TNA World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Lashley beats MMA jabroni Josh Burns at Bellator 123

For those that missed TNA World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Lashley's debut for Bellator last night, you might be relieved to hear that he choked out Josh Burns with 1:07 seconds left in the second round. Lashley was the heavy favourite going into the fight, given that Burns had lost seven out of his last ten fights and had never won before in Bellator, but you never know what can happen in a shoot, as upsets happen all the time in mixed martial arts.

It was a solid but unspectacular performance before the impressive finish, with Lashley controlling the fight by out boxing and out wrestling Burns, but being unable to get the submissions he was looking for, until he went to the ground and pound well, opening him up to be mounted and quickly strangled for the tapout victory.

Here's a GIF of the closing moments of the bout (GIF via Zombie Prophet):

With TNA likely leaving Spike TV in 2015 and facing a further round of cutbacks over their inability to find a new network willing to offer them similar money, fighting in Bellator seems to be Lashley's future. He's unlikely to ever win their Heavyweight title, given his age (he's already 38) and the stamina issues he's faced in previous fights, but he has more name value than almost anyone else on the roster due to his past WWE fame, so he'll continue to be protected by Bellator and used to draw ratings on their undercards.

Lashley should feel right at home, given that Bellator are wanting to emphasise the entertainment aspects of the sport of MMA and shot a bizarre angle to close out last night's show.

Following up on all the online media hype for Bellator's signing of UFC Hall Of Famer Stephan Bonnar, The American Psycho took the Twitter war to TV by calling out Tito Ortiz with a mysterious masked man by his side, before authority figure Scott Coker announced the fight for Saturday Nov. 15th in San Diego, CA, on Spike TV, which goes head to head with UFC 180: Cain Velasquez vs. Fabricio Werdum. Bonnar then revealed that his masked friend was former UFC fighter and Tito Ortiz training partner, Justin McCully, who Ortiz, the "most selfish, self absorbed, arrogant sack of crap" that he'd ever met, "flushed him down the toilet like a turd" when he was no longer of any use to him. Nasty shoot remarks were then exchanged, as Bonnar openly wondered how poor Jenna Jameson could put up with Ortiz for all those years, whilst The Huntington Beach Bad Boy hypocritically branded both his enemies as drug addicts, which inevitably set up a rather weak pull apart brawl. Tyson and Austin this was not!

See it here, to believe it Cagesiders:

Please remember this fiasco when anyone tells you that pro wrestling and MMA have absolutely nothing in common with each other.