(Keep laughing, KenFlo. It won’t be so funny when “Lights Out” brings the side check kick down to 155. PicProps: Heavy.com)

Sunday morning, you wake up. Splitting hangover headache. You roll over and nausea sweeps through your body. You will yourself not to puke. “Where am I,” you think, “and who is this fat chick?” The night before is a total blur. There are significant gaps. You remember being at the bar, yelling unintelligible shit at a TV. Some guy you don’t know kept buying you shots. You might’ve left a bunch of voicemails for that girl you like. After that you must – wait — then it hits you. Holy fucking shit. Randy Couture fucking LOST to James Toney last night.

Scary though huh, PotatoNation? Consider the above paragraph a kind of public service announcement. Some don’t-let-this-happen-to-you type shit. Here at The Potato we are nothing if not realists. We believe wholeheartedly in expecting the best while preparing for the worst, or whatever the terrible cliché says we ought to do. For that reason, it’s probably a good idea that we all spend a few minutes considering the possibility that Toney might actually beat Couture at tonight’s UFC 118. You know, just in case. It won’t be easy, but we can get through this together.

First, if you are unlucky enough actually have friends who like boxing – if you do, bravo, your friend group is more diverse than mine – and assuming you haven’t lost it in the drunken aftermath, do not turn your phone off. It’s imperative we don’t let these people see us sweat. Keep in mind what would’ve happened if Couture had won. Boxing people would’ve shrugged it off with a mumbling denial about how “Toney was washed-up anyway” and then gone back to reading their newspapers or making calls on their landline phones or whatever else these past-worshipers do.

In the interest of keeping up a united front, it’s best that we come up with a cover story right now.  We’re going to use the boxing people’s own arguments against them, got it? Practice saying it with me: “Couture is old, man. Dude is 46. Of course he lost. Let’s see Toney fight ‘Shogun,’ then we’ll talk.”

There, that wasn’t so bad.

Secondly, let’s go ahead and stay off the internet for a few days. You know the one guy who picked Toney to win this fight is going to author some kind of “I-told-you-so” blog and that’s just going to make us fly into a rage. And the message boards? Shit, let’s not do that to ourselves. The good news is, it’s only a couple of weeks until the next UFC event, so people will essentially have no choice but to move on soon. 

Also, know in advance that you’re going to hear a lot of stupid people say a lot of stupid things over the next days or weeks. Some of these people will be on television. Don’t think for one minute you’re going to get out of this mess without the Tony Kornheisers and Jay Mariottis of the world sputtering at top volume about how Couture’s loss means something significant about MMA’s future. Michael Wilbon might even take this opportunity to yell the name “Rampage Jackson!” over and over, which is always his rhetorical strategy when MMA comes up. Ignore these men. These men are cowards, Donny. At the very least, they’re men who don’t know anything about mixed martial arts or, for that matter, boxing.

Essentially, it boils down to this: If Randy loses to James Toney tonight, it won’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just two old guys fighting in a cage. Nothing more. So, keep your chin up, little fella. Take an aspirin. Get some sleep. You’ll feel better by Sunday afternoon. I mean, at least about the fight. The fat chick, well, we can’t help you with that.