Expendables: Couture, Toney, Nelson, Kongo, Aoki, Sonnen, Almeida, Arlovski, Randleman

Time for some house cleaning. Randy Couture is expected to give boxing champ James Toney his introduction to the octagon at UFC 118, although the deal hasn’t been finalized. While I understand why Couture gets the honour – he asked for it and he gets pretty much whatever he wants – I was hoping we might see Toney face someone like Roy Nelson his first time out. Still, Couture has the dirty boxing and clinching skills to make things messy for Toney.

Speaking of Nelson, he posted a message on his Twitter on Saturday stating that he will face Cheick Kongo at UFC 116. Like Toney, Kongo is a heavy-handed striker, exactly the kind of opponent Nelson really needs to be tested by if he’s to stick around the UFC.

After DREAM lightweight champ Shinya Aoki got his ass handed to him by Strikeforce lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez the Japanese grappler will now train with Melendez at his Cesar Gracie camp. I like the idea of Aoki setting aside any ego and recognizing his game needs to improve if he’s to stick around Strikeforce (or make the eventual leap to the UFC).

Chael Sonnen says he’s prepared to eat punches en route to beating middleweight champ Anderson Silva at UFC 117. He says he’ll wade in and take whatever Silva can dish out because that’s what it’ll take to get inside and rough the champion up and get it to the ground. Sounds good in theory. Except for that whole “take whatever punishment Silva can deliver” part.

May 15’s Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery event is picking up steam. In addition to the heavyweight championship bout between Alistair Overeem and Brett Rogers, we can expect Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva, Roger Gracie vs. Kevin Randleman and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Joey Villaenor. A pretty mixed bag of “how little do I care?”

Matt Hughes vs. Ricardo Almeida appears to be in the works for UFC 117.  Meh. Too soon to care one way or the other.