ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

The first ever UFC card to take place on Swedish soil saw a main event that featured two fighters seemingly headed in completely opposite directions.

On the one hand was 25-year-old Alexander Gustafsson, who cruised to a decision victory in what, at times, resembled a sparring session for him. In doing so, he drew generous comparisons to champion Jon Jones from UFC commentators.

Then there was 29-year-old Thiago Silva, making his first appearance after serving a one-year suspension for altering his urine sample in January 2011. The greatest compliment Silva received was that he showed heart.

Hey, you got utterly dominated, but at least you're still standing, right?

Both are still young enough to believe the best years lie ahead but after watching Gustafsson completely own Silva for 15 minutes, it’s hard not to think that theory only applies to one of the men here.

Gustafsson (14-1) managed to come off very impressive, despite the fact he was never really tested. The comparisons to Jones might be premature, but the observations on his footwork and elusiveness -- a testament to the work he’s done with trainer Eric Del Fierro -- were spot on.

The 6-foot-4 Gustafsson is not ready for a fight against the untouchable Jones, but at least there’s a foundation here hinting that somewhere down the road, he might be.

The same could not be said about Silva (14-3). The Brazilian’s return to the Octagon could very easily (and accurately) be described as nothing short of a disappointment.

To be fair, it was a difficult set of circumstances for Silva. It was just his third contest dating back to January 2010, making it tough to establish any kind of rhythm in the cage. He also accepted the matchup against Gustafsson on short notice.

Those excuses, though, aren’t enough to justify what amounted to a sloppy performance.

Once viewed as a legitimate threat to the light heavyweight title, Silva was blatantly one-dimensional in his approach Saturday. Against a rangy opponent like Gustafsson, many expected Silva to try and get on the inside, push the action against the fence or test his abilities on the ground.

Silva ended up doing none of these, opting instead to stand at the end of Gustafsson’s punches. Basically, his only offensive attempts came in the form of the same one-two combination over and over again. And for a fighter who’s known for his intimidating demeanor, Silva showed a surprising lack of killer instinct. He visibly hurt Gustafsson with a right hand in the second round but refused to go after him.

His only legitimately aggressive moment came in the fight’s final 10 seconds, long after the outcome had already become clear. He was easily frustrated during the fight and looked as he might have been winded as early as the second round.

“It was bad,” Silva said, immediately after the fight. “I couldn’t feel my legs. I did my job. I tried to push as much as I could. Alexander is a tough guy. I couldn’t find the distance. He deserved the victory.”

Silva is in no way in danger of losing his job in the UFC, but that’s not really the point here. The point is, he just returned from a situation in which he was caught cheating. After serving a one-year suspension, he deserved to come back and I didn’t rip the UFC when that comeback came in the privilege of a main event fight. He paid his dues. If the promotion needs him to headline a card, so be it.

But to see him perform so badly in that kind of opportunity though, was disappointing. While the sky is certainly the limit right now for Gustafsson, we may have already witnessed Silva's peak.

It’s been six weeks between Zuffa events; plenty of time to contemplate Marlon Sandro decked out as the Bellator icon. And if there’s ever been a six-week span where so much wonderment has gone into the amount of testosterone found in horse filets, I’d like to hear about it.

But beginning Saturday in Stockholm, the UFC gets back to its furious pace. Over the next several weeks, there will be UFCs to keep us busy, all of them stubbornly numbered in pay-per-views, in FOX, FX and Fuel shows -- not to mention the occasional Strikeforce event. As such there will be a lot of debuts from guys like Yoislandy Izquierdo and Sweden’s own Magnus Cedenblad. The producers of Starz’s Spartacus could never have invented such fitting names for its crop of warriors.

Here’s a look at five things to keep an eye out for at UFC on Fuel TV 2, and some storylines that might (or might not) be of immense interest to you.

Gustafsson’s handling of the spotlight

It’s not only a homecoming for Alexander Gustafsson, but it’s his first main event on a card specifically designed with him in mind. And it’s his first time fighting as a true cusp contender from both a marketing standpoint as well as from the general notion that he’s part of what’s left out there for Jon Jones at 205 pounds. That’s a lot of pressure for the 25-year-old from Arboga, Sweden. But it’s the kind of pressure that comes with sustained success in a league founded more or less on attrition.

Gustafsson will be fighting Thiago Silva, who was originally supposed to be Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Which is the more imposing foe? Probably Silva, who has only lost twice in his career, and each of those were against former champions (Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida). Silva would be a huge notch for Gustafsson, enough of one to rev up the title talk. And coming in, it’s hard to find much wrong in the Swede’s game since losing to Phil Davis at UFC 112. It’s not that he beat four guys in a row, but he finished them all, twice by TKO (Vladimir Matyushenko and Matt Hamill), and twice by rear-naked chokes (James Te Huna and Cyrille Diabate).

If he adds Silva to that casualty list, it means the “Mauler” has truly arrived.

Silva’s potential ring rust and mental state

In a time when commission findings get more headlines than the fighters themselves, we must remember that Thiago Silva was the original bizarre. After his UFC 125 drubbing of Brandon Vera, the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended Silva when it was discovered that his prefight urine sample turned up “inconsistent with human urine.” He tried to mask banned substances by submitting urine that he ordered online. This didn’t work out. To his credit, Silva admitted right away to his course of folly and took his punishment, which included a yearlong suspension.

Well, it’s been 16 months since the Vera fight, and through a beneficial set of circumstances he ends up in a main event. The UFC tried to set up a rematch with Vera. When Vera was a no-go, the UFC tried to stick Silva in there against a tough but not-so-glamorous Igor Pokrajac. Then they needed a viable opponent for Gustafsson when Lil Nog went down. Enter Silva, who is still a top-10 light heavy in the UFC. Yet you have to wonder if the time away from the cage, the mental taxation, the travel, the fact that he’s fighting a rising star in a rising star’s homeland, and the oppositional musical chairs will hinder him in some way.

If none of that matters, it means Silva right where he left off before those ongoing back issues led to some monstrously bad decision-making.

Dennis Siver as a featherweight

He was no slouch as a lightweight, but German fighter Dennis Siver wanted to try his hand as a 145-pounder after losing his footing in the 155-pound title race to Donald Cerrone. His first opponent as a feather? Diego Nunes. And if you remember, when Kenny Florian made his much-ballyhooed drop to 145 pounds, he was greeted by Nunes in his new weight class, too.

As a symbol, Nunes has helped more people lose weight than trainer Mike Dolce.

How will the weight cut play a role for Siver? It remains to be seen, but the kickboxer was knocking off some pretty tough guys as a smallish 155er -- guys like Matt Wiman, Spencer Fisher and George Sotiropoulos. In other words, he’s a wily vet.

Brian Stann getting his brawl back on

The bane of Brian Stann’s existence so far as a professional mixed martial artist is wrestling. He was dominated on the ground by Phil Davis and, after dropping down to 185 pounds, ran into Chael Sonnen at UFC 136 and suffered the same fate. It’s been a long six months since then.

Yet lucky for Stann, Alessio Sakara -- the free-swinging Legionarius -- would just assume gather up all the singlets and have a bonfire. He was recently outwrestled by Chris Weidman, and it left a bad taste in his mouth for no other reason than it wasn’t his kind of fight. That is to say, it wasn’t a brawl. In fact, going back to his 2006 bout with Drew McFedries, any Sakara fight in which there was a finish has always come by KO or TKO. He was on the wrong end of those nearly as often as he wasn’t.

Think this thing is tailor-made for Stann? Could be. But there are plenty of people in Italy thinking the exact same for Sakara.

Damacio Page on the plank
This might be the fight of the night -- two tightly wound bantamweights coming off of losses, each of whom brings it every time. Between Brad Pickett and Damacio Page, Page is the one on the slipperier slope, having lost back-to-back fights to Brian Bowles and Demetrious Johnson. In both of those he was choked out via guillotine.

That’s not likely to happen against Pickett, whose nickname is “One Punch.” If Page loses here, it’ll likely be by decision or because he got caught. With Greg Jackson in his corner and some intangibles (read: survival mode), it might set up a perfect storm to revisit the Page of 2009, the one who fought a grand total of 1 minutes, 20 seconds in finishing off Will Campuzano (via rear-naked choke) and Marcos Galvao (via punches).

Either way, this looks like the great unsung fight that could steal the show.

At this point, it’s all upside for Alexander Gustafsson.

Sorry, my apologies for using one of mainstream sport’s more insipid buzzwords here, but there really is no other way to describe the talented 25-year-old Swede. A few days out from his fight with Thiago Silva at UFC on Fuel 2, Gustafsson has already been issued a ticket to the top of the light heavyweight division.

Now all he has to do is cash it in.
As ESPN.com’s Chuck Mindenhall expertly illuminates, there is a lot riding on this fight. In a sport where we often write the postscript before the action has actually happened, people are expecting big things from Gustafsson. With Rashad Evans at the plate and Dan Henderson on deck, he’s already speculated to be in the hole for Jon Jones.

Never mind the fact that this weekend marks his first ever main event for the UFC.

Never mind that the kid has never been out of the second round, or that the signature win of his career so far is a 9-minute TKO over a version of Matt Hamill who already had one foot out the cage door.

Never mind that we have no idea how he’d fare in the kind of five-round war of attrition it could take to wrest the title from Jones, a champion so young and dominant that he’s forced us to take this long lens view of the light heavyweight ranks in the first place, eager as we are to see what the future holds for him.

Barring the emergence of a breakout presence on the order of Jones himself, it’s Gustafsson or bust for the 205-pound division. Despite a UFC 112 loss to Phil Davis, he’s been judged by most to be further along in his development (to be the most ready for Jones, you might say) after Davis’ unanimous decision loss to Evans in January.

This is no one’s fault, obviously. Gustafsson is simply possessing of the kind of size (he’s listed at 6-foot-5), athleticism and finishing ability that naturally spark the imagination. He’s simply established himself as the most interesting and exciting young light heavyweight not named Jon Jones and that makes him the object of our great expectations.

The flipside of those expectations, of course, is that anything less than claiming that title shot will be judged as a personal failure for Gustafsson. If he slips up and loses to Silva this weekend, not only will he be found wanting by the scores of pundits who’ve already put him in line for that opportunity, but the 205-pound division might well lose its dominant and marketable champion to the heavyweight ranks before the end of this year.

Does all that add up to unneeded and unfair pressure for a kid who is already making his maiden voyage at the top of a card by headlining the first ever UFC show in his home country?

It sure does. Then again, to get to where he’s going, Gustafsson might as well make peace with the fact that his most difficult task won't be simply defeating his opponents, but living up to the hype.

In the “who’s out there to challenge Jon Jones” discussion, Alexander Gustafsson is the light heavyweight intrigue right now. He is the horizon, the challenge looming at the end of the Mayan calendar for the current champion. Should he lose to Thiago Silva this weekend in his native Sweden in the biggest fight of his young career, intrigue becomes pretty scarce in what has traditionally been the UFC’s glamour division.

So what happened to the well depth at 205 pounds?

Jones happened. Jones happened so fast and Jones pummeled so furious that people are already talking about what he can do to as a heavyweight. Everybody knows that imagination is always first to round the curve, but in this case it feels like meteorological forecasting. Jones is a storm front. In fact, he himself says his days at 205 pounds are numbered, because those skinny legs that earned him the nickname “Bones” will eventually fill in.

And all of this is conversational because Jones has yet to meet his equivalent in a weight class that had for so long been defined by parity. He’s already defended the belt more than anybody since Chuck Liddell’s run from 2005-2007. Since then Quinton Jackson, Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Lyoto Machida -- remember the Machida Era? -- and Mauricio Rua have tried on the belt, couldn’t handle its weight, and ceded it. They’ve all become afterthoughts to Jones’ run -- except for Griffin (who no longer looks like an imposition) and Evans (whom he faces in Atlanta on April 21).

None of the above has made it even so far as the judge’s scorecards.

If Jones defeats Evans at UFC 145, he will still have to get by Dan Henderson, who has been patiently waiting in line since November. After Henderson? As much of a stretch as it seems, it’s Gustafsson. That is, if Gustafsson continues to win. If Silva triumphs in Stockholm over its native son, it could be the heavyweight division sooner rather than later for Jones.

In other words, it’s possible that Jones will have cleaned out the division by summer of 2012. Nobody cleans out divisions nowadays -- nobody. And you know the power of his star is immense when there’s nothing far-fetched in any of this, except for the usual cautions that come with taking anything for granted. For as dominant as Jones is, this sport was not founded on foregone conclusions. If there is a wrench, it looks like this: Jones beats Jones. This is what Greg Jackson and the entire Albuquerque crew are guarding against as much as they are Evans’ takedown ability.

But the next two weeks could clue us in a little bit on Jon Jones’ (extrapolated) future. If Gustafsson holds court, he will have effectively graduated to title talk, which is big in a division of expiring names. Gustafsson might still have to win one more in pursuit of the 205-pound title, but he’d at least appear as viable. In the game of marketable matchmaking, appearances might have to do.

Would Silva look as viable? It’s possible. But right now Silva’s biggest wins are against guys that looked far more imposing before he fought them than after. Guys like Houston Alexander, Keith Jardine and Brandon Vera (which was overturned to a "no contest" due to steroids). Silva is set further back than Gustafsson. Even if he beat the Swede he’d have a harder time convincing the masses that he’s the fork in Jones’ road.

The bottom line is this: If the two favorites in the next two UFC main events win, that means a collision course is setting up. If Jones wins and Gustafsson doesn’t? It’s one last defense with Dan Henderson, and then a lot of talk about how Jones will match up with the likes of Junior dos Santos, Frank Mir and Cain Velasquez.

As he prepares to take on Alexander Gustafsson on Saturday at the UFC’s first-ever show in Sweden, Thiago Silva finds himself at an interesting time to return from a drug suspension.

Or -- in the interest of accuracy, I guess -- a drug-related suspension.

After all, Silva didn’t get handed a one year ban from competition for shooting an illicit substance into his spine prior to UFC 125 so much as what he did to try to cover it up. Instead of taking the rap for the injectable itself, Silva opted for what is probably the most hilarious way to fail a commission administered drug test: Submitting a sample that ultimately proved “inconsistent with human urine.”

If you know you’re going down, might as well go down in flames, right?

At the time, we all had a good laugh. Fast forward a little more than 12 months, however, and Silva is about to step back into an MMA landscape riddled with high-profile steroid scandals. After Quinton Jackson voluntarily confessed to hormone replacement therapy, Cristiane Santos got pinched for using an old school bodybuilding drug and Alistair Overeem submitted a urine sample consistent with a human who is totally jacked out of his mind on testosterone, fight fans could conceivably be in a fairly unforgiving mood these days.

There is no telling how this second tour of duty might go for Silva. With a record of 14-2 (now with one no contest), his only previous losses came against former 205-pound champions Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida but he also hasn’t exactly defeated a “who’s who” of top talent during his UFC career.

Prior to his suspension, Silva had bounced around the outskirts of the light heavyweight top-10, but after spending a year forcibly removed from the action, his most notable Octagon wins over the likes of Keith Jardine, Houston Alexander and James Irvin suddenly don’t seem overly extraordinary anymore. Most recently, he’d also been slowed by the back injury he eventually blamed for his drug use.

Silva remains something of an interesting talent, but the lack of big wins, the injury trouble and the drug suspension all make it difficult to nail down what kind of future he might have.

Luckily for him, his employer appears ready to forgive past transgressions, accepting his time served and inserting him directly into a nationally televised main event bout against Gustafsson in his first fight back. Even if it is one where Silva enters as close to a 2-to-1 underdog against a hometown hero who some observers expect to mature into a future foe for champion Jon Jones, it’s probably a better assignment than Silva might’ve expected, or deserved.

Perhaps such surprising post-suspension treatment can be chalked up to good behavior. Fact is, Siva was actually refreshingly honest about his drug snafu, at least once it became clear that officials had him dead to rights.

“I used a urine adulterant when giving a sample following my fight with Brandon Vera,” Silva said last year via a prepared statement. “I did so in an attempt to alter the results of the test and knowingly broke the rules of the Nevada [State] Athletic Commission. This was a terrible decision on my part for which I will be punished. I am prepared to accept this punishment, learn from it and move on. I apologize to the commission, the UFC, Brandon Vera and the MMA fans.”

For an MMA drug test mea culpa, that’s about as good as it gets. In light of it, perhaps fans and promoters alike will be willing to give Silva a second chance.

Make that a last chance, as he prepares to reenter a culture that by now should be about one steroid scandal away from its breaking point.

If there was one spectator of the UFC on FOX 2 show in Chicago on Jan. 28 with a heavily vested interest, it was Dan Henderson, the circumstantial No. 1 contender in the light heavyweight division, and a circumstantial top challenger in the middleweight division. Henderson is a renaissance contender. The problem is, he’s a renaissance contender with the most stubborn obstacles.

We saw how things turned out. Rashad Evans beat Phil Davis to finally punch his ticket to Jon Jones, and Chael Sonnen escaped Michael Bisping to set up what might become the biggest event in MMA history with Anderson Silva. For as perfect as those match-ups look for finality to long-fostered acrimony, this left 41-year-old Dan Henderson in the lurch.

At least as far symbolic belts are concerned.

Contrary to popular belief, though, Henderson isn’t necessarily interested in waiting to see how Jones-Evans plays out to firm up his shot. He says if there’s an opponent that makes sense, he’d like to fight sooner rather than later. Waiting isn’t his style.

“That was never what I said or anything,” Henderson told ESPN.com. “I don’t know who said that, but it wasn’t me. My thoughts were I was waiting to see what happened with Rashad [Evans] and Phil Davis. That was the only thing I was going to wait for.”

The person who said that was Dana White himself, who told media that Henderson was in a position where it “looks like he’ll wait for Jon Jones.” That would be fine and good for Henderson, if the UFC could promise a quick turnaround after the Jones-Evans fight in Atlanta on April 21. Problem is, guarantees like that aren’t realistic given the hazards of the fight game.

“Obviously you can’t guarantee that nobody gets hurt,” Henderson says. “I don’t know what the plan is, but I’d fight whoever it is they think would be a good match-up. The problem is there’s really nobody right now who fits the bill for a title contention fight, that would make sense to fight me. I don’t know. Maybe I’d fight at a different weight class. I don’t know if they see anybody at heavyweight that would make sense? But I would prefer to fight someone in April or May.”

“

That was never what I said or anything. I don't know who said that, but it wasn't me. My thoughts were I was waiting to see what happened with Rashad [Evans] and Phil Davis. That was the only thing I was going to wait for."

” -- Dan Henderson

Henderson turned down a title eliminator with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira that would have been the headlining bout for the now-scrapped Montreal card. He did that because he was waiting to see what would happen with Evans-Davis. Now with Evans having won and Nogueira booked to fight Alexander Gustafsson in Sweden on April 14, Henderson is left without a dance partner.

And that opens up a range of possibilities. One of them is fighting at heavyweight. Though he had to drink a gallon of water to make weight in his final Strikeforce bout with Fedor Emelianenko in July, fighting bigger guys has never spooked Henderson. In fact, it can’t help but intrigue him.

“For sure it does,” he says. “Who do the fans want me to fight at heavyweight? I’d have to think about that. I don’t know who at heavyweight would even make sense. The heavyweights that are in title contention right now wouldn’t want to fight me. I don’t know who is out there, but I did let the UFC know I’d be open to that as well.”

There is one fight that could be on the horizon that Henderson would strongly consider, and yet again it’s circumstantial. If Quinton Jackson were to beat Ryan Bader at UFC 144 on Feb. 26, he says that a rematch of their 2007 UFC title tilt would be fun.

“I would entertain that fight, sure; it’s a big fight,” he says. “I mean, that’s only one win he’d be coming off of. But again, it depends on the circumstances and I don’t know what they’re talking about in terms of the turnaround after Jones/Evans. Still, the Quinton Jackson/Bader fight is two months before Jones/Evans.”

Whatever the route, as long as it leads to a title shot -- preferably in his natural 205-pound weight class -- Hendo is all for it. If you’ve followed Hendo throughout his career, you know that he loves the idea of conquering indestructible forces. He’s made a career of it. And it’s no different if he gets his wish and finds himself standing across from Jon Jones in 2012.

“I think he’s definitely shown some inexperience,” he says of Jones. “He makes up for it with a lot of athleticism and just unorthodox striking. He definitely -- like anybody -- has holes in his game, and I just think that my style would match up real well with him.”

But first things first: Hendo will have to navigate through the set of circumstances that are right now preventing it.

Had Rich Franklin been more privy to Alexander Gustafsson, we’d either be talking about the rung-climbing Swede as a foil to Jon Jones (more than we are now) or not talking about him at all. It was a tailor-made passing of the guard moment that never happened.

That’s because Franklin, who was offered a fight with Gustafsson at UFC 133 on short notice when Antonio Rogerio Nogueira was injured, had only the foggiest notions about “The Mauler,” so he politely declined the bout. Franklin was interested in marquee fights, and was looking for more of “a name.” Gustafsson wasn’t that.

Not yet, anyway -- but the times they are a changin'.

Gustafsson was supposed to fight Vladimir Matyushenko that night in Philadelphia, but ended up with Matt Hamill when Matyushenko was injured. It was a carousel card, full of patchwork matches that soured Joe Silva’s understanding of the cosmos. Nevertheless, Gustafsson made the most of his moment, and knocked out Hamill in the second round. Those who witnessed his rude treatment of James Te Huna and Cyrille Diabate might have seen this coming. That he very abruptly knocked Hamill out of the fight game for good was the surprise.

To cut to the chase, after that performance, Franklin (along with plenty of others) has now heard of Alexander Gustafsson. And that makes his rescheduled match with Matyushenko this weekend at UFC 141 a sort of catapult moment for the 24-year-old. Already a cusp top-10 fighter in the tumultuous 205-pound division, an emphatic win over the stalwart Matyushenko would legitimize Gustafsson as a contender in 2012. As unflattering as it seems, Matyushenko has become a clear definition of the term “gatekeeper.”

And if any of this seems hurried, consider that this was a similar situation that Jon Jones found himself in toward the end of 2010, when he himself had to get through the brute wrestler Matyushenko. He did, and with menacing ease. What happened next? Jones went about tyrannizing 2011 by earning, winning and defending his belt (twice). So much for bringing these guys up slowly. Jones tried to clean out the division in the space of a calendar year. Now the word you hear bandied about with his name right now is “unparalleled.”

Gustafsson’s rise in the ranks has been far quieter, and realistically won’t be the expedited course that Jones got. But when you look at his poise in the Octagon, his versatility (two wins by KO, two by submission in the UFC), and the upside -- precision, length, chin, desire -- he has the feel of a noisemaker. The difference is the landscape. When Jones beat Matyushenko, the light heavyweight belt was a hot-potato accessory. A year later, the belt is part of the man. And the pool of challengers is fairly shallow. In fact, there are only three names that come to mind who are close to challenging Jones -- Dan Henderson, Rashad Evans and Phil Davis.

Gustafsson has a chance to join that company of Friday night.

How “serious” is he as a contender? It boils down to Matyushenko. Win, and momentum builds into top-10 fights, and guys like Franklin begin to appear as a step backward.

Lose, and the road forks from destination Jon Jones towards the tundra of Krzysztof Soszynski.

Matt Hamill didn’t look like a man beset by injury against Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 133 on Saturday night, nor did he look like a man who knew the end was at hand.

Maybe that’s the point.

After taking the fight on a bit less than a month’s notice and admitting afterward he didn’t have much of a game plan, Hamill largely held his own against the 24-year-old Swedish up-and-comer before a final exchange that saw him succumb to a TKO three minutes, 41 seconds into the second round.

You could argue he didn’t do any worse than the average late-replacement fighter who climbs in the cage just planning to wing it, so it was a mild surprise on Monday when Hamill announced his retirement in a prepared statement on his official website, citing a years-long accumulation of injuries and what sounded like psychological exhaustion.

“I just don't have it in me to fight anymore and my last two performances have shown that …,” Hamill said in the statement. “I can't continue to fight without having the hunger and desire to do so.”

You know what? Good for him.

Hamill clearly knows he still has things to accomplish in life. Autumn will see the official release of his self-titled biopic, a film that’s already netted a handful of awards at regional film festivals and garnered decent advanced reviews from people in fight circles. As the first deaf fighter to compete in the UFC and a decorated amateur wrestler, he’ll no doubt have more than his fair share of business opportunities coming his way, so it’s admirable that he’s decided to try to take advantage of them now, before the fight game exacts any further toll.

His MMA career likely isn’t one for the history books, anyway, and even if Hamill looked fairly capable on Saturday night -- moving around the cage well and marking Gustafsson's face with a lunging jab -- his best days in the UFC were surely behind him. After back-to-back losses to Quinton Jackson and Gustafsson and that embarrassing “win” against Jon Jones back in December 2009, it felt as though a gulf was widening between Hamill and the top of the light heavyweight division. That gap wouldn’t get any narrower moving forward.

Instead, Hamill opts for the smart way out, taking with him a 9-4 record in the UFC, three of the company’s incentive-based postfight bonuses and a list of opponents that includes four past and present world champions.

No, Hamill may never have won a title in the Octagon, but in retiring at age 34 with most of his physical and mental faculties intact, he pulled off a much more important feat. He got into the fight game, he left his mark with 14 career fights (all but one in the UFC), he made a little bit of money and he got out. You can’t play it much better than that.

On paper and aside from an admittedly compelling main event, UFC 133 doesn’t figure to be one of the fight promotion’s more stacked efforts of 2011. When the UFC treks to Philadelphia on Saturday, it will be with a lineup beset by numerous injuries and more recognizable names on the shelf than on the finalized card.

That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot on the line, however. In fact, there is so much at stake for some of this weekend’s competitors that it was difficult just to narrow the lists of who has the “most to gain” and “most to lose” down to a trio of fighters each. Apologies to guys like Vitor Belfort, Jorge Rivera, Matt Hamill and Nam Phan, all of whom are facing considerable risk/reward situations at this show, but who didn’t make the cut.

Who did? Whose seat is the hottest this weekend at UFC 133? Who stands to improve his standing in the company the most with a win? And who might be looking for work come Monday if he doesn’t? Here’s a look …

Most to gain:

1. Tito Ortiz: On the brink of the glue factory just a couple of months back, Ortiz has a chance to become No. 1 contender for the light heavyweight title and author one of the most surprising career turnarounds in UFC history if he can defeat Rashad Evans. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. In terms of slightly more tangible gains, after saying the $450k he officially earned to fight Ryan Bader in July constituted a “big pay-cut” for him, how much do you think Ortiz is making to step in on short notice for the injured Phil Davis here? Dude, way more.

2. Tie: Dennis Hallman and Mike Pyle: Both guys have been fighting since the '90s, both turn 36 later this year and both are probably more respected by other fighters than by the average fan. For whatever reason, neither has ever been able to put together a sustained run in the UFC welterweight division until now and it’s pretty much last-chance-at-greatness time for both. Pyle goes in search of his fourth straight win in the Octagon when he takes on Rory MacDonald on Saturday and Hallman is looking for his third consecutive UFC victory against Brian Ebersole. It's doubtful either will ever be the champ, but one more W and people might actually take notice of what they're are up to at 170 pounds.

3. Alexander Gustafsson: The 6-foot-5, 24-year-old Swede has all the physical tools to go a long way in the 205-pound division. Already 4-1 in the Octagon, he just needs a signature win to get him on his way. Meanwhile, Hamill’s star may have faded some since his ugly loss to Quinton Jackson at UFC 130, but a win over him would be a good way for Gustafsson to jump-start his own march to contender status.

Most to lose:

1. Rashad Evans: Evans desperately needs something to show for his trouble after sitting out a year waiting for a title shot that didn’t happen and then losing his home gym when he fell out with Jon Jones and Greg Jackson. Just a month and a half before he turns 32, he’s no spring chicken anymore and anything other than a dominating win over heavy underdog Ortiz could be seen as a sign his career is moving in the wrong direction.

2. Chad Mendes: Officially the featherweight division’s “No. 1” contender, Mendes opted to risk that status by taking a fight against Rani Yahya at UFC 133 upon learning champ Jose Aldo was out with a bum neck. Now, it turns out Aldo will be good to go against Kenny Florian at UFC 136 in October. So, yeah, kind of a raw deal for the Team Alpha Male fighter. It’ll get even more raw if he slips up against Yahya, who is just 1-2 since 2009.

3. Mike Brown: After beginning his career 22-4, the former featherweight champion has lost four of his past six. Oddly enough, so has Phan, who will be Brown’s last-chance opponent at UFC 133. More accurately, Phan is just 4-6 in his past 10 fights and losing to him would not only end Brown’s tenure in Zuffa, but would further dig him into a hole that would be mighty hard to pull out of with the limited time he has left.

Honorable mention: Yoshihiro Akiyama. The sexy one would be a shoo-in for this list if there weren’t so many other guys on the card with so much to lose. Since coming to the UFC in 2009, he’s slumped to a 1-2 career mark in the Octagon and some might even argue his lone win -- a unanimous decision over Alan Belcher at UFC 100 -- was a bit of a gift. If he loses to Vitor Belfort this weekend and hangs onto his job, it’ll only be because the UFC has designs on a show in Japan come February.

With his victory over Anthony Pettis at “The Ultimate Fighter 13” Finale, Clay Guida has positioned himself to make a run at the UFC’s 155-pound championship. Could a title eliminator against Jim Miller or Benson Henderson await? More »