MMA: UFC 91 Preview

Tonight is the biggest UFC fight in....well....EVER!!!

Tonight is the UFC return of Heavyweight Champion Randy "The Natural" Couture as he defends his title against monster MMA newcomer Brock Lesner.

Brock comes into this fight with just a 2-1 career record. His last fight came on August 9th when he dominated Heath Herring for 3 rounds on his way to the unanimous decision. The highlight of the match was when Brock started the fight with a punch to the face which caused Herring to do a backwards somersault. It was AWESOME! At the start of this match Brock will have close to a 50 pound weight advantage on the champion.

Randy Couture is 45 years old and his last fight was against a scared Gabriel Gonzaga on August 25, 2007. It has been absolutely ridiculous that Couture has fought at this high of a level as long as he has, and sooner or later his luck will run out. I hope that happens tonight.

If I was booking this match I would build up Brock Lesner as the super awesome unstoppable babyface and future of the UFC Heavyweight division. Randy Couture is the obvious heel, the man who "retired" while UFC Heavyweight Champion because he wanted to go elsewhere(ie-Affliction) to fight Fedor. He sued the UFC to get out of his contract while the UFC filed a countersuit for breach of contract. THEN Couture appeared and was interviewed on the first Affliction pay-per-view. It was only after he made that stupid mistake that he renegotiated a new contract with the UFC at which point this fight was announced. I would paint Couture as a UFC turncoat. As a man who doesn't care about the company while he still holds the belt. I would build him up so that the fans will hate him and boo him relentlessly. All great fighters have to be able to work as a babyface as well as a heel.

But alas, Brock Lesner is a natural heel, so despite me wanting to see Randy Couture get knocked out in 30 seconds the fans will be chanting, "Randy, Randy!" Whatever.
Regardless of the winner this should be a great fight, and probably the best heavyweight fight that we have seen in a long time.

The most intriguing fight on the undercard is the lightweight matchup between Ultimate Fighter alums Kenny "Ken Flo" Florian and Joe "Daddy" Stephenson. Ken Flo has won 5 straight fights including his August fight where he completely shut down Roger Huerta in dominating fashion.
I hate Joe "Daddy" Stevenson. I hope that Ken Flo chokes him out in 30 seconds.

Other fights on the undercard:

-Nate Quarry vs Demian Maia
-Gabriel Gonzaga vs Josh Hendricks in a fight between two heavyweights that no one wants to see fight.
and Dustin Hazelett vs Tamden McCrory in a fight that is only on the main card because The Ultimate Fighter winner Amir Sadollah had to pull out of his fight due to an infection on his leg. The best thing that I can say about Hazelett is that he was knocked out in amazing fashion when he lost to Josh Koscheck.

MMA: Randy Couture Returns to UFC

Randy Couture is the current UFC World Heavyweight Champion. Last August he destroyed Gabriel Gonzaga, and then two months later he announced that he was resigning as UFC champion. This happened right after the negotiations between the UFC and heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, which was a fight that Couture had publicly stated he wanted.

Then it came out that Couture was not actually retiring, and he felt his pay level was a sign of disrespect.

In February Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira beat Tim Sylvia in a match for the UFC Interim Heavyweight title. Couture was never stripped, because UFC contracts have an automatic roll over if you are a champion. Your contract won't expire until you lose the belt. Randy Couture being the Heavyweight Champion helped the UFC's legal standing.

He sued to be released from his contract, the UFC counter sued, and then Couture appeared on the Affliction PPV in July. The court date for his contractual dispute was schedule for September/October, and I guess Couture realized that he had no legal standing.

A week ago www.f4wonline.com had reported that Couture was in negotiations for a new 3 fight deal with the UFC. Yesterday the UFC held a press conference where they announced the new contract for the 45 year old Couture.

His first fight back will be at UFC 91 on November 15th against Brock Lesner. It will be a 5 round title fight in Las Vegas. Then winner of the Couture-Lesner fight will face the winner of December's Interim Heavyweight title fight between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank Mir sometime next Spring.

UFC President Dana White, Randy Couture, and Brock Lesner were all present for yesterday's press conference. Many of the questions were about a possible Couture-Fedor fight, which is a fight that would make a ton of money. Dana White said that they were interested in that fight, but Fedor is under contract with Affliction and he is not interested in tampering. The Fedor questions continued, and Brock Lesner had finally heard enough and he responded with the highlight of the press conference:

"Who give a shit about Fedor? I'm sick of hearing about fucking Fedor. He's not with the company, he might not ever be with the company, so who gives a shit?"

This was awesome! If Fedor ever does sign a deal with the UFC then the pre match hype videos will be filled with that quote, and everyone will want to see that fight. Brock Lesner is a former WWE professional wrestling champion, and he knows how to sell a fight.

Also in the press conference Dana White says that the Couture-Lesner fight will top 1 million buys. The UFC has not yet reached the 1 million buys mark, so it's difficult to estimate that high but this is definitely going to be a huge fight.

The next few months of UFC action is going to be very exciting, and the company is about to make a ridiculous amount of money over the next quarter. Affliction on the other hand? Well, Dana White said in the press conference that he would be shocked to see Affliction in business come January, and I can't say that I disagree with him.

MMA: UFC 87 Preview

Tomorrow, August 9, is the (on paper) best MMA pay per view of the year so far.
It is rare that a show has three fights as exciting as the top three featured tomorrow night.

In the main event we have Georges St. Pierre defends his Welterweight Championship against Jon Fitch. Fitch is 8-0 in the UFC and he has won his last 15 professional fights. He has an impressive knockout victory over Thiago Alves in that time.

Georges St. Pierre(GSP) absolutely destroyed Matt Serra in his last fight to reclaim the welterweight title that he had lost to Serra. GSP is one of the best all around fighters in the world, and he never has a boring fight. Jon Fitch is a good fighter, but he has no chance. GSP will be victorious tomorrow. GSP via 2nd round knockout.

The semi-main event is a lightweight battle between The Ultimate Fighter Season 1 alum Kenny Florian and Roger "El Matador" Huerta. Ken Flo has won 4 straight fights since he lost a 5 round decision against Sean Sherk for the vacant lightweight title. He knocked out Joe Lauzon on April 2 which earned fight of the night honors.

Huerta is 6-0 in the UFC and he has a ridiculous professional record of 25-1-1(his only loss came in a tournament where he was fighting in his third bout of the day). He hasn't fought since last December when he choked out Clay Guida in what was one of the best fights of 2007.

Both of these guys have excellent conditioning and they will surely have a very exciting fight. Roger Huerta will win by decision.

The other match to be very excited about tomorrow is a battle of heavyweights as fromer WWE World Champion and NCAA wrestling champion Brock Lesner takes on Heath Herring.

This is Brock's second UFC fight and it's in front of his home crowd in Minnesota. He made his UFC debut in February against former UFC Champion Frank Mir. Lesner was absolutely destroying Mir before the ref docked him a point for a punch to the back of the head and stood them back up. Brock pretty much immediately took Mir down again, but he left his ankle exposed for too long and Mir was able to submit him.

Brock makes $250,000 per fight before any bonuses. If he loses tonight he could be in danger of being cut. That's a lot of guaranteed money for someone who is not a headliner.

Herring is coming off a March split decision victory over Cheick Kongo. Herring immediately knocked Kongo down with a big punch, and Kongo was just lost from that point on. Herring is a good fighter, and this is a good challenge for Brock Lesner, but Brock is just so gigantic that I find it hard to believe that Herring will come out of this one victorious.

Heath Herring has a cool Undertaker like entrance.

This is going to be an amazing show! If you like MMA at all, then get your ass to a bar that is showing this tomorrow. 10pm EST, 7pm PST.