WARNING: Fight Results Follow!!





It was a great weekend for MMA if you like your fights ending inside the cage because there were four finishes in the five fight main cards at both Bellator 199 and UFC 224. Ten fights total with eight finishes.

Ryan Bader advanced to the second round of the Bellator heavyweight tourney with a TKO of King Mo' Lawall in the opening seconds of the first round. Bader threw one punch -- literally his first punch of the fight -- that put King Mo' on his ass. It looked like it was meant to be a body shot but King Mo' ducked and put his face in the way of it. Lawall turned his face to the canvas to try to get his feet under him but Bader got there before he could get up, and King Mo' made no effort to defend himself once Bader started the ground and pound.

Now Bader gets Mitrione in the semis of the heavyweight tournament.

Cheick Kongo had a good night, TKO'd Javy Ayala half way through the 1st round, his 6th consecutive Bellator win.

If you haven't seen Bellator in a while, it might surprise you to know that "Big John" McCarthy is now doing some commentating, including the post-fight interviews. Which I'm glad to see, because he has been so prominent a feature for so many years as an MMA referee. He was the only referee for the first three UFCs, and his input was critical in evolving from the almost no-rules fighting the UFC began into a sustainable professional fight promotion.


UFC 224 had not one but two walk-off KTFOs, the first when Lyoto Machida caught Vitor Belfort square on the chin with a front kick one minute into the second round. Machida knew the instant it connected the fight was over and stood with his hands on his hips (shades of Anderson Silva) instead of following Belfort to the canvas.

Bantamweight John Lineker roughed up Brian Keller for two rounds he finally caught him on the chin early in the third and knocked him stiff. Lineker was coming in for the kill but Leon Roberts was perfectly positioned to step between them before Keller suffered any more damage.

The main event was Amanada Nunes and Raquel Pennington, the first time the UFC had paired up two (admitted) carpet-munchers (which Jon Anik even mentioned on air). Pennington was outmatched but put up pretty good resistance until Nunes got her third takedown of the fight in the middle of the fifth. Her nose already was obviously broken and when Nunes' ground and pound turned it into a fountain of blood, Pennington gave up her back and then made no effort to improve her position so Marc Goddard stopped the fight.



There was no blood to be seen on this part of the canvas until Pennington rolled over just a couple of seconds before this screen shot.

What probably was the best fight of the night was the only one decided by the judges, Jacare Souza and Kevin Gastellum. It was a three round back-and-forth that all three judges scored 29/28 with Gastellum winning the split.

Jacare won five straight when he first came to the UFC but the deep end of the pool hasn't been so kind to him. He's lost three of his six fights since then.