Todd Martin

This is a very important fight for both men. Both lost their last fights to Lyoto Machida, and need an impressive win to show fans the skills they demonstrated in Pride.

In pre-fight comments, Sokoudjou vows to combat Nakamura's samurai spirit with his jungle spirit. Soko's got Dan Henderson in his corner while Nakamura holds the banner for Hidehiko Yoshida.

Sokoudjou starts with some hard leg kicks, reminiscent of his fights ith Nogueira and Arona. Just vicious low kicks, and follows with a high kick. Soko looks much more relaxed than his Octagon debut. Nakamura with a nice flying knee. He follows with a hard right hook. Nakamura is diving in with punches and then moving out. Some booing from the crowd with the standup a little tentative, but it has been a good round. Soko drops Nakamura at the end of the round and follows with hammerfists. Nakamura is saved by the bell, because Soko was close to finishing. Nakamura needs help going to his corner and is really disoriented. His cornerman literally carries him to his stool like deadweight, and Nakamura falls off the stool. The ref stops the fight and it's over. Soko wins via ref stoppage between rounds 1 and 2.

What happened was Soko threw a high right kick. Nakamura blocked that with his hand, but that left Soko an opening, and he followed through with a straight right punch that knocked Nakamura silly.

Sokoudjou this fight and Sokoudjou his last fight was like night and day. Soko after the fight admits that he put too much pressure on himself for his UFC debut and was too serious. This time he wanted to have fun and it paid off.

Sokoudjou challenged Mauricio "Shogun" Rua with his last comment.

We're back again, and Etim is heading to the cage with "Feel it in the Air Tonight," which I sadly only associate with DMX. He's got a tall order in the red hot Rich "No Love" Clementi.

Between fights, they aired interviews in the arena with Jens Pulver and Urijah Faber, who are fighting next Sunday in WEC's biggest show to date. Faber and Pulver are making the rounds with the media today.

Etim receives some boos. As far as foreigners go, the crowd seems to like Koreans the most, followed by Japanese, with the English running in last.

Etim with hard low kicks early. Clementi looking to close the distance. Clementi misses a high kick and Etim just smiles at him. Clementi with a shot but Etim blocks easily. Etim's hammering Clementi with the low kicks and using his reach. Etim with a hard right high kick and Clementi is getting desperate pursuing. He wants no more of the standup game with Etim. Clementi scores the takedown. Clementi with some light ground and pound in Etim's guard. The ref stands it up. Maybe a little quick and the crowd loudly boos the standup. Etim now hammering him with more punches and kicks. Etim drops Clementi with an uppercut and moves into Clementi's guard to throw punches. Clementi stands up nicely. Etim with anther high kick and is picking Clementi apart standing. Round 1 ends. Very exciting action round. Etim is a fun striker to watch, but Clementi is tough. He's hanging in there and he's going to need to score a submission to take this one. 10-9 Etim.

Round 2 starts. Clementi with a shot and he gets the takedown. Etim with guillotine choke attempt and has one leg trapped. Clementi is holding on and this doesn't look that dangerous. Clementi is out. Clementi passes guard, and with 3 minutes and 30 seconds left, this is bad for Etim. Clementi needs to be more aggressive. He's using very slow and light ground and pound and it could lead to another standup. There we go. Ref stands it up. No boos this time, although Clementi was displeased. Clementi again takes him down. Etim with a tighter guillotine this time but Clementi pops out. Big reaction to that. More very timid ground and pound from Clementi. It's surprising to see him be so inactive on the ground. End of round 2. 10-9 Clementi. I may have been wrong about Clementi needing a sub. He may be able to lay and pray his way out of this one. It's always frustrating when in MMA one guy tries to finish and the other tries to neutralize and the neutralizer gets the decision.

Round 3 is on. Etim again with the better shots, but Clementi is just looking to take him down. Clementi does it. Clementi with more love taps onto Etim. I'm sympathetic to Clementi dealing with such a tough striker, but he is making no effort to finish on the ground whatsoever. Crowd loudly booing. This is picture perfect lay and pray by Clementi. Standup. Etim lands punches and kicks. Hard knee. Clementi going for takedown and gets it. Clementi lays on him to finish the fight.

I guess I've got to score it Clementi 29-28. Under Pride scoring it's clearly Etim's fight. I'd love it if the judges found a way to give Etim round 2 or 3, because he deserved to win the fight. Unanimous 29-28 judges decision for Clementi. Crowd boos.

"War Machine" Koppenhaver had a great fight last time around, and is looking to prove he belongs in the UFC. Yoshida is a nice mid to low level challenge for him.

They're airing promos for UFC 86 in the building, and interestingly they are billing Patrick Cote vs. Ricardo Almeida as the co-headliner and a fight for a title shot at 185. That's the weakest semi-main event on a UFC PPV in ages, as neither guy is much of a threat to Anderson Silva.

Nice reaction to War Machine, so the crowd remembers his last fight. Standup early with Yoshida getting the better blows. War Machine clinches, but Yoshida uses a judo throw. War Machine tries to get up, but Yoshida sinks in a guillotine choke. War Machine tries to escape, and Yoshida twists into an anaconda choke. War Machine doesn't tap, but he slips out of consciousness and the referee pulls him off in 56 seconds.

After the fight Joe Rogan interviews Yoshida. He asks him to run down the ending of the fight. Yoshida doesn't say anything, so Rogan quips "Or not."

It will be 20 minutes until the next fight begins. Stay tuned. Thanks to everyone for reading.

Kim is a Korean fighter making his UFC debut against the Liverpool England native Tan.

The blog won't let me write Kim's proper name, as it is apparently "inappropriate language." %*&(#$ Unbelievable. It rhymes with Song and begins with D.

Crowd is very thin early for a UFC Vegas crowd, which I think is exclusively due to the earlier start time. Show's a sellout so I'm sure it will fill up soon enough. Even press row is only half full.

Tan goes for a shot but he gets stunned with a punch by Kim on the way in. Kim is sprawling and throwing elbows. Reminiscent of JZ Calvan/Shinya Aoki I without the arguably illegal blow. "Korea" chants. Kim is defending very well.

Kim takes down Tan, takes mount, and fires down punches. Kim looks tremendous. Kim hammering elbows down. More punches from Kim, including a really heavy bomb. Vicious elbows from Kim. Round 1 concludes. I have it 10-8 for Kim.

Round 2 starts. The fighters are standing. Tan gets a shot in and again goes for a takedown. Kim lifts him up in a piledriver type move, but Tan gets back up. Kim beautiful judo throw. This guy is legit. He's outlassing Tan in every aspect of the game. Kim passes guard really smoothly. It's getting to be a broken record but I'm so impressed by this guy. Kim keeps moving for better position and throwing blows, while Tan is basically just defending. Tan does go for an omoplata but it's quickly avoided. More punches and hammerfists from Kim. Both men are tired. That's the end of round 2. 10-9 Kim.

Round 3. Kim isn't looking for a decision. Tan again goes for a takedown. Kim again uses a judo throw, and this time follows with hard and fast elbows for a ref stoppage early in the round. Kim gets a big reaction from the crowd. Great debut performance for Kim, and Tan is likely on his way to smaller shows.

Let the Bodies Hit the Floor brings Shane Carwin to the Octagon. He's got Nate Marquardt in his corner, and looks ripped. UFC has big plans for Carwin if he can prove himself on the big stage.

Wellisch is coming out to, well, more low key music.

Shane Carwin has arrived. They stand up for a short period before Carwin knocked him out with a right. Wellisch's mouth piece flies out of his mouth, he falls into a heap, and Carwin follows with punches before the ref pulls him off in 44 seconds. This will air on the live show for sure.

Shane Carwin (252) vs. Christian Wellisch (230)
Kim Dong Hyun (171) vs. Jason Tan (170)
Yoshiyuki Yoshida (170) vs. Jon Koppenhaver (170)
Terry Etim (155) vs. Rich Clementi (155)
Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (204) vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura (206)
Ivan Salaverry (185) vs. Palhares (185)
Wilson Gouveia (205) vs. Goran Reljic (205)
Thiago Silva (205) vs. Antonio Mendes (203)
Tito Ortiz (205) vs. Lyoto Machida (203)
Wanderlei Silva (205) vs. Keith Jardine (205)
B.J. Penn (155) vs. Sean Sherk (155)

All the fighters made weight and are set to go for tomorrow's show.

Welcome my CBSSports.com MMA blog. I'll be providing live coverage of major mixed martial events in Southern California, Las Vegas and elsewhere.

UFC 84 coverage will start here Saturday somewhere between 4:30PM and 5PM Pacific time. I'll update throughout the night from Octagonside.