Morning Droppings

- Brandon Vera has told FightHype.com that he is close to returning to the UFC heavyweight division. Vera also asked FightHype.com to poll its visitors as to who his next opponent should be.

- Check out this Sherdog.com exclusive interview with Wanderlei Silva, who talks about moving permanently to West Palm Beach, training in Vegas with Randy Couture, and his desire to fight Chuck Liddell, Dan Henderson, and Rampage Jackson. I love this guy.

- Miletich Fighting Systems’ Drew McFedries joins MFS teammates Spencer Fisher and Tim Sylvia as the latest victim of a nasty staph infection, MMAOnTap.com reports. As a result, McFrederies will be sidelined for six to eight months (he'll need surgery) and has had to pull out of his UFC 77 fight against Marvin Eastman.

- Middleweights Jason MacDonald and Yushin Okami, according to UFCJunkie.com, have verbally agreed to fight at UFC 77 in Cincinnati.

- Yesterday, Tito Ortiz’s press agent issued an official release announcing that the UFC icon will be releasing an autobiography that is tentatively set to be released next May. Bad Boy Makes Good will be published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment, a division of publishing giant Simon & Schuster.

- Caol Uno will rematch "Black Mamba" Kultar Gill (Pictures), and defending tournament champion "JZ" Gesias Calvancanti will fight "Shaolin" Vitor Ribeiro in the 2007 HERO’s 2007 154-lb. tournament.

Morning Droppings

- First Horodecki, then Hieron. L.A.Anacondas welterweight and Long Island native Jay Hieron suffered an injury while training and will be sidelined for the August 2 IFL semifinals, for which he was scheduled to fight Silverbacks welterweight Rory Markham. Anacondas coach Shawn Tompkins will announce later today the replacements for both Horodecki and Hieron.

- UFC lightweight Roger Huerta will take on his third UFC newcomer in as many fights, as he is scheduled to fight Alberto Crane next month at UFC 74. Crane carries an impressive 8-0 record, with seven of those wins coming via submission.

- UFC.com is reporting that former UFC heavyweight champ Frank Mir will be returning to the UFC octagon for UFC 74 in a match against Antoni Hardonk.

- UFC veteran Marvin Eastman is rumored to face the hard-hitting Miletich fighter Drew McFredries in a middleweight showdown as part of the UFC 77 card, which will be headlined by a middleweight championship match between Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin.

- With Chris Leben out of the UFC Fight Night 11 match between him and Mike Swick, it looks like Jonathan Goulet will instead fight Swick. Both fighters have agreed to the fight, according to MMAWeekly. Yesterday, Goulet issued the challenge to Swick, who gladly accepted.