Dana White:
- It was 3 million dollar gate and the attendance was 15,575.
- Joe Lauzon won the submission of the night.
- Nate Diaz vs. Marcus Davis was fight of the night.
- All three guys earned $60,000 bonuses.
- They hired Mark Fischer as the executive vice president of UFC Asia.

Mark Fischer:
- Helped the NBA expand in China. (I think someone named Yao Ming also helped out with that.)
- Thinks the sports that strived for excellence are the sports that exceeded in Asia.
- Is looking at Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

White:
- Not after boxing and not trying to attack boxing. He was nervous. Toney lasted longer than he thought he would. James Toney picked a fight and he got one.
- Toney is a boxer and that’s what he does. It’s probably his last UFC fight.
- He thought James took it seriously, but he’s not the most fit boxer in the world.

Joe Lauzon:
- He sold 600 tickets and he had a lot of people in the building rooting for him.

White:
- Thought that the Marcus Davis stoppage was late and he didn’t like it.

Randy Couture:
- The fight played out exactly like he thought. Didn’t want to try to stand up with James. Has been working on the low shot all camp and had to pull it out from his college days.

Gray Maynard:
- Frankie did a great job and he’s the champ. But he wants the belt. Frankie’s changed in the 3 years since they fought.
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I’ll be posting predictions from folks who are in the house watching the fight. Those of us on the site gave our predictions yesterday, which you can read.

Predictions:

Dave – Diaz by 2nd round submission (guillotine)
Daniel – Diaz by 3rd round submission
Mike L. – Diaz by 2nd round TKO
Mike S. – Diaz by 3rd round submission (triangle)
GG – Diaz by 3rd round submission

1. Marcus Davis vs. Nate Diaz

Diaz looks awful in exchanges, but with his boxing style, he often does. Davis is landing his left hand at will, yet Davis is the one who has the big cut, which came from when he turned Diaz around and had him up against the fence. Davis landed the bigger shots, but Diaz landed more shots. Davis’ face looked heavily swollen at the end of the round. I’d give the round slightly to Diaz. The cut is nasty.

Davis’ eye is messed up. They may stop it after this round. Diaz is just keeping both hands right in Davis’ face. A couple times in the round, he went in for a shot, and once, Davis ended up on top, but Diaz flipped him over quickly. Davis is taking a beating. I’m not sure how he can see the punches coming.

Diaz may have broken Davis’ orbital bone. He has a half golf ball on his eye now. Diaz is punishing him. It went to the ground and Diaz put him to sleep with a guillotine. That was pretty impressive.

Winner: Nate Diaz by way of 3rd round submission

Predictions:

Dave – Maynard by decision
Daniel – Florian by decision
Mike L. – Florian by decision
Mike S. – Florian by decision
GG – Florian by 3rd round TKO

2. Gray Maynard vs. Kenny Florian

It was a nothing round for the most part. Florian caught Maynard with a short right, but Maynard then finally got his takedown and threw some blows from the top. Maynard probably steals the round with the takedown.
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This is the post only for the prelims on Spike. I’ll post the live PPV in a separate post.

There are two scheduled fights for this and if they can fit in another, I’m sure they will.

The first fight is Andre Winner vs. Nik Lentz.

1. Andre Winner vs. Nik Lentz

Lentz spent the entire round trying to take Winner down. Winner’s takedown defense was very good. When they were in the clinch, Winner was able to catch him with short strikes, including a good knee. Winner’s round.

That was Lentz’s round. It was a similar round in that he kept Winner up against the cage, but he was able to close the gap much better. Winner caught him with a couple short shots again, but for the most part Lentz pushed him against the cage and handled him.

If The Korean Zombie vs. Leonard Garcia helped sell some WEC PPVs, this fight is the opposite. Well, unfortunately for the audience, Lentz’s style is going to win this fight. He took Winner down and kept on his back and all Winner did was cover up. This is going to win Worst Fight Of The Year for sure.

Winner: Nik Lentz by unanimous decision

The scores were 30-27, 29-28, and 30-27.

2. Gabe Ruediger vs. Joe Lauzon

That was a tooling. Lauzon immediately took him down, worked for his back and got his back. Rather than work for the choke, he pounded him with uppercuts. Lauzon got an armbar and Ruedigar tapped. It wasn’t even that tight. Gabe wanted to get out of there quickly. Huge difference fighting for the Palace Championships and fighting Joe Lauzon.

Winner: Joe Lauzon by 1st round submission

3. John Salter vs. Dan Miller
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Per Bryan Alvarez from F4WOnline/Wrestling Observer:

Amicar Alves 171
Mike Pierce 171

Nick Osipczak 171
Greg Soto 170

John Salter 185
Dan Miller 185

Andre Winner 154
Nik Lentz 155

Gabe Ruediger 155
Joe Lauzon 156

Mario Miranda 185
Demian Maia 184

Nate Diaz 171
Marcus Davis 170

Gray Maynard 156
Kenny Florian 156

James Toney 237
Randy Couture 220

BJ Penn 154
Frankie Edgar 154

There didn’t seem to be any buzz coming out of the weigh-ins. Toney is still way too heavy in my mind, but at this point, it probably wouldn’t matter. It’s skill set and “know how” that’s going to win that fight, not who’s the most in-shape. And you really can’t out in-shape Randy Couture. Sounds like BJ Penn may have been seen as the biggest star by the crowd.

Update:

Ariel Helwani’s weigh-in video is up.

This is an oddly balanced show, but one that should be very successful. There are fights that should appease the appetites of the hardcore UFC fanbase such as the actual main event between BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar. There are also fights like Gray Maynard vs. Kenny Florian and Nate Diaz vs. Marcus Davis that should be a great match-ups style-wise.

And then there’s the fight that’s drawing the casual audience. As you will see below, James Toney vs. Randy Couture is a polarizing battle. Some absolutely hate it. Some, like myself, are fine with it. But it is what it is. Let’s get to it.

The FGB crew (with new writer Don), along with Stevie J from Angry Marks, friend of FGB JP, and Ryan Frederick, ryanjfrederick on Twitter and member of the F4W Board~!, are here with predictions for the top two fights on the card.

James Toney vs. Randy Couture

Duan: Couture by 1st round submission
Alan: Couture by 1st round submission
Don: Couture by 1st round submission
Stevie J: Couture by 1st round TKO
JP: Couture by 1st round TKO
Ryan: Couture by 1st round TKO
Jim: Couture by 1st round submission
GG: Couture by 1st round TKO

Duan says:

I have stayed very quiet on this one, and this preview contains all the words I’m prepared to waste on this fiasco. I don’t care how news worthy the fight turns out to be, Toney can win by overhead bicycle kick for all I care, I will still have nothing further to add. I’m sick of hearing about this being an interesting match up of styles. Is it 2001 again? I thought we had moved on from this sort of nonsense.

Let’s get something straight, Randy Couture is not a top mixed martial artists any more. He’s prolonged his career with some clever match making, but at this point he’s at best a mid level guy. James Toney is a decade, several weight classes, and an entirely different sport past his best. The combined age of the combatants in this fight falls just one year short of ninety. It’s beyond a joke; if you are buying this PPV for this fight, please save your money instead.

If Toney does connect clean with the old man in 4oz gloves, it’s not going to be a pretty sight, but he has all of about 5 seconds to do that. Let’s just dispel this right now, there is no way in hell Toney shrugs off even a single take down attempt. This is an Olympic calibre wrestler against a complete novice. Forget about it. His best chance in this fight is to create distance and try pick Couture off on the way in. The problem is Toney doesn’t actually move. He fights in range, and that means he’s close enough to be taken down. He has to knock Couture out with the first punch thrown or else he’s on the mat, and will either submit to strikes or a submission within the first minute. And I can’t imagine someone as strategically smart as Couture will be foolish enough to get caught.

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In his video blog, Dana chats with Mike Tyson about James Toney and Randy Couture. Don’t mind the camera white washing him because of the sun light behind him.

And please tell me that Dana White is pretending that he doesn’t know King Mo.