A good night of fights for the UFC in Rio! I am always happy to see Vitor Belfort victorious, and especially so tonight after the weigh-in failure of Anthony Johnson.

Jose Aldo continues to amaze. His knockout of Chad Mendes came at 4:59 of round 1…and it fairly spectacular fashion, with that knee from out of nowhere. Good stuff. Was also awesome to see him run into the crowd and wrestle security guards who were trying to protect him…lol.

Oh, and Rousimar Palhares is still nuts. Awesome, but nuts. He won by tapout due to a leglock, quick.

I’m watching the post-fight press conference as well, but it’s pretty much all in Portuguese, so I have no idea what they’re saying.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - JANUARY 14: Jose Aldo (C) celebrates in the crowd after defeating Chad Mendes in a featherweight bout during UFC 142 at HSBC Arena on January 14, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

It felt as if the MMA world’s collective jaw hit the floor all at once.

Middleweight champion Anderson Silva retained his crown in spectacular fashion, as he knocked out Vitor Belfort with a front kick to the face in the UFC 126 main event on Saturday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Two punches on the crumpled Belfort polished off “The Phenom” 3:25 into round one.

via Sherdog.com: Silva Front Kick KOs Belfort at UFC 126.

I’m excited about tonights fights! UFC 126 should be a good one. Here are my quick picks.

Although I’d like to see Vitor Belfort win tonight, my gut is telling me he’s getting TKO’d. So…

Anderson Silva over Vitor Belfort
Rich Franklin over Forrest Griffin (decision)
Ryan Bader over Jon Jones
Miguel Torres over Antonio Banuelos
Donald Cerrone over Paul Kelly
Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto over Demetrius Johnson
Gabe Reudiger over Paul Taylor
Kyle Kingsbury over Ricardo Romero

Wow, Dana White wins.

After Josh Barnett tested positive for a banned steroid earlier in the week, the company scrambled to find a replacement to fight Fedor Emelianenko. There were rumors about Vitor Belfort, but evidently nothing ever happened, and now the entire event is cancelled.

This is the final blow for Affliction, I don’t think they will ever succeed. I also think it was a stupid move to cancel the entire event, unless there are circumstances we don’t know about (Showtime or other sponsors pulling their money out?)

In a news release, Affliction Entertainment Vice President Tom Atencio said “Finding an opponent for the number one-ranked MMA heavyweight champion in such a short period of time was a huge endeavor, and I’m thrilled at the amount of fighters willing to take on this challenge, but in the end, we just didn’t have enough time to promote a new fight to our standards.”

Is that true, or are there other reasons? Did Fedor’s management not want him to fight someone else on such short notice? Are they protecting him? I know there are many fighters who would be glad to step up and fight Fedor, even on short notice, just for the chance.

I would also say this definitely takes away some of Fedor’s bargaining power when it comes to dealing with the UFC. Where else will he fight?

Since the Affliction mega-card was announced a few months ago featuring a cast of big names, headlined by Fedor Emelianenko and Tim Sylvia, the UFC has tried to battle against Affliction by putting on a free event of SpikeTV featuring a main event bout with Anderson Silva going against James Irvin.

Former UFC referee Big John McCarthy is even part of the announce team for the Affliction: Banned event, and is quoted as saying the Affliction event will be “the best heavyweight card ever put together” according to a promotional flier put out by Affliction. On the same flier, they even quote Dana White and other UFC personalities (photo below – thanks to MMAmadness.com).

So to counter Dana White and his spur-of-the-moment FREE show to steal viewers from Affliction, they’ve announced that FSN will show two Affliction fights for free also, at 8pm EST July 19th. Viewers will get to see Aleksander Emelianenko fight Paul Buentello, and Vitor Belfort fight Terry Martin, for free on FSN.

What will you be watching on July 19th?