(Yep, that’s how bad it was.)

Yeah, I know that he was technically ineligible to receive a Submission of the Night bonus at UFC 98.  And the fight wasn’t competitive enough (read: at all) to garner consideration for Fight of the Night.  But when you beat ass with the kind of dominating, precise beauty that Lyoto Machida did last night, knocking out Rashad Evans and looking like a perfect fighting machine sent back in time by a futuristic Karate-centric society to teach us all a valuable lesson, it really seems like they ought to create a new bonus category to honor you.

Machida added an extra $60,000 to his UFC 98 salary, as well as whatever that fancy new belt is worth on the open market, for his one-sided destruction of the former champ.  He also finally got himself the street cred he deserves for being a fearsome finisher as well as a patient tactician. 

In fact, he claimed the belt so convincingly that you almost can’t help but wonder who in the UFC’s 205-pound division might possibly beat him, and, after wondering that for several silent minutes, the only answer you might come up would involve some kind of tag team situation.

In other UFC 98 bonus news, Submission of the Night went to Brock Larson for his first round arm triangle finish of Mike Pyle.

Fight of the Night went to Matt Hughes and Matt Serra, proving that sometimes the storyline behind your fight is enough to make it seem more interesting than it actually was, at least in the eyes of the UFC brass.

The UFC pulled in $3.4 million at the gate with an attendance of 12,606, which is coincidentally the exact number of people who reported vivid nightmares about the killing machine Lyoto Machida terrorizing their families and forcing them to drink urine.  Weird, right?