(Sean Salmon getting finished in the first round? You don’t say…)

Jorge Santiago has had perhaps the most disappointing UFC career of any top-tier import out there. While that statement may sound rather contradictory, Santiago’s accolades in any promotion not named the UFC (or King of the Cage) are pretty incredible. Not only is he a two-time defending Sengoku middleweight champion, but one of those defenses, which came at World Victory Road Presents: Sengoku 14 back in August of 2010, was a “Fight of the Year” earning performance over Kazuo Misaki. The man can fight is all we’re saying.

If you were to look at his record inside DW’s playground, however, you would see that all but one of his four losses (out of five performances) have ended by way of violent knockout. The Chris Leben left hook. The Alan Belcher head kick. And who could forget the Brian Stann beatdown. Thankfully, Santiago was able to bounce back from his most recent UFC run with a nasty first round knockout of 14-7 Leonardo Pecanha at Titan Fighting Championship 21 last March.

Check out the video after the jump. 

(The Wallaceberries taste like Wallaceberries!) 

With all the freak show greatness that comprised this past weekend, we all but forgot to report on some of the matchups that actually, you know, mattered. It’s kind of like when you went to Disney World with the intent of riding Space Mountain until you puked, but ended up stuck at the ring toss game all day because some ginger and his group of middle school friends called your form “faggy” and you HAD TO WIN THAT STUFFED DRAGON TO PROVE THEM WRONG. And we hate to say it, but Bob Sapp and Kimbo Slice will forever be the crappy carnival games that we simply cannot avoid.

In fact, while we were all watching “The Beast’s” record dip below the .500 mark at Saturday’s KSW-19 card (because somehow that just happened), there was a fight that took place earlier on the card that didn’t make us laugh and then immediately hang our heads in shame, believe it or not. We’re talking, of course, about Mamed Khalidov vs. Rodney Wallace. As we’ve stated before, Mamed Khalidov may be the best fighter out there not signed to a major promotion, and it kind of baffles us as to why. The Polish powerhouse’s record currently stands at 25-4, and over the past few years, he has quietly decimated every UFC washout that has crossed his path without batting an eye. Khalidov started out his 2011 season by adding to the legend of Irvin’s Curse, then rounded it out by scoring lightning quick submission victories over Matt Lindland and Jesse Taylor in successive bouts. But like a psychopathic Japanese girl after a mock casting audition, Khalidov is still waiting for that phone call.

Last weekend, he looked to make it four Zuffa vets in a row when he faced off against Rodney “Sho Nuff the Master” Wallace in a middleweight contest. As has become the standard for Khalidov, the bout featured a multitude of spinning based attacks and ended in less than two minutes.

Check out the brutal one punch-KO after the jump. 

Discussing Ken Shamrock’s recent loss history inspired us to dig up the video of his first-round loss to Kazushi Sakuraba, which went down at PRIDE 30 in October 2005. And watching the video reminded us of something we love/hate about Ken — his constant protest of early stoppages. Dude, maybe the refs wouldn’t step in so often if you could get hit without looking like you’ve lost consciousness. It’s a tough skill to learn, but an important one nonetheless.

Jason “The Punisher” Lambert — who takes on Wilson Gouveia on Saturday night — hasn’t fought since UFC 68 (3/3/07), but he proved himself to be a fighter of incredible heart during that match. Lambert was in big trouble during the first round, as Renato “Babalu” Sobral took his back and tried to sink in one of his infamous choke holds. But Lambert was able to defend the submission attempts and escape, and rocked Sobral with a couple of big punches when the fight went standing. Energized by his near-death, Lambert came out bashing in the second round, working Sobral over with ground-and-pound until Big John McCarthy stood the fighters up — which turned out to be the end for Babalu.

Okay, so Tommy Speer’s next opponent isn’t a total can. In fact, Anthony Johnson looked pretty damn promising in his Octagon debut at Ultimate Fight Night 10 (6/12/07), disposing of Chad Reiner with a 13-second knockout that should have made it onto our list. Reiner left the UFC directly after this fight and has since gone 3-0 in smaller shows.

How does a guy with only a 4-1 MMA record find himself ranked #6 on MMA Weekly’s list of the best current light heavyweights? Simple: When he’s Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, a judo champion and Team Quest member whose last two fights resulted in quick knockouts of MMA superstars Ricardo Arona and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. This bout against Arona went down in April of this year; “The African Assassin” is scheduled to make his UFC debut next month at UFC 79 against Lyoto Machida (11-0), who has scored wins over Rich Franklin, Stephan Bonnar, and B.J. Penn. Should be a real corker.

Ultimate Ultimate Knockouts, a DVD collection of the all-time greatest K.O.’s in UFC history, hit stores today. Among the fighters featured are Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, Andrei Arlovski, Matt Hughes and Matt Serra, but the most frightening knockout on the disc comes from David “Tank” Abbott’s jaw-dropping debut against John Matua at UFC 6. Looking at Matua — a 400-pound beast who, as Michael Buffer manages to say with a straight face, is “a practitioner of Kuialua, the brutal Hawaiian art of bone-breaking” — you’d think he’d be the favorite against the beer-bellied Abbott. But Abbott makes his presence known immediately, punching Matua so hard that he ends up in an Awakenings-style paralysis, and then mocking him for it.

These days, Tank Abbott is seen as a relic of simpler times, when strikers couldn’t be bothered with learning how to grapple. He’s lost seven of his last nine fights (including once to Frank Mir). But on that night…he was brilliant.

In the headlining match at yesterday’s K-1 HERO’s Korea event in Seoul, Yoshihiro Akiyama proved that he had no ring rust from his 10-month lubrication-related suspension. Though he was generally considered an underdog in his matchup against Denis Kang — an American Top Team member who had gone 20-1-1 with one no contest in his last 23 fights — Akiyama looked razor-sharp once he settled in, busting Kang’s nose with a jab and stalking his opponent until he connected with a right uppercut that put Kang’s lights out. Check out 6:22-6:24 — that nose isn’t so much broken as exploded.