A few months ago during UFC 100, my dad was telling me about how he and his dad used to go to movie theatres to watch big boxing fights such as Ali/Frasier and how incredible of an experience it was.  Well, from ESPN.com

Promoters said on Monday that Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s fight against Juan Manuel Marquez on Sept. 19 will be shown live in about 170 theaters nationwide. The bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas will also air on pay-per-view.

At $15 dollars a pop, I'm seriously considering trying this if there are any theatres in my area.  This is something Zuffa needs to look into ASAP.  Could you imagine seeing UFC 100 in on a big screen?  Or expirencing Anderson Silva's Ali-esque anchor punch in an IMAX threatre?  Dana, please make this happen.

Link: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=4419934

UFC 100 will be the long awaited title shot for Thiago Alves, who more than earned it after his 3 round beating of Josh Koscheck along with his TKO's of the legendary Matt Hughes and the once periennal contender Karo Pariysan.  He comes in as arguablly the best striker Georges has ever faced in his career which is a who's who of the welterweight division.  It won't be easy, but I am confident that St. Pierre will come out on top.

If and when this happens, where does this leave the 170 lb. division in the UFC?  No one really stands out as a challenger to the belt in my opinion.  #3 USAT/SBN Jon Fitch doesn't seem like an appealing rematch right now, and neither does #5 Matt Hughes.  #4 Jake Shields doesn't seem like leaving Strikeforce anytime soon.  Then there are lots of guys who will be contenders at some point if get some wins together like #23 Anthony Johnson, #17 Dustin Hazelett, #15 Brock Larson, #9 Carlos Conduit, and #12 Dan Hardy.  All of which have lots of promise, but just haven't taken that next step yet.

This leaves #6 Martin Kampmann and #7 Mike Swick.  Both of these guys have been on a roll, but I think they should get one more win before getting a title shot.  Which brings me back to GSP.  As long as GSP wins in non-controversial fashion, I think a good idea would be giving him a "testing the waters" fight at 185 to see how he would fare.  If they were to do this they would have two choices that jump out at me immediatly.  If they want to play it safe, they could go with #10 Chael Sonnen.  A middle of the pack 185 fighter that doesn't really pose too much of a threat to GSP outside of the wrestling department, and I think GSP would have a very good chance of being able to win that fight.  In the mean time, Swick and Kampmann can fight each other for the next title shot at 170.

Now if they wanted to get riskier, I think another intresting prospect would be to put him in there against #3 Yushin Okami.  Okami has been hovering right at a title shot but has just gotten some bad luck lately.  Coupled with the fact that there is absolutely no buzz around him apart from the hardcore fans, this could be the perfect opportunity for the UFC to put him in a sink or swim situation.  If he can win the fight against St. Pierre, it instantly puts him back in contention and gets him some recognition he's been desperately needing.  If he loses, UFC doesn't lose anything because they have plenty of other options to go with at 185 and it does nothing but raises GSP's stock even higher.  The only problem with this situation is what would a loss to Okami do to GSP's stock, even if it was a weight class higher.

I know a lot of this is pure specualtion and a certain Brazilian could render all of this a moot point, but it's still fun to think about these kinds of things and all of these possibilites shows why MMA is such an exciting sport.

As I'm sure all of you know, the biggest thing this side of the Myspace is Facebook.  Well there is an option where you can become a "fan" of a celebrity by going to their profile and adding yourself as a fan.  Well since I have a borderline obsession with MMA, I figured I would look at fighters profiles and see how many fans they have.  The results kind of suprised me:

Top 5

EDIT:  Kimbo Slice:  160,000+ fans

1. Anderson Silva: 27.616

2. Chuck Liddell: 23,519

3. Georges St. Pierre: 21,059 fans

4. Fedor Emelianenko 20, 218 fans

5. Forrest Griffin: 15,990 fans

Chuck and Forrest don't suprise me since they are kinda poster boys, and GSP is near Bret Hart levels of popularity in some parts of Canada from what I hear from my Mother Canuker friends.  Fedor does kind of surprise me , but you would be suprised how many of my casual MMA fan friends that actually knew about the last affliction but just didn't buy it.  Anderson Silva to be number one by that wide of a margin actually kinda shocked me, especially since guys like Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin, Rampage Jackson, and other profiles didn't even break the top 5 mark.  Mabye he's not as obscure to the general people as we think...

EDIT: Chris Nelson has brought to my attention the oversight of Kimbo Slice.  Well he does have over 160,000 fans on Facebook, but I don't feel he should count since his MMA career was entirely based on his Youtube fame, but nevertheless I shall put him on the list.  Still, for Anderson Silva to be over Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, and Forrest Griffin is interesting nonetheless.

One of the great thing about The Ultimate Fighter is that we get to see future champs and headliners before they realize their full potiental.  And with so many good fighters that have come from the show, it's interesting looking back to wonder how a rematch with each fighter would fair present day as their skills have evolved and progressed. 

For example, on Season 2,Josh Burkman defeated Melvin Guillard via decision.  Would the outcome of this fight be different a second time?

to list some others:

Joe Stevenson defeated Marcus Davis

Travis Lutter defeated Patrick Cote

Jason Von Flue defeated Jorge Gurgel

Rashad Evans defeated Keith Jardine

Diego Sanchez defeated Kenny Florian

Nate Diaz defeated Grey Maynard

Chocolate Cake defeated Gabe Rudiger

Without a doubt the past couple months have been incredible for the UFC.  UFC 91, that featured the superfight between Brock Lesnar and Randy Couture, have rumored to have broken the 1 Million+ buy mark which would put it right there with the record setting Liddell/Ortiz 2.  Even more impressive was that the NYE card has rumored to have surpased that number which is nothing short of amazing.  With Penn/GSP 2 being hyped like there is no tomarrow, you have to think that PPV will do equally as impressive of numbers.

But beyond this fight, not a whole lot seems to be going on as far as buzz producing fights.  With three straight PPV's over a less than three month span, that's $135 out of my pocket in a pretty short amount of time.  Thankfully the February card will be free, but with the all the titles except MW likely on hold until at least May, that doesn't leave many, if any, big name fights over the next few months.  With the big names stretched thin, how will the next PPV's fare?  UFC 96 is headlined by an interesting but not so anticipated of Rampage Jackson vs Keith Jardine, while UFC 97 has Chuck Liddell vs Shogun Rua which could do well but I'm not entirely sure.  While I'm a very big fan of MMA, my disposable income can only go so far and I'm not sure in the state of this economy that these strong numbers can continue for these cards.  Anderson Silva could be thrown in here somewhere, but unfortuantly he has proven to be a zero draw despite all of his talents.

Then again, mabye I'm underestimating the spending ablility of MMA fans and if so, feel free to take my words with a grain of salt.  I'm just wondering if these PPV's are going to be hurting for numbers.

Promoted from the FanPosts by Kid Nate.

It's no secret that Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira is a tough opponent to work a game-plan around. He's never been KO'ed, he's never been submitted, to my knowledge he's never even been mounted either. How do you prepare for a guy like that? Frank Mir has never been known for his striking abilities, so how does Frank hope to topple one of the best Heavyweight fighters of all time?

To me, his best hope is probably the least entertaining one: go for the take down and hold him down. Back in 2003, Ricco Rodriguez was able to take Nogueira down, avoid submissions, and keep top position throughout the 20-minute fight. Granted, Ricco lost that fight, but IMO that was a bullshit decision.  But still, that fight and the Fedor fights give a blueprint on how to beat Nogueira.

Noguiera himself said that he would give the wrestling edge to Mir.  If I was Frank Mir, I would be devoting most of my training camp to working on take downs and cardio to be able to last for five rounds. Some will say that Mir's cardio may not last that long, and they could be right. But Ricco was able to last 20 minutes against him, so is it that much of a stretch to say that Frank can do it for 5 more?

I remember hearing an old phrase that "Minotauro doesn't lose fights, he just runs out of time." That's exactly what Mir needs to do Nogueira. He can't give Nog a chance to get into any type of rhyme. If Mir wants to win this fight, he needs to set the tempo at his pace and be the "ring general", if you will. He can't hang back and play counter-fighter or Nogueria will eat him alive.

To put a local spin on it, Hall of Fame Football coach Joe Gibbs always loved to run ball when he coached the Redskins. His reasoning was that since running the ball eats up more of the clock, that time his offense spends running the clock means less time for the other team to get any offense in. Mir should use the same philosophy against Nogueira.

Mir has excellent Jiu-Jitsu and I am confident he will be able to at least avoid Nog's submissions and maybe even attempt to pass his guard should to opportunity arise. So while it may not make for the most exciting of fights, if Frank Mir has put the hours in the gym he needs to, he at least has a viable game plan to be able to come away the victor in this fight. Whoever this fight goes to though, I expect it to be a long and ugly fight. Unless of course Mir gasses out after the first round which is a possibility.

Considering this website is my home page and I haven't missed a UFC event in years, it's pretty safe to say I'm not a casual fan.  But my dad, a middle class guy pushing 50, has gotten into MMA somewhat in the past year or two.  Of course with all of great fighters in the UFC, it can be difficult task to remember them all, but my dad has a pretty amusing system for himself.  Obviously he knows the big draws like Lesnar, Rampage Couture, Liddell, and Griffin.  But for the other ones, he christens them certain things to keep track of them.  For example:

George St. Pierre:  Jean-Claude/Celion Deon

BJ Penn:  Crazy little Hawaiian guy

Fedor:  Russian cabbage patch doll

Anderson Silva:  Gumby

Wanderlei Silva:  Freddy Krugar [I guess cause he looks scary, this one makes me laugh]

Dan Henderson:  Jay Leno

Keith Jardine:  Goblin guy

Brandon Vera:  local Filipino guy

Huerta:  De la Hoya

Clay Guida:  Gage [cause I have a friend named Gage who looks like his long lost twin]

Cro Cop:  Ivan Drago

Gonzaga:  Gorilla Man

Sherk:  Little Muscular Guy

Rich Franklin:  Jim Carrey [that one's pretty obvious]

Machida:  Karate Kid

It gets to the point where a conversation between us goes something like this:

Me:  Hey dad, did you hear that Penn and GSP are gonna fight each other.

My Dad:  Which ones are they again?

Me:  The little Hawaiian guy and Celine Deon

My Dad:  Damn, that'll be a good fight.