(“Screw it, nobody’s watching anyway.”)

I know, I know, you’re all antsy to learn how many pay-per-view buys UFC 91 took in, and whether Dana White’s estimate of 1.2 million was either strongly optimistic or batshit delusional. You’ll have to be patient, because numbers from UFC 90 are just coming out now — and they aren’t too encouraging. Says the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

The trending patterns as a prediction of the buy rate continued to be right on as the 10/25 show in Chicago headlined by Anderson Silva vs. Patrick Cote did 300,000 buys.

Silva has never been a big main-event draw, PPV-wise. His headlining appearances at UFC 82, 77, and 67 all translated to buys in the 330,000-350,000 range. But in the run-up to last month’s Chicago show, the UFC had been trying extra hard to push him over as a fan-favorite, frequently repeating the talking point that UFC 90 was your chance to see the world’s greatest pound-for-pound fighter in action. The Spike TV special Countdown to UFC 90 brought in a record number of viewers, which was seen as a great sign for the event’s performance on pay-per-view, though MMA Payout points out that the strong viewership could have been due to having a high-rated TNA wrestling show as a lead in.

(Cote enjoying the hell out of his alternate reality.)

When I saw the video of Patrick Cote looking inebriated in a hotel room and talking about how bad he had “fucked up” Anderson Silva in their fight at UFC 90, I assumed this was something he needed to tell himself in order to enjoy his post-fight party. We all have our own pleasant fictions, and I can’t begrudge a man with a blown out knee and a cut forehead from getting all hopped up on, well, whatever he was hopped up on, and telling himself a palatable story about what had happened that night.

The fact that he still believes it is a little more disconcerting. Speaking about the fight on MMA Rated Radio, Cote seems to have decided that Silva‘s antics weren’t a show of disrespect, but rather a sign that the champ was so utterly confused in the fight that he didn’t know what to do:

“I don’t think it was a lack of respect. I just think my game plan was perfect. I was moving a lot, going forward but not running after him and I don’t think he was expecting a lot of leg kicks like I did. He gave me a very good shot and I was still there…He didn’t want to exchange, I think, with me.”

That is one possible interpretation. Granted, it’s the interpretation that’s most generous to Cote, and the interpretation that only Cote seems to subscribe to, but it’s an interpretation nonetheless. As for Silva offering his hand to help him up, Cote has an explanation for that one too:

In the latest episode of MMA Live the two sides of the ‘Is Anderson Silva just a big jerk?’ argument adopted here by Stephan Bonner (a fighter) and Franklin McNeil (a writer) tells us something we should have guessed from the start. That is, what you thought about that fight probably depends a great deal on how you see fighting in general.

Bonnar argues that Silva was fighting smart. It’s not his obligation to finish Patrick Cote in one round, even if he can. It’s his obligation to win and not do anything stupid that might jeopardize that.

McNeil takes the fan perspective, arguing that Silva owed a flashy finish to the people who had paid money to see him punch a hole in Cote’s face. He also compares Silva’s “playing around” to Roy Jones Jr.’s, while failing to mention how totally sweet Jones was in his prime.

The thing both men touch on is that because of who Silva is, as well as what the consensus opinion on who Cote is, Silva was in a tough spot. An immediate first-round KO might have seemed satisfactory. Maybe. And if Cote hadn’t blown his knee out, if he had stuck around until Silva put him away, we might not even be talking about this. It’s more a confluence of events that has us talking about Silva as if he’s suddenly public enemy number one, and because of all this talk, I honestly feel sorry for his next opponent.

(It’s like he saw that Condom Depot ad and became enraged. I’ve never seen a man who hates birth control with such a ferocious passion.)

You bastards have done it now. You fans and media with your hate mail and hate articles, accusing Anderson Silva of conduct unbecoming a champion. Now he’s pissed. And Silva is not like your sister. He doesn’t turn to ice cream when he’s upset. He turns to awesomely destructive violence, and he would prefer to do it as soon as possible according to UFC president Dana White, who had this to say to the Las Vegas Review-Journal regarding the champ:

“He’s flipping out. He wants to fight again, like, on Nov. 15,” White said. “He’s (upset) about his performance and he wants to fight again immediately.”

Now that’s the attitude you want from your champ. Of course, it’s completely unreasonable to think the UFC could get him a worthy opponent in time for UFC 91, so don’t get too excited. But this might be the perfect time for creative matchmaking on the UFC’s part. Maybe they can’t get a top-level challenger, but could they get three mid-level guys? Middleweights, light heavyweights, anyone who needs a paycheck, really. How about if Silva faces Ed Herman, Houston Alexander, and an unemployed ninja all at once?

No, that’s still not fair. Okay, the ninja can use his throwing stars and Houston can use illegal knee strikes. Ed Herman, he has to show up drunk. Check that, he gets to show up drunk. This is one night he’s not going to want to remember.

(Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

After a bizarre UFC 90 main event that saw middleweight champ Anderson Silva try to help Patrick Cote off the ground mid-fight, circle the cage with his arms down, and whip his hands around in a kung fu-esque display, there were many fans who thought Silva was, oh, I don’t know, not taking Cote seriously? But despite our attempts to guess his motivation, Silva says his only concern was winning the fight. As he told Sherdog:

“There are many people saying I was disrespecting Cote, but this is absolutely not true. My game plan since the beginning was fight five rounds, inducing him to commit mistakes and capitalize on that during the first three rounds and look for the knockout during the fourth and fifth rounds. It was working, and the biggest proof of that is that I almost didn’t waste any blows. I connected with a couple of good punches and knees, but unfortunately he got hurt and the fight was over. This is not my fault.”

Taking Silva at his word, maybe he’s only guilty of showing Cote far more respect than fans thought the challenger deserved, which is sort of ironic in light of their subsequent criticisms. Still, it wasn’t the kind of fight that people paid to see. And Silva’s striking maybe wasn’t as effective as he thought it was; by Compustrike’s count, he only landed 39% of his arm strikes — decent, but well below his average.

In a related story, Fighters Only is passing along the rumor that Silva could meet Chuck Liddell in a headlining bout at the UFC’s February 21st card, which will be held in London. When asked about the rumor, Silva told Sherdog “Thank you for the information, I didn’t know about that. Let’s see what [Dana White] will say.”

(Photo courtesy of NBC Sports.)

Props to UFC.com, NBC Sports, The Chicago Tribune, NationalPost.com, and MMA Weekly.

(OMG, we have so much in common! Props to HardfortheYard.)

From Georges St. Pierre’s latest blog entry for our good buddies at Yardbarker.com:

I’m on my way to Brazil, but I stopped off in Chicago to see my training partner Patrick Cote fight for the world middleweight title against Anderson Silva. While I believe he was the first fighter to make it into the 3rd round against Anderson, it’s sad to see him lose the way that he did, because of a knee injury. Patrick has a loose ACL even before, and he had been able to fight 3 fights with it, but unfortunately this one was too much for his knee. I think he was doing pretty well against Anderson, and it was a smart strategy for him to bring the fight into the later rounds. I was very impressed by the performance of Thiago Alves — he showed everybody why he belongs in the top fighters in the welterweight division. Of course, it’s up to the UFC, but I think he will be one of my next opponents pretty soon.

So start getting psyched for St. Pierre/Alves. Pitbull definitely earned his shot with his three-round domination of Josh Koscheck on Saturday night, and he could easily turn out to be St. Pierre’s most challenging title defense yet. To read GSP’s thoughts on his new BJJ black belt (congrats!), his new condo in Ile-des-soeurs, and his recent photo shoot for the cover of Men’s Fitness, read the rest of his blog post here.

(‘Sup, Anderson? Seriously. Photo courtesy of Cage Today.)

Mere moments after his bout at UFC 90 had ended, Anderson Silva started getting something he rarely has before: hate mail. I was sitting next to the administrator of Silva’s official website at the time, and his blackberry was suddenly abuzz with critical emails like these:

“You should be apologizing to everyone for the way you fought. While cote was trying to push the fight, all you were doing was trying to show off and not even putting in a effort to knock him out right away. Hollywood has changed you hasnt it.”

“That was ridiculous , was a fan . Now I never want to see you fight again.”

“Please relay to “the spider”, he is an arrogant prick. myself, along with many of my friends, were once great fans of him. after tonights disgusting display, i personally despise him. He was a fucking asshole. the disrespect he displayed to the fans and to cote throughout the fight was something I will never forget.”

The fight had barely ended and already fans were jumping off the Anderson Silva bandwagon by the dozens. The media wasn’t far behind, with Yahoo’s Kevin Iole proclaiming that Silva had “made a mockery of himself” in the fight.

What happened in the fight seems less important now than why it happened. What was Silva trying to accomplish, and what does it say about him? Everyone has their theories, but few are without glaring holes. As long as we’re all speculating as to the man’s motivations, we might as well sort through some of the prevailing ideas:

Dana White’s UFC 90 video blog 10/25/08 – Watch more free videos
(The final UFC 90 video blog installment, just to wrap it all up.)

Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s baffling us all with his performance? Who got drunk after the fight and let his entourage talk him into thinking that he did really well? Don’t worry, we stayed up all weekend crunching the non-existent numbers, and here’s what we came up with.

Anderson Silva: -3

Okay, so “The Spider” did not improve his public image on Saturday night, but at the same time he didn’t look at all vulnerable. When the most prevalent criticism suggests he was toying with his opponent, which implies he could have put him away at will, what does that even mean for the champ’s status? The Index is befuddled, but it still believes Silva is the world’s best fighter, even on an off night.

Patrick Cote: +5.6

The only thing Cote proved was something we already suspected: he has a solid chin. This alone might have bumped him up higher if only he hadn’t been caught on film during a post-fight delusion of grandeur. You did not fuck anyone up. If your friends really cared about you, they would tell you that.

Junior Dos Santos: +378

The night’s biggest underdog scores the night’s only knockout, and a brutal one at that. Out of nowhere and into the heavyweight spotlight. We’ll need to see him again before we can be sure it wasn’t just a lucky punch, but preliminary indications suggest this guy might have a real future in the UFC.

Wow…the delusions you suffer when Anderson Silva allows you to reach round three. As you can see in this video from MMACanada, Patrick Cote has a rather inflated sense of his own toughness following Saturday night’s debacle. After explaining that his knee was actually toast by the end of the second round, the Predator launches into the money quote:

“I proved to everybody that this guy’s not unbeatable. I think I fucked him up really bad ['you fucked him up' and 'oh, big time' his friends shout, possibly sarcastically]. My gameplan was good and I think he was scared to exchange with me. I received all his best punch and all his best knee and I was still there.”

Well, that’s a matter of opinion. It’s still unclear what was going through Silva’s head during those first two rounds, but I wouldn’t assume that he was scared of Cote (who never gave Silva reason to be), and the small handful of bored strikes he threw certainly did not represent “his best punch and his best knee.” Far from it. What we saw at UFC 90 was Anderson Silva at his most ineffective. Though hey, maybe he was going to make something happen in the championship rounds. Cote would also like you to know that he didn’t fake the knee injury, and he thought it was a little bit rude when Silva offered his hand to help him during the fight. Okay? Now let’s all forget that this ever happened.

Dana White, it should be noted, was understandably disappointed with Silva’s performance, and didn’t think it had anything to do with fear of Cote.

What a bizarre night. If, like me, you can’t quite make sense of what you saw last night, the video above gives you another chance to sort through it all. What does it say when Bruce Buffer provides more intensity than the main event?

Bonus awards for UFC 90 were $65,000 a piece and it played out like this:

Fight of the Night: Sean Sherk and Tyson Griffin
Submission of the Night: Spencer Fisher
KO of the Night: Junior Dos Santos

Awarding bonuses this time around must have felt like a strange process. There were only two submissions (Thales Leites’ choke of McFedries was not impressive enough somehow) and one knockout, and picking a fight of the night had to be a lot like picking a favorite Arena League football team. Apparently 15,359 people showed up to be disappointed by the most unsatisfying UFC in recent memory, with a live gate totaling $2.85 million.

Dos Santos’ vicious knockout of Werdum is after the jump, along with the so-called fight of the night and more.

(As a Brazilian might say, Patrick is about to get haped. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Last week, I sent a letter to Dana White asking if the UFC’s tired old gladiator intro could be replaced with this for tonight’s broadcast. So, fingers crossed. Anyway, we’re about to witness the beginning of the end of Anderson Silva’s career (and possibly Cote’s, depending on how badly he gets injured tonight), a potential fight-of-the-night between the Pitbull vs. the Koscheck, a heavyweight feature that shouldn’t have even been approved by the athletic commission, and a few guys who couldn’t finish a fight to save their balls. Join us, won’t you? Round-by-round updates and commentary await you after the jump; refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

(Check out the full UFC 90 press conference album at Combat Lifestlye.)

- Anderson Silva would just like to know if Patrick Cote is a wizard. (MMA Rated)

- More stupid details from “Bigfoot” Silva’s steroid suspension. (Fightlinker)

- Wagnney Fabiano talks WEC debut. (Tatame)

- Someone wants to buy EliteXC’s websites? (MMA Payout)

- “MMA Live” recaps UFC 89, previews UFC 90. (ESPN)

- Georges St. Pierre on Fox News. (MMA Scraps)

- Carneiro blames “politics” for Chonan loss. (Fighters Only)

- If game shows were made for animals. (Holy Taco)

- Will Ferrell brings some funny back to SNL. (Screen Junkies)

- Sheepdogs make everything better. (Wall Street Fighter)

- Powerful potato gun hurts. Seriously. (Nothing Toxic)

Dana White’s UFC 90 video blog 10/23/08 – Watch more free videos

Today on Dana White‘s UFC 90 Video Blog (though it was actually recorded yesterday) White talks with Steve Cofield about the video blog in a conversation that’s captured on the video blog. Is your mind freaked yet? No? How about if we post another picture with Criss Angel in the background? You guys seemed to love that.

The talk with Cofield is actually one of the highlights of this entry. They discuss EliteXC and Jared Shaw, who (surprise!) isn’t really happy about anything these days. This comes after White discusses the situation with the press, who push him a little for being so jubilant about EliteXC folding and leaving plenty of fighters and staff unemployed. As you might expect, White pushes back with swift retorts like “Too fucking bad. Go get another job.” Fortunately Kevin Iole is there to help him clarify this stance.

Those of you who were hoping that the dissolution of EliteXC and the sudden availability of Gina Carano would make White rethink adding a women’s division to the UFC, sorry. He says EliteXC’s fighters will get picked up, but when asked about interest in the women he replies, “not me.” Didn’t even need to think about it.

Dana White’s UFC 90 Video Blog 10/22/08 – Watch more free videos

In this edition of Dana White‘s UFC 90 video blog we get a look at the pre-fight preparations for both the staff and the fighters. So what’s the difference? Two words: body triangles. Sorting out ticket arrangements may be a hassle, but it’s nothing compared to having Anderson Silva attached to your back. We also see Dana White struggle through the taping of a PSA in a shirt he just bought at the hotel gift shop.

See, it’s not an entirely glamorous life of bro-ing down with fighters and having breakfast with Mandy Moore. Sometimes you have to wear a hotel gift shop shirt. And yeah, sometimes that shirt is itchy. You just have to battle through it.

(Pink polo shirt or gray hooded sweatshirt: who should you trust with your money? Ordinarily there’s no good answer.)

Patrick Cote says all his friends are putting money on him this weekend “so they will be a lot richer after the fight.” Something tells me that while his friends may go along with this when Cote is around, once he leaves the room they’re whispering to one another, ‘We’re not really doing that, right?’ Friendship is one thing, but sentimental gambling is quite another in bleak economic times.

If any of Cote’s friends are reading this, we’d like to alert you to some better prospects that might be available on Saturday night. No disrespect to your buddy, but the line on him won’t make you as rich as you think and if you bet on someone else you can not only actually make some money but also keep up appearances when you place a bet before the fight. See? Everybody wins!

Odds today come courtesy of BestFightOdds.com, which has thankfully compiled all the internet’s juiciest lines.

Anderson Silva (-600) vs. Patrick Cote (+505)
Sean Sherk (-230) vs. Tyson Griffin (+212)
Josh Koscheck (-150) vs. Thiago Alves (+135)
Gray Maynard (-220) vs. Rich Clementi (+210)
Fabricio Werdum (-850) vs. Junior Dos Santos (+600)
Thales Leites (-445) vs. Drew McFedries (+365)
Spencer Fisher (-345) vs. Shannon Gugerty (+299)
Hermes Franca (-180) vs. Marcus Aurelio (+190)
Josh Burkman (-197) vs. Pete Sell (+200)
Dan Miller (-325) vs. Matt Horwich (+305)

Thoughts…

(Luis Cane’s pimp-slap, straight left combo. No one ever expects it. Props, UG.)

- Apparently the hip new trend for youngsters on the internet is to film themselves making UFC predictions and then throw it up on YouTube. Fightlinker spotted the very enthusiastic WishKid12 doing her thing, and decided to see how her picks matched up against those made by professionals like us. We’re proud to report that both Bens (weirdly, we made the exact same picks) soundly defeated this precocious prognosticator. While she went 2-3 on the night, we went 4-1 (curse you Cane, and your bitch-slapping awesomeness). The only one in this impromptu contest to beat us was Fightlinker, with a perfect 5-0. So basically we’re smarter than a twelve-year-old girl but dumber than drunk Canadians. That’s still better than either of our families ever expected.

- Patrick Cote tells MMA Mania that the UFC did not have him sign a contract extension prior to his title fight against Anderson Silva at UFC 90 this Saturday night. That’s notable since he’s at or near the end of his current contract, and typically the UFC makes sure they have a guy locked up before they take a chance on him becoming a belt-holder. At least, that’s what they do when they think the challenger has a chance in hell of winning.

- In case you were wondering, Dana White says he will reward Josh Koscheck with a shot at the welterweight title if he beats Thiago Alves this weekend. We all know how much White loves guys who are willing to step in on short notice, and Koscheck has a chance to turn Diego Sanchez’s misfortune into a big break for himself. Not that anyone’s really clamoring for GSP-Koscheck II at this point.

- MMA Payout takes issue with the UFC’s insinuation that Brandon Vera voluntarily sat out a year and then returned a different fighter. They point out that Vera was an early victim of the “Zuffa Freeze Out” and that by running around comparing the old Vera to the new one, Dana White may be unwittingly calling the wrong kind of attention to his own negotiation practices. Damn revisionist history.

Check out this revealing interview that Sherdog did with Anderson Silva in Rio de Janeiro, in which the Spider delves a little deeper into his motivations for retiring next year. First, he repeats his claim that he’ll be gone after the six remaining fights on his UFC contract are up, but he estimates that he’ll be finished with those fights in June 2009 — which would mean he’d fight almost every month next year. “Everything has its time,” he says, “and I believe my time is already over.”

When asked if financial concerns were behind his desire to leave the UFC, and whether he was bothered by the fact that some UFC fighters who aren’t even champions get paid much more than he does, Silva says “It has nothing to do with money because I’m a humble person who has an ordinary life. Actually I never did it for money…Everything I could do for MMA, I already did. Now it’s time to help the new generation.”

By the end of next year, Silva says he’ll already be retired. “You will not see myself pinching a fly anymore…I’m going to be fat, with a big belly by the side of the Octagon, eating popcorn behind the scenes, making my imitations and screaming for the fighters: ‘Go there! Kick his face! Put him down!’ It’s going to be really funny!”

As for his upcoming UFC 90 fight against Patrick Cote, Silva had this to say: “I’m not able to predict the future, but I can say it’s going to be fun. He’s going to beat me a little bit, and I’m going to beat him a little bit…If God permits, I’ll keep my belt.”

(Photo courtesy of NationalPost.)

From Georges St. Pierre‘s latest blog entry for Yardbarker.com:

First I want to thank everybody for their get well wishes — I feel way better right now than I felt when I came back from L.A. It took me 3 days to recuperate and get back 100%. I didn’t take any medication — I just slept better and trained to sweat it out. After I felt better, I went to New York to see my trainer Phil Nurse and train with 4 of his students who had an upcoming fight at The Wat — Brett, Sean, Nicholas & Stan. It seems to me that every time I go to New York, those guys get better & better all the time. I also saw my old friends Eric Owing & Andre Gusmao — we went to dinner and then out together for a great night.

Then I came back in Montreal with new tricks and more tools than I had before I went to New York. It’s very important for me to help my friends and training partners when they need it because they were there for me when I prepare for my fights. When I came back to Montreal, I kept training with Patrick Cote & Denis Kang, who are both fighting on October 25th. Kang is fighting in Calgary, and Patrick Cote is fighting Anderson Silva for the UFC World Middleweight Championship. Patrick looks better than I have ever seen — even though the odds are not in his favor, I would not be surprised to see him shock the world. It would be great to have world champions in Quebec!

Georges Laraque, one of my friends who also plays for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, gave me two tickets to go see their game Saturday night. Even though it was an off-season game, it was very fun and then after I went to see EliteXC at a friend’s house.

Gina did a nice performance and I’m glad for her because she also represents the sport very well. The main event was obviously a tough situation because Ken had to pull out because of a cut…and I have a lot of respect for Seth & Kimbo to still go out and put on the fight for the fans.

To see what GSP has to say about his latest deal with CAA Sports, training at Team Jackson, and his mentor Krystoff Midoux, read the rest of this post here.

- ESPN Radio’s Ball Park Frank talks with Randy Couture about a number of topics in this video (props to Steve Cofield), but perhaps most interesting is Couture’s assessment of Kimbo Slice‘s upcoming match with Ken Shamrock. As Couture astutely points out (around the 2:55 mark), a quick KO of Shamrock does more to affirm his over-the-hill status than it does to prove Kimbo’s worth as an MMA fighter. At the same time, if Kimbo goes back and forth with Shamrock will that only serve to prove that he’s not the fighter “Buzz” Berry is? Best case scenario for Kimbo is he looks good, Shamrock looks good, Kimbo wins via late KO. That’s also the least plausible scenario.

- Travis Lutter tells MMA Rated there is absolutely no truth to rumors he might be headed back to the UFC. Though it was originally reported that he might face Joe Doerksen in the Octagon, Lutter says neither he nor UFC matchmaker Joe Silva knew where the rumor came from, which means it’s back to the small time for Lutter. He did have a prediction for the Anderson Silva-Patrick Cote bout, though: “Cote is going to get murdered.” Come on, Travis, don’t sugar coat it.

- CBS executives say they will show five fights from ‘Elite XC: Heat’ on Saturday, even if it will probably cause them to run over the allotted two-hour space. Some fans wondered whether CBS had cut “Ninja” Rua-Benji Radach from the broadcast when the bout wasn’t mentioned in recent promos, but Executive VP Kelly Kahl says the fight is still on and will lead off the CBS portion of the card. That means Elite XC will have to keep its general dicking around to a minimum and still hope for a couple quick finishes to keep from going over. It’s something you’ll want to keep in mind if you’re planning on DVR-ing this sucker.

(That’s “The Predator” all right. I’d recognize those cheeks anywhere.)

Well, we’re officially disturbed. This picture of Patrick Cote, um, blowing off some steam(?) was sent to us by mini at hithiphop.com and we immediately wished we had never seen it. So we did what any responsible internet types would do: we forced it on you, our readers. Enjoy your nightmares.

We don’t begrudge a guy his right to have a few too many (at least we hope alcohol was involved) and do things he’ll later wish he hadn’t. But when we picture the guy who’ll finally bring Anderson Silva’s tremendous winning streak to an end, this isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

More pictures are after the jump…if you dare.

(Image courtesy of MMA Fight Girls.)

— Rachelle Leah’s nude Playboy pictorial hits newsstands October 17th…and will probably hit this website shortly after.

— It looks like Cain Velasquez (4-0) has found his next opponent. The heavyweight up-and-comer will reportedly face London Shootfighters product Mustapha Al-Turk (6-3) at “UFC Fights for the Troops” (December 10th; Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina). Al-Turk, who recently signed a four-fight contract with the UFC, is the current Cage Rage British Heavyweight Champion; like Velasquez, all of his wins have come via first-round stoppage.

— TUF 7 embarrassment Jesse “Mongo” Taylor has booked his next fight against another UFC vet who famously can’t keep his shit together. He’ll be facing Drew Fickett at Total Combat 32 on October 2nd, at the Syucan Casino near San Diego. Total Combat claims that the card will be televised on MTV3 (?).

— The UFC is planning to hold its first show in the Philippines next summer. Lorenzo Fertitta was blown away by the rabid public response to an appearance by Chuck Liddell at the Mall of Asia in Pasay City on Sunday, saying “Chuck is a rock star over here…We’re probably more mainstream in the Philippines than we are in the US. We’re going to be moving the show around the world, and we’re creating the UFC global footprint.”

— BetUS.com has established the odds for UFC 90′s Anderson Silva/Patrick Cote scrap as -800/+425, with the Spider as the runaway favorite, obviously. Once Cote’s line gets up to about +16,000, we’ll consider throwing a sawbuck on him.

(Shannon Gugerty finishes fights. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

— Without an opponent due to Thiago Silva’s recent back injury, Lyoto Machida has been officially removed from UFC 89′s lineup; an undercard bout between Shane Carwin and Neil Wain will now be bumped up to the pay-per-view broadcast. As one rumor goes, Machida could potentially face Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in November or December.

— Patrick Cote is tired of the American media disrespecting him by discussing who Anderson Silva should face after the Spider inevitably kicks the crap out of the Canadian challenger at UFC 90. You might not believe this, but Cote said he’s “ready to shock the world.” Wow…could we have been wrong about this fight all along?

— Melvin Guillard has been forced to drop out of his UFC 90 bout with Spencer Fisher for undisclosed reasons. Replacing him will be Shannon Gugerty (11-2), the City Boxing product who made his UFC debut at “Silva vs. Irvin” in July with a first-round choke-out of Dale Hartt.

— The UFC may have found its next light-heavyweight gatekeeper, reportedly signing Italian UWC/Cage Rage vet Ivan Serati (10-2) to a multi-fight deal; he’s expected to make his first Octagon appearance before the end of the year. Serati has won his last four matches, and started his career with five straight victories by stoppage (all in under a minute) before losing to Vitor Belfort via TKO at a Cage Rage event in April ’07.

— UFC.com just published a feature about Evan Tanner‘s greatest UFC moments. Read and reflect.

(The good, not-so-old days…)

The way Dan Henderson sees it, this fight with Rousimar Palhares is just a step he has to take in order to get that rematch with Anderson Silva. In a recent interview with Yahoo! Sports he admitted to not knowing who Palhares was when he accepted the fight — though he did some internet research and figured it out — and then went on to diagnose what went wrong for him against “The Spider” and how he plans to remedy that the next go-round:

“He’s got holes in his game,” said Henderson, who won the first round of the fight, before getting tired and being submitted in the second round. “He’s very athletic and can get away with it. I felt my conditioning was off. I got a little tired and didn’t push the takedown in the second round. If I’d have gotten it, I’d have won the round. I should have been more aggressive when I had him down in the first round. I didn’t expect to finish him so I didn’t try. I was looking to win the round.”

First off, it’s pretty generous to go ahead and attribute the loss entirely to fatigue in the second round. It’s true that Henderson did look to have Silva somewhat figured out in that first round. Trouble is, championship fights go five rounds, and if you don’t plan to finish someone, you’d damn well better be ready to go all five.

But it does remind us that Hendo is still a credible middleweight title challenger at a time when the UFC is desperate for them (no offense, Patrick Cote…okay, a little offense). When viewed through that prism, Henderson-Palhares is suddenly a lot more interesting. Can Henderson show that he’s got his cardio act together, and is thus deserving of another shot at Silva? Will fans give a damn if he does, or is Silva too far out in the stratosphere of pound-for-pound brilliance for the UFC to drum up sufficient interest in rematches with people he’s already beaten?

We’ll have to wait and see, but if Henderson goes out on Saturday and throttles Palhares, don’t be surprised if it’s followed by Mike Goldberg doing the old UFC hard sell on Henderson as number one contender. First he has to win the fight though, and preferably look for a finish this time.

(‘You dance very good, little woman. You are negative for the STD’s, yes?’)

Poor Anderson Silva. The UFC middleweight champ just can’t find enough playmates in the UFC middleweight neighborhood. Yes, there’s that nice Patrick Cote boy, but then what? Silva is basically being forced to go door to door and ask, in broken English, if there are any middleweights or light heavyweights who can come out and play. Next up could very well be Chuck Liddell, according to Silva’s manager, Ed Soares:

“I think he wants to fight those big mega fights because that’s the kind of fight we want to be involved with right now,” he said about Silva’s future fights. “I think it’s a combination of seeing what the potential opponent is and also seeing what the UFC wants to do. At the end of the day, this is a business, and they need to sell fights. They need to sell a lot of pay-per-views, and they need to sell tickets. So, we want to be involved with those types of fights.”

“We’re not looking past Patrick Cote, but I think we’ll take one step at a time and see what happens. But yeah, if a Chuck Liddell fight came up, we’d take it,” stated Soares. “Whoever the UFC wants to put in front of us, he wants to fight the best, and whoever that may be at the time, that’s who he wants to fight.”

The very idea of a Silva-Liddell superfight is probably enough to give Dana White an erection, and for good reason. The pay-per-view numbers on this would likely be record-breaking, and no matter how it goes someone gets a big boost. Liddell, however, is probably a little less enthusiastic.

For one, he recently made known his belief that a victory over Rashad Evans should be enough to net him a title shot. Chances are he didn’t mean the middleweight title. For another, beating the champ from a lower weight class is sort of like being the toughest kid in eighth grade after being held back a year. There’s always a ‘but’ attached to that victory.

Silva has more to gain from this fight than Liddell does, but if there’s one thing we know about “The Iceman” it’s that he’ll do the UFC’s bidding, whatever it happens to be. He’ll also probably make a ton of money to do it, and everyone can go home fat and happy if this fight materializes on a pay-per-view at year’s end.

(Props: MMA Rated via Bloody Elbow)

I only have one thought looking at this photo from yesterday’s UFC 90 press conference in Chicago: Anderson, you’re wearing a pink-and-white polo shirt — would it kill you to pop that collar?

Even in his fey-frat-boy gear, the Spider still cuts quite an imposing figure, and Patrick Cote knows that no matter how the fight ends, he’ll be looking pretty messed up afterwards. He makes peace with that idea in the AOL Fanhouse video below, and also states that he wants to fight Silva at his healthiest. Which works out well, because Anderson Silva doesn’t get sick — sick gets Anderson Silva.

(You’d be smiling too if you sold $2 million worth of tickets.)

Just a few hours after tickets for UFC 90 at Chicago’s All-State Arena went on sale, roughly 80% of them were snatched up. This means that by the time the UFC’s press conference for the event on Monday was over they’d already pulled in around $2 million in live gate money. All this for an October 25 event featuring Anderson Silva against Patrick Cote (rest his soul) and Diego Sanchez taking on Thiago Alves. It’s safe to say the UFC will be returning to Chicago frequently from now on.

Even with such early success Dana White went ahead and poured on the hyperbole at Monday’s press conference:

”This is a bold statement in a town with the White Sox and Cubs and the Bears, but I guarantee you this will be the most exciting live sporting event you have ever seen,” White said. ”I can’t explain it to you. You have to experience it.

”The closest thing that comes to it is when Mike Tyson was in his heyday. There was so much excitement about someone getting knocked out.”

After that last remark we imagine that White looked over at Cote, shrugged, and silently mouthed “Sorry!” before continuing on.

White also vowed that UFC 90 would be the highest-grossing event in the arena’s history, edging out Wrestlemania for that honor. Then they moved on to discuss Thiago Alves’ problems making weight, which we’ve all been assured won’t be a problem this time around, even though he’s currently about thirty pounds over.

In a final bit of UFC 90 news, Mike Swick is expected to be added to the card, though an opponent has not yet been named.

(Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

“It was interesting…karma comes around. Honestly what I thought of it was that Karma’s a bitch with a red dress.” — Houston Alexander on James Irvin’s loss to Anderson Silva. Alexander also told TheMMANews that he’s renewed his UFC contract for an additional four fights.

“Joe Silva was telling me to lose some weight and gain some muscle. He said I need the UFC look.” — Roy Nelson on the UFC’s “No Fatties” policy. Luckily, Affliction is a judgment-free zone.

“We know how to beat Anderson Silva. The only way to beat him is to push the pace. Go forward all the time. You can’t let him get confident and comfortable in the centre of the Octagon. You have to push the pace for five minutes every round. If I do that, I can catch him. I’ll take care of him.” — Famous last words from Patrick Cote.

“I would fight any one of the UFC lightweights, but the problem is that I will never put my foot in the octagon after they (UFC) tried to be funny. I would rather have bleeding hemorrhoids than fight for the UFC. The Japanese MMA audience is the best in the world. They make magic! I would rather have one true Japanese MMA supporter than one million fake mainstream supporters that will turn their back on you as soon as you lose a fight. I don’t care about things that are mainstream.” — Joachim Hansen, who was offered half his contracted salary by the UFC after Zuffa bought PRIDE.

“I think that shot pretty much changed the whole dynamic of the fight. I sure would like to know what would have happened if it hadn’t landed. Once that right hand landed it was like I was fighting half blind, or pretty much blind at that point. It was all pretty much downhill from there. I just tried to come back and mount some type of offense. Unfortunately, I was never able to mount anything that significant…After getting rocked with a shot like that, and not being able to see, you’re more in survival mode.” — Heath Herring on the fight-opening punch from Brock Lesnar that sent him ass-over-teakettle.

(Patrick Cote: Dead man.)

The UFC has informed the Chicago Sun-Times that UFC 90 (October 25th @ Chicago’s Allstate Arena) will be headlined by a middleweight title bout between Anderson Silva and Patrick Cote. Get a load of how retarded Cote is:

“This guy will need 10 punches to my face to knock me out, and I’ll just need one,” Cote said. ‘”I have a good chance. He won’t exchange with me, and I’m not scared of him.”

Absolutely nothing in the above statement is accurate. And if that 10/1 ratio thing that “The Predator” mentioned sounds familiar, it’s because James Irvin said something idiotically similar before getting his lights turned out — with one punch! ha! — in his fight against Silva. But don’t worry, because Cote knows that the secret to defeating Anderson Silva is head movement:

“If you want to know how not to fight Silva, just watch tape of [the Silva/Irvin] fight,” Cote said. “He was flat on his feet with no head movement. He threw a lazy kick against a world-class Muay Thai fighter, and that’s what happens. I’m not like James Irvin. I’m a better striker, and I’m faster.”

Translation: Cote isn’t making it past the first round. In other UFC news, Five Ounces of Pain is reporting that if Georges St. Pierre successfully defends his welterweight title against Jon Fitch next month, he’ll face BJ Penn on December 27th, at a yet-unnumbered UFC event that is also slated to feature the heavyweight title clash between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank Mir. One theory making the rounds is that the Penn/GSP match will be a non-title affair that will be marketed as a “battle of the weight divisions.” As cheesy as that sounds, there’s a certain logic to it — assuming the fight is contested at welterweight, it would seem a little unfair for GSP’s belt to be on the line but not Penn’s. We just hope that the UFC has special “superfight rules” in place that would make Penn vs. St. Pierre five rounds instead of three. More to come…

…so said Silva’s manager Ed Soares, when asked by ProMMARadio about a potential Georges St. Pierre/Anderson Silva superfight:

“That sounds great, I think GSP is an incredible fighter. But I think GSP needs to prove himself. He still hasn’t had a successful title defense (at 170 lbs.). I don’t really feel that he deserves (a Silva fight) yet. Go defend your title a few times and then we’ll talk.”

The thing is, St. Pierre has proven himself many times over to be an elite-level fighter, and Soares is veering uncomfortably close to Juanito Ibarra territory, wild statement-wise. But what makes his dismissal of GSP particularly ironic is that Spider’s next fight is likely going to be against Patrick Cote, who doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as Silva or GSP. With Yushin Okami suffering a broken hand, Cote is really and truly next in line for a title shot; that little shitshow could happen at UFC 88 (September 6th, Atlanta).

A relatively one-dimensional striker, Cote doesn’t bring any more to the table than James Irvin did, and their bout will almost certainly be another brief exhibition for Silva. The silver lining is that with this belt-defense obligation out of the way quickly, Silva will be free to “test the waters” at light-heavyweight again — and he does plan on fighting at least one more time before the end of the year.

Sort of related: “UFC Silva vs. Irvin” was a ratings smash. The broadcast averaged 3.1 million viewers, peaked at 3.8 million viewers, and according to SpikeTV, beat all basic cable and broadcast networks in that timeslot for the “males 18-49″ and “males/females 18-34″ demographics.