The UFC was in Columbus for the second time in about a year Saturday night for UFC 82: Pride of a Champion. From top to bottom, the fight card was one of the best put together in a while by UFC President, Dana White. The fights that appeared on the PPV, for the most part, lived up to the build-up of the strength of the fight card. There were some surprises, a much awaited return of a particular fighter and a "major" announcement that wasn't exactly what UFC fans were expecting or thinking was going to be announced. More on that later. Let's get to the results.

PPV CARD RESULTS
Anderson Silva defeated Dan Henderson via Rear-Naked Choke at 4:52 in the 2nd round.
Henderson was thought to possibly be the last fighter in the middleweight division that could stop Silva from his dominance. So much for that. The first round belonged to Henderson as he took Silva to the ground and worked him over a little. Both fighters exchanged blows throughout the first and second round, but neither could truly get a clear cut advantage. That was until the second round was about to end. Silva got the advantage on the ground and took Henderson's back. He was able to slip in a rear-naked choke with about 25 seconds left or so. It looked like Henderson was going to hold on and get out of the round, but with eight seconds left he tapped, much to the surprise of myself and those I was watching the PPV with. It wasn't a typical Silva fight as he didn't get Henderson in the clinch as much as we're used to seeing from him. Instead we were treated to Silva's ground game and the only submission of the PPV card. With the win, Silva unified the UFC and PRIDE middleweight titles. In the post-fight interview, he surprised a lot of people when he said that his toughest opponent has been Rich Franklin. Was he being honest or looking for a cheap pop from the Ohio crowd (Franklin is from Cincinnati)? Hard to tell considering we had to wait for his translator to tell us what he said. Plus Silva dominated Franklin both times he beat Franklin. So who knows. One thing is for sure, Silva proved again that he can and will be all comers and he is pound-for-pound the best fighter in the UFC, if not all of MMA.

Heath Herring defeated Cheick Kongo via Split Decision.
A battle to possibly decide who will be the number one contender to the heavyweight title, currently held by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, didn't quite go the way viewers expected. In fact, it didn't go the way Herring thought it would either. Both fighters are known more for their stand-up and how hard they can throw blows. While it started out looking like it might go that way with Herring landing a quick shot to Kongo which stunned him, the fight mostly took place on the ground. Herring avoided getting hit by Kongo by keeping him down and taking him out of his element. His ability to keep Kongo down and hit him with knees to the shoulders and body, Kongo looked like he didn't know what to do. Ultimately, Herring did enough to convince two of the judges to give the nod his way.

Chris Leben defeated Alessio Sakara via TKO (strikes) at 3:36 in the 1st round.
Had the Silva vs. Henderson fight not been on this card, this could have been considered for fight of the night for the PPV audience. While it was over in the first round, both fighters traded blows from the jump. The difference was that Leben caught Sakara with a knee to the head followed by a left hook that saw Sakara go limp down to the mat. Leben jumped on the opening and pounded Sakara until the ref jumped in and stopped the fight. The fight may have been over pretty quickly, but there were fireworks from start to finish. My vote for the most exciting fight of the night goes here.

Yushin Okami defeated Evan Tanner by KO (knee) at 3:00 in the 2nd round.
This was Tanner's first fight in two years and it couldn't have gone any worse for him. The 37-year old fighter was signed back in November to a new four-fight deal. Until now, nobody would agree to take on Tanner for whatever reason. That was until Okami, an up-and-coming fighter in the middleweight division, accepted the fight. Tanner probably wished he hadn't now. The first round went back and forth, neither fighter gaining a clear advantage. The second round belonged to Okami. He started working from the clinch and ended up catching Tanner with a knee to the head. Tanner fell quickly to the mat and the ref stopped the fight. A triumphant return for Tanner was not to be. With the win, Okami ran his record in the UFC to 6-1 and now could be the next fighter in line to take on Silva for the middleweight title.

Jon Fitch defeated Chris Wilson by Unanimous Decision.
This was supposed to be an "easy" fight for Fitch. He's been on a role lately and has slowly started to become a crowd favorite. Wilson proved to be a tougher opponent than anyone thought he would be for Fitch. I was honestly expecting Fitch to knockout Wilson in the first round. When it went to the third round I was both shocked and impressed with Wilson. In the end Fitch was able to score the unanimous decision victory and keep his undefeated record (8-0) in the UFC in tact. The win could put Fitch in line for a welterweight title shot, possibly taking on the winner of the Matt Serra vs. Georges St-Pierre fight next month. Should that be the case, a title reign for Serra or GSP could be short lived.

PRELIM RAPID RESULTS
Andrei Arlovski defeated Jake O'Brien by TKO (strikes) at 4:17 in the 2nd round.
Luigi Fioravanti defeated Luke Cummo by Unanimous Decision.
Josh Koscheck defeated Dustin Hazelett by TKO (strikes) at 1:24 in the 2nd round.
Diego Sanchez defeated David Bielkheden by Submission (strikes) at 4:42 in the 1st round.
Jorge Gurgel defeated John Halverson by Unanimous Decision.

PPV Prediction Results: 9-1 (overall 52-33)

The "major" announcement of the night came after former UFC heavyweight champion, Mark Coleman, was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame. The UFC's first ever heavyweight champion told the audience that he wasn't retired and wanted to make a comeback in the Octagon. He informed everyone that Dana White has granted him just that and Coleman's return will take place in August when he takes on UFC newcomer, Brock Lesnar. This wasn't the announcement I, or many others I'm sure, were expecting to hear. Most were expecting White to announce that the UFC had reached a TV deal with a major network. The reason for this was because just a couple days ago another MMA brand, EliteXC, announced that they had reached a TV deal with CBS. The Coleman announcement didn't get me all excited or make me feel all tingly inside. Its been quite a long time since Coleman has fought and Lesnar is wanting to prove he's not just a big name. I expect Lesnar to destroy Coleman to be completely honest.

Next up for the UFC is their Fight Night event on April 2nd on Spike TV. The main event that night will be Kenny Florian taking on Joe Lauzon. A little more than two weeks later on April 19th, the UFC crosses the US border into Canada for Serra vs. St-Pierre 2. That night we'll see the welterweight title unified when Matt Serra and Georges St-Pierre square off again.

It wasn't too long that Hank Blalock was one of the best fantasy players in the American League.  The Rangers' third basemen started his career with some flash batting nearly.300 with 29 HR's and 90 RBI's as a rookie in 2003.  Blalock wouldn't sniff .300 again over the next years but he did 57 HR's and drive in 202 runs over the next two years.  Things start going south in 2006 and last season was cut short by injuries.

Blalock got off to a terrible start in '07, but after a terrible April he actually showed some signs of life as he hit the cover off the ball, hitting .345 with 10 extra-base hits in 15 games before being diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. He returned for the final month and hit .313 with five homers in 64 at-bats after having a rib removed. The biggest factor to that success could have come from his patience at the plate (15 strikeouts, 14 walks in AB's after May 1).  If Blalock and get back to being able to hit for average and stays the healthy the power numbers will follow.

He's a borderline starting third basemen in larger leagues, but a nice option with terrific upside for your corner infielder slot.

The Rangers beefed up their line-up a bit with the additions of Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley and that will only help Blalock's numbers. If Bradley can stay relatively healthy and provide him quality protection in the five hole and Michael Young continues with his success with getting on base out of the three-hole, Blalock should have nice run production numbers once again as he bats cleanup for Ron Washington's bunch.

It would be nice to see more consistency out of Blalock, particularly against lefties, but if he stay's healthy and continues to show improved discipline at the plate .280 with 30 HR's and 100+ RBI's is not out of the question. Not too shabby for a guy going somewhere between Rounds 15-20 (my 16th Round Pick in GSI Mock Draft).

ESPN's John Clayton reported Sunday morning that Randy Moss is "enjoying being a free agent for the first time in his career" and though a return to New England is still very much a possibilty, Moss has talked with former teammate Daunte Culpepper, who is also a free agent, about testing the waters around the league for the potential of a "package deal".

Don't read too much into this though, the reality of the situation is that few teams even look at Culpepper as an option as a starting QB in this league anymore.  He will be lucky to get a decent back-up gig. As for Moss, if a ring is truly the most important thing to him there is no way he can walk away from Tom Brady and the Patriots. Winning is clearly important to him and after his Oakland experience there is no way he's going to a team that doesn't have a legitimate shot at the title.

Green Bay, a team that expressed interest in him last season, is still a good fit. Adam Schefter of NFL.com says that landing Moss would make it that much easier for Brett Favre to decide not to retire.

Here's some of the latest news from around the league:

• Jets give Faneca a record deal - (New York Times)
• Justin Smith is a 49er - (San Jose Mercury News) 
• Berrian ends up in Minnesota, not Oakland (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
• Browns signs Stallworth - (Cleveland Plain-Dealer)
• Bills land Stroud in trade - (Buffalo News)
• Bears re-sign Briggs - (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Giants showing interest in Javon Walker - (New York Post)

Profootballtalk.com has published their take on what they think might have happened regarding the disapproval of the Shaun Rogers trade between the Bengals and Lions.  The piece is worth a read, both for the swipe that Bengals P.R. director Jack Brennan takes at the team's website and for additional knowledge about how the salary cap works.  Their best guess is that the sticking point had something to do with the $1 million roster bonus owed to Rogers, and whose responsibility that would be.

The last paragraph of the post is very telling, however:

"...if we’re right, we can understand why the Lions and the Bengals are being vague about the reason for the failure of the trade.  It essentially means that neither front office understood a basic concept such as the moment at which responsibility for a roster bonus cannot be avoided.  And candor in this regard likely would have led to the same kind of embarrassment that dogged the Vikings after bumbling their first-round picks in two consecutive drafts."

I find this characterization extremely unfair...to the Vikings.  The Bengals' front office has been "bumbling" first round picks and displaying embarrassing incompetence for years.

(NOTE: I personally think this will end up working in the Bengals' favor.  As I stated in comments earlier today, I don't think the team needed to take on the baggage that Rogers brings (creaky knees, run-ins with the law, fluctuating weight, taking plays off, etc.), and the Detroit fans don't exactly seem to be upset in letting him go.  It's just another example, however, of how the Bengals simply do not understand how the 21st century NFL works.)

Last week, during the halftime show of one of the Big Monday games, the ESPN talking heads were discussing certain teams' post-season prospects.  I can't remember the exact team they were debating about, but during the conversation Bilas pulled out a line similar to "there is absolutely no correlation between how a team performed in their last 10 games and how they perform in the tournament".

Now granted, I've become extremely skeptical of anything that Bilas says lately, especially after his tirade about Michigan that was clearly motivated by his loyalty towards former Michigan coach (and former teammate of his at Duke) Tommy Amaker.  But even if I didn't feel this way, I think I'd have looked at this statement with the same skepticism.  Could this really be?  How could he say such a thing?  Everyone knows that it's terribly important to finish strong before the tournament.  Could he possibly be right?

Well, I decided that I had a free hour or two this week, and I had just enough curiosity to look into this really deeply.  So I pulled together data that was readily available for teams that qualified for the NCAA tournament over the last nine years to see if he was right.  The end result: he's pretty much wrong.

(quick stats lesson: I'll refer to the term correlation coefficient.  All that measures is how closely two items are related.  The closer that the coefficient moves to 1, the closer the two items are to being directly related to each other.  A coefficient of 0 means that the two items have no direct relationship.)

Here's the file with the raw data I used if you want to play along as well:  ncaa tourament history 1999-2007.xls (1.13 mb)

So first I calculated the correlation coefficient of the number of wins a team had in its last 10 games to the number of wins they had in the tournament, which took all of about three seconds.  The result: a coefficient of 0.0824.  My lord, Jay Bilas is right!!  The two are almost completely unrelated!  Welll...

In the words of another ESPN commentator, not so fast, my friend.  You see, this calculation includes all teams that qualified for the tournament, including the bottom seeds.  There were six teams from 1999-2007 that won at least nine of their last ten games.  But do you really think that this helped them go up against the Duke's or UCLA's of the world?  So, to have any meaningful analysis of this, you really have to drop the clear bottom teams out of the equation.

Looking at just the top 12 seeds, the coefficient rises to 0.2316.  Closer, but it still doesn't tell us a lot.  But, if you cut it down to just the top 10 seeds - who win 88% of their first round games and have over 90% of all tournament wins over this time span - it rises to 0.3174, and at that point we can say that there is at least some relationship between how a team performs over its last ten games and how it performs during the tournament.  In fact, the only aspects I could find that had a closer correlation to tournament success were wins over top 50 RPI teams, and road/neutral court winning percentage (both of which are also looked at closely by the committee).

Now, I'll concede that it's pretty hard to isolate any one variable and say that it definitely relates to tournament success.  There's a real chicken-or-the-egg aspect to this (i.e. is a team good because they won ten games against the RPI top 50, or did they get those ten wins because they're a good team).  But, I think we can say that it's reasonable to say that how a team finishes the regular season/league tournament has at least some impact on how far they go come tourney time.

So, Jay Bilas: incorrect.  And that makes me happy to say it.

Some people are quick (and understandably so) to blame the Bengals for not closing out the trade for Shaun Rogers from the Lions and letting him go to the Browns. I'm of the philosophy that this might end up being a blessing in disguise, and here's why. The Bengals have lots of cap room and can still make an impact in free agency. It would require Mike Brown to open his wallet and be aggressive, something this organization has not done often in free agency. These are the three players the Bengals need to sign and then draft well in April.

THREE MOVES TO MAKE
Antwan Odom, DE - He's the biggest name left in free agency and at age 26, the former Titan is exactly the type of player the Bengals need. Young and talented, but he won't come cheap. Open the checkbook and sign the contract. Odom is scheduled to visit the Bengals on Sunday and Monday.

Clark Hagans, LB - This former Steeler is older at age 31. But he obviously knows how to play in a successful system. His experience and work ethic would be perfect, especially if the Bengals switch to a 3-4. Imagine how a guy (with a Super Bowl ring, yeah I know I hate even mentioning that) like this could impact Robert Geathers, Ahmad Brooks and Odell Thurman. Add Hagans to a hard working guy like Dhani Jones and you've got the makings of a very good defensive unit.

Ben Utecht, TE - Here's your pass-catching tight end. His stats don't show off what he can do, but Utecht was used in only a limited capacity with the Colts behind Dallas Clark. Utecht would come for relatively less money and could be exactly the right type of player for Carson Palmer to use. Peyton Manning said Utecht always ran good clean routes. That's all Carson needs.

If the Bengals can make these three moves, and draft smart (that's a big IF), then things can turn around pretty quickly in the Jungle.