Dennis Hallman

(The Hallman/Hughes story. Could Matt Hughes be getting one more shot at revenge before he retires?)

— Anderson Silva's manager Ed Soares has debunked a report by Yahoo! Sports in which he was quoted as saying Silva wanted to give up his middleweight title to compete as a light-heavyweight permanently. As Soares told MMA Weekly: “It’s not true. I never said that to Dana. I have said to Dana that he’d like to fight again at 205 (but not permanently)...he wants the biggest fights possible, whether it’s at 205 or 185.” Silva and Soares still aren't psyched about an impending rematch with Dan Henderson: "I feel a true number one (middleweight contender) would be if Henderson fought the winner of Nate Marquardt and Damian Maia...we could take another fight at 205 or a catchweight fight (in the meantime).”

— For the fourth time in his career, Dennis "Superman" Hallman has signed a contract to fight in the UFC. He expects to make his next UFC appearance sometime this fall. Hallman is best known for two lightning-quick submission victories over Matt Hughes, the second of which came at Hallman's Octagon debut at UFC 29 in December 2000. The 33-year-old fighter lost subsequent UFC fights to Jens Pulver, Frank Trigg, and Jorge Rivera, and is currently on a four-fight win streak, with two of those fights taking place in Strikeforce.

(Cristiane and Evangelista's high school class voted them "Most Likely to Push Your Shit In." Photo courtesy of Showtime Sports.)

No rest for the hardcore MMA fan: Strikeforce’s second "Challengers" event goes down this Friday at the ShoWare Center in Kent, Washington — a day before the TUF 9 finale in Las Vegas. Headlining the Strikeforce card will be a middleweight matchup between two exciting strikers: Team Jackson product “Smokin’” Joey Villasenor and Chute Boxe veteran Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos. Both guys are coming off extended layoffs; Villasenor hasn’t competed since his first-round TKO win over Phil Baroni last May, and Santos is coming back from an elbow injury suffered in a Sengoku fight against Siyar Bahadurzada in September.

Also on the card: Highly-regarded welterweight Nick Thompson takes a middleweight fight against Tim Kennedy out of desperation, UFC vet Jorge Gurgel makes his Strikeforce debut against bully-beater Conor Heun, and Sarah Kaufman and Shayna Baszler will test out Strikeforce's new five-minute-rounds policy in the night's sole women's feature. Not bad for premium cable. The full lineup is after the jump.

(This Cyborg, not this one. Photo courtesy of CageToday.com.)

Maybe Strikeforce's roster isn't so thin after all. According to a new press release sent out by the fight league, Strikeforce will hold its second "Challengers" event at the ShoWare Center in Kent, Washington on Friday, June 19th — just two weeks after "Lawler vs. Shields" goes down in St. Louis — and a host of prominent names are already booked.

- The fight poster for Dream.6 is pretty bad-ass. (SubFighter Forum)

- Talking Rampage, ShoXC, GSP and more on MMA Rated Radio. (MMA Rated)

- Forrest Griffin and Mac Danzig land acting gigs. (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Kenny Florian's younger brother set to make amateur debut. (Fightline)

- UFC 83 DVD outsells Boston Celtics and Ric Flair, kind of. (MMA Payout)

- A little old school Matt Hughes-Dennis Hallman action. Real old school. (MMA Scraps)

- It's Beer O'Clock, are you properly outfitted? (Holy Taco)

- Four steps to becoming a rich jerk. (Wall Street Fighter)

- "Iron Man" deleted scenes feature hot girls, not so much Iron Man. (Screen Junkies)

Matt Hughes only experienced defeat twice in his first 23 fights — a stat that's even more remarkable when you consider that both losses came from a dude named Dennis Hallman, who was able to submit Hughes within the first 20 seconds of each match. This clip from UFC 29 presents the entire saga (fight #2 starts at the 5:30 mark). Hallman didn't go on to beat any other MMA legends, but he's still active in the game, winning his last fight at Strikeforce in November, and compiling a 2-1 record in the IFL in 2006.