(Video courtesy of YouTube/MMAHEAT)
The UFC held a conference call today in which Dana White and both main event competitors for the promotion’s inaugural Fox broadcast, Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos, fielded questions from the MMA media.
Among other topics, White addressed the possible scenario that the Velasquez-JDS fight could be over faster then the planned pre-fight extravaganza and said that if it is, then there won’t be any other fights shown on Fox, period.
“There’s only gonna be one fight. The heavyweight championship is the only fight that’s gonna be on Fox, [even if] it goes 10 seconds.”
Here are the highlight’s of the call:
• Velasquez says his media obligations haven’t been too overwhelming. Just the right amount.
• Cain says his shoulder rehab went well and he’s glad he didn’t rush his recovery as it is a tough surgery to heal up from
• He has been watching lots of tape on JDS and has been sparring a lot with Paul Buentello
• Dos Santos says it was tough waiting so long for his shot and that he was a bit frustrated when Cain got injured, but it was worth the wait
• Says he believes that Cain is the number one heavyweight in the world and that by beating him he will take his crown and ranking
• Junior has been training for three months for the bout with guys like the Noguieras and Doria
• Doesn’t believe the bout will go the distance but says he’s ready conditioning-wise if it does
• Dana says prelims will be on Facebook and Fox.com and the weigh-ins will be aired on Fuel and that we can expect major changes to the format including production changes starting in January (goodbye gladiator montage?)
• Mexico is taking longer then expected to make happen as there have been lots of unforeseeable problems
• Dana is confident that the main event will be a great one, which is why he based the premier Fox event around it
• In spite of the financial hit he says they will take with cards like this one, there are no plans to reduce number of free shows as White says he wants the UFC’s TV model to resemble ABC’s “Wide World of Sports”
• Says he doesn’t look at what anyone else has done on network TV before because they’ve all failed
• Credits the massive success of the Brazil show for landing the GLOBO deal and calls the channel a “monster network”
• Rogers Sportsnet will air the event in Canada
• White feels that the Brazilian edition of TUF will be talent steeped and says he wants to do the show on a global scale and have the winners compete in a format similar to the World Cup
• Says the Fox deal helped to legitimize the sport and was one of his proudest moments as UFC president
• The biggest change to TUF is that the finals will happen at the end of the six weeks and the coaches will fight two weeks later, which is crazy since there isn’t much time for a decent camp while the coaches are filming
• Says EliteXC screwed themselves, that they should never have had a TV deal and if they had done things properly likely would still be around and on CBS
• Hinted perhaps that the Strikeforce negotiations may not happen as he stated that the UFC doesn’t do a deal unless they are completely in the driver’s seat