(Above: Shinya Aoki thrusts his hypnotic package at a DREAM ring girl. Below: Lyle Beerbohm’s mom poses with the fancy fabric used to make her son’s shorts.)

Among lightweight MMA fighters known for their multi-colored ring attire, Shinya Aoki and Lyle Beerbohm are easily ranked #1 and #2 in the world. And so, this matchup was inevitable. As first reported by MMA-Japan, Aoki and Beerbohm will meet in a featured bout at Strikeforce’s April 9th show.

Aoki’s last Strikeforce appearance ended in a five-round shutout at the hands of Gilbert Melendez at Strikeforce: Nashville. He won his next three MMA bouts in Japan, but most recently got knocked out in a bizarre mixed-rules bout against Yuichiro “Jienotsu” Nagashima at Dynamite!! 2010. As for Beerbohm, the Spokane-based fighter had his perfect record snapped last month in Texas, when he got out-worked by Pat Healy in one of the greatest grappling exhibitions in recent MMA history.

("The UFC really needs to get a handle on Chuck’s spending. Melting the snow from the shoreline and buying a UFC signal seems a bit exorbitant for one show.")

The card for the UFC’s first Ontario show is coming together nicely.

According to various sources, a pair of lightweight and one welterweight bout have been penciled in for the April 30 show at Rogers Centre in Toronto.

MMAJunkie reports that former WEC 155-pound champ Ben Henderson and Canadian grappling standout Mark Bocek will square off on the main card ahead of the co-main event showdowns between former UFC light heavyweight champions Randy Couture and Lyoto Machida and UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre and former Strikeforce middleweight champ Jake Shields.

Sportsnet.com is claiming that TUF 12 winner Jonathan Brookins will compete on the card as well opposite undefeated Quebec fighter John "The Bull" Makdessi and that promising Canadian welterweight Rory MacDonald will also take on TUF 9 champ James Wilks.

(James Wilks chokes out DaMarques Johnson at the TUF 9 finale in June. Props: OC Register)

If you’re like us, you may have already forgotten that there was a ninth season of The Ultimate Fighter, which featured a bunch of guys from the U.K., two of whom won six-figure contracts with the UFC. But what TUF 9 lacked in drama and overall talent level, it more than made up for in…in…uh…sorry, lost my train of thought there. Anyway, James Wilks is probably going to fight Matt "The Immortal" Brown at UFC 105 (November 14th, Manchester). Oddly enough, it will be Wilks’s first fight in England; the well-rounded welterweight scrapper moved to the U.S. in 2000, and competed only in California before joining the TUF 9 cast. Brown is the TUF 7 vet and former drug addict who has looked very sharp following his reality show stint, and is coming off back-to-back stoppage victories over Ryan Thomas and (infamously) Pete Sell.

Also on the Manchester card will be Wilks’s TUF 9 rival, DaMarques Johnson. According to MMA Weekly, the Salt Lake City native will be taking on Peter Sobotta, who dropped a unanimous decision to Paul Taylor during his Octagon debut at UFC 99. Needless to say, the loser of this fight had better hope that Strikeforce is hiring. As of now, no other fights have been confirmed for UFC 105.

(Three points, down the drain. Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

Due to a string of minor upsets at the TUF 9 Finale, we got murdered in the latest round of our fight-picking contest. (It doesn’t matter that we’re ineligible to win the Lyoto Machida DVD set; it still hurts.) Ben F. went from hero to zero, earning just six points on Saturday night to add to his still-respectable two-event total of 29. Ben G. did only slightly better this weekend, adding 10 points and ending up with a total of 25.

If you overcame the odds and racked up impressive scores for UFC 99 and the TUF 9 Finale, let us know your sum total in the comments section below. We’ll be verifying the top scores soon and announcing the first winner in a couple days. No worries if you crashed and burned this time; you’ll have another chance to win by predicting the outcome of UFC 100. Many thanks to everyone who played!

With MMA Madness reporting that Frank Lester vs. Nick Osipczak will be added to the TUF 9 finale, and the Grant/Markham scrap taken off the card, we have a pretty solid idea of what Saturday’s show will look like, barring any last-minute surprises. Here’s the lineup:

MAIN CARD
Diego Sanchez vs. Clay Guida (LW)
DaMarques Johnson vs. James Wilks (TUF 9 welterweight finals)
Ross Pearson vs. Andre Winner (TUF 9 lightweight finals)
Joe Stevenson vs. Nate Diaz (LW)
Chris Lytle vs. Kevin Burns (WW)

PRELIMINARY CARD
Melvin Guillard vs. Gleison Tibau (LW)
Mike Ciesnolevicz vs. Tomasz Drwal (LHW)
Brad Blackburn vs. Edgar Garcia (WW)
Cameron Dollar vs. Jason Dent (LW)
Frank Lester vs. Nick Osipczak (WW)

So if you participated in round 1 of our pick-off contest and you still want the Lyoto Machida "Karate for Mixed Martial Arts" DVD set, read on…

(Click above for the completed TUF 9 welterweight bracket. Props: Wikipedia.)

With the last welterweight semifinal coming up, Team U.S. comes together for one last barbecue. Frank Lester gets all swoony over Dan Henderson, telling Hendo "your eyes don’t look bad at all" and "I wouldn’t fuck with you because of your ears." This is what six weeks without women will do to a man.

Damarques Johnson does his best to build up Lester’s confidence for his fight against James Wilks. He says James can’t absorb as much damage as Frank and be okay with it. We never really got to see why Damarques hates James so much, but Damarques tells us that "James is just such a pompous prick, and I want Frank to hurt him badly." He also refers to James as a "pretty boy." Seriously. This James Wilks. I think it’s safe to say that Damarques has a different standard of beauty than the rest of us. Just another example of how the absence of females can distort your perceptions.

The Ultimate Fighter 9 – Episode 6 Submissions – Watch more Funny Videos

When Michael Bisping went AWOL during Dean Amasinger’s fight against Damarques Johnson, the nation wanted answers. Had he been in a car wreck? Was he holed up in a motel room with a crack pipe? Did he finally get picked up on his outstanding buggery warrants? Nah, the dude just overslept. He was badly jet-lagged, and was sawing logs while Dean was getting his ass kicked. Not exactly the cliffhanger we were hoping for, and the whole thing was resolved in about 20 seconds. 

Other than that, last night’s episode was very satisfying, with two fights (I’m liking this trend) and some highly ironic tooth-loss thrown in at the end. To begin at the beginning…