ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

We’ve come to expect, even look forward to the passionate postfight ramblings of the Diaz brothers.

It wouldn’t really feel like a Diaz victory, after all, without copious shout-outs to the homies. It wouldn’t feel right without some chest-thumping on behalf of the 209, or Stockton, or NorCal, or just California in general (it seems the place the Diazes call home gets bigger the farther away they get). The evening just wouldn’t be complete without the now obligatory praise for a newly vanquished opponent and at least one out-of-the-blue announcement to make us all narrow our eyes at the TV a little bit and go: “Huh?”

On Saturday night in New Jersey, it was Nate Diaz’s turn.

Diaz had just defeated Jim Miller at UFC on Fox 3 to solidify his position as top contender for the organization’s lightweight title. In an absolutely appropriate summation by UFC color commentator Joe Rogan, Diaz had “completely handled” Miller en route to dealing him the first stoppage loss of his MMA career via funky second-round guillotine choke. It was Diaz’s third win in a row since dropping back down from welterweight last year. He seems to have suddenly come into his own inside the Octagon and is now set to take on the winner of the Aug. 11 do-over between champion Ben Henderson and ex-champ Frankie Edgar.

When asked by Rogan how he views his own standing in the sport’s most competitive division, Diaz first stumbled through the typical clichés about wanting to be top dog, but then tacked on an addendum that -- while not exactly surprising -- speaks to the unique landscape of the 155-pound division right now.

“I’m trying to be the No. 1 in this world,” Diaz said. “There’s only one person above all of us and that’s Gilbert "El Nino" Melendez, the true world champion lightweight.”

Diaz, of course, is terribly biased. He and Melendez are longtime teammates on the Cesar Gracie fight team, so it’s in no way shocking that he would use a live mic on national television to give the Strikeforce champion his propers. However, it is somewhat surprising that anyone on the doorstep of a UFC title shot would so readily and publicly admit he thinks the best fighter in his weight class competes elsewhere.

Also, even if Diaz didn’t know it, he had a point. His words actually did much to underscore the fractured state of the lightweight ranks right now.

For perhaps the first time in the modern history of the sport -- or, at least, in recent memory -- there are no fewer than five fighters who can lay somewhat serious claim to being the No.1 lightweight in the world. Sure, maybe not all of them could make overwhelming cases for themselves, but you wouldn’t immediately laugh any of them out of the room, either.

Since, as Diaz sort of pointed out, several of said guys don’t fight in the UFC, it makes the question of who is truly the best in the world more difficult to answer than ever. It also obviously makes the 155 pound class one of the most interesting in the sport.

Considering that what we typically do when we fill out MMA top 10 lists is just insert “Whoever has UFC Title” at No. 1, Henderson is the conventional pick as top lightweight of the moment. In the former WEC titlist’s case, however, his meteoric rise is undermined a tad by the razor-close decision in his championship victory over Edgar at UFC 144.

At least some observers think Edgar rightly should have gotten the nod in that bout and people who subscribe to the old adage that it's necessary to “take” the title off a standing champion might be able to make a convincing case that Edgar is still the best lightweight on the planet. That matchmakers granted him an immediate rematch against Henderson at UFC 150 only adds fuel to that argument.

Michael Chandler is the undefeated 155-pound champion of Bellator and the 26-year-old Xtreme Couture product has spent the last couple of years laying waste to most of the competition in MMA’s highest profile mid-major organization. His title victory over Eddie Alvarez was a fight of the year candidate for 2011, but the back-and-forth nature of that affair’s three-plus rounds might lead some to wonder if Chandler is truly even the best lightweight in his own promotion right now. As long as Bellator doesn’t move to set up a Chandler-Alvarez rematch, instead appearing content to book its champ in quizzical, non-title fights against guys like Akihiro Gono, we might never know how good Chandler actually is.

Since that loss in November, Alvarez might have the least compelling case as a legitimate world No. 1, but nonetheless still deserves to be in the discussion. Prior to that defeat, he’d won seven fights in a row dating back to 2008 and last month followed up the loss of his Bellator title by dispatching erstwhile top-10 lightweight Shinya Aoki (also the last guy to beat Alvarez prior to Chandler) in just two minutes, 14 seconds. Alvarez is just barely hanging onto his own top 10 spot in the latest ESPN.com rankings, but remains the sort of guy who could beat any other lightweight on the list on any given night.

You can’t have a conversation about who's the best without at least mentioning his name.

Then there’s Melendez, who can likely make the best case for the top spot of any non-UFC fighter. At 20-2, he too is undefeated since 2008 and has avenged both his career losses during that current stretch. In his last four fights, Melendez has looked every bit the part of the world’s best lightweight but, similar to Chandler in Bellator, Strikeforce just doesn’t have the clout to offer him many new an interesting tests, especially with Zuffa still opting not to lessen its own glut of lightweights by sending them Melendez’s way.

At this point, it seems the most Strikeforce can do is book him into an endless series of rematches against Josh Tompson. They’ll fight for a third time on May 19 and if Melendez wins, his tenure in Strikeforce will seem more pointless and maddening than ever.

Should Melendez lose? Well, that seems like an even worse outcome.

Lightweight remains the most vibrant and hotly-contested weight class in our sport, but it’s also the most maddening, considering the wealth of high-level talent spread out over numerous promotions. There are enough contenders jockeying for position in the UFC alone to keep us busy for the next few months, but the question of who can lay legitimate claim to the 155-pound throne will be too-close-to-call until all the top fighters congregate under the same banner.

Until then, at least we know who has Nate Diaz’s vote.

Hey, remember when Jon Jones beat Rashad Evans?

In case the mega-fight slipped your mind already, which isn't altogether implausible thanks to mixed martial arts' wacky news cycle, that happened Saturday.

For instance: On Tuesday, three major pieces of information were revealed.
Anderson Silva would not defend his UFC middleweight belt in his home country of Brazil against Chael Sonnen. Instead, it was announced, the pound-for-pound king will return to sweltering Las Vegas for a mid-summer bout against the self-proclaimed king.

Heavyweight Alistair Overeem was denied licensure to fight in the state of Nevada, meaning he's yet another casualty on MMA's growing PED hit list.

And Bellator champion Hector Lombard is relinquishing that title for a chance to compete in the UFC and shut up his doubters.

Here are some quick thoughts on what went down.

Silva-Sonnen 2 heads to Las Vegas

Rather than promoting one of the most intriguing stadium shows in combat sports history, UFC president Dana White confirmed in Rio on Tuesday morning that it was going to be impossible to promote the bout as promised.

A suitable venue couldn't be locked down, even if the promoter openingly salivated not long about the possibility of his middleweights fighting in front of 80,000 fans. Hotel space was a real issue as well, with the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, a massive undertaking, was taking place at the same time.

Good news: we still get to see the fight.

Some winners and losers in all of this:

WINNERS

Zuffa

That's right. Even though they failed to deliver on the promise of a mega UFC championship fight in Brazil, the promotion comes out ahead since it won't have to cope with the logistic nightmare of competing with the Rio+20 conference. More important, a stateside Silva-Sonnen 2 fight will garner heavier media attention and potentially boost pay-per-view numbers for a card that's already stacked.

Nevada

Las Vegas needed major fights, and they just landed a marlin. UFC 148 was already stacking up as a solid offering and the addition of Silva and Sonnen to an event that featured Dominick Cruz defending his title against Urijah Faber and Tito Ortiz in a retirement bout against Forrest Griffin guarantees fans will flock to the sun-scorched city.

Sonnen

How could he not be? The challenger goes from needing to negotiate treacherous waters to remaining in the U.S., away from hostile Brazilian fans. The only stumbling block could be Sonnen's attempt to gain a therapeutic use exemption for his testosterone replacement therapy, but Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Keith Kizer is already on record saying he doesn't believe there will be any hiccups to the licensing process.

LOSERS

Brazilian fans

This was setting up to be a mega-event for Silva's countrymen, many of whom are now understandably upset. How could they not be? They lost the chance to watch arguably the best mixed martial artist of all time fight in a packed soccer stadium against the closest thing he has to an arch rival. By extension: Any MMA fan wanted to witness this spectacle.

Silva

It won't impact his performance in the fight, but, presuming he wins, moving the bout from Rio to Vegas certainly does dampen Silva's burgeoning stardom in Brazil. This was an unprecedented opportunity to shine in front of a nation that will soon host the Olympics and World Cup.

Nevada denies Overeem

The layers run thick but it boils down to this:

Alistair Overeem visited a doctor he claimed to know nothing about, allowed himself to be injected with something he claimed ignorance of, and subsequently tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone.

There is no one to blame but himself. Go ahead and point fingers at Dallas-based Dr. Hector Oscar Molina if you want. He is not above reproach here, obviously, but he also didn't force himself on Overeem.

For losing out on a UFC title fight against Junior dos Santos next month. For seeking treatment from Dallas-based Dr. Molina, who admitted to mixing a water-based testosterone cocktail for the Greek statue of a heavyweight he claimed was designed to treat a rib injury. For taking one injection. And then another. For such willful ignorance, especially when he owed Nevada two tests at a time and place of their choosing.

In a way, don't you hope Overeem attempted to cheat the system? I mean, at this stage of the game, it's basically expected and would at least provide an explanation for this mess. Otherwise, the alternative is to believe Overeem is oblivious and stupid.

Lombard leaves, Bellator show's hand

Put up or shut up time for Hector Lombard.

Finally.

After Bjorn Rebney and his partners decided against matching an offer sheet from the UFC for the Cuban's services, the now-former Bellator middleweight champion will get every chance he deserves to prove he's the world's best middleweight.

I have my doubts he'll make much of a dent against the type of competition he's soon to face. Is Lombard (31-2-1) better than Rousimar Palhares or Alan Belcher, who fight May 5 on FOX? I don't think so. But this is the great part: We don't have to "think" about it anymore; let the speculation end.

Bellator's choice is worth dissecting because it says something about the way they're conducting business, and could foretell Eddie Alvarez's chances of remaining with the promotion four months from now.

Bellator essentially would have been forced into the pay-per-view business had they matched the UFC's offer for Lombard. That's a huge advantage Zuffa owns over its potential competitors, because no one other than the Las Vegas-based juggernaut can seemingly compel consumers to buy a fight. Bellator hasn't even tried, though they may at some point.

If not, Zuffa will just poach away fighters they want, like Alvarez, and there's not much Rebney will be able to do about it.

Eddie Alvarez, perhaps for the first time in his career, appears to be in a tenuous position.

The 28-year-old Philadelphian, a nine-year mixed martial arts veteran, is ranked outside the top 10 of the lightweight division for the first time in three years. He's coming off a title-ceding, physically taxing loss, just his third in 25 fights. And tonight's bout against Shinya Aoki, the man responsible for Alvarez's second defeat in 2008, is one of two remaining on his contract with Bellator.

"Obviously this fight has got enormous impact for his career," Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said of Alvarez, who was among the promoter's first signings and represented an early lynchpin of the company. "He can jettison himself right back into the top echelon of lightweights in the world, in terms of the overall industry's perception, or not. It's a big fight. There's no denying this is a big fight for Eddie Alvarez."

There's big. And then there's career-defining big. Alvarez is dealing in the latter. Yet he hasn't shown any signs that the stress has gotten to him.

"I'm sort of emotionless. I left all of my emotions in the gym. I've been away from my family training in South Florida and all my preparation is done," he said. "I feel better than I ever have going into a fight and that's not just a cliche statement. I really do. I feel like it's just another day. I don't feel any emotions toward anything.

"There's no questioning. There's no doubt. There's no fear of the future. What might happen? What may happen? I go into fights with a lot of that baggage and I don't know why, but I was able to let that go coming into this fight and it feels really good."

Working with a new camp, the Rashad Evans-led Blackzilians, and its associated management group, Authentic Sports Management, Alvarez underwent a "natural progression in my career," he said.

Regression, however, is a distinct possibility if he doesn't do to Aoki (30-5, 1 NC) what he could not when the Japanese lightweight finished a heel hook submission in 92 seconds.

"I really didn't respect leg locks in 2008," Alvarez said. "I didn't see them used much in MMA. I didn't see many people finished with them in MMA. So I didn't respect them enough to train properly for them. I went about my normal training and neglected that strength of his and I paid for it. It's different this time around. I respect his strengths and I made sure I had the ability to avoid them and defend them, and use what I'm good at."

Aoki comes into Friday's bout at the I-X Center in Cleveland, Ohio, ranked sixth by ESPN.com at 155 pounds. He called the 2008 result "lucky."

"This fight will test both of our skills," said the 28-year-old submission specialist. "That's how the fight will be."

Alvarez was tested to his limits last November against Michael Chandler. The fourth-round stoppage, widely acclaimed as one of the best bouts of 2011, cost Alvarez his standing as Bellator's only lightweight champion and forced him to the sidelines for six weeks with torn rib cartilage. Alvarez said he spent time away from mixed martial arts with his wife and children, all of whom have been fixtures at his fights over the years.

Where MMA takes Alvarez and his family is unclear. Redemption over Aoki, whom Bellator holds options on for multiple U.S.-based fights, would likely return Alvarez to the top 10 ahead of the final fight on his contract with Rebney.

"He was with me driving around in a crappy rental car, flying Southwest Airlines when we were trying to get this thing on ESPN Deportes," Rebney said. "He was a big piece of it. So I want Eddie to do as well as he can possibly do."

Alvarez believes Aoki is improved from the version that beat him three years ago. The Japanese fighter now has better striking, especially kicking, Alvarez said; yet he offers essentially the same threats as he did in 2008.

"He's a little bit different in the cage, but at the end of the day a fight's a fight no matter where it's at," Alvarez said. "The person with the biggest spirit, who comes focused that night, is going to win.

"It will be a display of just how much I've grown in the last three years. I was young, wasn't too confident in my abilities, and made mistakes, just like people who are young and immature do. ... My goal is the same as it was when I first started this sport, and that's to beat the guy on the other side of the cage. It will never change."

It’s been six weeks between Zuffa events; plenty of time to contemplate Marlon Sandro decked out as the Bellator icon. And if there’s ever been a six-week span where so much wonderment has gone into the amount of testosterone found in horse filets, I’d like to hear about it.

But beginning Saturday in Stockholm, the UFC gets back to its furious pace. Over the next several weeks, there will be UFCs to keep us busy, all of them stubbornly numbered in pay-per-views, in FOX, FX and Fuel shows -- not to mention the occasional Strikeforce event. As such there will be a lot of debuts from guys like Yoislandy Izquierdo and Sweden’s own Magnus Cedenblad. The producers of Starz’s Spartacus could never have invented such fitting names for its crop of warriors.

Here’s a look at five things to keep an eye out for at UFC on Fuel TV 2, and some storylines that might (or might not) be of immense interest to you.

Gustafsson’s handling of the spotlight

It’s not only a homecoming for Alexander Gustafsson, but it’s his first main event on a card specifically designed with him in mind. And it’s his first time fighting as a true cusp contender from both a marketing standpoint as well as from the general notion that he’s part of what’s left out there for Jon Jones at 205 pounds. That’s a lot of pressure for the 25-year-old from Arboga, Sweden. But it’s the kind of pressure that comes with sustained success in a league founded more or less on attrition.

Gustafsson will be fighting Thiago Silva, who was originally supposed to be Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Which is the more imposing foe? Probably Silva, who has only lost twice in his career, and each of those were against former champions (Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida). Silva would be a huge notch for Gustafsson, enough of one to rev up the title talk. And coming in, it’s hard to find much wrong in the Swede’s game since losing to Phil Davis at UFC 112. It’s not that he beat four guys in a row, but he finished them all, twice by TKO (Vladimir Matyushenko and Matt Hamill), and twice by rear-naked chokes (James Te Huna and Cyrille Diabate).

If he adds Silva to that casualty list, it means the “Mauler” has truly arrived.

Silva’s potential ring rust and mental state

In a time when commission findings get more headlines than the fighters themselves, we must remember that Thiago Silva was the original bizarre. After his UFC 125 drubbing of Brandon Vera, the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended Silva when it was discovered that his prefight urine sample turned up “inconsistent with human urine.” He tried to mask banned substances by submitting urine that he ordered online. This didn’t work out. To his credit, Silva admitted right away to his course of folly and took his punishment, which included a yearlong suspension.

Well, it’s been 16 months since the Vera fight, and through a beneficial set of circumstances he ends up in a main event. The UFC tried to set up a rematch with Vera. When Vera was a no-go, the UFC tried to stick Silva in there against a tough but not-so-glamorous Igor Pokrajac. Then they needed a viable opponent for Gustafsson when Lil Nog went down. Enter Silva, who is still a top-10 light heavy in the UFC. Yet you have to wonder if the time away from the cage, the mental taxation, the travel, the fact that he’s fighting a rising star in a rising star’s homeland, and the oppositional musical chairs will hinder him in some way.

If none of that matters, it means Silva right where he left off before those ongoing back issues led to some monstrously bad decision-making.

Dennis Siver as a featherweight

He was no slouch as a lightweight, but German fighter Dennis Siver wanted to try his hand as a 145-pounder after losing his footing in the 155-pound title race to Donald Cerrone. His first opponent as a feather? Diego Nunes. And if you remember, when Kenny Florian made his much-ballyhooed drop to 145 pounds, he was greeted by Nunes in his new weight class, too.

As a symbol, Nunes has helped more people lose weight than trainer Mike Dolce.

How will the weight cut play a role for Siver? It remains to be seen, but the kickboxer was knocking off some pretty tough guys as a smallish 155er -- guys like Matt Wiman, Spencer Fisher and George Sotiropoulos. In other words, he’s a wily vet.

Brian Stann getting his brawl back on

The bane of Brian Stann’s existence so far as a professional mixed martial artist is wrestling. He was dominated on the ground by Phil Davis and, after dropping down to 185 pounds, ran into Chael Sonnen at UFC 136 and suffered the same fate. It’s been a long six months since then.

Yet lucky for Stann, Alessio Sakara -- the free-swinging Legionarius -- would just assume gather up all the singlets and have a bonfire. He was recently outwrestled by Chris Weidman, and it left a bad taste in his mouth for no other reason than it wasn’t his kind of fight. That is to say, it wasn’t a brawl. In fact, going back to his 2006 bout with Drew McFedries, any Sakara fight in which there was a finish has always come by KO or TKO. He was on the wrong end of those nearly as often as he wasn’t.

Think this thing is tailor-made for Stann? Could be. But there are plenty of people in Italy thinking the exact same for Sakara.

Damacio Page on the plank
This might be the fight of the night -- two tightly wound bantamweights coming off of losses, each of whom brings it every time. Between Brad Pickett and Damacio Page, Page is the one on the slipperier slope, having lost back-to-back fights to Brian Bowles and Demetrious Johnson. In both of those he was choked out via guillotine.

That’s not likely to happen against Pickett, whose nickname is “One Punch.” If Page loses here, it’ll likely be by decision or because he got caught. With Greg Jackson in his corner and some intangibles (read: survival mode), it might set up a perfect storm to revisit the Page of 2009, the one who fought a grand total of 1 minutes, 20 seconds in finishing off Will Campuzano (via rear-naked choke) and Marcos Galvao (via punches).

Either way, this looks like the great unsung fight that could steal the show.

An elite fighter's job description includes coping with the high stakes of winning or losing. If someday Bellator bantamweight champion Zach Makovsky enjoys enough success to join that class, and he's on the right path, he'll have a book recommendation to thank for that.

"For a while, I didn't know how to handle losing and I put a lot of pressure on myself for every fight. I feel like I never performed well when I did that to myself. It was a problem I had in college," said the 29-year-old Drexel University grad. "I almost didn't know any better. Wrestling teaches you winning is everything."

Not long after the last setback of his mixed martial arts career, an opening-round submission loss three years ago to an unheralded Japanese fighter in Tokyo, Makovsky's friend and occasional training partner, Eddie Alvarez, along with his trainer, Stephen Haigh, recommended he read a personal favorite of basketball coaching legend Phil Jackson.

"Thinking Body, Dancing Mind: Taosports for Extraordinary Performance in Athletics, Business, and Life," said Makovsky, taught him "a lot about what I thought I was doing wrong, and really what competition means to me. I don't think I understood who I was and I was trying to define myself a lot by the results of my competition, which I think is a terrible thing to do. I think the whole process of learning and having fun and getting better is what's important, and not necessarily your record and your results."

It's funny how these things work out.

Not caring about results, if Makovsky is to be believed, led to an eight-fight winning streak and the distinction of dominating Bellator's debut tournament at 135 pounds. This Friday at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., an hour's drive from his hometown of Philadelphia, Makovsky is scheduled to put his belt and mantra on the line for the first time against young and dangerous Brazilian, Eduardo Dantas.

"We're two guys who come from different backgrounds and styles," Makovsky said. "We've both had a lot of success fighting in our respective arenas. We've both gone through these tournaments in Bellator to reach this stage. He's pretty much in the same position I am."

Though Makovsky (14-2) walks into the fight with the belt hanging around his waist, he's right to think of his bout with Dantas, 23, as Bellator's first 135-pound title fight.

"I have the belt but I don't think I did anything more than he did to necessarily earn it," Makovsky said.

Dantas (13-2) is a well regarded fighter, who, like Makovsky, hasn't lost since 2009.

This is where their similarities end. While Makovsky tends to rely on wrestling -- "I don't think there's a question that probably against everyone in the world, the best place for me is to be on the ground on top of them, grounding-and-pounding and looking for submissions," he said -- Dantas is the “most aggressive” and “most talented” opponent the Bellator champion believes he’s faced thus far.

That could mark an advantage for Makovsky, at least that’s how he reads the tricky matchup. Aggressive strikers can get sloppy and leave themselves open to be taken down, and it’s not as if Makovsky needs help in that department.

"I feel like my takedowns are better when people come at me,” he said.

Still, Makovsky is cautious not to think he must plant Dantas on the floor. That sort of attitude is begging for bad things to happen.

"I have to be able and willing to fight Eduardo Dantas everywhere, and I think I'm capable of that,” he said. “I'll mix things together at my own pace and try to be comfortable everywhere.

"No matter what happens, if I win this fight I'm going to be in a much better situation financially, personally, for my whole life to continue the way it is. Really, there's no question that that's true, but it's not something you should think about. In the end I'd fight for free and continue fighting because I love it. It's just a fight. I can't worry about how much money I could lose or what's next. All that is later. I don't need to think about any of that. I just have to focus about the fight. Really, there's just two guys in there. I have to go in, fight smart, fight as hard as I can, and whatever happens happens. I'll deal with the rest later. There's nothing to gain by worrying what's next."

How very Zen of him.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney is making his way around the media circuit in these UFC-less times. Is he basking in the spotlight? No: He's conducting himself with meditative calm, quietly explaining his business model while the testosterone levels around him go bananas.

For whatever reason, there’s a lot of turbulence within the world of MMA. Maybe it’s because Dana White has been relatively out of touch; or because Lee Murray is no longer being permitted conjugal visits to his lonely Moroccan cell. Or it could be that the long-simmering Jon Jones/Rashad Evans feud has finally succeeded in infecting our outlooks.

But there is tension in the air. And there is tension on the air.

This week it centers on Muhammed Lawal.

So far, Lawal has had a very bad 2012, beginning with a positive steroid test in January and ending with a Twitter tirade that ultimately got him canned a few days ago. This has made for a public rift, and which side you fall to depends on which way your antennae are skewed. In the wake of Lawal’s hearing and suspension, either Pat Lundvall of the Nevada State Athletic Commission is a barely disguised racist, or a totally condescending busy body, or merely a fascinating literalist. The gamut is extreme. And same goes for Lawal. The other side says he’s a remorseless person and a loose cannon -- and a particularly jobless loose cannon, to boot.

(There are even new peanut gallery accusations that he’s a boring wrestler, which somehow plays a role in all of this).

In any case, Lundvall -- the first woman chair of the NSAC -- came off as a pill asking a college educated black man if he could read and speak English during the hearing. And in retrospect, Lawal might have been better served not to fire off a Tweet calling her a “racist b----” afterward. He told ESPN.com’s Franklin McNeil, if he could do things differently, “I wouldn’t have called her a b----. Maybe I should have waited until after the hearing, calmed down a little and approached her directly.”

Obviously this is not remorseless. Lawal’s just selective in what he chooses to feel bad about.

And the Lawal story is prime for a who’s right/who’s wrong debate on the airwaves, to the point that you wonder sometimes if these things blow up as a cure for boredom. People need to talk, and sometimes talking points only require that we give drama a good stir. Sometimes we may even stumble upon new and further afield things to argue about.

For instance, on Thursday night’s "MMA Uncensored" on Spike, host Craig Carton was left to explain King Mo’s absence from the show. Lawal was scheduled to be on to discuss the spiraling events that have shaped his 2012. If you’ve seen the program, you know Carton is outspoken, and the show’s running motto is to hold no punches (which can be refreshing). So Carton made sure you knew right away which side of the fence he was on, saying that there’s a difference between being racist and offensive, and that there was nothing racist about what happened. When reading Lawal’s fateful tweet, he referred to him as “this brainiac” in the only way that people can refer to someone as a “brainiac.”

Et cetera.

But then you wondered what was offending Carton more -- the fact that Lawal was so far out of line that he deserved to be fired, or that he stood them up for what might be political reasons.

“Many of you were expecting King Mo to be sitting right here next to Mike Straka, because we said he was going to be,” Carton said. “We had an agreement with King Mo to come on the show tonight. His agents and lawyers got involved, and his agent’s name is Mike Kogan. And Mike Kogan informed us this afternoon, ‘there’ll be no King Mo on the live show.’ Now let’s play that out a minute -- why wouldn’t you put your client on the single most watched MMA show in America and allow him to tell his side of the story and even be contrite? Could it be that Mike Kogan is involved with a low-rated network that also tries to do MMA talk?”

Forget about how quickly the red carpet got rolled back up. How did we shoot past Lawal’s dilemma of being cut, to the drama of which platform he’ll use to discuss it? And did Lawal's flaking out on the show ratchet up Carton’s general ire toward Lawal’s situation? It was a confusing mix of live blossoming dramas, and one which underscores just how irrationally opinions can be shaped.

And yet, on the same show, there sat Rebney, coolly talking about the importance of a meritocracy in his model. He wants his fighters to make their way toward a crescendo, as in other sports, where you start with eight and then whittle to one. He was so soft-spoken and direct on the topic that you couldn’t help pick up on his conviction.

So soft-spoken, in fact, that you could barely hear him through all the noise being made over Lawal.

Throughout its first handful of seasons, the tournament format has been pretty good to Bellator Fighting Championships.

At the outset, Bellator’s tournaments set it apart from the rest of the non-UFC MMA pack, giving fans an easily digestible concept to latch onto while effectively disguising a lack of organizational depth.

All of that was obviously to the company’s benefit, but in light of recent events I can’t help but wonder if Bellator has outgrown its current seasonal format and might be better off moving in a different direction when it takes up with SpikeTV next year.

Never has the need for change been more apparent than Friday, when Thiago Santos failed to make weight for his scheduled heavyweight tournament final against Eric Prindle. Santos’ weigh-in snafu scuttled the already delayed end of Bellator's season five 265-pound draw and awarded victory to Prindle, who will now advance to face champion Cole Konrad at a later date.

For Bellator, it’s about the worst outcome imaginable for a heavyweight tournament it spent the last six months trying to build. For nearly the last four of those months, we’d been waiting for the Santos-Prindle redux, after their original Nov. 26 bout was ruled a no contest when Prindle suffered a low blow that landed him the hospital.

Company brass tried to make it right last week, but were again forced to delay the fight because Prindle was reportedly suffering from the ever-popular “flu-like symptoms.” On Thursday (which amounted to Bellator’s third try with this pairing), Santos badly missed the 60-pound window proscribed to heavyweights -- checking in at a reported 276.8 pounds -- and the matchup was scrapped for good.

Prindle wins. Kind of. Not really.

In any case, the whole thing has been a lot of trouble for a tournament that will now never see it's conclusion.

You certainly have to feel bad for Bellator, an assumedly good-hearted organization made up of assumedly good people who all seem to be trying as hard as they possibly can to grow into a legitimate runner-up to the UFC. Unfortunately, marooned as it is on MTV2 until it can make the transition to Spike, Bellator continues to exist in a kind of strange suspended animation.

In this one instance, maybe that’s a good thing. Had anyone been paying attention, the Santos-Prindle debacle would have been a major embarrassment. Fortunately, that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case. After last week’s Bellator 61 drew a reported audience of just 108,000 -- the company’s second-worst rating ever -- it’s tough to argue that a significant number of people would’ve noticed even if Prindle and Santos had made it to the cage at Bellator 62.

As it stands, maybe all Santos' gaffe did was underline the flaws in Bellator’s current format in a way few people saw, or will remember if the promotion goes on to find success on a channel with a well established track record in MMA.

If Santos had dropped out of a No. 1 contender fight in any other fight company, officials could have just subbed in somebody else, stubbornly insisted that the fight would still determine Konrad’s next opponent and called it good. When you brand something as a “tournament” however, you can’t really do that.

In a tournament, fans naturally expect there to be a beginning, a middle and -- in a perfect world -- an end. In other words, they expect some modicum of consistency. When you’re dealing with MMA and especially with the heavyweight division (a weight class that is constantly pioneering new and interesting ways to screw up) consistency is awfully hard to come by.

Because of that, it might be better for Bellator to drop the tournament format entirely moving forward. Doing so would give it more matchmaking freedom and would never again put it in a position where it has to admit it can't finish what it started.

At the very least, it's clear that Bellator needs to have contingency plans in place for when disaster strikes. Having alternate fighters at the ready at all times might be a good start.

On the bright side, perhaps incidents like this one give Bellator the chance to pinpoint what's wrong and make the appropriate changes before next year, when (hopefully) more of the MMA world will be watching.

Good news, fight fans: Now that he’s discovered the miracle of testosterone replacement therapy, Quinton Jackson says he can fight another 10 years.

The bad news? It looks like it won’t be in the UFC.

In touching off a tornado of controversy by admitting he used testosterone leading up to his recent loss to Ryan Bader and then engaging in a contentious war of words with his current employer during the past week, Jackson has essentially taken a BA Baracus-style flamethrower to his career in the Octagon.

That means, if we set aside for a moment the obvious ethical and philosophical questions of an athlete using a doctor’s prescription to tack an extra decade on to his career -- which Jackson himself seems perfectly happy to do -- the most pressing issue obviously becomes: Where?

Where exactly does a guy who has already retired once, has never seemed particularly motivated, has groused on and off about his pay and has made it clear that he doesn’t like MMA fans (only his fans) think he’s going to spend the next magical decade of his career fighting?

Clearly, if and when he becomes available, someone will sign Jackson, who is still talented and who (at least theoretically) retains a healthy base of fans.

In doing so, however, that person will also be taking a sizable risk.

If his first dozen years in MMA -- which includes at least one high-speed police chase, remember -- hadn’t convinced you, the last couple of weeks should serve as conclusive proof. After the initial wave of bad press over his now notorious interview with Fighters Only Magazine, “Rampage” has spent the last few days likening his treatment from the UFC to “slavery,” calling fans of the sport “sheep” and trumpeting TRT as pretty much the greatest thing to happen to him during the last few years.

In response, the UFC threw down its trump card, saying Jackson will finish out his contract with a bout against Mauricio Rua, the guy who TKOed him via soccer kicks the first time they met in Pride back in 2005.

After that, it seems Jackson will be on his own, and if his most recent outburst isn’t enough to make independent MMA promoters think twice about signing him, well, that’s amazing. At this rate, though, Jackson could well enter free agency around the same time he turns 34 and might be facing a market with fewer options than ever before for such an independently minded fighter.

There is Bellator, which allegedly passed on signing Nate Marquardt when the welterweight fighter was released from the UFC in a haze of testosterone last year. There is BAMMA, where Marquardt eventually signed, then unsigned after his promotional debut was continually delayed.

There is ProElite, which has yet to make waves through three shows since it was brought back to life, and there are a number of new-ish organizations in Asia, where Jackson has said he feels most comfortable fighting, but where the MMA market has been on the wane during the past few years.

That’s about the size of the market and, frankly, none of it shapes up as a rosy future for “Rampage.”

Clearly, MMA is a “never say never” industry and the possibility exists that Jackson and the UFC could bury the hatchet between now and his showdown with Rua.

If not, it's difficult (bordering on impossible) to imagine a scenario where Jackson thrives in a smaller organization quite the way Dan Henderson or Nick Diaz did. He’s said he doesn’t care if he ever “make[s] $500 again,” but that seems like perhaps the most dubious claim of all, coming from a guy who’s already walked away from the sport once to chase a big-money future in Hollywood.

Who will pay what is sure to be a hefty asking price for a fighter who has been so inconsistent, has so much baggage and has proved to be such a public relations nightmare?

Someone will, but how much and for how long is anybody's best guess.

The year 2012 will be an interesting one for former Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. For starters, his contract with the promotion is up in October, meaning he could end up making the leap to the UFC around that time. That’s a prospect that makes plenty of fans happy, considering how deep the lightweight pool there is.

Or he could stay with Bellator, of which the Philadelphia native has grown into his role as its flagship fighter. In the meantime? Alvarez will have at least one more fight, and that’s an opportunity to try and avenge a 2008 loss to Shinya Aoki.

At least, that’s the nearly official plan.

“As far as I’m being told the fight’s going to happen,” Alvarez says. “I just don’t get why I can’t get it confirmed 100 percent. Right now it’s ‘verbally agreed,’ and that’s where we stand.”

Alvarez/Aoki II is penciled in for April 20 and will be held in the United States, though the exact location is still to be determined. As much as Alvarez would like the fight to take place in Atlantic City or in his hometown of Philadelphia, he doesn’t think that will be the case due to amount of cards Bellator has held recently in those markets. What he does know is that he was asking for this rematch well before he fought Michael Chandler. The last time the two fought at Dynamite 2008 in Japan, Aoki submitted Alvarez with a heel hook just a minute and a half into the fight.

That loss has sat in his craw for a long, long time.

Cut forward three years and Aoki and Alvarez remain two of the biggest non-Zuffa stars going. In fact, you could argue that Alvarez/Aoki is the biggest non-Zuffa fight that can be made right now, with both fighters still considered top-10 lightweights in consensus rankings, even with Alvarez having lost his belt to Chandler this past November. Alvarez has gone 7-1 since his first fight with Aoki, while Aoki has gone 11-2.

“As much as I wanted it, it was something that I thought I’d never get,” Alvarez says of the rematch. “When I went to Japan every other time before [the Aoki fight], it seemed like I was getting fan acceptance because I was fighting guys from other countries, like Brazil and Norway. Yet when I finally fought Aoki, I went over there and they treated me different. They nicknamed me the ‘American Knuckle Star,’ and pitted it as ‘Japan versus America.’ It really changed.

“

... when I finally fought Aoki, I went over there and they treated me different. They nicknamed me the 'American Knuckle Star,' and pitted it as 'Japan versus America.' It really changed.

” -- Eddie Alvarez, on the hostile environment he stepped into when he faced Shinya Aoki

“So it’s good to get the revenge back in my country -- just to come off a loss like the one I just came off of [to Chandler], and get back into a rankings fight finally. It rarely happens in our sport where you get two guys who are actually ranked, top name guys who get to fight each other. It’s a good fight.”

Where does this leave Chandler, who choked out Alvarez at Bellator 58 in a back-and-forth war that many considered the fight of the year? Alvarez says that though he wanted Aoki and ended up with Chandler the first time through, this time he wanted Chandler and ended up with Aoki. His druthers are being met, only completely out of order.

“Yeah, the Chandler rematch was my first option that I wanted,” he says. “But Bellator wasn’t going to let that happen, and I was sad that they opted to put me back in a tournament when I felt like the fight warranted a rematch in some way, shape or form. So, I was disappointed about that, but there was nothing I could do about it. It’s not what I want, it’s what the promotion is willing to give me.

“But this Aoki fight was something I asked of them even before the Chandler bout. And although we don’t have 100 percent contract in hand yet, it seems like they’re getting it done. I’m grateful they are going to bring Aoki over, someone who is in the rankings and someone where, if I actually beat him, it would do good for me.”

Alvarez’s future beyond Aoki is uncertain. It’s possible that April 20 will be the last time he represents Bellator in the cage. Whether or not that’s the case, he’s looking to close out his contract with a big bang to put himself in a coveted position.

“With Bellator, I have either two fights or eight months,” he says. “After that, we’ll see. They’re either going to give me Aoki and then another fight, or I have about eight months left.”

Either way, Alvarez refuses to look beyond April 20, because nothing good comes of speculating too far ahead.

“It’s out of my hands at this point,” he says. “Going into the Mike Chandler fight, I was too focused on what everybody else thought, about what the media thought, and things like that. I just need to relieve myself of that, and focus on the things that I can control, and that’s winning fights, going in there and performing and beating my opponents. Everything else just seems senseless to me.”

And to focus, Alvarez is training right now at Imperial Athletics in Florida with the star-studded cast of the Blackzilians. He says he’s proceeding with the understanding of an April 20 fight with Aoki, and in two weeks he’ll relocate back to his familiar Philadelphia gym to dig into the crux of his camp.

What’s he expecting to see come fight night? The same Aoki he saw the first time, with a few new wrinkles.

“I know he’s been in Singapore training a lot of Muay Thai, so I’ll be expecting more kicks to set up his takedowns,” he says. “But, I don’t think it’s any secret -- regardless of whether he wants to stand for a little bit or stand for a long time -- I know his ultimate goal, and that’s to try and get it to the floor. He’ll want to create some sort of scramble and get it to the ground. I feel like that’s his strength and that’s what he’s going to stick to.”

Editor’s note: Next week, the ESPN MMA page will roll out its official end-of-the year awards. With winners in each of the most popular categories seemingly pretty clear cut, however, ESPN staffers Chuck Mindenhall and Chad Dundas will take the final week of 2011 to offer up a few “alternative” choices.

Dan Henderson or Jon Jones?

When it comes to 2011’s “Fighter of the year” those are really your only realistic choices and -- let’s face it -- if you don’t think it’s Jones going away, you’re probably just being contrary. If you’re really reaching, you might be able to make a case for Donald Cerrone, but the conversation for this year’s FOTY pretty much starts and stop with those three guys.

That’s not to say there weren’t a number of other notable performances during 2011. Here are our picks for this year’s alternative “Fighter of the year.”

Chad Dundas’ pick: Nick Diaz.

Jones and Hendo may have won a lot of important fights this year, but in the same way 2010 saw the rise of Chael Sonnen as one of the sport’s top draws, 2011 was undeniably Diaz Time.

After years abroad, the world’s least agreeable welterweight returned to the UFC in June and immediately whirled the company’s 170-pound division into a state of unending chaos. It would be impractical to try to list all of the outlandish things Diaz did this year, but here are some of his greatest hits ...

He fumed his way in, then out, then back into UFC title fights while steadfastly refusing to acknowledge a lick of responsibility. He went missing, causing some people to genuinely fear for his well-being only to emerge from hiding via a profanity-laced YouTube video recorded while driving down the California freeway. He threatened (in a roundabout way) to slap MMA’s best-known reporter. He accused Georges St. Pierre of faking an injury to avoid fighting him. He routinely forced UFC President Dana White -- a man seldom lost for words -- to stare helplessly at reporters the way characters on “The Office” sometimes look blankly into the camera.

It was, in short, a command performance from start to finish. Never before have we seen someone so effectively game the system without even realizing he was doing it.

It wasn’t a bad year for Diaz inside the cage, either. He twice successfully defended his Strikeforce welterweight crown in wild affairs against Evangelista Santos and Paul Daley. The latter might have been a solid choice for alternative Fight of the year, had we been so inclined. After vacating that title and returning to the Octagon, he stomped a mudhole in B.J. Penn at UFC 137, then put on what had to be one of the single greatest performances in MMA history at the postfight news conference.

Diaz will begin 2012 as ESPN.com’s No. 2-ranked welterweight and No. 10 on our pound-for-pound list. He has not lost since 2007, but prior to his win over Penn had not defeated much top-flight competition during his current 11-fight streak. His interim title bout against Carlos Condit in February should tell us a lot about his future.

Chuck Mindenhall’s pick: Michael Chandler.

With Jones batting former champions around throughout 2011, guys like Donald Cerrone and Henderson -- each whom had ridiculous years -- will end up getting short shrift in all these totally dismissive “Fighter of the year” categories.

Then there’s Chandler, whose young career is made of just showing up and winning with unusual anonymity. Midway through the year he was leading a Wikipedian life, just a former Mizzou Tiger who wore his singlet well and who somehow got by Patricky Friere to earn a title shot. Next thing you know, 2011 was all (or at least also) about him.

And what a year it was -- the 25-year-old went about winning all four fights he was in and becoming Bellator’s 155-pound champion. The last feat Chandler accomplished by beating perennial top-five lightweight Eddie Alvarez in an epic back-and-forth battle that should have cinched itself as Fight of the year, had it not had the misfortune of occurring on the same night as Henderson's chaotic clash with Mauricio Rua. For those fortunate enough to catch it live (and others who have DVRs), you witnessed the entire width of this kid’s abilities. For 18 minutes and six seconds, Alvarez and Chandler pushed each other to the brink, trading punches and one-sided rounds, and in the end it was Chandler who sunk the rear-naked choke.

Besides the wrestler’s doggedness that he displayed in beating Marcin Held, Lloyd Woodard and Patricky Pitbull en route to his title shot, Chandler showed that he can take Alvarez’s best punch -- which is substantial -- and persevere. He showed he can out-technique you, he can outbrawl you, he can outwork you. As cliché as it sounds, he showed the heart of a champion in 2011.

And as the year closes out, there’s this suspicion as well -- with so much upside, 2011 might not be Chandler’s best when all’s said and done.

Previously: Our picks for alternative Fight of the year, alternative Submission of the year and alternative KO of the year.

Up next: Alternative fight card of the year.

Editor’s note: Next week, the ESPN MMA page will roll out it's official end-of-they year awards. With winners in each of the most popular categories seemingly pretty clear cut, however, ESPN staffers Chuck Mindenhall and Chad Dundas will take the final week of 2011 to offer up a few “alternative” choices. To lead things off on Monday, the granddaddy of them all: "Fight of the year."

According to most fans and analysts, the 2011 fight of the year essentially boils down to a three-horse race between Dan Henderson versus Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 139, Eddie Alvarez versus Michael Chandler at Bellator 58 and Frankie Edgar versus Gray Maynard III from UFC 136.

To that, we say: Bah, humbug.

All three of the above are stellar picks, but we’d be loath honor them at the expense of a few others. There was landmark action inside cages the world over during 2011, so here are a couple of “alternative” options for the all-important Fight of the year ...

Chad Dundas’ pick: Clay Guida versus Ben Henderson at UFC on Fox, Nov. 12 in Anaheim, Calif.

As Octagon-centric FOTY candidates are concerned, it doesn’t get much more “alternative” than Guida versusHenderson, a bout seen only on the Internet and by the live crowd at Honda Center despite the fact it took place on the same card as the UFC’s first live broadcast on network television.

Leading up to the groundbreaking event, Henderson promised that he and Guida would steal the show from heavyweights Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos. And guess what? They did. Especially after dos Santos knocked out Velasquez just 64 seconds into their televised main event.

While the big guys called it quits early, lightweights Guida and Henderson gave MMA fans just about everything they could want from a fight. There were wild flurries on the feet and madcap scrambles on the ground, as the pair set the pace in the first with a high-octane striking exchange that saw Henderson drop Guida with a punch. In the second, Guida stormed back and scored with a spinning back fist so out of the blue that it seemed to surprise Guida himself, sending the Chicago native stumbling across the cage. In the third, Henderson fired off a crazy Taekwondo-style axe kick which barely missed. Down the stretch, Guida threatened with a guillotine attempt so tight, it likely would’ve finished any normal human being.

All the while, hair flew like the dickens.

When it was over, Henderson emerged with a unanimous decision win that netted him the chance to take on Edgar for the 155-pound title on Feb. 26 at UFC 144. Guida was defeated on the cards, but emerged with a “Fight of the night” bonus and the satisfaction of participating in perhaps the best fight of the year that nobody got to see.

Chuck Mindenhall’s pick: Dan Henderson versus Fedor Emelianenko in Strikeforce, July 30, 2011 in Hoffman Estates, Ill.

In talking about Henderson and Rua’s five-round war, we forget about the member’s club entertainment that went on with Henderson-Fedor back in July. There was a romantic context to this one similar to Henderson’s UFC 139 battle with Rua; he and Emelianenko were longtime parallel champions in Pride who’d never had the inclination (publicly) to smash one another. Strikeforce dubbed it a heavyweight superfight -- neither man had ever been knocked out, and yet both had stupidly powerful right hands. Hendo barely made the heavyweight minimum, while Fedor looked in the best shape of his life.

When the bell rang, Emelianenko came out swinging. Henderson, always cooperative for this kind of request, dropped his head and swung back. It was a manic first minute. After some long moments in a Greco clinch, when they separated Emelianenko dropped Henderson with a left uppercut/overhand right combo and jumped on him in a heap. Fedor rained down the would-be finishing punches that ended up lulling the eye a little bit, as Henderson was very quietly grabbing onto Emelianenko’s right leg and executing his escape.

What happened next was the sneakiest turn of events of the year; while he slipped out the hatch Henderson threw a right uppercut through Fedor’s armpit that knocked him out. The follow-up right hand woke him back up, but it was too late as Herb Dean jumped in there and signalled the copter. This all happened in the space of ten seconds. When asked what he called the move afterwards, Henderson said very simply, “wrestling” -- his answer as terse as the sequence. It was the first time Emelianenko had ever knocked out, and it added to Henderson’s lore.

Coming on Tuesday: "Alternative" Submission of the year

This time the end to Kurt Pellegrino’s career came just 50 seconds into his bout with Patricky Freire at Bellator 59. It was a quick technical knockout loss to a guy who we’re now catching on to as a burgeoning knockout specialist. It was an early stoppage to boot.

Yet even though the hometown crowd in Atlantic City voiced their dissension on the matter, Pellegrino himself was quick to accept it. He didn’t exactly protest. Fifty seconds was all he really needed to know he was through.

“Batman” was over it, and, realistically, he has been -- even if he did waffle with the idea after declaring his retirement last night (again).

Pellegrino (16-7) retired the first time very unceremoniously six months ago on the heels of a narrow split decision loss to Gleison Tibau at UFC 128. Having talked to the Point Pleasant native on a couple of occasions, going back to before his decision loss to George Sotiropoulos at UFC 116, the signs were on the wall that his heart wasn’t entirely in it, maybe even less so with the arrival of his second child, Kurt Jr. He decided to give it another go just an hour down the road from his gym in Belmar, at Caesars in Atlantic City, against a hand-chosen opponent with highlight reel knockouts.

One more, just to see.

“It was like Rocky II when Adrian awoke from the coma and told Rocky to ‘win,’” he told MMA Weekly in the weeks leading up of his decision to come back. “I was retired, sitting home watching videos with my son, but I was also training at that time and was in great shape when my wife walked up to me and said, ‘If you want to do it again, go for it.’”

Instead Pellegrino, who had hopeful designs of “suffocating” the season four lightweight finalist, became part of Pitbull’s KO package, just like Toby Imada and Rob McCullough before him. Not the storybook ending Pellegrino had hoped for, but a bit of finality for the scrappy fighter who beat Jay Isip eight years ago on a Reality Fighting card right there in Atlantic City to get his start.

And then again, in some ways it was a storybook night, because it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Pellegrino was making a promotional debut with Bellator, as part of a homecoming to his New Jersey roots, which ended as a bittersweet goodbye to the world of mixed martial arts.

The last part was the big reveal.

What he was hoping for was to rediscover the Pellegrino that beat Junior Assuncao at UFC 64, the one who rattled off four wins in a row against Thiago Tavares, Rob Emerson, Josh Neer and Fabricio Camoes in the UFC between late 2008 and early 2010. The one who was, for a time, orbiting near top 10 conversation. Pellegrino even said he was prepared to die to win Saturday's bout, that it was the biggest fight of his life --that this bout would define him. Maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t, but he found doubtless comfort in the original idea he had after Tibau -- that it was time to move on to coaching and fatherhood.

Was it an early stoppage? Yes, it was obviously a little premature. The 32-year-old Pellegrino was in his wits and clinging to a single leg, trying to recover while eating those hammerfists. That’s the micro-sense. But on whole the stoppage was a little late, because there just wasn’t any fight left in him. And in a chorus of boos Pellegrino was smart enough to block everything out and listen to the voice of reason going on inside of him -- the one telling him to walk away.

And it wasn’t disappointment that he wore on his face afterward, but something far closer to relief.

Free was nice, and free was big -- and big was always the intention.

But now that we’re through with the privilege of bonus title fights on network television and dangling MMA in front of bemused pop culture, it’s back to our secular intrigues. Or, you know, back to opening the pocketbook to feed the MMA fix.

This weekend, if you want to enjoy the entire spectrum of fights going on -- and it’s a pretty stacked slate of fights spread over three promotions -- it will cost you approximately $75. A little more if you order UFC 139 in high definition (recommended). A little less if you prefer to skip watching Fedor Emelianenko take on Jeff Monson from Moscow at cockcrow (it’s your dime). But around $75 if you want to catch all the action going on behind the pay wall, along with the free preliminary bits and Bellator.

And if planned right, with DVRs and griddles, it actually looks like a ridiculous MMA marathon -- the exact opposite of the showcased 64 seconds of action from this past Saturday’s big event between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.

Saturday night, UFC 139 is quietly one of the best looking cards of the year -- on paper anyway (which as you know is flammable). There’s the return of Dan Henderson to the UFC, who may or may not be fighting for a title shot against Jon Jones, taking on former champion Mauricio Rua. Their paths never crossed in the halcyon days of Pride when both were champions, a bit of restraint that plays nicely over the back-story -- but that’s a modest allure. The thing is, somebody will be knocked out. Could be Henderson, who never gets knocked out. And the same goes for the co-main event of debutante Cung Le and Wanderlei Silva. Le fights are rare, but he is the “Human Highlight Reel.” Silva is one knockout from either continuing on as he'd like to, or some alternative (which he refuses to contemplate).

Then there’s the Urijah Faber/Brian Bowles fight to determine who’s next for a shot at Dominick Cruz’s bantamweight belt; Martin Kampmann/Rick Story, which could headline a Versus show; Stephan Bonnar/Kyle Kingsbury, Ryan Bader/Jason Brilz, Tom Lawlor/Chris Weidman. It’s stacked. Miguel Torres is buried on the Facebook undercard fighting Nick Pace. Ditto Rafael dos Anjos and Gleison Tibau. And that’s just the first bill of fights.

There’s also one of the best Bellator cards happening on MTV2, with two belts up for grabs. Eddie Alvarez, who ESPN has ranked No. 4 in the lightweight Power Rankings, against Michael Chandler, and Hector Lombard in a middleweight title defense against Trevor Prangley. Bonus? Marlon Sandro and Raphael Dias. And when all that is through, at 7:30 a.m. on the East Coast the next day, Emelianenko fights Monson for $29.95. It’s a steep price for nostalgia on a three-fight skid, but it’s Fedor, and there are hopes and denials all over the place. The other thing? Somebody will get knocked out.

That’s a big bank of highly combustible MMA action for those willing to splurge. Four former Pride champions, three former WEC champions, two current Bellator champions, one former UFC champion, one reigning Strikeforce champion, and the teetering legacy of Stary Oskol all in a 12-hour window. Not all of it will be free, yet -- especially if you won’t be duped into early morning Fedor -- taken as a whole, this weekend’s fights can’t help but live up to the billing they barely received.

In other words, if you begin with hype and end with the price tag, it’s everything that last weekend wasn’t.

Having been caught in a contemplative mood, Bellator’s Bjorn Rebney told Sherdog.com that Anderson Silva is the only man “on Earth” who can feasibly beat Hector Lombard. That’s a bold statement (Earth is a populated place), but ultimately there’s nothing wrong in airing biases for your champion when he’s as dominant -- and unheralded -- as Lombard is.

After all, Dana White tells us similar things about his own champions all the time. If promoters don’t trumpet their own fighters, who will? Perception is a block of clay that these guys love getting their hands in. When media runs with it, they stand back and admire their sculptures.

Problem is that A) we can’t possibly know if that’s true or not because they fight in different, never-intersecting promotions, B) Lombard beats everybody, but they usually have names like Jesse Taylor and Herbert Goodman, and C) didn’t Rebney just make chopped liver out of Trevor Prangley, who is Lombard’s next challenge?

To the last point, yes, Prangley was made to be and is chopped liver. Just like Taylor, Falaniko Vitale, Joe Doerksen, Jay Silva, Art Santore and pretty much all of the Washington Generals that have stood in front of Lombard. Not to discredit his 24-fight unbeaten streak, because that feat is a marvel when going against professional fighters of any caliber, but mismatches don’t make for exclamation marks.

If Lombard had even a single Vitor Belfort on his list of wins, we’d be egged on. But right now, hypothesizing Lombard’s worth is all we can do. We know he’s good, and we know he’s consistently good. But we can’t know if he’s great, because there isn’t a marker in Bellator to fill us in. In fact, should Lombard get by Prangley -- whom he’ll be heavily favored against -- the best-case scenario is that he comes crashing back to a rematch with Alexander Shlemenko, whom he decisioned a year ago. The wheels on the bus go round and round.

If Rebney’s intentions were to use Silva as a gauge of excellence, it’s his prerogative. People do it all the time, and in this case it’s a fun thing to do; two champions, both on torrid winning streaks, both dominant middleweights. But in the end, the admission becomes that Lombard is outsized for Bellator and anybody they can throw at him (though the signing of Maiquel Falcao does give him competition in physique).

The idea is obviously to raise curiosity about Lombard. But contemplating how Lombard would do against Silva only succeeds in making people curious as to how Lombard would look in the UFC. Otherwise, it’s just a mirage, and when you’re the second best promotion going, hey, you’ll happily settle for that.

When you’re carrying a 24-fight unbeaten streak in MMA, it can’t help but draw the right kinds of attention. But when you stake it against a guy who’s gone 1-3-1 in his last five fights -- especially one who hasn’t looked particularly good in two years -- it just seems like bubble wrap to protect the feat.

That’s the sort of thing that draws the right kinds of criticism.

And it’s the position that Bellator’s middleweight champion Hector Lombard finds himself in. It was announced that his next opponent will be 39-year-old journeyman Trevor Prangley at a 195-pound catchweight bout on Nov. 19. Prangley has dropped a pair of fights in a row. If you wear rose-colored glasses, you can look at it as a stand-and-bang fight with potential for a sudden knockout. You set them up, and Lombard will knock them down. But a potboiler is a potboiler. As such, it’s also massively uninteresting. It’s a fight that carries a nasty existential vibe that goes like this -- “what’s the point?”

The thing is, outside of it being a payday, there is no point. Lombard has been long criticized for not facing top competition, and it’s become a glaring accusation (one that he gets particularly grumpy about when hazed by it). Granted, it’s not entirely up to him. Lombard is under contract, and he’s not necessarily avoiding guys. He called out Nate Marquardt and Ronaldo Souza in the last year, but then went about beating up Joe Doerksen, Falaniko Vitale and Jesse Taylor.

In other words, his intentions and his actions have yet to align.

We’ll have to continue holding out until they do, because Prangley isn’t going to shake the asterisks off of his winning streak. If Lombard runs his streak to 25, it’ll be because it would have required a fluke to be otherwise. Lombard may genuinely want top-level guys, but he's not getting them. As Sherdog’s Jordan Breen Tweeted upon catching the news, “I look forward to Hector Lombard’s undefeated streak reaching 50 with a win over John Salter.”

It’s so funny because, hey, it’s just about gotten to that.