“Maybe if we leave Bobby Lashley on the poster, no one will notice that we left the ‘L’ out of professional” -The TFC Marketing Intern who worked on this poster

Are you a regional promotion that wants to get our attention? Put Bobby Lashley on your cards, and we’ll begrudgingly give you an article every time he fights. He decides to pull out of a fight for “personal problems”? Just stack your card with guys with crazy nicknames and we’ll sort it all out the next day.

As we mentioned earlier this week, Titan Fighting Championships returned with TFC 19 last night. Since the card featured a cast of relatively unknown fighters with unusual nicknames, we’re not going to do a traditional recap. Rather, we’re going to break this one down by examining which fighters actually lived up to their nicknames, and which nicknames appear to be failed attempts at ironic humor.

“Yeah, guys? I don’t really feel like fighting that night, personally.”

Titan Fighting Championship returns to HDNet tomorrow night for TFC 19, with local favorite James Krause taking on 18-6 journeyman vet Clay French as the new headliner. Titan had planned to have Bobby Lashley vs Eddie Sanchez for the main event, but Lashley reportedly pulled out due to “personal problems”, and is now scheduled to return for Titan’s next show on August 26th. Funny thing is, Titan still hasn’t taken Lashley off the poster.

Krause, who made his debut under the Titan banner in 2007, is an exciting fighter popular with the local crowd, but has had difficulties when he steps up into the national scene. Krause dropped back to back fights against Donald Cerrone and Ricardo Lamas in the WEC, then fell victim to a Toby Imada armbar at Bellator 14. His opponent French has been around the game for a minute, carrying a loss to Shinya Aoki via flying triangle at PRIDE Bushido 13 in 2007 before Krause had even turned pro, so we guess those crazy flying subs do work. Sometimes.

The co-main event is a catchweight fight in the women’s division, featuring Tonya Evinger vs Sarah McMann at 140 pounds. Interesting note: Evinger’s last two losses, a pair of RNC submissions, came at the hands of Alexis Davis, a Canadian fighter making her Strikeforce debut Saturday night against Julie Kedzie. (What? We thought it was interesting.) Evinger will face Sarah McMann, an MMA n00b with just two fights. But hold the phone: McMann is also the first American woman to medal in Olympic wrestling, which makes this matchup an intriguing one. Evinger has a high school wrestling background herself, which is a relative oddity in the women’s division.

Check out the full card after the jump.

“Doc comes back and says, ‘Nate, you have the testosterone levels of a 35 year old man,’ and I just broke down. ‘Doc,’ I told him, ‘I’m only 32! Is there anything you can do to help me?’”

You have to hand it to the team at MMAFighting for nailing down the exclusive with Nate Marquardt yesterday. Everybody wanted to talk to him, but it was Ariel Helwani who welcomed Marquardt and manager Lex McMahon to the microphone for a heart to heart. Mike Chiappetta provided the Cliff’s Notes version of the interview to get the ball rolling on Twitter, and the discussion quickly took off.

The short interview was dissected and commented upon in real time on Twitter, and the reactions continued throughout the evening. What follows is only a *small* sampling of Twitter’s response to Nate’s release and the subject of Hormone Replacement in MMA. Keep in mind that Marquardt already has a Twitter dedicated to getting him back in the UFC, and a matching hashtag #BringNateBack that saw plenty of use yesterday as well.

It was also interesting to note that a lot of Zuffa fighters were unwilling to touch the subject. Usual Tweeting suspects were strangely silent on the hot topic; take from that what you will. On the other hand, there were a few fighters who had some choice words on the subject, and they did not beat around the bush.

Go ahead and wade through this collection of Tweets from yesterday, and then share your expert analysis and vital opinion in the comments. Is Nate a good guy that has made some bad choices? Is he a nefarious schemer looking to get any advantage he can? What about the larger issue of HRT/TRT/PEDs in MMA? Should Dana continue to clean house until fighters learn to stay away from anything questionable? Should athletic commissions just legalize everything from horse steroids to heroin?

After all, PRIDE was awesome, right?

[RX]

Gash of the year, right there; props to Bloody Elbow for the tip. Video of the Jose Aldo flying knee that gave him that cut is below, and some more WEC 41 fights are after the jump in case you missed the show on Sunday.