Former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida (16-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) has fully recovered from a knockout loss to Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in May, and “The Dragon” is primed for a return to action. And if you think Machida is looking for some kind of warm-up fight to get the taste of his first professional loss out of his mouth, think again.

Instead, with Rua sidelined until the spring, Machida and his camp would like a shot at an interim title against Rashad Evans with the winner eventually taking on “Shogun.”"Honestly, we’d like to fight ‘Shogun,’” Machida’s manager, Ed Soares, today told MMAjunkie. “Now it’s 1-1. It’s even. Let’s do this rubber match. Let’s figure this out. Granted, he won by decision and Lyoto won decisively, but anyone can get caught in this sport. He went in for the kill, and unfortunately, he got caught.

“Since ‘Shogun’ is out – they’re saying until March – personally, when there’s an injured champion, I would love to see maybe a Rashad-Lyoto match for the interim title. I think that would be something that would be cool, and the winner of that would get to fight ‘Shogun’ when he’s all healed up in the spring of next year.”

The move certainly wouldn’t be without precedent. The UFC recently instituted a similar program when the future of heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar was uncertain. While Rua’s injured knee is reportedly healing quickly, the Brazilian’s history of issues with the joint does leave a small cause for concern. Until a decision is made, Machida is spending time in the U.S. training with several of his Black House MMA teammates. Chief among those partners is Anderson Silva, who is currently preparing for a UFC 117 fight with Chael Sonnen.

“I came here to the States to train a lot more wrestling, and of course to spend a lot more time training with Anderson,” Machida told MMAjunkie.com Radio through Soares. “I think he’s good training for me, especially for my upcoming opponent, whoever that may be. But I’m healed. I’m ready to go, and I’m ready to get back in there and fight as soon as they give me someone.

“It was always in my plan to spend more time here, especially to do my training here. Especially now that I don’t have any fight scheduled, I’m a lot more at ease being able to spend more time here and acclimate to what it’s like to train here.” Newly minted welterweight Nate Diaz (12-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) will re-up with the UFC for four more fights.

The fighter’s manager, Cesar Gracie, confirmed the deal. Additionally, Diaz is signed to face Marcus Davis on the first televised bout of Aug. 28′s UFC 118 in Boston. TD Garden, the city’s revered sports arena, hosts the pay-per-view event.

Shane Carwin had opportunities to defeat Brock Lesnar during the first round when he put 57 punches on Lesnar and tied to halt the game. But the referee did nothing to halt the game. Had Josh Rosenthal have halted Saturday’s UFC 116 main event in the first round, the story perhaps would have been otherwise?

Interim title-holder Shane Carwin blasted heavyweight champ and fellow co-headliner Brock Lesnar with 57 punches in the round, and though he came close, Rosenthal never halted the bout to award him the TKO win. But this gentleman fighter has no complains. He eventually suffered a submission loss in the following round. That is called true sportsmanship? What do you say, he lost yet he won hearts! Both are good fighters and both had shown the decency in the fighting of UFC 116 that has been termed as one of the brightest events of UFC.

Rosenthal, of course, walked a very tight line during the main-event fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. He didn’t want Lesnar to absorb unnecessary punishment, but he also didn’t want to halt a still-competitive fight. UFC president Dana White and Lesnar have praised the ref’s performance.

But what about Carwin, who lost the most by Rosenthal’s decision to let the fight continue? “I felt Brock go out a few times,” he today told MMAjunkie via text message. “But it is the ref’s job to call the fight, and mine is to finish the fight.”

Carwin, of course, came oh-so close to doing just that. According to CompuStrike.com, he landed 57 first-round blows, 47 of which were ground shots that came after he dazed Lesnar with an early uppercut. As blood poured from his face and Lesnar struggled to defend and improve his position, Rosenthal nearly halted the fight on more than one occasion.

Lesnar, though, survived. And by the second round, Carwin was slowed by what he described as a “whole-body cramp” that took his legs out from under him. Lesnar (5-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC), who returned from a one-year layoff due to diverticulitis and other health problems, then scored a takedown that set up the fight-ending arm-triangle choke midway through the round. Although literally just a punch or two away from the victory, Carwin (12-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) instead suffered the first loss of his career.

Lesnar, though, admits he was playing with fire. But as Carwin’s punches became less and less effective, he knew he could survive the round.

“[Rosenthal] did come to me before the fight and said to me, ‘Heaven forbid, if the fight gets ugly and somebody’s getting in a bad situation, you have to show me something that you’re still staying alive down there,’” Lesnar said. “That just kept going through my mind. ‘I’ve got to keep moving.’ I could feel Shane. Every punch was less and less and less and less. I knew that the worst was done. “I really have to thank the referee for allowing that thing go on.”

Even White, who’s notoriously blunt with critiques of referees, raved about Rosenthal’s performance. “When the fight was first starting, I looked at (UFC CEO) Lorenzo (Feritta), and you guys know how critical I am about this stuff,” White said. “I said, ‘How the hell did Josh Rosenthal get this fight?’

“Listen, I don’t know Herb Dean. I’ve probably said five words to Herb Dean in my entire life. I just think that Herb Dean is the greatest ref in the history of the world. When guys are in there, I wish Herb was in every fight. But I want to say Josh Rosenthal did a fantastic job, and I apologize for badmouthing him before he did nothing wrong.”

Brock Lesnar secured his place atop the heavyweight division with a dramatic come-from-behind submission victory against the previously unbeaten Shane Carwin.

Lesnar weathered a violent barrage from Carwin in the first round, scored with a takedown in the second and trapped him in an arm-triangle choke that ended the UFC 116 headliner on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Carwin raised the white flag 2 minutes, 19 seconds into Round 2.”This isn’t about me tonight,” said Lesnar, who made his first appearance in nearly a year. “This is about my family. This is about my doctors. This is about my training partners, my training staff. I am blessed by God. Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you a humble champion. And I’m still the toughest SOB around, baby.”

Carwin — who had finished each of his first 12 foes in the first round — had the champion in serious trouble inside the first five minutes, as he buckled him with a right hand, stuffed his first takedown attempt and had him reeling with a left uppercut. Lesnar, in his first appearance since an intestinal disorder nearly ended his career, went down against the cage and absorbed heavy ground-and-pound from Carwin, who let loose with heavy rights and lefts from the top. Lesnar defended well, but Round 1 clearly came down in Carwin’s favor.

“I was going after the kill there,” Carwin said. “Brock’s a tough son of a bitch, man. He took that ground-and-pound like nobody else. I tightened up. My hat’s off to him. He’s the champion. I fell down the mountain, but I’ll climb back up.”

Lesnar knew Carwin was emptying his gas tank.

“I just had to weather the storm,” he said. “He’s got some heavy shots. I just had to hang back. I knew he was getting tired. Each shot was less dramatic than the other, and I thought, ‘I’ll just let him go.’”

Slowed by visible fatigue, Carwin lacked the steam he needed to finish what he started. Treading water as the second period opened, Carwin winked at the former World Wrestling Entertainment superstar but soon found himself on his back in the center of the Octagon. Lesnar set up the choke, moved to mount and tightened the submission from the side. Carwin defended at first, but Lesnar tightened his massive arms around his neck and solicited the tapout.

“I thought I had enough space to breathe and just keep working beside him,” Carwin said, “but he sunk it on tight and I was going out.”

In the co-main event, Chris Leben submitted the world-ranked Yoshihiro Akiyama with a third-round triangle choke, as he notched the most significant victory of his career. Akiyama, worn down by two grueling rounds of combat, met his demise with just 20 seconds remaining in the bout.

Akiyama mixed takedowns with accurate punches throughout the middleweight duel, but it was not enough to turn away Leben. The two men threw caution to the wind in the second period, and Leben appeared to be out on his feet for a brief moment.

Always tough to finish, Leben stood his ground and came out for Round 3 with renewed energy.

Taken down as time ticked away, Leben softened the judo black belt with strikes from his back and waited for an opening to present itself. It came in the final minute, as he cinched a triangle choke, tightened the hold and coaxed the tapout.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s on my feet, on the ground,” Leben said, “when I get in here, I get the job done.”

Afterward, Leben singled out injured Brazilian icon Wanderlei Silva, Akiyama’s original opponent. “Wanderlei was supposed to have this fight,” said Leben, who notched his second finish in the last two weeks. “I want him next.”

With what UFC president Dana White has called “the biggest heavyweight fight in the history of the UFC” headlining the card, Saturday’s UFC 116 event is sold out. While a few select tickets remain for “UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin” at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the numbers are small enough that the promotion considers the event an official sellout.

White also said the buzz surrounding the Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin headlining bout will likely produce a pay-per-view blockbuster, and the UFC exec said the promotion is anticipating more than 1 million buys.

“I think there’s a lot of interest in this fight,” White told MMAjunkie. “People always like to see the heavyweights go at it.”

While there are several other intriguing matchups on the UFC 116 card, the focus is undeniably on the main event. With a marquee contest in the heavyweight division, a weight class White readily admits has “sucked” in years past, the UFC looks primed to kick off a series of intriguing big-boy bouts.

It starts with the title unification match between champion Lesnar and interim champ Carwin.

Lesnar returns for the first time in a year, and after battling through a life-threatening case of diverticulitis, the former professional wrestler said at Thursday’s pre-event press conference that he wants to be known as the best heavyweight fighter in history.

“[Lesnar] wants to be known as the greatest heavyweight ever,” White said. “Well, now is the time for that. Realistically, the heavyweight division has never been more stacked.

“This is a great fight between two real heavyweights on Saturday night. And whoever wins, Cain Velasquez is waiting in the wings to fight the winner. Whoever wins that fight, we’ve got (Junior) Dos Santos and ‘Big Country’ (Roy Nelson) fighting. The winner of that fight’s waiting for the next guy. If you can run through this division right now, you’re the man.”

Meanwhile UFC president Dana White informed a small group of reporters that he expects UFC light heavyweight champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua to be sidelined until March 2011 while recovering from knee surgery.

While the news proved surprising to most MMA observers, at least one prominent figure assumed the Brazilian slugger would be on the shelf for quite some time: current number 1 challenger Rashad Evans.

“I kind of figured he would be out for awhile after his last fight hearing how he went into the fight beforehand,” Evans told MMAjunkie.

It was obvious from the first moment UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar (4-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) walked into Wednesday’s open workout session promoting his UFC 116 bout with Shane Carwin (12-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) that something was different.

“It just feels good to be here,” Lesnar said. “I’m just relaxed. It feels like it’s been an eternity. I’ve been through a lot this year. I did Jim Rome this morning, and I just said, ‘I just feel fortunate.’ I’m excited for Saturday night. A lot of hard work to come from Nov. 6 being in the hospital to being here and being healthy. To be able to defend a title, it’s pretty remarkable.”

Lesnar’s recent battle with a life-threatening case of diverticulitis has been well-told by now, but it doesn’t make his recovery any less remarkable. The massive heavyweight was moments away from a surgery that could have ended his career, but Lesnar has since made a full recovery with a more holistic approach to treatment.

“It’s just a lifestyle,” Lesnar said. “It’s one of those things where you just do it. I could have just said, ‘Ah, this is going to be too (hard).’ I’m not that guy. It was a challenge for me. I overcame this. I got a title defense. These things are exciting for me. “Could I have hung it up and stayed at home and been a family man? Yeah, but it’s not how I want my career to end. If this thing’s going to stop, I want it to be on my terms. I just don’t see Shane Carwin being the guy that’s going to stop this freight train.”

“We changed a lot of things” Lesnar hasn’t seen action in the cage since his UFC 100 grudge-match win over Frank Mir. And while a considerable portion of that time away from competition was spent battling his way back to full health, Lesnar said the extended break also gave him time to evolve as a fighter. “I didn’t feel good right away,” Lesnar told MMAjunkie. “It was baby steps. That’s why I got with the right people. Every week I just had mini-goals – every day little mini-goals. I just took it one day at a time, and then when I got the green light that I was going to be able to do this again, then we just kind of – I refer to it as like a little steam locomotive. We threw a little coal on the fire. We got things going. Next week, a little more coal, and now we’re here.

“I definitely feel lighter on my feet. I definitely feel lighter. I brought Peter Welch in, and we changed my stance and switched from standard – from traditional – to southpaw, and it’s really worked out. It’s helped in my wrestling, my shooting. We changed a lot of things, and we’ll see if they work, I guess.”

Lesnar insists he’s now fully recovered, and he says he never wavered from his belief that he would put back on the weight he had lost, regain the power that had made him such a feared commodity, and defend his UFC title. “It was just one of those things that I really didn’t even give it any thought,” Lesnar said. “When you have a goal in mind like I did – and I just wanted to get from point A to B, and I knew I had to hit pretty much all the letters in the alphabet to get where I needed to go – it was just one day at a time.”

“I just don’t see a comparison” In Carwin, Lesnar faces a similarly massive-sized adversary who also relies on a wrestling-based attack punctuated with brute force. But while most MMA observers have been focusing on the parallels between the two athletes, Lesnar says he doesn’t see it.

All 13 fighters who underwent drug testing at June’s The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale tested clean for performance-enhancing drugs and recreational/drugs of abuse.Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer today e-mailed the drug-testing results to MMAjunkie.The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale took place June 19 at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Court McGee submitted Kris McCray in the evening’s headliner and was crowned the winner of the 11th season of “The Ultimate Fighter”.

The NSAC tested both of the night’s headliners, as well as Matt Hamill, Keith Jardine, Chris Leben, Aaron Simpson, Dennis Siver, Rich Attonito, John Gunderson, Brad Tavares, Kyle Noke, Chris Camozzi, Travis Browne.All tested negative for drugs of abuse (such as marijuana and cocaine), as well as anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancers. The NSAC traditionally tests both main-event fighters, all winning fighters and any competitors who previously failed drug tests. However, some of the testing remains random, and all fighters are subject to it.

Meanwhile there is news that Korean Top Team middleweight Dong Yi Yang (9-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) will soon make his debut for the UFC. The world’s biggest mixed martial arts promotion today announced that Yang is the newest member of its roster, and an announcement regarding the 27-year-old’s debut first fight in the octagon will be announced at a later date.Yang joins WEC featherweight Chan Sung Jung as Korean Top Team fighters currently under contract with Zuffa, LLC, the parent company for both the UFC and WEC. Terms of Yang’s deal were not disclosed.

The 27-year-old Yang debuted professionally in 2007, and he earned his first three victories during a one-night eight-man tournament. Yang has since racked up additional wins under the DEEP and Sengoku banners.Yang has yet to notch a signature victory, though he does own a 2007 win over Polish heavyweight and Olympic gold medalist judoka Pawel Nastula. Nevertheless, Yang’s nine career wins have all come via stoppage, and eight of those victories have been earned by TKO. Yang recently returned from a 17-month layoff from competition with a May 21 win over Bill Suares. Yang needed just 67 seconds to register the TKO win.

For the first time since 2007, Spike TV will air a live broadcast of the UFC’s weigh-ins.The UFC’s longtime cable partner will air Friday’s official UFC 116 fighter weigh-ins beginning at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT). Spike TV officials today announced the plans while also confirming a recent MMAjunkie report that a light-heavyweight fight between Seth Petruzelli and Ricardo Romero has been promoted to Saturday’s “UFC Prelims” special.

UFC 116 takes place Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The night’s main card airs on pay-per-view, but Spike TV broadcasts a live two-fight “UFC Prelims” special prior to the PPV broadcast.

Initially, the one-hour special was slated to feature heavyweights Brendan Schaub vs. Chris Tuchscherer and middleweights Kendall Grove vs. Goran Reljic. But as MMAjunkie.com first reported, Grove recently made disparaging comments about Spike TV and their involvement in “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series, and as a result, he lost his spot on the night’s Spike TV broadcast.

Other preliminary-card bouts could make the “UFC Prelims” broadcast if time permits.

Saturday’s weigh-ins feature all 22 event competitors, including headliners Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin, as well as co-headliners Yoshihiro Akiyama and Chris Leben.

The latest UFC 116 card now includes:

MAIN CARD

* Champ Brock Lesnar vs. interim champ Shane Carwin (heavyweight title-unification bout)
* Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Chris Leben
* Matt Brown vs. Chris Lytle
* Stephan Bonnar vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
* Kurt Pellegrino vs. George Sotiropoulos

PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike TV)

* Brendan Schaub vs. Chris Tuchscherer
* Seth Petruzelli vs. Ricardo Romero

PRELIMINARY CARD (Un-aired)

* Kendall Grove vs. Goran Reljic
* Dave Branch vs. Gerald Harris
* Forrest Petz vs. Daniel Roberts
* Jon Madsen vs. Karlos Vemola

Meanwhile the past weekend’s “Strikeforce and M-1 Global: Fedor vs. Werdum” event officially produced a gross live gate of $1,066,739 and a crowd of 11,757 spectators, who produced the sixth-largest attendance in Strikeforce/HP Pavilion history.

The California State Athletic Commission today released the official figures. The gate total is identical to the early estimates provided on fight night by Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker, though the attendance dropped slightly from the initial estimate of 12,698. The June 26 event took place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., and aired on Showtime.

The eight-fight lineup featured a heavyweight bout with Fabricio Werdum, who upset heavyweight kingpin Fedor Emelianenko with a 69-second triangle-choke and armbar submission. Strikeforce regulars Cung Le and Josh Thomson also picked up wins on the evening’s televised card, and female champ Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos successfully defended her 145-pound title.

At one point in UFC welterweight Chris Lytle’s career, all he wanted was a slugfest inside the octagon. Then he realized he was tipping his hand to opponents. When he takes on Matt Brown (11-8 MMA, 4-2 UFC) in a televised bout at next week’s UFC 116 event, he’d like to stand and bang. But he’ll take whatever he’s given inside the cage and end it sooner rather than later.

“I have to fight this way to keep [my opponents] honest,” Lytle (28-17-5 MMA, 7-9 UFC) recently told MMAjunkie. UFC 116 takes place July 3 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. A heavyweight title-unification bout between champion Brock Lesnar and interim title-holder Shane Carwin headlines the show.

Lytle, a full-time firefighter with 15 professional boxing bouts, grew tired of declaring his intent to wage a stand-up war only to wind up flat on his back for three rounds. Nowhere was it more clear that change was needed than in fights against grappling-based competitors such as former champion Matt Hughes and top contender Josh Koscheck, who both planted Lytle on the canvas and kept him there until the final bell.

Now, Lytle would rather finish a fight by any means available. A knockout would be nice, but he’ll take a kneebar if he gets it. That’s exactly what he did in his most recent performance at UFC 110. There, facing Brian Foster, he secured the submission to earn his seventh performance bonus in the UFC.

The key, Lytle said, is being smart in his attack. “My favorite thing is to stand and throw punches,” he said. “But I do notice if I just do that, then people are going to fight me the same way. They’re going to try to just win the fight.”

Plus, after 12 years in the fight business, Lytle finds it easier on his body to have a short night. The 35-year-old said he noticed his age at 31, when he was in the midst of a heavy CrossFit and weightlifting regimen and he could barely lift his arms afterward. He was overtrained, and youth wasn’t on his side in recovery.

As to the punches he’s taken in a dozen years of fighting, Lytle said he’s more concerned about the shots he takes in sparring than those in a live fight or in the boxing matches he’s fought. He says he’s smarter about his training these days and includes ample rest to minimize the strain on his system. But it’s not always easy.

“It’s getting pretty tough on the old body, there,” he said. “I don’t know how some of these guys who are older than me do it. It definitely hurts.”

Following a majority-decision loss to Matt Hamill that accounted for his fourth consecutive defeat, Keith Jardine now will look for work in outside promotions.

Ultimate Fighting Championship officials have terminated his contract. UFC officials told MMAjunkie of the recent firing, which UFC president Dana White first confirmed with MMAFighting.com. Jardine (15-8-1), a semifinalist on “The Ultimate Fighter 2,” concludes his five-year stint with the UFC with a 6-7 record.

For a time, Jardine was one of the best prospects to come out the UFC/Spike TV reality series. He won four of his first five official UFC fights, and he scored victories over notables such as Forrest Griffin, Chuck Liddell and Brandon Vera.

However, beginning with a UFC 96 headliner against Quinton Jackson in early 2009, he dropped four straight fights. The “Fight of the Night” loss to Hamill, which came in the co-headliner of The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale this past weekend, followed knockouts defeats to Thiago Silva and Ryan Bader.

Jardine, though, often volunteered for late bookings and substitutions, and his reported paydays often paled in comparison to competitors of similar stature. In fact, when he defeated former champ Liddell in the UFC 76 main event, he earned just $14,000 as his base pay.

Despite his recent setbacks, the Greg Jackson-trained fighter is unlikely to have trouble finding work. For example, rival promotion Strikeforce has minimal light-heavyweight talent, and the Japanese-based DREAM promotion soon will host a 205-pound grand prix in which he could be a solid entrant.

Additionally, White hasn’t closed the door on Jardine returning to the organization at some point in the future, so he may compete in UFC-friendly organizations that host other UFC castoffs who are on the comeback trail.

Meanwhile the TUF 11 winner McGee is enjoying the vacation. “I’m a fighter, man,” McGee today told MMAjunkie radio. “I don’t care what day it comes on. When it’s time to fight, it’s time to fight.” Take, for instance, that boxing match against Freddie Martinez.

Couldn’t he have scheduled his bachelor party for another night? “Are you kidding?” he asks. “That was fun. That was part of the night … I got offered $800. That was a lot of money for me. I jumped on the opportunity. And then we just went out afterward.”

In fact, that was pretty much the theme of McGee’s “TUF 11″ championship run and his survival on the Spike TV reality series. He was there to fight and win a UFC contract, and he wasn’t about to waste such a great opportunity with stupid distractions.

“I took advantage of it, full advantage of it,” said McGee, who submitted Kris McCray in the show’s live finale on June 19. “I didn’t get caught up in the drama. I didn’t get in a single argument as you probably saw. I just got rested between fighters and got myself ready mentally and physically before fights.”

While many past seasons of “TUF” were notorious for the in-house hijinks, pranks and cast-member squabbles, “TUF 11″ proved unusually quiet. McGee, who talks openly about his past drug and alcohol problems, knows there’s at least one reason why.

An action-packed UFC 115 event took its toll on the card’s competitors, and 12 fighters on the card were suspended for 180 days.

The Vancouver Athletic Commission today emailed the list of UFC 115 medical suspensions to MMAjunkie. The evening’s four main-event and co-main-event competitors were each given 180-day suspensions, though all 12 fighters can be cleared earlier than that through various medical procedures. “UFC 115: Liddell vs. Franklin” took place June 12 at GM Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Each competitor on the card received a suspension of some kind, though several were just of 14-day precautionary variety.

The full list of medical suspensions includes:
* Rich Franklin: Suspended 180 days for left forearm pain, but may be cleared early by an orthopedic doctor; minimum suspension of 60 days, including 60 days without contact
* Chuck Liddell: Suspended 180 days for head and face contusions and lacerations, but may be cleared early by negative CT scans; minimum suspension of 60 days, including 60 days without contact
* Pat Barry: Suspended 180 days for right hand pain and left ankle pain, but may be cleared early by orthopedic doctor and negative X-rays; minimum suspension of 45 days, including 30 days without contact
* Mirko Filipovic: Suspended 180 days for head and face contusions, but may be cleared early by Maxillofacial doctor and negative CT scans; minimum suspension of 45 days, including 30 days without contact
* Gilbert Yvel: Suspended 180 days for head contusions, left thumb pain and right hip pain, but may be cleared early by negative CT scans and X-rays; minimum suspension of 45 days, including 30 days without contact
* Ben Rothwell: Suspended 180 days for right knee pain, but may be cleared early by an orthopedic doctor; minimum suspension of 30 days, including 21 days without contact
* Rory MacDonald: Suspended 180 days for head and face contusions, but may be cleared early with negative CT scan; minimum suspension of 45 days, including 30 days without contact
* Mac Danzig: Suspended 180 days for left elbow pain, but may be cleared early with negative X-ray; minimum suspension of 30 days, including 21 days without contact
* Mario Miranda: Suspended 180 days for left forearm pain, but may be cleared early with negative X-ray
* David Loiseau: Suspended 180 days for head and face contusions, but may be cleared early with negative CT scan; minimum suspension of 45 days, including 30 days without contact
* Ricardo Funch: Suspended 180 days for left foot pain, but may be cleared early with negative X-ray; minimum suspension of 45 days, including 30 days without contact
* Jesse Lennox: Suspended 180 days for left thumb pain and right ankle pain, but may be cleared early with negative X-ray; minimum suspension 45 days, including 30 days without contact

* Paulo Thiago: Suspended 45 days, including 30 days without contact, for head contusions
* Evan Dunham: Suspended 30 days, including 21 days without contact, for head contusions

* Martin Kampmann: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
* Carlos Condit: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
* Tyson Griffin: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
* Matt Wiman: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
* Peter Sobotta: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
* James Wilks: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
* Claude Patrick: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons
* Mike Pyle: Suspended 14 days for precautionary reasons