(photo by Tracy Lee via Yahoo! Sports)

Let’s face it, last night Stephan Bonnar (12-7) was staring at his pink slip when he looked across the octagon at opponent Krzysztof Soszynski (19-10-1).

Going into the fight with three straight losses, having only won 2 of his last 7, Bonnar needed a victory badly.

Rematching Soszynski after his controversial loss at UFC 110 when an inadvertent headbutt cut “The American Psycho’s” head open which caused the referee to stop the fight. Instead of going to the scorecard to determine a winner, the referee awarded “The Polish Experiment” with a TKO win.

So, looking to avenge that loss and save his job, Stephan Bonnar was out their to put it all on the line, and that’s exactly what he did.

Earning the wrong end of several knuckle sandwhiches, Bonnar bloodied and fatigued, scored a good couple of strikes in the second. This forced Soszynski into the cage attempting to cover up to regain his composure, but “The American Psycho” landed a big knee to his opponents head sending the fighter to the mat. Bonnar quickly followed that up with several strikes causing the referee to step in to end the fight at 3:08 of the second.

Not only did Bonnar save himself from the chopping block but he earned himself a cool $75,000 for his effort after being awarded on of two “Fight of the Night” awards. Now the former “TUF 1″ finalist has earned himself some breathing room with the win and the bonus, as the UFC will have to really look hard at his next performance should he fall the next time he steps into the octagon.

All of Friday’s weigh-in photos from The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale event are courtesy of Tracy Lee and her CombatLifestyle.com webpage.

We’ve got the main card photos for you here, to view the entire photo gallery from the TUF 11 weigh-ins head to the link above.

Court McGee vs. Kris McCray

Matt Hamill vs. Keith Jardine

More photos after the jump

Chris Leben vs. Aaron Simpson

Spencer Fisher vs. Dennis Siver

Rich Attonito vs. Jamie Yager

In the aftermath of all events, such as Saturday nights UFC 113 event, there are always a ton of information concerning the event and it’s fighters. The MMA News has done our best to collect the best News & Notes as well as some of the best quotes from around the web to bring to you.

“UFC 113: Machida vs. Shogun II” took place on May 8th at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The show saw the crowning of a new light-heavyweight champion after Mauricio “Shogun” Rua knocked out the previously undefeated Lyoto Machida in the first round of their main event bout. The next welterweight title challenger was decided after Josh Koscheck earned a unanimous decision victory over Paul Daley. The biggest news from that fight was the Brits actions after the third round bell when he suckered punched his opponent and has been subsequently kicked out of the UFC.

- UFC 113 drew a total of 17,647 fans for a live gate total of $3.27 million. The numbers fell short of the previous two events, UFC 97 and UFC 84.
- UFC 97 holds the record with an attendance record of 21,451 and a gate of $4.9 million.
- UFC 84 ranks just behind it with an attendance record of 21,390 and a gate total of $5.1 million.

“When I connected with the overhand right, I already noticed that he was going out,” said Rua, whose finishing sequence. “Then I took the opportunity to punch him on the ground until the referee would stop the fight, but I actually stopped punching a little before the referee stopped the fight. But when we see that opportunity, we go in there for the kill because sometimes in the fight you only have that one opportunity.”

“The only guy I wouldn’t fight is Wanderlei Silva because he’s a great friend of mine,” Rua said. “Other than that, whoever the show wants me to fight, I’ll fight.

“I’m a professional fighter, so I don’t care.”

“I was just in doing an interview with ESPN and Rashad was all over me about it. Obviously more than likely yes, [Rashad Evans and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson] one of those two is going to get the shot at the title.”

“That’s probably Kimbo’s last fight in the UFC,” White said.


“I said that I have a lot of respect for Kimbo and how he’s handled this whole thing – a lot of trash-talking for a couple of years, by me,” White said. “He took me up on my challenge. He came in to ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ and tonight he got beat by Matt Mitrione. Mitrione was 1-0, and he came in and took Kimbo out tonight.


“I’ve got nothing but respect for Kimbo. I like him as a person. He carried himself really well.”

“He’s done. I don’t give a [expletive] if he’s the best 170-pounder in the world, he’ll never come back here again,” White said in the postfight press conference.


“He’ll never come back. I’m probably the most lenient guy in sports and this is proboably one of the most lenient organziations. You know we’re all human, we all make mistakes, things happen. There’s no excuse for that. These guys are professional athletes. You don’t ever hit a guy blatantly after the bell like that whether you’re frustrated or not.”

“I just kind of got kneed in the eye,” Koscheck said. “I don’t know if it was a knee or a punch, to be honest with you. I was on my knees and just got hit. I just tried to get a couple seconds to get my bearings and go back in.”

- Koscheck appeared to take a heavy knee to the head while he was on his rising to stand by opponent Paul Daley. Video review showed that the knee did not connect but Daley was deducted a point anyway.

“Broken tibia and fibia and dislocated ankle,” MacDonald posted on his Twitter account late Saturday night. “Surgery tomorrow night.”

Joe Rogan on the UG:

- “MacDonald was trying to stop the takedown and his leg got caught under him as he fell backwards. It was nasty. He knew it was broken immediately and called the ref over while he was on the bottom in side control with his leg up in the air and his ankle looking nasty.”

“I’ll fight him someday if he keeps winning because I’m going to move up to light heavy after a couple of title defenses. It’s a guarantee that I’ll move up to light heavyweight. I’d like to win the belt first, but I can guarantee I’m going to move up.”

- Alan Belcher defeated Patrick Cote during the PPV card and felt pretty good defeating someone who lost to the champ in their last fight.

“I feel like I’m getting better every time, and I got to fight someone that’s been in there with the champ, and it makes it a little bit more realistic for me to fight for the title in the future some time,” Belcher said. “I overcame the crowd and getting booed and all that. I overcame a lot of fears and stuff, and I’m just really proud of myself.


“I performed closer to my potential. Maybe I’ll peak whenever I fight for the title.”

HT: UFC.com, Yahoo! Cagewriter, MMAFighting.com and MMAjunkie.com.

Photo courtesy of Tracy Lee.

Click here to view the embedded video.

During Strikeforce middleweight champion Jake Shields post fight interview, Jason “Mayhem” Miller decided to take the opportunity to ask Shields for a rematch. It was definitely not the time to do that, Shields Gracie Fighter teammate Gilbert Melendez took offense shoving Miller and “Mayhem” ensued.

(Photo courtesy of Tracy Lee via Yahoo! Cagewriter)

Cageside Seats delivers the first quick analysis:

It’s not really clear why, but Nick Diaz (cornering Jake Shields) and Jason “Mayhem” Miller (cornering Dan Henderson) just got into a wild brawl in the cage after the Shields-Henderson main event. Mayhem got in Shields’ face, then Shields pushed him, so Diaz jumped in and Mayhem while Gus Johnson nearly had an aneurysm screaming “Gentleman, please! We are on national television!”

Miller is known as a practical joker, but both he and Shields fought for the middleweight title during the last CBS broadcast in November.

During the ensuing chaos Diaz brothers, Nick and Nate, also jumped in to deliver soccer kicks. Even Shields, who is normally a reserved person, got caught up in the heat of the moment.

“I really apologize for that,” Shields said. “That’s out of my character. [Miller] got me when my emotions were running high. He came up in my face – came up talking crap. Unfortunately I pushed him. I overreacted.”

The Diaz brothers just posted this note from their Facebook page.

For those that people think this shit’s a game. Mayhem Millet trying to steal Jake’s spotlight? Walk up on our camp like that? The clown got beat down.

Miller posted that note from his Twitter page after the incident.

Miller’s actions could be excused if it wasn’t a live national TV broadcast but I think MMA fans will be hearing about this one for awhile.

Not everybody was displeased though.

UFC president Dana White’s Twitter page.

HT: CagesideSeats.com and BloodyElbow.com

UFC welterweight fighter Thiago “Pitbull” Alves (16-6) will undergo outpatient surgery at the Hyman Newman institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery located at Roosevelt Hospital later this week.

“I went and saw a specialist this morning who told me I need to have the minor procedure,” Alves said.

At a press conference on Friday Tracy Lee reported that it Alves has a “malformation on the left side of his brain.”

He has malformation of the left side of his brain. After a few days of anguish, they found that whatever it is, it should not be career ending- not an aneurism. He should be back training full speed in 3 weeks.

The outpatient procedure is expected to take place this Wednesday (31 March).

Photo and story courtesy of TMZ.

If an MMA fan could create a dream job it would be something along the lines of: Cage side seats to every fight card, vip access to every fight after party, and a chance to interact with the fighters in their elements before and after the fight.

Meet Tracy Lee; Tracy has worked hard to live out this very dream and so much more. The MMA News caught up with the self described “workaholic” as she zig zags across the globe to bring us an inside look into the lives of some of the greatest fighters in the sport.

Terry (TheMMANews): “To the hard core MMA fans you have become known as the ultimate insider, but for the fans who may not know you tell us a little bit about what you do?”

Tracy: “That is very diverse; I am all over the place. I shoot the fighters, behind the scenes in the MMA industry. I go into the fight camps; I shoot the fighters from the minute they wake up till they go to sleep. I shoot the actual fight events, UFC, WEC, Strikeforce, and Elite XC when they were around. I work for the clothing lines in the industry; I have shot for Tapout, Clinch Gear, Dethrone, Fairtex and any number of clothing lines. I also get hired out by UFC Magazine, Fighter Only Magazine, Fight Magazine, MMA Authority Magazine, MMA Worldwide; I free Lance for a lot of different magazines. I also shoot for Fox Sports and I just got hired by THQ with UFC Undisputed 2010 to do some work for them, basically I am all over the place, whenever people need photos they tend to call me because they know I’m going to be there.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “You started off working with Napkinnights.com shooting for the after parties, how did you first get involved with that?”

Tracy: “I started it. I was clubbing In Sacramento and taking photos of me and my friends, and going to Las Vegas and people just always loved to see my party photos. It was unheard of, I would just post party photos on a Photoshop gallery and it was very primitive to what we have now. Everybody I worked with loved to see them, and they would pass around the pictures to their friends, and it kind of went from there.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “So how did it get directly involved with the MMA scene?”

Tracy: “I used to shoot all the fight after parties, and because of that I got to know a lot of the fighters from going to the clubs. Then they would tell their friends “if you’re going to Vegas call Tracy, because she has all the hookups at the clubs.” So I built relationships with a lot of the guys as a result of that.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “Are you employed by any of the organizations like Zuffa, or are you just doing your own thing with combat life style?”

Tracy: “I am a free lancer, I usually credential for UFC by one of the magazines, and one of the websites but I am not credentialed for UFC by my own website.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “Travelling across the country constantly and working into the early hours of morning must get exhausting after a while, what keeps you going?”

Tracy: “I was up till about 7 this morning working. I am a workaholic; I don’t know how to explain it other than that. I enjoy creating stuff and driving traffic, anything to with marketing and getting people to see what I am doing. MMA happens to be a passion of mine and because it is I want people to see what I’m doing in the MMA industry—I take pride in my work.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “What are your favorite and least favorite parts of your job?”

Tracy: “Well my favorite is travelling around and meeting new people. I get to see a lot of places, I’m not a photographer for no reason, I enjoy taking photos. So when I go to new places I get to take new photos, I get to add them to the collection and its pretty cool be able to do that. On the flipside of it, every once in a while its gets to the point where it’s just too much, living in hotel rooms all the time, and constantly having no basis in reality that sometimes get to be a bit too much. I took most of December off to stay home in Vegas so I could get my wits and my bearings about me.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “Is going to an event still exciting for you, or has it all become routine at this point?”

Tracy: “It’s become very routine at this point, but that doesn’t mean it’s not exciting, because I am so busy with so projects on top of just shooting the fights, a lot of the time I don’t have a chance to really look at the card and inspect whose going to be on it. It’s kind of a surprise when I get there to see whose going to be there, a fun surprise. It’s like “Oh I didn’t know you were going to be here!” I remember being in Minnesota and running into Manny Gamburyan in the hotel room and being like “hey what are you doing here?” and he’s like “I’m fighting” and then he made me sit down and log into ufc.com and see who was fighting. I don’t mean to sound like it’s not important enough to me to know what’s going on, on the card it’s just that sometimes there are so many cards going on now; Zuffa will have 3 fights in one month with 2 UFC’s and 1 WEC and its hard to keep track of all the fights going on.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “You started training Jui Juitsu in Vegas with Sergio Penha a while back, how is your training coming along? And did this help you appreciate the sport a lot more?”

Tracy: “I’m not training anymore. I quit training because I kept getting hurt, and I know that kind of sounds like I gave up. But I was getting hurt to the point where I was unable to do my work and travel around. The reason I started training, was so that I could become a better photographer in the industry and understand and anticipate submissions and know what was going on in a fight. I came into the industry knowing nothing, just came into it because of a lot of my friends being involved in it.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “So did it help you appreciate the sport a lot more?”

Tracy: “It did. I’m out here right now in Athens Georgia with Brian Bowles, and they have a lot of really talented guys out here and as I’m running around shooting I can glance across the room with 15 pairs of guys who are rolling and anticipate submissions and know what’s going on and get the best pictures that I can. That is opposed to not understanding and wasting a lot of “film” per say.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “Has the MMA community become like a family, or is interacting with the fighters just a part of your job?”

Tracy: “For sure, one of the best things involved about being involved in this is that every event I go to we are like a travelling circus. I have had conversations about that other people involved and everybody agrees we are like a travelling circus. Every circus is going to have your same basic elements to it and every time it’s going to be a little bit different in whose working that particular one. So every event that I go to I’m really excited because I always end up getting to know someone better than I didn’t know before. I become better friends with someone I didn’t know as much, because you’re in a different city where you don’t know anybody except you casually know each other so you end up going out for meals, or going out for adventures. So I have to admit that is one of my favorite parts of being involved in this, getting to know someone you never would have thought you would get to know better.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “What kind of things are you doing when you’re not working for your website?”

Tracy: “I started a business doing marketing consulting and I spend a lot of time working on the guy’s websites and working on teaching them to brand and market themselves on the internet. I am always working, so if it’s not MMA stuff, it’s going to be internet marketing stuff. If it’s not that I do photo shoots, I been hired a lot lately for people outside of the MMA industry. Everything I do I love, so I will never actually work a day in my life, but I am always working.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “As you have probably come to know some of the fighters on a personal level, is it tough to watch them fight, or lose a fight?”

Tracy: “I have to say, the Amir Sodallah vs Brad Blackburn is a perfect example of something like that, because I am friends with both of those guys and I spend plenty of time with both of those guys. And when they go and fight each other one is going to win and one is going to lose, and one I’m going to see at the after party and one I’m not going to see at the after party and that’s how that situation usually goes down. It’s hard, because they both know I’m friends with the other so what do I say to them? I am not very eloquent when it comes to saying good words to tough someone up after a loss, I will be the first to admit I am not very great at that.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “If you weren’t doing what you are now, what would you be doing?”

Tracy: “I imagine I would still be working on napkinnights stuff, but you never know I constantly create and come up with new business ideas so I don’t know. I am really creative and I love coming up with new ideas all the time. I can’t say I would defiantly be skydiving if I wasn’t doing MMA because I really don’t know. I am an Aquarius, I’m an adventurous person and I don’t think I can’t, I always think I can. “

Terry (TheMMANews): “Do you have any words for you’re devoted on line followers?”

Tracy: “That sounds pretty crazy to think that the thing I do as a passion has created a following but I guess it kind of has. I hear all the time from people on the internet and people I meet that “you got the coolest job in the world” the reason why I have that cool job is that I wasn’t scarred to do it. I think a lot of people are scared to step outside of their comfort zone and take a chance, and if your willing to take a chance you’re going to do something you love to do. So what I can say to people is don’t let fear get in the way, do what you want to do and don’t be scarred to do it—take a chance make an effort and chances are you will succeed and do something that you love.”

Womens Strikeforce champion Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos is set to face Marloes Coenen Saturday night in her first title defense.

Pictured is a very ripped “Cyborg” and opponent Coenen, who weighed-in Friday night at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla.

Another look at “Cyborg” from this past August’s Strikeforce weigh-ins where she faced fan favorite Gina Carano for the first womens title.

Photo’s courtesy of Tracy Lee and her CombatLifestyle.com webpage. Click the link to view other photo’s from Friday’s weigh-ins.