“Hands of Stone”? Yup, that sounds about right. (Pic: UFC.com)

There is so much to love about the UFC’s Fight Night Bonuses. Often times one of these rewards can double, triple, or even quadruple a fighter’s take home pay for the evening. They also serve as bounties for action, encouraging the knockouts, submissions, and exciting fights that we all enjoy. But I love them best for another reason altogether. They give Dana White the opportunity to do what he does best: wield his godlike power with impunity. That sword has two edges of course, one of which has cut us frequently, but when dolling out these bonuses we get to see the best of Dana White. There’s Dana the Vindictive, who snubbed Mir’s poor performance against Cro Cop by denying the night’s only KO a bonus; Dana the Fight Fan, who loves action packed bouts so much that sometimes he can’t bring himself to award only one “Fight of the Night” bonus; and Dana the Merciful, who sets right the grave injustices cast down from the judges table. It was this last Dana who reared his head last night, giving an “unofficial” bonus to Michihiro Omigawa, who lost a unanimous decision to Darren Elkins in the prelims. White felt that Omigawa clearly deserved the victory and awarded him his win bonus for his performance. This fight, particularly one judge scoring it 30-27 for Elkins, is sure to add more fuel to the firestorm that is MMA judging. And now, on to the $70k bonuses…

(Photo courtesy of Eddie Manuel Photography)

London, Ontario police today revealed that they had arrested 28-year-old Las Vegas-based welterweight fighter Kasheem “The Dream” Peterson in connection with a sexual assault that occurred on the outskirts of the city southwest of Toronto at approximately 6:30 am Friday morning.

The victim, a 21-year-old woman who was not from the area and who had met Peterson prior to the alleged assault, reported the attack to police over the weekend and folowing an investigation by police, the Philidelphia native was arrested and charged with sexual assault, forcible confinement and choking someone with the intent of committing sexual assault.

A number bookings for upcoming UFC events have being reported by various sources in the past 24 hours.

Heavy.com broke the news yesterday afternoon that former CagePotato.com The Ultimate Fighter 11 blogger Rich Attonito will try to prove the theory that Matt Brown has incriminating blackmail-worthy photos of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva when he attempts to hand the Seattle, Washington fighter his fourth straight UFC loss at the TUF 13 finale on June 4 in Las Vegas. Attonito will be hungry to rebound from a unanimous decision loss to David Branch he incurred at the TUF 12 finale in December.

("COME AT ME, BRO!")

Happy Thanksgiving, Potato Nation! If you’re reading this right now, you should probably consider disconnecting from the Internet and spending time with your family. If you came here to escape those horrible people, brother we can relate. (*Pours another glass of scotch*) Let us know what you’re thankful for in the comments section, and keep up-to-date with this grab-bag of UFC headlines…

– Replacing the unfortunately injured Jose Aldo at UFC 125 against Josh Grispi will be Dustin Poirier, an 8-1 featherweight prospect who just knocked out Zach Micklewright in 53 seconds earlier this month at WEC 52: Faber vs. Mizugaki. Chris Leben vs. Brian Stann will now be the event’s co-headliner, in support of the Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard lightweight title fight.

– Coming off an ugly knockout loss against George Roop at WEC 51, "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung has his win-or-go-home fight booked, as he’ll be taking on Rani Yahya at Fight for the Troops 2 on January 22nd. It’ll be the only fight on the card where you won’t be able to chant "U!S!A!" in support of at least one of the fighters. Expect a lot of fans in the arena to make trips to the bathroom.

("Holy crap. Do my eyebrows really look like that?")

So here’s what we know: Josh Koscheck will be playing the fraggle-haired heel in Georges St. Pierre’s next title defense. Kimbo and Semtex are dunzo. Mauricio Rua’s next opponent will be determined by UFC 114′s Rampage vs. Rashad feature. Matt Mitrione and Joey Beltran could face each other at UFC 117 in August, which sounds about right. As for the rest of last weekend’s winners and losers, their fates are still to be determined. Not saying you need any help, Joe Silva, but if things are piling up at UFC headquarters, allow us to offer a few suggestions…

Lyoto Machida: If Antonio Rogerio Nogueira can get through Jason Brilz later this month, Machida vs. Lil’ Nog is the fight that makes sense. A win for Machida would be a perfect rebound against a dangerous, highly-regarded striker, while a win for Minotoro would convince fans that he’s a title threat worth caring about. Even though they’re both members of the Black House collective, Machida hasn’t ruled the match out.

Alan Belcher: He wants Anderson Silva. Isn’t that precious! Still, there’s no denying that Belcher is a rising star with some great recent wins under his belt. My first instinct would be to put him against Michael Bisping if the Count is victorious against Dan Miller at UFC 114. But there’s something just a little too obvious about that. If Belcher can handle Anderson Silva, surely he’d have no problem with Demian Maia, right? Tremendous upside for Belcher, and a good tune-up for Maia, who needs to re-locate his formerly fearsome jiu-jitsu.

(Video of the Daley/Koscheck cheap shot, courtesy of LynchTheGrynch; sorry about those first eight seconds, guys.)

In case you missed the press conference, the big news coming out of UFC 113‘s post-event aftermath is that Paul Daley and Kimbo Slice have been released from the UFC. Daley suffered his first loss in the Octagon after being smothered by Josh Koscheck for three rounds in their co-headlining bout last night, then followed it up by slugging Kos after the bell (see above). As Dana White explained to reporters, the poor decision earned Daley a permanent ban from the UFC:

As for Kimbo, his lopsided loss to rookie TUF 10 vet Matt Mitrione was enough to seal his fate. But unlike Daley, White has nothing but respect for the former YouTube brawler:

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Though UFC 108 had a lot of great finishes and battles to choose from, the recipients of the traditional end-of-night bonuses should come as no suprise. Picking up the $50,000 bumps are:

– Knockout of the Night: Paul "Semtex" Daley, for the IED he detonated on Dustin Hazelett.

– Submission of the Night: Cole Miller, for his inverted triangle on Dan Lauzon; I know it’s early, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing that one on "Best of 2010" lists.

– Fight of the Night: Sam Stout and Joe Lauzon. After suffering through Lauzon’s takedowns and elbows in the opening minutes, Stout put on the striking performance of his life en route to a lopsided decision.

Other notes on the evening…

By Elias Cepeda for CagePotato

Joe Lauzon (17-4) has held many roles throughout his 25 years — college student, 9-5er, web designer, coach, business owner — but above all else, he’s always been a fighter at heart. So when doctors told Joe he would have to sit out for at least a year after a surgery to repair a torn ACL, he took on the challenge the same way he approaches every endeavor — he trained for a fight.

“In training camp I’m absolutely miserable between doing all our rounds of sparring and cardio and I focused on my knee rehab the same way," explained the rising UFC lightweight, who has won five of his six official Octagon appearances.

"The place I did my rehab had a mix of people, young and old, and most just go through their exercises and don’t work up a sweat. I had to change my shirt just to drive home because I was soaking wet from pushing it. The place where I did my therapy was also in a gym so there were people there for other reasons than to rehab. My great physical therapist, Chris, pushed me and I progressed so fast that it got to the point where people were coming in thinking that I was in there for something else, like I was already in training camp for a fight, not knowing I had just had ACL reconstruction. I could have taken an easier approach to it but doing it that way really made a difference.”

It certainly appears that way. Based on what his doctors initially told him, Lauzon had planned for a March 2010 return to the cage, but he’s a few months ahead of schedule, fighting Sam Stout (15-5-1) Saturday night at UFC 108.

Mauricio "Shogun" Rua took home a $70,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for putting Chuck Liddell away, but he also ended "The Iceman’s" career with the TKO victory.  At least that’s what UFC prez Dana White said at the post-fight press conference, telling reporters "It’s over."

Liddell didn’t make any declarations that were quite so final, but he seemed resigned to the fact, admitting it was "probably the case" that he is now retired.  Man, what a downer.  Thanks a lot, Shogun.

The other $70,000 bonuses went to Matt Wiman and Sam Stout for Fight of the Night (really?), and Krzystof Soszynski for Submission of the Night.  Anderson Silva did not receive a bonus.  We imagine that when he asked Dana White why, Dana looked at him with disappointment in his eyes and said, ‘You know why.’

More videos are after the jump.

(Mo’ money, mo’ unfulfilled expectations.)

You can’t say Dana White didn’t warn Brandon Vera. His comments before UFC 89 suggested that it was time for “The Truth” to justify his high price tag. He didn’t, and so White is turning up the heat on him with remarks like these:

“I’m not seeing what I expected from Brandon Vera. It’s like he’s lost something. He doesn’t have that killer instinct since he took that year off. He doesn’t go after people. He used to be so cocky. He wanted to fight everybody.

“We tried to get him on one of the seasons of The Ultimate Fighter and he turned that down and said he wanted to fight Chuck Liddell and that he would knock him out. I hear that seven days a week so I told him to go on TUF and we’d find out how good he was.

“He was good. He used to walk through heavyweights earlier in his career. But he took a year off and we had all the issues with his contract and he hasn’t been the same since. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

It’s not exactly shocking to hear Dana White go after a guy who held him over the coals in contract negotiations and has since failed to live up to expectations. In a way, it seems justified. The UFC agreed to his six-figure demands based on his past performances and what they saw as his future potential. Lately he’s looked like a bad investment.

But being badmouthed in public by your boss, both before and after the fight, that’s got to sting. Especially when he goes on to compare you unfavorably to other guys who lost on the same night: