Man, what a sh*t kicking that was. It feels like just yesterday that our collective jaws dropped watching some kid named Junior Dos Santos working pads like a warrior poet (BRAVEHEART REFERENCE RAAAR) at the UFC 90 open workouts. Nearly four years later he is the champion, and it looks like he could stay in that position for a long time to come. Certainly longer than anyone else in UFC history – no one has managed to defend the heavyweight belt more than twice.

It was clear from the opening bell what Frank Mir’s strategy was: take the fight to the ground. But once Dos Santos started landing, that was the end of any kind of rational gameplan execution. From there Frank stood right in front of Junior and got boxed up til a shot to the temple wobbled him and a flurry saw him face plant seconds away from the end of the first round.

To Frank’s credit, he got right back up and came out for more in the next round. And Junior Dos Santos was more than happy to serve up a second helping. At this point there’s no denying Junior’s status as the hardest hitter in the UFC. Even if he hasn’t put you away in the first minute, he’ll still have beaten the fight out of you.

I guess the guys at THQ have moved their marketing monkeys off UFC Undisputed 3, so we can’t rely on them for an oh so accurate prediction of what happens when Junior Dos Santos squares off against Frank Mir. That leaves the simulatin’ job up to FightMetric:

FightMetric is proud to introduce the most advanced MMA simulation engine ever developed.

The MATUA model harnesses the power of FightMetric’s deep database of statistics to simulate a match based on the two fighters’ past statistical performance. The simulation is run 10,000 times to reduce random chance and then produces the number of simulations in which each fighter won, by what method, and in which round.

The resulting MATch Up Analysis, or MATUA, while not a true prognostication tool, produces a statistical view of upcoming fights that may see things that our eyes do not.

Fightmetric is already providing stats to the UFC and also has it’s magic formula for determining who won after the fact. This prediction thing is bold new step forward, and at this pace in five years the Precogs will simply deliver the championship belt to the winner before the fight even happens.

PPV Card

• Junior Dos Santos vs. Frank Mir
• Antonio Silva vs. Cain Velasquez
• Dave Herman vs. Roy Nelson
• Shane Del Rosario vs. Stipe Miocic
• Lavar Johnson vs. Stefan Struve

FX Prelims

• Diego Brandao vs. Darren Elkins
• Edson Barboza vs. Jamie Varner
• C.B. Dollaway vs. Jason “Mayhem” Miller
• Dan Hardy vs. Duane “Bang” Ludwig

Facebook Prelims

• Paul Sass vs. Jacob Volkmann
• Kyle Kingsbury vs. Glover Teixeira
• Mike Brown vs. Daniel Pineda

Frank Mir backseat drives Brock Lesnar’s fight against Alistair Overeem. Let’s hope Brock shows up at UFC 146 and films himself going “Why doesn’t Frank just not get punched in the face over and over and over and over and over again? I don’t get what he’s doing at all.”

Duane Ludwig is one half of what should be an extremely entertaining fight with Dan Hardy, and MMA Weekly has an excellent two part video series on the guy. You can check out part two after the jump, but first here’s Duane talking to the Rebellion MMA radio guys about some wild times in Montreal with Bas Rutten:

“I’ve got a handful of [Bas Rutten] stories but one that sticks out is my fight with Jens Pulver in Montreal. It was the night before weigh-ins and he and a buddy got pretty drunk and passed out for awhile and when they woke up they thought they were out for so long that they missed the fight. Bas’ buddy is telling him ‘yeah we missed the fight and Duane won but you weren’t in his corner, you were actually in Jens’ corner’ and he started flipping out. I’ve got so many stories, that guy is a character, I love that dude.”

Bas is one of those guys who’s addiction manifested itself in such entertaining ways that I wish he was still in the bottle. It’s like Trent Reznor: much better when he was doing blow off Marilyn Manson’s dick. Sure these guys have added several decades onto their lives, but that seems like a rather selfish way of looking at it. The needs of the many, man.

Don’t forget part two of that Bang Ludwig video blog after the jump, or this Sunday’s Rebellion MMA radio show.

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Here’s a clip from Joe Rogan’s Video Blog #17 where he sits down with Rampage Jackson to clear the air about some past commentating that had Quinton pissed off. Hands shaken, backs patted, beefs squashed. Knowing Rampage though, he probably went right back to being pissed with Rogan two days after this video.

My God this Ariel Helwani. He noticed a casual comment Dana White made on the Underground forums and through that managed to ferret out White’s rough retirement schedule:

“It’s not that I have this plan that I’m out in seven years. I know what the seven-year plan is with this Fox deal, and I think my place in this sport and in this organization … I’ve always known what it was that I wanted to do, and I absolutely know that we’re gonna do it in the next seven years. I know where this thing’s gonna go and where it’s gonna be, and I think that in seven years the sport — the athletes that are competing in this sport, building all the weight classes, doing all the things that need to be done — we’re gonna get this stuff done in the next seven years. And the one goal that we did set out to do was to get this thing in every country. We’re gonna be there in seven years. So I’m not saying ‘Oh, I’m retiring on the day this Fox deal is up,’ or anything like that, but that is kinda what’s on my mind.”

If his heart doesn’t explode like a hand grenade inside his chest first from all the stress and rage he pumps through it every week.