(Unfortunately, Ishanguly Meretnyyazov was the referee for this bout, and Velasquez ended up winning 13-11 on points.)
Sorry, Alistair, it looks like you’ll just have to wait your turn.
In an interview with MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani that followed the UFC 150 post-fight press conference, Dana White was asked to answer a series of questions with simple “yes” or “no” answers. And although it seemed implausible that The Baldfather could ever go more than thirty seconds without uttering a certain curse word, he kindly obliged Helwani and spilled the beans in regards to several big questions currently circulating in the MMA world. Simply put, bullshit was cut through in record time.
And among the questions present in the back of Ariel’s (and everyone’s) mind was that of heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos and who would be the next man to get viciously mauled to death bravely sacrifice himself for the good of The Colony ”challenge” him for the title. To put it in the words of DW: Overeem – No, Velasquez – Yes. Although an event has yet to be named, White said in a separate interview that the pair would likely collide on the annually stacked New Year’s Eve card, also known as the card that Overeem will totally be fighting on.
After the jump: A full video interview, which details everything from the future of the BJ Penn/Rory MacDonald match to the specifics of Jon Jones’ Nike deal, and more.
(Shit gets real at the 4:47 mark.)
It’s hard to see why Ariel wins more MMA journalism awards than Uwe Boll does Razzies, as he managed to extract more information out of White in ten seconds than our intern Frederick has done in two years (we told him that if he resolved our situation with Dana, we’d hire him, and we haven’t seen him since). Here’s a brief rundown:
– BJ Penn vs. Rory MacDonald is still happening, likely as a co-main event on UFC on FOX 5.
– Jon Jones will be donning head-to-toe Nike gear for his entrance at UFC 151. Thankfully, we can’t misquote mythological Greek goddesses, so we should be good there.
– Dana “is cool” with Jason Miller, even though Mayhem refused to call him during their awkward Twitter exchange. Turns out, Dana was only joking when he told Miller to retire, furthering my belief that sarcastic font really needs to become a thing in 2013.
And although booking Velasquez over Overeem was the right thing to do given the circumstances, it also looks like the UFC is walking into the same potential trap that they placed themselves in with UFC 150. What trap are we referring to? Well, aside from DirecTV shitting the bed Saturday night, the live gate for UFC 150 was apparently “the worst gate for a pay-per-view since 2007″ according to White, who told the following in the UFC 150 media presser just moments before.
White attributed part of the low attendance to the recent string of Colorado-based tragedies that has swept over the state, and he undoubtedly has a point here. But on the other hand, the paltry 650k gate can also be attributed to that of the main event. Not many of us thought Edgar had earned an immediate rematch based on his performance alone at UFC 150, to which White’s response was that Edgar received one simply because it was owed to him. And while the latter is true, it doesn’t exactly generate a lot of excitement, or at least enough to fill an arena in any case.
Yet here we are again, witnessing another rematch. Only this time, the first fight didn’t end in a controversial decision, but in a first round knockout. Sure, Velasquez was coming off a long layoff and got caught, and sure, he will definitely do better the second time around (as did Edgar), but when even Dos Santos is admitting that he doesn’t want this fight, it’s kind of hard to get excited for it from a fan’s perspective, something the gate numbers might reflect down the line.
Then again, the end of the year cards are normally stacked enough to draw even the most reluctant MMA fan out of hiding, so the UFC will more than likely prosper to close things out unless a *knock on wood* injury curse rears its ugly head again. It should be known that I also scored Henderson/Edgar II in favor of Edgar (48-47), so what the hell do I know?
How about you, Potato Nation? Are you excited to see these two throw down once again? One thing’s for sure, the winner wont be decided by the judges, and that should be reason enough to get excited.