The first three quarters of 2009 was a record breaking period for the guys at Zuffa. Their events on foreign soil surprisingly garnered more PPV buys than forcasted. UFC 94, 97, 98, 100, and 101 did monster pay per view buys as well as some of the highest live gate numbers for the organization. All of the respective titles were on the line at least once during this same time period. Zuffa was one fighter away(Fedor) from legitimately being able to say they had the best fighters in every category under their umbrella.
However, since then Zuffa had back to pay per view events with no titles on the line. George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva will not be available to fight until early 2010. Dan Henderson is not under contract. Rampage Jackson has stated that he's retiring from MMA. There's a log jam of fighters in the welterweight division that all have losses to the current champion George St. Pierre. There was no 'worthy' main event for UFC 105(that will air on Spike TV) until a couple of weeks ago.
Let's take a look at what Zuffa will be bringing to the table for the rest of the 4th quarter of 2009. *Of course many of these fights are not 'offically' announced by the UFC at this time.
UFC 104 Card
-Shogun Rua vs. Lyoto Machida(UFC LHW Title Fight)
-Cain Velasquez vs. Ben Rothwell
-Gleison Tibau vs. Josh Neer
-Joe Stevenson vs. Spencer Fisher
-Anthony Johnson vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida
-Yushin Okami vs. Chael Sonnen
-Antoni Hardonk vs. Pat Berry
-Jorge Rivera vs. Rob Kimmons
-Ryan Bader vs. Eric Schafer
-Kyle Kingsberry vs. Razak Al-Hassan
-Stefen Struve vs. Chase Gormley
UFC 105 Card For FREE On Spike TV
-Randy Couture vs. Brandon Vera
-Michael Bisping vs. Denis Kang
-Mike Swick vs. Dan Hardy
-James Wilks vs. Matt Brown
-Ross Pearson vs. Aaron Riley
-Terry Etim vs. Shannon Gugerty
-Paul Taylor vs. John Hathaway
-Matt Riddle vs. Nick Osipczak
-Jared Hamman vs. Alexander Gustafsson
-Andre Winner vs. Rolando Delgado
UFC 106
-Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin
-Tito Ortiz vs. Mark Coleman
-Jon Fitch vs. Ricardo Almeida
-Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Luiz Cane
-Amir Sadollah vs. Phil Baroni
-Karo Parisyan vs. Dustin Hazelett
-Ben Saunders vs. Marcus Davis
-Jason Dent vs. George Sotiropoulos
TUF 10 Finale FREE On Spike TV
-Matt Hamill vs. Jon Jones
-Thiago Alves vs. Paulo Thiago
-Dennis Hallman vs. John Howard
-Frankie Edgar vs. Kurt Pellegrino
-Matt Veach vs. Mark Bocek
UFC 107
-BJ Penn vs. Diego Sanchez
-Clay Guida vs. Kenny Florian
-Frank Mir vs. Cheick Kongo
-Kevin Burns vs. TJ Grant
-Alan Belcher vs. Wilson Gouveia
-Todd Duffee vs. Paul Buentello
-Rousimar Palhares vs. Lucio Linhares
Of course all of this is on paper, and the events have to play themselves out and whatnot. However, in the midst of all the adversity that the UFC has faced in the last quarter. Do you think these cards will suffice, or do you think the UFC owes it's fans more?
Loading comments...