Here’s what some of the respected boxing writers I read had to say about the fight last night.

Mismatch indeed
Dan Rafael says that the fight was indeed a mismatch, but just not the way we originally thought.

What is Oscar’s true legacy?
SC looks at Oscar’s career and where it fell off. It’s a fantastic look, especially the last 9 years of Oscar’s boxing career and should be a must read.

There was no doubt about it.
Bill Dwyre says that Oscar should be at ringside from now on, not inside the ring.

Round by round
Lance Pugmire takes you round by round through the fight and gives you his thoughts after every round.

The Pacquiao era has begun.
Kevin Iole says that Manny Pacquiao is the new big draw in boxing.

Thanks to MMA Junkie for the line-up.

The full card includes:

MAIN CARD
Efrain Escudero vs. Phillipe Nover (”TUF” lightweight finals)
Ryan Bader vs. Vinicius Magalhaes (”TUF” light heavyweights finals)
Wilson Gouveia vs. Jason MacDonald
Kevin Burns vs. Anthony Johnson
Junie Browning vs. Dave Kaplan

PRELIMINARY CARD
Shane Primm vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
Jules Bruchez vs. Eliot Marshall
Kyle Kingsbury vs. Tom Lawlor
Shane Nelson vs. George Roop
John Polakowski vs. Rolando Delgado

Junie Browning vs. Dave Kaplan in the fight between stubborn guys who won’t listen to their coaches. I can’t imagine Frank Mir is going to be anywhere near those guys.

On F4WOnline/Wrestling Observer today, it was posted that the UFC and Jon Fitch have come to a settlement.

Here is a direct quote from the report.

Jon Fitch spoke with Lorenzo Fertitta today and agreed to sign the merchandising contract. He is back in UFC and will fight Jan. 31 against Akihiro Gono as scheduled.

Christian Wellisch has also been reinstated. He had agreed to sign the merchandising contract but was fired as part of the blow-up between Dana White and Zinkin Entertainment, his management company. Right now things are being negotiated regarding the other fighters affected but those aren’t settled yet.

Also on the site, Dave Meltzer said that it wasn’t only the video game issue, but more so an issue between DeWayne Zinkin and Dana White.

The videogame issue was part of it, but these have been problems simmering for many years, long before most of the fighters in question were even in the UFC.

Big news late tonight.

Jon Fitch has been cut
According to Dave Meltzer, Jon Fitch and Christian Wellisch were cut today for not signing UFC’s merchandising agreement. Both fighters were advised not to sign the agreement by Duane Zinkin and Bob Cook of Zinkin Entertainment. Zinkin Entertainment also represents Cain Velasquez and Josh Koschek, who also haven’t signed the agreement according to the article. Mike Swick reportedly signed the agreement and is not in danger.

In smaller news, though Fedor’s people probably want you to think it’s big news.

Fedor welcomes “superfight” with Brock Lesnar
It’s a fight that will never happen as long as UFC is the big game in town, but Fedor’s people have called out Brock Lesnar even though they don’t think that at this point, Lesnar could get out of the first round against Fedor. It’s not really news because the UFC would never agree to M-1’s demands, which include co-promotion between the UFC, M-1, and Affliction according to MMA Junkie.

The bargaining power is completely with the UFC and not with Fedor and M-1. They are the number one MMA company even without Fedor. Fedor’s people seem to be trying to bait the UFC by stating that he’s still the number one pound for pound, even though the UFC claims that Anderson Silva is. At the end of the day, unless Fedor is a free agent and can negotiate with the UFC again, this is a fight that won’t happen.

Though a couple weeks ago, I posted a “finalized” card, here’s another fight that has just been added.

Terry Martin is going to face Scott Smith in what is going to be a slobber knocker.

Smith thinks the fight will be exciting.

This is one of the those match ups where there’s no chance it won’t be a great fight.

Martin was quoted to say that fighting is simply in his blood.

Fighting has always been a part of me. I come from a fightin’ family. You have to be aggressive to make it in MMA. I’m aggressive and agile and I think I have a very entertaining style.

Unless there are more matches being added between now and Friday, that should round out the card. Cactus Jim and I will be there and I’ll have a full report on Friday evening/Saturday morning.

Thanks to Mike Afromowitz for the information.

Brock Lesnar talks with ESPN about his fight with Frank Mir standing to his right.

Dave Meltzer says it’s a changing of the guard.
Meltzer says that when Royce Gracie won the first UFC, it showed that size didn’t matter. Fifteen years later, Brock Lesnar shows that it does.

UFC gives out fight bonuses for UFC 91.
Knockout of the Night — Jeremy Stephens
Submission of the Night – Dustin Hazelett
Fight of the Night — Aaron Riley vs. Jorge Gurgel

Dana says they’re still waiting for the “right” TV deal at the post fight press conference.
He says the network deals are helping put some of these companies out of business because they are bad deals. He won’t let that happen.

Josh Gross wants to see Brock vs. Fedor.
Gross live blogged the main event and said he’d put Fedor as a 3-1 favorite.

This is the biggest UFC show of the year, and if you believe Dana White, the biggest UFC show of all time. I’m not so sure about that, but this is definitely the most interest I’ve had in a big time main event since probably Chuck Liddell vs. Rampage Jackson. And I might be more excited for this one.

Brock Lesnar punches Heath Herring

1. Demian Maia vs. Nate Quarry

It didn’t take long for Maia to get Quarry down. He got his back, put on a body triangle and eventually got the choke. Quarry never had a chance.

Winner: Demian Maia by way of 1st round submission

2. Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Josh Hendricks

Gonzaga just overpowered Hendricks in the clinch and was hitting him with knees. He knocked Hendricks down with a right hand and Hendricks just laid on the ground waiting for it to be stopped.

Winner: Gabriel Gonzaga by way of 1st round TKO.

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The story out of the weigh ins is that Randy Couture came in at 220 pounds, which is lighter than what he originally said he would come in at.

Also, Brock Lesnar was very subdued.

I just visualize my hand being raised. That’s all I have to say. I’ll see Randy Couture and everybody else tomorrow night.

Thanks to MMA Junkie for the quote.

Here were the weigh in results.

Ryan Thomas (170) vs. Matt Brown (171)
Alvin Robinson (155) vs. Mark Bocek (155)
Jeremy Stephens (155) vs. Rafael Dos Anjos (155)
Jorge Gurgel (155) vs. Aaron Riley (156)

Live matches

Dustin Hazelett (170) vs. Tamdan McCrory (170)
Demian Maia (185) vs. Nate Quarry (185)
Gabriel Gonzaga (256) vs. Josh Hendricks (238)
Kenny Florian (156) vs. Joe Stevenson (156)
Randy Couture (220) vs. Brock Lesnar (265)

Weigh in results thanks to Figure Four/Wrestling Observer.

I polled my friends and family who are either very casual UFC fans or die hard fans like myself.

I simply asked them who they thought would win tomorrow’s super fight, and how.

Ten people responded to the poll and out of those ten, seven said Brock would win to only three for Randy.

Out of those seven, four thought Brock would by KO, while three thought he’d win by decision.

As for those who chose Randy, two thought he’d win the fight by submission in the second round, while one saw him winning a decision.

It definitely seems that the casual fans see Brock as a monster and Randy as an aging legend and that’s very true and also how the UFC is trying to position this fight. But it was interesting to me that of the three people who thought Randy was going to win, two thought that he’d submit Lesnar and very early. I’d be very surprised if Brock put himself in that position early in the fight. If Randy wins by submission, I think it’d be much later in the fight.

I wrote a preview yesterday where the writers of this blog and two guests made predictions and out of the six of us, four thought Randy would win. And that’s very different from the poll of my friends and family.

You can read the preview here.

I wrote a piece on Hard For The Yard today about the upcoming UFC Heavyweight Tournament which starts this Saturday with the Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture fight. The second match up is scheduled to be Antonio Rodrigo Nogueria vs. Frank Mir at UFC 92 with the winners of each match unifying the UFC heavyweight title.

Check it out on Hard For The Yard.