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Props to our pal Rose Namajunas and Sucker Punch Entertainment for sending us some behind-the-scenes footage of Thug’s fight-week activities in the days leading up to Invicta FC 5. You will see: Rose working pads with Trevor Wittman. Rose peeling potatoes while wearing the traditional head-wrap favored by grandmothers the world over. Rose on the phone, discussing mean-mugging strangers at the grocery store for the interview that she gave us two days ago. (Dude, I’m on the other end of that phone. Bloooooosh.) And so on. Check it out, and follow Rose on YouTube and Twitter!

After the jump: Rose, Cyborg, Karate Hottie, Jessica Penne, Bec Hyatt, and all the rest will be hitting the scales today for the Invicta FC 5 weigh-ins, beginning at 6:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. PT.  Watch the action live in the player below…

(Props: TheBestMMAHouse. Take a look before this bad boy gets pulled.)

Why not blow the first 15 minutes of your workday watching dozens of the best UFC knockouts that last year had to offer? Obviously Edson Barboza vs. Terry Etim gets a place of honor at the end of this highlight reel, but if I had to pick another favorite moment, it has to be the way that George Roop‘s mouthpiece explodes out of his face at the 12:01 mark, courtesy of a Cub Swanson right hand.

It’s also nice to revisit the pure frenzy of Anthony Pettis‘s finish of Joe Lauzon (6:30), Rich Franklin going all sack-of-potatoes against Cung Le (8:24), and that intense moment after Pat Barry gets pulled off of Christian Morecraft where it seems like ‘HD’ might just jump back on and keep pounding the poor bastard (10:56). For all of its disappointments, 2012 was a damn good year for dudes getting their lights turned out.

(Props: FightSportTV via Reddit/MMA)

In June 2004, a young cat named Rashad Evans (just 2-0 at the time) entered an eight-man Gladiator Challenge light-heavyweight tournament, held over two nights in Colusa, California. Though the above highlight reel presents his three fights in slightly different order — the third match against Bryan Pardoe actually took place first, during the quarterfinals — it does an admirable job of showing how Evans used to utterly clown the regional competition in his early career.

Check out how he puts his hands behind his back against the hapless Hector “Sick Dog” Ramirez, or the classic Sugar-shake he does at 0:48 against Jaime Jara. Of course, Evans backed up the showboating by tagging his opponents at will and tossing them around like children. Evans was picked up for the second season of The Ultimate Fighter directly after this tournament performance, where he won the heavyweight bracket, doin’ his thang the whole time.

And FYI, the song in the highlight reel is “Sugar” by Betty Everett. Great choice, video highlight-maker.

ix3623 is a ridiculously prolific editor of MMA/sports videos that are unmatched in their ability to waste large blocks of your time. While checking out ix’s new two-part "compilation of interesting mix martial arts facts" series today, we noticed the above tribute to sick knockouts at local shows, and it might be his most important work yet. First, a point of clarification: "amateur" here means "shot with a shitty camera." (We definitely recognized a few smaller pro leagues in the mix.) But that’s just a minor detail, because my goodness is this stuff hardcore. These are not TKO stoppages. This is nine and a half minutes of guys getting knocked dead-asleep in horrible fashion. Enjoy! We also recommend ix3623′s unsportsmanlike behavior megamix, the 30-part (!) funniest moments in MMA series, and this unrelated but compelling highlight reel.

Because it’s Monday morning and you’re all still half-asleep and three-quarters hungover, we’d like to present the latest epic highlight reel from Caposa, which presents 2010′s best MMA knockouts from around the world. It’s been a damn good year for head trauma, apparently. But wait, there’s more…