As UFC 118 approaches, the headlining rematch between BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar for the Lightweight Championship has taken a back seat to the intriguing debut of former heavyweight boxer James Toney. In what UFC President Dana White has called a “circus act,” Toney will take on UFC Hall-of-Famer Randy Couture, showcasing a clash of styles between Toney’s powerful punches and Couture’s atrocious acting.

But Toney’s style may be a bit more technical than casual MMA fans like myself are expecting, as he’s brought in Trevor Sherman to teach him how to fight against and break “Brazilian locks.” Who is Trevor Sherman, you ask? He’s the man who teaches FBI agents how to fight with their bare hands. He’s also the man who has never trained a MMA fighter before, but he says that he’s impressed with how quickly Toney has picked up his teaching. Well I’m sold, now if only there was a video of Sherman’s teaching styles after the jump…

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Here’s a clip from UFC 107 over the weekend where B.J. Penn opens up a can of whoop-ass (and an amazingly large gash) onto the face of Diego Sanchez. That high kick happened in the fifth round of their main event bout, and you can see the referee beginning to step in at the end of the clip, whereafter Sanchez was put in front of a doctor. That doctor gave the easiest diagnosis of his life and determined that Diego could not continue. Sure you don’t want to test for lupus anyway, doc? Just to be safe? –Fightlinker. Thanks, Vince.

Tomorrow’s UFC 94 ticket offers the most anticipated MMA fight since Randy Couture returned to the UFC to fight Brock Lesnar, as lightweight champ B.J. Penn will attempt to become the first fighter to hold belts in two weight classes when he takes on welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.

Eagerly anticipating the event, I conversed with Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim, author of Blood in the Cage, a book that details the parallel stories of the UFC — which went from freakshow curiosity to worldwide phenomenon — and Pat Miletich, the legendary MMA fighter who started out as a hard-luck drunken brawler in Iowa.

The following Q&A happened over email, and has been edited for clarity.

With Leather: Regarding the early days of the UFC, you wrote, “With a minimum spent on promotion, 80,000 households — culled from a 12-million household universe — paid $14.95 apiece to watch this strange curiosity.  Given that the first-place prize was only $50,000, the total purse barely $100,00, the production budget roughly $500,000… well, you do the math.”  Actually, how about this: YOU do the math.  I’m here to read about fighting, not do story problems.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

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