(Yep, that’s what it looks like about four hours before you acquire a nasty virus.)

Fresh off the news that the youth of Germany will be denied their chance to see UFC 99 in Cologne’s Lanxess Arena, the event has now received another blow: the loss of Heath Herring.  

Okay, so it’s not that big a blow.  Herring was scheduled to take on Cain Velasquez but is now reportedly sidelined with an unnamed illness (just to speculate irresponsibly, we’re going to say it’s either swine flu or whooping cough) and is unable to train, which has knocked him out of contention for the June 13 event in Germany.  The question now is, what happens to Velasquez?  And, to lesser extent, is Herring just faking it since he refuses to fight in front of a crowd without any children in it?

(Props: MMA Mania)

If you were an MMA fan four years ago, you can probably imagine what your reaction would have been had someone, preferably Scott Bakula from “Quantum Leap,” gone back in time to show you this poster for UFC 99.  For one thing, you would have been blown away that the UFC even made it to UFC 99, and that they hadn’t yet transitioned to an all-robot fighting organization.  Then there’s the shock of seeing Pride bad-ass Wanderlei Silva in the Octagon to face UFC middleweight champ Rich Franklin, and in Germany for fuck’s sake. 

Basically, your head would have exploded right then and there, all over Scott Bakula, which is why time travel is dangerous to begin with and should probably be avoided until we are responsible enough to not use it for stuff like showing fight posters to people.

Now think about how you view this poster in the present day.  It’s still a credible fight, and still interesting, though for entirely different reasons.  Let’s just say no one’s head is in any danger of exploding here, with the possible exception of Wanderlei.  And if you weren’t an MMA fan back in 2005 and you don’t really get what I’m going on about here, allow me to derisively say, noob!