Today the UFC confirmed on their website that Dan Henderson, Rich Franklin, and Karo Parisyan will all be making their return to the Octagon at UFC 88 in Atlanta, GA on September 6. The card is headlined by a light heavyweight bout between Chuck Liddell and Rashad Evans with the winner likely being very close to a title shot.

Dan Henderson, coming off a loss to Anderson Silva in March, will be stepping back into the cage against one of the UFC’s most highly touted international talents, Rousimar “Toquinho” Palhares. Henderson will be looking for his first victory inside the UFC since coming over after the collapse PRIDE. Toquinho recently steamrolled Ivan Salaverry in his UFC debut with a very slick armbar.

Rich Franklin, the former UFC middleweight champion, will be facing off against fellow Cincinnati fighter Matt Hamill in a battle at light heavyweight. Franklin is coming off a victory over Travis Lutter at UFC 83 and will be fighting at light heavyweight for the first time since he fought Ken Shamrock at the first ever Ultimate Fighter Finale. Matt Hamill recently beat Tim Boetsch at UFC Fight Night 13 in April and will be looking to make it two in a row since his loss to Michael Bisping last year.

Karo Parisyan will be looking to prove to the world that he’s still top shelf in the UFC’s most talented division when he takes on one of the best Japanese stars that the UFC has signed in recent months, Yoshiyuki Yoshida. Parisyan is coming off a knockout loss to Thiago Alves at UFC Fight Night 13, a fight that would have catapulted him into title contention should he have won. Yoshida recently made his UFC debut, throttling Jon Koppenhaver at UFC 84 in the opening moments of round one.

These three fights are an excellent addition to the card and it looks like UFC 88, even without a title fight, is shaping up to be one of the better events all year.

Though not related to the post-UFC 84 frenzy, this could be a fantastic fight set for UFC’s immediate future. According to a report made by MMAJunkie.com today, TUF-vet Mac Danzig and UFC crowd-favorite Clay Guida are set for a bout on UFC 87: “Seek and Destroy.”

Danzig is fresh out of TUF Season 6 and has a 2-0 record in the UFC with wins over Tommy Speer and, most recently, Mark Bocek.

This fight will be a Danzig’s first real test in the UFC, as Clay Guida has traded with the best of the UFC’s lightweight division. Guida is 3-3 in the organization so far, with wins over Marcus Aurelio and Samy Schiavo.

The bout between Danzig and Guida will go down August 9 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Check back with Five Ounces of Pain for more UFC 87 content as it becomes known!

According to MMA Weekly’s Rumors section, Clay Guida (22-9) will take on UFC newcomer Samy Schiavo (10-4) at UFC Fight Night 13.

Guida has gone 2-3 in the UFC against very tough opponents, with his latest appearance being a 3rd round submission loss to Roger Huerta at the Ultimate Fighter 6 Finale.

Schiavo fights outs of French Top Team and is riding a 6 fight win streak.

This fight will be another entertaining match up on what is looking to be a very stacked UFC Fight Night. Other rumored bouts for the card include.

• Kenny Florian vs. Joe Lauzon -Confirmed
• Stephan Bonnar vs. Matt Hamill - Confirmed
• Spencer Fisher vs. Marcus Aurelio
• Karo Parisyan vs. Thiago Alves
• Din Thomas vs. Josh Neer
• Tommy Speer vs. Anthony Johnson
• Clay Guida vs. Samy Schiavo

Spike TV issued a press release on Tuesday afternoon to call attention to the ratings for Saturday’s telecast of the live season finale for the sixth season on The Ultimate Fighter.

And the ratings are solid.

The average rating for the three hour telecast was a 1.8 (1.7 million viewers) with a 2.7 rating (769,000) with males between the ages of 18-34, a 2.8 rating (471,00) with males between the ages of 25-34, and a 2.2 rating (1.2 million) with males between the ages of 18-49.

Spike is touting in the release that the telecast “delivered” a total of 2.5 million viewers.

It’s interesting to note that the telecast peaked at 11:30 p.m. ET during the main event between Roger Huerta and Clay Guida with a total of 2.9 million viewers.  That’s pretty impressive when you consider that the Floyd Mayweather vs. Ricky Hatton PPV had already started by that time and that there was stiff competition on basic cable at that time with A&E showing “The Matrix” and TNT airing “Gladiator.”

Based on these results, I don’t think the UFC will ever hesitate to go head-to-head with boxing no matter how big the main event is.

Though Roger Huerta pulled out the stunning third-round submission against opponent Clay Guida, Huerta admits that he was rocked a number of times in the bout:

“I was hurt. He rocked me, man” Huerta said. “I was slightly knocked out but I knew what was going on. I just heard this ringing, and it was the weirdest thing, all I saw was all this hair, I didn’t know if it was a human being or a lion attacking me, then after about 10 seconds I was like ‘Hey Clay’ and it was back on.”

According to Dave Doyle of Yahoo! Sports all judges gave Clay Guida the first two rounds of the bout, including one judge who had scored the fight 20-17 before Huerta’s rear-naked choke victory in the third round.

So Huerta seems to be pretty resilient, but he was definitely losing the fight before his explosion of energy in the third round. We’ll see if “El Matador” will be able to have the same luck when he faces more elite opponents in the future.

First things first, last night’s finale was simply awesome. The fights between Jon Koppenhaver vs. Jared Rollins and Clay Guida vs. Roger Huerta were so good they could have carried a show by themselves. But to get two matches like that on the same card is simply amazing. I hope Dana White is in the Christmas spirit and gives all four guys a $40,000 match of the night bonus.

Now, let’s break the show down from a overly-analytical perspective.

Is it just me or did last night’s telecast go longer than usual and contain even more commercials than normal?

The commercials nearly killed me. Really, I could not stop bitching about them. They had too many breaks that lasted too long. It’s like this for every live UFC telecast on Spike but I felt last night was especially bad. Maybe there’s no change and it just felt that way?

Or, because Spike is paying the UFC more for its content they have to squeeze more ads in to help offset costs?

Whatever the situation is, without awesome fights between Koppenhaver vs. Rollins and Guida vs. Huerta, the pacing of the show would have killed almost any enjoyment for me.

The pacing on pay-per-views is usually slower than a lot of shows but I’m okay with that. The pacing on Spike TV fight cards is usually a little better but it just seemed to take forever to go from match to match.

I kind of get the feeling that Spike and the UFC wanted to stretch the show out because they wanted to cut into the Floyd Mayweather vs. Ricky Hatton fight as much as possible. I’m not complaining, as I like seeing more matches and I think it’s smart business to show as many of the TUF guys officially fighting for the UFC as possible.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REMAINDER OF SAM CAPLAN’S BREAKDOWN OF THE TUF 6 FINALE (INCLUDING HIS MATCH-BY-MATCH BREAKDOWN, WHETHER HE STILL FEELS ROGER HUERTA IS OVERRATED, THE LONG-TERM PROSPECTS OF EACH TUF CONTESTANT, HIS ANALYSIS OF KENNY FLORIAN’S DEBUT, AND MUCH MORE ON HIS PROELITE.COM BLOG

Disclaimer: Sam Caplan is the lead writer and editor of ProElite.com.

According to ProElite.com, the website was informed early this morning by the agent for UFC lightweight fighter Clay Guida that the UFC had decided not to allow Guida to participate in a previously scheduled chat that was to take place this afternoon on the ProElite.com forums.

ProElite.com is a sibling company to EliteXC but operates as a separate, independent company.

It’s very interesting that the UFC would take this approach with a fighter such as Guida, who would stand to gain from the publicity generated from the interaction with fans.

The UFC has a strict media policy, something that I’ve learned the hard way. When attempting to apply for media credentials for UFC 78, I was advised by a UFC official that my application would be denied due to my ProElite.com affiliation.

The UFC’s concern was that coverage of UFC 78 might appear on a site that they classify as a “competitor.” It’s one that I can understand to some extent, although there’s a big difference between ProElite.com and EliteXC.com.

Whether I think the rules are fair doesn’t matter.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REMAINDER OF THIS ARTICLE ON SAM CAPLAN’S PROELITE.COM BLOG

Kenny Florian is an awesome radio guest for multiple reasons.

For one, he’s a student of the game and can articulate his points very well.

Two, he’s outspoken. If you listened to this past weekend’s edition of Inside the Cage Radio, he basically called Gomi overrated (which I agree with).

And third, he gave us some good tidbits. First, he told us he wouldn’t be fighting again until 2008 and that Roger Huerta’s next rumored opponent is Clay Guida.

I’m not sure if our friends at MMAJunkie.com had time to listen to the show this week and initially heard Florian’s remark, but regardless, Dann has done some digging and has learned there is some teeth to what Kenny said.

Dann is reporting that sources close to both fighters have confirmed that the fight is in the works to be the main event of the live finale of The Ultimate Fighter 6 on Dec. 8 on Spike TV.

That would be an awesome TV main event.

When I interviewed Dana White several weeks back he said we’d likely see Huerta start to fight the division’s elite and if the fight with Guida happens, he will have definitely been true to his word.

Huerta has the advantage when it comes to the standup but Guida is no pushover in that department. If he can get Huerta to the ground, and I think that he can because his standoff is good enough to setup his takedown, then it will be bye-bye to Huerta’s perfect record.

And if Huerta beats Guida then critics like me will have to admit he’s worthy of the hype.

Disappointed that you might not get to see Clay Guida fight Marcus Aurelio at UFC 74 this weekend? No problem, San Jose-based fight promotion Strikeforce has got you covered. If you become a registered use of the site you will be able to access a past fight between Guida and former Pride lightweight title contender Gilbert Melendez.

I haven’t seen the match yet (I plan to check it out later today) but it looks pretty damn good on paper.

You can get more info on how to watch the match by clicking here.

Melendez is slated to make his return to Strikeforce on September 29 at a card to be held at the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills, Calif. No opponent has been announced as of yet.

Greg Savage of Sherdog.com is reporting that former Pride lightweight Marcus Aurelio will debut for the UFC in August at UFC 74 against Clay Guida.

Aurelio will clearly be the favorite in this fight against Guida. However, based off his performance against Tyson Griffin at UFC 72 I think Guida will make this a very competitive fight.

The UFC has confirmed the main televised portion of the UFC 72: Victory card set for June 16 at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Ireland.

The main event will be Rich Franklin vs. Yushin Okami. Also, Forrest Griffin will take on Hector “Sick Dog” Ramirez, Jason MacDonald vs. Rory Singer, and Tyson Griffin vs. Clay Guida.

Interestingly, a fifth bout for the telecast has not been designated. The UFC traditionally has always televised at least five bouts per PPV telecast. Perhaps they will be selecting the best match from the preliminary portion of the card which includes bouts between Jake O’Brien vs. Tom Murphy, Ed Herman vs. Scott Smith, Marcus Davis vs. Jason Tan, Eddie Sanchez vs. Colin Robinson, and Dustin Hazelett vs. Steve Lynch.