Faber is focusing on his speed and wrestling to beat Aldo. I concur with that sounding like a solid gameplan with Faber being one of the few featherweights who can hang with Aldo in the velocity departments. Stylistically this will be Aldo’s toughest fight and we may finally see his highly touted yet rarely seen ground game.

The last and in my opinion best event of the month is getting closer with this weekends WEC event. Here is Zuffa head honcho Dana White and USA Today’s MMA columnist Sergio Non talking about WEC 48, the future of the WEC Lightweight division and the recent debacle last weekend in Nashville at the last Strikeforce event. Link to full article.

UFC, with five weight classes, had 13 pay-per-views last year. What gives you confidence that WEC eventually can match the ratio that UFC is doing right now with pay-per-views?

There’s great fights in the WEC. Anybody that’s ever watched these guys fight on Versus knows how these guys always perform. If we did three WEC pay-per-views a year, I think people are going to be interested in buying them.

You’ve got a lightweight title fight on the card. What’s the advantage to having an overlap at 155 between WEC and UFC?

I actually think it’s kind of cool. I think eventually what we do is, we’re going to continue to add to lighter weights, and you’ll end up seeing these (WEC) guys go into the UFC, the 155 pounders.

So once you add flyweight or divisions like that, you can move WEC’s lightweights and move them into UFC, is what you’re saying?

Yup.

While talk of the flyweight division is always nice, it does come through bittersweet since the talks of adding the 125lb weight class has been hinted at for almost a year. The talks of absorbing the WEC’s lightweights sounds promising but could end up being problematic with the 155lb division already being the biggest weight class in the UFC as it is.

With Zuffa taking the slow and steady route towards building the WEC brand. I still believe they would be better off going with the strategy I suggested in an earlier post and just add the lighter weight classes to the UFC and keep the WEC around as their very own farm/minor league promotion for up and comers and over the hill stars they don’t want other promotions to snatch up. This idea has been mentioned by many other blogs and rings of commons sense but time will tell if the advice will be taken into consideration.

The biggest and most important question was never touched upon in the interview. What is Zuffa going to do if PPV is not a viable option for the WEC? We can only wait until after this weekend to get a definitive answer.

After spending the majority of the day away from the internet in anticipation of UFC 112 I did as much as I could to stay away from my laptop. Running around the backyard with my son, took out the trash, got some laundry done. As fight time approached I was tempted to go to twitter and when I did I quickly backed out for fear of some random tweet ruining the night. I wanted to enjoy the event unspoiled by any random update or outburst of the already 9 hour old event.

Well I succeeded here are few things that stuck out to me during the event.

- Mark Munoz is one tough S.O.B. after suffering one brutal first round from Kendall Grove. The Filipino Wrecking Machine rebounded in the 2nd frame used his wrestling and savage ground and pound to get the TKO victory.

-Terry Etim may have good submission offense but can’t hang with a bjj black belt.

- Phil Mr. Wonderful Davis is the man and is coming along nicely and his anaconda choke should have gotten sub of the night in my opinion.

- Matt Hughes played it safe and showed off inexplicable stand-up against a man who hasn’t fought professionally in 3 years.

- I was afraid Frankie Edgar was going to get destroyed by BJ Penn and was oddly happy when he went toe to toe with him and held his own. Edgars fundamental head movement and angles frustrated the then champ who seemed uncharacteristically sluggish after a couple rounds.

Be it his fabled bad cardio, fighting in the first outdoor UFC event in the Middle East, having to keep up with one of the fastest lightweights in the division, or a perfect storm of all 3, BJ just didn’t seem like his old self. Granted Edgar didn’t stand right in front of Penn like other challengers, while he did get hit the New Jersey native never seemed hurt. Even more surprising were the two takedowns Frankie landed in the last two frames of the fight. While I am going to rant like hell over the next title fight I am going to give props where they are due and call attention to one of the biggest underdog performances in UFC history.

Frankie “The Answer” Edgar shocked the world plain and simple.

-And now from one of the most surprising fights in recent UFC history to one of the worst title bouts in the Zuffa era. Anderson Silva the pound 4 pound greatest fighter in the world as told by Dana White put on yet another lackluster performance that went went form silly to infuriating over the course of 5 rounds as he clowned, jeered then ran away from a over matched but game contender Demian Maia. It was made crystal clear that Maia had nothing for Silva standing in the first 3 frames of the fight, which had the champ putting on an clinic that could only be be described as mma improv comedy. As Demian shadow boxed his way into striking range he was promptly greeted with the effortless array of kicks, punches and knees that we have come to expect from The Spider.

Then things got weird, when Maia tried to prep himself for some telegraphed long distance double legs takedowns, Silva began to goad and harass him to exchange in some stand up action. Being that he already tried and failed Maia opted to try to get the fight to where he had the advantage. That didn’t happen but what did will be seen as exhibit A in the case against Anderson Silva being a ppv draw. Nobody likes a cocky jackass, plain and simple all the talent in the world won’t get you fans as much as just being a humble person. Not being an English speaker Anderson’s actions and octagon decorum is how he is gauged and perceived by the public and in his past 3 fights Silva to most casual and hardcore fans is coming off like a disrespectful bully. But one who is so predisposed with mocking his opponents he doesn’t bother to actually show and prove by finishing them. Granted he did take out Forrest Griffin in his last light heavyweight bout at UFC 101. But this is the second consecutive title defense in where Silva has chosen to play it safe by only engaging on his terms and heckling his opponents for doing the same. Never had I heard such disdain and disappointment from a crowd post title fight.

On a fight card filled with grappling legends such as Renzo Gracie, Matt Hughes, BJ Penn and Demain Maia in a grappling and submission friendly country like Abu Dhabi it would be safe to assume that the night would be filled with outrageously competitive ground wars. Or at least if the fights were to take place entirely on the ground there wouldn’t be a litany of boos emanating from the crowd as soon as the fight went to the ground, but there were few and far between.

- Props are also in order for Big Tan Dan Mirgliotta doing a decent job as ref for once, as he tardily warned Anderson Silva to fight instead of retreat near the end of the 25 minute fight. Better late than never :/

I can only imagine the fury of Dana White after this event having to yet again apologize for the unremarkable performance of what he calls the best fighter on the planet. Coupled with the fact that both Strikeforce & Bellator are holding events this month the UFC didn’t set too high a ceiling for both organizations to surpass. If Zuffa is smart they will put their full weight and leverage of their advertising department on promoting WEC 48 along with giving the fans a break by having the organizations first ppv be at a reasonable price ($30 sounds fair to me). The shockwaves from this event will be felt in the weeks to come.

But I am done being bitter about it (for now at least)and will re-watch WEC 41 to remind myself how awesome MMA can be.

While there has yet to be any official word on the topic, the word on the webs is that UFC 111 did pretty damn good last weekend.

From Wrestling Observer ,

Early cable estimates, and granted, anything this early in the week can be way off, indicate about 850,000 buys for UFC 111 on 3/27, putting it in the top six for UFC of all-time… Dana White didn’t give a number, but in an exchange of messages before we got any figures, he indicated being thrilled with the early estimates he had gotten and that it looked to be well above my prediction (700,000) going in. If this number holds up, it would be the largest since UFC 101 on 8/8.
…

The number speaks volumes for St. Pierre as a drawing card, where he has to be now be considered No. 2 in the promotion.

Surprise 2x, the first card of the year with a belt on the line does exceedingly well. Granted I would still put 110 over 111 in regards to entertainment value. The fact remains that if you want both the hardcores and casuals to buy the cards, one of the champs has to defend his title. Now with the gypsy curse of 09 behind us and all of the champs feeling better and back to training, Zuffa can generate super card after super card…until it runs out of champs. Which brings me to one of my pre blog twitter rants, which I will (try to) keep short.

I still believe that Zuffa would be wise to add in the bantam and feather weight class’s and absorb the WEC fighters into the UFC then giving the WEC its heavier weight classes back and using it as a super farm league for upcoming fighters to test their skills against proven vets who may not be at UFC level anymore but are still too valuable to let another org have them. With 2 more belts and divisions it would give the organization more leverage with its ppv’s & counter programing of competitors. And since I am wishing big why not let the WEC add in some female divisions for the hell of it. I know Dana has gone on record with his views on FMMA not being his cup of tea and too talent deprived at the highest levels. But with more time and more visibility given to the sport that could change.

Despite the populous view of combat sports only being riveting when two giants slug it out, I think the smaller guys can carve out a niche . The UFC’s public relations team (and a season of TUF) given time can build hype & interest for mma’s lighter fighters at bantam (135lb) and featherweight (145lb) which are equivalent to boxing’s light and welterweight classes where the sports two biggest American stars reside at. If boxing can generate shock waves in the media with the indefinitely doomed Maywheather vs Pacquiao bout, imagine what the UFC could do when they continuously have the best fighters in the world face off, mind games, superstitions and fighter negations be damned.

While there were some fights of divisional importance between 107 and 111, there was definitely something missing from those cards. Bottom line Zuffa would benefit greatly if they were to add more divisions. People like title fights, it is the simplest contest of the best fighting the best. And with 7 champs (if they were to stay healthy and injury free) we could have a title fight if not every month every other month. Which would be a triumph for both fans and Zuffa.

Straight from the horses mouth from the WEC. Koreas top 145lb prospect Chan Sung Jung is making his debut against Cub Swanson on WEC 48. While doing some extensive research and then just saying screw it, I found this kick ass highlight on youtube, enjoy.