UFC 101 Post-Fight Press Conference: Fight Night Bonuses, Attendance and Gate, Next Opponents For Penn and Silva, and More
Posted by Kris Karkoski on Aug 9, 2009 at 1:59 am ET51 Comments
Some news and notes from the UFC 101 post-fight press conference:
- The official attendance for UFC 101 was 17,411. UFC President Dana White (pictured) said there were 11,000 fans for first prelim, the most-ever and the arena was nearly full at 16,500 midway through preliminary card.
- The live gate for UFC 101 was $3.55 million, the biggest in Pennsylvania history.
- The UFC awarded $60,000 fight night bonuses for UFC 101, with BJ Penn getting “Submission of the Night”, Anderson Silva getting “Knockout of the Night”, and Silva and Forrest Griffin getting “Fight of the Night”.
- White said he hadn’t seen Griffin since he ran out of the Octagon following the loss to Silva and that he “could be in Georgia for all I know”.
- Silva will return to 185-pounds for his next fight to defend the middleweight title against Dan Henderson.
- The UFC’s lightweight champ Penn will next fight Diego Sanchez.
- Anderson says a fight with light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida will never happen due to their friendship.
- White said the UFC will return to Philadelphia for a future event and is also looking at holding a future card at Fenway Park in Boston.
Loading ...
wow, there is going to be a lot of speculation on why forrest ran out.. maybe he didnt want everyone to see him cry again haha, oh well. the guy was even saying amongst his confidence that he knows how easily anderson can finish him and he was laughing about it, suck it up, you got outclassed bud.
There was an injury of some sort. Current speculation is a broken orbital bone, a dislocated or broken jaw, or (my opinion) a detached retina. The last one would require immediate (and I mean immediate) medical attention, and the jaw issues would be inordinately painful at the time and would probably require some medical intervention.
If that’s the case, you owe him an apology for calling him a puss.
detached retina is pretty much a career ender in MMA, hope that’s not it!
Tspence, maybe you want to think before you post sh!t like that.
This really isn’t that sort of site.
yeah maybe i said that being buzzed and amped from the fight haha, but i didnt say puss though! and i just read an update about his injury, didnt think of that i just saw him run after and thought it was funny
Its all good, tspence, apologies for giving you static about it.
Run Forest Run.
if silva refuses to fight the champ at LHW then he shouldn’t be fighting in that division anymore because what is the point then, if you refuse to fight the top guy then obviously moving up the ranks in the division is not a goal so it is pointless IMO, why fight top LHW guys when it will lead to a fight with Machida that you will refuse to do…it just messes up the flow of the LHW division that is already stacked enough and doesn’t need anderson silva fighting in it if he isn’t going to fight the best guy currently in that division…love watching him fight but the refusal to not fight machida is ridiculous IMO so quit fighting LHW then
I feel bad for Franklin! I mean you can’t beat the best at 185 so you move up to 205, then he starts beating top guys in 205! Maybe he should fight at WW! HAHA!
Hey lex you forgot to mention that one of the 3 people that beat him is now the LH champion unfortunatly.Franklin’s one of my favorite fighters but i don’t see him getting another belt unless someone gives it to him.
Machida says the same thing, that he does not want to fight Anderson. They’re close friends and training partners. Dana White assigned Forrest, former LHW champion, to Anderson because he needed a challenge. Anderson wants to fight the best, he accepted.
him fighting in the higher weight class helps say he is the best P4P fighter in the world
A few things jump out at me here:
First, Forrest Griffin was either seriously physically injured in his “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” fight with Anderson Silva, or he had some sort of anxiety attack getting beaten in that way if even Dana is clueless to his whereabouts.
Second, and I say this as a longtime Hendo supporter, but really Dana?
Hendo-Silva 2?
What exactly does Demian Maia have to do to get his shot, hook and submit a Decepticon or some sh!t like that?
I love Hendo as much as the next guy who grew up wrestling, going to summer camps and sitting in my high school gym with 30 other guys watching old VHS recordings off of ESPN from the Olympics and NCAA championships, but how does Hendo warrant a rematch for KTFO’ing a very average MW like Michael Bisping?
It wasn’t like Hendo’s first fight with Silva was in dispute in any way. Hendo romped in round 1, and then left the building in round 2 and got choked out.
Where is a rematch warranted in that?
Don’t get me wrong, I would like to see Hendo as the MW champion, preferably after g-n-p’ing Silva for 25 painful minutes, but not only do I not see that as likely in light of what happened tonight with Forrest Griffin, but this is ANOTHER blatant di<k-slap to Demian Maia, who I can only imagine must have gotten caught on top of Dana's wife or something to pi$$ him off this much.
Third, again Dana, really?
Griffin-Silva fight of the night?
Look, if Dana wants to throw his bud Forrest some extra paper, thats cool, but please don't do it at the expense of Kenny Florian and BJ Penn. Theirs was a title fight, with some solid extended action, a masterful performance at 155 by Penn, and a nice ending when Penn finally got tired of rolling with the littlest ronin and choked him out.
Also, clearly Florian shouldn't have :acutally said that sh!t". ;)
Give Penn and Florian their due, or for that matter Howard and McCrory.
Fourth, apparently Dana wants to see the annoying-as-fu<k Sanchez get killed by BJ Penn.
This match-up also makes me wonder how much jaw-jacking we'll hear from Sanchez about "killing the Master" and so on.
Good event, but the action could have been better. The co-main event was disappointly short, and several of the fights IMO lacked memorability.
All and all, another example of why the UFC is at the top of the food chain in the sport, and why the sport is the greatest on Earth…
the forrest silva fight was a better fight than the penn kenflo fight… for the simple reason that forrest and silva werent holding hands for half the fight
Last word I heard was a dislocated jaw and he couldn’t hear out of one ear.
I can’t express how disapointed I was in Forrest’s performance, however I certainly still have great faith in him it’s just hard to watch such a great fighter be put to shame only to run away in the end. I don’t think it was, but man did that fight seem thrown…Penn atleast still show’d great dominance in his home division!
If it was an injury I do totally retract the former and would like to wish Forrest a speedy recovery
too much man love between lyoto & anderson, huh?!!!
machida has to fight shogun first anyways. so theres no reason for him to even talk about fighting “his friend” yet lol.
something had to be up with the silva-forrest fight, but i think it was do to an injury.. not him “crying” … seriously?
Did everyone watch the same Silva & Griffin fight I did? Maybe it was the angle I was sitting at? The punch that I saw if Griffin didn’t look very hard. Yes, he was caught swingin but a little dab like that…pretty shady lookin. All I’m saying is it didn’t look like much and it looked pathetic. If there was an injury that happened then Forrest was like that before he walked into the ring. Very Very Weak match and PPV Event
I am rather surprised no one has said run forrest run yet. Seriously though I hope he’s alright, even though he was out-matched tonight he’s still a great fighter and a pretty cool guy.
Anderson Silva saying that he would never fight Machida is in my opinion disgraceful. These are fighting champions. Any champion who respects his martial art would never say such a thing as first and foremost their reputation as a fighter stemming from combat is tantamount, and the friendship can remain post fight. I don’t think it is a CONSCIOUS thing with Silva, but he knows that he may be beat and doesn’t think the risk is worth the reward. Dana White ought to tell him he will never fight at 205 again is he refuses to fight Machida.
Except the problem with your logic about “fighting champions” is that he’s the champion in the middleweight division, not light heavyweights… Back to square one on that account…
LOL @ you. I applied no logical reasoning to deduce the statement made about fighting champions. It is a fact. They are champions of fighting.
If Silva fights at 205 and 185, and says he feels the same at either weight class, and he is fighting more difficult competition each time he fights at 205, THEN you apply some reasoning and you can say that the next step would be to fight for the 205lb belt. If he refuses then he ought to stay in the weight class where he has the belt.
When you are a champion you take on all reasonable challengers. Lesnar walks around close to 300 lbs, which is around the world the super HW division. Mir walks around 50 lbs lighter.
Silva fought consistently at 205 in Pride. Please understand what you are trying to say before trying to derogate others comments.
I think your command of the language “derogates” your own comments…
Sometimes it’s about the fans as well. Silva has stated repeatedly that he wants to retain the title at 185 and not make a run at 205. This goes back before Machida was even on the radar.
If Silva is between title defenses, why not step up in weight for a challenge if he has a willing opponent?
Well there are a few problems with your idea there… ever notice that Swick, Kos, Fitch haven’t fought each other? Or that Fedor has never fought another Red Devil? Guys who are friends or train together typically don’t square off against each other. You can’t force guys to fight. This is isn’t gladiator, they aren’t slaves. Besides if two guys were good friends they may be less likely to truly get after each other and then people would complain about a boring fight.
I thought forrest would have taken a 3 round beating, that fight was something different for sure. I thought anderson silva would make his “comeback” (being hes still champion but needed his ferocity back) by going down bloody in a war. this was a good way too though, Its getting too hard to predict fights these days, its great
Forrest was visibly upset when he got ko’d by Jardine. That’s part of the reason why you gotta love the guy. He’s so humble and doesn’t give bs excuses or take away from his opponent in losing. I definitely think there’s an injury of some sort; I just don’t see him running out like that otherwise.
Forrest looked so pathetic that it almost looked staged.
I think you guys got it wrong, Forest ran out because he got embarrased! Silva was toying with him and with 1 swift punch KO’d him. That fight makes me think…. a focused Silva could beat ANYONE! Gotta have GSP vs Silva, hell Brock vs Silva may even be interesting after that performance
As I’ve said before, last word from the locker rooms was a dislocated jaw and he had lost hearing in one ear. That’d make me run for some medical attention.
l wounder if Forrest was not injured before the fight he didnt look the same fighter
Fedor likes to fight middleweights…
go sit in the corner please… haha
@steve, i get what your saying about fighting champions and such. but what you need to realize is that anderson, and lyoto have so much respect for martial arts and each other. its not like dana can solve this problem by throwing “X” amount of money at each other to get them to fight. these guys arent greedy americans who have a price limit on going back on their words and doing something they said they wouldnt.
martial arts is about respecting oneself, and your opponent[s] among other things. if anderson says he isnt fighting machida, then it wont change. anderson didnt want to fight for the 205 title before machida was champ or had a title shot, he said the 205 title is machida’s not his. i believe that was before the thiago silva-machida fight.
i say let anderson dabble against the top 5 at 205. why? you say if any of the top 5 cant beat anderson, or hang with him, they dont have a chance against the more elusive machida. thats just me.
As much as i would like to see that fight i have to agree with you bigchris.It’s not about the money to those guys,and i’m sure neither one of them is worried about a future payday.They’ll both own there respective divisions for a while IMO.I do find amusing though how arrigantly cocky dana is being about the subject.I guess he’ll never understand why money can’t buy anything.
After that performance by silva i cant help but think he can beat anyone in the UFC.hell i’d give him a shot against brock.Some of you may laugh at that comment but think about coture before he got clipped was doing a pretty good job with the size disadvantage.Silva walks around at 215.I know he doesn’t have randys wrestling backround.But he’s a lot stronger than he looks.And i think his cat like reflexes would make it difficult for anyone to control him for to long.
I would like to think that a lot of the people who are publicly embarrassing themselves by demomstrating their MMA ignorance with sh!t posts like, “Forrest threw the fight”, or “Forrest ran to the back crying” and “Forrest was embarrassed and ran away” and all the rest will take as much time out of their day to post retractions and apologies, just like MonstaMike did in a classy move, as they did to post that noise to begin with.
Forrest Griffin, win, lose, or draw is a credit to this sport, and an asset to the UFC. Bad-mouthing him at a website only makes YOU look like sh!t, not him. It also lessens Anderson Silva’s otherwise flawless victory, but you probably didn’t realize that.
Think before you post next time please.
Good on you, Monsta, and anyone I may have inadvertantly missed, for manning up.
And the rest of you, here and on other threads, posting anti-Forrest nonsense, should be ashamed of yourselves. This is mmafrenzy.com, not some fanboy site for 12 year olds “WAR’ing” for the fighter who’s poster they have on the back of their bedroom door. If you’re rocking an Anderson Silva trading card on your middle school locker door, thats awesome. If you’re a legit fan of the Spider, who deserves all the credit in the world for his win last night, thats fine as well.
Accusing Griffin of “throwing a fight” degrades of course Griffin, Anderson Silva, and lastly yourself, by showing what sort of fan you are.
Griffin sustained a serious injury, and did the smart and responsible thing and sought immediate medical attention.
If you have as a fan have a problem with an athlete doing that, then maybe you should go back to your video games and pro wrestling and leave legitimate combat sports to legitimate combat sports fans…
It would be cool if Silva fought some Heavy Weight .. Not like Brock or anyone in the Title picture but like Kongo or Dos Santos or Cro Cop some of the Lighter Heavy weight that way in at 230′s. Someone who should give him a stand up war, or even {LHW}Rampage or Shogun… or {MW}Wanderlei or Belfort. But the sweetest match up if Machida fight never happens would be Fedor vs Silva at a catch weight of 220.. Fedor walks around at 230 and Silva walks around at 210 so?
After the fight last night, I’d have to say he Spider is too fast for Fedor.
I thought Forrest left because of his emotions.
Did he exit the cage prior to the usual post-KO physician evaluation? Would it makes sense to run out of the cage for medical attention? Or did he run past all ringside physicians? It happened so quickly, I did not notice.
I like Maia as much as the next guy, but you do realize he has a fight coming up? I mean your crying your eyes out about him not getting the next shot when he has a fight to win.
If maia beats Marquardt (I think he will) then he definitely deserves one. He has yet to fight a bigger stronger guy, with close to the skillset so that will be the final thing to prove to everyone he is more than ready.
As for Hendo, I think he really deserves one, I mean he has won three straight, all solid dudes, and he has said repedeatly that he had one of the worse cuts of his life, and did not feel good at all during the Silva fight, normally I dismiss stuff like this, but when someone w/ Hendo (or Nogueira in the case of the Mir fight) says it Im inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Henderson looked very quick and fast vs Bisping, and he would never do what you saw from Forrest last night. Forrest is getting owned here on out I think, he won a lot of his big fights due to a combination of effort, cardio, and Opponents underestimating him and taking fights with him lightly/or w/ injuries. Now lets see him fight Shogun again, and lose even faster.
I don’t put any stock in thinking that forest is going to loose more than win from here on out.It won’t surprise me a bit if he wins 2or3 in a row.I think last night was just a testement to how great silva is.Forest said himself he makes good fighters look bad.And he just made forest look esspecially bad.But i still think forest has got the goods,he was just a horrible match up for silva.
I don’t care if Forrest was hurt.. there have been guys with broken everything that took their lumps and stood in the ring and waited till the end, he ran like a little girl plain and simple.. I find it funny how many people are trying to stick up for this guy and these are the same people who said there was no way he’d lose to Silva, Griffen was never that great in the first place and I’m happy he’s been exposed as the sloppy fighter he is. A two year old could catch him with a stiff jab. I hope Dana White thinks over his contract with Griffen because this isn’t TUF he shouldn’t be fighting like an amateur.
Sloppy doesn’t mean they aren’t good. Liddell was extremely sloppy but it worked for him, granted it caught up with him but you cannot say Liddell was ever a terrible fighter. Give Forrest some credit, he was the former UFC champ in the best division in the company.
Thinking over his contract? I’m hoping you are kidding. At least spell his name right if you are going to insult him.
how can you say you wont ever fight machida. be a man you want to fight the best at 205, then you need to fight him. hes no forest
easy you hold a belt, you have to sign off on the fight, and of course a lot of UFC guys say the same thing about not fighting friends…
I have to admit I thought Griffin was broken psychologically by Silva after saying he could not be and it freaked him out that it happened in the first round – it was hard not to think that.
Brokeback Griffin anyone?
I’m a forest fan and a silva fan bsides the fact that I’m also from brazil … But personally I thought forest wuz ganna giv silva a hard time in a way … Bkuz silva in his last few fight seemed not to b takin any one that serious, and forest been doin great in his fights and reelly givin it his all … But for my surprize silva beat him so easy I kuldnt bleev it … How can forest do so good in his last fights and then loose so easy to silva and not giv him any competition? Idk … But he did seem like a lil wuSsy runnin out like dat, rather he wuz hurt or not … [] BRAZIL ALL DAY!
Griffen needs more than a “Big Heart” and all that to beat a martial arts master like Anderson Silva. He’s still young; he should really take this time to dedicate himself to achieving that Black Belt in Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. He’ll never outpoint anyone like he did Rampage ever again…