ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

Long before facing Ryan Bader on Sept. 4, landing a UFC light heavyweight title shot was something Glover Teixeira was confident he would achieve.

His confidence, however, didn’t end there. Teixeira went into the Octagon in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, not only expecting to beat Bader, but his next opponent as well. That would of course be the winner between champion Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson -- those two will meet Saturday night at UFC 165 in Toronto.

But first things first: He needed to take care of Bader. And as far as Teixeira was concerned, that would be relatively easy. In Teixeira’s mind, Bader posed no threat whatsoever.

After watching countless hours of video on Bader and going through a vigorous training camp, the soon-to-be top-ranked light heavyweight contender concluded a victory was certain. Teixeira will never admit this openly, but the look on his face while walking toward the cage made it clear that he didn’t take Bader the least bit seriously.

Teixeira went into that fight overconfident, especially about the possibility of Bader standing with him. It might not seem like much, but that mindset nearly cost Teixeira the victory and a light heavyweight title shot.

“I was really confident,” Teixeira told ESPN.com. “I was a little concerned about his wrestling, but I was in no way concerned about his hands at all. In my mind, there was no way this guy was going to do anything standing up.


“But that [being hurt by Bader] gave me a wake-up call. Anybody in this game is a difficult fight, and you have to be careful.”

A Bader right hand in the first round stunned Teixeira, and for a brief moment it appeared his hopes of getting that title shot were about to end. But Teixeira quickly recovered and, during an exchange of punches, he delivered a right hook that floored Bader. Teixeira immediately jumped on his defenseless foe and finished him with strikes.

Despite overcoming that momentary scare, the direct result of being overconfident, Teixeira vows it will never happen again. It was a flaw that has since been corrected, and Teixeira is now a better overall fighter.

His confidence remains high; he just makes sure to keep it check. With overconfidence, which might have led to defeat in a title fight, out of the way, Teixeira can turn his full attention to Jones and Gustafsson.


Teixeira is eager and mentally ready to face the winner. He expects it will be Jones and believes the timing is right to dethrone him. But unlike in the days leading to his fight against Bader, Teixeira is already taking a measured approach.


The confidence is still there, and with his win streak now at 20, Teixeira has no reason to start doubting himself. But he isn’t about to take Jones or Gustafsson for granted. He’s smart enough to know that each guy poses a serious threat.

“I went into the [Bader] fight with a guy who I never thought could hurt me with his hands standing up,” Teixeira said. “But the next fight, I am going to be careful with everything. Even if Gustafsson wins this fight, I will have watched everything. I’m going to be prepared for his ground, his wrestling and for his stand-up.

“He is known for his great stand-up, but not so much for his ground. But I will be prepared for everything. This guy can give me a hard time on the ground as well.

Still, Teixeira is picking Jones to defend his title Saturday.

“But I believe that Jones is going to [beat Gustafsson],” Teixeira said. “Jones is a more complete fighter. He’s a better wrestler, has better ground, the stand-up is pretty even, but [Jones] is smart enough to take him down.

“I believe in myself against Jon Jones, but I still have to watch this fight, all of his fights and study everything. But I believe in myself.”

While already familiar with the fighting style of each UFC 165 main event participant, Teixeira isn’t satisfied with his knowledge. He will be seated at cageside Saturday night. Being in close proximity allows Teixeira to absorb the atmosphere that surrounds a UFC light heavyweight title bout; it also offers him a chance to see first-hand the tendencies of Jones and Gustafsson inside the Octagon.

“I’m going to be close; I believe I’m going to get a good seat and I’m going to be watching him from there,” Teixeira said. “And I will get the adrenaline going, fighting for the title, because I know that is the next thing I am going to be doing.

“I will feel the vibe and see how everything is going to be. I’m going to be watching those guys and probably do some interviews, so it’s going to be a good vibe, a good thing for me.”

Glover Teixeira's quest to the UFC light heavyweight championship has taken on a predatory tone.

That's why the 33-year-old Brazilian will pay a visit to Toronto the night of Sept. 21.

Since debuting in the UFC a year ago in May 2012, Teixeira has rolled through five opponents while handing down a quartet of finishes. The latest came Wednesday with an opening round stoppage of Ryan Bader in Brazil -- impressive enough indeed for UFC to confirm Teixeira gets next after Alexander Gustafsson tries Jon Jones in Canada.

As UFC ascensions go, a more threatening contender could not have been produced. Teixeira always was a brute. He’s unbeaten since 2005; including his UFC venture that’s 20 consecutive victories. Living up to that reputation has helped induce an air of intimidation when he’s around the Octagon.

To this end, Teixeira’s title-focused journey is instructive and predictive. The guy embodies dangerousness. Let there be no doubt about that. So we should expect him to do as he’s done. This is why fight watchers won't stretch their imaginations much to envision Teixeira beating, perhaps stopping, Jones or his lanky Swedish challenger.

"To tell you the truth I don't have any preference; my dream is to get the belt," Teixeira said through a translator after stopping Bader. "But I believe Jon Jones will win, that's the way I see it, and I definitely prefer him as well in a certain manner because Jon Jones has a better name, he's been a champ for a long time, so whoever goes to face him has to be very focused, very well-trained, and to look at his game to make him disappear.”

Disappear. Like Bader on the end of Teixeira’s fists, which thud with a concussive, uplifting and motivating quality.

“I believe I have it and if I hit [Jones],” Teixeira said of his power, “he's going to go down."

Like Teixeira's mentor Chuck Liddell, the emerging light heavyweight possesses trainer John Hackleman’s bravado and left hook (both were useful in starching Bader). He's gifted with being an agile powerhouse. Thick and strong, Teixeira is put together like a bruising light heavyweight. He isn’t especially fast. If there's a knock against him, there you have it. Faced with greased lightning like "Bones" Jones, Teixeira could wind up looking silly. Then again, when a masher walks into a cage willing and able to give one to get one, speed can be fleeting and overrated.

Bader was faster than Teixeira, but Teixeira didn't care because he wanted a knockout. He waited for a knockout. He waited for Bader “to punch me so I could punch him.” He did.

"That's one thing he brings to the table against Jon Jones is the ability to put him away,” Bader said of Teixeira. “Props to him. He had a great fight. Definitely feel he has a great chance of getting the title."

Despite Bader’s endorsement, Teixeira wasn't totally pleased with his effort. He thought he was hit too much (he was) while waiting to counterattack.

“I was very close to him. That's where he got me,” Teixeira said. “I remember we always have to move and we always have to be the first. I have to do my strategy, which is always to move my head around and to go forward. And to make punches connect.

"As they say in English, 'Hit and don't get hit.'"

For what it's worth, Jones must have thought enough about Teixeira's effort to comment. The champion said on Twitter that he didn't mind if people thought he’d lose, he simply wanted to hear a logical argument how. Teixeira, wrote Jones, regurgitated memories of Quinton "Rampage" Jackson "just with better grappling." That would be a quick and sloppy assessment.

When Jones or Gustafsson take a closer look at Teixeira they’ll find a heavy-handed, persistent striker, a stalker with enough accuracy and explosion to instantly change a fight. They’ll see a guy who downed Bader while standing with his feet parallel to the cage -- hardly an ideal power-producing scenario. They’ll see someone competent to initiate and defend grappling exchanges. They’ll see a man unafraid of submission attempts.

They’ll see him in Toronto, watching, like the predator he appears to be.

The plan is set, and the wheels are in motion. Hard-hitting light heavyweight contender Glover Teixeira will land a title shot with a victory Wednesday night at UFC Fight Night 28 at Estadio Jornalista Felipe Drummond in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

This isn’t a secret. Everyone is aware of the plan -- Teixeira and titleholder Jon Jones (who’s expected to defeat Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165 on Sept. 21) have been briefed. UFC president Dana White has spoken publicly about the matter.

Ryan Bader also knows of the plan, but doesn’t like it one bit. He is the guy penciled in to be Teixeira’s next victim. Bader, however, does not intend to play along. He has a plan of his own -- to dash Teixeira’s hopes of landing a title fight anytime soon.

“It pisses me off that everyone is overlooking me,” Bader told ESPN.com. “He’s talking about a title shot, other people are talking about a title shot. Fans are saying I don’t have a chance and how good the fight is going to be between [Teixeira] and Jones.

“But he has a tough fight ahead of him on Sept. 4 and I’m looking to spoil all their plans. UFC is saying that he gets the next title shot with an impressive win. A lot of people are going to be upset on Sept. 4. I’m going to come out and take everything away from them.”

A lot of hype has been heaped on Teixeira from the moment he signed with UFC in February 2012. Thus far, in his brief Octagon career, he has met all expectations. He has finished three of his four UFC opponents -- only former 205-pound champion Quinton "Rampage" Jackson has gone the distance with him.

Despite the impressive showings, Bader isn’t fully convinced Teixeira is the fighter folks believe him to be. He’s good, even Bader concedes that much, but title shot-ready? Bader is of the opinion that’s taking things a little too far.

“He’s had his long win streak,” Bader said, referring to Teixeira’s current 19-fight victory run. “But he’s had this long win streak outside the UFC. If you look at his record, who has he fought? If you look at our past six, seven fights and put them side by side, I’ve definitely fought much tougher guys.

“

Definitely; I'm going to go out there to knock him out. No doubt. I'm going to pressure him, pressure him the whole time. I'm going to stay in his face and push him back; he's going to be walking backward the entire fight.

” -- Glover Teixeira on his fight against Ryan Bader on Wednesday.

“His hype is deserved because he has been winning, he’s undefeated in UFC and all that, but he hasn’t fought the right brand of people. If he fights the right brand of people he’s definitely going to lose, and his night [to face the right brand of opposition] is the night we’re fighting.”

Teixeira isn’t angered by or losing sleep over Bader’s comments. He’s heard these sentiments a lot since word of him being next in line for a title shot surfaced. But the comments have served to fuel his determination to put on a spectacular performance Wednesday night in his native Brazil.

When the main-event showdown is over Teixeira expects not only to be victorious, but to end questions about his legitimacy as the No. 1 light heavyweight contender. Teixeira is on a personal mission: Put Bader to sleep and leave fight fans shocked by the viciousness of the destruction.

“Definitely; I’m going to go out there to knock him out. No doubt,” Teixeira told ESPN.com. “I’m going to pressure him, pressure him the whole time. I’m going to stay in his face and push him back; he’s going to be walking backward the entire fight.

“He’s a very tough opponent. But I’m going to go out there and finish this fight before the fifth round.”

Bader, on the other hand, has a slightly different view of how the fight will play out. His approach is to feed Teixeira a heavy dose of wrestling.

“I definitely want to make this a fight he isn’t used to; he’s not used to being on his back,” Bader said. “He’s a strong aggressive striker, he hits hard, he comes out and tries to be in your face but I definitely look to put him on his back in this fight.”

That fight plan is one more reason Teixeira is confident he will beat Bader. According to Teixeira, Bader has several holes in his game -- though he didn’t offer any specifics.

But Teixeira does point to Bader’s fight plan and shakes his head in disbelief. Have Bader or his trainers closely examined Teixeira’s skill set? Teixeira thinks not, especially if they’ve concluded that wrestling is the key to defeating him.

“Ryan is a good wrestler, but I train with much better wrestlers than Ryan Bader,” Teixeira said. “I’m a good wrestler myself. I’m confident in my wrestling, but there is one thing I don’t care about and that’s being on my back. That will make it more difficult for him because I’m confident in my jiu-jitsu as well.”

Finally, for those who say he isn’t yet deserving of a title shot because there are no top-10 light heavyweights on his UFC ledger, Teixeira offered these thoughts: “I don’t mind it too much. I can’t look at it that way. Ryan is a top-10 fighter. When I fought Rampage he was ranked nine or 10; I don’t know.

“Every fighter in the UFC is dangerous. Hey, I will just keep fighting. And if they keep giving me top-10 guys I will keep fighting and winning.”

The word “popularity” trumps a word like “retread” six days of the week. It did in the case of Quinton Jackson -- the popular, yet polarizing, former UFC champion who just became Bellator’s latest acquisition, according to a Spike TV press release. “Rampage” is presumably headed to the so-called “toughest tournament in sports.”

And with him comes an ounce of that hard-to-find intrigue.

Bellator will hold a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles to make the announcement. If a 34-year-old on a three-fight losing streak and with strong associations to a rival league seems like an odd choice for a multiyear contract with Bellator, that’s because it is. Traditionally, Bellator has steered clear of picking up the UFC’s sloppy seconds, with a few exceptions. Just last week, Bellator inked prospect Bubba Jenkins, a collegiate wrestling champion from Arizona State who is 3-0 in MMA. That’s a signing that falls more in line with the Bellator ideology of unearthing talent. Landing Jenkins was a major boon.

But Jackson isn’t exactly a cast-off either. He was a disgruntled UFC employee who openly battled with Dana White and the UFC over pay, treatment, integrity, the reinvention of B.A. Baracus, fighting boring wrestlers and a descending scale of pettier issues over the past few years. He’s not known as an “entertainer” for fighting alone. That’s why he fits with Spike, where he can roam into pro wrestling waters under the TNA platform (an idea he’s flirted with before) and play a role in the network’s reality programming. With “Rampage” comes drama, and in his case, that’s interchangeable with “baggage.”

You know what else he brings? Star power and accessible validity.

After all, as of UFC 135, Jackson was name enough to challenge Jon Jones for the UFC’s light heavyweight belt. He didn’t make good, but the UFC sold more than 500,000 pay-per-views, which was the most since UFC 129 when Georges St-Pierre fought Jake Shields. It was the most pay-per-views sold for all of the UFC 130s. When he fought Dan Henderson on Spike, there were 6 million viewers.

Even in a sport where yesterday is a distant memory, that wasn’t so long ago. Yes, the Japan homecoming at UFC 144 against Ryan Bader was a disaster, with the missed weight and the swirling chaos of his TRT/groveling over how the UFC had handled him poorly. And yes, his sayonara bout with Glover Teixeira wasn’t exactly the barn burner he (or we) imagined. Just like Rashad Evans, Henderson and anyone who’s been in the fight game long enough, he’s capable of duds. Ennui is a hard thing to shake.

Yet even with all of that, what’s not to like about this signing? It was Josh Koscheck who said that fans can love him or hate him, it doesn’t matter, so long as they care. Signing “Rampage” will get people to care. And realistically, Bellator could use some love and caring, especially for its tournament structure that stubbornly makes a star of attrition. That concept’s not a fit for everyone. Maybe not even for Jackson, who has had trouble with motivation and weight in the past. It's tough to maintain health, weight and mindset through three fights in three months for anybody. But for a millionaire who doesn't particularly need to?

Then again, remember that he made a name in those Pride Grand Prix’s back in the early days fighting the likes of Wanderlei Silva, Chuck Liddell and Mauricio Rua. Those yesteryear names now become Attila Vegh and his longtime off-limits rival Muhammed Lawal -- not to mention Emanuel Newton, who knocked “King Mo” out in February with a spinning backfist. There’s something about those Memphis “bungalows” that tuned people in, even if they’re being flung at the more curious retread cases of Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Vladimir Matyushenko.
There are always exceptions to the exceptions.

The thing is, Bellator hasn’t strictly adhered to anything other than its own bracketology. Hard to imagine it giving Jackson special treatment and holding him out of the 205-pound tournament. And the promotion has loosely gone about its business of bringing up the next best names over the past couple of years. It's scored with Michael Chandler, Ben Askren, Pat Curran, Eduardo Dantas and Eddie Alvarez (now the subject of a fierce tug-of-war). This is its traditional model, insomuch as tradition exists.

Yet while Jon Fitch didn’t raise the Bellator eyebrow when the UFC released him with a 14-3-1 record under Zuffa, Jackson -- 7-5 in the UFC -- did. Why is that? Fitch will never be confused with entertainment, that’s why. He was never a champion. He doesn’t use words like “bungalows,” much less throw them. Eyeballs aren’t as likely to follow his every move.

Jackson, on the other hand, doesn’t feel too much like the UFC’s leftovers. Kudos to Bellator for thinking inside the box enough to see it.

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson will step into the Octagon on Jan. 26 to face off against Glover Teixeira. It is a clash that pits two of the division’s heaviest punchers in what promises to be a barn burner of a fight and, for Jackson, an opportunity to end his contract with the UFC by beating one of the most highly touted light heavyweights since Jon Jones.

Some may see this as an opportunity for Teixeira to make his name and "retire" Jackson from MMA. But Jackson, the former Pride and UFC champion, has other ideas. He is far from retiring as a fighter and has plans that could see him becoming an even bigger draw both in the sport and the mainstream media. After Jackson made changes to his camp, specifically a new nutritionist, and spent time at the new Wolfslair facility in Wigan, England, his trainers are excited by his current form. Manager Anthony McGann was also vocal about any ideas that Quinton is merely seeing out his contract.

“Quinton is looking like the old Rampage in the gym. Believe me, he is already ahead of the curve in training and is going to be 100 percent for the fight,” said McGann.

Jackson is as focused as ever on the upcoming bout with Teixeira, leaving all the distractions of home behind to train with head Muay Thai coach Dave Jackson, Bobby Rimmer (Ricky Hatton’s former boxing trainer) and grappling coach Tom Blackledge.

“I’m with Soulmatefood now and they are planning all my nutrition really well. I was with Mike Dolce for a while but I just got tired of him experimenting on me,” Jackson says. “I used to have to cut a lot of weight with that guy. He would give me a lot of bread and Nutella sandwiches. At the time I was loving it, but then I had to pay for it when I had to cut all the weight.”

That, along with a bad knee injury, meant that Jackson's last outing was not the performance he wanted to give his Japanese fans as he dropped a defeat to Ryan Bader. “I got no respect for Bader. I don’t understand guys that just want to hold you down. It’s MMA; I got no problem with takedowns and wrestling, but just holding a guy down ain’t my style.”

That loss to Bader, and the way Jackson felt he was treated afterward, is a major reason why the fighter decided to not renew his contract with the UFC.

“There’re a lot of reasons I’m leaving the UFC, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was that they knew I was injured before the Bader fight. The card wasn’t strong enough for the fans. I didn’t feel I could pull out of the fight because it was in Japan and that’s where I came from. The UFC had all the old Pride fighters busy,” explains Rampage. “They knew they [were] going to Japan but they had Dan Henderson, Shogun [Mauricio Rua], all the guys fighting before. Then they tried not to put me on the card and go to Chicago on a Fox card, and I just couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t use the Pride guys.”

Though Rampage took the responsibility to fight with his injury, he said it was Dana White’s reaction to his loss that pushed Jackson to make his decision to leave.

“Dana said [publicly] my head wasn’t into the fight and he talked some s--- about me even though he knew I had the injury. They’d helped me with the injury. That was the last straw for me.”



While "Rampage" Jackson has clearly fallen out of love with the UFC, his MMA career is far from over.

“I’m training better than ever now my knee is fixed. I was fighting with a bum knee for 12 years and it finally gave out on me before the Bader fight. Now I’m getting better, I’m getting faster. I’ve got a good team around me and I’m more positive now so I know this is the next chapter for me. I’m training harder than I have in a long time and I know I’m gonna destroy this guy,” Jackson states calmly. “These next fights are about my legacy. I wanna go out there and destroy some people in MMA and move on and start making movies and TV shows and video games.”

Rampage, then, clearly has a focused plan beyond the UFC and is showing no signs of slowing down. “I got at least 10 more fights in me and I want those fights to be my legacy, but I want to do that in a positive organization.”

However, before any of that, he must first take on Glover Teixeira and show the fans and his detractors that Rampage remains a dangerous threat in the cage. Many are questioning Quinton, citing the fact that he has lost his last two bouts. But, one was a Fight of the Night loss to the champion Jones, while the other saw Jackson injured yet determined to give the Japanese fans a show.

“I’ll fight anybody to get this last fight out of the way. I can’t wait to leave the UFC and have nothing to do with them anymore,” reveals Jackson. “I don’t see Glover as a huge threat or that his skills are so good. He’s pretty tough. I mean, anything can happen in the cage. MMA is unpredictable. My job is to fight and I take chances all the time.”

But Rampage and his team are obviously doing their homework, looking at Glover’s skills and examining key areas. “I am sure he is going to try to take me down. He’s talked all this smack about how he is gonna stand with me, but he’s gonna do what everyone else tries to do and take me down.”

In truth, Jackson doesn’t care what Teixeira is going to try to do.

“I’m going out there to destroy him, and then I’m done with the UFC and I can move on.” In what should be an explosive last Octagon outing for Quinton Jackson -- win, lose or draw -- Rampage is eager to get the job done and look to the future.

Vinny Magalhaes is a world-class grappler. That much was obvious from his run through "The Ultimate Fighter" season 8 cast, where he submitted everyone he faced leading up to the final, including his former training partner at Team Quest, Krzysztof Soszynski.

Yet, while he was super-slick horizontally, he was shackled by his own subpar stand-up. It was a glaring deficiency, and one he simply couldn’t compensate for. We saw it when he was knocked out at the hands of Ryan Bader in the "TUF" finale that season, and again when Eliot Marshall didn’t compromise an inch at UFC 97. The Marshall fight was the shoulder-shrugging moment for the UFC. It served him his walking papers because his game wasn’t whole.

By now, the bulletin is an old one that’s been passed around and snickered over for years: This is MMA, not “The Singular Thing You’re Great At.” Disciplines have to come together in concert; otherwise, what shows up isn’t the medals earned in world submission grappling tournaments. What shows up instead are your world-class deficiencies. The UFC, after all, is made up of cold-blooded exploitists. When Magalhaes left the UFC, he had an overall professional MMA record that was sub-.500. Things needed to change.

So what did he do?

Well, he relocated to Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, went on a 7-1 run in the more dimly lit theaters (finishing a couple of fights with something as audacious as strikes), captured the M-1 light heavyweight belt, had a son, donned a singlet, began training with Chael Sonnen and, by extension, picking up pointers on how to combine orneriness with the naked truth. All for the sake of sports and entertainment.

Now he’s back with the UFC, fighting at UFC 152 in Toronto against puncher Igor Pokrajac, just in time to see if any of it matters on the big stage.

“Even though there’s the whole thing of me getting back to the UFC, in my mind this is my UFC debut,” he told ESPN.com. “The first time when I was in the UFC was because I got on ["The Ultimate Fighter"], and I got on the show because of Dan Henderson. I had a big name push me to be on the show, and that’s why I got on. Of course, I ended up earning my spot and making the finals, but I didn’t use anything but my jiu-jitsu to get into the finals, so it’s like, I cannot even compare myself back then to what I am right now. I am taking this as my UFC debut.”

If MMA is biased, it’s that fights start on the feet. It’s a jiu-jitsu practitioner’s burden to overcome, and it’s been the bane of the 28-year-old Magalhaes’ career so far. If every fight started on the ground, Magalhaes might be household name right now.

As it stands, Magalhaes has had to figure out a solution. He’s not going to turn into Marvin Hagler on the feet, and as a realist, he’s not trying to. What he’s worked on in the past three years are things as ordinary as game plans, things as disciplined as execution, and things as advantageous as capable wrestling. He’s also fiddling with the manipulation of space, known as “Maai” in some circles, which can be boiled down to closing the gap between his comfort zone and eating big Bader overhands.

In short, he feels he’s diversified.

“I’ve gotten much better with my striking, I’ve gotten much better with my wrestling ... way, way better,” he says. “But, I know how to mix things up. That’s the difference. Before in my UFC fights, I just didn’t know how to close the distance, so I didn’t know how to put things together. And I know how to mix things up. I’m not a great striker, but I know how to throw a couple of punches to close the distance and get the fight where I want it.

“I’m also a much smarter fighter now, too. Before I would go into a fight with no strategy. I would just go there and hope the guy would take me down so I could get the fight where I want it.”

There’s little chance of Pokrajac looking for a takedown, so it’ll be up to Magalhaes to insist. During Pokrajac’s three-fight win streak, he has finished two with strikes (against Todd Brown, and later Soszynski). This will be a classic puncher-versus-grappler fight that will alert everyone as to whether Magalhaes has truly evolved.

“I don’t keep secrets,” Magalhaes says. “My goal is to take this fight to the ground, and if I have to, if I can’t take him down, I’m going to be ready to stand up with him.”

The truth comes out Sept. 22 in Toronto.

But this improved version of Magalhaes has also proved shrewder in staying in the public’s eye, even when not in the UFC.

Who can forget him putting his M-1 Global belt up for auction on eBay, saying later, "it's not worth even a dollar"? Magalhaes has learned a thing from the sultan of talk, Sonnen, whom he helped train for the Anderson Silva rematch. He’s been fairly vocal about situations (like what happened with him and M-1’s Evgeni Kogan) and fighters like Jon Jones (UFC 151), and via his Twitter feed and in the media.

His attitude is to dish it like he sees it.

“I’ll be honest with you: I think I’ve gotten that totally from Chael,” he says. “I’m not going to be making things up. I’m not going to be bashing somebody else’s country like Chael does just to be entertaining. But if I can be entertaining while speaking the truth, I’ll do it.”

And speaking of Sonnen, who is scheduled to fight Magalhaes’ training partner Forrest Griffin at UFC 155 in December, just where will his allegiances fall?

“I was talking to Chael, and I was like, I want to be out of both training camps for you guys,” he says. “I don’t want to help Chael, I don’t want to help Forrest. I like Forrest, and I’ve been training with Forrest for the last four years. He cornered me against Ryan Bader. So I don’t want to be involved.

“But then there’s the side where I became friends with Chael. I like the guy, I like his personality, so it’s a little odd. I’d feel like a traitor if I went there to train with Chael, because I’ve been training with Forrest for four years. So I’m keeping out of it. I like both of you guys. Whoever wins wins, I don’t care. I’m just keeping out of it.”

Not that it’s Magalhaes’ goal to be "training partner to the stars." It’s his turn to try to become one. A good showing against Pokrajac would get him back on his feet in the UFC.

And if that happens, maybe this time he’ll look a little more comfortable there.

UFC on Fox 4 in Los Angeles proved that interest can be drummed up in retreads, but it was our collective imagination that became the real hero of the night. Let’s face it, we were all squinting to see the title picture the way it was being drawn up by Dana White. This whole “he who does best gets the title shot” thing felt something like dramatic abandon.

When a figure finally emerged from the four-man 205-pound showcase it was Lyoto Machida, in a reduced 201-pound frame, dishing enigma on Ryan Bader. That was a good knockout.

Better yet, the whole main card scored the same. Every fight delivered. A good night of fights like that makes things, if not totally justifiable, at least somewhat rose-tinted. And that beats disaster, if you know what I mean, which is where things left off after the UFC 149 pay-per-view bust.

What a difference a couple of weeks makes. In Calgary, stakes were being tinkered with, too. Hector Lombard was vying for a possible title shot with Anderson Silva. The interim bantamweight title was up for grabs in the main event between Urijah Faber and Renan Barao. Things “mattered.”

But for all the dangling carrots, something went missing -- and that was enjoyability. Guys didn’t “bring it” -- and everyone should know the center of the fight world is all about the “it” -- which had people asking for refunds and complaining about the watered-down product.

Not on Saturday night. As DeMarques Johnson’s premonition of a 100 percent chance of a knockout came through via the sudden hands of Mike Swick, this thing was off to a roaring start. Joe Lauzon, who is incapable of a boring fight, withstood heavy shots by Jamie Varner and, when the opportunity presented itself, came on like an incubus to finish him in the third. It’s what Lauzon, who has made nearly a half a million dollars in bonus money in his career, does better than anybody. The UFC on Fox Twitter feed called it possibly the “best fight we’ve ever had.”

These were undercard table-setters like we haven’t seen on the Fox shows.

And the co-main event raised the bar for the finale. Machida forced Bader’s aggression then punished it, downing him with a counter right. It was vintage “Dragon.” Machida was once again the abstractionist, doing things with body geometry.

Yet the main event was a crescendo. Here was Vera resurfacing, making it a war, looking like old Vera, the one we thought we lost. Here was Rua proving that his Dan Henderson and Mark Coleman fights were no flukes, that he can make any fight -- good or bad -- a battle of epic attrition. Rua just about did away with Vera twice in the second round with sallies, but Vera both times responded with big elbows and defiance.

Suddenly it was a storyline of Vera’s heart in the poetic sense, not the cardiovascular one. And fights are always more fun when they get like that. When fights transfer “will,” the meaning of the transaction comes back into play.

Better still, when fights go down like they did on Saturday night, the question of what’s on the line can be answered like this: "Who cares?" The moment transcends the stakes. The “it” factor is all that matters. Guys on Saturday night brought “it.”

This was the first Fox card that really delivered far more than it promised. From top to bottom on the main card, every fight delivered the goods. For whatever hung in the balance of the outcomes, it didn’t matter to real time. And you know what? That’s the kind of drama that you want on live television, especially in a sport still trying to communicate with the casual viewer.

LOS ANGELES -- Talk heading into Saturday night's UFC is understandably focused on the four title-shot ready light heavyweights Dana White tabbed this week as potential opponents for Jon Jones or Dan Henderson.

Mauricio Rua, Lyoto Machida, Ryan Bader and (inexplicably) Brandon Vera will enter the Octagon in the proverbial mix.

Rua is an all-time great, and coming off a war to end all wars against Dan Henderson, who could find much to complain about if he’s next to be slotted in?

Machida, also a former UFC champion, gave Jones the hardest time so far, making good on the audacity to throw punches -- until he was choked unconscious in Round 2 of their December bout.

Bader was totally outclassed when he tangled with Jones a year and a half ago, but he's since improved.

As for Vera, well, no one expects him to be the fighter who emerges from the rubble. If he does, it will truly be an incredible story -- a real-life "Rocky" story. (There’s a reason these sorts of things are brought to life on the big screen.)

So, these are the options for UFC at the moment. An “impressive” performance is all that separates one of these men from a chance at fighting for the UFC light heavyweight title.

The last time 205-pounders were so prominently featured during a UFC on Fox event, Phil Davis and Rashad Evans competed in a hum-drum 25-minute affair. The January contest ended with Davis's first defeat in mixed martial arts while Evans earned the right to challenge Jones, who easily retained his belt. Almost suddenly, the division appeared barren.

This is a major reason why UFC has been forced to tout recycled fighters against a young champion who already handled each of them.

There are, however, two light heavyweights on the card that haven’t had the misfortune of facing Jones. (Yet.) And for all the reasons mentioned above, that makes the fight between the aforementioned Davis and UFC newcomer Wagner Prado more than mildly intriguing.

Davis didn't attend Thursday's news conference at the JW Marriott (he’s not fighting on the main card this time so he didn’t have to be
there) and he later declined to discuss his fight, which airs on Fuel TV rather than Fox. Prado, meanwhile, spent his afternoon at the elegant hotel anonymously soaking in the festivities while catching a glimpse of what it’s like to fight for the UFC.

Until he took a couple minutes to answer questions (via a translator) with a tape recorder in his face, hardly anyone recognized Prado for what he was. Maybe that’s because Prado is listed at 6-foot-4 when in fact he's closer to 6-1. Or perhaps the 25-year-old Team Nogueira product freely walked around because few people in the building had actually seen him fight before. Whatever the case may be, Prado (8-0 with seven stoppages) claimed to be both excited and calm on the eve of his Octagon debut.

"I'm from Team Nogueira and train with guys at a high level and do well against them," Prado said. "That's why I feel I'm home here."

The heavy hitter has built up his record against less than stellar opposition, which, after doing the math, hold more losses than wins. Against Davis, he faces a considerable uptick in competition.

Among the many differences Prado will come to know about fighters at the regional level in Brazil compared to those in the UFC, the ability to wrestle will probably be the most obvious. He hasn't fought a wrestler yet, let alone one of Davis’s caliber, and he’s aware of this.

“They've all tried to take me down,” Prado said of his opponents. “And in training and sparring we concentrated on guys trying to take me down as well."

With that, he cracked a smile.

Prado, a southpaw training partner of Junior dos Santos among others, is predictably sticking with the Brazilians this weekend. Like everyone else, he has Rua over Vera. He was equally confident that Machida would beat Bader. Of the two, Shogun will earn the title shot, he predicted.

As for his "in the mix" prospects, Prado claimed he won’t “look that far into the future.”

“I'm just focused on Saturday,” he said.

With that, he posed for a couple of photos.

The last time Lyoto Machida was preparing to fight in Los Angeles, he was a virtually invincible foe -- an undefeated, unorthodox UFC champion widely expected to make good on his first title defense against Mauricio Rua.

Much has changed since UFC 104. When Machida meets Ryan Bader in the co-main event of this weekend’s card, it will have been nearly three years since that first title defense at Staples Center. Machida managed to record a controversial decision win that night, but it’s been a rough road since. He’s 1-3 in his past four fights and has been stopped twice.

The mystique of Machida (17-3), not to mention his belt, might be long gone, but the former champ says his confidence has remained -- even grown.

“I don’t think my confidence has been affected at all; in fact, I think it’s gotten better,” Machida told ESPN.com. “I’m more mature now. I’ve gained more years. As you pass through different experiences, you grow.”

The official verdict on whether Machida will return to greatness is still out.

On one hand, there’s that 1-3 stretch to consider. On the other, he arguably gave Jon Jones the toughest test of his young career at UFC 140 in December and is, curiously, potentially one impressive win on Saturday from earning another title shot.

Critics suggest that the best thing Machida ever had going for him -- his unorthodox style -- has been figured out. Even Jones, before defeating him in that title fight, said in interviews that Machida was a puzzle that had already been solved.

Not surprisingly, the fighter himself believes there’s more to his success than that and points to the nature of his losses as proof.

“If you look at my losses, I’ve never been dominated in a fight,” Machida said. “I lost most of them when one punch came in and put me off balance. I’ve never been taken over in a fight.”

Machida admits he was left a little gun-shy after the knockout loss to Rua in May 2010. He backpedaled for most of the first two rounds in his next fight against Quinton Jackson before coming on hard in the third. Jackson won a split decision.

He’s relatively confident the same thing won’t happen to him this weekend, in a fight UFC president Dana White has said could earn him a title shot should he end things spectacularly. Then again, he says honestly, you never know until the fight starts.

“I’ll have to wait until Saturday to see,” Machida said. “I hope that doesn’t happen. I’m more mature now, and I learned a lot from that fight with 'Rampage' [Jackson]. I don’t think we’ll see a repeat on that.”

Even with his recent struggles, Machida heads the list of potential Jones rematches for many. The fight in December demonstrated that his awkwardness still could give the best fighters in the world trouble. A counter straight left landed by Machida in the first round remains arguably the hardest shot Jones has ever absorbed.

Machida obviously welcomes the opportunity of fighting Jones again but says he believes that any of the success he had against the champion in that first round was completely erased in the second, when Jones opened a cut on his forehead with an elbow, then ended matters with a standing guillotine.

Approaching Jones again would be like approaching things for the first time -- a feeling the once-invincible fighter has become familiar with in his career.

“I think a fight is over when it’s over, and he won that fight. I would have no advantage [in a rematch],” Machida said.

“You learn a lot from every loss, and you accept stuff. That fight is one to remember. I think I lost concentration a little bit in the second round. I came in very confident, and that didn’t help me too much.”

This is one sport where public outcry reaches important ears.

After promising a title shot to the winner of Saturday night’s Brandon Vera/Mauricio Rua bout on a media call, Dana White has had a change of heart. The news of Rua or Vera getting another crack at Jon Jones hit like a thud. As such, UFC on FOX 4 becomes a four-man affair, as Lyoto Machida and Ryan Bader have been added to this penultimate drama. Whoever wins in the most devastating fashion gets the winner of Jones and Dan Henderson.

The fans have spoken. Bigger possibility now comes into play on Saturday night. With bigger possibility, bigger drama.

But this is one of those cases where you wonder if the outcry was fully understood. Back at UFC 103, when the UFC announced a main event rematch between Rich Franklin and Henderson, the “why bother” undertow was so strong that it was immediately shut down. You remember what happened next. Henderson hit a contract snag and defected to Strikeforce, and Franklin got knocked out by Vitor Belfort instead.

It all panned out OK for everybody.

It will pan out OK this time, too; but right now, it’s confusing. It’s White’s prerogative to switch gears as he sees fit, and he’s not afraid to do just that, especially if it calms down outraged fans. Tim Sylvia was pretty close to fighting Daniel Cormier before the roof collapsed in on him. Enter Frank Mir, and everybody breathed a sigh of relief. Mir having no chance is far better than Sylvia having no chance.

Why? Essentially because Mir deserves to be there more. These are the types of alignments we make through initial gut reactions.

But that was last week. This week, whimsy is shaking down the light heavyweight division. The thing is, a lot of people’s fates are attached to the whims. There are the four guys in question, but also Alexander Gustafsson, and even Glover Teixeira, who are hovering around. Not to mention all the out of division foes Jones’ name gets linked to. Are we sorting out merit, or convenience? It’s always a fine line.

I wrote a blog yesterday after it was announced that the Rua/Vera winner would get a title shot, which is down the scroll just below. The gist is, if Jones beats Henderson, neither Rua nor (especially) Vera makes for a compelling rematch. Unfortunately, that problem still exists with the introduction of Bader and Machida. Jones has distanced himself from all of Saturday night’s company. He defeated both Bader and Machida so thoroughly the first time -- the same as with Rua and Vera -- that the drama of a playback just isn’t there.

However, small-view drama that can sort itself out on Saturday night is. And this seems to be what we’re keying in on.

The problem is, we don’t know if Jones will win on Sept. 1. Most only suspect he’ll beat the 41-year old Henderson. Since the promises are being made ahead of the order, it’s difficult to say if any of this makes sense. If Henderson upsets Jones, any of the UFC on FOX guys look like a solid matchup. Since that fight comes a month after this impromptu contender’s tournament, though, we go off of potential disappointments.

And the potential disappointment in this case is that one of these four guys will end up facing Jones in a fight that won’t be altogether riveting, just as Jones enters the most riveting juncture of his career.

White changes his mind quite a bit. Oftentimes it’s because the fans voiced their opinion and, as he’s proved to be many times, he’s a man of the people. By opening up Machida and Bader to the mix, he’s done that again. Now there’s a showcase vibe for Saturday night, and there’s every incentive for each fighter to come out with guns blazing to put the other away.

Whoever does it gets the title shot, whether it makes sense or not. That is, unless, you know, White changes his mind -- which has every chance of being the case.

Former Strikeforce champion Nick Diaz says he wants current UFC titlist Anderson Silva -- when Diaz comes back from his suspension. The time away has apparently opened up his imagination, and out flies his always-fascinating fancy.

Silva’s camp says that a fight with Georges St. Pierre at a catch weight of 180 pounds is the only one that makes sense right now. Silva’s manager, Jorge Guimaraes, in stating his full slate of druthers to ESPN.com, was quick to add “in Brazil” to that reasoning.

Hey, when stating your preferences, go whole hog. Besides, they’re owed one after the whole Chael Sonnen switcheroo.

Jon Jones has a fight with Dan Henderson on Sept. 1. Should he defeat Henderson, he has no interest in fighting his mutual admirer Silva. He wouldn’t want to be the one to have to beat him, he says, which has its interpretations, ranging from cocky to tender caring. And besides, to listen to the UFC tell it, Jones’ next opponent will be determined next weekend in Los Angeles, where within the settling dust of Ryan Bader-Lyoto Machida and Brandon Vera-Mauricio Rua at UFC on FOX 5, a challenger is hoped to appear.

Where to begin in all of this?

That the Silva-St. Pierre fight makes sense is true, and the compromise of a catch weight does make it a little more foolproof, but it’s complicated. In fact, it’s so complicated that the fight makes almost no sense. Not right now. Truth be told, there is no "right now." There’s only “when possible,” which feels like “maybe never.” That’s the strange space we find ourselves in.

Forget about the middleweight division’s renewed intrigue over the last few weeks for a minute, and begin with the 170-pound picture. Carlos Condit is holding an interim title white-knuckle tight while waiting on St. Pierre to return from his ACL surgery. That fight has to happen for the unconventional logic of shelving an interim belt to prevail, and it’s still looking like the bout will happen in November at UFC 154.

If we’re dissecting the circumstances in trying to accommodate Silva, the soonest a victorious St. Pierre would be able to fight him would be late first quarter 2013. And let’s not forget that this is St. Pierre, who doesn’t take the idea of yo-yoing between weight classes lightly (even at catch weights), so he would need the time to stuff himself with the right kind of muscular insulation. That could add some more months to the process.

As for Martin Kampmann and Johny Hendricks, the two who are fighting in Montreal for a shot at the welterweight belt? They would be recycled back into the fold, while Silva-St. Pierre played out. As would the crop of emerging contenders at 185 pounds -- guys such as Chris Weidman, Tim Boetsch and Michael Bisping, who are vying for their own shots, through recent actions and pitchmen.

All of that can be overcome. A few hurt feelings and a long time to think about it for a superfight like St. Pierre and Silva is just the condition of the thing. There will never be a perfect time for a superfight so long as contenders are in business -- and contenders are always in business. Cleaning out a division is next to impossible. Unless you’re Jon Jones and you fight four times a year and handle each confrontation as a weed whacker handles a bed of roses.

But the common link is the 185-pound champ. Slice it how you want, but this has become the Silva sweepstakes. The only one not holding a ticket is Jones, but he’s young and perhaps persuadable.

Diaz wants Silva out of left field, but he doesn’t have the merit. He is suspended for those pesky marijuana metabolites, for one thing, and for another he lost to Condit in his last fight. That means we mention him in the Silva sweepstakes only for fun.

St. Pierre has too many obstacles in his path to contemplate Silva. There’s the knee, then there’s Condit, and then there’s the promised Kampmann-Hendricks winner, and in the back of his mind is Diaz. All of this is great if you’re trying to avoid Rory MacDonald (as he sort of is), but not great if, as a fan, you want to see him fight Silva. For him to take the Silva challenge, he -- and the UFC -- will have to just close down the road and divert all traffic around him.

So, whom will the 37-year old Silva face next?

It’s very difficult to sort out, and it depends on the January “megacard” that’s being discussed. The simple thing to do would be to make the Weidman fight for ordinary pay-per-view and keep the divisions from bleeding into each other. But that’s so unimaginative, particularly after the immensity of the Sonnen rematch. Weidman is 9-0 overall. He’s still green. He’s not greatly marketable. And from Silva’s perspective, that singlet looks daunting for a fight that won’t generate the kinds of interest that St. Pierre would.

The fight that could make most sense to everyone is the one that the fighters themselves want nothing to do with. That would be Jones and Silva, should Jones beat Henderson. By the same logic as Silva’s camp is using for St. Pierre, it can be applied to Jones. And there are no conditions to it. Jones would be ready to roll in December or January, same as Silva. No timetables.

But if Rua, Bader or Machida is catapulted back into the title mix to spice up intrigue next weekend, even that doesn’t make sense. Not a lot does right now. There are too many promises and possibilities overlapping.

It’s UFC matchmaker Joe Silva’s job to make sense of it, and he’ll be right (and wrong) no matter what.

Anderson Silva has lorded over the UFC’s middleweight division long enough to create dilemmas for challengers.

Dilemmas that look like specific little purgatories.

Dilemmas that look like harsh reality checks (to guys like Patrick Cote and Thales Leites).

Dilemmas that look like Rich Franklin trying to add body mass.

"Ace" was first to effectively get punted out the division by Silva, having fought "The Spider" twice and having lost spectacularly both times. A third fight in a lopsided affair was not and will never be in the cards. But then again gatekeeper wasn’t either. Reluctantly, and with the fresh dangling carrot of a different belt in play, he moved up to 205 pounds to see what havoc he could create there.

Turns out, not much.

Franklin’s (nearly all the way) back down 185 pounds with a set of new hopes. The problem is these are the kinds of hopes that have little to do with him. They are A.) that Anderson Silva retires, B.) that somebody (anybody!) dethrones Silva, or C.) that Silva bolts the division himself for 205 pounds.

Four years later and Franklin’s still at the mercy of Silva. And in a game flooding over with control freaks, playing wait-and-see can be harder to stomach than any kind of loss.

That’s precisely what Chael Sonnen wants nothing to do with, now that Silva has shot his star from the sky. Rather than settling for hopes like these -- hopes that are out of his control, and therefore intolerable -- he’s leaning towards a reinvention as a light heavyweight.

To paraphrase Sonnen, you don’t retire as a non-champion, you simply quit.

Sonnen’s not ready to quit. Instead, he’s gathering some things for his knapsack and headed north. The good news is that he isn’t reimagining himself into the WWE (yet) or anything drastic. Sonnen still has a driving desire to win a UFC belt, and he’s thinking of honing in on Jon Jones, is all. If not Jones immediately, then the people who might get him to Jones. Sonnen told UFC Tonight that “traditionally [changing weight classes] is a good way to get a fresh start and start over.”

That’s a fact.

We’ve seen it plenty in the fight game with everyone from B.J. Penn to Randy Couture -- and even with Tim Boetsch, who is closing in on a chance at Silva after a mediocre run as a light-heavy. Sonnen is as popular a star right now as anybody in MMA. He isn’t getting a third Silva fight with an 0-2 record head-to-head, but so long as he’s viable, he should capitalize on it. And so long as he can win fights, he can be accelerated in the new weight class because the UFC loves his ability to sell them.

There are plenty of consolations here.

But the question is: Can he succeed at 205 pounds? Though he presented a unique challenge to Silva by being 99 percent about dogged wrestling -- which made up 99 percent of Silva’s vulnerabilities -- the road to Jones is dotted with guys who won’t be bullied. Rashad Evans, Dan Henderson, Ryan Bader, Alexander Gustafsson, Glover Teixeira and so on. Not to mention Jones, who doesn’t get taken down and lose the way Sonnen wins.

The top at light heavyweight isn’t tailor-made for an upset like it was at 185 pounds. Sonnen’s strengths are a lot of guy’s strengths where he’s headed. It’s not a red carpet he’s looking at to Jones.

But like Sonnen has made clear, competing in the sport is only meaningful if becoming the champion is the goal. At least at 205 pounds that can still be the goal. Just like it was with Franklin back in 2008. There are a lot of parallels. Sonnen debuted in the UFC as a light heavyweight against Renato Sobral in 2005. Franklin did too, against Frank Shamrock that same year.

Both were in their mid-30s when they attempted to perpetuate glory in bigger frames. That is, if Sonnen does what it sounds like he'll do by moving up.

The difference between Franklin’s move and Sonnen’s is that Franklin was at one time a champion in the UFC. Sonnen can’t say the same thing. He has the WEC belt that Paulo Filho sent him after not making weight for their title fight, which was a gesture toward something real. That one is legit -- if unofficial. He has the fake UFC belt that he paraded around with ahead of the rematch with Silva. That one had good shtick value.

But he doesn’t have the real thing.

And in a pursuit to get it, he’s facing up to the inevitable -- switching to a weight class that doesn’t have Anderson Silva at the top. No sense is waiting around for Silva to lose, bolt or quit.

Besides, Silva won’t have to quit. By Sonnen’s standards, Silva can simply retire. Being a champion makes the distinction.

And the good news for Sonnen fans isn’t necessarily that he’s fighting on so much as he refuses to quit.

Glover Teixeira’s greatest enemy to date has been access.

For the last few years, visa problems have kept him out of the UFC. Before he defeated Kyle Kingsbury at UFC 146 to point a sudden “I’m coming” finger at Jon Jones, the last time he’d fought in the States was back in 2008 when he punched out Buckley Acosta.

None of that matters now. What matters is Teixeira’s arrived, and we saw it in his dismantling of Kingsbury in just under two minutes. Those in the know knew. Those who didn’t were quickly alerted to what the cult was saying, which was this: Teixeira is a power player who arrives on the UFC 205-pound landscape like a man ready to build condominiums all over it.

And that’s good, because the 32-year old Teixeira brings life to a division where prospects are down. He’s won 16 fights in a row. His last loss was in 2005 to Ed Herman. It’s not that he’s nickel and diming guys, either. Fifteen of his victories during that stretch have come via finishes. He’s not top 10 right now in part because Ricco Rodriguez and Marvin Eastman (the guys he’s beaten) are not Ryan Bader and Phil Davis (the guys he’s hurdling).

More importantly, Glover just isn’t that known to UFC-centric Americans.

As for the Brazilians? Well, they know him. They know him plenty.

And to listen to Dana White, knowing him means to steer clear of him. That’s what happened this past week when fellow Brazilian Mauricio Rua turned down a headlining fight with Teixeira when Thiago Silva was forced out of their scheduled bout with a back injury. When offered Teixeira as a replacement, Rua politely said, “no thanks.”

That sounded like “you must be out of your mind to think I’d fight that guy” to the UFC.

When the UFC threatened to cut Rua if he didn’t conform to the idea, he said he’d rather get canned than mingle with the “Baker.” This was not the expected response. Of course, all of this was how White relayed it to the media. Translations may differ on how things went down.

Since then, muttering has gone on with both sides since, but the bottom line is this: Rua didn’t want to fight Teixeira and he had his reasons. Those reasons, if we’re to be bludgeoned by strong hints, are that Rua wants no part of Teixeira. Either way, turning down fights is not what the UFC wants out of big name former champions who have drawers full of big digit deposit slips.

The compromise was Brandon Vera, a name of utter bewilderment to MMA fans. How does Rua, coming off the fight of the year against Dan Henderson at UFC 139 (a fight that some thought he won), get paired with Vera, who was coming off a lackluster victory over Eliot Marshall? Why, if Rua was only interested in fighting top-10 fighters, did he turn down Teixeira but accept Vera? Was he ducking Teixeira, as was insinuated? Or is this a tactical move, a simple case of Vera is the easier opponent? Why did the UFC accommodate Rua with Vera when the ultimatum wasn’t met? Are UFC matchmakers so hog-tied right now that when fighters dare the promotion to cut them that they are the first to blink?

This last question gets complicated when you look at the case of Quinton Jackson.

But the answer to some of this might be simple. Rua, like Jackson, is the old guard who likes sticking to the old guard. Jackson wanted to fight Rua, Rua wanted to fight Jackson. Vera is old guard. Tito Ortiz, Forrest Griffin, Dan Henderson -- they are old guard, too. They have established names. The UFC’s light heavyweight division -- perhaps more than any other -- is by and large a cast of past glories. Jon Jones has obviously helped render the situation. He effectively eased people into the past tense. He could do the same to Henderson on Sept. 1.

The thing is that Rua wants marquee fights in the twilight of his career. The UFC wants to introduce Teixeira into that space of marquee names. Teixeira is actually older than Rua. But it’s hard to crash a party that’s been raging on without him for so long. Rua, a little over a year ago, was the life of that party. Teixeira, around the same time, was beating somebody named Simao Melo in Shooto. It’s easy to see both sides.

So was it an issue of fear, lack of merit, motivation, desperation, name recognition or simply a matter of shrewd logistics that prompted Rua to say no to Teixeira?

The short answer is: Probably.

Good news, fight fans: Now that he’s discovered the miracle of testosterone replacement therapy, Quinton Jackson says he can fight another 10 years.

The bad news? It looks like it won’t be in the UFC.

In touching off a tornado of controversy by admitting he used testosterone leading up to his recent loss to Ryan Bader and then engaging in a contentious war of words with his current employer during the past week, Jackson has essentially taken a BA Baracus-style flamethrower to his career in the Octagon.

That means, if we set aside for a moment the obvious ethical and philosophical questions of an athlete using a doctor’s prescription to tack an extra decade on to his career -- which Jackson himself seems perfectly happy to do -- the most pressing issue obviously becomes: Where?

Where exactly does a guy who has already retired once, has never seemed particularly motivated, has groused on and off about his pay and has made it clear that he doesn’t like MMA fans (only his fans) think he’s going to spend the next magical decade of his career fighting?

Clearly, if and when he becomes available, someone will sign Jackson, who is still talented and who (at least theoretically) retains a healthy base of fans.

In doing so, however, that person will also be taking a sizable risk.

If his first dozen years in MMA -- which includes at least one high-speed police chase, remember -- hadn’t convinced you, the last couple of weeks should serve as conclusive proof. After the initial wave of bad press over his now notorious interview with Fighters Only Magazine, “Rampage” has spent the last few days likening his treatment from the UFC to “slavery,” calling fans of the sport “sheep” and trumpeting TRT as pretty much the greatest thing to happen to him during the last few years.

In response, the UFC threw down its trump card, saying Jackson will finish out his contract with a bout against Mauricio Rua, the guy who TKOed him via soccer kicks the first time they met in Pride back in 2005.

After that, it seems Jackson will be on his own, and if his most recent outburst isn’t enough to make independent MMA promoters think twice about signing him, well, that’s amazing. At this rate, though, Jackson could well enter free agency around the same time he turns 34 and might be facing a market with fewer options than ever before for such an independently minded fighter.

There is Bellator, which allegedly passed on signing Nate Marquardt when the welterweight fighter was released from the UFC in a haze of testosterone last year. There is BAMMA, where Marquardt eventually signed, then unsigned after his promotional debut was continually delayed.

There is ProElite, which has yet to make waves through three shows since it was brought back to life, and there are a number of new-ish organizations in Asia, where Jackson has said he feels most comfortable fighting, but where the MMA market has been on the wane during the past few years.

That’s about the size of the market and, frankly, none of it shapes up as a rosy future for “Rampage.”

Clearly, MMA is a “never say never” industry and the possibility exists that Jackson and the UFC could bury the hatchet between now and his showdown with Rua.

If not, it's difficult (bordering on impossible) to imagine a scenario where Jackson thrives in a smaller organization quite the way Dan Henderson or Nick Diaz did. He’s said he doesn’t care if he ever “make[s] $500 again,” but that seems like perhaps the most dubious claim of all, coming from a guy who’s already walked away from the sport once to chase a big-money future in Hollywood.

Who will pay what is sure to be a hefty asking price for a fighter who has been so inconsistent, has so much baggage and has proved to be such a public relations nightmare?

Someone will, but how much and for how long is anybody's best guess.

Quinton Jackson has never been known for his emotional stability. People thought he’d cracked back in 2008 when he was arrested in a hit-and-run situation in Orange County, Calif.. That was after a loss to Forrest Griffin, who hobbled him with leg kicks for five back-and-forth rounds.

Jackson is off the rails again, this time after a loss to Ryan Bader. And now the storm clouds are collecting over Rampage's mood. For the past week, Jackson has been ripping into the UFC, Dana White and matchmaker Joe Silva, the latter of whom he said, by the way, should be “shot in the face” for putting him against Bader.

In short, Jackson is making a compelling case to be released by the UFC. A very compelling case, indeed.

Why exactly is he making that case? It’s a lot of fussy complaints that just sort of drift along. He is disgruntled with fighter pay, fighting hurt, fighting through fighting hurt stoically and for not being marketed properly. Those are just the toppings. The real crux? The amount disrespect he’s feeling. That’s the unforgivable part for Jackson, the part that he says has drained from him the love of being a fighter. How could the UFC take a legend in this sport and pit him against a snoozing singlet? How could they be critical of him afterward, given the fact that he was hurt coming in and yet refused on principle to back out?

It’s all very filthy, and he’s purging himself of negative energy via social platforms like Twitter and Bas Rutten.

Rampage’s running refrain through all of this is he’s keeping it real. Just like he was keeping it real when he casually told Fighter’s Only magazine that he was taking testosterone to replenish fallen levels ahead of UFC 144. Doctor’s orders, you know. He was trying to fight through a knee injury that took away from his roadwork that ultimately led to him showing up six pounds over weight at UFC 144. These are factors, not excuses. If the UFC had only bothered to track his every move leading up to the fight -- a fight he signed on for under his own free will -- they’d know this.

But the UFC didn’t, and for as real as Jackson’s keeping it, Dana White’s about to make it as real as it gets. Jackson’s wish to be let go might be granted really soon. In fact, the UFC’s response will come this evening on "UFC Tonight", and if they’re staging it on national television, that might mean for once they are seeing eye-to-eye with him. Or give him his one last fight with Mauricio Rua, which would be generous.

Either way, it looks like Jackson's days are numbered -- which includes his slams, his motor boating antics, his tangents, his ornery streak and his baggage.

And going over the lead-up to this drastic conclusion, the tipping point might have been when Jackson essentially called Dana White a liar.

Earlier this week in New York, White told MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani that the Fighter’s Only story and the TRT quotes were fabrications. He said that Jackson, in essence, told him and Lorenzo Fertitta that those things were never said. Where did this stuff come from, then? White didn’t know -- somebody’s imagination, probably.

Yet a few days later, Rampage reiterated the quotes were accurate to Bas Rutten on Inside MMA. TRT? Yeah, he took it. Why not? He has nothing to hide, and he wanted to be open about it because he didn’t want to be classified as a cheater. The doctors told him to, and now he feels 25 years old again. A prescription is a prescription.

This, of course, makes White look like a liar. Either that, or it makes Rampage appear a little more out on that ledge than we know. Or some combination of both, a case of damage control gone berserk.

For as foolish as it is to chose up sides on the matter, it’s hard not to see the UFC’s. White and Jackson have butted heads a lot over the years. Yet here’s a guy they built a card around, UFC 107 in his native Memphis, only to have Jackson back out to film The A-Team. That one smarted. And remember, they wanted Jackson to fight on FOX, where the marketing machine would have been strongest, but instead granted his wish to fight in Japan. For as many complains as Jackson has, he’s got the gun pointed at his own foot for most.

By this point, the UFC is left with no real choice but to part ways with a disgruntled employee. Stings a little for fans who know the contributions that the former UFC light heavyweight champion has made to the sport over the years, and maybe things could have been fixed with better communication. But Jackson’s wish is to be cut loose is one that the UFC might want to heed.

And when it happens, here’s a hunch that at some point we’ll get to brush off the most shop-worn cliché in the book -- that of being careful what you wish for.