Geez, these XARM events have been getting weird…

It can be argued that no losing fighter has ever deserved one of UFC’s famous locker-room bonus checks than Fabio Maldonado after his downright terrifying loss to Glover Teixeira at UFC 153.

If this was professional wrestling, we’d say this was the fight that got Glover “over” in the UFC. The brutal asskicking that Teixeira dished out transitioned him from MMA’s best-kept secret to a legitimate light-heavyweight contender, causing fans throughout the world to say “Huh, so that’s what a 10-7 round looks like.”

Yet Fabio Maldonado kept fighting back, almost pulling off one of the most insane comebacks in UFC history as he rocked Teixeira near the end of the first round. Maldonado kept coming back for more until the cageside doctor put an end to the fight after the second round. I’m not going to write something cheesy like “it was a moral victory for Fabio Maldonado,” but I would understand why a person would.

The beating that Fabio Maldonado took wasn’t for nothing – at least not financially. Maldonado revealed on his Facebook page that he recently received one of the UFC’s famed locker-room bonus checks, and it was worth more money than his win bonus would have been. Via MMAWeekly:

(“You got punched where? And by who? I’m not sure I understand.”) 

If anything, UFC 153 provided us with several entertaining moments to confirm what we already knew, or at least hoped, to be true:

1. This Anderson Silva guy is for real.
2. This Glover Texmexamerica guy is also for real. Look out Page.
3. Jon Fitch is in fact capable of entertaining a crowd. (fight it….fight it…)
4. This Jiu Jitsu stuff works.
5. Fabio Maldanado is the closest thing to a zombie this earth may ever witness.

That last lesson came at a price that Maldanado will likely pay down the line in terms of brain function, but who needs brains when you have to special order your underwear to hold your massive balls? And if there’s any country out there that appreciates as gritty a performance as Maldonado gave on Saturday, it’s Brazil. And while they rallied around fellow Brazilian Glover Teixeira’s solid performance against Maldonado, they were quick to support their fallen comrade as well.

So in an effort to support Maldonado’s incredible display of heart, fellow UFC 153 participants/Brazilians Anderson Silva and Antonio Nogueira (along with Lil Nog) paid Maldonado a visit in the hospital. Tears were spilled, laughs were shared, and we’re pretty sure at least one of them fired up the grill, so check out the pair of photos and let us know who you’d like to see Maldonado fight next now that his UFC future is safe for the moment.

Props: mmafanmade.tumblr.com

By George Shunick

If there’s a word that sums up UFC 153, it’s got to be “wow”. Anderson Silva gave another performance indicating that we do indeed live in the Matrix. Jon Fitch was in the most exciting fight of the night, and one of the best of the year. Big Nog submitted a man impervious to jiu-jitsu. Demian Maia choked/neck-cranked a man so hard he had a mini-hemorrhage and blood spurted out of his nose. And perhaps most impressive of all, Wagner Prado actually stopped a hat thief.

The bottom line is UFC 153 was an amazing card that delivered from top to bottom. Could it have been better if it had Frankie Edgar square off against Jose Aldo? Probably. But I’ll take another transcendental show from Anderson Silva any day of the week. And that’s exactly what his fight with Stephan Bonnar was. After a slip, Bonnar pressed Silva into the cage, presumably looking to wear the smaller fighter down. Silva wasn’t having any of it, offering a few knees, shoulder shrugs and nothing else. Bonnar backed away and then things got weird. Silva remained on the fence, hands down, encouraging Bonnar to hit him.

Now, I know Stephan Bonnar isn’t the world’s greatest striker. He’s never shown serious knockout power, and his technique has never been the best. But he’s still a 230 pound man who’s spent the majority of his adult life learning how to hurt people. He’s a professional fighter. And for about 4 minutes and 40 seconds last night, those facts didn’t amount to jack shit. Silva dodged, deflected or simply absorbed Bonnar’s offense for about two minutes, demonstrating what a black belt in Tae Kwon Do is worth against a man who seems to know what you’re going to do before you do. Then, Silva decided to end the fight. He tripped Bonnar, established some separation, and then connected with a debilitating, pin-point knee to the solar plexus. Bonnar – who had never been stopped with strikes before – collapsed and waited for the end to come. Mercifully, it did.

(How about dropping to your knees and begging for a swift death? Would that work? / Photo via MMAFighting.com)

The matchup between UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and light-heavyweight non-champion Stephan Bonnar has been called everything from a “fun fight,” to a mother’s worst nightmare. Tonight at the HSBC Center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we’re going to find out what this weird freak show will actually look like. Our only prediction is that Griffin Bonnar‘s first image of his father will be a bruised and lumpy one.

Luckily, there are plenty of far-more-legitimate matches on the UFC 153 main card, including Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Dave Herman, Erick Silva vs. Jon Fitch, and Glover Teixiera vs. Fabio Maldonado. And as with previous shows in Brazil, the local fans will make sure that the show is just as entertaining outside of the cage.

Round-by-round results from the UFC 153 pay-per-view broadcast will be stacking up after the jump beginning at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT, courtesy of CagePotato liveblogger-supreme Anthony Gannon. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and be sure to tell us how you feel in the comments section. Thanks for stopping by.

(It was at the UFC 153 pre-fight press conference that Stephan Bonnar revealed his true gameplan to defeat Anderson: G.T.L.) 

All the fighters for tomorrow night’s UFC 153 event are scheduled to hit the scales starting at 3 p.m. EST this afternoon from the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, so make sure to swing by the Tater to check out all the intense, barely-clothed staredowns you could ever ask for. Did that come off as gay? Because we didn’t mean for it to come off as gay; not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Anyway, a string of injuries (go figure) and a good old fashioned case of hepatitis have dramatically altered the face of UFC 153, leaving us with a main event matchup that, when viewed through an incredibly narrow and skewed lens, is almost plausible. So swing by this afternoon to see whether or not Stephan Bonnar will piss himself after he realizes just how big of a mistake he has actually made, whether or not Anderson Silva will come dressed as a Jabbawockee again, and whether or not the Brazilian audience will still be donning their “I fucked Chael Sonnen Last Night” t-shirts. Also, be sure to swing by tomorrow at 10 p.m. EST for our official liveblog of all the action!

(“The Burger King Triple Stacker — I don’t jump up to light-heavyweight on short notice without it.”)

After UFC 153 lost its main event and co-main event in the same day, UFC matchmakers needed to get creative if they wanted to avoid another financially devastating event-cancellation. And by God, they’ve gotten creative. USA Today has just confirmed that Anderson Silva will now be headlining the October 13th event in Rio de Janeiro, in a light-heavyweight feature against…Stephan, freakin’, Bonnar. Allow that delicious insanity to sink in for just a moment. Alright, let’s continue.

The report follows an earlier story broken by MMAFighting, which confirmed that Frankie Edgar has been removed from the event altogether. So if you chose “other” in today’s poll, award yourself five PotatoBux.

This will be the third light-heavyweight UFC appearance for Silva, who previously scored brilliant knockouts against 205′ers James Irvin (in July 2008) and Forrest Griffin (in August 2009). Bonnar, who is currently riding a three-fight win streak, has been vocal in recent months about his desire to get at least one more big fight before he exits the sport — remember his campaign for a TUF coaching gig against Griffin? — and sort of retired in July due to his frustration that another marquee matchup wasn’t materializing. Well, Bonnar’s got his big fish, for better or for worse. And if he lasts more than one round against the Spider, he’ll do better than any UFC light-heavyweight before him.

Hint.

With the UFC returning to Australia with UFC on FX 6 on December 14, the promotion is beginning to announce upcoming bouts. While the organization hasn’t announced a venue for said return yet, the card will be headlined by Hector Lombard attempting to redeem himself after his promotional debut at UFC 149, a completely forgettable three round sleeper against Tim Boetsch. The Cuban-born Australian has been given a second chance against none other than Brazilian leg lock specialist Rousimar Palhares. In other words, he isn’t exactly being given a rebound fight.

We all know about the lofty expectations that Hector Lombard carried into the UFC as a Bellator middleweight champion who hasn’t lost in twenty five fights. While Lombard claims that he was too injured to have been fighting during his UFC 149 clash against Tim Boetsch, many fans were quick to jump off of the Lombard bandwagon after that performance. A loss to perennial almost-contender Rousimar Palhares – especially a boring loss to Paul Harris, if that’s possible – could be enough to send Lombard back to Bellator. Likewise, Palhares has built an impressive 7-3 record in the UFC, yet has choked in the fights that would separate him from the pack and potentially earn him a title shot. If Toquinho can’t secure one of Lombard’s legs, he may be permanently relegated to gatekeeper status. Not exactly a great spot for either guy to be in.

Also, UFC on FX 6 will feature the finals of The Ultimate Fighter: Smashes, including the fight between TUF: Smashes coaches George Sotiropoulos and Ross Pearson. You guys remember Smashes, right? British fighters squaring off against Aussies? The answer to the TUF ratings woes? An opportunity for comments sections across the internet to rant about cockiness and make “That’s not a _____, THIS is a _____!” jokes? Well, you have three months to get familiar with it.

In other booking news…

(Brazilian boy can’t get no love? / Props: enlapelea.com)

Fabio Maldonado should have learned his lesson in his fight against Kyle Kingsbury last June — if the judges refuse to count body punches as “effective damage,” you might as well just start head-hunting and grunting and hope for the best. Once again, the Brazilian light-heavyweight put on a body-shot clinic in his bout against Igor Pokrajac at last night’s UFC event, and once again he wound up with a unanimous decision loss, with one judge inexplicably handing all three rounds to the Croatian. Many observers called this one a robbery, and you can understand why if you look a little closer at the striking totals. According to FightMetric…

- Round 1: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 36-6 in significant strikes, 47-16 overall.

- Round 2: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 26-13 in significant strikes, 60-18 overall.

- Round 3: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 36-17 in significant strikes, 59-30 overall.

- Overall: Maldonado’s success-rate for significant strikes was 72% (98 of 137), compared to 45% for Pokrajac (36 of 80). The final overall striking total was 166-64 in Maldonado’s favor.

(Struve channels his inner Keanu Reeves during his UFC 130 bout against Travis Browne.) 

In a fight that is all but guaranteed to end in a decisive, if not brutally violent fashion, it appears that heavyweight contenders Stefan “Skyscraper” Struve and Mark “Mark” Hunt are set to collide at UFC 146, which now features an all heavyweight lineup as its main card for the first time in UFC history. Thank God it’s not being held at a high altitude.

We know what you’re thinking: WHY IS TIM SYLVIA NOT ON THIS CARD?!!!

Hunt has had perhaps the most startling career resurgence in recent memory, scoring three straight octagon victories over Chris Tuchscherer, Ben Rothwell, and most recently Cheick Kongo, with two of those victories coming by way of destructive KO. This was made even more shocking due to the fact that Hunt was only picked up by the UFC in order to fulfill a contract he had signed back in his PRIDE days before the organization was absorbed by Zuffa.

Struve, on the other hand, will be looking to add another three fight win streak to his current 7-3 octagon record come May 26th. We last saw him at UFC on FUEL: Sanchez vs. Ellenberger, when he dispatched Manbearpig Dave Herman via second round TKO. Prior to that, Struve choked out our boy Pat Barry in the first round of their UFC Live 6 co-headliner bout.

UFC 146 transpires at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and features a main event title clash between Junior Dos Santos and Alistair Overeem.

In other fight booking news…

And to think, Tony Ferguson is the asshole of the group. Image via yfrog

Winning The Ultimate Fighter may no longer signify that you’ll be a force in your division for years to come. Or even a relevant name in your division. Or even that you have job security. But it does mean that you now have a six figure contract with the UFC, and if you happen to knock the other guy out in the process, you’ll pocket an additional 40k for “Knock Out of the Night” bonus. See? The show hasn’t completely lost its luster.

Pettis, and his hopes at a title shot, come crashing down (pic: MMAFightNews.net)

Judging from the sparse commentary throughout last night’s live blog, most of you were out sipping $20 Manhattans and discussing the latest issue of The New Yorker while a few of us sat on the couch watching free cage fights and loathing ourselves. It’s cool. You know what you did was wrong, and you came back home to us. We forgive you, and we’ll give you the gist of what went down.

It only took three minutes and fifty four seconds to send ten weeks of buildup crashing to the mat. The bout between Tony Ferguson and Ramsey Nijem was competitive, with both men finding a home for their hands, but Ferguson was able to employ his collegiate wrestling experience and the time spent with Lesnar’s camp after the show to dictate the fight and set the pace. Following a couple of successful takedowns, Ferguson flipped Ramsey’s switch with a left hook and Season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter crowned its asshole champion.

(Kyle Kingsbury is wearing that rainbow fanny-pack in honor of all the brave men and women who gave their lives defending our freedom in the Candyland-Disco War of Sissystan. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle. For more photos from this album, click here.)

TUF 13 reaches its conclusion tonight, with “Stripper” Ramsey Nijem facing off against “Jerkwad” Tony Ferguson for the mythical six-figure contract and glass trophy. Plus: Anthony Pettis makes his official UFC debut against Clay Guida in a guaranteed thriller with lightweight title implications, the suddenly-badass Kyle Kingsbury looks to put Fabio Maldonado’s 11-fight win streak to an end, and much more.

If you’ve got nothing better to do, it’s not a bad way to spend a Saturday night. (If you do have something better to do, count yourself lucky, and come back later to let us know what the outside world is like.) The action is already underway at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas — and streaming live on Facebook — but we’ll save the spoilers until the end of the night, because some of you crybabies get sooooo sensitive. Round-by-round results from the Spike TV broadcast will begin to pile up after the jump starting at 9 p.m. ET; refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

Dammit, who are all you guys again?

Say what you will about The Ultimate Fighter (not like you need an invitation), but the finale shows tend to be pretty damn fun. This season, we actually have two fairly solid finalists, a dynamite co-main in Pettis-Guida, plus a handful of other matchups calibrated for striking showdowns and crowd amazement.

Here’s a quick and dirty rundown of the fights scheduled for this weekend, with a few of those fancy moving pictures that you like so much. Who ya got?

Ramsey Nijem

VS

Tony Ferguson

Well, either this fight is the one you’ve been waiting for, or you’re just wondering what these two nobodies are doing on your UFC card. Tune in to find out which guy gets a contract with the UFC. (Spoiler Alert: It’ll be both of them.)

A number bookings for upcoming UFC events have being reported by various sources in the past 24 hours.

Heavy.com broke the news yesterday afternoon that former CagePotato.com The Ultimate Fighter 11 blogger Rich Attonito will try to prove the theory that Matt Brown has incriminating blackmail-worthy photos of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva when he attempts to hand the Seattle, Washington fighter his fourth straight UFC loss at the TUF 13 finale on June 4 in Las Vegas. Attonito will be hungry to rebound from a unanimous decision loss to David Branch he incurred at the TUF 12 finale in December.

Some more on-the-scene videos from our good friends at kimura.se: First up, Michael Bisping promises that Yoshihiro "Ironhead" Akiyama would have eventually gone down if it were a five-round fight, but says there’s no shame in not being able to put him away. He calls Mark Kinney the best boxing coach he’s ever worked with, and feels that he’s finally putting Mark’s lessons into practice. As for his future, the Count still has his eyes on the prize. "I’ve been around for a long time now, I’m not getting any younger," Bisping says. "Now it’s time to do it, it’s time to put in a run for a title and hopefully get the gold."

After the jump, Dan Hardy reflects on his knockout loss against Carlos Condit, and our BFF Dana White discusses educating new markets on MMA, the question of "morality" that jackass politicians bring up around the world, and the new "GSP is bigger than Gretzky" talking point he’s been testing out recently. For lots more UFC 120 interviews, check out youtube.com/kimurase.

(Warburton vs. Ross Pearson, 9/22/07. Skip to the 5:20 mark to see some amazingly irresponsible reffing.)

Half of the guys on the UFC 120 preliminary card will be making their Octagon debuts, hoping to claim some TV time by smashing their veteran opponents — or at the very least not do so poorly that they’re immediately fired. Take a look at the first three today, and keep an eye out for them on Saturday…

CURT WARBURTON (LW)
Experience: 7-2-1 record in various British promotions, with 6 wins by first-round stoppage. Warburton fought TUF 9 winner Ross Pearson three times in the Total Combat UK league, going an even 1-1-1 in the series.
Will be facing: Spencer Fisher (23-6, 8-5 UFC)
Lowdown: Warburton is a Wolfslair MMA Academy product who "used to dig holes for a living" before discovering MMA. He described himself as "gobsmacked" by his four-fight UFC contract, and is humbled by the opportunity that’s been put in front of him. “I got butterflies when I was given [Fisher's] name," Warburton says. "It took me by surprise a little bit, as he’s a top fighter and very experienced. When you get used to seeing people fight on television, it becomes a little strange to then be told you’ve got to fight him. Like everyone else, I’ve enjoyed watching Spencer fight over the years, and it was a bit of a ‘wow’ moment for me when I discovered I’d be fighting him on my UFC debut…I’ve got to go out there and prove to everybody that I belong at this level. This is my chance to keep on doing something that I love. If I can’t perform on the night, and can’t do it on the big stage, I’ll have to give up on something I love and go back to work."