According to the "crunching the numbers" segment on MMA Live this week, UFC 87 did 625,000 buys.  They do not cite a source for any of their numbers, which makes me skeptical, but if the number is correct, it is an incredible showing of selling power for Brock Lesnar.

In almost every U.S. market for UFC 87, interest was higher for Brock Lesnar than Georges St. Pierre.  It appears he was the primary mover for the buyrate for this show in the states, while GSP brought in a good number in Canada.  If this number is correct, Dana's prediction that Brock vs. Randy will do a million buys looks a little more realistic.

He doesn't quite come out and say it but he certainly implies that something fishy was going on. From the Fight Card radio show:

To be honest he was really slippery and I don’t mean that like technically-wise, he was really slippery. I don’t know, I don’t want to speculate and say that something was used or whatever but he was just hard to hang on to and that was from all the positions. Even when I had him in like a headlock or a guillotine everything was just really slippery. When I get the position, when I get mount, when I get back-mount, I’ve fought and I’ve wrestled some of the best guys on the ground from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and submission wrestling to MMA and when I get those positions you’re not getting out and Roger was able to get out. It was pretty slippery so I was a little surprised. Just the first time I was mounted on him and he gave his back I was a little suspicious, I knew something was up. Who knows, all I know is I’m good at keeping those positions and I know the difference between sweat and something else and it felt like something else but who knows. (Jokingly) Maybe it’s Albolene left over from the day before from the weight cut!

HT MMA Mania

There have been conflicting reports since the evening of weigh-ins for UFC 87 regarding whether or not Heath Herring or his team made disparaging remarks towards Brock Lesnar prior to their fight. Lesnar and UFC prez Dana White say there were, while Herring has denied saying anything derogatory about the former wrestler (or any of his previous opponents, for that matter).

One thing which neither side has disputed to this point was the fact that Herring refused to walk out to the cage before Lesnar when asked by UFC execs. Herring even said as much on the August 12th episode of Sherdog's "Beatdown" radio show.

"Oh, absolutely. When I got the call about that, I was actually surprised. I thought it was really, really disrespectful. I think I definitely earned the right to walk out second. I mean, had Lesnar won his last fight and we were fighting in his hometown, I don't think there would have even been anything at all about that. But the fact was that he hadn't won, I had won my last fight against Kongo, and I think we had earned the right to walk out second at that point."

But just yesterday, Herring was quoted in a piece on MMAJunkie roundly denying anything of the sort.

Herring also denied reports that he requested he not be forced to walk to the cage ahead of the hometown-hero Lesnar.

"I never even had a discussion with [the UFC] about anything," Herring insisted. "I'll be honest. You bringing that up is the first I've heard of it."

I have to say that I believed Herring when he said in the Sherdog interview that he hadn't trash-talked Lesnar. He sounded sincere, and he was open and honest about the entrance situation (which I agreed with him about). Now this comes out and it just makes him sound deceptive and more likely guilty of making the statements Lesnar and White accused him of in the first place.

via nbcsportsmedia1.msnbc.com

Quite the upset, but in retrospect, you know someone was eventually going to take advantage of Gamburyan's stand-up. I just didn't think it'd be Emerson. View the rest of these photos from NBC's UFC 87 gallery.

"The last fight of the night was Georges [St. Pierre] and [Jon] Fitch. Georges didn’t look as big as he has before and he seemed like he had gotten tired from the first round. Fitch had the game plan of countering Georges and you just can’t do that. You can’t counter a quicker fighter. To be honest, halfway in the third round I got up and walked out of the arena and went to my hotel. The fight wasn’t the most exciting and I wanted to get out of there before everyone else was getting up to leave."

-- Matt Hughes, talking about his UFC 87 experience on his personal blog.

(For what it's worth, he did pick GSP to win in the previous post.)

Jon Jones has only trained MMA for 9 months, but he made his UFC debut this past weekend, and he convincingly beat Andre Gusmao.  Jones obviously still has a lot to learn, but he showed an incredible amount of potential in this fight, busting out great takedowns and really innovative striking.  He tried a lot of insane stuff, none of which really landed flush, but he kept Gusmao reeling and guessing the entire fight.  I'd like to see him fight the winner of the Houston Alexander vs. Eric Shafer fight, or maybe some of the guys from the WEC that come over.

Credit to Bloody Elbow reader Smoogy who posted these over at at The Underground.

Tom Powers of the St. Paul Pioneer Press attended his first UFC event live and while he admits the fighters are tough, that MMA is a sport and "skill [is] involved", he seems to believe it's the most barbaric act known to mankind. And on his way towards doing so, he rehashes every anachronistic misleading canard regarding our beloved sport. Here are some choice clips:

You know it's a rough sport when the crowd boos a fighter for taking too long to recover from a knee to the groin. Gasping and choking for such a protracted length of time, he bored the audience.

UFC: 87 at Target Center Saturday night was quite an experience. As it turns out, mixed martial arts fighting is much different in person than it is on TV. Home viewers can't get a sense of the blood lust emanating from the stands. And they can't see the sweat and small pieces of artery flying out of the octagon.

This is the new "big thing," of course. Non-stop cartoon violence come to life for the Internet Age.

It's as vicious as cockfighting, except you can't deep fry and eat the loser on a bun. Although a lot of fighters that looked like hamburger limped past the press table after their bouts.

And those were the winners.

...

These are the toughest guys I've ever seen in any sport, gymnasium or prison yard. The sport is relatively new, so there aren't any long-term studies. But it's hard to believe any of the fighters will live long lives. Their internal organs must resemble oatmeal. They clearly have incredibly high pain thresholds.

It was very interesting. Mixed martial arts fighting might be over the top, but it's a legitimate sport. There is skill involved. The combatants blend all the best techniques of boxing, wrestling, martial arts and first-degree assault.

I've always believed that half the world is in therapy, and it's the wrong half. Well, this sport is for the other half. It's a way to release aggression, anxiety, anger and many other harmful feelings. Fans just have to watch the action and scream wildly for whichever fighter is kicking butt at that particular time. Their eyes and neck veins bulge. They lose their voice. Then they feel better.

...

Granted, the way we're headed, the next "big thing" in this country will be the National Decapitation League. A couple of guys will be given machetes and thrust into a steel cage. The first one to lop off the other fellow's head will be declared the winner.

We aren't there yet. But we're getting close.

Mixed martial arts, despite all the different techniques and moves, still resembles street brawling but with a few key rules to maintain some semblance of decency. For example, spitting officially is not allowed. Neither is "putting a finger into any orifice" of any opponent.

But I'm sure we'll soon have a breakaway association that allows spitting and orifice poking. From there, we're just a short step from the machetes.

When a mainstream writer new to MMA readily admits he can't tell the difference between street fights and what happened at UFC 87, I'm done with them. I have been part of and witness to many street fights. To not recognize the difference between a street fight and a high-level MMA fight is akin to being unable to tell the difference between Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" and a magazine cover of Ice T's CoCo.

Powers' email here.

HT: Yahoo! MMA Experts Blog

Probably, but who cares? More importantly, Lesnar's post-fight actions were neither unique to the sport nor necessarily a bad thing. Jordan Breen opines:

If you want a testament to the power and place that pro-wrestling gimmickry and showboating have in this sport, look no further than Tito Ortiz. His maybe, maybe-not signing with Affliction was the biggest story of last week in the MMA world, despite the looming UFC 87 card. And what for? Ortiz hasn't beaten an elite-level opponent in years. In fact, his period of dominance in the sport is hard to remember in terms of actual action. Apart from slamming Evan Tanner through the floor, and his commercially successful but competitively handicapped smashing of Ken Shamrock, what do you remember about Tito Ortiz's UFC title reign, except for the Belfort fight being cancelled 60 times and him not fighting Chuck Liddell? You remember the six-shooter pistols. You remember flipping the double birds. You remember the Gravedigger. And for some reason, years later, he's still worth millions when he fights, and that includes your hard-earned dollars.

I'm not long for this world of "Great fight, bro,” and shared embraces for any remotely competitive fight. While I could do without a sport full of Ricardo Mayorgas, I'm all for some good old-fashioned pro-wrestling heel tactics. American MMA needs to step up its game anyhow: Ricardo Arona doesn't have a major deal, Josh Koscheck isn't singing "17-1", and Tim Sylvia still just wants to be loved. Since Yoshihiro Akiyama is well-settled (and well-compensated) as Japan's super-villain, somebody needs to angrily galvanize the MMA public.

If Lesnar's laugh-and-lasso annoyed, offended or even outraged you: good. But if you think for a minute that there's "no place" for this pro-wrestling gimmickry in MMA, Dana White will chap your thin hide all the way to bank. And thank God, because I've had all the clichéd "respect" I can handle.

If we add in accusations from some in attendance that Herring was dismissive of Lesnar and rudely demanded ring entrance second before their fight, Lesnar's actions are at worst childish.

What's more important is that Lesnar's antics help fuel drama without going overboard. What Lesnar did is a far cry from the post-fight finger flipping, riot-facilitating behavior of the Diaz brothers circa "Return of the King".  He may be juvenile, but Lesnar is helping to construct an image that can be given to fans to either embrace or loathe. In either case, though, the antics will force fans to watch. Ultimately, that's all one can ask for.

Despite my best efforts, I nor anyone else in the prognostication game can always get it right. As long as I'm correct more than the average MMA fan, I'll have earned my keep.

So I must confess to being wrong in my forecasting of the Lesnar vs. Herring bout and about Brock Lesnar in general. While I can't say I was shocked by what transpired, I can confess to overselling Herring's abilities. I did not expect Herring to stop Lesnar's takedowns, but I did expect more offensive manuevering on the feet and the ground. Herring stayed turtled virtually the entire bout as Lesnar hit side control and leg rides to prevent Herring from recapturing guard. It's a static game Lesnar played, but one played with perfect execution.

What I won't cop to, though, is the principle of "wait and see" with MMA prospects being unhelpful or some sort of hindrance to more clairvoyant thought.  That principle didn't work at this instantiation of it, but more often than not, you'll save yourself some grief if adhere to the rule: in MMA, until someone is tested and proven, you are gambling on the unknown. That rule doesn't have to be perfect to be effective. Even though I was very wrong about Lesnar, I still feel comfortable being reserved in predictive situations like the one many of us faced prior to Saturday night. The fact of the matter is that while some took a leap of faith on Lesnar, there were, in fact, quite a few unanswered questions before his fight with Herring. It was a healthy skepticism that didn't make accomplishment for Lesnar impossible, just improbable until more information was made available.

And Lesnar gave us a great deal of information on Saturday. While I believe Lesnar's offensive gameplan was largely a game of static nullification, it's clear Lesnar is significantly improved. Most notably, he already has a much better sense of positioning. He knew with a leg ride or in side control with a "seatbelt" arm to control Herring's back that he was best suited to use his existing abilities. He demonstrated he was building out of his existing skill set rather than trying to be something he is not at this early stage - a very risky proposition.

Lesnar also proved to have good cardio. The match wasn't a pitched back-and-forth battle nor was it particularly damaging for Lesnar, but he still looked fresh after three rounds of tangling with an experienced and very large heavyweight fighter.

What I also liked about Lesnar's gameplan was that it reminded me of the wrestler's creed: when you're not attacking, you're defending. He did spend a large portion of the fight merely controlling Herring, but he was first with his strikes on the feet and immediately bull rushed his opponent. From there, he kept constant pressure on Herring, controlling every position while he found his spots to unleash damage. He never let Herring capture any real offensive opportunities.

Most interestingly, the power behind Lesnar's strikes caught my eye. I've never been impressed with Lesnar's striking technique, but his blistering reflexes and ability to find open shots through control were extremely effective. Once again, he's building in offensive opportunities through his existing skills and assets, something I find commendable and is quite likely partially due to his training with a world-class team/instructors. With the power that Lesnar has, he doesn't need a lot of time or strikes to make his opponent suffer. Even without the damage Herring had suffered on the ground, the two knees Lesnar landed in the clinch against the cage in the third round were stunning. Had he been a little more comfortable and risk-taking in that position, he very well could have stopped Herring there.

So, while I was a skeptic, Lesnar did what I needed him to do all along: prove himself, then I'll believe. Ok, I officially believe Lesnar has what it takes to compete at the highest level of MMA. There are some stiff challenges ahead for him to be sure, but with continued diligence in building his skills and executing a gameplan, he poses a significant number of challenges for anyone in the UFC heavyweight division.

UFC 87 had the biggest live gate in Target Center history according to Steve Cofield:

The attendance at the Target Center was 15,082. The gate of $2.2 million set a new arena record surpassing a Billy Joel/Elton John show.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Myron P. Medcalf notes that a diverse crowd was on hand to help set the record:

As surprising as [Roger] Huerta's performance in front of his hometown crowd was, the variety of fans that came out to watch was just as shocking.

Fiftysomethings sporting "Death Clutch" T-shirts, women cheering louder than their tough-guy boyfriends and the loyal flock of adrenaline-driven young males that have helped the UFC become a $1 billion company were all there.

One fan even sat with an IV hooked up to his veins, while he watched the fights in the front row.