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UFC president Dana White has made his first comments in public since Jon Jones' arrest for allegedly driving while intoxicated on May 19, and the pair were due to meet in Las Vegas on Tuesday evening. More »

On Monday, Jon Jones put out his first statement since being arrested this weekend on suspicion of driving under the influence. He did this on Facebook. On the same day, Chael Sonnen filed for a therapeutic use exemption with the Nevada State Athletic Commission for the testosterone that put so many unflattering asterisks next to his name.

That went well. He got it. And he was even asked to become advisor on the subject, a kind of spokesman on the remedies of fleeting youth.

Also on Monday? Nick Diaz fidgeted before the NSAC and he and his lawyers tried to bridge a language barrier between marijuana and its metabolites. This didn’t go as well. Diaz was suspended a year and docked $60,000.

There were doctors called in both cases. Dr. Trainor (in Sonnen’s), and Dr. Sample (in Diaz’s). These weren’t pseudonyms. These were actual human beings. It has all the quality of fiction, but it’s happening.

It’s real. As real as it gets.

That’s why when Dana White’s “It’s Fiiiigggght Weeeeek!” tweet went out, it showed up like a plea to forget for a second about legal issues and hearings and keep the thing we’re all here for in focus.

UFC 146 is on deck -- the long-awaited, all-heavyweight card.

Only, the sad thing is even this couldn’t serve as a distraction. UFC 146 is the card that was drastically altered when heavyweight contender Alistair Overeem was popped for high testosterone levels. Now the UFC 146 we’re getting is entirely different from the original mock-up.

Needless to say, the UFC is going through a rough patch. In fact, at this point it requires imagination to not see the problems going on in MMA. Dana White may be prone to hyperbole, but you have to believe him when he says “bad s--- happens to me before my first foot hits the floor getting out of bed.”

The biggest concern before a fight used to be if all participants would make weight. In 2012, the year of globalization and network television, it’s a lot trickier. There are drug tests. There are loose cannon Twitter feeds to consider, breathalyzers, quack doctors and last-minute injuries.

As for after? There are a million experts who forecast the end of times when the television ratings and/or buy rates get reported. This past week the “Ultimate Fighter” produced a record-low rating on a spicy episode where Urijah Faber was to learn his next opponent. Right before that, the UFC on Fuel card that hosted a fight-of-the-year candidate between Chan Sung Jung and Dustin Poirier also registered a weak rating.

Gentlemen, ignite your doom.

And then there’s this thing about the UFC watering itself down with too many cards. Too many free ones, too many pay-per-views, too many cards that appear on channels that barely exist. The negatives are always magnified. A fight card on a Tuesday? Blasphemy.

The problem with being Dana White in 2012 is that there are thousands of people telling Dana White how to be Dana White. Audaciousness has a way of feeding on itself.

The bigger problem is that propriety isn’t something so easily introduced to a company that has been mightily successful doing things their way.

But the UFC realizes some things will have to change internally to clean up the number of fiascos going on. In fact, Dana White recently told the LA Times that Zuffa will begin testing fighters for PEDs themselves to, among other things, “save the sport.”

“Yes, we’re going to do our own testing, order these guys into [a lab]; we’re sorting it out now,” he said. “You have to do this to save the sport. You can’t have these guys fighting on this stuff.”

That’s a step, at least. At some point there will likely be other changes, things like social media protocols and consistency in punishment for offenders. In short, there will something like definitive rules. After all, the word “professional” can easily stand in for a word like “conformity.” To uphold one, there will be degrees of the other.

And that’s a delicate balance. The fight game is sort of lunatic by nature, and that’s what happily separates it from other sports. The UFC has always done a great job of this. Yet chaos is better contained in the cage. It’s too hard to push enthusiasm for a global brand forward while putting out so many fires backstage.

Yet if we can bear with the smoke a little bit, then shout it out -- it's fight week!

Conventional wisdom told us the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix might be a win-or-go-home proposition for Josh Barnett.

Given the fighter’s notoriously frigid relationship with Zuffa, LLC, we suspected all along the only way he might get back into the UFC was by force; by winning a tournament that had already begun by the time the organization bought Strikeforce last March.

In the past, Zuffa brass has occasionally invoked Barnett’s name as an example everything that is wrong with MMA and when news broke a few months back that the long-awaited GP champion would have yet another fight in Strikeforce before being allowed entry to the Octagon, at least a few conspiracy theorists wondered if it might be akin to “Barnett Insurance” for the UFC.

Now we might never know. Barnett’s bid to win the Strikeforce heavyweight tourney fell painfully short on Saturday night, as he was summarily out-struck and out-wrestled (pretty much out-everything’ed) by Daniel Cormier en route to a lopsided five-round unanimous decision loss in the grand prix final.

When at any point a 6-foot-3, 250-pound man gets scooped off his feet, turned upside down and unceremoniously slammed to the canvas during a fight, it’s a pretty clear sign that things didn’t go his way.

Funny thing about this sport, though: Sometimes even in defeat you come out looking better than before.

Fine, maybe not better -- not exactly -- but if there are any tangible takeaways from Barnett’s performance this weekend they are that the 34-year-old can still go, that he should still be solidly ensconced among the heavyweight top 10 and that he deserves to continue fighting the best in the world.

Now we just have to wait and see if Zuffa will give him the chance.

Prior to entering the Strikeforce tournament, Barnett had spent the last four years splitting time between professional wrestling in Japan and making sporadic appearances in any independent MMA promotion that would make it worth his while. He ran off six straight wins, but did so largely against nobodies like Geronimo dos Santos, spectacles like “Mighty Mo” Siliga and oldsters like Pedro Rizzo.

As a result, we didn’t know quite what to expect when he dived into the ambitious and star-studded GP draw. His first two bouts -- short and sweet submissions over Brett Rogers and Sergei Kharitonov -- didn’t tell us a lot, either. It wasn’t until Saturday's final against Cormier that we truly got to see what Barnett still has in the tank, and it was impressive stuff.

Despite claiming to have broken his hand landing a hard left hook in the first round, Barnett hung in there with Cormier for the duration, continuing to fire off crisp punching combinations to the last. In the fourth round, he threatened the former Olympic wrestler with a leg lock and if not for 15-plus minutes worth of exhaustion, sweat and maybe that broken meathook compromising his grip, who knows what might’ve happened. He fought with the sort of guile and complete disregard for his own face that -- while troubling, if you worry for Josh Barnett the person -- was obviously not the showing of an apathetic, disinterested guy who was just there to get a few paychecks.

Finally, here was Josh Barnett. Here was the guy who crashed onto the scene with a submission victory over Dan Severn in 2000. Here was the guy who defeated Randy Couture to win the UFC title in 2002. Here was the guy who fought his way into the final of the Pride open weight grand prix in 2006 and the guy whose only previous MMA losses came to in-their-prime versions of Rizzo, Mirko Filipovic and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.

With his career possibly on the line here, finally, was Barnett, putting out the kind of effort we've been waiting to see from him since the fall of Pride. Yeah, he came up short against a man who could well prove to be “the next great heavyweight” or whatever the over-the-top Strikeforce broadcast declared Cormier on Saturday, but he did it with considerable style.

Simply put, Barnett looked like a UFC heavyweight. In the late stages he looked arguably better than some UFC heavyweights might after 25 minutes at a whirlwind pace, after taking a fairly hellacious beating and after breaking his hand in the early going.

Here's hoping he gets the the opportunity to actually become a UFC heavyweight again. Here's hoping that the baggage of the past does not obscure his future, that he and the UFC can ultimately find some common ground.

Barnett's effort against Cormier proved the 265-pound class would be better for it.

In the UFC, the latest winner will always have the most compelling case. That’s the nature of hype, and hype has always been the game. More specifically, hype is the essence that drives the thing forward.

By know everybody knows this. And if they don’t, they should pay attention to Donald Cerrone.

Last week Nate Diaz beat Jim Miller to claim the disputed top contender seed behind titleholder Benson Henderson and challenger Frankie Edgar. On Tuesday, Cerrone beat Jeremy Stephens for three loud rounds only to make his case even louder in the aftermath: He’d like a fight in Denver at UFC 150, against anybody, but preferably against Nate Diaz, who put a surgical beatdown on him in December.

This was of course fishing on “Cowboy’s” part.

Cerrone knows the likelihood of the UFC granting a rematch of a one-sided fight that happened only a few months ago isn’t great. Having thought of that, he made another point clear: That he wasn’t himself that night in December. With that being his fifth fight in 2011, he was just an old husk, not the full ear of corn. Besides, he fought a dumb fight. Just too stubborn.

Now, the Donald Cerrone that methodically picked apart Jeremy Stephens -- that was the genuine article. That’s the one who would threaten Diaz’s bearings if the UFC would give him the chance.

Cowboy was just planting seeds. He knows he has a point. He was smart enough to make his point while momentum was on his side, having just beat Stephens impressively. Forget that Stephens isn’t a top ten lightweight, in the 155-pound division jockeying for position is mandatory. On UFC on Fuel’s post-fight show, Chael Sonnen said he’d like to see Cerrone catapulted into a title shot right away. That’s how swift the tide rolls back in for the latest victors.

Problem is, there will be others soon enough, and they will have arguments of merit and timing and will carry updated casualty lists.

So, just where do things stand in the UFC’s lightweight division? Because on June 22 in Atlantic City, N.J., Clay Guida and Gray Maynard -- two perennial contenders -- would like to know. The winner of that fight then becomes the day’s fresh case-maker. To help promote that fight, we’re sure to hear about the winner being in the proverbial title mix. We’ll hear each guy make his case for it, too.

At this point it might be easier to hold a raffle for the next lightweight title shot, provided that Diaz has the most tickets in the bowl. There are so many deserving fighters hovering near the top.

Was Cerrone overshooting to throw Diaz’s name out there? No. His aim was just right. Maybe his doing that gets Diaz’s blood boiling enough to call matchmaker Joe Silva to book it. And why not? Over the course of years, the UFC has been good about listening to those audacious enough to call their own shots. If Cerrone’s not given Diaz, he’ll likely get one of the scintillating young stars like Edson Barboza -- should he get by Jamie Varner at UFC 146 next week -- or Anthony Pettis. Pettis has been dog-eared for that title shot since downing Joe Lauzon at UFC 144 with that head kick. He’s the forever No. 1 contender B.

Where does the winner of Maynard/Guida factor in? What about if/when Eddie Alvarez makes his way into the UFC’s 155-pound cluster? It all depends on the what/when/where at lightweight. Who went last, who did what, who got the last word.

But if you can’t pass half a dozen contenders in one swoop, call out the guy at the front whom you suspect isn’t cut out for idling for months on end. Call out Diaz in a rematch, the guy who displaced you. And if that can’t be arranged, settle for a top-five fight in your hometown of Denver. That’s how you handle things coming off a dominant victory over a career .500 UFC fighter like Stephens.

Ask for it all, and settle for something far better than you might deserve.

Writing about mixed martial arts, it's sometimes easy to come off like a hagiographer.

This little engine that could, surviving, thriving, making it to the top of mountain and all that.

There are days -- unfortunately more and more frequent -- when feel-good memories seem so distant. The impact of a rolling and rife drug culture. Power plays at the top. Lawsuits. Money matters. Twitter gaffes. Politics, union battles, media squabbles and, recently, high-pitched nonsense over television ratings. All part of the makeup of today’s not-so-innocent mixed martial arts. Life in the big city, I guess.

But you know what's never changed, what drew me in like, I imagine, many of you?

Action.

The ballast that steadied MMA through the rough patches. The fuel that helped cast aside a perception that almost killed it. The reason so many people are willing to spend so much money each month to watch mixed martial artists from across the globe do their thing.

Such are the wars of attrition, stunning moments, incredible acts of courage and fortitude.

They’re too many to count. Well, whatever the number is, go ahead and another add another because on Tuesday, Chan Sung Jung and Dustin Poirier offered a wonderful account of all the sport can offer.

From the opening bell, intrigue. Jung started strong, working over Poirier, the 23-year-old once-beaten favorite, from top position. "The Diamond" glimmered with a technical, beautiful reversal. They stood and traded shots at the end of the first.

You sensed it then, right? That this one was going somewhere special.

Round 2 confirmed what we thought we knew, as Poirier somehow surveyed an onslaught of submissions.

The third forced a deep breath -- perhaps Poirier had a late-round comeback in him?

No.

Jung slammed the door on Poirier in Round 4, finishing an excellent fight with an awesome flowing sequence that showcased MMA’s dynamism: uppercut, left hook, flying knee, D’Arce choke.

There was just enough brilliance in there for the 25-year-old Korean to receive $80,000 in submission- and fight-of-the-night bonuses. And apparently he’ll skip to the front of the line, earning a UFC featherweight title shot against either Jose Aldo or Erik Koch.

There is -- or was -- an inherent parity to MMA. Dominance, such as the kind displayed by Anderson Silva or Georges St. Pierre, has been fleeting and rare. Eras have lasted mere months. Though the sport may be entering a time when great champions stand tall above the rest, you can’t count out a guy like Jung. He’s aggressive. Undeterred. Unafraid. And, it turns out, damn skilled. There will always be room for a fighter of his disposition in the UFC, as there should be.

I don’t mean for this to come off like Jung-Poirier was the best fight I’ve ever seen. But it might be the best fight I’ve seen on a Tuesday night, and as prolific as MMA is in 2012, with all the troubles it seems to bring upon itself lately, that’s something to seriously sit back and consider.

For all the out-of-competition drama that follows MMA (sports in general, really) and therefore occupies headlines, isn’t it fun when all that’s forgotten? Even if it’s for a few minutes?

The headliner on a card many might have been tempted to ignore, it turned out, produced a smell-the-roses moment. Just remember that the next time someone or something associated with MMA makes you want to slam your head against a wall.

Oh, and if this read like a portrait of saints, so be it. After what Jung and Poirier managed to pull off, it probably should.

Gilbert Melendez concedes he will not be making a switch to the UFC anytime soon because he plans to see out his contract with Strikeforce. More »

The UFC has confirmed it will film an Australian edition of the hit reality television series, T"he Ultimate Fighter," in an Australia versus UK battle dubbed "The Smashes." More
»

We've already noted that Dominick Cruz was the only guy to truly capitalize on the new live format of "The Ultimate Fighter" this season. Now, it appears he could become a test case for how the show responds to real, actual drama.

UFC President Dana White confirmed via Twitter on Monday afternoon that the reigning bantamweight champion suffered a torn ACL while filming “TUF Live.” The obvious result is, Cruz’s upcoming grudge match against opposing coach Urijah Faber is off the UFC 148 card and the future of the 135 pound title, the division’s first real rivalry and perhaps even Cruz’s gig on the show are all in doubt.

So, yeah, pretty much the biggest bummer imaginable for TUF’s first run on FX, which was already fetching disappointing ratings.

“Sorry to all the fans out there!” Cruz tweeted after news of his injury broke. “I WILL recover and I WILL be back to put on a show!”

If there’s any upside at all to this, it’s that now we might get to see how “TUF Live” responds to genuine adversity.

The cancellation of Cruz-Faber marks the third time in the show’s last five seasons that some calamity has befallen a proposed fight between the coaches, but Cruz is the first coach to suffer a major injury during filming. Given this season’s revamped format -- episodes are shot during the week, edited, then aired on Friday along with a live contestant fight -- that could make this week’s installment the most interesting episode of “The Ultimate Fighter” in quite some time. Maybe ever.

If Cruz’s injury occurred at the TUF training center, if footage exists of it, we’ll all be curious to see how showrunners decide to play it. Considering the high probability that a Cruz injury would also throw the show and the UFC’s planning into utter chaos behind-the-scenes, let’s hope they give us a quality dose of that action as well.

The smartest way for the show to handle the situation would be to show the impact of Cruz’s injury not only on the fighter himself, the TUF contestants and his prospective opponent, but to also show how matchmakers and UFC brass respond to it. Show us the discussions of what to do with Cruz’s coaching spot. Show us the efforts to find a replacement for him to fight Faber and UFC 148.

There is already talk of setting Faber up with an interim title bout against Renan Barao, who was scheduled to take on Ivan Menjivar on the UFC 148 preliminaries anyway. A majority of MMA fans probably think that’s the right thing to do -- best that the fledgling bantamweight division avoids delays and stagnation at all costs -- but it’d be interesting to see footage of how the UFC eventually comes around to the decision of how to handle this unfortunate situation.

That would necessarily give this episode of "TUF Live" a different feel and would be appointment viewing for most MMA fans. It might also give the show the kind of ratings boost it’s been looking for all along.

B.J. Penn has explained why he chose not to fight Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, revealing he thought it would be a step down to fight outside the UFC. More »

We’ve come to expect, even look forward to the passionate postfight ramblings of the Diaz brothers.

It wouldn’t really feel like a Diaz victory, after all, without copious shout-outs to the homies. It wouldn’t feel right without some chest-thumping on behalf of the 209, or Stockton, or NorCal, or just California in general (it seems the place the Diazes call home gets bigger the farther away they get). The evening just wouldn’t be complete without the now obligatory praise for a newly vanquished opponent and at least one out-of-the-blue announcement to make us all narrow our eyes at the TV a little bit and go: “Huh?”

On Saturday night in New Jersey, it was Nate Diaz’s turn.

Diaz had just defeated Jim Miller at UFC on Fox 3 to solidify his position as top contender for the organization’s lightweight title. In an absolutely appropriate summation by UFC color commentator Joe Rogan, Diaz had “completely handled” Miller en route to dealing him the first stoppage loss of his MMA career via funky second-round guillotine choke. It was Diaz’s third win in a row since dropping back down from welterweight last year. He seems to have suddenly come into his own inside the Octagon and is now set to take on the winner of the Aug. 11 do-over between champion Ben Henderson and ex-champ Frankie Edgar.

When asked by Rogan how he views his own standing in the sport’s most competitive division, Diaz first stumbled through the typical clichés about wanting to be top dog, but then tacked on an addendum that -- while not exactly surprising -- speaks to the unique landscape of the 155-pound division right now.

“I’m trying to be the No. 1 in this world,” Diaz said. “There’s only one person above all of us and that’s Gilbert "El Nino" Melendez, the true world champion lightweight.”

Diaz, of course, is terribly biased. He and Melendez are longtime teammates on the Cesar Gracie fight team, so it’s in no way shocking that he would use a live mic on national television to give the Strikeforce champion his propers. However, it is somewhat surprising that anyone on the doorstep of a UFC title shot would so readily and publicly admit he thinks the best fighter in his weight class competes elsewhere.

Also, even if Diaz didn’t know it, he had a point. His words actually did much to underscore the fractured state of the lightweight ranks right now.

For perhaps the first time in the modern history of the sport -- or, at least, in recent memory -- there are no fewer than five fighters who can lay somewhat serious claim to being the No.1 lightweight in the world. Sure, maybe not all of them could make overwhelming cases for themselves, but you wouldn’t immediately laugh any of them out of the room, either.

Since, as Diaz sort of pointed out, several of said guys don’t fight in the UFC, it makes the question of who is truly the best in the world more difficult to answer than ever. It also obviously makes the 155 pound class one of the most interesting in the sport.

Considering that what we typically do when we fill out MMA top 10 lists is just insert “Whoever has UFC Title” at No. 1, Henderson is the conventional pick as top lightweight of the moment. In the former WEC titlist’s case, however, his meteoric rise is undermined a tad by the razor-close decision in his championship victory over Edgar at UFC 144.

At least some observers think Edgar rightly should have gotten the nod in that bout and people who subscribe to the old adage that it's necessary to “take” the title off a standing champion might be able to make a convincing case that Edgar is still the best lightweight on the planet. That matchmakers granted him an immediate rematch against Henderson at UFC 150 only adds fuel to that argument.

Michael Chandler is the undefeated 155-pound champion of Bellator and the 26-year-old Xtreme Couture product has spent the last couple of years laying waste to most of the competition in MMA’s highest profile mid-major organization. His title victory over Eddie Alvarez was a fight of the year candidate for 2011, but the back-and-forth nature of that affair’s three-plus rounds might lead some to wonder if Chandler is truly even the best lightweight in his own promotion right now. As long as Bellator doesn’t move to set up a Chandler-Alvarez rematch, instead appearing content to book its champ in quizzical, non-title fights against guys like Akihiro Gono, we might never know how good Chandler actually is.

Since that loss in November, Alvarez might have the least compelling case as a legitimate world No. 1, but nonetheless still deserves to be in the discussion. Prior to that defeat, he’d won seven fights in a row dating back to 2008 and last month followed up the loss of his Bellator title by dispatching erstwhile top-10 lightweight Shinya Aoki (also the last guy to beat Alvarez prior to Chandler) in just two minutes, 14 seconds. Alvarez is just barely hanging onto his own top 10 spot in the latest ESPN.com rankings, but remains the sort of guy who could beat any other lightweight on the list on any given night.

You can’t have a conversation about who's the best without at least mentioning his name.

Then there’s Melendez, who can likely make the best case for the top spot of any non-UFC fighter. At 20-2, he too is undefeated since 2008 and has avenged both his career losses during that current stretch. In his last four fights, Melendez has looked every bit the part of the world’s best lightweight but, similar to Chandler in Bellator, Strikeforce just doesn’t have the clout to offer him many new an interesting tests, especially with Zuffa still opting not to lessen its own glut of lightweights by sending them Melendez’s way.

At this point, it seems the most Strikeforce can do is book him into an endless series of rematches against Josh Tompson. They’ll fight for a third time on May 19 and if Melendez wins, his tenure in Strikeforce will seem more pointless and maddening than ever.

Should Melendez lose? Well, that seems like an even worse outcome.

Lightweight remains the most vibrant and hotly-contested weight class in our sport, but it’s also the most maddening, considering the wealth of high-level talent spread out over numerous promotions. There are enough contenders jockeying for position in the UFC alone to keep us busy for the next few months, but the question of who can lay legitimate claim to the 155-pound throne will be too-close-to-call until all the top fighters congregate under the same banner.

Until then, at least we know who has Nate Diaz’s vote.

Mixed martial arts is filled to the brim with great stories. Not the least of which is the amazing tale of the sport itself.

During the course of this fight week, UFC’s third on network TV, we were often reminded of two of its most harrowing: Lavar Johnson taking three bullets in a drive-by and Alan Belcher's battle with blindness.

When it comes to opportunities, Johnson and Belcher have to rank among the UFC's most grateful combatants.

With Johnson, it's easy to grasp why. He was the victim of horrific street violence that left his life (never mind his career as a heavyweight fighter) in peril. To survive and rebuild must have been empowering, which you can see in an attitude that led him, improbably enough, to open the Fox-televised UFC card. Johnson is fighting like he has nothing to lose, knocking dudes stiff, and for that he's moving toward the something-to-lose category. It will be interesting to see how the mid-tier heavyweight handles added pressure of success.

Belcher, though. The sport dinged him bad, nearly taking his sight. To cope with the emotions and thoughts that must come with that, the surgery and eventual recovery, to put it all on the line again by fighting dangerous beasts like Rousimar Palhares, I'm not sure there are many people who can comprehend what that requires.

Alan Belcher amazed on Saturday, and only in part because of his history.

The 28-year-old out of Biloxi, Miss., turned the tables on Palhares, attacking the Brazilian at his considerable strength. Leg locks, dare I say, are a dangerous game if played against “Toquinho,” but Belcher was obviously well prepared and defended the twisting, turning, bone-breaking attacks as well as he could.

Belcher wasn’t supposed to win -- not according to the mythology built up around the Brazilian. Palhares tore people limb by limb, OK? But, you know, Belcher wasn’t even supposed to be fighting, either. And there he was, slamming elbows and punches into the head of a stumpy middleweight stuck on his back.

UFC’s third card on Fox was its best since finding the brighter spotlight of prime-time network TV. After a too-short title fight followed by an all-decision card, Saturday’s effort -- highlighted by Johnson’s knockout, Belcher’s referee stoppage and Nate Diaz’s coming out party -- was a true example of mixed martial arts as spectator sport.

On a big night for combat sports, when UFC action led into Floyd Mayweather out-pointing Miguel Cotto and pocketing a record $32 million in guaranteed money, Belcher’s win -- his fourth straight -- feels worth singling out. The streak, halved by the retina detachment in 2010, puts him in position to compete at the upper reaches of UFC’s middleweight division.

Palhares, amazingly enough, wasn’t ranked coming into tonight. So where does that leave Belcher in a deep, competitive field?

I think he’d beat Hector Lombard, Bellator’s former champion and Zuffa’s newest signee, who has a similar chance to breakthrough on Fox when he fights Brian Stann in Los Angeles in August. Can’t say I feel so confident in Belcher if he’s matched against Stann. Belcher versus the winner between Ed Herman and Jake Shields makes sense. Perhaps Tim Boetsch or Michael Bisping, who meet this July. Whatever Zuffa tasks him with next, Belcher will eagerly answer the call.

After all, he didn’t come back from the brink of disaster for nothing.

UFC president Dana White has vowed to stand by Ross Pearson following the Brit's arrest on the suspicion of driving under the influence. More »

No matter how stunning Johny Hendricks' 12-second knockout of Jon Fitch was in December, stopping the second best welterweight on the planet won't mean much if the southpaw can't also defeat Josh Koscheck on Saturday.

"I have to win this fight to reach that goal [of becoming UFC champion]," said Hendricks, a 28-year-old two-time NCAA champion wrestler for Oklahoma State University, whose life essentially boils down to a never-ending series of high-bar scenarios (out-of-competition weight bumps not included).

Technically speaking, Hendricks needs a win in the co-main event of UFC's third event on Fox to be eligible for a shot at fighting for the welterweight strap.

Carlos Condit is next in line, of course, and he's chosen to sit out while Georges St. Pierre recovers from major knee surgery, which won't happen fully until later this year. So, presuming he wins, Hendricks (12-1) will find himself in the midst of a hurry-up-and-wait scenario.

Having won two in a row since St. Pierre busted up his face with jabs at UFC 124, Koscheck, 34, should provide a solid test for Hendricks at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. The former title contender has the wrestling and athletic ability to, at a minimum, neutralize Hendricks' considerable game, which manifests through a mix of technical wrestling and power punches.

"If he wants to go back to it, if he wants to turn it into a wresting match, that's fine," Hendricks said. "I've prepared myself where that's one thing I want to see: How good my takedown defense is; how good my takedowns are. If I get to see it in this fight, great. If not, that's OK, too."

Koscheck hasn't suggested what his in-cage approach will be. Hendricks claims to be fine not knowing. Yet temptation must center on a knockout similar to the one that put away Fitch. Hendricks is self-aware enough to realize that honing in on a spectacular finish is the quickest way not to be on the right side of one.

"If the knockout comes, it comes," he said. "All I want to do is hit you about 85 percent [of potential power] and as quick as possible. The knockouts are great, but they don't happen very often. There's a reason why. If you go into a fight thinking you're going to knock someone out, for one, you're not going to train very hard. You're going to be so fixed on that by the second and third round you'll have lost confidence. By that time you may have lost the fight. I'm going in with all aspects of the fight open."

As the match has been broken down, most pundits allow Koscheck an advantage in overall speed. Hendricks, it turns out, is not overly impressed by Koscheck, suggesting he’s every bit as fast as his fellow wrestler.

The pair have been relatively quiet in advance of the fight. Hendricks is not a trash talker and Koscheck hasn’t shelled out the same sort of verbal malevolence reserved for most other opponents over the years.

Still, Hendricks pointed to a pair of barbs that stood out to him.

First, Koscheck’s contention that the win over Fitch was “a lucky punch.”

Second, that Hendricks is “fat.”

On the former, Hendricks sighs. He’s been telling people he’d rather have luck than no luck at all.

And on the latter, the point is conceded.

“I am fat,” he said. “I love my food.”

Especially the “junk” variety. Not to mention a few beers from time to time. All of which leads Hendricks, a true good ol’ boy, to blow up between bouts. He weighed 215 pounds following the Fitch bout, which is typical. But he’s in shape now and, as competition nears, that’s all that matters.

Hendricks knows how to win and make good on goals. He’s managed to do both his entire life. By knocking out Fitch "people got to know who I am,” he said, which was as much a milestone in his MMA career as it was a stepping stone toward his ultimate objective. Adding Koscheck to the list would get him that much closer.

NEW YORK -- For as stacked as the UFC 146 card appears for Memorial Day weekend, it’s really two title fights (Urijah Faber/Dominick Cruz and Chael Sonnen/Anderson Silva) and a pack of glitzy non-consequential match-ups (Cung Le/Rich Franklin and Forrest Griffin/Tito Ortiz).

Not so for New Jersey and this weekend’s free UFC on FOX 3 card. No belts will change hands, but situations are in play. Complicated situations. Theoretical ones. Titles dangling in the balance, right there for some and just out of reach for others. And there is, of course, much obfuscation.

For example: If Nate Diaz capitalizes on his broadcast television main event and downs Jim Miller, he is essentially guaranteed a title shot at 155 pounds. However, with Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar fighting for the title in August, that shot might come in a wintry month like December. That’s a long time to wait for a guy who A.) fights for money, B.) likes fighting and C.) has a nice head of momentum. When asked if he’d wait in that situation at Thursday’s news conference, Diaz said simply, “I have a fight on Saturday.”

This drew a New York cheer. Diaz, for all his volume in punching, is a man of few words.

If Jim Miller beats Diaz, on the other hand, he isn’t guaranteed anything. Rather, he is guaranteed to be cheering for Frankie Edgar at UFC 150 when Edgar fights Henderson, because in that case Miller would potentially get to fight Edgar (his erstwhile training partner/friend).

Got it?

Here’s what Miller had to say when asked if he’s confused by Diaz getting a title shot with a win (even though he’s 3-3 in his last six lightweight bouts) while he (10-2 as a lightweight in the UFC) won’t necessarily:

“You know, honestly, it doesn’t matter to me right now. I’ve got a fight in two days, and that’s where my focus is. From doing that [10-2 record] and having that seven-win stretch and dealing with the rematches in this division, it really cemented that things change -- and things happen. So I’m not going to sit here and try and predict what’ll happen with a win or with a loss. I’m just focused on the fight itself, and after that, then it’s time to speculate about the next fight.”

If he won’t speculate, we sure will, and we’ll add a name to the mix: Anthony Pettis.

Pettis, who is a quasi-No. 1 contender, will be coming back to full health some time in the summer. Logic would say that the winner of Diaz/Miller will end up fighting Pettis to establish a true No. 1 contender, while Henderson/Edgar II plays out.

Meanwhile, the co-main event has its own wild set of conditions. Should Johny Hendricks beat Josh Koscheck, he is the No. 1 contender for a title fight. Problem is, once again, that Georges St. Pierre and Carlos Condit are likely fighting in November to settle up the permanent and interim belts. There’s no way that Hendricks will want to wait for that to play out for a spring 2013 title fight.

Yet if Koscheck wins, he will have to pull for Condit to beat St. Pierre to have a word in the title conversation.

Confused? You should be. If we learned anything from the final prefight news conference, it’s this -- the UFC doesn’t want repetition. Koscheck/St. Pierre and Henderson/Miller happened too soon ago to happen again. The UFC craves new blood.

It’s the most complicated contender-type card that ever was, and it’s going down Saturday night in New Jersey.

First UFC "super fight" in January?

In the post news conference scrum, a media member asked Dana White about a potential fight card at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, a venue which can hold 100,000 people.

White said all that flirtation about holding an event there was not only real, but is a serious possibility. He also alluded to a big January card that could potentially be so massive.

“We’re always looking for a potential big fight,” White said. “We’ve always wanted to do a fight, and we’ve been talking to [Jerry] Jones and his crew about doing a fight down in Dallas Cowboys Stadium, but we need a fight big enough to do it. The last fight that I was going to try and make there was Brock [Lesnar] and Fedor [Emelianenko].”

There is potentially a fight out there that’s big enough.

Running through the timelines of “super fight” candidates for a place like Dallas Cowboys Stadium, or a second event at the Rogers Centre in Toronto (or at the old, reliable stand-by in Las Vegas), one could envision a Jon Jones/Anderson Silva match-up at least being discussed.

Think about it. If Jones beats Dan Henderson in September, that would be four months ahead of January -- perfect for the turn around. Anderson Silva fights in July. Should be beat Chael Sonnen for his record 10th title defense, there would be only one way to raise the ante -- and it wouldn’t be to take on Mark Munoz or Hector Lombard.

It would be to fight Jones, who’d have tidied his own division up just in time. Is that what the UFC has in mind?

“I don’t know,” White said. “We’ll see what happens. We’ll see what we end up putting together.”

New York state of mind

By now, everyone knows about the MMA ban in New York, even as we make our way through open-minded 2012. This is why the UFC dangles its product just across the Hudson River -- to reinforce that all notions of “human cockfighting” are antiquated and hyperbolic. Whether the sport hasn’t been sanctioned in the Empire State is about “gangsters” in the Culinary Union (as Dana White says) or something less ominous, it depends on whom you talk to.

But when MMA does finally get legalized in New York, the UFC plans on doing it big.

“When we finally do break through and do a big event here, I think the event at Madison Square Garden that we do will be huge, and it’s be a great time to pull off a Fan Expo here in New York,” White said. “I think it would be huge.”

In the meantime, those in New York who want to catch MMA in a live setting must go underground. Or, underwater. For MMA, there’s light at the end of the Lincoln Tunnel, across the way in East Rutherford, N.J., where the UFC will once again mock New York with the one thing it doesn’t have.

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