Observations From My Couch: UFC Fight Night 18

• I'm not ashamed to say the UFC's tribute to Charles Lewis, aka "Mask", had me teary-eyed. Thank you, Zuffa. Really.
• Cole Miller may have won, but Junie Browning got the last laugh. His fans found Miller's car in the parking lot and painted Confederate flags all over it.
• When Rafael dos Anjos caught Tyson Griffin in that heretofore unseen calf-crusher, Helio Gracie turned to Japanese judo legend Masahiko Kimura in Heaven and said, "Dude! Did you see that?"
• Ryan Bader defeated Carmelo Marrero by... Bader won with... A priest, a rabbi and Ryan Bader walk into a bar... Man, I just don't care enough about Bader to make something up about him. Sorry.
• Carlos Condit deserves a ton of credit for giving Martin Kampmann such a good fight. I still believe the caliber of WEC fighters pales in comparison to the UFC (by far), but Condit is tough as hell and has a bright future in the Octagon.

Observations from My Couch: UFC "Fight for the Troops"

• Most. Depressing. UFC. Ever. Seriously, I love me some fights, but all those vignettes about wounded soldiers was heartbreaking.
• For this event the ratio of clobbered fighters to non-clobbered fighters at the end of the night was insane. Corey Hill had his shin snapped in half in an unaired preliminary bout (check it out on the UFC website), another fighter wound up with a busted arm, and more than a few did their best to give viewers an firsthand look at just what this Traumatic Brain Injury thing is all about.
• Jim Miller's domination of Matt Wiman was so complete, Wiman had to see a rape counselor after the bout.
• Kudos to Razak Al-Hassan for reminding us how useless Tae Kwon Do is in an MMA fight.
• Nate Loughran's game plan of letting Tim Credeur repeatedly punch him in the face came so close to paying off. So close.
• Jonathan Goulet and Yoshiyuki Yoshida: getting knocked the hell out and going into convulsions so you don't have to.

Ex-Drug Mule Leonard Garcia Focused on WEC 36 Bout

Looking to put his days as a drug mule for the Mexican cartel behind him, 145-pound scrapper Leonard Garcia is very focused on his upcoming WEC 36 bout against former UFC champ Jens Pulver - his first bout back since being swept up in a DEA investigation in March. Garcia's arrest and detainment, which kept him on ice for months, left fans wondering if they'd see the man who battled Roger Huerta and Cole Miller in the Octagon ever again. "That's all behind me now," says Garcia, who sometimes regurgitates old cocaine-filled balloons after intense workouts. "I'm an MMA fighter. That's my job. Not ferrying drugs." The November 5th WEC 36 also features a featherweight championship bout between Urijah Faber and Mike Brown and will air live on the Versus cable channel.