Say what you will about some of the judging at UFC 131 (and I say some of it was pretty dire), but you have to give props to new Vancouver Athletic Commission boss Jonathan Tweedale for standing up for his guys.

Wha? There’s an event happening at Roger Arena this weekend? Who’s playing who? …Oh! There’s a UFC event in town this weekend! Why didn’t anyone tell us? Okay, so this might not be the highest profile UFC pay-per-view in history. In fact, it may well rank among the most yawnworthy in some time, at least for the casual fan. But there are some hidden gems in this fight card that will make snapping up a last minute ticket well worth the effort.

Even if you don’t have a ticket to this weekend’s Vancouver UFC 131 pay-per-view event, you can still get up close and personal with your favourite UFC fighters.

So it’s here again, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is landing in Vancouver this week. Which means the streets will run red with blood, gangs will steal our daughters, hooligans will go on drunken rampages that last for six days, and our kids will learn the fine art of the switchblade. At least, that was the line of BS fed to the city prior to the first UFC excursion here last year by councillors Ellen Woodsworth and David Cadman.

I’ll be your huckleberry – I’m going to come right out and say what all of you people are secretly admitting to yourselves but refuse to say publicly: head shots are terrific. They are to hockey as fifteen-car pileups are to NASCAR and helmet to helmet spine rattlers are to football. A head shot can be a thing of beauty. It can educate and inspire. It can rally a team, reverse momentum, it can do as much damage – perhaps more – than a pair of goals in thirty seconds.