Despite the occasional craziness from chief Dana White, WWE-style bluster from Brock Lesnar, or morning TV sexytime from Tito Ortiz, UFC is still the serious big kid on the block when it comes to mixed martial arts. Fedor Emelianenko might be heading to Strikeforce, but in general when the best fighters on Earth get down to business, they do it in the Octagon.

Last night’s UFC 101 event was no exception, as the two main co-event victors Anderson Silva and B.J. Penn cemented themselves as two of MMA’s best fighters, both in surprisingly efficient - but quite different - fashion.

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Cutmen are one of the unsung heroes of the ring. They’re the ones that stand in their corner and spend time between rounds preventing and treating the fighter’s bruised and bloodied face, preparing him for the continuing assault and allowing the fight go on. So you just know they have their share of grisly tales to tell. Lucky for us, ESPN THE MAGAZINE asked the one of the great cutmen in the UFC, Stitch Davis, for his five bloodiest stories in the ring. Davis did not disappoint.

(Job well done, Stitch.)

Not to spoil anything, but the bloodiest match he worked on was Jay Hieron vs. Jonathan Roulet, when Hieron ended up severing an artery in between his eyes and started spouting blood. “Both fighters had blood from the top of their head to the bottom of their feet, front and back.” So yeah, you might want to read this thing before dinnertime.

But one of the biggest revelations in the piece is that Raul Marquez is a cheap ass.

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• NEW YORK POST’S HARDBALL remembers Yankee great Bobby Murcer.

• THE BIG LEAD gives us the scoop on a brawl at Florida high school football exhibition game.
• DEADSPIN digs up a video of UFC star Forrest Griffin as a high school football player with no real regard for the saftey of his cranium.
• BUSTED COVERAGE finds the man who put the “X” in Texas.
• ESPN THE MAGAZINE goes inside the house of a bobble head collector who spent his birthday in Bridgeport, CT picking up the Tommy John Bobble Arm doll.
• TAMPA BAY.COM dusts Pat Summerall off to countdown their top 25 Super Bowl moments.

Two of the most media-friendly fighters in the MMA world went at each other in Las Vegas last night in UFC 86 for the light heavyweight title and, more importantly, the claim to the face of the UFC franchise (excepting Dana White, of course). CHICKS HEART FIGHTS deftly covers the Forrest Griffin and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson styles, camps, and fan bases.

Griffin took out Jackson’s base by pounding his left leg relentlessly and then wrestled a unanimous decision away from Rampage in a mild upset, becoming the most successful reality show contestant since Tiffany Pollard. The scoring came under some scrutiny as the match was close enough to bring disagreement between experts and fans.
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