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UFC star Justin Gaethje says he's PRAYING for a bloodbath main event with Tony Ferguson ... claiming he wants Tony to break his nose because he needs it fixed anyway!

Yo, Gaethje is a SAVAGE!!

Of course, Justin and Tony will throw down at UFC 249 on Saturday -- in what Justin calls "the biggest fight of my life."

And, man -- Justin is ready for war!!!!

"Tony’s used to people being scared of him. I’m not scared," Gaethje tells TMZ Sports.

"I hope he breaks my nose. I’ve been waiting to get it fixed. It hasn’t been right for like 12 years, so I’ve been waiting for a long time for someone to break my nose, so maybe he’ll plant an elbow on there."

"I might regret asking for that 'cause it’s a painful injury, but I do need to get it fixed."

Justin says when it comes to engaging with Ferguson, "I’m not scared to get hit. I’m not scared to get sliced up, knocked out, that comes with the territory and I’m content with all those situations."

So, how does Justin see the fight going?

"I’m 100% confident in my ability to put him to sleep."

"Tony has a brain. I just got to make it shake and then the natural course of the body takes place and he goes to sleep."

British bassist Tony Kanal was only 25 years old when he gained fame after his band, No Doubt, dropped their 3rd album, "Tragic Kingdom" ... which featured smash hits like "Don't Speak," "Spiderwebs," "Just A Girl" and "Sunday Morning."

Tony Kanal was joined on stage with the epic No Doubt bandmates including the spunky drummer, Adrian Young, the lanky guitarist, Tom Dumont ... and of course, the punk princess and lead singer, Gwen Stefani.

Kanal still plays music with the supergroup, Dreamcar, and recently celebrated 8 years of clean eating as a vegan.

Ariana Grande will have a court-ordered force field around her for the next 5 years -- which will hopefully deter an obsessed fan who was arrested on her property 2 months ago.

A judge just signed off on a permanent restraining order for AG's mother, Joan -- which also extends to Ariana -- which will run through May 5, 2025. Under the order, Fidel Henriquez -- the man in question -- can't come within 100 yards of Joan's home, her vehicles ... and of course, her and Ariana. Basically, he's gotta stay the hell away.

The guy's also been instructed not to harass, threaten, intimidate or contact them in any other fashion -- which covers everything from written correspondence to phone calls as well as any form of electronic messages, including texts and social media DMs.

We broke the story ... Henriquez was hit with a TRO after he got busted for trespassing on their property back in March. They said they were scared for their lives and needed a judge to step in.

You'll recall ... Henriquez is alleged to have slipped onto the property by following a delivery truck through the gates, and once inside ... cops say he was rummaging through the garbage before knocking on Joan's front door, with a love note to Ari in hand.

Cinco de Mayo has fallen on Taco Tuesday this year ... and not even a virus with corona in its name can ruin the celebration for these celebs.

Eva Longoria, Cardi B and Danny Trejo are just some of the many who kicked off Tuesday in style. Eva blended a tasty-looking margarita while Cardi opted for what appears to be tacos de asada con salsa roja ... opting with some lemon juice instead of lime.

She wasn't the only one with tacos on her mind ... model Devon Windsor almost quite literally had them on her head while Chelsea Handler got behind the grill for some fancy tacos. Check out the pics ... they've all definitely gotten in the spirit.

And, remember gabachos out there ... Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexico's Independence Day. Our amigos south of the border celebrate the Mexican army's victory over the French in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Mexico was a huge underdog in that battle.

The fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery -- a 25-year-old black man out for a jog when he was chased and killed -- was caught on video, prompting a call for a grand jury to review the case.

Arbery's death is being referred to as a modern-day lynching, as he was unarmed when he was gunned down in Brunswick, GA on February 23 by a white citizen named Travis McMichael ... who has not been arrested or charged. He also happens to be the son of a former district attorney investigator.

As you can see in the video, Arbery was jogging when he was stopped by McMichael and his father in a white pickup truck. McMichael was armed with a shotgun. Arbery appears to attempt to run around the truck before he and McMichael start grappling.

After at least 2 shots, the men continued struggling over the gun ... until Arbery stumbles away, shot in the mid-section, and then collapses to the ground. He was later pronounced dead.

McMichael has not been charged in the shooting ... reportedly because he and his father, who was in the back of the truck, claim they were trying to make a citizen's arrest. They claim Ahmaud fit the description of a suspect in a string of recent break-ins in the area.

After the emergence of the video, D.A. Pro Tempore Tom Durden has decided the case "should be presented to the grand jury of Glynn County for consideration of criminal charges against those involved in the death of Mr. Arbery.”

Tom Cruise is set to boldly go where no actor's gone before -- like, for real -- by making a movie in space, and NASA's fully on board for the project.

Yep, Mr. 'Mission Impossible' is going into orbit!!! NASA's Jim Bridenstine, says they're "excited to work with Tom Cruise on a film aboard the International Space Station." As for why the space agency would be down for this -- Bridenstine says, "We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA's ambitious plans a reality."

Translation: Tom onboard the ISS is the best PR we'll ever get!!!

The news comes on the heels of reports that Cruise and Elon Musk's SpaceX were in the early developmental stages of partnering with NASA on an action-adventure flick.

Now, we know the Space Station's involved, but it's unclear how Musk's company will factor in -- maybe they'll be responsible for delivering Tom to the ISS. BTW, the movie reportedly is NOT a 'Mission Impossible' flick.

As you know, Cruise likes to perform his own stunts, so it seems like he'll be adding astronaut to his resume.

Video of a Los Angeles police officer throwing haymakers, repeatedly hitting a man in the head and body is sparking backlash and launching an internal investigation.

The brutal footage is from an arrest last month in the Boyle Heights neighborhood in L.A., and you can see the officer landing at least 9 punches to the back of the suspect's head while shouting expletives. The suspect cowers and asks, "What is wrong with you?"

The video, shot on April 27, starts with 2 officers detaining the man on a sidewalk outside a church. The male officer ordered the suspect to stop fighting, the suspect says he's not fighting -- and doesn't appear to be in the video.

Then the male officer unloaded the barrage of punches and profanities. Eventually, the female officer appears to put her hand on her partner's arm, seemingly urging him to stop.

The LAPD says officers were responding to a trespassing call.

In a statement, the LAPD says it's aware of "disturbing video" capturing the incident, which it describes as a "physical altercation" between the suspect and arresting officer. Cops say the suspect suffered cuts to his head and face, but refused medical attention, while the male officer sustained a hand injury.

The suspect and officer have not been identified, and cops say the man was released from custody pending further investigation.

DaBaby can't keep his hands to himself ... IF you believe a driver who claims the rapper attacked him when an argument quickly turned physical.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... the driver got a call to pick up DaBaby in Vegas back in November, and the rapper and some friends hopped into his Mercedes Sprinter van. We're told after a few stops, DB and his friends sparked a joint and the driver told them that's a no-no.

Cops say the rapper and his friends started cursing out the driver and threatened him. When they got to the Hard Rock Hotel, the driver told his passengers it was time to pay up. The driver claims DB punched him in the back of the head and said, "You ain't the boss."

Our law enforcement sources say one of the suspects said, "You're lucky you're not in my city because I would have killed you cracker motherf***er." We're told DB and co. got their bags, but not before someone allegedly said they "would have left him (the driver) dead on the road."

We're told there's now an active arrest warrant to bring in DaBaby for misdemeanor battery.

As we've reported ... DaBaby's had his share of trouble recently. Back in December, he was caught on video assaulting a hotel worker in Beverly Hills. DB defended his actions saying the worker was harassing him while he was in the company of his young daughter.

There was also a woman he allegedly slapped during a concert in Tampa. He apologized ... but for her, it rang hollow.

We've reached out to DaBaby for comment, so far ... no word back.

This is insane, as in, insanely dangerous -- the commute over a Chinese bridge looked more like a roller coaster ride as winds made the structure move like ocean waves.

Check it out ... the bridge appears to rock and sway vertically, almost like it's pulsating, as hundreds of cars continued to drive through. It almost doesn't look real!

Officials in the Guangdong province temporarily closed the wobbly bridge around 3:30 PM local time as a safety measure. Seems like the only decision to make when you see how wavy the road got.

Despite the crazy bending ... Chinese press is saying experts have confirmed there's no damage to the main structure.

Folks on Twitter claiming to be on the bridge during the swaying described the experience as "terrifying" and one person said it made them carsick. Winds in the area at the time were measured around 38 mph, which was described as rare by the press.

Kim Jong-un might not be alive after all and instead has a convincing body double -- so says one former member of parliament ... who appears to be pushing actual fake news.

Louise Mensch -- who used to serve in the UK government as a conservative a while back -- sent the body double theories into hyper-drive on Friday after she posted a would-be, side-by-side comparison that she claimed proved the guy who took that factory tour in Pyongyang last week wasn't actually KJU -- but another person entirely posing as him.

She pointed out the different brow, and other facial features ... but much of her claim was on the teeth themselves. In her photo, they certainly do look different. The problem ... her photo of Kim at the fertilizer plant isn't authentic and is almost certainly a doctored image.

We know this because we downloaded the high-res image itself and zoomed in with our own gear -- and it does NOT show what this woman's pic depicts ... namely, mangled and mashed up teeth that are vastly different from Kim's famous Bugs Bunny-like chompers.

As you can tell in an actually zoomed-in photo, those two long incisors are the same here ... it definitely looks like Kim -- and not whoever that other guy is up there in Louise's comparison.

That said, we still don't know when these photos were actually taken -- and it's hard to take government-run media there at their word that he's a perfect picture of health ... especially after international reports pegged him as either dead, brain dead or on his death bed.

We'll keep an eye out for Kim ... real or otherwise.

Vanessa Bryant was able to open one last letter from Kobe on her birthday ... revealing she waited until her special day to read an unopened envelope from her late husband.

"Yesterday I found an envelope labeled To: The Love of my Life. From, Tu Papi," Vanessa said. I waited to open one more letter on my birthday."

"It gave me something to look forward to today.❤️"

It's Vanessa's first birthday without the Lakers legend and their daughter, Gigi ... whose 14th birthday would have been May 1.

Vanessa's friends were quick to comment messages of support, including Lala Anthony who said:

"That's beautiful V. Today is your day. We celebrate you. We love you. We got your back forever. Happy happy birthday."

Michelle Williams from Destiny's Child added, "Sending you love today!! Happy birthday Vanessa."

Just a few days ago, Bryant asked friends, family and fans to show support for her daughter's birthday last week by wearing Gigi's favorite color, red.

Kobe and Gigi -- along with John, Keri and Alyssa Altobelli, Sarah and Payton Chester, Christina Mauser and Ara Zobayan -- were killed in a helicopter crash on January 26.

In her IG caption, Vanessa added, "Missing the Love of my Life and my sweet little Mamacita- my fellow Taurus. Grateful to wake up to my 3 sweet girls today. Wish we were all together."

May the 4th be with you quickly turned into may the Lethbridge, Alberta police force have mercy on you ... when cops took down a Stormtrooper for including a toy blaster in her cosplay.

The crazy scene went down Monday in the Canadian province where a bar employee -- at the Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina, no less -- was roughed up by cops. Someone reported seeing her with a firearm, and things quickly went south when officers surrounded her.

The video starts out calmly enough, with a man recording the bar employee -- who was out in costume for a company parking lot shindig in honor of 'Star Wars' day -- and joking around with her and asking her to do some Stormtrooper moves. She's half into it ... whatevs.

The crazy part happened moments later, when Lethbridge PD swarmed the scene with guns drawn ... shouting at the Stormtrooper and demanding she drop her weapon. She did, almost immediately.

What happened next is up for debate. Cops say the woman didn't follow their orders by getting down to the ground right away, but she and her boss argue she couldn't because of the damn suit (hard to bend in that thing) -- which she apparently tried relaying to the police on the spot. Eventually, she was able to get down.

The woman claims cops roughed her up as they put cuffs on her, allegedly shoving her face into the ground and making her nose bleed. Once all the commotion settled down, the cops eventually realized there was no threat -- and cut the gal loose without charging her.

She and her co-workers are pissed -- but cops say they were just responding to reports of someone with a firearm and were only doing their jobs.

Joe Exotic is going right to the top in his bid to undo his criminal conviction for attempting to kill his archrival ... he's going right to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to ask for a pardon.

Sources connected to the 'Tiger King' star tell TMZ, Joe's legal team out of Ft. Worth, Texas is preparing a case file that will be sent on to Trump, claiming Joe was wrongly convicted for the murder-for-hire plot against Carole Baskin.

They wrapped a big bus and plan to roll out the big announcement in a few days, but the endgame is clear ... get Joe out of prison.

There are interesting grounds for a pardon. For starters, Joe told everyone who would listen that he wanted Carol dead and even suggested to various people -- some he hardly knew -- that he'd pay as much as $50,000 to have Carol murdered.

Typically, people who seriously hire people to kill people don't tell everyone who would listen that they're marketing a murder plot.

What's more ... the alleged hitman, Allen Glover, was the star witness at Joe's trial, because he's the only one who took money from Joe. Glover says Joe gave him $3k for the hit ... Joe says it was to get Allen the hell out of the zoo.

We interviewed Glover for our TMZ Fox special a few weeks ago, and he made it clear ... this was "payback" and Glover says Joe caused so much misery to people and animals, he wishes he could have done more to hurt him. That's what you call a biased witness, and if the jury heard that they may have discounted his testimony.

And, there's even more ... the prosecutor in the case also charged Joe with killing tigers. His lawyers feel it was done just to dirty Joe up, to make the jury hate him, so they would convict him of ordering the hit on Carol.