Lowdown: Stann became the WEC’s light-heavyweight champion in March 2008 when he knocked out Doug Marshall at WEC 33, but lost the title in his first defense when he was TKO’d by Steve Cantwell — who Stann had defeated in a previous fight. Stann and Cantwell were supposed to have their rubber match at UFC’s "Fight for the Troops" event last December, but Stann was forced to pull out with a foot injury; Cantwell went on to snap the arm of Razak Al-Hassan then brag about it. A former Captain in the U.S. Marines and Iraq war vet, Stann was awarded the Silver Star after saving the asses of his entire 42-man platoon following an unfortunate ambush-situation near Karabilah, which was later portrayed on the History Channel show Shootout! He hails from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

XAVIER FOUPA-POKAM (MW)
Experience: 20-9 record (18 wins by stoppage in the first two rounds) with multiple appearances in Cage Rage and Palace Fighting Championship.
Will be facing: Denis Kang (31-11-1, 0-1 UFC)
Lowdown: Currently riding a seven-fight win streak, the 26-year-old Frenchman describes his Muay Thai-based style as "very violent." Professor X splits his training time between Team Quest in Temecula, California — where he acted as an Anderson Silva-mimic when Dan Henderson was preparing for his middleweight title fight against the Spider at UFC 82 — and Cyrille Diabate’s Snake Team in Paris. Before devoting his life to fighting, Foupa-Pokam was a cameraman and director’s assistant, and calls filmmaking his "second passion." He has three DQ losses on his record, due to an ill-fitting mouthpiece that kept falling out (in a fight against Martin Kampmann), an accidental groin strike, and an illegal elbow on the ground during an event where they weren’t allowed. Canada will be the twelfth country he’s competed in.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

With Dana White laying low for a while, Chuck Liddell has been recruited to handle video blog duties in the days leading up to UFC 97 — and the Iceman quickly proves that he can be just as boring as his boss. Watch as Chuck does a radio appearance, hangs with boxing coach Howard Davis, defends Dana’s recent controversial vlog (without actually having seen it) and gets his toenails did.

Below: What, you thought the White Cure was just smoke-and-mirrors, player? News flash — it’s manna straight from heaven. After preparing for a fight by smoking weed and snorting Stevia, poet-warrior Dan Quinn taps out some guy at some show last week. Somebody tell Quinn’s cornerman Ross Clifton to join the pound-a-month club, stat…

Brock Lesnar talks with "Inside MMA’s" Ron Kruck about Frank Mir and that silly "make believe" belt that Mir took off of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.  Isn’t it adorable the way Frank thinks that hunk of metal and leather is real?  Just precious.

Joe Rogan swigs Diet Coke and waxes philosophical about the Chuck Liddell of old and the old Chuck Liddell of the present ("the guy’s thirty-nine years old, cut him some slack").  Honestly, it’s a pretty candid assessment of where Liddell and Shogun Rua are at this point in their respective careers, if perhaps a little too apologetic on Shogun’s behalf.  Rogan didn’t seem as willing to make excuses for Rua’s poor conditioning back when he was burying him from the broadcast table at UFC 93.

After the jump, something extremely disturbing, and at the same time boring.

(As long as he still has his hearing, he’ll always have a puncher’s chance. Props to AmidaHidan.)

Like Kendall Grove before him, UFC president Dana White has made it clear that Chuck Liddell‘s job might be on the line if he doesn’t step up his game. The Iceman, who has lost three of his last four fights, takes on Mauricio "Shogun" Rua at UFC 97 (April 18th, Montreal) and simply winning might not be enough. As White explains to the Telegraph-Journal:

We assumed that because of his drawing power and history with the company, Liddell would be able to fight in the UFC for as long as he wanted to. But it sounds like Dana is genuinely concerned for Chuck’s health. His reaction time is slowing, and rival fighters have figured out the increasingly predictable holes in his standup game. That only translates to more brain-rattling KO losses in the future.

Luckily, Mauricio Rua is as good a comeback opponent as any. If Shogun shows up in the kind of piss-poor shape he was in for the Mark Coleman fight in January, Liddell has a great chance of coming out on top, and maybe even "dazzling" his boss with a dramatic knockout. And if that happens, it’ll be interesting to see if Rua is given a similar "win big or get lost" ultimatum for his next fight — or if he’s simply fired on the spot.

The full 12-fight lineup for UFC 97 was confirmed on Friday; you can check it out after the jump.

(Remember that Chuck Liddell guy? Light-heavyweight, mohawk, gets knocked out a lot? Well, he’ll be fighting again. Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

Now that they’ve got the green light from Montreal, the UFC has released the official lineup and bout order for UFC 97: Redemption, which will go down April 18th at Montreal’s Bell Centre. The event is headlined by the middleweight championship match between Anderson Silva and Thales Leites, and the true "redemption" match between sullied superstars Chuck Liddell and Mauricio Rua. Here’s how things will be arranged:

MAIN CARD
Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites (for middleweight title)
Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio Rua (LHW)
Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Brian Stann (LHW)
Cheick Kongo vs. Antoni Hardonk (HW)
Steve Cantwell vs. Luis Cane (LHW)

UNDERCARD
Denis Kang vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam (MW)
Jason MacDonald vs. Nate Quarry (MW)
David Loiseau vs. Ed Herman (MW)
Mark Bocek vs. David Bielkheden (LW)
Ryo Chonan vs. TJ Grant (WW)
Sam Stout vs. Matt Wiman (LW)

It’s somewhat surprising that TUF 8 vet Krzysztof Soszynski is the only Canadian fighter on the UFC 97 main card, considering the north-of-the-border popularity of Denis Kang, Jason MacDonald, and David Loiseau; surely one of their bouts could have replaced Cane vs. Cantwell. The Montreal fans will just have to appreciate the undercard, which has a distinct "Canada vs. The World" flavor to it. Make your country proud, MacDonald and Loiseau, because Stout and Kang are pretty much dead weight at this point…

(‘Hey, cut that out!  It’s mildly annoying.’)

UFC 97 will go on as planned in Montreal in April, with only one slight alteration of the normal rules: no foot stomps.  Considering that there was some concern over whether the event would take place at all after the local commission got scared and claimed never to have really sanctioned MMA at all, this is indeed great news.  Now Anderson Silva will be free to destroy Thales Leites as planned.  And if he loses, he can always blame the altered rules for taking away a vital piece of his attack.  Not that he really uses foot stomps regularly, but it’s the threat of foot stomps that keeps opponents guessing.  Now it’s back to the drawing board for Silva.

A report from Corus Sports that is written in some indecipherable script known as “French” confirmed the news.  We have no idea what it says, but oddly enough our friends at Fightlinker are familiar with this strange tongue.  And here we thought they only knew broken English.  Looks like we owe them an apology.

There’s no word yet on what exactly the commission in Montreal found so objectionable about foot stomps while at the same time being unbothered by punches, kicks, knees and elbows, but as long as Chris Leben isn’t added to the card we’re guessing it won’t be much of an issue.  MMA, onward!

UFC 97 (April 18th, Montreal) was supposed to be a triumphant return to the city that gave the UFC its fastest-selling, most well-attended event in history. But even though last year’s UFC 83: Serra vs. St. Pierre 2 was such an overwhelming success, the Quebec Athletic Commission may block the UFC from holding future events there under traditional MMA rules. As Sportnet.ca reports:

Obviously, there’s no way the UFC would agree to such a compromised version of their product, and they’re probably looking for a backup arena somewhere else just to be safe. (Which is a bummer if you’re a Canadian UFC fan, considering 13,000 tickets to the event have already been sold.) But here’s where things go from upsetting to just plain bizarre…

 
(Props: MMA Mania)

Maybe the epic visual presentation for St. Pierre vs. Penn 2 has spoiled us, but we’re getting the sense that the UFC’s design department doesn’t really care about their upcoming Montreal show. Above is the poster image they’ve released for #97, which features old stock images of the four headliners in front of a generic cage background, surrounded by a cloud-like fog. Are these the men that are guarding the gates to MMA heaven? And what’s up with the janky-ass bubble-block lettering?

It seems significant that UFC 97 will be just the second UFC pay-per-view event since September to be identified with a word ("Redemption") rather than by the headlining matchup (i.e., "Couture vs. Lesnar," "Franklin vs. Henderson"). We’re guessing that’s because the idea of "Silva vs. Leites" headlining a card tends to bum people out. Still, "redemption" works well as a unifying theme. Liddell and Rua will be battling to rescue their careers after putting in woeful performances in their last fights, and Silva will be trying to redeem himself in the eyes of fans after his oddly restrained and anti-climactic performance against Patrick Cote in October.

Still, if it were up to us, we’d call the card "Silva and Liddell," have the two of them on the poster by themselves, and hope fans are duped into thinking that they’re fighting each other. And we’d dial back the fog machine by at least 50%.

After the jump: The latest announced and rumored matchups for UFC 97. [Updated at 12:16 p.m. PT]

(Nate Quarry [left] shows off the move that made him famous. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com.)
 
The UFC returns to Montreal on April 18th for UFC 97, headlined by the shrug-worthy title fight between Anderson Silva and Thales Leites, and the somewhat more compelling light-heavyweight battle between fading legends Chuck Liddell and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. Here’s some of the supporting bouts that we’ll be seeing on the card…

— Jason MacDonald vs. Nate Quarry (MW): MacDonald is coming off a first-round submission-via-strikes loss to Wilson Gouveia at last month’s TUF 8 finale, and hasn’t been able to put together two wins in a row since 2006. Quarry became Demian Maia‘s latest strangulation victim when he succumbed to a rear-naked choke at UFC 91 in November. The win-or-get-fired threat level on this one has been raised to Orange.

— Luis Cane vs. Steve Cantwell (LHW): Though Cane was originally rumored to face Keith Jardine in his next fight, the Dean of Mean was booked to headline UFC 96 (March 7th, Columbus) instead. Cane will instead be taking on reigning WEC light-heavyweight champ Steve Cantwell, who famously snapped Razak Al-Hassan’s arm at last month’s "UFC Fight for the Troops," then gloated about it afterwards. Cane is coming off of impressive TKO victories over Jason Lambert and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, while Cantwell is on a four-fight win streak, dating back to his time in the WEC.