You may have heard that former UFC weigh-in specialist Anthony “Rumble” Johnson was set to make his debut at “RumbleWeight” last night at Titan Fighting Championship (TFC) 24 in Kansas City, Kansas. Well, he did. The former welterweight Johnson made the 205lb light heavyweight and battered Esteves Jones until he secured a 2nd round stoppage in the TFC main event.

But we were more interested in seeing how submission grappling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu world champion Braulio Estima would do in his MMA debut, anyway – especially after Renzo Gracie told this writer yesterday when he visited him to tape an episode of the soon-coming podcast, The Conversation, that Estima had dropped over twenty pounds to make welterweight and then put it all back on for the fight. Renzo said that it was the first time Estima had ever made such a weight cut.

Besides, we hadn’t heard much from Estima since his amazing grappling match non event with Nick Diaz .

Estima is the reigning top dog in submission grappling and could conceivably stay that way for a long time. Instead, he decided to test the waters in mixed martial arts.

His first test was Chris Holland, a fighter who went into the contest with eight pro fights to Estima’s none. In the end, Estima’s lifetime of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu prevailed as he put Holland to sleep with an arm triangle choke.

(True story.)

As a wise man once tweeted, “everyone likes surprises.” Nevertheless, Miguel Torres probably didn’t enjoy the surprise he got recently when he found out that he had been cut for the second time by the UFC. Torres confirmed on his official website that he was handed his walking papers following his first-round knockout loss against rising star Michael McDonald at UFC 145. The firing follows a temporary release in December, which Torres caught for rape-joke-related offenses.

At one point the most dominant bantamweight in the history of the sport, Torres ends his UFC stint with an underwhelming record of 2-2, including decision wins over Antonio Banuelos and Nick Pace, and losses to McDonald and Demetrious Johnson. Prior to that, Torres spent three fruitful years in the WEC, where he won the promotion’s 135-pound belt and successfully defended it three times before a pair of stoppage losses to Brian Bowles and Joseph Benavidez permanently dethroned him.

(Why yes, Bas, I *will* have another bear claw.) 

Fresh off a unanimous decision victory over a Carl’s Jr., wait, I meant Dave Branch at Titan Fighting Championship 22, it looks like an opponent, date, and location has been set for Anthony Johnson’s light heavyweight debut. Johnson will be squaring off against 8-3 KOTC veteran Esteves Jones on August 24th at the Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas, at Titan Fighting Championships 24. The chance to finally see Johnson fighting somewhere around his actual weight has to inspire confidence that he will actually make weight this time, a feat in and of itself that “Rumble” has failed to do in his past two fights, and about every other fight before that.

When asked to comment on his newfound diet, Johnson could only mumble “It’s great” through a mouthful of Steak-umms.

Regardless of his training/diet regimen, Johnson should have little trouble putting away Jones, who holds a notable win over Darrill “Titties” Schoonover and no one else. Then again, his nickname is “Quiet Riot”, who were arguably one of the better mainstream metal bands of the 80′s, so…honestly, I don’t really know where I was going with that. Jones is a dead man.

But even better than the news that Johnson may actually defeat an opponent without having to hand over 20% of his purse afterward is the fact that also on the card, a certain BJJ legend will be making his MMA debut.

Details are after the jump. 

(“Higher or lower than 200? Higher?”)

It looks like Anthony Johnson has found a promotion willing to overlook his chronic habit of coming in overweight for contracted bouts.

Titan Fighting Championship announced today that it has signed “Rumble” to an unspecified contract and that the 10-4 former UFC welterweight-turned-light heavyweight will be headlining its May 25 card, which will be broadcast live on HDNet. No opponent has been named for AJ, and it has yet to be determined if the former welterweight, who came in 13 pounds over for his middleweight debut at UFC 142 against Vitor Belfort in his last bout, will be fighting at 185 or at a catchweight. One thing’s for certain: his days at 170 are likely behind him.

“I’m back, and I’m fighting May 25 with Titan Fighting Championship, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to headline this event for all the fans in Kansas City and watching that night live on HDNet,” Johnson confirmed with Ariel Helwani on Monday’s MMA Hour. “I am so pumped to be fighting again, and I’m ready to take on whatever 185-pounder they put in front of me. I received offers from all over the world, and after a lot of consideration, my manager Glenn Robinson and I settled on Titan because it’s a good promotion, but more importantly it’s run by really good people.”

“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.

Pulver vs. Davidson (video by Zuffaforce)

It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that we’d shell out $50 to watch Jens Pulver knuckle up with the top fighters in the world on the sport’s biggest stage. Those days are long gone, brother. Jens’ losing skid on the regional circuit was recently broken by a two-fight win streak, but last night we were reminded once again how far he’s fallen. Pulver took on Brian Davidson and it wasn’t pretty. Unable to match Davidson’s speed in the standup, Pulver looked to take this fight to the ground often, but he found little comfort on the mat. Following his first takedown Lil’ Evil ate an illegal up-kick that had him staggered; his second takedown yielded little action on the ground, and his third attempt ended with Davidson taking his back and securing the rear naked choke. After the fight, Pulver—who has lost seven of his last nine bouts–declared that he had no intentions of retiring and that he wanted to go out on his own terms. He’s a grown man and can do as he pleases, but let’s hope those terms don’t include a long string of KO losses.

In other action, UFC vet Jake Rosholt put a beating on John Ott until landing an illegal knee at 4:23 into the third round. Rosholt used his decorated wrestling background to put Ott on his back and work him over throughout the fight. The bout could easily have been stopped in Rosholt’s favor prior to the knee, as he opened numerous deep cuts across Ott’s face with elbows and punches from full mount and side mount on several occassions. While Ott attempted to stand in the last minute of the fight, Rosholt landed a solid knee to his face, dropping him to the canvas before doctors declared him unable to continue.

Full results after the jump.

“This picture had to be taken within the opening seconds, he still has one of his hands up.”

Normally, when I watch regional promotions I have to do so with my laptop on mute. Otherwise, I get so agitated by the announcers trying to hype their minor league talent as “the best in the sport” that I can’t enjoy myself. So when Titan FC 17 kicked off this ridiculously busy weekend for MMA last night in Kansas City, I can’t help but feel that the biggest winners of the evening were Frank Trigg and Michael Schiavello. While lesser announcers would hype Phil Baroni like he’s still in his prime and talk about Bobby Lashley slamming a natural middleweight like he’s ready for Cain Velasquez, Schiavello and Trigg were brutally honest critiquing the action. That’s got to be worth something, right?

It’s certainly worth more than the effort Bobby Lashley put in against James Jack John Ott. Last night was Bobby Lashley’s first chance to silence his critics after a humbling loss to Chad Griggs. John Ott, asdie from being a middleweight stepping in as a late replacement, is also a wrestler with sub-par striking. If I didn’t know that you all come to Cage Potato for responsible journalism, I’d recklessly hypothesize that John Ott was brought in to lose in dramatic fashion. Naturally, Bobby Lashley capitolized on this opportunity by putting in just enough effort to grind out a unanimous decision.

(Tim’s impressive physique can be credited to his sports-nutritionist, John Belushi. / Photo courtesy of chavo.smugmug.com)

Tonight at the Historic Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas, former UFC heavyweight champ Tim Sylvia will take a break from almost suplexing mental ladies to face TUF 10 castmember Abe Wagner in the super-heavyweight main event of Titan Fighting Championship 16. Weigh-ins were yesterday, and Timmy punished the scales at 311 pounds, which is basically what he weighed for his ill-fated bout against Ray Mercer in June 2009. Back then, we took his weight as a sign that he wasn’t taking his opponent or training seriously. But just look at that grin in the photo above. Sylvia is owning his girth. It’s where he wants to be. 

We can’t seem to find full weigh-in results for the event, but we will say that Abe Wagner is looking mad beefy, and appears to be a hell of a lot more serious about the whole thing than his "aw fuck it" opponent. The Titan FC 16 main card will be broadcast on HDNet tonight at 10 p.m. ET. The full lineup — which also features UFC vets Rich Clementi, Drew McFedries, and Jason High — is after the jump…