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Jim Miller and Nate Diaz will compete in a very important UFC lightweight match Saturday night in the main event of UFC on FOX 3. Along with UFC president Dana White, Miller, Diaz, Josh Koscheck and Johny Hendricks and others all took part in the pre-fight press conference on Thursday.

- White changed his tune in regards to Diaz receiving a title shot with a win, saying he’d have to be on the sidelines for nine months. White added, “We’ll have to wait and see.”

- Koscheck says the fans don’t bother him adding, “Why would I let a bunch of couch potatoes and internet nerds get to me?”

- Diaz says his older brother, Nick, is pretty much his MMA coach and that’s why they share the same styles.

- Diaz says “I don’t hate the media. Sometimes I’m in a better mood for it.”

- When asked how you cure sore muscles, Koscheck responds “Massage,” while Pat Barry says “Drugs.” Guessing White wasn’t too happy with that.

- White says MMA is coming to New York soon, and that the UFC is planning a big event for next year – likely January – at Vegas, Cowboy Stadium or Toronto.

More of Esther Lin’s UFC on FOX 3 press conference photos at MMA Fighting

UFC on FOX 3 open workout interviews with Nate Diaz, Jim Miller, Josh Koscheck, Johny Hendricks, Pat Barry, Lavar Johnson and Alan Belcher via MMA Fighting.

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Pat Barry made a bold proclamation recently. Despite being “allergic to jiu-jitsu” as he humorously put it the other day, he’s growing out his hair until he submits somebody in the UFC as he tells MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani in this video interview. That doesn’t mean he plans to test Lavar Johnson’s grappling skills at UFC on FOX 3 though. He has every intention of punching Johnson in the face, but if he gets in trouble he may have to resort to plan B.

Full video from today’s UFC on FOX 3 pre-fight press conference that was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Nate Diaz, Jim Miller, Pat Barry, Lavar Johnson, Josh Koscheck, Johny Hendricks, Alan Belcher and Dana White were all in attendance.

UFC on FOX 3 is official.

UFC on FOX 3 is scheduled to take place at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Saturday, May 5, and will air live on FOX at 8pm ET/5pm PT.

The card will be headlined by a lightweight bout between Nate Diaz and Jim Miller.

“For our third card on FOX, we have four great fights!” UFC President Dana White said. “Nate Diaz versus Jim Miller is the five-round main event and the winner will put himself in a position to fight for the title. Both of these guys fight at an incredible pace and are coming off great wins.

Other match-ups announced for the card include Pat Barry vs. Lavar Johnson, Josh Koscheck vs. Johny Hendricks and Rousimar Palhares vs. Alan Belcher.

“We’ve got an amazing heavyweight fight between knockout artists Pat Barry and Lavar Johnson, as well as welterweight title contender fight between Josh Koscheck and Johny Hendricks. Johny just knocked out Koscheck’s training partner, Jon Fitch, and wants a title shot. To do it, he’s gotta get past Koscheck, who’s one of the best 170-pounders in the world. If that wasn’t enough, submission specialist Rousimar Palhares meets Alan Belcher in an exciting middleweight fight. I’m excited for fans in N.J. and N.Y. to experience the UFC live again.”

Ticket info below.

• UFC Fight Club Presale: Wednesday,  March 7, 10am ET
• Public On-Sale Date: Friday, March 9, 10am ET

Tickets will be priced at $250, $150, $100, $75 and $50. They can be purchased at the IZOD Center Box Office, online at Ticketmaster.com or charge by phone 800-745-3000.

The latest UFC on FOX 3 fight card and event info can be found in our fight cards section.

Funny story… Pat Barry goes out to Croatia to help his BFF Mirko Cro Cop prepare for his upcoming kickboxing bout and for some unknown reason gets roped into doing a 30-minute grappling match with him. I’ll let Pat tell you how it turned out.

HT: BE

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The UFC made some pretty big fight booking announcements late tonight.

First up, the UFC confirmed that a previously announced match-up between Nate Diaz and Jim Miller will actually headline UFC on FOX 3. Additionally, Strikeforce veteran Lavar Johnson, fresh of his recent knockout victory over Joey Beltran in the UFC on FOX 2 prelims, will take on an always exciting and entertaining Pat Barry.

What’s interesting here is the UFC seems to be going with match-ups that are virtually guaranteed to be full of heart-pumping action instead of just filling it with big names that don’t always deliver the most exciting fights like they did with UFC on FOX 2. To be honest, it sounds more like a fight night card than a major network television card, so I think the biggest thing people will question leading up to it are how it will do in the ratings. That said, there’s no way those fights disappoint, which has been the biggest criticism of the first two FOX cards. Regardless of whether it’s the right call or not though, it’s a HUGE opportunity for all four of those guys.

Switching gears to another card, Thiago Silva will make his long-awaited return to action at UFC on FX 3 on May 15 in Virginia following his one-year “fake urine” suspension. And the man he’ll fight… none other than Brandon Vera who he fought when he was caught submitting fake urine for his drug test. Vera has been very vocal about the incident and believed he deserved a fair rematch with the man he’s called a “juice monkey.” Well, he got it. Be careful what you wish for?

Image via Dave Mandel for Sherdog

A few observations from UFC on FX: “Guillard vs. Miller”:

-Russian fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov wrecked Kamal Shalorus something fierce. Which is a pity, because his name is exceedingly hard to spell, and now we’re going to see that badass fight lots more and guys like me have to write about it. Why can’t guys with names like “Joe Smith” fight?

-Thank you, Jorge Rivera, for a long and fruitful career in the cage. You may not have won any UFC titles, but you kicked ass more often than not and always entertained.

-Not since Andre Roberts KO’d Harry Moskowitz at UFC 17 have we seen standing elbows used like that. Welcome to the Octagon, Nick Denis. You shall make a fine addition to the bantamweight roster.

-Ah what the heck, if Pat Barry can deliver those colorful knockouts every now and then, I say keep him. Christian Morecraft, on the other, has got to go.

-Mike Easton: scrapping hard like it ain’t no thang.

-In case you were wondering, that guillotine Josh Neer employed is dubbed a “C-otine”, which was the work product of Miletich-trained Mike Ciesnolevicz from years ago. If you thought TUF washout Cody McKenzie invented it, please punch yourself in the groin now.

-I don’t fault Melvin Guillard for getting swiftly handled once he went to the ground. No, all credit goes to Jim Miller and his ace jiu-jitsu skills on that. WAR MILLER!

Rundown of UFC on FX 1 post-fight news and notes…

— 7,728 UFC fans attended UFC on FX 1 in Nashville for a $334,860 live gate

— Nick Denis picked up the $45,000 KO of the Night bonus for pounding Jospeh Sandoval into unconsciousness with a series of short standing elbows. Jim Miller earned the submission bonus for choking out Melvin Guillard. And Pat Barry and Christian Morecraft were awarded the Fight of the Night bonus for their brief but thrilling match.

— Jim Miller had to weather one hell of a storm before he was able to choke out Melvin Guillard for the win Friday night. Miller said the finish came purely on instinct.

“I really don’t remember much of it, to be honest,” said Miller, who earned a first-round submission victory at Bridgestone Arena after surviving some hard shots. “It just kind of went into work mode and doing what I’m comfortable doing at that point. Those punches, you don’t feel them.

“That first overhand, I’m pretty sure he had to break his hand on my head. My head still hurts. With the one he dropped me with, I didn’t really feel.”

“I don’t know how I took his back,” Miller said with a shrug. “I just knew I wanted to squeeze as hard as I could once I had it.”

The comeback win puts Miller back “in the mix” at lightweight, according to UFC president Dana White. Some have suggested Miller fight Nate Diaz next. The fight makes sense, but it would be a tough one for Miller stylistically with Diaz’s reach and BJJ.

— It was certainly a disappointing loss for Melvin Guillard, but not as crushing as the loss to Joe Lauzon, explained Guillard at the post-fight press conference.

“To lose to a guy like Jim, I wasn’t emotional about this loss like I was for the Lauzon fight because I really feel in my heart the Lauzon fight was a fluke,” he said. “I had Jim hurt, and my thing was I wanted to be patient. I just backed off when I probably could have swung. It could have been a different result.

“But I don’t regret anything I did tonight. I think I went in and implemented my game. I fought one of the best guys in this division, and I think I sent a message to a lot of guys. But I also understand now everyone’s going to want to take my back. Two fights in a row, two good guys took my back.”

Despite losing back-to-back fights after being one win away from a title shot, Guillard is still optimistic about the future, especially in regards to his ground game.

Now I have to go home, back to Florida, and grind it out with the Blackzillions, man. I have ‘JZ’ Cavalcante, I have Jorge Santiago, I have a lot of great jiu-jitsu partners now that I didn’t have before. Give me about a year, man. Just be patient with me, I’ll submit someone.”

Melvin has had some setbacks recently, yes, but it’s clear that he is maturing as a person and a fighter. If Guillard ever shores up his ground game, he’s going to be one tough guy to beat.

— Pat Barry showed marked improvement in his ground game last night when he escaped two submission attempts before knocking out Christian Morecraft. Barry credited Team DeathClutch for the evolution of his ground game.

“I think that was the first time I was the smallest guy in the room, when I was rolling around with the big guys at Death Clutch. Wrestling is the most tiring thing in the world,” said Barry. “I never knew I was claustrophobic until I had these guys lying on top of me. Now it’s becoming a little more second nature, being on the ground and [reacting] to being in trouble instead of just panicking.”

“It’s the evolution of the sport. I’m not as bad as people think. I just haven’t done it a lot. This is like third or fourth time I’ve done live groundwork [in a fight],” Barry said. “I’m going to throw heat at anybody, no matter who it is. I fought [Mirko] ‘Cro Cop’ [Filipovic], [Cheick] Kongo and Stefan Struve. Morecraft was a bigger fight to me than all of those, because every fight is the next big fight.”

Barry still has a ways to go before he’s ready to take on the top tier of the heavyweight division, but last night was an important first step in getting there.

— Like Jim Miller, Josh Neer faced a little adversity before eventually pulling off the submission victory against Duane “Bang” Ludwig last night. Neer explained at the post-fight press conference that his back-up plan was to take Ludwig down and submit him if he couldn’t keep up with Bang’s kickboxing.

“He hurt me with a couple of shots,” Neer said at the evening’s post-fight press conference, which took place at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn. “I went in with a gameplan that if he started winning the exchanges, I was going to take it to the ground and try and submit him, try and beat him up there. That’s what I did.”

Neer hopes to get back in the cage sooner than later.

— Jorge Rivera didn’t change his mind about retirement after picking up the final victory of his career against Eric Schafer last night. Rivera told reporters he made up his mind when he started camp.

“It was the start of the camp,” he said of his decision. “I had a school opening up, and I was cutting time between training and the school. I saw the future and what I wanted to do and how I wanted to go about it, and I had had enough.”

“It wasn’t hard a decision at all,” he said. “I see some of these guys like (UFC on FX 1 headliners) Melvin (Guillard) and Jim (Miller), and they’re young, man. They’re no joke. My reflexes are slowing down. I’ve got a family to take care of, and I don’t want to suffer a serious injury that might complicate that.

“I’m very happy with what I’ve done here, and I’m very happy with what it gave back to me, and it’s time to go. I’m happy to be going with a W.”

Rivera isn’t walking away from the sport a millionaire like Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture or Brock Lesnar, but that’s okay. Rivera says he’s “content” with the way things worked out.

— I saw some mixed reactions to Jon Anik and Kenny Florian’s UFC commentary debuts last night. I thought they actually did a pretty damn good job, but I’m not the type that nitpicks at every little thing a commentator does wrong. As long they’re not so bad it becomes distracting, you won’t hear me complain.

Image via Tracy Lee for Yahoo! Sports