Both men have won 75% of their bouts by vicious strikes.  Mirko CroCop has done so in many more fights and against much better competition, and for that reason, he will be looking to breathe life back into his career, while dos Santos will attempt to continue to ride high on his newfound momentum after uppercutting Fabricio Werdum out of consciousness and out of the UFC. This fight will be huge and highly pivotal for the career of both men, and everything about it seems to exude excitement.  Featuring the Rich Franklin versus Vitor Belfort main event on the same card, UFC 103 on September 19 in Dallas should be a beauty.

In case you missed it, here is the Kieth Jardine vs. Thiago Silva fight.

Lyoto Machida is working out hard in preparation of his fight with Shogun Rua at UFC 104.

From Inside MMA, Tito says he will press the tempo, test Coleman's heart and mind, and discusses how he will deal with Coleman being the more highly credentialed wrestler.

"Bully Beatdown" host Jason "Mayhem" Miller announced here that he would be fighting Jake Shields for the Strikeforce 185 pound belt, but it appears now that the actuality is not 100% that it will happen according to Mayhem, and also as there have been no official confirmation or further updates. Regardless, this is no reason for Mayhem to avoid stirring the pot a little.  Well, had he only said "I do everything better than him" in reference to Shields, that would qualify as minimal and acceptable pot-stirring.  However, in standard Mayhem style, he fully grasped the giant pot-stirring spoon with both hands and raucously agitated the contents of said pot with the statement:  "I will beat the piss out of Jake Shields, and he knows it." Here are the highlights of Mayhem's quotes from his interview with our friends at CagePotato.com:

"Dude, I will beat the piss out of Jake Shields, and he knows it. If everyone thinks I’m gonna lose, that’s fine. I’ll prove them wrong when we get in the cage against each other. I do everything better than him, and I’m bigger than him and stronger than him! I don’t understand, people think that because he stomped out some 170-pounders and caught Robbie Lawler in a damn guillotine, that all of a sudden he’s the second coming of Christ. Well guess what, dude? I’m gonna smash him. When I fight him, I’ll smash him."

Egads!  Have we failed to learn the poetic lesson and important wisdom that is the enlightening essence taught by "Bully Beatdown" so soon?  Inevitably lost is the mantra of respectful humility and the avoidance of volatile pitfalls such as presumptuous overconfidence and the arrogant air of invincibility from the show's host towards one of the show's bully-beaters. Regardless, this will be a great fight.  Mayhem has a point in that Shields has somewhat struggled against larger fighters, where he is reduced to rely solely on his strong wrestling and near-immaculate ground game.  Conversely, Mayhem has also struggled with strong grapplers, illustrated by his losses to Sonnen, Kennedy, GSP, Trigg, and Jacare.  Both men have fought at both WW and MW, each settling for the latter recently.  I think the overriding point is that this proves Strikeforce can churn-out premiere fights, as this is an intriguing match-up stylistically between two top 185'ers and quite a worthy way to legitimize the MW belt until Cung Le returns.

MMAJunkie claims to have the inside scoop that TUF product Amir Sadollah will be the first selected opponent for the return of "The New York Bad Ass", Phil Baroni, at UFC 106 on November 26th in Vegas. This is an interesting choice for the brash-mouthed slugger, who was released from the UFC after some incredible highlight reel knockouts were faded by a string of four consecutive losses.  Baroni entered the UFC for his second professional MMA fight and defeated Curtis Stout before tangling with one of the top MW's at the time in Matt Lindland, where Lindland applied his Olympic caliber wrestling for the decision victory.  Baroni's status exploded in his next two fights, when he used the heads belonging to highly established fighters Amar Suloev and Dave Menne as a speed bag, rocking each with jackhammer combinations that landed in frighteningly immediate succession, which drew about the respectable comparison of his punching agility and power to be "Vitor-esque" from fans. Feeling on top of the world and "the best eva", gravity took shape in the form of a rematch-loss with Lindland, back-to-back losses to the late Evan Tanner, and a surprise guillotine from the unknown Pete Sell for his first career submission defeat.  This resulted in an amicable UFC split. Showing his willingness to evolve his wrestling base, he rebounded from his first submission loss with his first win via submission against Chris Cruit in Extreme Fighting Challenge, and enjoyed ajother two-fight career launchpad by viciously KO'ing Ikuhisa Minowa and Ryo Chonan in the esteemed Pride FC organization, and doing the same to Yuki Kondo after losing a decision rematch to Minowa.  Baroni went on to experience smattered success and defeat in ICON, Strikeforce, and Cage Rage, dropping to 170 pounds for his last 4 fights, in which he is 3-1 with Joe Riggs accounting for the "1". Given his less than stellar recent performances on rosters inferior to the UFC, and the UFC's constantly stated commitment to bring in the world's best fighters, many were surprised at Baroni's return.  However, I have no complaints, as the "New York Bad Ass" usually provides enjoyable performances and can change the pace at any time with the power of his hands.  And, let's be honest- the man can sell a fight along with the best of them. Amir Sadollah will look to reinvigorate his reputation after Johnny Hendricks knocked his status down a few notches with a flurry of thunderous punches at UFC 101.  For as much hype and promotion as we've seen about this exciting Muay-Thai fighter, he is in fact a young and inexperienced competitor with a 1-1 record.  Although Baroni may wear a journeyman's barcode with a 13-11 history, he's fought a wealth of talent throughout his career, and his strong wrestling and knockout power are nothing to be overlooked, so Sadollah will have his hands more than full with his third official opponent.

(Gary Marino, Kevin Jordan, TheGARV)

All right! This is very exciting news for me. I've been selected to be the third man in the corner in Kevin Jordan's fight against Ray Sefo on Strikeforce's September 25th show, which will be televised live on Showtime. I'd like to thank Gary Marino and Ryan Ciotoli of Team Bombsquad for making this happen. Looking forward to a great fight!