FanHouse CheickKongo

LOS ANGELES -- Pat Barry was very emotional following his second-round TKO victory over Antoni Hardonk on Saturday night at UFC 104, and the former K-1 fighter, who has been involved in more than 30 kickboxing or MMA fights, told FanHouse immediately following fight that this was the biggest victory of his life.

Barry also talked about his improvement as a complete mixed martial artist and why he wants to fight Cheick Kongo next. Check out the video below.

The UFC formally announced Tuesday the first three bouts for UFC 107 on Dec. 12 at the FedExForum in Memphis: BJ Penn vs. Diego Sanchez, Frank Mir vs. Cheick Kongo and Thiago Alves vs. Paulo Thiago.

The promotion had booked the show with the location in mind to coincide with Memphis-born light heavyweight Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's expected fight against Rashad Evans as the culmination of their coaching feud on The Ultimate Fighter 10 series. However, Jackson's film pursuits will stall the grudge match and Penn vs. Sanchez was moved from UFC 105 to UFC 107 to have a championship bout round out the final UFC event of 2009.

Two years ago, Jay Silva was just a nightclub bouncer who liked watching MMA on television. Then a chance encounter with Quinton "Rampage" Jackson at UFC 78, led to him moving to California to begin his MMA career. Next week, he'll make his Octagon debut when he steps in on short notice to face CB Dollaway at UFC Fight Night 19 in Oklahoma City. Dollaway's original opponent, Dan Miller, was forced to withdraw from the bout after suffering an undisclosed infection.

FanHouse spoke to Silva, who is 5-1 in his career, about his unique road to the UFC and how he plans on preparing for Dollaway. The full interview is below.

Our latest MMA Twitter mailbag delves into a rumored UFC 107 battle between Frank Mir and Cheick Kongo, and then goes into my own personal MMA dream interview.

Your questions and my answers for our MMA mailbag are below.

Shane Carwin and Cain Velasquez have verbally agreed to an Oct. 24 matchup and are likely to meet in the co-main event at UFC 104, sources close to the matchup confirmed to FanHouse.

Reports of the two fighting at UFC 103 appeared in recent days, but the UFC has apparently settled on the following event for the key heavyweight bout which may determine the next title challenger. No bout agreements have been signed, but little appears to stand in the way of the matchup.

Carwin and Velasquez are two of the organization's fastest-rising heavyweights and both boast unbeaten records.

There was a considerable amount of buzz surrounding Ben Askren's MMA debut in February. The two-time NCAA wrestling champion, 2008 US Olympian and two-time winner of the Dan Hodge Trophy, which is the wrestling equivalent of the Heisman, is now 2-0 in his MMA career, defeating his first opponent via TKO and the second via arm-triangle choke. Neither fight has lasted longer than 90 seconds.

However, when Askren recently spoke to Fight! Magazine, he seemed very critical of his game, not to mention refreshingly honest about his future prospects.

I want to take a little more time looking at the dominance of Cain Velasquez over Cheick Kongo at UFC 99, because I don't think people are giving Velasquez quite enough credit for what he accomplished on Saturday.

After UFC 99, I wrote that Cain Velasquez looks like a future UFC heavyweight champion. I've heard some pushback on that from people who take a contrary view, saying Velasquez didn't look very good in the stand-up, and that he ate some hard punches from Cheick Kongo at the start of all three rounds of their fight.

I agree that Velasquez needs to work on his stand-up, and he definitely needs to learn better head movement so he doesn't get punched right on the button the way he did against Kongo. But I also think Velasquez showed a lot of heart in taking those punches from Kongo and managing to quickly take him down in all three rounds, and I think people are too quick to dismiss how impressive it is to win all three rounds against Kongo: In nine previous UFC fights, Kongo was 7-2, and the two losses were by split decision. No one has ever dominated Kongo in the Octagon the way Velasquez did. And that's why Velasquez is on my list of the Top 10 heavyweights in MMA, which is below.

Cain Velasquez had by far the biggest win of his young mixed martial arts career on Saturday in Cologne, Germany, when he dominated Cheick Kongo at their fight in the co-main event at UFC 99. And now the big question is this: Is Cain Velasquez a future UFC heavyweight champion?