(Video courtesy of YouTube/knuklo)

Anderson Silva has been chomping at the bit for a rematch with Yushin Okami since losing to the durable Japanese fighter by disqualification due to an illegal upkick in 2006. Now that the UFC middleweight champion has a date for his second meeting with “Thunder” at UFC Rio in August, he has revealed that he thinks Okami faked injury to get out of their Rumble on the Rock 8 bout.

“I was a little surprised with his reaction to that,” Silva told the LA Times this week. “Do I think he could have continued? I do think he could have continued. But he had the rules in his favor. I did an illegal kick and he chose that it was better not to continue.”

(Kevin Burns shows off his flawless gouging technique. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

It’s probably not the way he wanted to make UFC history, but Anthony Johnson has officially become the first fighter to lose a fight in the Octagon via eye-pokes. After being handed an idiotic TKO loss at July’s “Silva vs. Irvin” card against Kevin Burns — who poked Johnson in the eyes multiple times throughout their fight until Rumble collapsed to the mat in agony during the third round — Johnson filed an appeal with the Nevada State Athletic Commission to have the result overturned to a DQ victory, or at least a no-contest. Unfortunately, it was rejected:

“Based on advice from the Nevada Attorney General’s office, the appeal was rejected due to lack of remedy,” Kizer revealed to MMAFrenzy.com.

Horseshit. Are they saying they have no way of changing results after the fact? That Steve Mazzagatti‘s decisions can never be overruled by a higher authority? Johnson had to undergo laser surgery to repair a detached retina and needed stitches in his eye — it would have been nice for the NSAC to acknowledge that they don’t condone what he had to go through. Still, Johnson has managed to keep a positive attitude through the entire experience. As he told TAGG Radio, “They can keep the loss on my record if they want to because I know I will come back better and stronger next time.”

In an apparent attempt to boost their anemic ratings, DREAM has signed notoriously dirty fighter Gilbert “Hurricane” Yvel to a three-fight contract. The Dutch striker is expected to face Alistair Overeem in the near future.

Yvel took the #7 spot in our list of the 10 Most Despicable People in MMA for his trio of DQs — one for biting Karimula Barkalaev in 1998, one for eye-gouging Don Frye at PRDE 16 in 2001, and once for knocking out a referee during a match against Atte Backman in 2004; video of that one is above. Yvel last competed in May — at an event in Holland ironically titled “Gentlemen Fight Night” — picking up his fifth-straight win with a knockout of Michael Kita.

Speaking of despicable fighters, UFC/Cage Rage brawler-turned-armed robber Lee “Lightning” Murray will be immortalized in the feature film Breaking the Bank, which will be based on his involvement in the $92 million raiding of Securitas AB in 2006 — the largest cash heist in history.

Here’s the main event from Friday’s ShoXC card, which ended with Malaipet Sitprapom kneeing Thomas Denny in the face while he was down, then dropping three illegal downward elbow strikes into the back of Denny’s head (5:53-5:58). Denny controlled the action up until then, nearly finishing the fight early with a rear-naked choke attempt and then causing some damage from the mount, but Malaipet was able to shake himself out of both positions. Skip to the 11:33 mark for Denny’s post-fight interview, where he voices his displeasure at the way things went down; a rematch looks likely.

Major ups to our new Blood Brothers at MMAScraps.com for providing the video. If you want to kill your productivity at work today, go there.

(Malaipet delivers an elbow to the back of “Wildman” Denny’s head.)

The highly anticipated match of the night turned into a DQ win for the “Wildman”. Malaipet nailed Thomas Denny with an elbow to the back of the head and with downward motion last night to get himself disqualified in the main event of the ShoXC: Elite Challenger Series which aired on SHOWTIME.

Denny took the fight to the mat early, where the fight stayed for almost the entire first round. Malaipet escaped being submitted and was able to get to his feet. Denny then attempted to get things to the ground again when the Muay Thai kickboxer committed the disqualifying elbows. Denny was unable to recover after being given time to shake off the blows. The official call was DQ at 4:51 of the first. Malaipet dropped to 3-2 in MMA after a successful kickboxing career and Denny’s record went to 26-16.

Post fight quotes from the press release:

“I’m sorry because I came here to fight, but this is MMA and you have to follow the rules,” said Denny, who could not continue
after he was nailed by three blatant elbows to the back of the head. “I may have been dazed but I wasn’t knocked out. One thing I could not do, however, was move my neck.”

“I definitely want to fight him again,” Malaipet said. “If he wants to do it at 150 pounds, I’ll fight him any time, any place. This wasn’t my type of fight. But there was no way I was ever going to tap out.”

In other action, Conor Heun went to 7-2 when he earned a unanimous decision — one that didn’t sit well with the crowd — over Marlon Mathias. While it was a back-and-forth battle, the judges still scored it 30-27 on each card. Mathias clearly hurt Heun more and landed the most blows — Heun had a gash above his left eye and possibly has a broken jaw. Mathias expressed his disappointment afterwards with the decision, stating he knows he won at least two rounds.