Three mean little bastards named Nelson Hamilton, Cecil Peoples and Marcos Rosales watched Rua solve the riddle of the pee-slurping Lyoto Machida. And they rewarded the best fighter on Saturday with a loss. Shogun should be the new champ. Instead, he's headed back to Brazil with a fat lip and a guano sandwich.

But what else would you expect in a city that dissembles for a living? Before the fight, 6,000 ghouls with open wounds twitched to "Thriller" outside the Staples Center. These crazies were trying to break a record set in Mexico City for the most simultaneous Thriller dancers. What better tribute to the looming absurdity of the evening than to assemble an army in white face to snatch a nonsense title away from Mexicans. (Will we not let them have anything, by christ?)

The scene inside the Staples Center made even less sense. The whole complex is a monument to bad design. Imagine several giant termite mounds patrolled by twitchy, Kevlar-clad cops. Secret entrances and tunnels have been carved out for Hollywood stars while the hoi polloi scrum for seats. The media are herded into impossibly tight rows like slaughter hogs. Try to move and you become a fire hazard. Apparently if anyone other than Ashton Kutcher walks more than 20 feet on the event center floor, the whole goddamn arena will go up in flames.

All of which is to say is that the omen was bad heading into the championship bout. Machida had reeled off a string of such impressive victories in the UFC that he looked invincible, a notion confirmed statistically on a data sheet circulated before the fight. Throughout his seven UFC bouts, Machida had been hit at a rate (.56 strikes per minute) much lower than any fighter in UFC history. Machida was also supremely accurate, landing 65 percent of his strikes, second only to Anderson Silva in UFC history. He was second only to Georges St. Pierre in takedown defense. Machida had never lost a round on any judge's scorecard in the UFC. He was already being talked about as the man who would rule for years over the light heavyweight division, which has seen the belt change hands so often that Dana White must be rending his last hair trying to find a champeen who sticks.

Lucky for White, three judges on Saturday dispatched that problem. In took all of one round to see that Rua would be true to his declared strategy — be patient and wear down the opponent — and that it might actually work. In the early stages of the fight, Rua began landing hard leg kicks. Machida usually dances out of range, but he couldn't seem to escape Rua's wheeling Muay Thai strikes. Instead, Machida began countering with a straight left, trying to time the punch with Rua's kicks to catch his opponent with his guard down. But Rua kept his right hand pinned to his jaw throughout the fight and continued to pressure Machida, preventing the piss-swilling Karate master from controlling the distance. Machida landed his own body kicks and knees but by the end of the second round, as angry blood welts formed on his torso and thighs, it was clear that the unbeatable man could be beaten. Rua had become the riddle.

These first two rounds are the source of controversy. They were very close. This wasn't a blatant robbery. But Rua had the better strikes and took the fight to his opponent. Machida staged a minor comeback in round three and landed a beautiful punch-kick-kick combo, but rounds four and five were all Rua, who appeared to be in fantastic shape. His kicks had crippled Machida's mobility. His punches had cut open Machida's mouth. As he stalked the champion, he landed double or triple the number of strikes as Machida. It was strange to see no sense of urgency from the champ. His title was slipping away. There was only surprise in his eyes as the final bell sounded.

Surprise, too, when the scores rolled in — all three judges had it the same: 48-47 for Machida. The hacks gasped. The audience of 16,000 booed. And Rua, who had practiced his kicks a thousand times a day in training, could only hang his head. "A fight's a fight," he said. "What can I do?"

What he could do, according to Yahoo!'s Kevin Iole, is not fault the judges. Rather, Rua should blame his corner for telling him he was ahead and not urging him to press the action in the last two rounds, Iole says. This is stupid. Rua handily won the last two rounds, even in the myopic eyes of the judges. Maybe he should have tried for a knockout, but Machida has never even been knocked down. No. Rua shouldn't blame his corner. He should blame the judges. He should blame them all the way home. And when he gets home, he should construct Santeria effigies and bring down the voodoo on their heads.

A few unrelated observations:

1.) Judging by what was shouted at the fighters, the fans here are far less creative and grammatically intuitive than fans in Philly. A sampling:

• "Hit him in the ugly face!" (One can only assume that "the ugly face" is a euphemism for a part of the body that is nowhere near the face.)

• "Kick him in his ass." (It's always good to be specific with two fighters and a referee in the cage.)

• "Beat him up!" (Are you kidding?)

2.) The fighters with the best walk-in music tend to lose. The fighters who defeat them have hideous taste in music but the best quotes. Case in point: Spencer Fisher, a tough hick, comes in to Johnny Cash's "God's Going to Cut You Down." Fisher is quickly put in a crucifix and cut down by the pop-loving Joe Stevenson, who looks like a far more unpredictable fighter after training with Greg Jackson. Afterward, Stevenson explains how he learned his winning maneuver: "My little sister and big sister used to team up on me and put me in that position to put makeup on me."

Another case in point: Yoshiyuki Yoshida busts out some traditional Japanese string music with a modern beat and is beaten down immediately by overproduced rap aficionado Anthony Johnson, whose wicked right hand makes him one of the up-and-coming strikers in the welterweight division. "I saw a big face in front of me and I decided to punch it," Johnson said.

3.) Cain Velasquez deserves a title shot. He manhandled a very good heavyweight in Ben Rothwell. Velasquez has great cardio and an All-American wrestling background that matches up well with whoever wins the Brock Lesnar-Shane Carwin fight. Also, he has "Brown Pride" tattooed on his chest, which incited the racialist tendencies of the audience. With UFC making a concerted push into the Hispanic market, you can expect to see a lot more of this fellow.

And so, as the lights come up on the weathered false breasts of California, we exeunt from the arena to the song "Going Back to Cali." But we're leaving Cali not coming back to it, you dumb Staples Center zombie fucks. I can't wait until the Clippers' season starts. ...

Luke O'Brien is a writer in Washington DC. He's written about MMA for Washington Post Magazine, SI.com and other publications.

Top photo via Sherdog

EARLIER: UFC 104: Urine For A Good Fight

Lyoto Machida, the UFC light heavyweight champ who defends his title on Saturday, has been pounding urine since he was a wee lad. Each morning, as he has done for years, Machida rises at 5 a.m. and greets the day with a frothy mug of his own kidney nectar, a habit inherited from his father Yoshizo, a Shotokan karate master and world-class uropath who discovered the golden quaff after reading about a Japanese doctor who during World War II prescribed the therapy to diseased soldiers.

The Machidas swear they haven't taken ill sick since they started ripping down piss. And they're not alone. Piss-swilling has long been a homeopathic remedy, especially for Ayurvedic types, who believe urine is brimming with nutrients and antibiotics. In the 1970s, no less a figure than Morarji Desai, then the prime minister of India, declared his love for shotgunning wee-wee. More recently during the pre-fight hype-fest for Mayweather vs. Marquez, an HBO camera lingered serenely (much as we are now) on Juan Manuel Marquez slurping his pee. Apparently, morning piss is the best. And not just that –- it's the melatonin-rich middle of the stream that produces the real vieilles vignes juice.

One plus of guzzling your own urine is that it probably won't hurt you. The other plus is that it freaks people out, which is handy before a fight. The downside of drinking urine, sadly, is that you have to drink urine. But fighters have always embraced the extreme to gain an edge. In the hoary days of boxing, as delightfully explained by the old master himself, A.J. Liebling, pugilists simply got wasted:

The fighters joined their admirers in lushing Blue Ruin, which was just another name for Daffy, or gin, and Heavy Wet, which was ale. There was a belief that a pint of Wet, taken after every gill of Daffy, would keep the drinker sober longer; the present notion is that a beer chaser, or boiler-maker's helper, accelerates intoxication. So does medical theory swing full circle with the ages. The Blue Ruin was calculated to put the fighters in a proper mood for ad lib assaults upon their friends. The Wet was recommended to build up their constitutions. Water was considered debilitating. Some care had to be exercised, however, even in the use of nourishing intoxicants. An 1821 treatise on training is explicit: "Our man may avoid taking the beer of two different breweries in the same day; for the variety of proportions and kinds of ingredients used, (if nought worse), will kick up a combustion in his guts."

Ah, the old gut combustion. The old combusting piss-saturated guts. What better way to settle in for UFC 104, which, for all this nitric talk, promises to be a sneak milepost. Machida is a gravel-voiced rainforest Terminator and a wholly different athlete. He may well be the next iteration of MMA fighter. In a sport that has evolved from its parochial days of crane style versus tiger style to one in which fighters now cross-train in multiple martial arts and differ in the details but share an increasingly similar archetype, Machida represents a new hybrid. He's learned the techniques that everyone learns. But he separates himself with his karate, a martial art that MMA supposedly proved worthless in a real fight.

Machida's karate differs from Shotokan sport karate by using knee and elbow combinations, which he blends seamlessly into an atavistic MMA style that has baffled his opponents. He's 15-0 for good reason. No one knows how to fight him. His understanding of distance and counter-striking is matched only by that of his training partner Anderson Silva. Bumrush Machida, and he's technical enough to make you pay. Bide your time, and he's patient enough to pick you apart. He is special to watch.

His opponent and fellow Brazilian, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, is Machida's polar opposite. Rua is wild and loose and favors an aggressive style popularized by his Chute Boxe camp. This won't work on Machida. Neither will sitting back and waiting for openings, as Rua has promised to do. For years, Rua, not Machida, was considered the best light heavyweight in the world. By comparison now, he looks obsolete. His only hope, really, is to land some weird power bomb in an unprecedented trajectory. In either case, orthodoxy is doomed on Saturday, and we are the better for it. Hooray for swilling piss.

Luke O'Brien is a writer in Washington DC. He's written about MMA for Washington Post Magazine, SI.com and other publications.

Photo via Sherdog

This lovely little story comes to us from Wales, where no one appears to think it's unusual that people go out in women's clothing for a bachelor party. But that's exactly what two cage fighters did, until they ran into two locals looking for trouble.

Dean Gardener, 19, and Jason Fender yelled taunts before Fender, 22, swung a punch at a man in a pink wig, short skirt and boob tube.

His pal, in a black dress and wig, felled the yobs with two blows. The cage fighters, who were on a stag night, walked off in their high heels.

I'm pretty sure this reads similar to the blow-by-blow of Kimbo Slice's last EliteXC bout.

'Trannies' 2 Yobs ..... 0 [The Sun]

It's a Friday afternoon, and I'm sitting in a corner of Manhattan's musty Fighthouse Gym, determined not to be intimidated by Kimbo Slice, who just walked in wearing a full beard and a gold fist around his neck. I'm joined by a gaggle of reporters trying to cash in on what's left of the Kimbo hype. We're here because Kimbo is about to do what any fading star in America must — appear on reality TV. The Ultimate Fighter 10 premiered Wednesday. The show runs through December and features Kimbo living in a house with fifteen other fighters, duking it out for a UFC contract. The twist? He is fighting for the favor of league founder Dana White, who once famously mocked him as "the toughest guy at the barbecue" — a YouTube street-brawler with no track record and little business fighting in the professional ranks. All of which means that Kimbo, the former marketing juggernaut for failed UFC rival Elite XC, has to once again run the publicity gauntlet and once again endure all kinds of outrageous and idiotic questions from the media.

"Will you," I ask him, "give me a piggyback ride?"

Kimbo has an enigmatic presence. When he walks into the room, flanked by two bodyguards half his size, every head turns to watch him pass. It's scary at first, until he grips your hand with his massive paw, looks you in the eye and flashes a warm smile, his gold teeth twinkling in the light.

It's not what I expected. The first time around, Kimbo was sold to us not so subtly (and, in retrospect, pretty offensively) as the big, angry brotha from the streets. One black ESPN writer described his act as "coonish." Whatever it was, it worked, at least initially. He was the headliner when Elite XC debuted on CBS, and viewers were treated to the bloody spectacle of Kimbo rupturing his opponent's cauliflowered ear. He was a star, the mean face of a mean sport. And then, after 14 seconds in the ring with Seth Petruzelli, he wasn't a star anymore. Fair or not, after just four pro fights, he was deemed a sham and, worse, a symbol of all that's wrong with MMA, a sport trying to shrug off comparisons to pro wrestling's theatrics and boxing's corrupt hijinks. And now, at 35, Kimbo is facing the cold truth that his last fight may very well be fought on reality TV.

He is a long way from his days as a strip-club bouncer in Miami (the stories from which he plans eventually to publish in a book). From his first parking-lot victory, Kimbo sought to make money off his ability to knock people "the fuck out," as he likes to put it. Only he shunned heavyweight boxing promoters looking to capitalize on his size and notoriety, fingering MMA as the more profitable showcase for his brutality because he says it better satisfies America's bloodlust.

"There's better opportunity in MMA because it's way more entertaining than boxing" he says. "You can watch 12 rounds of live boxing and no one's ass will touch the canvas. You're like, 'Damn, I can see that on TV!' When you come to an MMA fight, you're gonna see some blood. You see three or four matches and two of them are gonna be bloody. People are mean. They love that shit, you know what I'm saying? And as fighters, we love doing it, so it all works out."

Lately, however, things haven't worked out for Kimbo. The Petruzelli bout was a singular embarrassment, a 14-second TKO that instantly burst the hype bubble and exposed him as an MMA dilettante. Now, at age 35, he is trying to reinvent himself as a fighter with an array of talents, someone who can fight on the ground as well as he can on his feet. "This is a new year, a new millennium for me," he says. "Now I've got a target on my back. Everyone wants to fight me because they think I'm just a brawler. But now I got a little ground game and a little skills. I got a few more moves here and there."

He better. Shorties gotta eat.

His redemption is now in the hands of Dana White, of all people. Since White scooped him up after the Petruzelli defeat, Kimbo's image has softened considerably. He talks frequently of fatherhood. He's now just another dad trying to make ends meet. "My mind is always at home," he tells me. "To go away and think about training is almost six times as hard because I'm thinking about my babies that I'm responsible for, that I gotta take care of at home. Six different kids, six different lives, all going through different things."

"UFC can make it happen," he goes on. "Yeah, I want to prove that I can still do it, that I can knock top fighters the fuck out, but in the cage there's no room for pride — you gotta check your pride at the door."

Kimbo, a former linebacker, lives vicariously through his 14 year-old son, a standout high school running back in Miami: "My 14 year-old kid's balling now, so I'm living it through him," he says, smiling broadly. "He's already in the papers at Cold Springs High. He's on the varsity team at 14. He already has 200 yards and 2 touchdowns in 2 games.

"When I'm about to fight, it's not just for me, it's for our whole crew, our whole city. Everyone's got butterflies. Their adrenaline is flowing, especially my kids."

My 10 minutes with Kimbo are almost up, and a fan is pushing me aside to snap a picture. The next reporter in line is fidgeting with his tape recorder. "My editor wanted me to take a picture of you giving me a piggyback ride," I say at last. "Will you give me a piggyback ride?"

Kimbo shakes his head. "Nah, man," he says, grinning. "I would, but my daughter would get jealous."

Stencil by Christian at MCDeathbear.

Just to explain what we're dealing with here, the 77-year-old boxing promoter held a press conference at Yankee Stadium today to announce a fight that's taking place in Las Vegas. So that gives you some insight into his living in the past mentality. Arum wants to bring fights back to the Bronx—but not if they involve Floyd Mayweather, who Arum thinks is not entertaining because he fights "scared." So that's a good start.

Then his one-on-one interview with Fanhouse's Ariel Helwani got really uncomfortable, when Helwani asked Arum about UFC and if its head-to-head matchup with the Mayweather-Marquez fight would hurt either pay-per-view haul.

For me, I look at the UFC audience and the boxing audience as being two different audiences entirely. Our audience in boxing is ethnic. Hispanic, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and the hardcore boxing fan who can't watch ... like me ... can't watch UFC. UFC are a bunch of skinhead white guys watching people in the ring who also look like skinhead white guys.

Naturally, Helwani (a white guy!) took offense and tried to point out his feelings on the matter—but Arum helpfully set him straight.

And you don't have any tattoos. Ninety percent of the people in the audience wear tattoos. I don't care. That's up to them. But those aren't people that would have any interest, at any time, in boxing.

For me, and people like me, it is not something they ever care to see. They've watched it. It's horrible. Guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground. It is not a sport that shows great, great talent.

And he says that like it's a bad thing! Arum went on to further explain how MMA is "garbarge and junk" and if you have any interest in it at all, you're probably garbage too. Oh, and UFC lies about their revenue figures. (But they're great businessmen! Some of his best friends are MMA promoters!) But Bob Arum's generation—and the Mexicans!—aren't buying it.

You should really watch the whole thing, because when it comes to angry old man rants, they just don't make them like this anymore.

Bob Arum Blasts Floyd Mayweather, MMA [Fanhouse]

Rampage was scheduled to square-off against hated coaching rival Rashad Evans on December 12th in the season finale of The Ultimate Fighter 10, but the UK Sun has reported that he will forgo the fight to tackle the role of B.A. Baracus in the upcoming remake of the beloved 80s action show. The main event slot will apparently be filled with lightweight champ B.J. Penn's title defense against Diego Sanchez.

As for the movie, it has yet to begin filming, so it's a bit too early to tell whether it will be another Starsky & Hutch, or a mere Dukes of Hazzard. The only certainty I can report at the moment is that it will be absolutely unwatchable.

UFC and 'Page in A-Team Deal [The Sun]
Report: Rampage Jackson-Rashad Evans Match Scrapped From UFC 107 [MMA Fanhouse]
Rampage out of UFC 107 and will appear in the remake of the A-Team [Watch Kalib Run]

Valtonen, a Finn, rocks a swastika tattoo on his shoulder and the phrase "White Pride" across his back, because, you see, when he was young and foolish (or so he claims), he didn't much care for minorities. Only no one in the States knew it, because pesky league officials required Valtonen to cover the tattoos with patches (pinkos)! But that all changed when those patches fell off during a recent HDNet fight, exposing to the world — in high-def, no less — how Valtonen really feels about all those other races. Oops!

MMA Fighter Toni Valtonen Has Swastika, 'White Pride' Tattoos [Fanhouse]

A police spokesman confirms that "it's a fact" that UFC bouts attract gangs and organized crime. Sure, a few non-criminal thugs might be interested too, but are you willing to gamble your daughter's virtue on that?

The difference, said Irwin Cohen, a criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley, is the demographics for mixed martial arts fans overlaps considerably with young men involved in organized crime.

"You could make the argument ... in terms of a broader audience it may appeal to that classic 14- to 22-year-old male, aggressive, and some of that does fit into the organized crime or gang profile as well.

Great. We're all doomed. Thankfully, the city will not sanction bouts until the sport becomes "regulated" and Eliot Ness puts an end to its bootlegging ways. And can we do something about the rock-and-roll and mini-skirts, too, while we're at it?

Gangsters' love of UFC worries B.C. officials [Edmonton Sun]
MMA will bring undesirable gangsters to your city [Watch Kalib Run]

Before we get to that, however, some background: I arrived at the scene on Friday to find my guide, whom you shall know as Taco, crippled by drink. This abomination had gone on a J.Crew shopping spree and locked himself in his apartment with his cat, Tranny, a devil-beast that oozes pus from multiple back sores.

"Don't try anything funny," Taco said, as he let me in. "I keep a length of beating pipe in my bedroom."

Philadelphia, as I was quick to learn, is a pipe-beating town, a place where on Tuesday afternoons, men think nothing of sprinting down Broad Street with lengths of steel and a desire to maim. Philly is also a lite beer & jorts town and, hence, the ideal setting for MMA, which became obvious when we reached the arena on Saturday and encountered a vast collection of snaggletoothed shankers, many of whom seemed to know Taco personally.

"I'm a big deal here," he snapped and barged past security.

Since Friday night, Taco had been on a nasty trip about John Kruk's younger son. A few years back, Taco had infiltrated ESPN the Weekend and been seized about the waist by lil' Kruk and violated while Big Kruk looked on approvingly. Clearly, the memory still haunted my friend. "You can't write any of this down," he said.

And thus I wrote it down and we skulked into the Wachovia tunnels to set about our business. Here's what I learned/observed during the next nine hours:

1.) I am a "disgusting blogger blogging for a disgusting blog." I was told this several times. In fact, I was introduced in this fashion to an ESPN the TV Producer. "You're from Deadspin?" she sniffed. "I shouldn't even talk to you. ... You just hammered Erin Andrews." Really? Here? By the look of things, this brute was attending the event as a UFC guest with no intention of committing journalism. Go on then, you heavily tattooed paragon of virtue. Lecture away. Alas, when I took out my pad to record the piety, the fear gripped her and she removed herself from my disgusting company. Which was a pity. Because I wanted to film her naked.

2.) Anderson Silva turned Forrest Griffin into a stumblebum with one of the most outlandish and amazing knockout punches ever thrown — a goofy, backpedaling right flick of a jab. Here's what Marc Ratner, the former head of the Nevada Athletic Commission and a man who knows from fisticuffs, said when asked if he'd ever seen such a knockout: "No."

Here's Roy Jones, Jr., ever the self-promoter, on the same question: "Only three fighters in the world can do that. One was Muhammad Ali. The second is Roy Jones, Jr. The third is Anderson Silva."

Of course, Ali knocked out Liston with a similar-looking punch that the conspiracy nuts have been freeze-framing for decades. And, sure enough, right after the Silva-Griffin fight there was talk of a dive, which doesn't make much sense (unless a sneak Silva-Jones bout actually is in the works). The punch landed flush. And Griffin was already hurt/broken so profoundly that lil' Kruk could have finished the job.

3.) A smattering of advice screamed at fighters by Philly's excitable fans:

a) "Hit him like you mean it!"
b) "Kick him in the shins!"
c) "He can't breath when you put your shoulder in his mouth!" (If the person who shouted this is reading, I would like to film you naked.)

4.) The sad downfall of the hipster warrior. It started off so well. Amir Sadollah pranced into the cage to Persian techno, his mullet flapping. But then something terrible happened: four-time All-American wrestler Johny Hendricks punched Sadollah in the face very hard. And then the mean man did it again. The fight was over in less than 30 seconds, although the stoppage was a mite early. How ironic.

5.) Alright, fine. I know you've been waiting for it. At some point in the evening, your correspondent had to relieve himself. "The Wachovia is filthy," Taco said. "You'd be better off finding a quiet corner with some paper towels." I ignored him and went to the press center bathroom instead, wherein I found a line of grumpy hacks. Wherein I also found a wobbly Gerard Butler battling a urinal, in wide alpha stance. Never in all my days have I seen such macho pissing. And then, well, it is my duty as a disgusting blogger to report this, but I think it best summed up by that old lavatory maxim: If you shake it more than twice, etc., etc. Readers, I assure you — King Leonidas was playing with it.

Shortly after witnessing this obscenity, a championship fight happened and B.J. Penn took a beating pipe to Kenny Florian's face, then choked him into submission. Or something like that. It was time to go. Taco was rapping LL Cool J lyrics at me and "throwing up his G's." He'd become dangerous, unmanageable and when he started signing unsolicited autographs in his palsied fist, I knew it was only a matter of time until someone in the crowd attacked us.

And so I shall leave you, as I left Philadelphia: in a whorl of shame. I saw octagonesses shove 10,000-calorie plates of chicken and pasta into themselves like linebackers. I met a competitive eater from King of Prussia who lives in a bee-infested townhouse. I saw a Hollywood star tugging his pud. I was demeaned and brutalized at every turn. But at least I can do one decent thing before I go. I promised a nice young fellow I sat next to at the fight that, in an act of daringly experimental old-media/new-media hybrid journalism, I'd rewrite the kicker to his column for a Deadspin audience. So here it is (italics mine):

It was a loud crowd, too. They cheered and booed with equal enthusiasm, ooh-ed and aah-ed with every uppercut landed, every elbow delivered, every submission attempted. A din filled the arena, and it reminded everyone that Philly was a great fight town once, and can be again ... if only it weren't such a pipe-beating, jort-wearing sewer.

Luke O'Brien is a writer in Washington DC. He's written about MMA for Washington Post Magazine, SI.com and other publications.

Photo via muls96's Flickr account.

EARLIER: UFC 101: Hipster Warriors, Chest Hair And The Return Of Sanctioned Violence To Philly

It's hard to even remember when the last sanctioned violence of any national significance occurred in America's fight town. We might rewind to the Bernard Hopkins snoozer versus Morrade Hakkar (who?) in 2003. That was for a title, after all. But we probably have to go back to the early 1980s for the regular action. Weep, Rocky, weep.

In one fell swoop, however, Dana White has busked away the Spectrum ghosts. UFC 101 is poised to sell more than 15,000 tickets for an estimated total of $3.4 million, better than any boxing gate in Pennsylvania history. As if born again, local fight scribes are covering every conceivable angle of the event. It seems only proper, then, for Deadspin to get boots on the ground. I've volunteered to be your correspondent. Don't worry. I've written about MMA for several media outlets. So I'm a professional, you see. Until my vile Chicano bodyman dips into his medicine pouch, that is. Then all bets are off.

But enough about me. Here's what to look for on this card headlined by the lightweight championship between B.J. Penn and Kenny Florian:

How good is Florian? Florian has pounded out six straight wins against tough competition. But has he improved enough to beat an MMA great in Penn? The Vegas money says no. Florian's got wicked elbows and kicks (he's a former BC soccer player), but Penn is top-notch on his feet and the ground. Somehow, amazingly, he's also three years younger than the upstart Florian. If Florian wins, he'll lay claim to a seat among the sport's elite. He'll also induce a private wank session between his two increasingly cozy employers — the UFC and ESPN The Cable Network.

Will Anderson Silva club Forrest Griffin into gatekeeper status? I've seen Griffin ragdolled too many times to believe he's got much of a chance against the best fighter in the world, even if Silva is moving up to 205 lbs. Silva is too elusive and too precise with his striking. And Griffin's not a power puncher. He'll hope to maul. He does, however, win in the chest hair showdown. It's like a mongoose crawled up there and died.

Amir Sadollah, the hipster warrior. Sadollah has all of two pro fights to his name. Yet here he is, the UFC's latest marketing project, third in line on the card. Sadollah won The Ultimate Fighter show. But what's interesting about him is that he's a sarcastic Iranian-Irish bastard who wears infinite regression T-shirts and comes off as the type of guy who should be lobbing wisecracks from the peanut gallery rather than winging punches in a cage.

Silly Nicknames! Since we can't help but compare MMA to boxing when the scraps go down in Philly, let's take a moment to scrutinize that marker of sporting maturity: the ring/cage nickname. Although MMA has eclipsed all but the most mega-y of boxing mega-fights, the sport remains an infant when it comes to good nicknames. Here are some sobriquets from UFC 101, along with some boxing nicknames off the top of my head. Guess which list is which.

The Motor City Cobra
Touch of Sleep
Too Sharp
Mantequilla
The Sweet Swatter from Sweetwater

The Ox
The Dentist
The Spider
Da Spyder
The Barn Cat (okay, this one's not bad)

Luke O'Brien is a writer in Washington DC. He's written about MMA for Washington Post Magazine, SI.com and other publications.

UFC 101: Declaration [UFC.com]

A posting on a popular MMA message board announced the death of "Kimo" and that quickly spread to "the blogs" and then actual newspapers, which went ahead and reported it without question. (But it was "confirmed" by TMZ!) However, Leopoldo did not have a heart attack in Costa Rica as reported, probably because he had an important court date in California on the same day and I guess he didn't want to miss it. Being alive is very time consuming.

So Kimo had to come out of "hiding" yesterday to prove he wasn't dead—just trying to kick a drug habit—and maybe spin his near-death experience into a resurrection of his fighting career. To give you some idea of how long he's been at this, Leopoldo fought in UFC 3, which practically makes him a vampire.

By the way, the New York Daily News and TMZ simply removed the stories from their websites, rather than issue corrections for the benefit of possibly confused readers. I think that's how the "Mikey dying of Pop Rocks and soda" story got started.

Despite recent reports, UFC veteran Kim "Kimo" Leopoldo is not dead [MMA Junkie]
Leopoldo not dead, contrary to reports [Yahoo]

The buzz surrounding tonight's card is new to me. I don't go looking for MMA news, but I'll note it when it pops up on the mainstream sports media sites, or even in non-news outlets (like Time's 1000 word-piece this week). But I've known about this event for a while now, even know a lot of the names involved.

A little perspective: insiders are pegging the PPV buy rate tonight at possibly more than a million. Those would be huge numbers: HBO's heavily hyped Pacquiao/Hatton bout in May took in around 850,000. The all time record is held by De La Hoya/Mayweather in 2007, with 2.4 million buys. Will you be buying it, or at least streaming the torrent? Will you be talking about it at work on Monday?

And can UFC really lay claim to being MMA's premier league without having MMA's premier fighter? Fedor Emelianenko is the fighting world's biggest name, and most dominant athlete. He's 30-1 with five wins over former UFC champions. Can the winner of tonight's Brock Lesnar-Frank Mir bout really be the best in the world without ever facing off against Fedor?

Says Dana White:

Let me put it to you this way. I've done fight contracts with all the best fighters in the world," he said, working his way to the knockout blow. "With big huge superstars - Brock Lesnar, Chuck Liddell, the list goes on and on. Who the fuck is Fedor? Are you serious? The guys who fight for me have a chance to make a lot more money fighting with me than with anybody else. If he signed with us, he'd find his place in history, find out if he really is the best heavyweight in the world. It's all semantics. It's all bullshit."

The future of Fedor, and the quality of tonight's fights could decide an awful lot about the path of MMA in this country. We'll be watching.

*****

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I'd fear Tom Lawlor more if he weren't such a skinny little twerp. (Please don't hurt me, Mr. Lawlor sir.)

The leotard is unlikely to catch on as a popular fighting uniform.

"Rampage" Jackson can't stop humping people.

Your main event fighters. Nice beanie, Frank.

Aaron Tru, of the website MMA Worldwide, found that out the hard way while talking to female fighter Cris "Cyborg" Santos. He asked how long it would take for her to choke out her rival Gina Carano, and Santos answered "three seconds." Then she surprised Tru with a personal chokehold of his own. I'd say he lasted about seven seconds. Not bad!

To be fair to the Cyborg, English is not her first language. It probably did seem to her like he was asking to be knocked unconscious. Happens all the time! Tru was a true professional though, signing off like a champ just a few seconds after nearly having his life snuffed out. Who says bloggers don't know how to do real research?

Aaron Tru interviews Chris Cyborg (Choked Out Mid Interview) [Full Interview @ MMA Worldwide, via Watch Kalib Run]