(Courtesy of YouTube.com/BellatorMMA)

Though Hector Lombard drew most of the attention at Friday’s Bellator show, the night’s best stoppage belonged to Chad Leonhardt — great name for a fighter, by the way — who scored a YouTube-worthy first-round KO over Daniel Keenan. Watch as Leonhardt crushes Keenan with an overhand right, then puts him to sleep with a mouthpiece-ejecting knee to the face. Thanks, Chad. Bellator’s upcoming schedule is after the jump…

(Props: Fightlinker)

Why do I get the sense that this video will eventually be played at Nick Diaz’s funeral or his trial, either of which seems likely to happen in the next six months to a year?  I don’t know, but perhaps no other single video on the internet is so effective at demonstrating that Nick Diaz is a) totally awesome, and b) totally insane.  

Look out, Scott Smith.  Don’t let Nick find out you’re painting your toenails or dyeing your hair.  He will go off.  

(Say something about Castro again. Hector wishes you would.)

Regulatory difficulties in Quebec forced Bellator to get all old-school UFC and move Bellator IX to the glitz and glamour of Monroe, Louisiana, but they did what any good promotion would do: grabbed some crawfish and rolled with the punches.  Last night’s event narrowed down their finalists for the upcoming middleweight tournament, and they had a bunch of other fights just for fun.  Here’s how it went down:

Middleweight semi-final tournament fights:
Jared Hess def. Yosmany Cabezas via TKO at 4:26, round 3
Hector Lombard def. Damien Stelly via TKO (strikes) at 2:56, round 1

Non-tournament fights:
Nick Ring def. Isidro "Chilo" Gonzalez via submission (guillotine) at 0:39, round 1
Shad Lierley def. Nate Murdock via unanimous decision
Alex Andrade def. Christian Fulgram via TKO at 2:01, round 1
Shawn Jordan def. Jayme McKinney via submission at 0:30, round 2
Chan Leonhardt def. Dan Keenan via KO at 3:03, round 1
Chas Skelly def. Mike Braswell via split decision, round 3

(Keyboard Cat finally gets around to mocking Jose Canseco. Thanks, KingAtRock.)

- Want to know what’s happening in MMA this weekend? (Fightlinker)

- Is Josh Koscheck first up for Frank Trigg’s return? (MMA Mania)

- Frank Mir says Urijah Faber was a victim of his own success. (Cage Writer)

- Tim Sylvia to leave MMA for boxing permanently? (Fighters Only)

- The UFC’s 10 greatest rivalries. (Bleacher Report)

- UFC eyeing Indianapolis, other midwest cities in 2010. (MMA Madness)

- Aleks Emelianenko may be infecting people in Korea soon. (NoB)

- An honest assessment of boxing vs. MMA. (MMA Payout)

- Maurice Clarett wants to play football again. (Scores Report)

- A happy hour fact to impress your drinking buddies with. (Asylum)

- Venn diagrams of movies and their black counterparts. (Holy Taco)

- Sylvester Stallone: Baddest bad-ass ever. (Screen Junkies)

- Wreck of the Week: Woman fights man. (All Left Turns)

- Vicious one-punch KO. (Nothing Toxic)

(‘So how about if, like, at first I’ll let you beat me up some, then I start to come back, but I go for an elbow off the top rope and miss, right?  And then at the end, well, I haven’t decided who should win yet, but we’ll figure it out. Just saying though, it’d be more of a shock if it was me.’)

Affliction COO Michael Cohen contacted Fanhouse’s Ariel Helwani (and you know the situation is dire when people are actually calling Ariel rather than the other way around) to let us all know that there is absolutely no truth to the persistent rumor that Affliction III will be the organization’s last MMA event.  The fact that they’ve named it “Trilogy”?  Nah son, you shouldn’t read too much into that, says Cohen: “Trilogy just means that this is the third. This is the third of the series.”

Yeah, that’s the standard use of the word ‘trilogy.’  It refers to the third installment in a long and profitable series that continues to pump out new editions several times a year.  Like the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “The Godfather” trilogy.  Oh, wait.

(Shogun‘s hands are so heavy, he can barely lift them by the end of round two. Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

Did all our hand-wringing change nothing? According to reports today from MMA Weekly and SuperLutas, Mauricio Rua has signed a bout agreement to be the first challenger for Lyoto Machida‘s light-heavyweight title, in a fight that will come sometime this fall — most likely at UFC 104 in Los Angeles. How official is this news? Well, the UFC hasn’t announced it yet, and Machida has only put a question mark over the photo of Rampage on his website. But it’s looking like a done deal, unless Machida has a crisis of conscience and refuses to sign his own bout agreement, on the grounds that all Shogun did to deserve a title shot was beat up two broken-down former champs who came in with an average age of 41.5. Unfortunately, Machida seems like one of those "I’ll fight whoever the UFC puts in front of me" type-guys, so there you go. Don’t hurt him too bad, Lyoto…

(Props: MMA Mania)

Rivalry is the over-arching theme in this in-depth video preview for UFC 99 (Cologne, Germany; June 13th). First we have Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva, with much being made of Franklin’s decision to train with Wandy’s anti-BFF, Anderson Silva. Ace considers the Axe Murderer to be just as dangerous now as he was in PRIDE, and looks forward to a stand-up war. Wanderlei just wants to get past Franklin so he can settle up with Anderson once and for all.

In a card that’s moderately stacked with names like Mirko Cro Cop, Cain Velasquez, Cheick Kongo, and Caol Uno, it’s suprising that Marcus Davis vs. Dan Hardy is being treated like the co-main event here. But these two got beef. Hardy thinks Davis is a fake Irishman, and Davis thinks Hardy is a douchebag with a stupid red mohawk. Will their combined hatred produce a Fight of the Night?

After the jump: Some vintage California Kid from December 2005, in honor of his rematch with Mike Brown being just nine days away…

(Throw the damn towel, indeed. Props: MMA Videos.)

We in the MMA world always assumed that Fedor Emelianenko was Ivan Drago.  You know, if you take away the height and impressive build and advanced training techniques and replace them all with the opposites of those things.  Only now do we see how wrong we were.  Lyoto Machida is clearly the unbeatable destroyer of worlds with the funny accent, leaving us only to wonder, who’s Rocky in this analogy?  "Shogun" freaking Rua? 

After the jump, Raw Vegas goes to Wal-Mart to watch "Rampage" Jackson sign some boobies.  It’s a pretty decent life, even without the UFC light heavyweight title. 

Ah, the freak show: Where honest competition meets the insatiable human desire to see something weird, typically in Japan. We thought we’d take a look back and count down the ten craziest, most outlandish freak show fights in MMA history. Some are bizarre enough to be fun. Some are just horrible. At least one is [...]

(Image courtesy of AfflictionClothing.com via MMA Mania)

As our friend Kris Karkoski points out, "Naming the third Affliction event ‘Trilogy’ sure makes it sound like this is going to be their last card." Very true, though at least they’re finally giving us the fight we’ve been waiting for — of course I’m speaking of Dan Lauzon vs. Chris Horodecki. (Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett should be a decent scrap as well.) As we reported earlier, "Trilogy" may feature that rumored somethingweight fight between Gegard Mousasi and Vitor Belfort, and the poster also promises appearances by Tim Sylvia, Ben Rothwell, Paul Buentello, and Renato Sobral.

Don’t worry guys, Dana already has you down on his tombstone…