FanHouse SteveCantwell

Coming out of UFC 97, two stories will dominate the discussions: Anderson Silva looking unimpressive and needing to go the distance to win his ninth straight fight, and Chuck Liddell probably walking out of the Octagon for the final time. I agree that those are the two big stories of the night, but I'd urge mixed martial arts fans not to forget a third: Shogun Rua is back.

Welcome to the FanHouse UFC 97 live blog of Saturday night's undercard fights, where we'll have live results and round-by-round updates of the three undercard fights on the pay-per-view show: Cheick Kongo vs. Antoni Hardonk, Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Brian Stann and Luiz Cane vs. Steve Cantwell.

The fights are underway and the live blog begins below.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship's Fight for the Troops event last night was a good show for a good cause, and the UFC deserves to be commended for putting it on. But it also must be said that the show was marred by nasty endings to three of the 10 fights.

The worst of the three didn't make the TV broadcast. During an undercard fight, Corey Hill kicked Dale Hartt, and when Hill's shin connected, it snapped. It's one of the most horrific injuries I've seen, and I worry that the tall and lanky Hill -- a fighter I've always liked -- may never fight again. UFC.com has the video, but I urge you not to watch it if you're squeamish. It's really disgusting.

Days after a great show in Sacramento that saw bantamweight champion Miguel Torres and featherweight champion Urijah Faber defend their belts, World Extreme Cagefighting announced that its lightweight, welterweight and light heavyweight champions will fight in August in Las Vegas.

Welterweight champ Carlos Condit will take on Japan's Hiromitsu Miura, light heavyweight champ Brian Stann will fight Steve Cantwell and lightweight champ Jamie Varner will fight the undefeated Marcus Hicks. The fights are part of WEC 35 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on Sunday, August 3. The card will be shown on Versus, which had one of its highest-rated broadcasts ever with Torres and Faber headlining WEC 34.

It's a good card, although it's not as good as WEC 34 -- Torres and Faber are the two best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, and no one would say that about any of the fighters on the WEC 35 card. Still, at a time when MMA organizations are popping up all over the place, this announcement is a reminder that as the owners of UFC and WEC, Zuffa has both the best and the second best MMA organization in the world.