Carl "The Cobra" Froch (29-2) defeated defending champion Lucian Bute (30-1) by TKO in round five of the super middleweight title bout in Nottingham, England on Epix. To say that Froch dominated the fight would be an understatement. He made Bute look weak and mauled him with his Max Baer style. Froch jumped on the Canadian from the opening bell and other than some occasional early connects by Bute, he was never really in the fight. Froch landed 97 of 180 power shots according to Epix punch stats.

As the fight progressed, Bute continued to wilt. By the third round, Froch had him hurt bad and kept nailing him with hard clean punches. Bute recovered well in round four until the last 20 seconds when he was hurt bad once again. Froch continued the brutal assault and the fight was stopped by the referee in the early seconds of round five with Bute left battered against the ropes. Froch stated before the fight that Bute may have been "overrated" and he made him look it. 

In other televised bouts on Epix, Carl Frampton (14-0) defeated Raul Hirales (16-1-1) by unanimous decision in their super bantamweight bout showing off his hand speed in the process. Highly prospected light welterweight Pier Olivier Cote (19-0) also won by TKO in round five over Mark Lloyd (15-6). Lloyd was knocked down twice in the bout with the first from a right uppercut and Cote kept on him after the second knock down until the referee halted the fight. Cote started off slow, but ended the fight strong. 

Carl Froch vs Lucian Bute on Dailymotion.com

Max Baer vs Primo Carnera Highlights 

Junior Dos Santos demonstrated his high level stand up striking by knocking out Frank Mir in round two of their heavyweight championship main event in UFC 146. Dos Santos controlled the fight from the start with his stand up striking and footwork. Mir attempted to take him down early in the first round, but failed to do so. Dos Santos dominated the fight other than some leg kicks from Mir and he had him staggered bad by a right hand to the temple during the last 20 seconds of the opening round. By the following round, Dos Santos dropped Mir with another well timed right hand and delivered a hammer fist to him while dazed on the mat. Dos Santos also appeared to back off from a last grab submission attempt by Mir before dropping the hammer fist when he realized his opponent was too out of it to fight back. 

In the featured undercard, Cain Velasquez beat down Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva to win by TKO in the first round. Cain quickly jumped on Silva and delivered a sharp elbow to him while on the mat leaving him a bloody mess. Cain kept grounding and pounding until the referee was forced to stop the bout.  

The rest of the undercard bout also featured some good action and quick endings. "Big Country" Roy Nelson won by knock out over Dave Herman in round one via a well timed Suzy Q. 

Here are the rest of the televised pay per view results:
Stipe Miocic defeated Shane Del Rosario by TKO in round two.
Stefan Struve defeated Lavar Johnson by armbar submission in round one.
Dan Hardy defeated Duane Ludwig by KO in round one.
Jamie Varner defeated Edson Barboza by TKO in round one.
Mike Brown defeated Daniel Pineda by unanimous decision.
Glover Teixeira defeated Kyle Kingsbury by submission in round one. 
Paul Sass defeated Jacob Volkmann by submission in round one.  

There will be round by round blog posts of the UFC 146 Dos Santos vs. Mir main event on the Fight Night Blog Facebook page and a full recap will be posted on the Fight Night Blog website. The results of the televised undercard bouts will also be listed. Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. It looks to be a good fight.

Ji-Hoon Kim (24-7) won by unanimous decision over Alisher Rahimov (23-1) in an exciting lightweight match up for the 10 round main event on ESPN Friday Night Fights in St. Louis, MO. Kim came forward like a constant tornado while Rahimov was the tree he could not unroot. Rahimov countered with hard punches in return that Kim walked through making for an action filled event. The Russian won some rounds with effective punching, but the Korean Kim never let up enough for Rahimov to take control of the fight. According to ESPN, Kim threw an astounding total of 1,225 punches in the fight. Teddy Atlas surprisingly scored it a draw, but it appeared to be a definitive win for Kim.

On the televised undercard, heavyweight Vincent Thompson (11-0) defeated Joell Godfrey (14-7-1) by unanimous decision in a snoozefest being almost the exact opposite of the main event. Godfrey was not willing to fight and stayed in survival mode while Thompson won basically just because he threw punches which were still few. The ESPN commentators also pointed out that Godfrey was wearing contacts in which one of them came out of his eye during the fight. 

The non-televised undercard featured some good bouts and knockouts. St. Louis hometown boxer Ryan Coyne (20-0) defeated Julius Fogle (15-8) in a light heavyweight match that should have been aired instead of the Thompson/Godfrey undercard. Coyne started a little slow in the first round, but settled in well afterwards. Coyne's right hook to the body became his signature punch of the night leading to a dominate decision win for the "Irish Outlaw". Fogle was knocked down three times and was noticeably tired, but Coyne came up a little short of the KO victory.     

Local boxer Chris Rapa (6-0) fought against Steve Kollin (2-2) winning a majority decision of the four round welterweight bout. Rappa has over 100 amateur fights, but was not overly impressive. He looked much larger than his opponent and with his experience, I expected more. He has fought as heavy as middleweight while Kollin has fought as low as light welterweight. He started slow and Kollin picked him apart well early. However, he did get the win and clearly won the second half of the fight.  

Leon Spinks III (2-0) vs Chavron Spain (0-1) was the walk out bout of the night with Spinks getting a unanimous four round decision win. Spinks was relatively hesitant until the last round when he scored two knockdowns and at one point of the fight, he was punching while not looking doing so in a showboating manner. It was an easy win for the third generation Spinks, but it is way too early in his career to compare him to Leon, Michael or Cory Spinks and especially since he does not have the amateur pedigree coming into the pro ranks as they did. 

Heavyweight Tex Trismegistus (1-0) won in his pro boxing debut against Brandon McCrary (0-1). Trismegistus looked very cold early and McCrary actually appeared to be winning until Trismegistus finally assaulted him in the third round resulting in a knockdown. McCrary rose from the knockdown and looked able to continue. but the referee called the fight in a quick stoppage.  

Ian Warren (2-0) defeated Mitchell Harris (0-2) by unanimous decision in a four round cruiserweight bout. Warren easily dominated the fight, but was mostly just willing to jab his way to a victory against an outclassed opponent. 

Samir Simpson Bey (1-0) also won his pro debut versus Nick Fannin (0-2) with a dazzling knockout via a left hook on the button. Fannin was clearly overmatched, but was a fair opponent for a debut. See video of the knock out posted below. 

Ji-Hoon Kim vs Alisher Rahimov on YouTube

Daniel Cormier defeated Josh Barnett by unanimous decision in the Strikeforce main event heavyweight tournament final on Showtime. Cormier dominated most of the fight and was a whitewash on two scorecards and just lost one round on the other. Barnett probably had his best moment of the fight when he clearly hurt Cormier with a knee near the end of the opening session, but Cormier still took the round. By the next round, Barnett was a bloody mess and in round three, Cormier even managed to slam Barnett on the mat like a rag doll showing off his wrestling talent. The big men slowed some late, but it was a good fight overall and impressive win for Cormier. 

Gilbert Melendez defended his Strikeforce lightweight title against Josh Thomson in a split decision win. Melendez was more active in the first half of the fight. In round three, Thomson started to become more effective and it was probably the closest round of the match. As the fight progressed, Thomson became stronger while Melendez began to wilt and at the end of round four Thomson nearly completed a submission choke. In the final five minutes, it was evident that Thomson was beating down Melendez, but it became a difficult fight to score going the distance with a story of two halves. Fans booed in disfavor of the split decision win for Melendez, but it was a tough fight to score. Thomson also had to stop multiple times during the bout due to receiving unintentional eye pokes. 

In the other televised undercards, "Feijao" Rafael Cavalcante won by submission via guillotine choke over Mike Kyle 33 seconds into round one after Kyle was rocked by a knee to the chin to help set up the early submission. Chris Spang also defeated Nah-Shon Burrell in a quick match with a left hook on the button followed by numerous hard knees to the head leading to the TKO win in round one. 

Strikeforce- Daniel Cormier- Post Josh Barnett Interview- Showtime

Mikkel Kessler (45-2) knocked out Allan Green (31-4) with a killer left hook putting him to sleep in round four of their light heavyweight match up in Denmark. ESPN3 failed to air the fight or at least in some areas. According to reports, the fight featured back and forth action including Kessler getting knocked down in the first round. 

Dan Rafael of ESPN tweeted, "Big rebound round for Kessler in 2nd. Rocked Green with a big left near end of the round. Wild fight so far. #boxing" 

The full match is now available on YouTube as you can view below (updated). I would hope that ESPN would consider airing a replay of the full fight on ESPN3 or ESPN Classic. 

Mikkel Kessler vs Allan Green Full Match

ESPN Friday Night Fights main event had a stunning and confusing ending with Karim Mayfield's (16-0-1) TKO of Raymond Serrano (18-1). The fight featured action from the beginning but it was lulling action until Mayfield caught Serrano walking in with a right hand that landed in unison with the bell at the end of round four laying him out on the mat face first. It looked like a sure knockout, but Serrano barely staggered up and the referee cautiously allowed the bout to continue apparently since it happened at the end of the round. 

That is when it became confusing.  According to Teddy Atlas of ESPN and as it appeared, corner men of Serrano wanted to stop the fight, but his father insisted that it continue. Meanwhile, no one was getting a stool to sit on or water for the hurt fighter while people in the corner argued. Serrano sat for only about half of the intermission and received little treatment from his corner before the start of round five. The match ended shortly after when Mayfield bombarded Serrano until the referee stopped it early in the round. Mayfield also scored a knockdown in round three in which he appeared gasped at the end of the round, but was still dominating the fight. 


Raymond Tito Serrano vs Karim Mayfield

The ShoBox main event featured a stunning win by light middleweight Willie Nelson (18-1-1) over defected Cuban Yudel Jhonson (12-1) in a 10 round unanimous decision. Jhonson won a Silver medal for Cuba at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and according to Steve Farhood on ShoBox, he also fought stand out light middleweight Erislandy Lara six times in the amateurs. Willie Nelson is trained by former trainer of Kelly Pavlik, Jack Loew, and it showed in his one-two style.

Jhonson was rocked by a right hand from Nelson in round two resulting in a knockdown from a delayed reaction. A couple sessions later and it looked like the fight was going to be over near the end of the fourth when the southpaw Jhonson landed a left handed Suzy Q flooring Nelson in jaw dropping fashion, but just as jaw dropping, Nelson hopped back up to easily beat the count. Nelson ended up surviving and went on to control the rest of the fight while beating Jhonson in almost every way. Jhonson showed little heart and was not very active in the rest of the fight. There were a couple times early on that it looked as though he was going to get a quick knock out (in the second before he was dropped and in the fourth), but when Nelson would not go away, it broke the will of the Cuban. Final Scorecards were 95-94 and 97-92 twice. It was a great win for Nelson that will help move him forward, but Jhonson takes a big step back.

On the undercard, Swedish boxer Badou Jack (11-0) defeated Columbian Alexander Brand (17-1) by split decision of the eight round super middleweight contest. It was somewhat entertaining, but both boxers still look unpolished especially Brand which was often squared up with his hands held low. Jack looked more crisp, but with a limited arsenal. Brand's body protector even fell completely off in round eight and time had to be called so that it could be put back on in the corner. Steve Farhood scored it a draw and it was difficult to score with the awkward style of Brand. The Columbian was busier, but lost on two scorecards 77-75 while winning one score card 77-75.   

In the UFC on Fox main event, Nate Diaz submitted Jim Miller 4:09 into round two with a guillotine choke. It was the first time that Miller has lost a match other than by decision. For Diaz, it was a huge step toward securing a UFC lightweight title. In the co main event, Johny Hendricks narrowly defeated Josh Koscheck by split decision. Here are rest of the results on UFC.com. 

UFC ON FOX 3- Highlights

Bellator 67 had various featured bouts and one welterweight semifinal on the televised fight card Friday night. The main event featured undefeated Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler demolishing Akihiro Gono by TKO dues to strikes in round one while exhibiting stunning speed. Here are rest of the results on Bellator.com.   

Bellator 67 Highlights