Nick Thompson

(Props: CagePotato reader "Numa." Fight starts at the 6:00 mark.)

It's official: Dan Hornbuckle is the Real Deal. The Hammond, Indiana-based fighter improved his record to 19-2 (17 wins by stoppage) with his TKO victory over Nick Thompson earlier today at Sengoku 10th Battle. As you'll see in the video above, Thompson was able to hang with Hornbuckle for most of the first round, but "the Handler" started to find his range by the end, and he went in for the kill in round two. Skip to the 14:55 mark to see Hornbuckle end the fight by landing about a dozen unanswered blows on Thompson. Directly afterwards, he demanded a Sengoku belt to go along with his pile of small-show titles. Sengoku doesn't currently have a welterweight champion; expect to see Hornbuckle in a title fight in the near future.

After the jump: Hornbuckle's one-round rager against Courtney Ray in the finals of an eight-man HOOKnSHOOT tournament in March 2007.

(Silva vs. York. Props to MMA Share)

Sengoku 10 went down earlier today in Saitama, Japan, and what it lacked in big names, it more than made up for in thrilling finishes. In the headlining bout, Olympic judo silver medalist Hiroshi Izumi made the brilliant decision to stand and bang with Kiwi kickboxing champ Antz Nansen, and got worked; the ref eventually stopped the fight after Izumi was punched to the mat three times in a single 35-second stretch. Meanwhile, in the fights that you might actually care about, Antonio Silva ended "Big" Jim York's night in the first round with an arm-triangle choke, following a methodical performance that saw Bigfoot control the standup and take York down with ease.

Dan Hornbuckle followed up his knockout of the year candidate against Akihiro Gono last month with another fantastic performance against Nick Thompson, earning a second-round TKO with a flurry of strikes that began with a straight left and ended with a knee to the jaw. (We'll post the video when we find it.) Also, Kazunori Yokota scored a first-round knockout over former IFL lightweight champion Ryan Schultz, who has now lost three straight fights in Sengoku.

Full results and more videos after the jump...

(The oddly-proportioned Antonio Silva and the impeccably-dressed Nick Thompson pose for cameras earlier today in Tokyo. Photos courtesy of Sherdog.)

If you're one of the lucky few who still gets HDNet — go fuck yourself, Time Waner Cable! — why don't you go ahead and set your DVR for the live broadcast of Sengoku 10, which goes down late tonight at 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT. Though there isn't much star power on the card, the show will feature Antonio Silva, Nick Thompson, Dan Hornbuckle, and a headlining bout between two fighters making their MMA debuts: Olympic Judoka Hiroshi Izumi and New Zealand kickboxing champion Antz Nansen. The lineup is below (props to BloodyElbow):

LHW: Hiroshi Izumi (debut) vs. Antz Nansen (debut)
HW: Antonio Silva (12-1) vs. "Big" Jim York (11-2)
WW: Makoto Takimoto (5-5) vs. Jae Sun Lee (2-3)
LW: Kazunori Yokota (9-2-3) vs. Ryan Schultz (20-11-1)
LHW: Ryo Kawamura (10-4-2) vs. Fabio Silva (11-5)
WW: Nick Thompson (38-11-1) vs. Dan Hornbuckle (18-2)
MW: Joe Doerksen (42-12) vs. Takenori Sato (9-6-4)
LW: Maximo Blanco (3-2-1, 1 NC) vs. Tetsuya Yamada (3-1)

(It beats the hell out of welfare.)

In case you’ve forgotten, the Strikeforce Challengers event from Kent, Washington is on Showtime tonight, headlined by “Smokin” Joey Villasenor taking on the other “Cyborg” Santos.  You know, the dude one.  That’s all well and good and they even shoved each other at the weigh-in yesterday to add a little easy hype, but the story that’s being overlooked right now is just how much Nick “The Goat” Thompson obviously does not want to fight Army special forces bad-ass Tim Kennedy.  He’s not even pretending that this was his idea, or that he is anything but resigned to his fate at this point.  Just check out these quotes from Thompson, courtesy of 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.