Last week, we heard some interesting rumors surfacing that the UFC was about to unload a substantial amount of talent in the coming months to slender down the roster of fighters. At first glance, I was a bit disappointed as I figured the UFC may be trying to limit how many fights these guys can take in a year, thus giving us less events with top talent. It doesn’t make sense why the promotion would do that however, so I’m hoping they may be opening up some doorways for some other talent out there to move in. Obviously, the UFC wants to cut the fat and put on some lean muscle by bringing in small numbers of elite talent and cutting large amounts of disappointments or TUF alumni. Today, a few more guys were lumped into that group.

Din Thomas, Kuniyoshi Hironaka, and Tommy Speer were all cut from the UFC according to the Wrestling Observer newsletter. The numbers are now totaling around 9-10 fighters currently off the UFC payroll for the time being with more cuts possibly coming after their next scheduled event on May 24th.

Is this a major disappointment for fans? Was Thomas, Hironaka, and Speer good candidates to be cut from the UFC? I believe they were for more than just losing efforts. Thomas has definitely dropped off in skill, Hironaka couldn’t cut it against bigger and rangier opponents, and Speer was just outmatched in his bout with Anthony Johnson. There are other factors I believe that are pushing these fighters out besides losing two straight fights.

For instance, are any of those fighters extraordinarily exciting to watch? No, they aren’t, and I think the UFC is definitely more inclined to keep the James Irvin’s of the promotion around even after a loss due to their explosiveness and excitement factor.

Of course, the UFC can’t control the fights once they are made and both combatants are in the cage. We could end up cutting a lot of non-exciting fighters and still end up with a lackluster event full of horribly bad lay-n-pray decisions. In the end however, the UFC is creating better odds for themselves by cutting those types of fighters. It’s looking good so far, UFC, keep it up.

Get ready, fans! This could very well be one of the most exciting cards put together by the UFC in quite some time. UFC Fight Night 13 will take place on Wednesday night from Broomfield Event Center in Broomfield, Colorado, and it will feature a highly anticipated matchup between Kenny Florian and Joe Lauzon. Thiago Alves will also make a step up in competition against Karo Pariysan, and the event will feature well known names such as Matt Hamill, Houston Alexander, Gray Maynard, Frankie Edgar, Din Thomas, Clay Guida, and recent TUF contestants George Sotiropoulous, Roman Mitichyan, Tommy Speer. This could very well be the “Stacked” event we've all been waiting for. Props to Fightlinker for pushing the idea of making this event a 3 hour live televised card. The UFC won't acknowledge it, but I will. Great job, FL.

Before we get to my picks and Joe's predictions, let me just say.. I'm crazy for picking the fights I did, but I felt that there were some solid upset picks in the bunch.

Main Event: Joe Lauzon vs. Kenny Florian

This is a battle that I've been waiting for since it was announced. Kenny Florian's last seven battles have featured the former TUF contestant against some formidable opponents as he progressed up through the ranks. The climax was his loss to Sean Sherk at UFC 64, but he honorably took the fight to decision against a full load in Sherk. After the loss, he defeated Dokonjonosuke Mishima, a tough and explosive Alvin Robinson, and was putting the elbows on Din Thomas before he suffered a blown knee. Riding a three-win streak, Florian will be looking to stop the up-and-coming Joe Lauzon, and potentially win himself a title shot against BJ Penn.

Lauzon has been on a tear recently. He's won his last six fights in finishing fashion with a huge knockout win over former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver. The only real problem that Lauzon has had is that the level of competition he has faced has been subpar since Pulver. Melendez wasn't suited well against Lauzon's grappling, and Reinhardt's record was padded with horribly lopsided competition. Lauzon has the striking power in his hands and some excellent boxing skills, but Florian can counter his grappling and has some decent boxing himself. Florian is also very well versed in using his elbows in the ground and pound, and he's as tough as they come. This should be one exciting battle.

Without letting my biased get in the way too much, I'm admittedly a big Joe Lauzon fan. IT geek turned MMA fighter, who doesn't love it? On a purely analytical basis, Lauzon is great in most areas of mixed martial arts. He has great standup, good ground and pound, and can be controlling on the ground. Florian also has similar skills, and I don't believe Lauzon will be able to completely control him. The x-factor here is Lauzon's training at BJ Penn's facility in Hilo, Hawaii. Could it potentially have improved significantly enough to nullify the ground game? I think Lauzon has some ways to end this fight in which Florian may not be able to unless he can catch Lauzon in a submission.

Leland's Prediction: Joe Lauzon via submission, Round 3

This is an extremely close match-up between two above-average fighters. Florian has the better stand-up, but Lauzon has the better wrestling. Lauzon isn’t great at any one thing, but he is good at everything. Lauzon has decent striking, some decent power, good wrestling, and some ferocious ground-and-pound. Florian has good Muay Thai, and is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-JJitsu. I think Joe will stand with Kenny for a while until he sees an opening to take a shot. From there he will look to work his ground-and-pound, but he will need to avoid Florian’s submissions. I think Joe’s training with BJ Penn will help him on the ground en route to a unanimous decision.

Joe's Prediction: Joe Lauzon via unanimous decision

Karo Parisyan vs. Thiago Alves

Karo has a bit of a task ahead of him in this one. Parisyan has been known recently for winning some weak decisions that were fairly uneventful. Parisyan has some big problems in this fight though, and it's evident if we look at his track record. Parisyan hasn't faced huge power in his last few fights, in fact, his last nine fights haven't featured overwhelming striking. Lytle and Serra could have been seen as potential forces in the standup game, but Serra is mainly a big puncher who hopes for the lucky blow while Lytle was winning his way to decisions back when Parisyan took him on. This will definitely test Parisyan's abilities to avoid the big shots.

Alves has unbelievable Muay Thai strikes, devastating leg kicks, and great striking even when he's backpedaling from danger. I'm going to pick Alves in the upset because of his destructive striking. He finishes fights in crushing fashion, and if Karo allows the fight to go into the later rounds, he has much less of a chance of defeating Parisyan.

Leland's Prediction: Thiago Alves via TKO/KO, Round 2

Alves has done something that is nearly impossible to do: he stopped Christ Lytle in his last fight. However, I don’t think he’s ready for “The Heat.” Karo is extremely durable and brings a relentless attack throughout the fight. In fact, he has only been stopped twice in his career, both by former lightweight champion Sean Sherk. Alves doesn’t have the wrestling to control Karo, and Karo will use his wild stand-up to close the distance and unleash his unique judo game. Fortunately for Karo, I think this is a fight he can actually finish. Expect a submission late in the fight, most likely by kimura.

Joe's Prediction: Karo Parisyan via submission, Round 3

Tim Boestch vs. Matt Hamill

With a lackluster start to the week in the mixed martial arts world of news, I decided to check out the situation that had occurred in Florida involving Din Thomas. I had read about the arrest warrant being published on the Internet and decided to write this piece revolving around the arrest and the possibilities for Din in the case. Din Thomas was arrested on October 30th for holding an unsanctioned mixed martial arts activity in Port St. Lucie, Florida. The official charge was for "prohibited competitions", which is a felony in the state of Florida. In the article in the TCPalm, it is claimed that 2 fighters were battling it out in a cage with over 150 people watching. The charges were again summarized as being pushed onto Thomas because he was "promoting and selling tickets to an event without any regulation". After checking out the investigative report that led to the arrest warrant being issued, some light has been opened up into the case that could potentially put Din Thomas in jail for up to 5 years. Let's take a closer look into this case.

The Facts

In order to get a fairly clear view of what occurred at the event that was held at an industrial warehouse in the Port Lucie area, we need to lay out the facts according to the report and to Din Thomas. Normally, the report would be fairly biased since the police are doing the investigation, but they did manage to sit in on an event and interview Thomas about what was going on prior to getting an arrest warrant. Let's break it down:

• The event was held at an industrial warehouse in which Din Thomas rented space from a lady who rented the warehouse for a gymnastics school.
• According to Florida law, you must have an occupational license to hold gymnastics, mixed martial arts, karate, boxing, and other sports involving contact and the potential to be hurt. The license allows you to own a business that works with those types of physical activity that could have the potential for injury.
• There were 5 to 7 fights, all amateur bouts since the fighters were not paid.
• There was no head gear, small MMA gloves only, and no medical staff.
• There was a $10 raffle charged for a contest to win I-Pods and American Top Team merchandise.
• There were no weight classes for the fighters.
• The actual owner of the warehouse space had no knowledge of the events and the lady renting space out to Thomas had no knowledge that her occupational license didn't cover Thomas, nor did it cover mixed martial arts.
• Amateur mixed martial arts is not allowed in the state of Florida.

These are most of the big facts that came from the report that led to the arrest of Din Thomas. On paper, the claims by the police look overwhelmingly bad to the average citizen who isn't inclined to watching an MMA fight or seeing two guys stand toe-to-toe with each other in a warehouse. All of these facts look to have Thomas in a bind, but there seems to be some loopholes as well as a good amount of support for Thomas. I think there are two sides to this case and in my opinion, the possibility that Thomas could face at least a small charge are at about a 50% chance. For right now, it could go either way. I'm going to break down both sides of the argument and the way I see this thing going.

The Good

Thomas has some loopholes that he can exploit in this case. His lawyer, Corey Sucher, claims Thomas did not break the law that he is being charged with breaking. He states in another article at the TCPalm that the statute that claims the bouts were illegal is "extremely vague". Mixed martial arts at any level is not allowed in the state of Florida, but the police are claiming that this was a professional event that was unsanctioned. Sucher asked the question "Does that mean people can't train?". This gave everyone the sense that these were sparring fights. Thomas confirmed this idea by stating the fights at the warehouse were the same exact bouts he holds at his gym, but were in order to get his fighters used to a crowd watching. Here's a small list of discrepancies that Thomas may try to point at:

• In the arrest report, it is said that the doors to the warehouse were wide open, signage was up, raffle tickets in plain view, and the large cage in plain view to people coming up to the warehouse. It doesn't seem as if Thomas was aware of the law or making any effort to conceal the fights. This leads me to believe he was unaware, probably making it better for him if he is convicted of receiving a light sentence. In retrospect, it also tells us that Thomas probably felt there was no law being broken.
• The fighters were not paid for their bouts. The raffle tickets were bought for $10 a piece in order to give away prizes and donate to the ATT team out of Port St. Lucie. To my knowledge, "professional" means you are being paid for those bouts. I'm wondering if Thomas's lawyer can also bring in factors such as the fact that there were no fighters on a contract either.
• The TCPalm article mentioned that promoting the event was also a piece that went into the charges. Thomas mentioned that most of the crowd was friends and family and the rest was from word of mouth. Also, email and phone calls probably brought some people in. It seems that Thomas didn't put any money into promoting the event at all.
• Other schools in Florida hold similar events with raffles and Thomas's lawyer could leverage that support in court.
• Sucher makes a good point in stating that there isn't a huge difference between "training" and an actual fight. These guys need experience and that is definitely the way it has been done in the past in a number of different places in the country and the world.

It's obvious that Thomas's lawyer will be looking to compare these events to sparring sessions. This is a fairly good argument, but may be a tough sell to a jury or judge that does not watch mixed martial arts or boxing and does not see a small event like this as a learning experience. The fact that Thomas didn't pay the fighters helps his cause in a charge that relies on the "professional" aspect of the statute. On to the bad...

The Bad

There were some bad moves by Thomas and company that were mentioned on the report as well that bode badly for his case. The most notable involved the fact that there weren't any medical staff in attendance at the event, not even an off-duty EMT, nobody. It didn't help that one of the fighters was knocked out cold during one of the matchups. There were also no weight classes, which isn't illegal, but it doesn't look good when you have an overmatched opponent being pummeled without any medical attention at the event.

Another oddity is the occupational license in which Din Thomas was apparently trying to work under. From what I read, Thomas rents a portion of the space for his events from a lady who actually rents out the warehouse from the owners. The lady (Name was blacked out on arrest report) runs a gymnastics school that has to work under an occupational license for gymnastics. It's stated on the license as to what activity in permitted at the business. Therefore, Thomas cannot run mixed martial arts training under a gymnastics license, he must obtain his own. He failed to do so.

Along the lines of that argument, it seemed that when the lady was questioned if Thomas was working under her license, she said no. Later in the interview, she changed her answer and simply stated that he must be if he says so. It seems that she doesn't have her story straight and doesn't understand the laws in Florida regarding occupational licenses. She also stated that her license was for "karate" when she clearly runs a gymnastics school. Trying to cover her own tracks? It looks like it. The owners of the property were also unaware of the activities going on in the warehouse, and they may have been in the dark because this woman was basically subletting half her space out to Thomas.

These arguments seem more based on procedures rather than if Thomas actually committed a crime. He was working under a license that he can't actually work under and was renting space out from a woman who wasn't supposed to be subletting space to another person. These problems seem to be irrelevant to the case, but did seem to somehow add into the reason as to why they wanted to issue a warrant. For that, they may come up in court.

The fact that Thomas held the event without medical staffing isn't a huge deal if you are in and around mixed martial arts training centers. It's how things have been for quite some time, but to the average person who may actually see this case in court, it looks very bad and doesn't look to help a case for him looking out for the safety of his fighters.

The End

Unless this goes to trial, Din Thomas should get this bumped down to a misdemeanor. It seemed as if he thought nothing was wrong with holding the events due to the vast number of events just like it that have been held throughout the state. It also seems clear that he wasn't paying the fighters although the police may try to incline that the money was actually to pay the fighters. If he wasn't paying the fighters, they were amateur bouts, not professional. It seems obvious that he wasn't openly promoting the events, or hiding the events in a dark basement somewhere like a scene out of "Fight Club". He may get a significant slap on the wrist for holding the events that didn't seem like sparring matches since there was no headgear used and any type of safety concerns. Although you and I know that this is how MMA is, the court may not see it that way. Either way, Thomas didn't commit a crime that many other MMA trainers have done in the past. Who knows, maybe this will move Florida to actually sanction mixed martial arts and allow amateur MMA as well in the state.

The UFC storms into the Palms in Las Vegas fresh off a spectacular UFC 75 event that featured the unification of the Light Heavyweight Championship,  a destruction of one of the best PRIDE Heavyweight strikers in the MMA world,  and a few surprises from some up and coming fighters such as Houston Alexander and Marcus Davis. What can we expect from the UFC for this Fight Night card on Wednesday night? From the looks of it, we can definitely look forward to such matchups as Kenny Florian vs. Din Thomas and Terry Martin vs. Chris Leben. Also, we will have a number of appearances from The Ultimate Fighter 5 contestants Gray Maynard and Cole Miller as well as the TUF 5 Winner, Nate Diaz. The UFC has put some solid fights on a card that is the precursor to The Ultimate Fighter 6 Season and UFC 76 on Saturday. Let’s take an in-depth look at the UFN 11 fight card.