UFC 79 Nemesis ended up being even better than expected. In the main event Georges St. Pierre easily handled ex-champion Matt Hughes with a second-round submission. St. Pierre dominated the fight from the onset, taking Hughes to the ground halfway through the first. Then he worked past his guard and laid the ground and pounded on him until the end of the round. The second round was more of the same until St. Pierre got Hughes in an arm bar and won by submission.

The other marquee fight on the card had two legends going toe-to-toe for three rounds. Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Liddell didn’t hold anything back as the two aging fighters both wanted to put on a show for their fans. Both men took hard shots but kept going at each other until the final bell. Liddell ended up winning by unanimous decision.

Chuck Liddell is a member of more than the Chuck Liddell Fight Team. He and five other celebrities have joined forces to promote Dell products. If you visit http://www.yoursishere.com/ you will find Liddell, Burt Reynolds, Brooke Burke, Ice T and others, all promoting a different Dell product.

Dell is calling the campaign Star Power and all the stars do is say one line on a particular Dell product. All Liddell says is “XPS Power”, and shakes his fist in the air as he says it. It’s a bit silly really, and it certainly doesn’t make me want to run out and buy a Dell product.

Hopefully he got paid a pile of dough for the endorsement. It’s no secret that the UFC isn’t making guys like Liddell rich from their fight purses. This may be the beginning of MMA fighters making big endorsement deals that will supplement their UFC incomes.

1. Randy Couture wins the UFC Heavyweight Championship, and defends it before leaving the UFC.

2. UFC buys Pride Fighting Promotions and gains control of the MMA scene.

3. Chuck Liddell is KOed by Quinton Rampage Jackson and loses his Light Heavyweight title.

4. Matt Serra KO’s Georges St. Pierre to win the UFC Welterweight title after winning TUF 4.

5. Fedor Emelianenko signs with M-1 instead of the UFC, making the world’s best fighter non-UFC property.

6. Anderson Silva outclassing Rich Franklin twice, taking Franklin’s Middleweight belt at the same time.

7. George St. Pierre KO’s Matt Hughes to win the UFC Welterweight Title.

8. Gabriel Gonzaga KO’s Mirko “CroCop” Filipovi? with a head kick in UFC 70.

9. Brock Lesnar announces he is joining the UFC and will fight Frank Mir.

10. Floyd Mayweather announces he is turning to MMA, essentially dealing a death blow to boxing.

And because Russians rule I’ll leave you with a video of Fedor “fighting” (more like wrestling) Renato Sobral- commentated in Japanese.

Dana White and the Ferretti brothers had a busy 2007. They essentially constructed a monopoly for themselves by buying out Pride Fighting Promotions. This was a very good move for them financially, but instead of sharing the wealth, the UFC has gained a reputation of being cheap to its fighters. The pay-per-view ratings for UFC events are better than that of boxing promotions, but the fighters get paid a fraction of what professional boxers do.

Dana White has worked towards creating an MMA scene that gives fighters no choice but to fight for the UFC if they want to be considered the best. Some Pride fighters have come over to the UFC. But many of the best, like Fedor Emelianenko, have decided to fight for fledgling promotions. This is the same reason UFC Heavyweight Champ Randy Couture left the organization. Hopefully this will help create a fighter’s union.

We’re just a week away from what they’re calling the biggest MMA card of the year: UFC 79 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. It certainly doesn’t lack in star power, but if the odds are accurate, the main event won’t be very competitive. Georges St. Pierre is a –200 chalk to beat Matt Hughes (+160) for the Interim welterweight championship.

This is the rubber match between the two fighters. St. Pierre submitted to a Hughes armbar in 2004 for his first MMA defeat. The rematch at last year’s UFC 65 was all GSP; he pummelled Hughes convincingly and took his welterweight title in the process.

Fight fans are expecting more of the same on Dec. 29. In addition to Hughes, St. Pierre has defeated Frank Trigg, Sean Sherk, B.J. Penn and Josh Koscheck over the past two years. GSP’s price may be inflated by partisan Canadian money, but his body of work merits the chalk.

One of the great Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners of all-time will be in action later this month at UFC 79. Wanderlei Silva, the former PRIDE middleweight champion, will face Chuck Liddell. Also on the card are fellow countrymen Lyoto Machida, Luis Cane and Roan Carneiro.

Brazil is well represented at the top levels of the sport, but their local scene doesn’t get a lot of attention. RioHeroes may yet change that. The vale tudo promotion wrapped up its first year of operations on Tuesday with their “RioHeroes 13” tournament. Flavio Alvaro and Udi Lima survived all the way to the finals, where Alvaro won by submission to become a two-time RH champion.

This fighting style is not for the faint of heart. We’re talking old school steel cage matches – no timekeeping, and very few holds barred. But this isn’t a backyard brawl; the fighters take their craft seriously, and the promotion does not charge admission. Top that, UFC.

What has Chuck Liddell done for you lately? Not much – two straight unimpressive losses, against Quinton Jackson and Keith Jardine. But Liddell is not alone in his frustrations. His opponent at UFC 79, Wanderlei Silva, has also dropped two matches in a row, to Mirko Filipovic and Dan Henderson. Fittingly, Liddell and Silva are each priced at –115.

This is a perfect moment for Liddell to get back on track. If he was tentative against Jackson or lacking in motivation against Jardine, he’ll be neither of those things against Silva. Liddell has been thinking about knocking Silva out for well over a year, since they were the 205-pound champions of UFC and PRIDE, respectively.

We’ve seen ex-PRIDE fighters like Filipovic and Henderson struggle in the octagon since the promotion was purchased by UFC. One notable exception: Jackson. Will Silva make it two? With two strikers like this in the octagon, it could be a case of first punch wins.

Georges St. Pierre has walked right into the welterweight title picture; he’s a –200 chalk to become the interim champion on Dec. 29 when he faces Matt Hughes (+160) at UFC 79.

This was originally Matt Serra’s title to defend against Hughes, but that match went down the drain when Serra suffered a back injury. Now St. Pierre gets to fight the same man he beat for the title at UFC 65; that match saw GSP beat Hughes by TKO in the second round to even their career series at one apiece.

St. Pierre will be itching to get the title back after dropping it to Serra and losing just his second match ever at UFC 69, a loss that prompted him to reorganize his camp. He is ranked second in Sherdog’s welterweight rankings; Hughes is third. Given the way GSP took down No. 5 Josh Koscheck at UFC 74, he’s the easy pick to do it again to Hughes.

I’ll leave you now with a video clip (in French of course) of what Georges St. Pierre can do. Enjoy.

Sam Vasquez of Huston may have become the first fighter to die from injuries sustained in mixed martial arts competition in North America.

Vasquez, who had wife and a seven-year-old son, had been battling for his life since taking a hard right to the chin from 21-year old Vince Libardi during a Renegades Extreme Fighting show at the Toyota Center in Houston. The blow knocked Vasquez out and he was rushed to St. Joseph Medical Center, where he stayed until moving to hospice care.

While in the hospital Vasquez’s condition worsened from there. Two weeks after being admitted, he underwent the first of two surgeries to relieve the pressure of a large clot in his brain, then had a massive stroke 5 days later and was placed in a medically induced coma.

“There was nothing out of the ordinary,” Paul Erickson, who was at ringside taking photos, said in an interview with The Fight Network. “They scrambled and hit the cage. Sammy stood up and looked a little wobbly. Then he went down and the referee called the doctor in. It didn’t seem like anything was out of the ordinary. Sammy was winded and looked exhausted, but he wasn’t unconscious when they carried him out. Everyone was puzzled at the time because no one could tell when or where he was injured.”

MMA has exploded in popularity over the last two years due to television exposure if UFC, the sports major league sports franchise. MMA officials have long noted that there had never been a death in a sanctioned mixed martial arts match, a statistic no other combat sport could claim.