Awesome fight card. I feel bad for Forrest. You can tell his head isn't really in fighting anymore and he didn't really want to travel to Brazil and to top it off, he missed the birth of his baby girl right after the fight. Hopefully he can find his love for fighting again because he's a fun guy to watch. Chael Sonnen, what about Okami? Yeah, Silva is flawless. I don't know if GSP will be able to move into range to take him down.
I think you could throw an in shape Shogun in there as well. It's a fight I would love to see. I was also shocked with how Okami did in that fight. One takedown, and even then it was a lackluster takedown at best. He threw no real combination to set up the takedown, just shot from the outside hoping for the best. Sonnen's standup was good enough to set up his takedowns, which helped a lot, and I felt Okami is as good as Sonnen in the standup. I was certain Silva would win, but was surprised that Okami didn't show anything at all in the fight. As for guys to match up with Barboza, Cerrone is a great pick, another one I would love to throw in is also Sam Stout. I usually pick him as a fighter, but he just makes fights interesting, what can I say?
Backstage. Anderson Silva weeping with joy following Big Nog's emotional win at home. [video=youtube;cBrbNvXNDyY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBrbNvXNDyY[/video]
Man, that Blackhouse team is just as close as can be aren't they? Especially after seeing this, there can't be a closer team in ALL of mma, and it was absolutely fantastic to see Nogeuira get this win. I always like seeing one of the legends of the sport get a good win under their belt.
Think about that video when DFW goes on a rant about teammates not wanting to fight each other. Dana shouldn't interfere. Either you can have first-class asshole mercenaries in your sport who are only out for themselves, or you can have camps that have families like this. Which do you think is better for the long term success of MMA and the UFC?
An early PPV estimate I read online suggests this event did well under 500k buys. Anderson Silva has historically not been a draw but I thought this card was a great one worth purchasing. I suppose the blackout due to Irene could be a contributing factor. Yet the UFC claims the show was watched by tens of millions of Brazilians on free TV, so that's good.
Anderson Silva: U$200,000 Yushin Okami: U$23,000 Mauricio Rua: U$150,000 Forrest Griffin: U$125,000 Edson Barboza: U$112,000 (includes 100k FOTN) Ross Pearson: U$108,000 (includes 100k FOTN) Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira: U$500,000 (Includes 100k KOTN) Brendan Schaub: U$10,000 Stanislav Nedkov: U$12,000 Luiz Cane: U$19,000 Thiago Tavares: U$30,000 Spencer Fisher: U$26,000 Rousimar Palhares: U$14,000 Dan Miller: U$15,000 Paulo Thiago: U$36,000 David Mitchell: U$6,000 Raphael Assunção: U$36,000 Johnny Eduardo: U$6,000 Erick Silva: U$12,000 Luis Ramos: U$6,000 Yuri Alcantara: U$12,000 Felipe Arantes: U$6,000 Yves Jabouin: U$12,000 Ian Loveland: U$6,000
