Ahead of Saturday night’s UFC 89 show in Birmingham, England, Martin Smith was on hand at the National Indoor Arena for iFight365.com on Friday to see what all the fuss was about.

Prior to Friday afternoon’s weigh-ins, we had Dana White doing a Q&A for an hour. It was priceless stuff from the first minute. Here are the highlights…

Fedor coming to UFC? - Dana said he hoped it would happen eventually. He said he’d never met Fedor and rather, he speaks to his management team. They’ll see in the future.

War Machine back? - He said War Machine had made some big mistakes lately and that he’d actually spoke to him a few days ago because he’d “f*cked up again”. He said “never say never” but who knows.

The Ultimate Fighter - Dana said they had signed to do twelve seasons of The Ultimate Fighter with Spike TV. He also mentioned how he only sees the stuff in the house when we see it. The producers call him up and he goes down if something big happens. He told everyone to keep their eyes peeled. He talks about the incidents involving Junie Browning so far this season and says “you guys have to keep watching”.

Dana told a story how the producers got Browning a ticket home, he packed his stuff and they sat down. White admits that everyone wanted him off the show but he wasn’t sure. “I swear dude, I wasn’t thinking about ratings,” he said.

“If I walked in there and this guy was being a punk, I’d have kicked him off the f*cking show. But he wasn’t and so I gave him a chance”.

Fighters on contract - He mentioned that they had over 250 guys on contract at the minute. He said he’d love to have the likes of Fedor, Faber and Cung Le under contract.

Cung Le - He said they had spoken to Le and that they couldn’t do anything yet because Le was shooting a movie, but he’s a guy he’d love to get in.

WEC - White said it was still a slow progress with WEC and he’d try and get them on television in the UK. He said they had to keep the company on the ground for now before they lost money.

PRIDE - Dana talked about how they wanted to keep the company going but “the mafia” run the sport over there.

Two referees - Dana warmed to the idea of two referees - one in the ring and one with a monitor ringside who would over-rule a controversial point deduction.

Lee Murray - A fan asked Dana if Lee Murray would be in the UFC if he wasn’t in jail. White said Murray was “a great guy, but he has more problems than Anderson Silva right now”.

Another division? - Dana said there was a good chance the company could bring in a division lower the lightweight in the future. He also name-dropped Faber.

Kimbo Slice - He said the guy got over doing something any dude could do in their garden. He said he found that “shit on YouTube entertaining but Kimbo isn’t an MMA fighter - hell he proved that on those videos.”

He said if he was serious about this sport, he would have worked his way up the ladder from small promotions on small cards.

Lyoto Machida - White said Machida had a great future and that they couldn’t find a replacement fighter here in Birmingham because “Machida only wants to fight top 10 guys”. He said a title shot was probably on the horizon.

Michael Bisping/Anderson Silva? - White said that if Bisping wins against Leben, he’s probably two or three fights away from Anderson Silva. He said Bisping was probably a year away from a title shot and that his next fight could possibly be in America.

Dan Henderson - White said the Henderson/Franklin fight at UFC 93 would be a light-heavyweight fight.

GSP or Silva in UK soon? - White said this was something they were working on. Maybe next year.

UFC 100 - White said they haven’t started planning it yet. He said there was a chance it could take place on July 4th, but he ruled out there being five title fights on the card. He said the numbers would continue in the future, so we would see UFC 101 etc.

Matt Serra vs. Matt Hughes - He said there was a slight chance it could take place in the UK but it was doubtful.

Who does Dana White hate? - “I f*cking hate Tito Ortiz and he hates me. I don’t like Frank Shamrock either”

Will Dana fight in the UFC one day? - Dana said he was too old to fight anymore and he said after training for the Tito Ortiz thing, he was done.

Rashad Evans - White commented on the fact that it wasn’t necessarily Evans who got the title shot, but it was the manner in how he defeated Chuck Liddell that gave him his chance in December.

Anderson Silva retiring? - White said: “Look, everyone is complaining about how fighters don’t get paid enough. You know why Anderson Silva is considering retiring? Because he’s f*cking rich. If I was Anderson Silva, I would want to retire.

“We have a stacked Middleweight division but it looks weak because this guy is so f*cking good. Who knows if he’ll retire.”

Would he take Tito Ortiz back? - “The thing is dude, I had to put up with Tito’s shit when he was good. Now he’s not good. We gave him plenty of guys and he didn’t want to take fights with any of them. He hasn’t beaten anybody lately.”

But, would he piss on Ortiz if he was on fire? - “No. I would roast marshmellows on him”

Randy Couture - “I always knew Randy would come back,” said White.

Brock Lesnar - White said that if Lesnar destroys both Couture and Mir/Noguiera then he could dominate the sport for years to come.

Then we had the weigh-in, which came out as this:

Michael Bisping (185) vs. Chris Leben (186)
Brandon Vera (203) vs Keith Jardine (205)
Paul Kelly (169) vs. Marcus Davis (169)
Thierry Rameau Sokoudjou (205) vs. Luiz Cane (206)
Paul Taylor (170) vs. Chris Lytle (170)
Dan Hardy (169) vs. Akihiro Gono (171)
Shane Carwin (264) vs. Neil Wain (254)
Jess Liaudin (155) vs. David Beilkheden (155)
Sam Stout (155) vs. Terry Etim (155)
David Baron (155) vs. Jim Miller (155)
Per Eklund (156) vs. Samy Schiavo (156)

Bisping ended the day with a bold statement to Joe Rogan: “Well, I hate to come across as all cocky,” he said. Chris says one of us is going to go forward and one of us is going to go down.

“I’m going forward and you’re going down.”

iFight365.com will have live coverage of UFC 89 tomorrow night!

Martin Smith
martin@ifight365.com

WIN! UFC Merchandise to be won ahead of UFC 89 this weekend