Welcome all to a brand new day here at The Rocktagon! In case you didn’t notice, this here website has been undergoing a lot of changes recently, including the assumption of the mantle by Catherine Perez.. Now, I know it is kind of emasculating to work for a female that is about five years younger than me, but I am an enlightened sort and I wish to COMMEND Ms. Perez for her achievements in changing the typical perception of the IWC audience: before Catherine rose to power, media snobs thought that professional wrestling and mixed martial arts fans were all a bunch of morbidly obese, mentally-stilted nogoodniks with next to nothing to contribute to society, and today, the media snobs recognize our industry as one that is populated by morbidly obese, mentally-stilted nogoodniks with next to nothing to contribute to society that ALSO buy tampons. Forward movement is such a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Anyway. . .holy shee-yet, I am TWENTY FIVE years of age! Adjusted for all of the nonsense I’ve been through for the last four years, I might as well by 84 with two bum knees and a total and complete lack of smell. Needless to say, I have learned a thing or two over the last five years, and in today’s article, I would like to give you a few life lessons about, um, life, I guess.

To begin with, as soon as you turn eighteen, I highly suggest that you. .. .wait, there’s a UFC show on tonight? Really? You mean on Super Bowl Saturday? Oh, well, never mind doling out some priceless life lessons, let’s recap the furtively homoerotic adventures of men that like to cause bodily harm to one another instead!

Now, who’s ready for some UFC 126: Silva vs. Belfort, I proclaim?

We are coming to you LIVE from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada. Erstwhile, I’m calling this shindig about thirty minutes later than usual, because I just HAD to get me some of that “King’s Speech” at the local matinee earlier this afternoon. I can’t wait for the sequel, when King George the VI becomes a gangster rapper.

All right, pre-lims up in this mother. You know, sort of like an underdeveloped fetus, because what they have really aren’t limbs, but these precursory limbs that are. . .uh, yeah.

Ricardo Romero vs. Kyle Kingsbury to get things up and running. I blinked, and missed the outcome. Oh well.

Next up, it’s Donald Cerrone (Yes, the Cowboy from the Village People. . .I mean, from WEC fame) taking on longtime UFC nobody Paul Kelly. And if you wanted the aesthetics on this one, imagine two frosted corndogs attacking each other, and you’d have it pretty much down pat.

Cerrone gets a takedown, and tries to work a full mount (they’re taking applications, I’ve heard through the grapevine). KNEE exchange. Get two patellas, get one FREE. . .in your face. Kicking and jabbing. It’s pretty much a back and forth affair at this point. Fisticuff City right now. Cerrone scores another takedown as time expires. 10-9 round for the Cowboy. Kelly’s left eye looks like an exploded ketchup packet.

Round two begins. Kelly is throwing some fist torpedoes. Cerrone shoots for another takedown. KELLY has a guillotine locked in. LOLOOPS! Cerrone is out, and on top. Cerrone has Kelly’s back. He’s working for a rear naked choke. Kelly fighting, to no avail. The Cowboy locks in the hooks, and Kelly taps.

Hard sell for tonight’s main event. It’s BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU STRIKER ON BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU STRIKER CRIME. I am excited. . .and somewhat perplexed, because I don’t know what all of that Portuguese stuff means.

The house struggles to figure out how PPV works. As a result, we don’t get into the paid portion of the evening’s fights for about five minutes later.

Joe and Mike do more shilling for the Belfort / Silva fight. It’s an absolutely packed house tonight, and the show is expected to do about $1 million buys. Yeah, this sport isn’t mainstream, or anything. . .

The curtain jerker for the paid portion of tonight’s show involves two Hispanic-Americans making their “official” UFC debuts after several years in World Extreme Cagefighting (which for those of you not in the know, is basically the Ohio Valley for the Ultimate Fighting Championship).

At one point, Torres was considered THE preeminent bantamweight fighter on the planet. That, of course, was two years ago, before he get his ass knocked out by Brian Bowles. . .and choked out by Joseph Benavidez in his follow-up bout. To be fair, Miguel did win his last fight against Charlie Valencia, but the great mulleted one from Chicago has a couple of more wins to notch before we can call him a true title contender again. Methinks that the UFC’s ultimate plan here is to put Torres in a super-bout of sorts with Urijah Faber, which would have been a dream fight about three years ago. Obviously, the prospect has been tarnished considerably due to the two fighters’ unfortunate habits of losing, but if they can get on respective winning streaks, we may just have us an interesting little throw down before the year’s over.

Miguel’s opponent, Antonio Banuelos, is no “give me”, however. Banuelos, in addition to rocking one of the sweetest mustaches this side of a Village Person, has the honor of being the first bantamweight champion in WEC history, and the dude hasn’t been finished since 2007. Since then, he’s gone 5-2, and looks to jumpstart his career with a victory over the (kind of) resurgent Torres.

So, what happens when you stick two Mexican American bantamweights in a cage and let ‘em go full tilt for fifteen minutes? Well, it’s time to find out which one has more weight in the cage: the Eddie Guerrero mustache, or the Eddie Guerrero haircut.

Banuelos comes out first, to what sounds like the dulcimer tones of legendary punk-parody band Manic Hispanic. Of course, it isn’t, but a guy can dream, can’t he? Torres looks like the fusion of Jason Biggs, Little Mac from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! And Manny Pacquaio. Yeah, I know, none of those guys are Hispanic, but whatever.

Pretty big reaction for Torres. Not surprisingly, nobody cares about Banuelos, which is Spanish for “blind bathroom attendant”, I believe. Well, as long as it isn’t an irregular AR verb, anyway.

Round One begins. We are being brought to you by Bud Light. Mmm, taste the break-up of the nuclear American family! Absolutely NOTHING happening for about two minutes. Oh, boy. Torres with a leg kick. Banuelos with a trip up. They’re standing again. . .unlike Stephen Hawking. Torres with some jabs to the nose. Goldberg knows how to save face, so he brings up the GSP - Koscheck fight form last December to validate the effects of not knocking people out with your punches. Banuelos fires back with a right, and misses a spin kick by about three states. A bad, bad round. 10-9 Torres.

Torres making some room with some punches, but Banuelos has to scratch his groin, so the fight is stopped. No, really. More tactical jabbing from “Angel”. Banuelos finally gets a good shot in. Torres is landing, backing off, and landing. There’s only one person in the UFC that can make scientific boxing entertaining, and since Torres doesn’t live on a Hawaiian fortress with like forty other dudes, I suggest he CUT OUT THE MALARKEY. Torres is definitely using his reach advantage here. He has no intentions of winning the fight, outside of walking away with just enough points to not lose. COMPETITION RULES.

Round three. This is bad folks. Torres is connecting, but his shots really aren’t doing anything outside of landing. Torres stings Banuelos with a left. Banuelos backs up. About two minutes to go. Torres keeps jabbing. Minute to go, and Banuelos starts doing all sorts of crazy shit that would never work in a million, billion years.

The judges give the fight 30-27 across the board for Torres, and got his ass booed in the post fight interview. Yeah, something tells me that it’s going to be harder to make stars out of these WEC guys that we originally thought. . .

The winner of this bout gets some serious brand value, while the loser gets a guest spot on the undercard of the next Versus television special. This, of course, means that we have ourselves a “middle of the card” throw down that is expected to be awesome because the two contenders are really fighting for their livelihoods. Hey, that “fight of the night” bonus is sometimes the only thing keeping these guys out of having their homes foreclosed.

Rocha, on the other hand, is making just his second UFC appearance, following an impressive knee bar finish of Kris McCray at UFC 122. Rocha’s life is basically the plotline for a bad 1980s action movie: he was a Brazilian orphan that spent his entire teenage years learning how to jiu-jitsu. He won the FFA European Middleweight title in just his first professional fight, before defeating three men in one night to win the La Onda Manto Cup in 2009. Rocha has finished every single opponent he’s faced, and no one has lasted more than eight minutes in battle with him. And if Rocha wasn’t impossibly awesome enough, his nickname is “Ta Danado”, which is Portuguese for “The Damned”.

Folks, I’ve got a feeling this one won’t last very long. You might want to make it a quick trip to the pisser, because this bout may be over before you even have time to flush.

Shogun Rua, Junior dos Santos and Jose Aldo, Jr. are all in the house. Hey, what do all three of those guys have in common? That’s right, they all like crossword puzzles. Look it up on their bios.

Ellenberger comes out wearing this weird white track suit thing and the huge ass headphones. He’s like something from the future, man. . .if the future was one being dreamt up circa 1983.

Since Ellenberger is the world class wrestler guy, Rocha, the BJJ striker, scores the first takedown of the fight. Of course! Rocha has Ellenberger against the cage, and he’s working for a leg trip. Ellenberger scores a takedown in riposte. Rocha goes for a double leg takedown, and he has side control. Wow. Rocha momentarily has Ellenberger’s back, but gets thrown back into side control. Rocha looking for a leg lock, but he ain’t finding it. One minute to go in the first. Outstanding action so far. Both guys are standing. Ellenberger goes for a takedown, but Rocha does this bad ass hand stand flip counter (you’ll just have to see it to know what I’m talking about) Rocha finds a free arm, and works it until the bell sounds. Excellent round. 10-9 Rocha.

Rocha dives, and Ellenberger sprawls. Oh, I get it, you’re supposed to try and NOT get hit. Gotcha. Rocha tries a redux, with the same result. Rocha throws a Mortal Kombat kick that misses by about three or four degrees of longitude. Rocha goes for a knee, Ellenberger counters with a punch. Body kick exchange. Ellenberger scores a takedown with like twenty seconds left in the round. 19-19.

Third and final round. Whoever wins this one, wins the whole enchilada. Ellenberger connects first. Ellenberger with another left, and a takedown attempt. No dice. Clinch and some knees. The crowd is thankless, crude, and anything but speckless as the fight dies down. Ellenberger controlling the tempo with some punches. Thirty seconds to go, and Ellenberger scores a takedown. That’s probably enough to win him the fight, although he really didn’t look like a title contender in tonight’s match-up.

Split decision for Rocha. Some nutsack gave ALL three rounds to Rocha, by the way. The GPS coordinates to his house are as follows. . .

The on screen graphic for the next fight pops up, and the crowd goes BANANA. This is the fight everyone wants to see, even if it is stuck in the mid card. Ladies and gentlemen, your main event. . .which is actually two fights BEFORE the main event, but whatever.

I’ll be honest with you folks, when I think about this fight, all I’m seeing are flashbacks of that one King Mo \ Gegard Mousassi fight from the Strikeforce: Nashville show. It’s almost the exact same storyline here: hey, we’ve got two highly valuable light heavyweight prospects, so instead of giving them time to beat up on some veteran fighters, let’s make ‘em fight each other and see what happens!

Of course, it lead to disaster for Strikeforce: King Mo won the fight, only to get his ass kicked by Rafael Cavalcante in his first title defense. Mousassi ended up leaving the company after the fight, so all in all, the battle of prospects accomplished a grand total of effing nothing.

So, is this match up an equivalent example of giving people want they want sooner than they should? In the back of my head, I think that’s the case. If I was UFC head booker Joe Silva, I would’ve totally rearranged the card and had Jon Jones take on Forrest Griffin while Ryan Bader took on Rich Franklin, but hey, I’m not getting paid by Zuffa, so to hell with me and my logical thinking.

Anyway, let’s focus on what we have and not what we want to have and dwell upon this match-up. Of course, it’s a damn interesting bout, and I kind of doubt that ANY real MMA fan doesn’t want to see it transpire (even if we want it to happen a lot later down the road, but I’ve already said my piece on THAT).

Jon Jones is arguably the most entertaining fighter on the planet. This guy does stuff that’s straight out of Mortal Kombat, and finds so many new and exciting ways to maim people that I figure we ought to give him Tommy Dreamer’s old “Innovator of Violence” handle. Jones has one “loss” on his record, which was a DQ against Matt Hamill in late 2009. Really, it was a horrible call, and Jones “redeemed” himself by murder-death-killing Brandon Vera and Vladimir Matyushenko (no, not the Jewish rapper from a couple of years back) in 2010. Jones is particularly famous for his elbow strikes and judo throws, which in case you haven’t seen, are pretty god damn righteous, in my humble opinion. Dig up his fight against Stephan Bonnar from UFC 94, and you’ll see EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

Ryan Bader is, fundamentally, the light heavyweight division’s Great White Hope. The winner of The Ultimate Fighter 8, Bader has a 12-0 record in MMA, and is one the best damned wrestlers in the division. Of course, Bader has some knuckle power to go along with his grappling, as 5 of those victories have come via knockout (including a third round KO that sent Keith Jardine packing out of the UFC).

Obviously, this is a really hard contest to call. Does Bader’s wrestling give him a technical advantage, or does Jones’ unparalleled speed and precision give him the upper hand? A win here gives the victor serious leverage in scoring a title bout down the road, and I’m sure the loser will get fed a couple of easy W’s in order to prop him back up. There really isn’t all that much on the line here, to be frank, but it should still prove an interesting little match-up, regardless.

Bader comes out to, uh, music of some kind. Jones comes out rocking a Detroit Tigers jersey and looking like one bad mother of fathers. This one OUGHT to be good. Like I said, OUGHT.

In case you were wondering why Steve Mazigatti dyed his hair, that’s actually a FEMALE REF in the cage tonight. Yeah, Title IX finally kicked in last week. A UFC ad deal with TAMPAX is right around the corner, I suppose. . .

Circling to begin. Jones with a takedown. Bader with a NASTY guillotine. Jones pops out. Jones throwing knees from the side. Jones working for an arm triangle. He never gets it. Things get vertical. Jones almost CRO-COPS (or is it GONZAGAS?) Bader with a left high kick. Bader storms in for a takedown, and Jones stuffs it like a tamale. JONES LITERALLY LEAPFROGS OVER BADER AND STARTS PUNCHING HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD. Jon Jones, you are OFFICIALLY the new owner of the title “Innovator of Violence”. Once Tommy Dreamer stops crying, we’ll snatch it away from him. Jones on top, and he is smothering Bader like a plate of hash browns at Denny’s. And in case you were wondering, Jones is some of the starchiest gravy you’ll ever have to wrestle. 10-9 for Jones, easy.

Jones with a one two left and right combo. Bader connects. Bader looking for a homeroom shot, but Jones is just too fast for him. Couple of low kicks from Jones, a body kick, and Jones takes Bader down. Jones locks in a guillotine choke, and it is ALL OVER.

“Darth Bader” is pissed, while Jones celebrates. In the post fight interview, Jones thanks Jesus for giving him the ability to elbow people in the face, and this brings out SHOGUN MAURICIO RUA! Apparently, Rashad Evans swallowed his mouth guard last week, so Rua needs a new opponent for March 19. Shogun throws down the gauntlet, and Jones accepts. Holy shit. If Jones takes this fight on ONE MONTH’S NOTICE and wins the Light Heavyweight title, you’d HAVE to rank him #1 Pound for Pound. You’d just have to.

A nova making performance by Jones. The Shogun fight should be all sorts of awesome. And man, do I want some ketchup, for some reason.

Yeah, now is a good time for a break, isn’t it? Since this article probably won’t hit the site until Monday morning (at the least), I won’t comment on this year’s Super Bowl contest, primarily due to the fact that I just don’t give half a damn who wins. So, who was I rooting for, you may ask? Packers, Steelers? None of the above, unless rooting for the roof to collapse counts as an option.

But seriously though, Ben Roethlisberger is a rapist and an unequivocal piece of human shit that should be sitting in a jail cell in Denver instead of cashing in millions of dollars a year. Oh, I think he deserves a Lombardi trophy, all right. . .and he deserves he STRAIGHT up his corn hole, if you get my drift (I am implying that he should be raped in prison as an ironic punishment for his misdeeds).

Hey, Donovan McNabb is in the house! And so is that guy from Red Hot Chili Peppers. No, not Flea. The other guy. Yeah, him.

Now here is a match-up I, truthfully, don’t want to see. Granted, both of these guys are probable hall of fame inductees some day, but they have had their respective days in the sun. . .and trust me, sun dried cage fighters are about as desirable as sun dried mayonnaise.

Both guys are riding one fight win streaks, even though Griffin has not had a fight since late November of 2009. Before that, he got his ass handed to him by Anderson Silva, who has handed Rich Franklin’s own ass to himself twice now. Speaking of Franklin, his last victory was a knockout win over Chuck Liddell, which, yeah, definitely isn’t as impressive sounding as it would’ve been, I don’t know, five or six years ago. Before that, Franklin got KTFO by Vitor Belfort, which means that Franklin has the proud distinction of getting his ass kicked by both of the main eventers of tonight’s show.

So, what does this bout mean, exactly? Well, in the long run, pretty much nothing. Both of these guys are pretty much “made men” in the UFC, so they could drop their next eight matches and still remain employed by Zuffa. A title shot for both guys seems about as likely as a Louie Anderson comeback, and while the winner definitely gets placed in contention (meaning, he gets his ass kicked by the Jon Jones or Lyoto Machida eight months down the road), this isn’t something that I believe is PPV money-worthy. That is of course, unless we get some fluke KO (like Griffin knocking himself out with a mistimed spinning back fist), so for my sakes, they better bring the LOLZ in this one. . .

As a fledgling writer myself, I really can’t tell you how much it pains me to have to say the words “Forrest Griffin, professional author,” but hey, his shit is probably better than Stephanie Meyer or that Nazi that wrote the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” so I say keep the potboilers a coming, Griffy!

Franklin out to some AC/DC. I remember when I liked them, for about a week, in the seventh grade.

Crowd is pretty into seeing two vets throw down. Well, no, not two doctors that specialize in treating animals, but the other kind of vet. NO, not the one that served in the military. The. . .oh, who cares.

Round One begins. Franklin goes for a goofy kick, and Griffin falls on top of him. Griffin looks like he outweighs Franklin by about thirty pounds. Trust me, it looks it by the way Franklin is squirming. Griffin periodically dropping some meat burgers on Franklin’s grill. “The Ace” really can’t do anything here. Griffin continues to mix in elbow and fist strikes as the round expires. 10-9 Griffin.

Standing and trading to begin round two. Rich goes for a kick, and SURPRISE! Same thing happens as before, and now Griffin is on top and ready to, uh, do whatever Griffin does, I guess. Griffin throwing some head shots. Franklin up, and Griffin tackles him again. Man, Rich looks like shit in this fight. Griffin staggers Franklin with a right. Body kicks galore. Franklin finally lands a shot. Griffin misses two high kicks to close the round. 20-18 Griffin.

Franklin lands a left to being the final round. He shoots for a takedown, but Griffin stuffs it. Franklin with some high kicks, and a couple of punches that land. About two minutes to go, and Griffin lands a takedown. Franklin up and FINALLY lands a takedown of his own with about a minute left on the clock. Griffin with ANOTHER takedown, as we have a standstill in the last ten seconds of the bout. Should be an easy 30-27 for Griffin.

29-28, across the board for Griffin. Forrest looked a lot better here than most people thought he would. Conversely, Franklin looked a LOT worse than most people thought he would, too. It’s kind of hard to gauge where both men go from here, but I’d envisage that at least ONE of them has a date with Ryan Bader in the not too distant future.

Hard sell for the next 28 UFC shows. The patrons are leaving en masse to the bathrooms, which of course, means that tonight’s MAIN EVENT is soon upon us. But first, we have a teaser for “Eagle”, which is about, you guessed it, the late 90s e-commerce boom. Well, that, are cave people that fight Zulu warriors in white face. One or the other.

Hey, I just noticed something: Did you know that in Mexico, the title of “I Am Number Four” is “Yo Soy Numbero Quatro”? Yeah, it’s no “Yo, Roboto” starring Will Smith, but what the hell ever.

Whenever you watch an Anderson Silva bout, you can’t help but feel a little nervous. The guy, despite going on a 13 fight win streak, is the sort of polarizing figure that MMA fans embrace and despise with equal amounts of passion and rancor. Clearly, the guy is extraordinarily talented. . .he’s been the UFC middleweight champion for almost five years now, and outside of his last contest, he’s looked positively dominant in every single bout he’s had while employed by Zuffa.

But. . .today, we have some doubts about “The Spider”. For starters, we really have no idea what he’s going to do once he actually gets in the cage. Will he go out there and try to finish the fight, or will he just dick around for about 25 minutes like he did with Demian Maia? Granted, Silva hasn’t been given the most impressive of adversaries (James Irvin, Patrick Cote and Thales freaking Leites, namely), so I don’t think you can blame him too much for not giving a shit most of the time.

But then, there was the Chael Sonnen fight. As we all know, the UFC 117 headliner was my absolute favorite match of 2010, and one of the absolute best things ever in the history of anything. Despite being an absolute beast in the division for four years, Silva looked downright human in that bout, as Sonnen slammed him over and over again before Silva managed to sink in a last second arm triangle to save his belt and his reputation.

Anderson Silva is considered one of the greatest fighters on the planet. But. . .he’s 35. He’s starting to slow down, and he looked anything BUT the Anderson Silva of old in his last bout. Three years ago, we watched Silva bouts to see just how BAD he was going to mess up his opponent. But today, we watch Silva matches, because we assume that THIS fight is the one where he FINALLY messes up himself.

Enter The Phenom. Vitor Belfort is a guy that’s been fighting forever. I mean, literally, forever, since he made his company debut at UFC 12. Yeah, that’s right 12. With that in mind, you’d kind of expect Belfort to be roughly the same age as Stonehenge, but get ready for a shock, dear reader: Vitor, if you can believe it, is actually younger than Anderson Silva.

I may be wrong here, but I think this match makes Vitor the first person in UFC history to challenge for a championship belt at THREE different weight classes (Belfort actually began his career as a heavyweight, mind you, getting his ass kicked by Randy Couture on several occasions).

What do you need to know about Vitor? Well, he’s on a five fight winning streak, he’s an expert at Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, and oh yeah, the dude can flat our ROCK a mother, as our good amigo Rich Franklin found out about a year and a half ago.

These two guys have similar styles, so it may come down to a matter of who is fastest. Granted, both guys have some question marks - has Silva rebounded from that ass kicking at the hands of Sonnen, and has Belfort shaken off all of that ring rust in his time off? - but at the end of the day, either fellow can walk away the winner here. Of course, it would be a freaking HYUGE upset if Vitor gets the W here, but as we all know, WAY stranger things have happened in the Octagon before. . .

Belfort out first, to. . .stuff. Silva out second, to “No Sunshine” by DMX, as always. Vitor is the crowd favorite this evening, but Silva is the odds favorite EVERYWHERE.

Round one begins. For the first minute, absolutely nothing goes down. Typical Silva opening, right? Belfort goes for a low kick. Silva dropping his hands and doing the Demian Maia taunting special (if it does it for three more minutes, he earns a special attack!) Belfort lobs a bomb, but he can’t follow up on it. Silva with a high kick, and BELFORT TAKES SILVA DOWN. Silva is right back up, and Belfort is missing with some wild punches. And then, out of freaking nowhere, Silva hits Belfort with the Hulk Hogan Big Boot. I am dead fucking serious, people. Belfort is out like a light, and Silva drops a couple of punches on the ground for good measure. Dear lord, that was one of the most heinous knockouts I’ve seen in a LONG time. If nothing else, it’s going to be hard as hell to top that one for Knockout of the Year. Jee-zus.

Post-bout, Silva says stuff in Portuguese, while Belfort feels shame. That’s Silva’s eighth consecutive title defense in the UFC. He should have one more against Yushin Okami in July, and after that. . .I smell me the blood of a certain French Canadian welterweight. In the water.

No matter how you feel about Silva, you have to admit. . .seeing something like that DEFINITELY makes you take note that this dude is a BAD, BAD human being. And as Chael Sonnen is in Club Fed, it may be a LONG, LONG time before we see Silva being challenged for anything at MW.

Contrary to popular belief, having a mustache doesn’t help you throw better roundhouse kicks.

Phillipians 13:4 says “I just whipped your ass.”

If the author of two books that just so happens to outweigh you by about forty pouds of water weight sits on you, you’re pretty much fucked.

If you want to know Anderson Silva’s shoe size, take a look at Vitor Belfort’s face.

According to a possibly manufactured historical figure, cursing is a fantastic way to overcome one’s stammering, and being able to pronounce hard “P” sounds is the only thing standing between you and the Nazis.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. Crank up “Naked” by the Goo Goo Dolls and “Here’s to the Night” by Eve 6, and I’ll be seeing you in a couple of weeks. Adios, muchachos.