(Pudz v. Thompson, courtesy of Ironforgesiron) 

If there was anyone out there who felt that a rematch between former World’s Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowksi and world renowned punching bag James Thompson was an absolute necessity, well then I hope you’re satisfied. The fight, which went down yesterday and thankfully was only scheduled for two rounds, saw Thompson thoroughly dominate Pudzianowski in the first round with top control and pitter-patter punches from side control. In fact, the most significant offense Pudianowski was able to mount was a fricken’ jab early in the second that managed to rock Thompson nonetheless. However, the judges, whom I can only assume were members of Pudzianowski’s immediate family, saw the fight in his favor, despite Thompson’s multiple takedowns that would have won him the fight in any other promotion on this planet. “Revenge” indeed.

It’s just baffling how anyone could have given Mariusz that fight, especially considering how the first round went. But perhaps more interesting than the fight itself was that of the post fight interview, wherein Thompson stole the microphone and went on a verbal tirade that would have made Brock Lesnar be like, “Chill, bro.”

The evening’s main event saw Mamed Khalidov score another quick submission win over TUF 7 alum and late replacement for Paulo Filho, Jesse Taylor, to retain his middleweight title. Capitalizing on an early takedown from “JT Money,” Khalidov transitioned beautifully between submission attempts, finally locking in a kneebar just 46 seconds into the fight. I think it’s safe to say that Khalidov is currently one of the most overlooked fighters in the middleweight division, and if the UFC doesn’t give him a call then they will be seriously missing out.

In other action, Polish born fighter Jan Blachowicz evened the score with Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, taking away a unanimous decision victory over the Cameroonian and scoring some revenge of his own for his second round TKO via retirement loss to Sokoudjou back at KSW 15.

And the bad luck streak continued for our buddy Matt Horwich, who dropped his third straight unanimous decision loss to Michal Materla. I guess we can salvage the fact that someone with a Dan Quinn level of craziness is still competing on a professional level, right?

Full results from the event, Thompson’s tirade, and the Khalidov submission are all after the jump, courtesy of Ironforgesiron. 

Weigh-in video, courtesy of IronForgesIron.com

In the absence of a UFC event tonight, many of you are going to tune in to Bellator 59 to catch this season’s Heavyweight and Bantamweight tournament finals. But let’s say that Bellator isn’t your scene. Let’s say that you’re the type of person to watch an event and say “This is fun and all, but I’d much rather watch freak show fights and can crushing”. Well, good news: Your favorite Polish promotion, KSW returns tonight with both of the above.

It’s almost fitting that a fighter known for pulling out of fights would pull out of his retirement fight. Astute readers may have remembered that KSW 17 was supposed to be Paulo Filho’s final fight, but that FIlho, as he’s known to do, pulled out of the fight at the last minute. Jesse “JT Money” Taylor has been recruited as a late replacement to take on Mamed Khalidov, who was last seen choking out Matt Lindland at KSW 16.

(Filho pointing out his biggest problems in life: bitches and money.)

Paulo Filho today responded to the Portal do Vale Tudo story released this week in which his former manager and friend Rodrigo Riscada accused the former WEC middleweight champion of still being strongly addicted to GHB. “Ely” told Tatame that he is over his addiction and that he is also likely done with fighting after his
contracted KSW 17 bout against Mamed Khalidov in November.

According to Filho, who is reportedly in debt to a few people in Brazil, reportedly due to his massive addiction to rohypnol and the fact that he missed out on the Zuffa drug plan by a couple years, he is planning on walking away from the sport because he received death threats over his drug debts.

“I’m choosing retirement, man… I may fight in November (in Poland) because I already signed the contract. after that I will retire. I don’t want this anymore. I’m kind of disappointed with this stuff, fighting and not getting paid. I don’t want people comforting me, I just want what is mine. That’s the third time I fight and not get paid. I was the threatened of death by people I owe here in Niteroi.”

Now, I’ve never done roofies, at least not to my knowledge, but maybe someone with knowledge on the subject could correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m thinking his lack of correlative logic is a direct result of his drug use. I mean, if I were in huge debt and the only moneymaking skill I had fighting, I would likely not retire. But that’s just me.

(Matt Lindland vs. Mamed Khalidov)

From today’s KSW event at the Ergo Arena in Gdansk, Poland. The night’s headliner between Mariusz Pudzianowski and James Thompson — which turned out to be a surprisingly entertaining back-and-forth brawl — is after the jump. (Damn, check out those shots Thompson survives at the 4:27 mark.) Go to IronForgesIron.com for the rest of the videos from the event; full results are here.

(“Hey man, look on the bright side — if you had won, it would have ruined my parlay bet.”)

Talk about flying under the radar. Not sure how this slipped past us until just now, but apparently MMA veteran Matt Lindland will be facing Mamed Khalidov in the co-main event of KSW 16, tomorrow in Gdansk, Poland. (Remember when it was mentioned at Chael Sonnen’s appeals hearing that Lindland couldn’t be at the proceedings because he was in Poland? Yeah, that’s why.)

Lindland, who has suffered first-round stoppage losses in three of his last four fights, is coming off a brain-melting knockout loss to Robbie Lawler last December. Khalidov is on a two-fight win streak, and is returning to action after his quick, predictable submission of James Irvin at KSW’s last event in March.

KSW’s main event will be a heavyweight wheeze-off between strongman-turned-fighter Mariusz Pudzianowski — who’s coming off his submission-via-punches win over Butterbean — and James Thompson, who has secured just one victory in his last ten fights. I appreciated this bit from Sherdog’s weigh-in report:

(Props: pedrommabjj via Fightlinker)

If you have a morbid interest in seeing how James Irvin’s last fight against Mamed Khalidov went, well, here you go. I’m not going to throw around the word “work,” but check out how wide and telegraphed Irvin’s punches are, starting at the 0:21 mark — it’s the universal non-verbal sign for “please armbar me so I can collect my paycheck and head to the airport.” And that’s pretty much what happens. Happy now?

After the jump: The brutal finish of Patricio “Pitbull” Freire vs. Georgi Karakhanyan from Saturday’s Bellator show, Junior Dos Santos pulls off a pretty damn respectable “Showtime Kick,” and the gif of Shogun tapping against Jon Jones at the end of their fight at UFC 128, in case you haven’t seen it yet.

(Seven pounds over, and dropping his shorts just in case. Positivity’s a great thing, James, but sometimes you have to meet it halfway. Props: mmanewspl)

Just two weeks after it was announced that he blew a steroid test back in California, cursed UFC veteran James Irvin was back in action last night in the main event of KSW 15 in Warsaw. And if you thought this would a redemptive performance for the Sandman, then buddy, you don’t know James Irvin. The bout was held at a catchweight after Irvin came in juuuuuust a bit heavy for his scheduled middleweight title fight against Mamed Khalidov. His initial weigh-in tipped the scales at 197 pounds — 12 over the limit — but after four hours in the sauna, Irvin managed to get down to 192, and the match went on at a catchweight — with the middleweight belt still on the line, for some reason.

Anyway, the numbers don’t really matter. Khalidov opened the bout with a spinning back kick (as he tends to do), then dropped to his back when it didn’t connect. Irvin dived on for some ground-and-pound, and was immediately caught in an armbar. The fight was over in 33 seconds. On the bright side, Irvin didn’t leave the fight badly injured, as we assumed he would. Hopefully that’s the last time that Irvin accepts a fight at middleweight…on short notice…overseas…against a really tough opponent…when he has a drug suspension hanging over his head.

(Maximo Blanco vs. Chang Hyun Kim; brutal finish @ 1:33. Props to WatchKalibRun)

From yesterday’s Sengoku Raiden Championships show in Tokyo…

– Jorge Santiago def. Mamed Khalidov via unanimous decision
– Akihiro Gono def. Diego Gonzalez via unanimous decision
– Maximo Blanco def. Chang Hyun Kim via KO, 1:10 of round 1
– Marlon Sandro def. Tomonari Kanomata via KO, 0:09 of round 1
– Yoshihiro "Kiss" Nakao def. Henry "Sentoryu" Miller via TKO, 3:27 of round 2
– Yuji Hoshino def. Nick Denis via submission (guillotine choke), 0:47 of round 2
– Leonardo Santos def. Kiuma Kunioku via submission (rear-naked choke), 3:06 of round 1
– Shigeki Osawa def. Kyung Ho Kang via unanimous decision

Two more fight videos after the jump…

(Yoshihiro "Kiss" Nakao — still pretty creepy. Photos courtesy of src-official.com.)

A day after WEC 47 pops off in Columbus, Sengoku will be holding their latest event at the Sumo Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Unfortunately the card won’t be broadcast live on HDNet — they’ll be airing it next Friday at 8 p.m. — but we’ll be sure to put up videos of the best fights by Monday. Check out the complete eight-match lineup, via japan-mma.com:

8. Jorge Santiago (21-8-0, champion) vs. Mamed Khalidov (20-3-1, challenger), for SRC Middleweight Title
7. Akihiro Gono (31-15-7) vs. Diego Gonzalez (13-3-0), welterweight
6. Maximo Blanco (4-2-1) vs. Chang Hyun Kim (15-5-0), lightweight
5. Marlon Sandro (15-1-0) vs. Tomonari Kanomata (15-4-5), featherweight
4. Yoshihiro “Kiss” Nakao (8-2-0) vs. Henry "Sentoryu" Miller (6-9-0), heavyweight
3. Yuji Hoshino (16-7-7) vs. Nick Denis (9-1-0), featherweight
2. Kiuma Kunioku (34-22-9) vs. Leonardo Santos (6-3-0), lightweight
1. Shigeki Osawa (4-1-0) vs. Kyung Ho Kang (4-2-0), featherweight

Some important points…

(Khalidov vs. Santiago)

Apologies for the delay/lack of attention on this, but Sengoku’s eleventh event took place early Saturday in Tokyo. Some highlights/lowlights…

— The headlining featherweight match between Hatsu Hioki and Michihiro Omigawa featured two things that have become common in Sengoku: A shocking upset for perennial underdog Omigawa, and an inexplicably bad judges’ decision. Hioki controlled the fight with his grappling in the first round, and dominated the standup in the second. Though Omigawa rallied in the final frame, few expected him to take the split decision victory. Afterwards, even Omigawa disagreed with the scoring.

— Chechen-Polish upstart Mamed "Cannibal" Khalidov scored a surprise first-round knockout of Sengoku middleweight champ Jorge Santiago. After a takedown by Santiago, Khalidov was able to stun Santiago with a punch from the bottom, then scrambled to top position and quickly finished the fight. Because it was a non-title bout, Santiago remains the champion. Love it when that happens.

— Kevin Randleman and undefeated Bulgarian prospect Stanislav Nedkov put on a three-round wrestling match that ended with one judge scoring it for Nedkov and the other two calling it a draw. In keeping with Sengoku’s ridiculous traditions, the two judges who didn’t pick a winner were required to cast "must decision" votes, and Nedkov walked away with a split-decision victory. Full results plus more fight videos can be found after the jump.