Jeremy Stephens

(It was truly a great night for gashes. Image courtesy of MMA Mania.)

The UFC doled out $30,000 best-of-night bonuses to four fighters at last night's "Diaz vs. Guillard" event. The extra bread was awarded to...

Fight of the Night: Nate Quarry and Tim Credeur for their three-round slugfest, which Quarry took by unanimous decision. I would have given it to Carlos Condit and Jake Ellenberger, whose fight was much more technical and varied, but hey, the crowd loves a good brawl, and Quarry/Credeur was a great one.

Submission of the Night: Nate Diaz, who was responsible for one of the night's three guillotine-choke submissions. Amazingly, this is the fifth-straight fight in which Diaz has won an end-of-night bonus. Previously, he received Fight of the Night bonuses for his wars against Joe Stevenson, Clay Guida, and Josh Neer, and a Submission of the Night bonus against Kurt Pellegrino.

Knockout of the Night: Jeremy Stephens by default, since there were no other KOs/TKOs on the card. Stephens didn't actually knock Justin Buchholz out, but he was whaling on him pretty good until the fight was stopped in the first round due to the hatchet-wound shown above.

UFC Fight Night 19 drew 7,500 spectators for a reported live gate of $650,000.

(Mark Coleman — master of kino escalation. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

— An oddly appropriate light-heavyweight matchup may be in the works for UFC 100 (July 11th, Las Vegas). According to MMA Mania, bout agreements have been offered for Mark Coleman to face Stephan Bonnar at the milestone event. That's right: The UFC's first official heavyweight champion and early star of the SEG era will likely be taking on the man who helped take the UFC mainstream in the Zuffa era with his epic TUF 1 finale battle against Forrest Griffin.

Kind of an interesting way to pay tribute to the Octagon's history. But for the fighters themselves, the matchup will be all business. Coleman most recently put in a shambling wreck of a performance against Mauricio Rua at UFC 93, eventually losing by TKO in the third round, while Stephan Bonnar was out-hustled by Jon Jones at UFC 94, losing by unanimous decision. Both men need a win here to remain relevant. UFC 100 will also reportedly feature fights between Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar (for the unified heavyweight title), Georges St. Pierre and Thiago Alves (for the welterweight title), and Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson (for the right to get their ass kicked by Anderson Silva at some point in the future).

— TUF 8 lightweight winner Efrain Escudero has fallen prey to the Amir Sadollah curse. Due to a rib injury suffered in training, he has been forced to pull out of his first post-TUF fight, which was scheduled to be against Jeremy Stephens at UFC Fight Night 18 (April 1st, Nashville). Taking Escudero's place will be Gleison Tibau, the American Top Team fighter who snapped a two-fight losing streak at last month's UFC Fight Night 17 card with his first-round submission of Rich Clementi. Unfortunately for Stephens, his bout may now be relegated to the undercard in favor of the Tyson Griffin/Rafael Dos Anjos match.

Props to MMA Scraps and MMA Linker...

(Lauzon/Stephens)

(Neer/Danzig)

(Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

We’re closing in on the start time for UFC Fight Night 17, an event whose fairly mediocre lineup threatens to be hopelessly overshadowed by the tornado of MMA controversy and news.  But no matter, there are free fights on and we’re going to enjoy ourselves, dammit.

Hit refresh often and don’t bring me down with your bitching about how Jeremy Stephens isn’t a main event fighter.  He is tonight.  Think positive!

(Will "Rumble" Johnson crumple another opponent into a carry-on sized hunk of meat?  Magic eight ball says, "All signs point to yes.")

Between greasing controversies and the Strikeforce purchase of Pro Elite, we certainly hope you haven’t forgotten about UFC Fight Night 17 on Spike this Saturday.  Ah, who are we kidding, you’re not going to forget.  It’s a night of free fights, and we’ll be liveblogging it!  What more could you want?  

Well, for starters, how about the opportunity to parlay that cash you won’t be spending on a pay-per-view (for a change) into big winnings with our helpful betting guide?  Yeah, that sounds nice, doesn't it?  Odds come courtesy of BestFightOdds.com, as usual.

Joe Lauzon (-175) vs. Jeremy Stephens (+166)
Cain Velasquez (-550) vs. Denis Stojnic (+501)
Mac Danzig (-120) vs. Josh Neer (+120)
Luigi Fioravanti (+276) vs. Anthony Johnson (-285)
Kurt Pellegrino (-200) vs. Rob Emerson (+191)
Dan Miller (-165) vs. Jake Rosholt (+186)
Matt Grice (-145) vs. Matt Veach (+141)
Gleison Tibau (-115) vs. Rich Clementi (+105)
Nick Catone (-220) vs. Derek Downey (+206)
Steve Bruno (+105) vs. Matt Riddle (-115)

Thoughts…