UFC 83

UFC 93 goes down January 17th in Dublin, Ireland, and while most people are understandably psyched about the Rich Franklin/Dan Henderson light-heavyweight main event, I'm just as interested to see what happens between Mark Coleman and Mauricio Rua. Who will be rustier after their long layoff? The injury-prone Shogun, whose last cage appearance was his choke-out loss to Forrest Griffin in September 2007? Or Hall-of-Famer Mark Coleman, who hasn't notched a victory since his TKO-via-broken-arm win over Rua almost three years ago? Will Coleman really try to turn their grudge match into a stand-up war? Will Phil Baroni and Wanderlei Silva jump in and start brawling after the fight is stopped, like last time? You gotta admit, the match has potential.

Also at UFC 93, Denis Kang makes his UFC debut against Alan Belcher, and Marcus Davis and Chris Lytle have their long-awaited "takedowns are for pussies" match.

- The fight poster for Dream.6 is pretty bad-ass. (SubFighter Forum)

- Talking Rampage, ShoXC, GSP and more on MMA Rated Radio. (MMA Rated)

- Forrest Griffin and Mac Danzig land acting gigs. (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Kenny Florian's younger brother set to make amateur debut. (Fightline)

- UFC 83 DVD outsells Boston Celtics and Ric Flair, kind of. (MMA Payout)

- A little old school Matt Hughes-Dennis Hallman action. Real old school. (MMA Scraps)

- It's Beer O'Clock, are you properly outfitted? (Holy Taco)

- Four steps to becoming a rich jerk. (Wall Street Fighter)

- "Iron Man" deleted scenes feature hot girls, not so much Iron Man. (Screen Junkies)

(Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Breaking into the U.K. is still a battle, and they're just starting to dip their toes south of the border, but the UFC's foray into Canada can now be considered a big, fat, stinking success. Dave Meltzer estimates that UFC 83 brought in as many as 650,000 pay-per-view buys — which would tie it for the third best-selling PPV event in UFC history — on the strength of a record number of Canadian buyers (estimated at about 100,000).

Expect the UFC to return to the Great White North on a recurring basis; and expect those events to be The Traveling Georges St. Pierre Roadshow. You thought Marcus Davis was typecast as "the guy who always fights in the U.K."? Ho baby. GSP is a true star in Montreal now, and the UFC will be giving the new fans what they want. Now if they can only find a couple of other Canadian fighters to give a marketing push to, because right now they're stuck with that one guy, and the other one, and what's-his-face, and the dude with the crazy hair.

Somewhat related: Travis Lutter thinks Matt Serra should be worried about his job security after UFC 83. In an interview with FightHype, he said:

"I would guess Serra will have a similar fate as me if he loses the Matt Hughes fight...I mean, he was in the same locker room with me, Kalib and I think there were five other fighters that shared a locker room with him that night. Usually, the main event guys and the guy that has the belt get the nice locker room and stuff like that and here he is with one of the most crowded locker rooms. It's really strange. They wanted GSP to get that title back so bad and he is marketable, but so is Serra. Serra is as funny as they come, but I'm sure there is a rhyme and a reason in their eyes behind doing everything; it's just unfortunate."

On Friday, Damon D of BetUS.com invited me back on his little radio show to talk about Kalib Starnes's foot and Chuck Liddell's durf, along with Ryan and Jake of Fightlinker.com. I may not have been able to keep up with the comedic tornado of those two, but there were a couple moments where I did sound halfway knowledgeable. (Well, you'll have to be the judge.) Click here to listen, but first, some notes...

— We recorded the show just before news broke that Matt Hughes had been signed to headline UFC 85 against Thiago Alves, so a good deal of our conversation is now basically worthless.

— Near the beginning of the show, I announce that Ben Fowlkes (of IFL.tv and TheFightingLife fame) will be joining CagePotato full time starting this Thursday. He can introduce himself more thoroughly that day, but please feel free to give him a round of applause from wherever you're sitting. It's cool, because now when I use the word "we" on this site, I'm referring to Ben and I, not just me and the voices coming from the microwave.

— Damon asks me at the end of the show what we've got happenin' on the site next week. At the time I was like "duhhhhhh," but it turns out we actually do have something really special coming up. Tune in Monday for more details.

— Also at the end of the show, Fightlinker challenges CagePotato to a duel. Basically, Ryan and I will be betting on a particular fight, and the dude who picks wrong will have to do something humiliating. "Riding naked on a donkey" was just the first idea that was thrown out; those aren't necessarily the terms of the bet. Will keep you all posted as this develops...

(BG)

Courtesy of our broheems at MMARated.com: Ariel Helwani, who has the power to control women with his mind, sent out Arianny "#1" Celeste to gauge the MMA/UFC knowledge of Montreal residents before UFC 83. But the only thing they can seem to agree on is how hot Arianny Celeste is. Creepy middle-aged guy at 3:22 FTW!

For more Arianny goodness, check out MMARated's UFC 83 afterparty photo gallery.