Rich Franklin vs. Nate Quarry
Quarry deserves this title shot about as much as Hitler deserves a Nobel Peace Prize; but the average Spike TV fan has no idea and will shell out forty bucks to see "The tough guy from that show fight the guy who beat Frank Shamrock". Their friends will assume they are talking about Diego Sanchez and start ill-informed arguments which involve saying "I hear he beat Royce Gracie" pronounced with a hard "R". These are the people who try a free class at your club and are so weak they can't even make posture in the guard so they lay on you like a giant newborn baby 'til you roll them off you in disgust. They never come back but a few months later you see them in at the bar wearing one of your club's t-shirts, telling people they're on the "fight team" and will soon be facing Rickson Gracie in "a new show out of Japan". Alas, I digress. This fight is a mismatch and everyone knows it including Nate "they told me to say that" Quarry, who will last only as long as Franklin wants before he gets dropped like a grandmother in the stands at a baseball game who gets nailed in the head by a line-drive foul-ball while she's passing a hot-dog to her grandson.
Matt Hughes vs. Joe Riggs
If Riggs can keep it standing or get on top, Hughes could be in trouble. News flash: he can't and he won't. Riggs will come across the octagon like a guy throwing a shot-put and get taken down like a blindfolded dude who's wandered off from a game of pin-the-tail on the donkey directly into the path of a runaway go-kart.
Georges St. Pierre vs. Sean Sherk
Fighting St. Pierre is like whacking open a Pinata that nobody told you is full of angry bees. You think things are going to be good n plenty, but suddenly you're face down covered in welts, screaming and begging for mercy. St. Pierre will win by TKO and the UFC will immediately cut Sherk again but will offer Sean Gannon a 10-fight deal.
Jeremy Horn vs. Trevor Prangley
Horn should be fighting Rich Franklin - but they're both from the same team so we get to see Horn dismantle Prangley like a kid pulling the wings off a fly. Horn will out-strike, out-wrestle and out-jiu-jitsu Prangley as UFC 56 makes another guy look like an A-hole by mis-matching him against a dude who is out of his league.
Kevin Jordan vs. Gabriel Gonzaga
The UFC is searching desperately for a heavyweight BJJ guy to replace Frank Mir. At UFC 55 they recruited Pe De Pano and fed him a judo guy. Now they've got "Napao" and they're feeding him Kevin Jordan; who looks like the homeless guy on the corner selling oranges out of a shopping cart. Seriously; the last time Jordan fought in the UFC, he ran out of gas faster than a sport utility vehicle climbing a steep hill with flat tires and lost BY SUBMISSION to BUENTELLO via ONE-ARMED Guillotine ... good lord.
Sam Hoger vs. Jeff Newton
Whenever someone calls the UFC the "Olympics of the Martial Arts", I make sure to point out that, generally, you'd should have to do something more than five or six times to get into the Olympics ... but Newton is 4-1 and Hoger is 5-1. So what are they doing in the UFC? Saving Zuffa some money. Look for this trend to continue. By 2008 the UFC will consist of Dana White slinging handfuls of pocket change into the Octagon while hobos and homeless vagrants duke it out beneath him in the cage.
Nick Thompson vs. Keith Wisniewski
Both guys are experienced, tough and aggressive. This fight will be a war. It might even be the best fight of the night - but we won't see it because Zuffa will dedicate all their time to Chuck Lidell running in the desert with a punching bag on his back. Who will win? I suspect "the goat" will chew out a tough eating-a-tin-can victory.
Thiago Alves vs. Ansar Chalangov
Russians are tough. Most of them spend 20-hours a day pulling turnips out of the frozen tundra with their bare hands and fight wild dogs to relax and unwind. You know Ansar Chalangov is no exception since he has beaten Hallman and Strasser. Alves looks like he's about to finish grade 10 but with a nickname like "The Pitbull" you know he'd whip your ass if you tried to steal his Gameboy. This will be another war - they may show highlights of this fight at the end, after a few more XYIENCE commercials.
Conclusions
Franklin should be fighting Horn. (Yes, I know they are on the same team dammit!) Prangley should be fighting Quarry. Hughes should be fighting St. Pierre. Sherk should be fighting Riggs. Jordan should be selling oranges on the streetcorner. Hoger and Newton should be fighting each other, but not in the UFC and Thompson and Wisniewski should be on the PPV, instead of buried under an endless replay-loop of the same four commercials. Also the UFC shouldn't cost more than Pride Bushido.