The UFC makes their return to the Garden State with UFC 111: St. Pierre Vs. Hardy.  The main event (if you couldn’t tell by the imaginative title) will have Welterweight Champion Georges “Rush” St. Pierre put his title on the line against Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy.  This is GSP’s first time back in the octagon after injuring his groin last July at UFC 100 when opened up a can of whoop-ass on Thiago Alves with only one leg (well, at least for rounds 4 and 5).  St. Pierre is going in as the overwhelming favourite, so much so that if you bet on GSP and he wins I think you actually lose money.  The last time the Welterweight Champion was this much of a favourite, he lost to Matt Serra back at UFC 68 in 2007 when “The Terror” was an 11-1 underdog.  Dan Hardy will walk into the cage as an 8-1 underdog and is only being given a “puncher’s chance” of winning (which is a nice way of saying “no chance” of winning).  Despite the lack of support, “The Outlaw’s” done a great job selling the fight showcasing a mouth that could only be rivaled by fellow Brit Michael Bisping.  For Hardy’s sake, I hope his chin is stronger than “The Count’s”.  I don’t see this being close.  By all accounts, Thiago Alves has a better stand-up game and better wrestling defense than Hardy and he spent UFC 100 getting punched in the face, taken down, and getting punched in the face some more by GSP.  There are some (well, very few) who think that “The Outlaw” training with Matt Serra for this fight will give him an edge cause Serra is the last person to beat GSP, but I think those people forgot what happened in their re-match.
 
The co-main event is for the Interim Heavyweight Title between former champion Frank Mir and the undefeated Shane Carwin.  Mir, along with Fedor and Antônio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira, is one of the greatest heavyweight submission artists ever and Carwin has yet to have a match last longer than 2 minutes and 11 seconds.  This is my tentative pick for fight of the night and my overwhelming favourite for post fight of the night.  The winner gets a shot at Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar and he’ll be cageside.  He doesn’t like either of them and neither of them are gonna be inviting him over for Thanksgiving dinner.  I hope they don’t accidentally break Joe Rogan in the post fight interview.
 
The other big fight on the card was suppose to pit the two best welterweights in the world who aren’t French Canadian and don’t wear tiny bicycle shorts to the octagon.  That fell apart when Thiago Alves had to pull out on Thursday after a CAT scan revealed an irregularity in an artery in his brain.  mmafighting.com is reporting that he'll need only a minor outpatient procedure and will be able to fight again, but not at UFC 111.  That means Jon Fitch will face Ben Saunders instead.
 
Also on the card will be Canadian lightweight Mark Bocek, he takes on Jim Miller.
 
UFC 111 starts at 7PM live on Pay-per-view.  It’ll cost you $49.99 for standard def or $59.99 on HD.  You could also watch it at any Ceneplex for $19.95 or just about any sports bar for the price of cover and beer and wings.