Oh my.  I am so exhausted.  But pretty happy.  As usual, I’m a wreck because I stayed up until 11 am this morning uploading and editing photos — and like the disgruntled artist I’ll forever be, I’m only partly satisfied with the work I did last night.  Regardless, I wanted to share my favorite shots since they vary slightly from the ones posted to the Sho Sports flickr.  I haven’t had a chance to filter through all the undercards yet but rest assured there are some winners in that pile, especially the very prolonged celebration by ATT’s Hayder Hasan after knocking out Ryan Keenan. The Riggs-Hieron fight was also full of lovely bloody images, and I’ll post those soon since most of y’all didn’t get to see it.

It’s been an awesome week and while I’m sad to see Melvin Manhoef and Marius Zaromskis lose, I’m ecstatic to see team Strikeforce triumph over the DREAM team and I’m just a huge Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler fan.  Herschel did well for his debut and Lashley performed as expected.  Cris Cyborg has a chin of steel because I heard Marloes Coenen’s fist make contact with Cristiane’s face many times and it phased her only slightly.  Coenen’s tough as nails.  Ran into Coenen’s boyfriend in the laundry room while doing an impromptu photo shoot at the fighter hotel and he said that Marloes is beat up but OK and well, it’s all part of the game.

Indeed it is.  Around 3 am, I saw Zaromskis’ cornermen approach Nick Diaz in the lobby, shook hands respectfully, chit chatted for a moment and went their separate ways.  Manhoef looked disappointed but otherwise unhurt.  Lawler limped around the hotel lobby but was in good spirits and ready to go home to his family.

So with that, I leave you with the photos from the televised portion of the evening and I’ll post up more later when I’ve gotten more than two hours sleep.