(Believe it or not, Columbia Pictures saw this coming some 8 months ago, and chose Kevin James to star in a movie about Konrad’s life.) 

Maybe it’s just me, Potato Nation, but recent events have led me to believe that I have stepped into some sort of alternate reality where up is green, foot is west, and Joe Silva apparently never existed. So maybe I should just take the confounding news that current Bellator heavyweight champion and undefeated powerhouse Cole Konrad is retiring from MMA to obtain a position as a financial trader specializing in milk products as sign that my suspicions are correct. Seriously, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

MMAJunkie has the scoop:

The Twincities.com report said Konrad, 28, is leaving fighting to become a financial trader at a Minnesota-based firm that supplies ingredients to the feed, pet food, food processing and chemical industries. Konrad will specialize in trading milk products. 

Plans to find a new champion are unclear at the moment. The news first was reported byTwincities.com and subsequently confirmed to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) by a source close to the promotion. 

Of all the reasons for retirement we have heard MMA fighters give…this is a new one.

Friday night, Bellator Heavyweight Champion Cole Konrad kicked off an impressive weekend for heavyweight MMA with his first title defense against Eric Prindle at Bellator 70 in New Orleans, Louisiana. After the event, I managed to catch up with the champion in order to talk about his victory and the current state of Team DeathClutch. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my microphone with me (again), so at times the interview is hard to hear. I’ve taken the time to transcribe it for you, available after the jump.

Let’s get a few things straight before we even start to analyze this one: Yes, Cole Konrad picked up the quickest stoppage of the evening at last night’s Bellator 70 from New Orleans. No, that isn’t our way of saying that the entire card was full of decisions. And no, we aren’t lying to you.

But before we get to that, let’s talk about the evening’s main event. Despite having a heavyweight title fight on the card, the main event of the evening was the lightweight tournament finals between former welterweight standouts Rick Hawn and Brent Weedman. While the first two rounds were razor thin, the third round was all Rick Hawn. Hawn took Weedman down numerous times throughout the round and utilized elbows from inside Weedman’s guard. Weedman put together some late offense, but it was too little, too late. Rick Hawn will meet Michael Chandler next season for a shot at the lightweight title.

(Who knew that this moment would become a metaphor for Eric Prindle’s Bellator career?) 

At this rate, Bellator’s season five heavyweight tournament is going to take longer to come to a close than Strikeforce’s heavyweight tournament, a notion this writer didn’t think was possible until earlier today. Because believe it or not, season five winner Eric Prindle has been forced to withdraw from a scheduled match on less than a week’s notice yet again, this time from his title fight with heavyweight champion Cole Konrad.

The fight, which was supposed to go down at this weekend’s Bellator 65 card, has now been pushed back to May 25th as a result of a hand injury Prindle suffered in training, an injury that he described as “all my own fault.”

(Video courtesy of Vimeo/THE REEM)

Our favorite web documentary series is back with another episode just intime for its protagonist’s biggest fight of his career.

In this episode of The Reem, Alistair Overeem does some PR work in L.A. ahead of his UFC 141 bout with Brock Lesnar this Friday and spends some time training with Mark Munoz and company at Reign Training Center.

Shame on HDNet and the Octagon Nation Tour for jacking our swagger (6:08 mark) and props to Overeem for punking the last fan in line at the signing. The dude looked like he was going to cry.

You know how sometimes you work on something for a long time, but toward the end you’re just making it worse, but you’ve already put time and energy into it so you don’t want to trash it? Yeah, that’s never happened to me before.

From Wikipedia: The Casino of the Sky has a functional planetarium utilizing fiber optics to display the sun, moon, and stars accompanying the lighting effects of the Wombi Rock, which is a three-story high crystal mountain crafted of alabaster and more than 12,000 individual plates of hand-selected onyx from quarries in Iran, Pakistan, and Mexico; which were transported to Carrara, Italy and fused into glass.

Now look, we may not be able to fully comprehend the functional value of this “Wombi Rock” but that sounds fucking BALLER. Turns out the Mohegan Sun Casino outside Uncasville, Connecticut is the second largest casino in the United States, and we have some extravagant casinos.

So when Bellator pops off for the third and last time of the summer this Saturday, don’t talk to me about “minor league” and “small potatoes”. With a talent pool that is constantly getting deeper with the excellent scouting from the BFC office, a tournament format that keeps fans coming back, and a spot waiting for them on SpikeTV (*fingers crossed*) Bellator is big time, baby.

Come on in and let’s run down the show, starting off with that Featherweight Tournament Final…

“I’m going to beat you so bad you’ll look like you were in a car wreck. Then I’m going to drag you over to the driver’s seat and run away into the night.”

With their featherweight tourney already underway, Bellator would like to remind you that they’ve got some big boys that can throw down too. Two fights have been announced for their upcoming Bellator 48 card, going down on August 20th.

(Above: ‘Ayyyyyy‘ — An expression of combat known worldwide. / Below: Matt Major shows off the design that got him eliminated on last night’s episode of Project Runway.)

By ReX “I H8 FSN” Richardson

Last night, Bellator XXIX went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (which I believe is a Native American word meaning “Dude, I Think We’re Lost”) and put on the first nationally-televised MMA event ever in the state. Bellator seems to thrive by signing fighters hungry for wins, and has kept the energy up by focusing on the lighter weight classes, so it was a bit of a curveball when a heavyweight tournament was announced. Many questioned if Bellator could pull enough quality heavyweights with the conditioning necessary to put on entertaining fights. Heavyweight fights in the Bellator promotion to this point have been a mixed bag, but we’re starting to see the cream rise so I’m optimistic that some fun stuff happens. A couple of loser-leaves-town matches round out the televised card, featuring some guys who’ve been bounced out of tournaments previously (and want back in), plus they snagged the tubby Guida brother to test the light heavyweight waters.

Come on in and I’ll fill you in on the latest Bellator results and news. I promise I’ll lay off the fat jokes this time.

(Scott "Bear" Barrett rocking the most ironic boxer-briefs in Bellator history. Photo courtesy of Bellator.com)

By DL “@ReXone3” RichardsonJr

Bellator FC rolled into Chicago this week, in the second stop of the season 3 tour. On the menu for the evening are two heavyweight tilts, one women’s featherweight bout, and a handful of showcase fights. Bellator has continued to sign talent, and they bring in a few UFC vets to fill out the card: Brad Blackburn (3-2 UFC) is matched up with Dan Hornbuckle, who came up short last season in the welterweight tournament. Brian Gassaway lost to Diego Sanchez back at UFC 54 when Diego was the next big thing, and he faces off against fellow one-and-done Zuffa employee Kevin Knabjian, who lost to Brock Larson in the WEC. And for those of you who enjoy the finer things in life — pimpin’, traveling the world, and spinning elbows, Bellator presents Mr International himself, Shonie Carter.

Bellator has done everything they can to ensure an entertaining show. Will the tournaments continue to be action-packed? Will one of these vets make a statement with their performance? Will Jimmy Smith and Sean Wheelock correctly pronounce “Megumi Fujii”? Will Cole Konrad come out in a singlet, bro-ssiere, maybe both?

Well, I have some answers for you. You may not like them, but I got them….

(Cartoonishly large chin or dreamcatcher tattoo — WHO YA GOT?)

That strange mini-event at the Nokia Theatre was just the beginning of this wild week of MMA. Set your DVRs, folks, because Bellator returns to the Kansas City Power & Light District tonight for the finals of their season 2 welterweight tournament (FOX Sports Net, 8 p.m. CST). Fighting for a shot at 170-pound champ Lyman Good are Dan Hornbuckle — who scored first-round submissions over Tyler Stinson and Steve Carl to reach the finals — and Ben Askren, who had to defeat Ryan Thomas twice due to a bizarre series of events. Elsewhere on the card…

– Stephanie Frausto (2-1), the sister of Strikeforce vet Zoila Frausto, makes her Bellator debut against Lisa Ward (12-5) in a 115-pound clash. Frausto has only been fighting professionally since January. Video of her pro debut (against a girl who kind of looks like Nate Diaz) is after the jump.

– Cole Konrad (3-0), the Brock Lesnar training partner who impressed nobody with his physique and cardio at Bellator 17, returns against John Orr (5-4). For some reason, Konrad is as high as a -1500 favorite against Orr. Do the oddsmakers know something we don’t? If you check out some of Orr’s fights, you’ll see that he’s definitely raw, but not completely inept.