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2008-05-10 01:55:31
The Many Different Faces of UFC 85
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Is UFC 85 cursed? That's what many fight fans are wondering. The card, which is scheduled to take place on June 7th at the 02 Arena in London, has gone through a myriad of changes in the weeks and months leading up to the show.
The UFC has done an admirable job of scrambling to patch together a decent show. The show itself will be passable, and has some interesting match-ups for hardcore fight fans. However, I am not sure how well this card will draw in terms of North American PPV numbers. The main event is scheduled to be Matt Hughes vs Thiago Alves, which is certainly an interesting match-up, but a significant step down from the main events of the past few cards.
UFC 83 featured St. Pierre vs Serra. UFC 84 will feature BJ Penn against Sean Sherk. UFC 82 featured Dan Henderson vs Anderson "Spider" Silva. I am not sure that UFC fans will be too jazzed about a Hughes / Alves main event, especially when compared to the quality of the main event on the previous three cards.
This wasn't the UFC's original plan though. UFC 85 has undergone a number of changes due to injuries and other circumstances.
The original main event was supposed to be Mauricio "Shogun" Rua against Chuck Liddell. This would have been a fantastic main event, but unfortunately Rua had to pull out due to knee surgery.
Rashad Evans was then slotted to face Chuck Liddell in the main event - again, it was not meant to be, as this time it was Liddell who was forced to pull out of the main event. Liddell tore one of his hamstrings and had to be removed from the main event.
The UFC then went through their rolodex of big name fighters, trying to secure a top name to fight in the main event. Georges St. Pierre? Couldn't do it, his hands hadn't yet recovered from his fight against Matt Serra. Anderson Silva? Recently went under the knife and wasn't in fighting shape. Rich Franklin? Didn't feel as though he would have enough time to hit his "peak", considering the short amount of time before the fight.
So the UFC called a trusted old veteran, Matt Hughes, to step in and fight in the main event. His opponent will be Thiago Alves, an extremely talented fighter who will give Hughes all he can handle and more.
The problem? Hughes is on the downside of his career. He was destroyed in his last two fights against Georges St. Pierre, and this has slightly damaged his credibility in the eyes of MMA fans. St. Pierre completely manhandled Hughes in their UFC 79 match-up, leaving many to wonder if Hughes was finished as a professional fighter. However, Dana White made the call, and Hughes jumped back into action, agreeing to a fight against Alves.
All of the swapping and substitutions on the card didn't end there. The UFC added Michael Bisping to the card in order to excite the hometown fans. Bisping is a "local" boy, and having him on the card would have given the London fans someone to root for. The UFC placed Bisping in a match-up against Chris Leben, but again, it wasn't meant to be. Leben had an outstanding warrant out for his arrest in Oregon, and likely would have been unable to get in to England to fight his match because of his legal issues. So he decided to turn himself in to Oregon authorities, optimistically hoping that he would only have to serve 8-10 days in jail. Instead, he was sentenced to 35 days, which meant that he would have only had about a week to get ready for his match against Bisping. The UFC decided to "postpone" this match, and instead slotted in Jason Day to take Leben's place in the fight.
In additional UFC 85 news, Jonathan Goulet has just recently announced that he will be pulling out of UFC 85 as well due to a shortage of training time. He was scheduled to fight the undefeated Paul Kelly. No word as to whether or not the UFC is going to replace Goulet in this match-up or scrap it altogether.
The UFC will likely be glad when this nightmare of a card is behind them. As I said, they have done an admirable job of keeping the card together, but they can't be all that jazzed about the potential PPV numbers. Some are predicting that this will be the UFC's worst PPV, in terms of buys, in three years.
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