Early in the bout, Miller connected with a kick to the top of Souza’s head while his opponent was on the ground, opening up a cut that would ultimately force the bout to come to a premature conclusion. The kick was deemed unintentional, but when the bout was eventually halted the fight was declared a no contest.

In other DREAM 9 action upsets were plentiful, as Joe Warren topped Norifumi “Kid Yamamoto by split decision in the second round of the featherweight grand prix, Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante suffered a unanimous decision loss to Tatsuya Kawajiri in a lightweight title eliminator, and Bob Sapp was submitted by Ikuhisa Minowa just over one-minute into their Super Hulk tournament matchup.

The official results for DREAM 9 were:

• Jason “Mayhem” Miller vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza — No Contest#
  DREAM Middleweight Championship (vacant)
• Joe Warren def. Norifumi “Kid Yamamoto via split decision^
• Bibiano Fernandes def. Masakazu Iminari via unanimous decision^
• Hiroyuki Takaya def. Yoshiro Maeda via TKO (strikes) — Round 1, 9:40^
• Hideo Tokoro def. Abel Cullum via submission (rear naked choke) — Round 2, 1:37^
• Tatsuya Kawajiri def. Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante via unanimous decision+
• Gegard Mousasi def. Mark Hunt via submission (arm bar) — Round 1, 1:19*
• Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou def. Jan Nortje via TKO (strikes) — Round 1, 2:29*
• Hong Man Choi def. Jose Canseco via submission (strikes) — Round 1, 1:17*
• Ikuhisa Minowa def. Bob Sapp via submission (heel hook) — Round 1, 1:14*

* Super Hulk Tournament First Round
+ Lightweight Title Eliminator
^ Featherweight Grand Prix Second Round
# Cut stoppage from unintentional illegal kick by Miller to downed Souza

Gina Carano

• Eddie Alvarez, Jorge Masvidal, and Dave Herman will be the featured fighters for Bellator’s fifth event on May 1st in Dayton, Ohio. Complete Bellator lineups are available in the MMAFrenzy.com MMA rumors section.
• Former WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho will be moving up to light heavyweight to compete at DREAM 9 on May 26th in Japan against an opponent to be named. [Tatame]
• Conor Huen, who last week appeared on MTV’s Bully Beatdown, is likely to fight at Strikeforce’s June 6th event in St. Louis. [MMA Junkie]
• Seven-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion and DREAM welterweight grand prix participant Andre Galvao will soon make his Strikeforce debut. [MMA Junkie]
• Kim Couture and Miesha Tate will square off in a 135-pound women’s bout at ShoMMA: Strikeforce Challengers 1 on May 15th in Fresno, California.
• Daiki Hata has been forced out of the DREAM featherweight quarterfinals due to an eye injury and will be replaced by Hideo Tokoro, who he defeated in the grand prix’s opening round. DREAM also announced this week the matchups for the quarterfinals, which feature Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto vs. Joe Warren, Bibiano Fernandes vs. Masakazu Imanari, Yoshiro Maeda vs. Hiroyuki Takaya, and Abel Cullum vs. Hideo Tokoro.
• Tim Sylvia’ and Ray Mercer’s scheduled boxing headliner for Adrenaline MMA’s third event in Alabama will take place in an MMA cage. [MMA Junkie]
• Charles “Mask” Lewis, the co-founder of TapouT who recent died in a car accident, was free of drugs and alcohol at the time of the wreck. [OC Register]
• Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz drew an official attendace of 15,211 to the HP Pavilion in San Jose on Saturday for a live gate pegged unofficially at $750,000.
• Benji Radach suffered a “shattered” right hand in his Saturday Strikeforce loss to Scott Smith and underwent surgery immediately following the fight to repair the damage. [MMA Junkie]
• The highly-anticipated women’s fight between Gina Carano and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos is likely to take place in August in Strikeforce with the winner being crowned the promotion’s first-ever  female champion.
• As expected, Kevin Randleman has officially signed with Strikeforce and will soon make his debut of the promotion.
• A light heavyweight bout pitting Travis Wiuff against Stanislav Nedkov has been added to Sengoku Eighth Battle on May 2nd in Japan.
• The WEC is considering holding a future event in Ohio. [Dayton Daily News]

The UFC will stage its next European in June at the O2 Arena in London, England. The event, tentatively UFC 86, is the first of many upcoming events the UFC plans to hold in Europe. Locations for the future events include Croatia, Ireland, Germany, Scotland, and England.

Dana White revealed that the UFC will continue to recognize Randy Couture as the promotion’s heavyweight champion due to the contractual benefits the UFC receives by doing so. The UFC 81 bout between Tim Sylvia and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will be for the interim UFC heavyweight championship and the name of the title won’t be changing anytime soon according to White who stated, “We’ll keep it [an interim title] forever.”

Andrei Arlovski will almost certainly return to the UFC in March at UFC 82 to take on Jake O’Brien. The fight will be Arlovski’s last fight on his current UFC contract.

Sean Sherk will face BJ Penn on May 24th at UFC 85 in Las Vegas. The event will also likely feature Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida.

With his win over Gabriel Gonzaga on Saturday Fabricio Werdum propelled himself to the top of the heavyweight contenders. He will face the winner of next month’s title match between Tim Sylvia and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Behind Werdum, the winner of Cheick Kongo versus Heath Herring at UFC 82 will likely receive the next heavyweight title shot.

The Ultimate Fighter 7 will begin filming this week following UFC Fight Night 12 on January 23rd.

The announced attendance for UFC 80 was 8,412

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic is reportedly still uncertain about his future with no fight yet booked for his return to the UFC later this year.

The UFC remains in talks with Japanese MMA fighters Takanori Gomi, Kid Yamamoto, and Hayato Sakurai.

The numbering for upcoming UFC shows beyond UFC 82 remains uncertain. Reports suggest that the planned show between UFC 82 in Columbus, Ohio and the April 19th show in Montreal, Canada may have been scrapped all together meaning UFC 83 will be in Montreal, UFC 84 in Las Vegas in May, and UFC 85 in London in June. We’re tentatively leaving the rumored card in our rumors section until we can confirm the event is officially off.

Jonathan Goulet will take on Kuniyoshi Hironaka on April 19th in Montreal.

In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated Dana White guaranteed the UFC will soon sign a deal to air on network television.

Tomasz Drwal has suffered a knee injury which has forced him to withdraw from his UFC 81 bout against David Heath. No replacement has yet been determined for the February 2nd fight.

[via MMA Weekly, Yahoo, Pro Elite, TKO Xtreme, SI, and Ground and Pound]