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UFC 103 – Dallas, Are You Ready?

Saturday Night is quickly approaching, and that means UFC 103 at the American Airlines Center is ready to go down.

I have been waiting a very long time to finally see my first UFC show in person, but I must tell you there are a few things that trouble me:

1) – The card appears to be rather weak. Now, as a UFC hardcore loyalist, I will readily admit that some of the strong cards turn out to be weak, and some of the weak cards turn out to be awesome. But, at first glance, I wish Columbus, Ohio, might have been given this one. I think a city that has never enjoyed your product before might need a headliner that gets the marginal fan interested if the goal is to fill a 20,000 seat arena at the prices that are listed. CroCop may be that guy, but do enough people know his work in the sports world? Which brings me to…

2) – Can the arena be filled? With the poor card, the economy, Texas-Texas Tech up against it, the somewhat minimal promotion locally, and the prices, will the arena fill? And if it does not, will the UFC vow to never return? I want to make sure the UFC is impressed and a regular traveller to these parts, but you never get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression. And 9/19 will say plenty about the DFW market to the UFC suits (Dana White).

3) – How bad will the competitions hurt? Texas vs Texas Tech is a real troublesome match-up, and on PPV, we have Floyd Mayweather vs Juan Manuel Marquez. And HBO has really been pushing that with the great 24/7 series, so much so that if this card wasn’t in Dallas – I would be torn.

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Previewing UFC 101

In a busy week of blogging, allow me to make sure I remind the readers about UFC 101, tomorrow night from Philadelphia. UFC 101 is surely not the quality of UFC 100 last month, but with Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin and BJ Penn vs Kenny Florian, we clearly have 2 fights up top that should be excellent.

Obviously, with UFC 103 on September 19, the PPV’s are coming fast and furious. It is clear that Dana White is not worried about over-exposure and is laughing at the premise that “less is more”. As long as people like me keep buying PPV’s, they will continue to make more. $54 bucks every 3 weeks? I wonder where it hits a point of too many. Perhaps a few of these shows on free tv is a good idea, right?

Anyway, If you have never seen Anderson “The Spider” Silva, then you owe it to yourself to check this monster out. He is so confident and dangerous in the octagon that despite knowing nobody is invincible, he seems very, very close to being just that.

My fun fact for the very dangerous Kenny Florian, is that he is the MMA fighter who most resembles Ben Stiller. Not sure if that will help you much, but I just had to share that with you.

As is our habit on the UFC PPV’s, Greg Garcia, the Dallas Examiner’s MMA writer, sends me some questions and I send him back answers. Here you go for UFC 101 – my answers are in bold:

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UFC 100 – As It Goes Down

Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. For those of you who paid $55 to watch this thing, or for those of you who are paying nothing, welcome to a live-blog that will effort to actually cover this thing live as we go. Since I have never done an “actually-live” blog before, hopefully everyone can bear with me.

First, a few things for you to have handy if you so choose:

You may or may not have read my full preview of the PPV event that ran yesterday. It may or may not inform you on the overall feelings about this thing before we get started. One thing I would add to it is I have not seen Frank Mir look so ripped as he did in the weigh-in yesterday. Not that looks decide anything, but Mir is usually doughy, and the fact that he appears to be well conditioned speaks to the level of his preparation. Of course, he is still the under-dog according to the betting public.

If you are interested, Here are the actual betting odds for the proceedings. It appears GSP is the biggest favorite tonight, followed by Lesnar. That seems a bit odd.

Finally, if this is your first night on a computer, and you are not sure how to find Evan and the Rangers’ live blog, Click Here …

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UFC 100 Live Blog Tonight

I’m doing it. Don’t try to stop me. By the demand of at least 5 (but fewer than 10), we are doing the UFC 100 live blog here tonight, at the same exact time Evan live blogs the M’s-Rangers.

Do you recall life before InsideCorner?

See you at 9.

UFC 100 – It Is Finally Here

OK. I don’t want to get carried away here, but I have not looked forward to a UFC PPV like I am looking forward to Saturday night’s card. This is going to be amazing.

Many of the PPV’s are not dynamite from top to bottom. But, this card has at least 4 fights that have “I can’t wait” status, and I want to make sure they get previewed here now, and then reviewed after the show is over from your favorite MMA wanna-be expert.

The UFC has made it to 100, and therefore, Dana is blowing this thing out with a show that should live up to its hefty price tag ($54.95 in HD). Do they do too many Pay-Per-Views? Yes. Do they water down their own product and continue to throw stuff together every month to get another $55 from the most loyal fans? Yes. Should we plan on them stopping? Not as long as we keep coming back for more.

This sport is blowing up. It might be on the verge of going to the very next level (I have no idea, really, but I love it). But, do you really need 10-11 PPV’s a year? Oh well. Let’s celebrate when they get one right.

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Previewing UFC 99

The next PPV in the UFC Machine is Saturday Night in Germany which represents the first ever UFC show in mainland Europe. Be still my beating heart.

These European shows honestly annoy me a bit, because they start at 2pm (but you can watch the replay at the normal 9pm slot) in the USA, and the cards are never as stacked as the Las Vegas shows. This would be a perfect opportunity for Dana White to offer up a nice free Spike show for the US fan base, but Noooooooooo.

Also, a mainstay of the Europe show appears to be Rich Franklin – who has not had a fight in Vegas since 2006, and has now been on 3 of the Europe cards. He is the main event against Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva, who clearly has the coolest nickname in MMA.

Silva has fought 5 times since the fall of 2006, and has lost 4 of them. Sure, Cro-Cop, Dan Henderson, Chuck Liddell, and Rampage Jackson are quality opponents, but it is tough to get worked up for a fight where “The Axe Murderer” has 1 win in nearly 33 months.

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UFC 98 – Almost Live Blog

Here is the UFC 98 experimental live blog that wasn’t really live because I didn’t tell anyone it was coming. Perhaps, we will really do a live one for UFC 99. Is that something you might be interested in?

Rashad Evans versus Kyoto Machida; Matt Hughes vs Matt Serra – Live from Vegas, Baby.

9:04 – UFC invites you to text in who you think is going to win because boy, we really want to know who you think is going to win.

9:06 – Rogan points out that Serra has called a name that rhymes with stick about 500 times. Seriously, Serra has a mouth on him. No one has ever doubted his ability to speak quickly – but has he ever really done more than his shocker over GSP? One lucky punch is something that MMA has no answer for. No one is invincible, and no one is useless. 1 punch can put everyone down. Unlike boxing, there is no such thing as invincible.

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And Now For Something Completely Different…

Here is an actual email from an actual reader/listener:

Bob,

You know that UFC 98 is coming up….maybe it gets a mention some where in your media empire? Do soccer fans email you about mentions too? I dont know if i like the redirect from BobsBlog to Dmagzine but i am trying….love you

Cody the No 1 p1

I get that email about 3 times a week, from good-strong followers who would like me to take my fandom of MMA fighting to my media outlets.

My hesitation is based on the idea that although I watch it, I am not positive I fully understand what is going on in an MMA fight. On the other hand, some of you have made that same point about my thoughts on our traditional sports so maybe I should just get over that.

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