— Dana White was on Sportsnet in Canada and said that he’d gotten preliminary buyrate numbers for UFC 91. He wouldn’t reveal the numbers, but did say they were very close to projections. He obviously isn’t talking about the 1.2 million number they tossed to the media in the weeks leading up to the fight, but rather internal company projections. It appears that the show likely did somewhere between 700,000 and 800,000 buys, which obviously is a big deal with the economy the way it is.
— Randy Couture’s likely next fight will be against Chuck Liddell. The Anderson Silva/Liddell fight has not been finalized and in fact negotiations haven’t even gotten to the contract stage yet. There is a feeling that since Liddell/Couture would be far bigger than Liddell/Silva, that the company might as well do it since they truly want to give Randy the biggest fights they possibly can in exchange for him returning to the company. They also want to keep him in the heavyweight title picture and a win over Liddell would likely earn him an immediate shot against the winner of the heavyweight tournament. A Couture/Lesnar rematch would do massive business, even more than the first fight, because the money is always in the chase. Liddell will likely move to heavyweight and if he beats Couture, it sets up what would easily be the biggest fight in MMA history with Liddell vs. Lesnar. That’s if Lesnar gets by Nogeuira or Mir, which is a big if at this point.
— Unless something drastic happens, Dan Henderson will coach the United States team against Michael Bisping’s United Kingdom team in the next season of The Ultimate Fighter. Rich Franklin doesn’t want to coach because he’d have to cut to middleweight again, and he’s spent several months trying to bulk up to 220 in order to be competitive at light heavyweight. Demian Maia was considered for the coaching position, but the company (rightly) felt it would be silly to have a foreign guy coaching the United States team. If Bisping beats Henderson and Anderson Silva is still in the middleweight division, the company will likely book a soccer stadium for Bisping vs. Silva.
