I know I’m a week late to the party here, but I just haven’t gotten the chance to check it out until now.

Margarito says that beating Pacquiao will show that he didn’t know that he had anything in his gloves. Well, maybe to the general public. Not to people who follow this stuff.

Manny Pacquiao is excused from his congressional meetings while he trains, but he has a group that communicates with him, even in the middle of training if they have to. Freddie Roach thinks that they’ll lose him soon. Manny says boxing is still his passion.

Margarito says again that he didn’t know what was in his hand wrappings. Naazim Richardson, Mosley’s trainer who caught the hardened hand wrap, said there was a lot of noise around the hand wrap and that could’ve been the fake out. He felt the hardness in the hands and then the gauze fell out.

Margarito’s trainer said that Margarito was questioning him the entire time because he didn’t know what was in his hands. Margarito says that because he never got to punch with the wrap, he didn’t feel it. If he would’ve been able to hit, he would’ve felt it.

Roach and Pacquiao says of course he knew.

Michael Koncz says that the reason they picked Margarito is because it was the best money fight. Manny says they have to give him a chance to come back and redeem his mistake.

Koncz says that they agreed to the drug testing with Floyd Mayweather as long as it wasn’t seven days before the fight. Well, that’s not everything.

Manny says it’s his role to fight the bigger guy. Roach says that Pacquiao said he wanted Margarito right after the fight with Oscar De La Hoya.

Margarito lost a ton of weight against Mosley to make weight, but he says he won’t make the same mistake against Pacquiao. He’s already down to 158 weeks before.

Roach is popular in the Philippines, even in the malls as teenage girls squeal and ask to get their picture taken with him.

Roach thinks that Pacquiao’s congressional duties are causing him to lose focus and his training is off.

Margarito goes through a drill where he gets slapped on his abs with a stick for nearly three minutes long. Insane.

I think the show does a really good job of showing how conflicted Pacquiao may be with all his duties. Think Rocky during Rocky III. They also show Margarito as someone who swears to not be guilty, but is definitely someone who paid a price. I’m not sure that type of Margarito sells this fight though. If Margarito decided to play the heel, I think there’d be way more interest in Pacquiao trying to conquer a cheater and bully.

When Dana White announced that the UFC and WEC would be one organization, I immediately sought out my FGB crew for their reaction to the news.

Here are our thoughts about the WEC and UFC being one:

Alan:

I suppose this was something that was always going to happen sooner or later. With that in mind, I find it hard to be too suprised or upset. Personally, I will really miss the WEC shows and their unique feel but I think for the fighters themselves (particularly the bigger WEC names) this is very good as they will get more exposure and have the opportunity to cash some more handsome cheques.

I LOVE that the Henderson/Pettis winner gets a title shot against the Edgar/Maynard winner, and I think that’s a great way to kickstart the merger. Don’t write off ‘ol Benson coming out of that as undisputed champion either. I think he’s got a better chance than most may peg him for. Another positive is that this may really freshen up the UFC shows, which is much needed in my opinion. New names to the cards, faster paced fights – it should be cool.

Finally, it sounds like all the WEC staff are being retained which is good news. Hopefully they let that WEC play by play guy (who’s name I will NEVER remember) call a few smaller shows as he’s actually very very good.

Duan:

Personally, I’m disappointed to see WEC go. The overexposure of UFC has already become quite smothering. Historically, it has always been difficult to maintain two separate brand identities under one banner. I really admired how Zuffa kept a sense of authenticity to WEC. It never felt like UFC lite. The WEC shows on Versus were a breath of fresh air, and for my money at least, they on average blew UFC PPV’s away.

It’s a business at the end of the day and I guess it just no longer makes financial sense for WEC to run shows. The UFC name is the biggest single draw in MMA. In truth, an extra four or five substandard UFC cards will likely net Zuffa five times what WEC brought in in a full year. It’s a shame, but that’s the sad reality of the situation.

GG:

I know that most of the WEC stars will heavily benefit from being on UFC shows. Their pay will increase as will their marketability. It was a near crime that Urijah Faber and Jose Aldo weren’t drawing huge buy rates for the UFC and netting several hundred thousand dollars rather than tens of thousands of dollars.

My worry is that many of the middle of the road 155ers will get swallowed by the UFC and be looking for jobs. Heck, unlike Alan, I’m not sure if Ben Henderson is a top 7 lightweight in the UFC.

But how fresh is it going to be to see some of these guys on PPV, rather than plodding former TUF fighters? In fact, I hope they quickly dump the current TUF format of having to find 185 and 170 guys who are more scrubs than stars, and replace them with 135 and 145 guys. There are stars in that division out there to be found. Get Urijah Faber and Miguel Torres as coaches on that show soon.

Dana White’s big announcement was that the WEC brand would be no more.

From Dave Meltzer via Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline:

WEC is merging with UFC, eliminating the WEC brand after the 12/16 show. They are adding the bantamweight and featherweight titles to the UFC.

This means a new deal with Versus, four UFC fights in 2011.

Ariel Helwani has an interview up with Dana White which confirms everything.

The last preliminary fight announced by GSP is Dane Sayer vs. Sako Chivitchian, who they call “Psycho”.

GSP says that he wanted Dane to fight last so that he could be a better version of himself with all of the training.

Spencer Paige broke his hand and had to fix it. He’s in a cast for three months and he’s out of the running for the wild card.

Jeff Lentz says he wants the wild card, but his teammates say he’s not ready as he’s drinking a lot.

GSP says he knows the odds aren’t in their favor, but he thinks Dane can surprise some folks.

Koscheck messes with Brad Tate who is the medic for GSP’s team. He says Koscheck wants to mess with him because he knows he can’t get into GSP’s head.

The coaches’ challenge has to do with baseball and GSP says he never played before. It’s a sort of home run derby.

Koscheck says he hasn’t played since he was about thirteen. He has a short and compact swing. GSP is strong, but he pops the ball up. Koscheck even put on off the wall. Koscheck won the $10,000 for himself and $1,500 for each member on his team pretty easily.

Dane Sayers vs. Sako Chivitchian

The first round was pretty boring. Psycho got a takedown early in the round, but didn’t do much. Sayers kind of wanted to stay out of dodge. He seemed to be very wary of Psycho’s judo background and just kept his distance.

The second round was much of the same. Psycho got a takedown and held him down while landing some shots. Sayers wasn’t really strong enough to do much, even when they were clinched up against the fence.

Winner: Sako Chivitchian by way of unanimous decision

People were happy with how Dane fought. It was expected that he was going to get thrashed.

The wild card will be Aaron Wilkinson vs. Marc Stevens. If you wonder why it was both Koscheck’s guys, there was only two guys from GSP’s team to choose from since they always won.