Hector Lombard extended his winning streak to 23 on Saturday night, prompting Spencer Kyte of HeavyMMA.com to wonder where the Bellator champ should fall among middleweight rankings.

How good is Hector Lombard?

Before you blurt out an answer, think through both sides of things. If you do, you’ll see that arriving at a decision that cannot be debated is a difficult task. Such is the life of the Bellator middleweight champion, and a number of potentially elite fighters competing outside of the Zuffa family.

There is a case for the Cuban judoka being one of the top middleweights in the sport, a 10-15 guy in the rankings, even maybe making it as high as 8-9 on some lists.

Lombard hasn’t lost since November 2006, a unanimous decision defeat to a then-unknown 21-year-old named Gegard Mousasi. Since then, the American Top Team product has won 22 of 23 fights, and 18-in-a-row with is victory Saturday night over Falaniko Vitale at Bellator 44. Of those 22 wins, Lombard has finished 17 of them, many in very impressive fashion.

In a sport where the best in the world lose from time-to-time, Lombard’s string of victories and four-plus-year unbeaten streak stands as evidence that the former Olympic competitor has a case for being considered one of the best 185-pound competitors in the sport.

Read the full article.

HeavyMMA.com’s Spencer Kyte feels like he’s beating a dead horse, but he writes that MMA judging has serious flaws and now is the time to correct them.

Hearing Mike Williams announce the judges had come to a unanimous decision in the main event of Bellator 41 had me hopeful. Then Joe Warren was declared the winner and I knew the topic of one of the pieces I would spend my Sunday writing.

We’ve been down this road many times, but just because we’ve covered how atrocious judging in mixed martial arts can be at times doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to talk about it. This epidemic is not something that should be glossed over or left alone, looked at as a “well what are you going to do?” situation that is impossible to resolve.

Each bad decision should be met with the same amount of criticism and scrutiny, whether it comes from the UFC Octagon, the staggering heat of Bellator’s cage in Yuma, Arizona or some bush league show in Costa Rica where Ferrid Kheder gets gifted a win over Hermes Franca. The inexcusable mistakes of incompetent officials must be brought to light if we ever want to see them come to an end.

None of the three officials scoring the bout between Warren and Marcos Galvao should be allowed to determine the outcome of a fight again, at least not without undergoing some kind of training and testing course first. The fact that none of the three gave Galvao the victory when just about everyone else in attendance and watching at home is alarming enough, but that one of the three gave Warren all three rounds is appalling.

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HeavyMMA.com writes that the Bellator 40 Fight Card has been finalized. The event, which is set for Saturday night in Oklahoma, is now official with seven contests, including Ben Askren’s welterweight bout against Nick Thompson.

Bellator 40 is now complete with the announcement of seven match ups.

The promotion revealed the fight card earlier today, just one day prior to the April 9 event.

The main card, which will broadcast live on MTV2 features a welterweight non-title contest between champion Ben Askren and MMA veteran Nick Thompson. Also on the card, Jay Hieron takes on Brent Weedman in the semi-finals of this season’s 170 lb. tournament, while Michael Chandler and Lloyd Woodard compete in the semi-finals of the lightweight tournament. Four preliminary card bouts have also been added.

A featherweight bout between Ronnie Mann and Josh Arocho were originally expected to meet on the main card, but the former’s traveling issues forced the cancellation of the tilt.

Check out the full card.

Bellator 39 is in the books and according to HeavyMMA.com, lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez and UFC veteran Ben Saunders came out the biggest winners.

Bellator 39 is in the books, and UFC veteran Ben Saunders and Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez each had a successful night.

Saunders debuted with the promotion with a dominant technical knockout victory against a clearly over-matched opponent. He blasted knees and elbows into Matt Lee to earn a third round doctor’s stoppage. While the victory was impressive, Saunders has yet to defeat a quality opponent since his release from the UFC.

Meanwhile, Alvarez once again proved himself a top-level lightweight with another one-sided victory. The champion, who is perhaps the top lightweight not fighting under Zuffa, LLC, defeated Pat Curran via unanimous decision after five rounds of dominance. Curran showed toughness, but little else throughout the 25 minutes of competition.

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Here’s a weekly rundown of MMA content from Ben Goldstein of CagePotato.com:

– Last weekend’s Bellator show produced yet another epic finish, as well as the upset loss of featherweight tournament favorite Wilson Reis.

– UFC prez Dana White defended his angry outbursts on ESPN’s “E:60,” and Tito Ortiz stopped by to molest the English language.

– UFC 101 will officially go down August 8th in Philadelphia, and will feature two amazing fights and a bunch of mediocre ones.

– The video promo for DREAM’s Super Hulk Tournament, starring Jose Canseco vs. Hong Man Choi, is sheer cartoonish awesomeness.

– Speaking of which, Canseco isn’t the only athlete we’d like to see make an ill-advised transition into cage-fighting.

– Shooto’s “Final Tradition” event was highlighted by Takanori Gomi’s return to the win column, and a wild one-rounder between Takeshi Inoue and Rumina Sato.

– Keith Jardine scored another two-second role in another horrible movie.

– Lyoto Machida may be fighting for the UFC light-heavyweight title next Saturday, but he’s already looking ahead to Brock Lesnar. Could we eventually see an epic battle between foot-sweeps and hammer-fists?

– Set your DVRs: Former WWE star Bobby Lashley returns to action tonight at MFC 21, and Strikeforce kicks off their “Challengers” series with a lightweight battle between Billy Evangelista and Mike Aina.