He was a wierd one in TUF1.

Random assorted news:

Dan Henderson moving back to 205, possibly against Babalu

UFC is rumored to be targeting Lesnar vs Carwin for UFC 119 in Indy, which would be an incredibly fast turnaround.

Wandy says he wants to fight Chris Leben

stephan bonnar> leben as far as markout value is concerned.

Excellent matchup.

Pride Wandy from about 7 years ago would have destroyed Leben's face and soul, but now this is a very intriguing fight.

I don't think I could stomach watching Wand lose to Leben, and that's with Leben turning me into a fan of late.

you gotta love Wand though. Just wants to fight someone exciting and loves to bang.

Is that supposed to be lesnar/cain, or are they really talking rematch?

wait, sorry. Lesnar vs Cain.

Well, Lesnar gets ~3.5 weeks to recover then a 8 week camp. Faster than normal but I think it's enough. According to wiki UFC 120 is a free event that takes place in the UK and 121 takes place in Germany. They probably want to keep Brock off of those cards (of course he won't be on the free one) and waiting until after that is too long. Plus Dana needs to back up his "our champions fight 3 times a year" bs.

ex-girlfriend works for yahoo sports and gets free tickets to most of the fights, took me to Brock/Carwin this weekend. Pretty sweet seats right behind press row:

+1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipAbXzs4uLk

+1

Its much harder to judge a fight when watching live(partly because you miss some stuff on the ground, partly because theres no announcers to help you, and then partly because of all the drinking you're doing) so I wanted to ask everyone: If Akiyama didn't get submitted and it went to the judges, who would've won?

would have a been a split decision a high % of the time.

I had it very very closely at 29-28 sexyama

Ok. I had bet on Akiyama -200, so thats why I'm asking.

akiyama was probably very overrated and didnt deserve that line, fwiw. (i bet him too)

I hadn't even heard of him before, but I wanted some action since I was gonna be there and plenty of people in Sports Betting advocated betting him. Oh well. Lost two of my 3 bets(had Brock ftw), but was still a good time.

I would love it if you would do previews and recaps in this fashion for us more often. Very insightful.

i also thought akiyama would squeek it out if he didnt tap FWIW. 29-28 sounds about right. Great fight.

Bodog has on its website Carwin only made $40,000. Did he really only make this much, or did he probably take home some more $$ underneath the table?

Maybe if he bet on Brock.

Dana was widely criticized for many years for not paying top level fighters the same money they could make in Pride FC, and Pride clearly had a better stable of fighters because of it. So no, Dana isn't paying anyone under the table -- it actually seems as if they've been pretty eager to point out how much their fighter payouts have increased. That number does seem low for Carwin in a title fight, but it's not shocking. Carwin, talented though he is, is not a guy the UFC is going to throw six figures at.

Carwin was quoted saying he didn't do much Media stuff before the fight because of how much he was being paid. That said Dana said in the post fight conference ALOT of guys will be getting some juicy bonus's after the awesome card that was put on. I presume the PPV buys will be insane as well so I think Shane will do ok. He still works a fulltime job on top of all this which is insane, but he does that because he likes it, not because he has to so thats cool.

i thought carwin quit his engineering job.

I find it amazing that Carwin's base pay was actually less than Leben and Akiyama (43k and 45k respectively). I'm assuming Shane is still working with the contract he originally signed with the UFC but if he's a free agent anytime soon he will have to be getting 6 figures a fight or very close, no way Werdum should be making 100k fighting for a much smaller organization while Carwin makes 40k.

So many great fights will come off this card aside from Brock/Cain. Sotiropolous/Dunham should happen and will be an amazing fight, Gerald Harris should be getting a fight against a big name MW, maybe Bisping, Bonnar gets to hang around and continue to give us great fights whenever he's in the cage. Brendan Schaub so far is making me look good with my claim that he would make a Cain Velasquez type splash, I'm excited for his next fight I'm hoping it's against either a good prospect like Dufee/Barry/Russow or a gatekeeper type like Kongo. Leben/Wanderlei would be a 185lb version of Garcia/Jung, or maybe LeBen gets Belfort both fights would be amazing.

This was easily the best card I've ever seen, some are calling it the best card ever, I can't say because I haven't been an MMA fan that long. All I know is including the 3 fights they showed on the prelims all 8 fights were entertaining.

it was by far the best card i can remember the last 2-3 years by far. then again most of the cards havent' been that great after watching them.

It was the best UFC card I have seen and I have watched just about every Pride and UFC event. Pride had some awesome cards that are still probably as good if not better than this past UFC. Shockwave 2004, Bushido 9, Pride 33, Grand Prix's, Final Conflict 2003 were all amazing.