Fight of the night and submission of the night went to Dustin Hazelett in his victory over Josh Burkman.  While I question Hazelett's decision to use "McLovin" as a nickname, he definately showed great bjj skills against a tough opponent.  I watched that fight on ufc.com for free after the finale.

Also winning a bonus was Drew McFedries for his quick knockout of Marvin Eastman.

Evan Tanner showed a ton of heart in his loss to Kendall Grove.  Grove punished him for most of three rounds but Tanner never looked like he was a quitter.  Interestingly, one judge actually gave the fight to Tanner.  How anyone could have scored that fight with 2 rounds going to tanner is a mystery.  Grove dominated for at least 2 of the rounds completely, enough for two of the judges to score on e round a 10-8 for Grove.

A bout between Tim Credeur and Cale Yarbrough was scratched from the card just minutes before the bout when Credeur tested positive for Adderall which is used to treat, among other things, narcalepsy.  Apparently Credeur informed the UFC before hand that he had just stopped using the drug 5 days before the fight so he won't be punished.  Look for the fight to be added to a future card.

Diego Sanchez handled Luigi Fioravanti and showed his ability to stand and exchange against a good striker.  Sanchez especially showed off a high kick that we previously hadn't seen him use often.  Fioravanti hit Sanchez with some clean punches but he never looked in trouble.  Diego stopped him at the end of the third round with a kick to the head, then a knee reminiscent of his win against Joe Riggs.  The ref stepped in during his ground and pound.

Thiago Alves stopped Matt Hughes in the nights main event out-striking Hughes and probably putting himself in title contention.  Alves did fail to make weight for the event, coming in at 174lbs but he might have made up for it with his performance.

Michael "The Count" Bisping put on a clinic against Jason "Dooms" Day stopping him in the first round with the TKO.

The buzz of the night was probably the role the referees had in the bouts.  A total of 3 points deducted at the end of the night and a questionable stoppage could cause a few rematches for the future.

First, Herb Dean deducted two points total from Nate Marquardt in what was a very entertaining fight against Thales Leites.  In the second round Dean deducted a point for an illegal knee to a downed opponent.  Then in the third round he again deducted a point for elbows to the back of the head which, replays clearly showed, was not the case.  This costed Marquardt the fight as he clearly dominated rounds 2 and 3.

Then, in a heavyweight bout with Brandon Vera and Fabricio Werdum, referee Dan Miragliotta stopped the bout with less than 20 seconds left in the first round with Werdum on top of Vera landing shots.  Vera was very clearly defending himself and very much aware of his surroundings when Miragliotta stepped in called the fight in Werdum's favor.  Vera immediately jumped to his fight and screamed "I'm OK!" but to no avail.  As a side note, this is the same referee that oversaw the Kimbo - Thompson bout, another controversial stoppage.

This weekend saw the first-ever live MMA event on network TV with EliteXC's Saturday Night Fights on CBS.  Also that night, the UFC aired a 3 hour long special on Chuck Liddel and capped it off with the Liddel-Silva fight from back in December.  But the best MMA of the weekend came from the WEC Sunday wIth the main event seeing Urijah Faber defending his title against Jens "Lil' Evil" Pulver.

The night started off with Rob McCullough def. Kenneth Alexander via split decision.  That was a fairly boring fight but the show only got better from there.  Hometown boy Mark Munoz TKO'd Chuck Grigsby in the first round in the next matchup.

In the nights first title defense, Miguel Torres went three rounds against Yoshido Maeda in what some are calling fight-of-the-year.  Those guys pounded each at a very fast pace for those three rounds and probably would have gone five rounds if Maeda's face could have stood up to Torres' left hand.  Maeda's face was a mess after the third round and he was deemed unable to continue.

The main had Faber once again defending his featherweight title, this time against Jens Pulver.  In previous title defenses, Faber has relied on his ground game to come up with submissions making the rest of the 145lb. division look like amatuers.  In this matchup he stood with Pulver for the bulk of five rounds exchanging punches and kicks.  Faber showed us a right hand that he had yet to demonstrate in previous matchups but he could not finish "Lil' Evil."

I was very impressed with Urijahs standup.  He is definately one of the top-ten pound for pound fighters in the world.  Pulver had no answer for Fabers speed.  After five round the judges gave the match to Faber unanimously.

Some good fights last night on CBS!  With EliteXC handling production, I was a bit nervous on what new MMA viewers would see but the fights were exciting for the most part.  I didn't like the fighters entrances (too much like Pro Wrestling) but the show was not boring.

Kimbo Slice was finally forced to fight a game opponent in James Thompson.  Thompson has lost most of his recent fights via quick knockouts but he gave Kimbo a handful and even had Slice on the ground several times.  Thompson has a huge cauliflower ear and Kimbo finally had a chance to target it in the third round.  Slice smashed the ear open and continued going after it.  The ref stopped the fight with 38 left in the third round.

I was very surprised by the womens fight!  They slugged it out as much or more than the mens matchups and both of them took some big punches.  Gina Carrano came in to this fight over the weight limit of 141 but the two fighters agreed to fight anyway.  Kaitlin Young seemed to be a lot smaller than Gina and it showed at the end of the first round.  Carrano battered her up pretty bad and the fight was called in between the first and second round with the win going to Gina via TKO.

Fight of the night was definately Robbie Lawler vs. Scott Smith.  These guys slugged it out for most of three rounds and both were in danger of being knocked out at some point.  I really wish, for the sake of the sport, that this would have been the Main Event of the card.  Robbie Lawler impressed me.  That was the first time I've seen him fight and put on a good show against a game opponent in Scott Smith.

Late in the third round of their matchup, Lawler stuck Smith with an accidental finger to the eye.  Doc's looked at it and called the fight, which would not have happened in the UFC.  I think EliteXC definately has some questionable stoppages in their events.  No winner in the Lawler-Smith fight but I'm sure we'll see them fight again soon.

Tonight is WEC's event on the Versus channel!