Two welterweight bouts featuring several prospects for the UFC’s 170 pound division have been added to the undercard of UFC 84 scheduled for May 24 in Las Vegas, UFC.com’s Thomas Gerbasi is reporting.

The bouts added include season six “Ultimate Fighter” reality TV show alumnus Jon Koppenhaver taking on Yoshiyuki Yoshida and Jason Tan squaring off against Korean fighter Dong Hyun Kim.

Koppenhaver last fought for the UFC during the live season finale of TUF 6 on December 8. He recorded a third round TKO over Jared Rollins in a fight that was discussed as a possible fight of the year candidate by several pundits.

Yoshida, who has never fought in the UFC before, has a lifetime pro MMA record of 9-2, according to Sherdog.com’s Fight Finder. He has competed for both the SHOOTO and Cage Force promotions.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REMAINDER OF THIS ARTICLE ON SAM CAPLAN’S PROELITE.COM BLOG

The San Diego Union-Tribune is reporting that TUF Season 6 veteran Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver has appeared in front of a Superior Court judge this week and is facing felony assault and battery charges.

Koppenhaver has been accused of hitting and choking out Darren Zatkow outside of Undisputed, Koppenhaver’s MMA gym, on September 2. Here are some notes from the article:

He said he was confronted by a group of men without shirts who surrounded him as he left the club. He said he was grabbed in a carotid choke hold and dragged a few feet from his friends by one of the men. Zatkow said he did not see who grabbed him from behind.

Zatkow, who practices martial arts but has never competed in tournaments, said he became unconscious 10 seconds after he was choked and regained consciousness moments later.

Friends of Zatkow’s who testified said he was punched in the face while he lay unconscious on the ground. Zatkow, however, said he was not aware of the punch until after he became conscious and felt the pain in his face.

A Detective for the San Diego Police Department stated in the article that a Las Vegas doctor determined Zatkow has suffered four fractures to his left-eye socket in the assault.

Prosecutor David Williams told reporters that if the case goes to trial and “War Machine” is convicted, he will face a maximum sentencing of seven years in prison.

Read the entire article HERE.

(Thanks to MMAJunkie)

First things first, last night’s finale was simply awesome. The fights between Jon Koppenhaver vs. Jared Rollins and Clay Guida vs. Roger Huerta were so good they could have carried a show by themselves. But to get two matches like that on the same card is simply amazing. I hope Dana White is in the Christmas spirit and gives all four guys a $40,000 match of the night bonus.

Now, let’s break the show down from a overly-analytical perspective.

Is it just me or did last night’s telecast go longer than usual and contain even more commercials than normal?

The commercials nearly killed me. Really, I could not stop bitching about them. They had too many breaks that lasted too long. It’s like this for every live UFC telecast on Spike but I felt last night was especially bad. Maybe there’s no change and it just felt that way?

Or, because Spike is paying the UFC more for its content they have to squeeze more ads in to help offset costs?

Whatever the situation is, without awesome fights between Koppenhaver vs. Rollins and Guida vs. Huerta, the pacing of the show would have killed almost any enjoyment for me.

The pacing on pay-per-views is usually slower than a lot of shows but I’m okay with that. The pacing on Spike TV fight cards is usually a little better but it just seemed to take forever to go from match to match.

I kind of get the feeling that Spike and the UFC wanted to stretch the show out because they wanted to cut into the Floyd Mayweather vs. Ricky Hatton fight as much as possible. I’m not complaining, as I like seeing more matches and I think it’s smart business to show as many of the TUF guys officially fighting for the UFC as possible.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REMAINDER OF SAM CAPLAN’S BREAKDOWN OF THE TUF 6 FINALE (INCLUDING HIS MATCH-BY-MATCH BREAKDOWN, WHETHER HE STILL FEELS ROGER HUERTA IS OVERRATED, THE LONG-TERM PROSPECTS OF EACH TUF CONTESTANT, HIS ANALYSIS OF KENNY FLORIAN’S DEBUT, AND MUCH MORE ON HIS PROELITE.COM BLOG