(They were polar opposites with hearts of gold and a weakness for terrible chest tattoos.)

If you didn’t catch today’s UFC 121 press conference, you didn’t miss a whole hell of a lot more than the usual answers to the usual questions, but there were a few interesting tidbits revealed by UFC president Dana White including that he will be travelling to New York tomorrow to discuss some movement in the sanctioning of MMA in the hold-out state and the fact that he considered giving Jake Shields a title shot in his first UFC fight based on his record and accomplishments outside the Octagon.

Reflecting off of another, "Do you see MMA in the Olympics in the future?" question he was lobbed at the presser, White explained that things in New York are "moving faster than [he] could have imagined" and that he will be meeting with some unnamed individuals in that regard on Thursday.


When asked if by default, since he has stated that Shields will be next in line at the winner of the UFC 124 tilt between welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre and Josh Koscheck, if Kampmann will earn the title shot if he beats the UFC newcomer and former Strikeforce middleweight kingpin, White was non-committal, and chose instead to explain why Shields could have been facing St-Pierre now if the timing was right. What was ironic was that the Baldfather’s main benchmark for Shields being deserving of the title berth was the fact that he beat Dan Henderson — a fighter he didn’t see the value in re-signing.

Besides that, the theme for the day seemed to be apologies.

Heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar, (who says he did enjoy shooting the Primetime show and will keep the beard for the inquiring minds who want to know) talked about how much he loves Canadians and Mexicans in spite of comments he has made to the contrary and Tito Ortiz proclaimed his admiration and respect for his squishy-headed deaf ex-student Matt Hamill.

I wonder if it was coincidence that Dana had just finished explaining the importance of fighters doing PR and of maintaining a positive image in the media for good of the sport and the company.

I’m guessing telling a reporter that you’re going to "fuck them up worse than they’ve ever been fucked up before," or that you plan on kneeing them "in the balls," if you ever meet them don’t follow the guidelines of that tenet.