The great White hype

UFC president Dana White revealed a few tidbits (of varying degrees of interest) at Thursday’s UFC 102 pre-fight pres conference. To wit:

The UFC would be holding a pay per view event in Vancouver’s GM Place will likely host a UFC card in June of 2010, roughly two months after April’s now-regular event in Montreal.

White has changed his “Strike-farce” tune of a month ago, saying, “I’m not anti-Strikeforce. I don’t dislike those guys. I dislike Showtime. That’s who I dislike. They’ve been second-rate at boxing. They’ve been second-rate at programming, and now they think they’re great at mixed martial arts. My fight is with them, not with Strikeforce.”

White hinted at a new broadcast partner – UFC 106 won’t be a pay-per-view nor a Spike broadcast, he said – but it won’t be HBO. So, does that mean ESPN? Maybe VERSUS?

The UFC will be putting on three shows a month in 2010. For those of you who are bad at math, that’s 36 events.

Expect new lighter weight classes to be added to the UFC “and probably real soon.” Featherweight and bantamweight divisions are obvious additions.

Zuffa owns both the UFC and WEC and a merger between the two promotions is again being talked about, which makes sense considering the aforementioned additional weight classes.

Don’t expect a women’s division any time soon, though. “In making a good female fight, Carano and ‘Cyborg‘ were probably the best two you could have, and I don’t think that fight was at UFC level.” (Ed. Note: if that wasn’t UFC level, then what is?)

As expected, Antonio Rogerio “Little Nog” Nogueira, the light heavyweight twin brother of heavyweight Antonio “Minotauro” Nogueira, is confirmed as signed to a UFC contract. Little Nog is a PRIDE FC veteran with notable wins over Dan Henderson, Alistair Overeem, Kazushi Sakuraba, Guy Mezger and Kazuhiro Nakamura.

White is taking a wait-and-see attitude when it comes to who will fight middleweight champ Anderson Silva next. It looked like Dan Henderson was first in line but White is saying he wants to see how UFC 102’s bout between Demian Maia and Nate Marquardt shakes out.

Just don’t expect Silva to face welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre in a super-fight. “I think he’s too big for Georges.” White also wants to keep GSP in the welterweight mix (which is looking a little anemic at the moment).

On the other hand, he didn’t rule out Randy Couture dropping back down to 205 pounds to face Silva, depending on how Couture’s fight with Minotauro Nogueira plays out on Saturday.

White could also see Couture fighting light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida.

Middleweights Denis Kang and Michael Bisping will be the co-main event at UFC 105, also as expected.