PRELIMS

• Marcus Brimage defeated Maximo Blanco via Split Decision (28-29, 30-27, 29-28)
  Dana White was not a happy man, sarcastically tweeting about the fight itself, and I’m sure he wasn’t pleased with Blanco’s flips and antics after the fight itself, either. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get his walking papers this week.
• Chris Clements defeated Keith Wisniewski via Split Decision (28-29, 29-28, 30-27).
• Mac Danzig defeated Efrain Escudero via Unanimous Decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
  After the fight, Danzig told reporters he eventually wants to fight Nate Diaz. He noted he might need to rack up a few more wins before he gets there. Yep.
• Anthony Njokuani defeated John Makdessi via Unanimous Decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
  Fought at catchweight because Makdessi came in three pounds over and wasn’t able to drop at the weigh-ins. Njokuani, who’s on the larger end of 155, wasn’t happy to say the least.
• Matt Brown defeated Stephen Thompson via  Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-27, 30-27)
• Travis Browne defeated Chad Griggs via Submission (R1 2:29, arm-triangle choke) Browne receives UFC’s Submission of the Night bonus. Browne receives UFC’s Submission of the Night Bonus.

MAIN CARD

• Mark Bocek defeated John Alessio via  Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28, 30-27)
• Eddie Yagin defeated Mark Hominick via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) Yagin & Hominick receive UFC’s Fight of the Night Bonuses.
  Some thought Hominick got robbed here. I had it 29-28 Yagin by a narrow margin. You could make an argument the other way and I wouldn’t call you batshit crazy, but Yagin’s strikes the first two rounds were far more significant and he knocked Hominick down in each. Hominick had a Hell of a comeback in the third round, but he was way too tentative even while Yagin was on rubber legs with his hands drifting down, essentially letting Yagin walk away with the win.
• Michael McDonald defeated Miguel Torres via KO (R1 3:18, punches)
  Torres is only 31, but he’s much older in fight years and it’s starting to show.
• Ben Rothwell defeated Brendan Schaub via KO (R1 1:10, punches) Rothwell receives UFC’s Knockout of the Night bonus.
  Perfect performance by Rothwell, who is in the best shape of his life. Schaub came out like an animal. Where most would have panicked and succumbed to the onslaught, Rothwell stayed patient and waited for his opportunity to counter. And boy, did he ever. Poor Schaub has talent, but that boy cannot take a punch, likely as a result of his football days.
• Rory MacDonald defeated Che Mills via TKO (R2 2:20, punches)
  Nevermind the fact that this was in the main event: this was a strange fight to make in the first place. Putting a largely untested prospect whose career highlight so far is a KO win over Chris Cope in there against a legit Top 10 Welterweight borders on the absurd. MacDonald just completely dominated him from the moment the fight started, and as soon as it got to the ground Mills had absolutely nothing and couldn’t even hook the leg from sidemount. Rogan on commentary seemed insistent on telling us otherwise, all but saying that Mills was the most underrated guy to ever put on gloves. Clearly they’re positioning MacDonald for something. My speculation is that with November being the absolute earliest estimate for St. Pierre’s return, he’ll end up with a shot at Carlos Condit’s Interim Welterweight Championship.
• Jon Jones defeated Rashad Evans via Unanimous Decision (49-46, 49-46, 50-45)
  What can I say that hasn’t already been written? I gave Evans the first round by the narrowest of margins, but from there it was all Jones. To the credit of both, Jones tried to finish but Evans wouldn’t allow it to happen. I was shocked to see people crap all over this fight. I thought both fighter did everything they could: Jones tried everything he could to put Evans away, but “Suga” wouldn’t allow it. Also, people forget that Evans is on the much smaller end of 205 and could (maybe should) be fighting at 185. Immediately after the event it was announced that Dan Henderson, who had been told some time ago that he could have a title shot at any weight class he wanted, would get the next shot at Jones. The Light Heavyweight Division in the UFC the last two years is the most competitive in its history, and Jones walked right through it and has all but cleaned out the top ten. Amazing.

Tomorrow night is the long-awaited showdown between former stablemates Jon Jones and Rashad Evans for the UFC Light Heavyweight Title. Will the phenom Jones continue his ascendance, or will Evans play spoiler?

If he did, it wouldn’t be the first time. Even when Evans knocked out Chuck Liddell with an overhand right to win his first title in what was considered a huge upset, we should have known better. Evans thrives on the insistence people have in underestimating his skills and intelligence. It may seem ludicrous to call the consensus #2 Light Heavyweight in the world underrated, but it’s apt. Sure, he got caught against Machida, but it literally happens to the best of them.

I’m picking Jones, but I wouldn’t call an Evans win an upset. Not even considering that due to various injuries, Evans has only fought three times in the last two years. Because I know better by now, and you should too.

The full card, and my picks for the main broadcast:

Preliminary card (streaming live via the UFC’s Facebook page)

• Featherweight bout: Marcus Brimage vs. Maximo Blanco
• Welterweight bout: Keith Wisniewski vs. Chris Clements

Preliminary card (airing FX)

• Lightweight bout: Mac Danzig vs. Efrain Escudero
• Lightweight bout: John Makdessi vs. Anthony Njokuani
• Welterweight bout: Matt Brown vs. Stephen Thompson
• Heavyweight bout: Travis Browne vs. Chad Griggs

MAIN CARD

• Lightweight bout: Mark Bocek vs. John Alessio
• Featherweight bout: Mark Hominick vs. Eddie Yagin
• Bantamweight bout: Miguel Torres vs. Michael McDonald
• Heavyweight bout: Brendan Schaub vs. Ben Rothwell
• Welterweight bout: Rory MacDonald vs. Che Mills
• Light Heavyweight Championship bout: Jon Jones (c) vs. Rashad Evans

PICKS:

• Bocek over Alessio via Submission, R3. Alessio’s a bit of a wild card. He’s done well for himself the last few years, but Bocek’s been fighting a much higher level of competition in the UFC and WEC.
• Hominick over Yagin via TKO, R2. Both are finishers and this should be an aggressive, explosive encounter. A lot of people are writing off Yagin, but I think he’s going to give Hominick quite a bit of trouble.
• (Michael) McDonald over Torres by Unanimous Decision. I like Miguel, but I think his days of being at the top of the Bantamweight Division are over, at least for the time being. The competition hasn’t completely passed him by, but but this division’s only gotten stronger in the last three years. McDonald has looked great, so great that I’m picking him to win even though he shares a name with a Yacht Rocker.
• Schaub over Rothwell by Unanimous Decision. Rothwell is tough enough to survive Schaub’s onslaught, but doesn’t have the offensive tools to put him in any real danger. Barring bad cardio from Schaub, this is his fight to lose.
• (Rory) McDonald over Mills via TKO, R3. This or Homonick/Yagin is going to get Fight of the Night. Mills has a good game, but McDonald is quite possibly the most underrated guy at 170 (and the one who put Nate Diaz out of the division).
• Jones over Evans via TKO, R4. I’m having what you might call a premonition. I see Rashad keeping distance between himself and Jones in the first round and surprising him with a couple takedowns, grinding out a 10-9 on the judges’ scorecards. Then Jones will adjust and batter him the next three rounds, ending in either a stoppage early in the 4th or in Evans being unable to answer the bell. If anybody can beat Jones, it’s Evans. But the kid’s a monster. Case in point: if he wins this fight, he’ll have cleaned out the Light Heavyweight division in a manner of a couple years. Amazing.

Former WEC Bantamweight champion Miguel Torres was fired by Dana White after tweeting a rape joke on Thursday.

Miguel Torres was publicly fired by Dana White yesterday after White was blindsided by “Outside the Lines” host Michael Landsberg about an offensive rape joke that Torres posted to his Twitter account earlier in the day.

The tweet, which was originally said to be a reference to an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia but Ariel Helwani later tweeted was from an episode of Workaholics that Torres was watching, was deleted and replaced with an edited version after Torres caught some heat for it online. Either way, Torres didn’t provide any context, and when Landsberg made White aware of it, he was furious.

This comes on the heels of the UFC on Fox 2 press conference, where Rashad Evans told his opponent, Penn State alumnus Phil Davis, that “you’ll be the first one to take a shot cause I’m going to put my hands on you worse than that dude did them other kids at Penn State.” White seemed amused at the comment initially, but later said he didn’t hear it clearly and that it was “a dumb thing to say” in light of the Sandusky controversy.

Immediately there was a cry of “double standard.” Rashad got a talking-to from Dana White, while Torres got fired by proxy. Seems unfair, right?

Well, it is. As much as people like Miguel Torres, he’s not a star like Rashad Evans. If you’re going to fire a guy to make an example, you don’t do it to one of your most recognizable faces that is, by the way, headlining your next event on Fox. It would be cynical and dismissive to just simply say “them’s the breaks” and that life is sometimes unfair, but MMA is no different than any other sport in this. If Tom Brady said something stupid during a press conference and a third-string linebacker later tweeted an offensive comment, you can guarantee that a similar scenario would play out. Brady would have to apologize and would get a talking-to, while the third-string linebacker would be sacked without hesitation (no pun intended).

The other thing to consider is that White was physically there with Rashad for the press conference, and could at least address it immediately and give the appearance of some degree of culpability and regret. With Torres, White was blindsided and embarrassed on a national stage (even if that nation was Canada). He didn’t even have the opportunity to say he apologized for his fighter’s comment, that his fighter wasn’t thinking, and that the issue was addressed. And as embarrassing as it was for Dana, it would have been even more so if, say, he had been asked first by a member of the American press. In fact, his first scheduled interview right after Landsberg was with Sports Illustrated, and I guarantee he was grateful it was in that order rather than the other way around.

It’s also worth mentioning that Torres has done this before. Dana was quick to say that Torres is an otherwise good guy and that there hasn’t been an issue previously. But as Cage Potato pointed out, he’s always been known by fans to tweet some fairly offensive, shock humor tweets to get a rise out of people, and specifically use rape as the subject (exhibit A, exhibit B).

The thing is, it’s not funny. And I don’t mean that from a standpoint of taking offense, but that it’s all just hack comments meant to shock, but none of them are amusing and rarely are they provided with context. The bottom line is that Miguel’s just not as good at being funny as he is at being a fighter. It reeks of desperation, insensitivity, and stupidity. We all know he’s better than that, but some guys just can’t help themselves until it’s too late.

I’m going to go out on a limb (okay, not really) and say that we’ll see Torres back in the UFC before the end of 2012. I don’t expect this to be a lifetime ban. I do, however, expect that the UFC is going to start sending more messages like this to their fighters to remind them that they have finally, after years of struggling to get the sport passed in several states, gained mainstream notoriety and acceptance. But with that comes the cost of being under a microscope. The days of MMA as a niche product are gone, and as much as fans like having access to their fighters and those fighters being genuine and forthright, sometimes – just like in day to day life – some discretion is necessary.

That represents a significant drop from the previous WEC televised card in January, which was headlined by a Lightweight Title bout and the return of featherweight and perennial WEC drawing card Urijah Faber after a seven month lay-off. The only other card in the last two years to do worse numbers was last December’s WEC 45, which had no star power other than former Lightweight champion Donald Cerrone, a minor star in the promotion’s weakest weight class, who was just coming off a decision loss to Ben Henderson.

The sudden drop has had several folks speculating what this means for their initial foray into pay-per-view this April and if, in the grand scheme of things, this means the sky is falling on the promotion.

Former WEC Bantamweight champion Miguel Torres

The answer is no. Well, not yet at least. The WEC does have problems, but they extend far beyond a poor rating on Saturday night.

WEC 47 had a lot working against it. For one, most of the audience was largely unfamiliar with the two fighters competing for the Bantamweight title. Bowles had yet to prove that his knockout of Miguel Torres was anything more than a fluke. His challenger, Dominick Cruz, was a viable challenger statistically but had only fought on television once in the last three years. Anticipation and buzz for the fight was almost non-existent.

The WEC had also heralded the card behind fights featuring Jens Pulver and Miguel Torres, but they represented problems as well. Pulver had once been a draw for the promotion due to his association with the UFC and an exciting series of fights with Urijah Faber. He also went into the event coming off five consecutive losses, and most simply did not buy him as a viable challenger in a stacked featherweight division. The return of Miguel Torres did present some opportunity to bring in viewers, but despite his efforts he does not have the following or star power of someone like Faber.

Beyond the lack of star power, the card was also a victim of timing. It came on the heels of the aforementioned pay-per-view venture, which had both promoters and the viewing audience looking past the event and towards the showdown between Faber and Jose Aldo in April.

The real problems in the WEC lie in places other than the poor number they drew in Saturday, and the fallout from the events of the card itself should yield greater concern than its ratings: it resulted in the retirement of Jens Pulver, the demystification of Miguel Torres, and yet another brief Bantamweight title reign ended unexpectedly. Those three fights alone have placed the WEC in a conundrum: it now finds itself venturing into an uncertain pay-per-view market while it’s hemorrhaging star power.

In terms of its drawing power, the Bantamweight division is a relative no-man’s land. It’s seen a sudden surge in talent that has resulted in parity at the top of the weight class. What’s good for competition, however, can be bad for business.

Revenue in combat sports is made by and thrives on consistency. As an example, the UFC’s biggest draws at the moment are its most dominant champions: Brock Lesnar, Georges St. Pierre, and Anderson Silva. Fans need to believe that a challenger could potentially usurp the champion in order to maintain interest, but a title switching hands too often results in the perception (whether accurate or not) that it’s a wide open field and any number of fighters could become champion on any given night. As a result, the fighters in the division gain the respect of hardcore fans and analysts while the value of the title they’re vying for is diminished in the eyes of the casual viewer.

Featherweight Urijah Faber is still the WEC's most proven drawing card, but for how much longer?

That leaves the Featherweights, and in particular former champion Urijah Faber, to carry the weight of the promotion on their backs. Needless to say, if Faber wins the title he’ll re-establish himself as the flag-bearer of the division and the WEC as a whole. A loss against such a worthy opponent will not hurt his reputation as a fighter, but after two losses to Mike Brown will definitely hurt the WEC’s ability to push him as a major star.

In addition, WEC is going into its first pay-per-view while losing momentum as a promotion. Some place the blame for the significant drop in overall viewership over the last several events squarely on the Versus/DirecTV debacle. However, that argument requires we ignore the fact that WEC 46 in January drew 640,000 viewers. That matches (and in some cases even beats) the higher-profile cards WEC presented while still airing on DirecTV, while none of the previous three cards topped 420,000 viewers. The success of that particular event is directly attributable to the presence of Urijah Faber on the card and further evidence of his value.  If Faber were to lose to Aldo in convincing fasion, it’d be a disaster for the promotion.

New Bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz may be the future of the promotion.

The only potentially positive outcome would be Jose Aldo as the promotion’s version of Anderson Silva: a nigh-untouchable striker whose exciting knockouts make him worth watching no matter who he’s matched up against. WEC also has a charismatic and potentially bankable Bantamweight champion in Dominick Cruz, so long as he can string at least two successful title defenses. If he can do so, the WEC will have an even bigger star at 135 than it had with Miguel Torres.

I personally would like to see the WEC succeed, as I truly believe it’s provided the best fight cards of the last three years and is the most consistently entertaining promotion in the world. Unfortunately, they’re not going to be a priority for parent company Zuffa (which also owns The UFC) and as a result they have few options in terms of resources and fighters. It’s almost unfair to expect a promotion to succeed when it’s restricted to two relatively untested weight divisions and a third weight division with an already shallow talent pool subject to raiding by the UFC.

The MMA industry is uncertain terrain for any promotion. Even the UFC – the most recognizable brand name in the sport’s history – finds itself serving at the whim of circumstance; the various injuries and re-shuffling of cards last Fall testify to that fact. In that sense, the WEC’s predicament isn’t unprecedented, nor is it hopeless.  But the events of the last several months have increased the pressure to perform well in its inaugural pay-per-view outing.