The UFC ended 2008 and entered 2009 with a ton of hot fights on the horizon. The UFC really hit its stride in the spring and summer featuring one super fight after another. Unfortunately, injuries and illness bit the UFC hard and the biggest company in MMA is struggling to close out the year. However, the UFC has announced several big fights and returns for early 2010 over the last few weeks that should get all MMA fans excited for 2010.

Lost in all of the news over the last several weeks had been the UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre. Mysterious injuries and illnesses to other UFC champions have put St. Pierre in the back of the minds of most fans. Finally, it looks like the UFC has a return date in mind for GSP. FanHouse.com is reporting that GSP will defend the UFC middleweight title against Dan Hardy at UFC 111 in March 2010.

It seems like it was just yesterday that GSP was walking into the octagon to fight Thiago Alves at UFC 100. The fight was yet another dominant performance by arguably the most underrated MMA fighter of the decade. Yet, the memorable moment of the fight came between rounds. In between rounds, GSP told his corner that he thought he tore his groin. He was right, yet he continued the fight and continued to dominate Alves with a torn groin. The guy is a warrior and I am very excited for his return to the octagon.

Also this past week, UFC 110 got a huge boost. Antonio Rodridgo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez is back on after being canceled due to an illness to Nogueira. MMAJunkie.com is reporting that these two heavyweights will meet at UFC 110 in Australia to determine the top contender to the Lesnar vs. Carwin winner. Nogueira is a legend from the Pride FC era, and has been hampered by staph infections during his tenure in the UFC. Nogueira rebounded from a bad loss to Frank Mir with an impressive win over Randy Couture back in August and looked back to form. MMA fans are excited to see more of the Minotauro who dominated Pride FC for several years.

I think the bigger news from this report is what isn’t being said. Nobody is reporting that this would be a match for the UFC heavyweight title. What this tells me is that Brock Lesnar is expected to make a full recovery. By using GSP as an example, Dana White let GSP sit out 10 months and did not strip him of the UFC welterweight title. I am going to assume that Dana White would show Brock Lesnar the same courtesy. Unless something is said over the next few weeks, I am going to hope for the better and assume that Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin will be back on in either March or April depending upon his recovery.

Wanderlei Silva will make his long awaited return to the octagon in 2010. Silva will meet polarizing UFC star, Michael Bisping at UFC 110 in Australia. It is amazing as to how many international fights Bisping gets isn’t it? Combined with Nogueira-Velasquez, this is shaping up to be the first super-show of 2010. While Silva has had a disappointing record since entering the UFC, his fights have been anything but disappointing. Bisping will need this win to earn back a lot of the credibility that he lost after being embarrassed by Dan Henderson at UFC 100.

The UFC didn’t want to waste any time with a Lyoto Machida-Shogun Rua rematch. Dana White tried to line it up for New Year’s weekend. Unfortunately, an injury to Machida required surgery and the fight has been put on hold. The good news is that all reports indicate that Machida will be ready to fight sometime in the first quarter of 2010. As of this writing, this will be the first mega super-fight I expect that will come out of the UFC in 2010. While it has taken years to see some rematches in the UFC, it is nice to know that this one is still coming in the near future.

Finally, a huge story that got buried in the Ortiz-Griffin fallout is the impending return of former UFC champion, Rampage Jackson. Jackson agreed to fight Rashad Evans in December as part of the deal for participating in The Ultimate Fighter. Rampage crushed those plans when he abruptly announced his retirement from MMA and his new career in the movies. While most journalists speculated that Jackson would come back, it was looking less likely the more he blogged and talked trash on the UFC and Dana White. Well, Dana White dropped an interesting tidbit at a UFC 106 press conference.

White talked a bit about an upcoming bout between current TUF coach Rashad Evans and Thiago Alves in January. “Rashad has a fight with Thiago Silva in January,” White said. “If Rashad is able to get out that with a win he’ll fight Rampage next.” So apparently, Dana White is expecting Rampage Jackson to return. I have no idea why Evans would need to beat Alves to get the match, and quite frankly I don’t think he will have to when it’s all said and done. The idea of finally getting that Rampage-Rashad grudge match already has me excited. Regardless of what you think of Rampage as a coach on TUF, he has done a better job of anyone other than Ken Shamrock of selling his fight on the show. The fight has the potential to shatter records previously set at UFC 100.

So, as we wind down 2009, the UFC won’t be going out with the usual year-end bangs that fans have been used to watching. But the good news is that we won’t have to wait long to see the UFC start churning out some big fights and some big stars. It looks like things will start to come full circle in the UFC starting in mid-February. The impending returns of GSP, Minotauro, Rampage Jackson, Wanderlei Silva, and possibly Brock Lesnar is enough to make any MMA fan forget about the slow close to 2009 for the UFC.

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I am a Tito Ortiz fan, but this is one unintentionally funny video from the UFC 106 post-press conference. Ortiz lost a split decision earlier that night to Forrest Griffin. Ortiz begins to address the media and says he will make no excuses. Yet, Ortiz goes on for the next seven minutes to make a multitude of excuses. Quite honestly, I don’t think Tito did himself any favors with the UFC community by rolling off excuses for his loss.

Over the next seven minutes, while Tito says he won’t make excuses he claims…

- He may have come back too soon.
- He fought the fifth best fighter in the world on his first fight back.
- He was only able to spar once. (Again, explain the black eye)
- He was only able to wrestle once in training.
- He has a broken neck.
- He has a cracked vertabrae.
- He just had back surgery one year ago.
- “I didn’t know that you could get that many points off a sweep.”
- He was less than 100%.

So there you have it, no excuses but plenty of excuses from The Huntingdon Beach Bad Boy. Tito then goes on some weird rant towards the end mentioning numerous times that his career is in Dana’s hands. Dana gives a look towards the end of the press conference that is just priceless.

If there is any news here, Tito does mention that he and Dana talked about him doing the Ultimate Fighter again. I suggested the same thing when I originally wrote about Tito’s return to the UFC. There are already rumblings about a Tito vs. Forrest TUF in the near future with a third fight in the finale. I love the idea and would love to see the dynamic between the two as coaches on the show.

I will agree with Tito on one thing. I do agree that he and Forrest should have gotten Fight of the Night over Johnson-Koshcheck. Other than a 30 second flurry of punches, Johnson-Koshcheck was nothing special. While Griffin-Ortiz had a boring third round, rounds one and two were much more exciting than anything else on UFC 106.

I think Tito was a great fighter and I still think he is very good. He lost, but he wasn’t knocked out or submitted. I just don’t see him beating any elite fighters in the near or distant future.

Thanks to MMANews.com for the tip!

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The UFC is walking a fine line right now. Several recent UFC fights have gone the distance. Unfortunately for the UFC and its fans, the judges have picked some questionable winners. In the last few weeks three big UFC fights were marred by bad decisions. Could the one of the biggest sports in the world be in danger of losing its fanbase?

One of the biggest reasons in the decline in boxing over the last two decades is integrity. Fans started to question the integrity of the sport after some very questionable decisions. Whether a boxing or UFC promoter tells you one way or the other, there is always a winner that is better for business. Fans can get past one or two bad decisions, but any more and fans will start raising eyebrows and spending their money and their time elsewhere.

I was not as outraged as most when it came to the Lyoto Machida-Shogun Rua decision. Personally, I think people were swayed a bit too much by Joe Rogan who declared Rua the winner of every exchange. The real alarms started ringing for me after the fight when one of the judges explained his decision. I have watched the UFC since UFC 1 and after listening to this judge, I understand the criteria for judging less than I did before the fight. The problem here isn’t the judging, but it is the criteria that these judges are using to determine the winners.

UFC judge Cecil People said the following after the Rua-Machida fight. “Mauricio Rua was being aggressive but it wasn’t effective aggressiveness which is what we as the judges look for when scoring a fight. The way I saw it, Lyoto was landing the more cleaner and damaging strikes throughout the fight – if you take a look at the judging criteria clean strikes are valued more-so than the quantity of strikes landed. Although Rua threw a lot of low kicks they were not as damaging as Lyotos diverse attack in the earlier rounds which is why I scored the first three rounds for Machida. You have to keep in mind we always the favour the fighter who is trying to finish the fight, and leg kicks certainly don’t do that.” – Cagepotato.com.

That is just insane! If leg kicks aren’t considered “effective strikes,” than what exactly is the definition of an effective strike in the mind of a UFC judge? All you need to do is look at the bruising of a fighter’s leg that has been on the receiving end of leg kicks to see how effective the strikes are. Heck, Forrest Griffin destroyed Rampage Jackson with nothing but leg kicks and got a decision win. People’s explanation of his scoring makes absolutely no sense and that is not good for fans who pay $50 to watch a UFC event.

This ugly story reared its ugly head again last week on The Ultimate Fighter. Roy Nelson won a two-round decision to advance over Justin Wren. While I do think that Roy Nelson won the second-round, I can’t begin to fathom how he won the first one. Wren peppered Nelson with shots, did more damage, and pushed the fight in the first round. If there was any fight that needed a third round on this show it was this one. Roy Nelson won and UFC fans are really starting to hate him. The bad news here is that millions of fans tuned in to see this and may likely not tune in for the rest of the season.

The decision in the Saturday night between Randy Couture and Brandon Vera may be the worst decision yet. An objective MMA observer could make a case for both Lyoto Machida and Roy Nelson in their fights. However, I can’t comprehend how even the biggest Randy Couture fan could defend that decision. Randy Couture winning the fight is a joke in itself, but getting a unanimous decision win is just insanity! Not only was Brandon Vera robbed, but the fight probably should have been stopped in the second round. I certainly don’t believe that the UFC is fixed, but Couture’s win in England will certainly boost the argument of the MMA conspiracy theorists.

So in the last month alone, the UFC has had their last three high-profile matches end on questionable judging. There is only so much good will that the UFC will have until their fans start to feel like they are getting ripped off. Thanks to boxing, MMA will always have their skeptics. I have heard more and more from people who think they “told me so” and point to these decisions as to why they think the UFC is worked. I don’t believe it is worked, but I can see where a skeptic would start to get that idea. What happens when your loyal fan base gets tired of this? They look elsewhere for entertainment, just like they did with boxing over the last 20-years.

I don’t know what you do if you are the UFC? Hell, at this point you would be better off picking a UFC or MMA fan to judge fights. Do you come up with an entirely different point system? I really don’t know what you can do without the interpretation that they are trying to influence their fights. Dana White loves to continually kick boxing and question their credibility in interviews. Dana White is on the verge of having the same problem if he doesn’t come up with some kind of a solution. All it will take is for one or two more UFC fights to end with a bad decision for the bottom to fall out. It doesn’t matter whether it is Anderson Silva vs. Lyoto Machida or Brock vs. Fedor, if the fans question the integrity of the shows, they will stop paying to see them. It is really that simple.

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Not many people suffered more from Rampage Jackson’s retirement and Dana White’s big mouth more than Rashad Evans. Evans will miss out on a boatload of money and a chance at biggest UFC fight of the year. Nobody benefits more than Thiago Silva. Silva will now step in and fight Evans at UFC 108.

This is a huge comedown for Evans. In just three The Ultimate Fighter episodes alone, Evans vs. Rampage is the most anticipated fight in UFC. The natural tension between the coaches has created the ultimate TUF rivalry. Chances are good that this coaching rivalry would easily shatter numbers of past coaching matchups. Not since Shamrock-Ortiz have two coaches had as much natural chemistry against one another than Evans and Jackson.

The fight was scheduled for UFC 107. Rampage abruptly pulled out of the fight a few weeks ago after landing the part of B.A. Barracus in the A-Team movie. At one point it looked like the fight would be moved until March. Unfortunately for Evans, Dana White’s constant public mocking of Jackson caused Rampage to not only pull out of the fight, but to retire entirely. It is more likely than not that cooler heads prevail and the fight will take place at some point. Unfortunately, it won’t be happening anytime soon.

This isn’t the first time that Dana White and The Ultimate Fighter have had to wait out a coaching match. Matt Serra and Matt Hughes also had great chemistry as coaching rivals on TUF season 6. The rivalry on the show promoted great anticipation for their match. Unfortunately, Serra had to pull out of the fight due to a herniated disk. It was almost two years before the fight actually took place. By that time, the fighters were in different places and the air was out of the balloon. Dana White doesn’t want to see this happen again.

Evans was faced with the choice of waiting out Rampage or fighting again. Evans last fight was a terrible loss to Lyoto Machida in May. Sitting out an entire year at the hope that Rampage would reconsider, does nobody any good. Evans needs to capitalize on his current TUF fame and nobody knows that more than Dana White. Evans will now fight in January at UFC 108 against top light heavyweight contender Thiago Silva.

This is a very dangerous match for Evans. It is entirely conceivable that Evans would get a title rematch against Lyoto Machida with his next win. There is no real system in UFC when it comes to title rematches. Some guys get them with one win while some guys need two or three wins. It was presumed that the winner of Evans-Jackson would get an immediate title shot, so I presume the same is true here. Silva is the most dangerous guy in the division in my opinion for Evans and quite honestly, I am surprised he took the match.

Evans was on cruise control in UFC up until the Machida fight. Nobody dominated Evans in UFC like Machida did. Silva is almost like a chameleon of Machida. Both have strong BJJ games with tremendous speed. Silva was on a 10-fight win streak until he was knocked out by Machida last year. Thiago Silva is no joke. Silva does prefer to strike which plays better into Evan’s style than Machida did. Rashad reportedly turned down a fight with Randy Couture. I give Rashad credit because Couture would have been the much easier fight. The road to Machida may have just gotten a lot longer with this match.

A Silva win would not be in the best interest of UFC. I still think the knockout is fresh in people’s minds and casual MMA fans don’t necessarily take Silva seriously. In my opinion, the Rua-Machida match has very little buzz and is looking like a big disappointment at this point. It is very hard for UFC to promote fights with two Brazilian fighters. For some reason or another, they don’t catch on like they do when an American is involved. It is entirely possible that Lyoto Machida becomes the most dominate champion in UFC and the least marketable champion if this continues.

An Evans win would propose an interesting scenario. Rampage already said that he could fight in March before his sudden retirement. Three months for Evans until Rampage would be the perfect amount of time to sit out and capitalize on the momentum. At the same time, Evans would likely be guaranteed an opportunity to challenge the Rua-Machida winner for the UFC light heavyweight title. Would Evans forego an opportunity at the title in favor of a bigger payoff with Rampage? The ball would undoubtedly be in Rashad’s court.

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UFC 103 is headlined by the return of former UFC champion, Vitor Belfort. Belfort matches up against another former champ and The Ultimate Fighter coach, Rich Franklin. The future of the UFC middleweight division may be decided on Saturday night. A win by Belfort will no doubt put him at the head of the line for Anderson Silva.

Make no mistake about it, this fight is set up for Belfort to win. Franklin is someone Belfort should easily beat. As a former UFC middleweight champion, the win would give Belfort instant credibility with UFC fans. This is the ideal matchup for a returning hero in Belfort. The only question remains is whether Vitor Belfort UFC circa 1997 shows up or Vitor UFC circa 2005.

I have written before about my disbelief in Rich Franklin. I don’t think he is a top MMA fighter. I think the talent in the division has passed him by. I think that Franklin was king of the division at a time when the division was weak. Franklin gets the star treatment due to his appearances on The Ultimate Fighter. Franklin did beat Wanderlei Silva but he did nothing during that fight to convince me that he can beat a guy like Belfort.

Belfort loves to attack fast. Belfort is a striker with 12 knockouts. I can’t remember the last time I ever saw Rich Franklin win a slugfest. Franklin played a tremendous counter-strike game against Silva at UFC 99. Belfort is faster than Silva and will attack. Franklin’s only chance is to take Belfort to the ground and tire him out. Belfort is vulnerable on the ground and Franklin could pull off the upset if that is his game plan.

The stakes are huge for UFC. Dana White signed Vitor Belfort back with intentions of booking a UFC middleweight title fight against Anderson Silva. This fight at UFC 103 will be at a catch weight of 195. Not only will Belfort lose a ton of appeal with a loss Saturday, but White will be forced to make a match nobody wants to see. White would have to make Franklin-Anderson Silva III. By all rights, Franklin deserves it with a win but I can tell you that I have zero interest in seeing that fight.

My prediction is a win for Vitor Belfort. Belfort’s last win was an explosive knockout over Matt Lindland in January. Matt Lindland is no joke and at one time was a number one ranked fighter in some circles. Belfort has looked reborn in his last four fights and hasn’t lost since 2006. I predict a Belfort win, TKO, one round and Franklin goes down.

Interestingly enough, Vegas currently has Franklin as the favorite. Bodog.com has Franklin at -145 while BetUs.com has Franklin at -140. I am not a betting man but if I was, I’d run to grab those lines. This is definitely a fight I don’t see Vegas getting right.

Frank Trigg returns to the UFC after a very lengthy absence. Trigg returns to face The Ultimate Fighter alumni Josh Koscheck. At 37, I don’t think Trigg is going to be able to hang with Koscheck. Trigg was tapping back in 2005 when he was 33 years old. I just think Koshcheck is too quick for Trigg. Koshcheck is a huge favorite at -500 at Bodog.com and -400 at BetUs.com. Trigg is a +300 at both places. At +300, Trigg may not be a bad bet for an upset. Rarely do all favorites win on UFC events.

Mirko Cro Cop returns to heavyweight in UFC. Even after all of the swearing by Dana White, UFC took back Cro Cop. Cro Cop’s prime is well behind him. Cro Cop would have arguably lost his last fight if it wasn’t for a poke. Junior dos Santos is no joke and is undoubtedly matched to win this one. Crop Cop is an underdog at +105 on both books. Cro Cop hasn’t shown me anything in years. Santos knocked out Fabrico Werdum last year and will likely do the same to Cro Cop. Keep your eyes out on Santos over the next few months. He could be your next UFC heavyweight champion.

The entire scheduled UFC 103 fight card is…
Vitor Belfort vs. Rich Franklin
Junior Dos Santos vs. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic
Martin Kampmann vs. Paul Daley
Josh Koscheck vs. Frank Trigg
Hermes Franca vs. Tyson Griffin
Efrain Escudero vs. Cole Miller
Jim Miller vs. Steve Lopez
Rafaello Oliveira Vs. Nik Lentz
Rick Story vs. Brian Foster
Tomasz Drwal vs. Drew McFedries
Jason Brilz vs. Eliot Marshall
Vladimir Matyushenko vs. Igor Pokrajac
Rafael dos Anjos vs. Rob Emerson

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The Ultimate Fighter 10 debuts tonight on Spike TV. Kimbo Slice has been stealing the headlines of the returning UFC reality TV show. Lost in all of the excitement is the impact that this show had 10 seasons ago. As much as UFC will try, they will never have another class and show as exciting as The Ultimate Fighter Season 1.

I watched back the entire season of the first The Ultimate Fighter show recently. I remember at the time being hooked on the show the first time I watched it. I felt the same way re-watching the season all over again. The season was filled with drama, tremendous fights, and a cast of characters that has never been quite as engaging as the cast from this season.

First of all, the format was entirely different on the show. The show featured weekly physical challenges ala Survivor. Unlike today where it was as simple as winning teams picks next fight, fight choices were determined by whoever won these challenges. In looking back, it is amazing that none of the guys got seriously hurt on these challenges.

I don’t know if there have been a better paid of coaches than Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture. The guys were true pros and both seemed to have the best interests of their fighters. This was at a time right before the two blew up and became mainstream stars. Randy Couture in particular was fantastic, especially during the Southworth-Bonnar fight when he told Bonnar exactly what Chuck would be advising Southworth.

Joe Rogan has called the cast, “The heart and soul of ultimate fighting.” The cast was truly a classic. From their personalities to the legacy they would build in UFC. It’s funny, because they were portrayed as young hungry inexperienced MMA stars. Yet, a lot of them had great pedigrees and probably would have wound up in UFC at some point. Guys like Chris Leben and Bobby Southworth had good careers going before the show. It really shouldn’t be a huge surprise in retrospect that a lot of them easily transitioned into the UFC.

The cast featured a ton of guys that would go on to main-event UFC Fight Nights and Pay-Per-Views. Forrest Griffin, Diego Sanchez, Chris Leben, Josh Koscheck, Mike Swick, Stephan Bonnar, Kenny Florian, and Nate Quarry. If you just became an MMA fan in the last few years, you wouldn’t believe that all of these UFC fighters came through a reality show. The amount of talent that UFC was able to amass from the show was just amazing.

The first season saw the coaches pick teams. It is funny watching this draft back in retrospect to see how wrong Chuck and Randy were. Out of that entire class named above, none of them were picked #1 overall. The #1 overall pick was Bobby Southworth on Team Liddell. Arguably the biggest star to come out of the show, Forrest Griffin wasn’t picked until close to the end of the draft. It just goes to show you that there is no way to measure a fighter’s heart.

Chris Leben was the star of the show early on. If you heard Leben interviewed today, you would never realize that this was the same kid. Leben was a loud mouthed, arrogant, cocky, drunk during most of the show. Leben went from peeing in one of the fighter’s beds in the first episode to crying in a sleeping bag with Nate Quarry. The guy was an emotional roller coaster and really made his mark.

The most memorable thing about the show was probably the rivalry between Leben and Josh Koshcheck. Things came to a head when Southworth called Leben a, “fatherless bastard” one night while partying. Leben broke down crying and wound up sleeping outside of the house. Koshcheck and Southworth proceeded to dump water on Leben while he was sleeping. Leben got up and in a crazed state wound up going through the house punching walls and windows.

Dana White immediately capitalized on this and made a fight between Leben and Koshcheck. In my opinion, Koshcheck seemed scared going into the fight. This was the kind of a fight that would have made money if it was put on pay-per-view. Koshcheck actually pulled off the upset and won. The fight turned out to be kind of boring with Koshcheck continually grounding Leben. Koshcheck was just too good of a wrestler for Leben to go the ground with. It still amazes me that UFC has never re-matched the two fighters.

For a guy that was in his mid-30s, Southworth probably came out as the biggest idiot of the show. The guy was completely immature both in and out of the octagon. He reminded me of the little kid that encourages the bully in those 1980s movies, but won’t do anything himself. After losing a decision to Stephan Bonnar, Southworth whined and complained. The fight was definitely close, but it was his fault for not finishing. Two minutes after the fight he threw his UFC career out the window when he told Dana White to leave his room. White was angry and well, we have not seen Southworth in UFC since.

Plenty has been written about the finale between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar and how it impacted UFC and MMA. Diego Sanchez defeated Kenny Florian in the middleweight final. These are two guys that are and have recently fought for the UFC Middleweight title. The level of talent that came out of the show will never be repeated for so many different reasons.

Tonight’s show will kick off the most anticipated season since Ortiz and Shamrock were coaching. Kimbo Slice will take the spotlight and will go from MMA joke to UFC fighter in a matter of hours. People call it hypocrisy, I call it genius. Only two of the lone heavyweight class of past Ultimate Fighters remains in UFC today, and neither are heavyweight. I don’t expect a class to make the impact of the first season, but there are some guys with serious potential this season.

Ten seasons and five years, and I still don’t think UFC has been able to recreate the magic of season one. There have been more talented fighters, but nobody has translated to television like the first class. Getting one star out of a reality show like this is a miracle for anybody like a UFC. Getting 8 future stars out of a 12-man class is unheard of and an unequivocal success. That alone is the reason why no season of The Ultimate Fighter will ever capture the magic of season one.

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