(Bellator 91 video highlights via Bellator.com)

Given that his last fight resulted in a loss to Travis Wiuff, Christian M’Pumbu was something of a paper-champion coming into his first official Bellator title defense against Attila Vegh. By the end of the match, M’Pumbu wasn’t a champion at all.

The two light-heavyweights met in the main event of last night’s Bellator 91 event at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, with the Slovak challenger out-hustling his French-Congolese opponent over five rounds. Vegh directed the pace, landed harder punches — leading to a knockdown in round 1 — and slashed open M’Pumbu’s head with some elbows from the top in round 3.

Though the championship rounds didn’t offer much in terms of excitement, momentum was already in the favor of Vegh, who cruised to a unanimous decision victory. Vegh becomes Bellator’s new light-heavyweight champion, and will make his first title defense against…well, not King Mo, that’s for sure.

Bellator 91′s main card also featured the semi-finals of its Season 8 lightweight tournament. Leading off the Spike broadcast was a rematch between David Rickels and Jason Fischer, who had previously met in a non-tournament bout at Bellator 82; Fischer had come in as a short-notice injury replacement for Alexander Sarnavskiy. Though the final result was the same as their last meeting — Rickels by unanimous decision — the Caveman’s performance was even more dominant this time, as he outclassed Fischer with his striking and submission attempts.

Rickels’s win books him a ticket to the Season 8 lightweight finals against Saad Awad, who steamrolled Will Brooks in just 43 seconds on the other side of the lightweight bracket last night. Awad previously KO’d Guillaume DeLorenzi in 31 seconds during the lightweight quarterfinals at Bellator 87. Fun fact (or scary fact, if you’re David Rickels): Awad’s current six-fight win streak includes four knockouts in under a minute.

Those of you who watched Bellator’s debut on Spike TV – which drew in almost one million viewers, by the way – probably noticed a lack of upcoming advertised squash fights. No, I’m not just typing that as a way of reminding everyone that Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Seth Petruzelli were both eliminated from the light-heavyweight tournament. Rather, you may have noticed that Bellator didn’t announce any non-title super fights for the promotion’s champions.

That’s because Bellator CEO Bjorn has officially put an end to non-title super fights, according to a recent interview with MMAFrenzy. No more pointless bookings for the sake of keeping champions active (more on that in a second), no more risking that the champion will actually lose what was supposed to be a squash match. Also of note, champions will no longer be allowed to fight outside of the promotion – for obvious reasons.

(Props: @ewillphoto via ThePeoplesCecil)

Perhaps “cluttered” is the best word to describe this weekend’s action. After all, that’s the same word that you would also use for your bedroom floor: There’s a lot of stuff on it, but there’s not much there that you couldn’t live without. This weekend, we have a lot of MMA available to us, such as UFC on FX 4, UFC 147 and Bellator 71. But despite the quantity of the fights available to us, there seems to be very little in terms of fights with immediate significance. It’s one thing when ratings are slipping, it’s another thing when your promotion has to offer full refunds for an injury plagued card, and it’s yet another thing when the only attention your promotion gets for an upcoming card revolves around the wife beater you recently inked a deal with.

But have no fear; this floor isn’t entirely covered in dirty socks, empty bottles and condom wrappers. There are some interesting tussles worth watching (notice we didn’t say pay for), which we’ll make the argument for after the jump. Or you can just join us later for our liveblogs of UFC on FX 4 and UFC 147. That works, too.

Remember: The real champion is the guy on the right. Seriously. Both images via Sherdog.

For those of you who haven’t noticed, Bellator’s Light-heavyweight champion Christian M’Pumbu lost his non-title super fight against journeyman Travis Wiuff on Saturday night. Yes, a champion actually lost one of those super fights that are supposed to show the general public how badass he is. Now that we’ve had an additional twenty four hours to digest the incident since we first reported it yesterday, let’s put the fight into perspective: Wiuff decisively beat Bellator’s light-heavyweight champion, Christian M’Pumbu, in a light-heavyweight fight under the Bellator banner on Saturday night. For his efforts, he has more than likely earned a slot in next season’s light-heavyweight tournament. If he wins said tournament, his reward will be a title shot against the best light-heavyweight in Bellator, Christian M’Pumbu. You know, the guy he just defeated Saturday night.

Wait, what the fucking what?

Having your champion fight in non-title super fights is a dubious idea in the first place. We’ve seen other organizations employ it before with less than spectacular results. Now that the worst case scenario played out at Bellator 55, it’s officially time to give this idea the ban that it deserves.

There are three main reasons why:

Vila vs. Galvao, part one. Part two is after the jump. All videos in this post via YouTube.com/BFCLUB

Last night’s Bellator 55 in Yuma, Arizona, didn’t have the quick finishes of last week’s card, but still left fans in attendance with some interesting, if not controversial, fights. In case you couldn’t tell by the headline, the bantamweight tournament semifinals gave us Eduardo Dantas vs. Alexis Vila as the bantamweight tournament finale. Yet both fights seemed to involve controversial decisions made by the judges.

In the main event of the evening, WEC veteran Marcos Galvao took on Alexis Vila, who you may remember as the guy that practically zombified Joe Warren in the bantamweight quarterfinals. In an extremely fast paced fight, Galvao seemed to land more strikes, and as the fight went on, stuff Vila’s takedown attempts. However, the strikes that Vila landed seemed much harder. The judges gave the fight to Alexis Vila, which warranted boos from those in attendance. Watch the fight and judge for yourself whether or not the boos were justifiable.

(Props: YouTube.com/BellatorMMA)

The last event of Bellator’s fourth season went down last night in Lake Charles, Louisiana, featuring the finals of the light-heavyweight and featherweight tournaments. Christian M’Pumbu earned his way to the LHW finals by knocking out Chris Davis and Tim Carpenter, and it was business as usual against co-finalist Richard Hale. M’Pumbu dropped Hale once in the first round, but was unable to finish him with a D’arce choke. The Congolese-French standout didn’t make the same mistake twice; after scoring another knockdown in the third, M’Pumbu threw down leather until the ref was forced to stop the fight, picking up a $100,000 check and the title of Bellator’s first-ever light-heavyweight champion.

In the featherweight final, Patricio Freire edged out Daniel Straus to a unanimous decision, earning a rematch with champion Joe Warren, who he lost a split decision to last June. Full Bellator 45 results are after the jump…

“I’ve warned you. I’ll be forced to thrash you.” PicProps: Bellator

Perhaps you remember just a few days ago when MMA judging was held in contempt, publicly flagellated, and crucified for all to see. Fighters and fans alike tore at their garments, lamenting the apparent death of the ability to trust judges to deliver a decision faithful to the efforts expended. The skies darkened and the heavens poured out upon the earth. Dark times, Potato Nation. Miraculously, though, MMA judging has risen, and shall return again. We’re pleased to report that there were no robberies last night in Concho, Oklahoma, or at least, none involving combat sport. In fairness, though, the fighters took matters out of the judges’ hands most of the evening.  Baby steps, people.

Bellator’s fourth season is winding down, with just three shows left, and we’re seeing more and more of the fighters we’ll see next season in tournament action. We were originally slated to see a heavyweight super fight between Bellator’s pound for pound heaviest champ Cole Konrad against Paul Buentello, but that bout was scratched after Buentello wrecked his back. Happily, Bellator just bumped up an undercard fight featuring Ronnie Mann and soldiered on, and we’re just tickled about it. Also scheduled were the two semifinal matches in the light heavyweight brackets, and Bellator’s Brazilian Invasion storyline continues with Luis Nogueira (no relation).

Come in after the jump and we’ll share all the spoilers with you (along with a healthy dose of inappropriate humor) and we’ll regale you with facts about the Toughest MMA Fighter in the business.

We glanced at this poster and though M’Pumbu’s nick name was “TomTom”.  Like he hands out directions.   Also, just seeing if you notice anything odd about this…. (PicProps: Bellator.com)

Remember when Bellator inked that deal with MTV2, and it was supposed to make BFC more accessible?  Stable time slot, easy to find, no more worries about pre-emption?  Yeah.  We remember that.  It was a Tuesday, we’d finally gotten all the Christmas cards in the mail, and it just felt like this was the best MMA news we could expect in early December.  Our beloved Bellator was movin’ on up to the East Side.  Fast forward three months, and we’ve cursed at our DVR so much that it’s now started to nervously record old re-runs of ALF and anything related to the Pro Bull Riders circuit in hopes of making amends.  If you’re not manually setting, checking, and resetting your recording device of choice, catching a full episode of Bellator is an exercise in futility and frustration.  Thanks, MTV2!

That said, Bellator has been making it more than worth your while to tune in the past few weeks, and last night’s light heavyweight tourney in Tunica, Mississippi was a prime example.  Fun fact about Mississippi:  couples have to be 21 years old to get married there without parental consent.  Yes, we were shocked to hear that as well.  If you’re young and madly in love in Mississippi, you’re going to have cross the border somewhere to declare your devotion in a legal fashion.

Come on in past the jump and we’ll share even more shocking tales about things you probably wouldn’t believe, if we couldn’t prove it to you with witnesses and video.  There may possibly be cake.