News and notes from around the MMA world …

- Dana White will be on CNBC tonight.

- Todd Martin looks at the making of Matt Hughes vs. GSP III.

- Dave Meltzer also talks about how Dana White found his replacement for Matt Serra.

- Paulo Filho says no to Chuck Liddell.

- Who is Josh Koscheck scheduled to fight next?

- Clay Guida talks about his scheduled fight against Roger Huerta at The Ultimate Fighter Finale.

Talking Points

After reading Todd Martin’s article about the Matt Hughes/GSP grudge match, I have to agree with a lot of what he said. If they pushed the match to January, it would definitely give you two good buy rates, rather than only one.

But there are also a few reasons why I think the UFC went the way they went.

In April, they are targeting Montreal as a site for a show. If that’s where they are going, Georges St. Pierre has to be there. If he fights Matt Hughes next month and doesn’t get injured, he can fight on the April show. If you push his next fight to January, it would be harder to get him on that show. If Matt Serra is ready by then, and GSP beats Hughes, that would be a natural rematch for Montreal. I have no idea if they are thinking of going that way, but it makes sense.

Also, Dana White has stated in the past that this show was going to do huge numbers. With Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva on top, it will do good numbers, but not as good as it would’ve had he beat Keith Jardine. Or even as good as if it happened last year like they wanted it to. With that being the case, White might’ve wanted to make sure he had a second hot match to make up for the fact that Liddell and Silva doesn’t have the heat it was supposed to have. And really, he did that some time back, by booking Hughes and Serra for the match anyway.

Lastly, if you take out Hughes and GSP, it’s a one match show. Sokoudjou makes his debut fighting Lyoto Machida, but to a US audience who doesn’t know Sokoudjou, it’s nothing more than just a match. And after that, the undercard is weak for a non-hardcore audience.

If you want to contact me (I’d love to hear feedback), click here.

Thanks for reading,

Garrett M. Gonzales
MMA.Consumerhelpweb.com

Technorati Profile

Labels: Chuck Liddell, Clay Guida, Dana White, Dave Meltzer, Georges St. Pierre, Josh Koscheck, Matt Hamill, Matt Serra, Paulo Filho, Roger Huerta, ufc 79, Wanderlei Silva

Trackback URI | Comments RSS