UFC President Dana white hinted at the possibility of the UFC shrinking the Octagon, in a Q&A with Dave Doyle of YahooSports. The reasoning behind it is uncertain, and Dana did not touch on it in the Q&A at all, but I certainly have my reservations.

The UFC has a history of counter-programming their competition, that is, putting on their own show opposite the competition’s. When Affliction debuted on July 19, 2008 headlined by Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia on pay-per-view, the UFC threw together a full night of fights on Spike including Anderson Silva’s light heavyweight debut. Most recently they aired bouts from UFC 100 on Spike only a month after the event, to counter Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg. It stood to reason they would try to do something along those line when Emelianenko makes his Strikeforce debut, in fact UFC president Dana White had already said publicly that they had in the works a third November event to be headlined by BJ Penn vs. Diego Sanchez, and hinted that it would air on network television.

First reported by Dana White at Friday's UFC 101 Q&A session, and officially announced Monday by Spike TV, The Best of Pride Fighting Championships series starts January 11, 2010 at 11pm on Spike. The show will be a weekly one hour series following a similar format to that of the UFC Unleashed, and will be hosted by former Maxim Magazine "Hometown Hotties" finalist Kenda Perez.

This morning UFC President Dana White appeared on Setanta Sports, to promote tomorrow’s UFC 95, as well as talk about some of the recent announcements coming out of the UFC and some of the upcoming events. You can follow the above link to the Setanta site to view the full video, but some of [...]

In the world of MMA, when a fighter runs into a road block they often change weight classes. If they’re small for the class they’re in they usually shed the extra weight, eat a little less junk, and cut a little more weight on weigh-in day. “The Ultimate Fighter 5″ runner-up Manny Gamburyan [...]

From Sherdog:
Mauricio Rua is recovering in Brazil after surgery a few weeks ago on his knee.
“The surgery was very quick, lasted 50 minutes, was quiet,” Rua told Sherdog.com. “Now I hope for healing and I think here in about two months I can return to training slowly, very cautiously.”
The Brazilian light heavyweight ruptured the ACL [...]

The UFC’s future on television has been in the news lately with the collapse of negotiations with HBO, reports of a $100 million Spike extension in the works, and Dana White’s statement that the company is “going to make another big announcement about (TV) that is going to blow people away.” Speculation is widespread that [...]

Yesterday Xyience announced a $12 million dollar funding effort as well as a three year extension of its exclusive sponsorship with the UFC. Xenergy is the official energy drink of the UFC. Quotes from the key players:
“XYIENCE has been a long time sponsor of the UFC(R) and we look forward to our future endeavors together [...]

After consulting a pair of accounting professionals, we now have a better understanding of the actual financial structure in place at Zuffa as detailed in two separate Standard & Poor’s reports released this year. The company has secured two loans, totaling $350 million, which should provide a sound financial footing through at least 2015. Zuffa [...]

Extended talks between the UFC and HBO have ended more than one year after they began with no deal in place to air UFC events on the premium channel:
“After lots of discussion it became apparent that the business model doesn’t make sense for either one of us. So we agreed to go our separate ways,” [...]

It’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees in the information age. So I thought I’d take a quick look at the big picture, where the industry was last year, where it is this year, and where it looks like its heading next year:

2006 – GROWTH – UFC buyrates triple; EliteXC, IFL, [...]

The honeymoon may be ending for the UFC and its top fighters. Dave Meltzer reported this week on two separate situations that suggest emerging tensions between Zuffa and its top stars. The first, touched on earlier this week, is the reliability of the pay-per-view estimates the company gives its top fighters. The second is the [...]

As a privately held company, Zuffa is under no public reporting obligations. As a result very little financial information is made public. The numbers that do see the light of day are carefully screened and released only when convenient to tout the growth and success of the UFC brand. As result the company’s financial status [...]

14-0 mixed martial artists Paulo Filho has nearly reached an agreement with Zuffa owned World Extreme Cagefighting on fighting for the organization. The deal was first reported in Tatame and says Filho will compete in 3-4 events in the organization starting as early as July.
The Brazilian Top Team member is a top 5 middleweight fighter [...]

The deal to sell Pride’s assets to UFC owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta has now been finalized according Sherdog.com. The news comes more than 3 weeks after the sale was supposed to be finalized on May 1. In a pre-UFC 71 call with the media on Thursday UFC President Dana White denied the news.
The status [...]