(Someone’s excited by Rashad’s performance, and someone else is just very bored.)

The UFC has officially announced the previously-rumored Chuck Liddell-Rashad Evans bout for UFC 88 in Atlanta, Ga. on September 6. In an email blast sent out today they played up the fact that it will be the UFC’s first foray into Atlanta, which will no doubt be referred to as “Hot-lanta” by Mike Goldberg at least twice during the live broadcast of the event.

Call me crazy, but this main event sounds better and better. “The Iceman” may have slowed a step or two, but one thing he can still do is avoid a takedown and get right back up if you do manage to put him down.

If Evans can get Liddell to the mat and beat him there, it will be hard to ignore him in the light heavyweight picture. If he decides to stand and bang with Liddell and somehow manages to win that way, well, then either Liddell will have proven that he’s ready for retirement or the world as we know it will have changed forever. There’s a good chance the laws of gravity might even fail if that happens, so you might want to tie down some of your valuables, just in case.

- In other UFC news, Evan Tanner tells Thomas Gerbasi from UFC.com that he’s a poet or artist or something:

“I always thought of myself as the poet, the writer, or the philosopher – I never thought of myself as a fighter,” he chuckles. “But here I am. I always had an idea of the flow of my life, but not exactly what I would be doing day to day. And fighting definitely wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing.”

…

“It sounds contradictory because I’m a free spirit and I’ve kinda bounced around, but I always had an overall plan or idea of the flow of my life,” he said. “Let’s say your life’s a work of art, a great picture; everything I’ve done has been a brush stroke on what will hopefully be a great work of art. Even the bad times, the crazy times, I don’t regret a thing. – it’s all absolutely necessary to create this masterpiece.”

Behold, the Tao of Tanner. It’s great to compare your life to a brilliant work of art, but what about the people whose lives are obviously horrible? Are they just like really bad pieces of art that no one enjoys, even the artist?

Actually, I guess that makes sense. There are way more terrible works of art than there are great ones, and there are probably more people who hate their lives than love them. I guess what I’m saying here is that Tanner’s art-life analogy holds up. I’m as shocked as you are.