Today, Dana White joined the main card fighters for the UFC 140 pre-fight press conference.
UFC 140 goes down this Saturday Dec.10 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario and features a light heavyweight title match between Jon Jones and Lyoto Machida in the main event. Also fighting on the main card are Frank Mir vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Tito Ortiz vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Rounding out the PPV portion of the card are Claude Patrick vs. Brian Ebersole and Mark Hominick vs. Chan Sung Jung.
Below are highlights from the press conference thanks to MMANation.com
Dana White:
- “I love this fight… Both guys have a very flashy, entertaining style. I don’t know what to expect.”
- “This is big fight for (Frank Mir and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira) to get back into the heavyweight title picture and it’s an important fight for them.”
- The sport is on the rise worldwide, not just in Canada.
- Lyoto badly wanted to fight Jones.
- Casting for the TUF: Brazil starts on Monday. “I am very excited for that.”
- The past ten years have felt like dog years. “When you look back to the original crew that was with us in the UFC, it’s been a lot of hard work.”
- “We knew the first time we got into Toronto, it was going to be a huge event… You can’t do that every weekend. Every time you come into Canada, you’re not going to sell 50,000 tickets.”
- Georges St. Pierre is the biggest star to come out of Canada in any sport. GSP is the “pound-for-pound pay-per-view star.”
- This is 100% a safe sport. “When you go overboard on safety, things go alright.”
- Win or lose, Jon Jones has earned a vacation after this fight.
- Relationship between he and Tito has never been better.
- “Let me tell you, (fans in Toronto) don’t burn the city down after a fight.”
- Making sure St. Pierre is getting the right care for his injury. “I’m 100% confident he can rebound from his injury and continue his career.”
- Was 23-years-old when he went bald.
- Looking forward to starting the Fox deal and doing everything he knows the UFC can accomplish. “The next two years are more important than the previous ten.”
- (On bringing commentator Mauro Ranallo to the UFC) We’ll see what happens. We’ll be looking for a lot of new talent when the Fox deal kicks in.
- Should know the fates of Daniel Cormier and Josh Barnett by Monday.
Jon Jones:
- Goals are to do as best as he can and win fights. Everything else will take care of itself.
- When you’re a challenger, you can pick and choose your opponents. When you’re a champion, you fight who the UFC wants you to. Whoever is the number-one contender.
- Will fight Lyoto, Rashad Evans, and everyone else eventually, so the order doesn’t matter.
- “When I’m walking into the cage, I’m really just saying to myself that there’s no other place im meant to be… I think its the highest blessing to know what you’re meant to do in this world, and I was meant to be a mixed martial artist.”
- Time and time again, this is proven to be the safest sport in the world. “Yeah we take risks, but this is what we’ve chosen to do in our lives.”
- Thought the viral video of Lyoto and him was hilarious. “I wanted to retweet it, but it had me losing.”
- “I learned a lot about Lyoto’s style. Everybody has tendencies.” Studied both Machida’s younger fights and more recent fights.
- Has seen people start off their career great and then end up losing. “I never want that to happen to me.”
- “I’m four years into my MMA career and there’s so much I don’t even know… there’s so much great stuff that my teammates are so much better at.”
- Not scared to lose his title. “With every great risk, there’s great reward.”
Lyoto Machida:
- Every time you fight for the belt, there’s a little bit of added pressure. But he is more ready to fight for the title now than he was a year ago.
- “After UFC Rio, the UFC really took of in Brazil.” People that didn’t buy pay-per-views now have access to them.
- “I love fighting in Canada.”
- “I was training this whole time, but I had no fight commitment so it was nothing specific.”
- Losing has changed him a lot. Has matured and added a lot of things in his training.
- Trained with Anderson Silva in Brazil. “He showed me a few things.”
Frank Mir:
- “I think your performances have to speak for themselves, and that’s the only thing I can control.”
- Felt Nogueira underestimated him before the first fight, especially his striking. “I think Nogueira’s a little more inspired this time than he was last time.”
- It’s the secondary concussion that causes brain damage. A standing eight count in boxing is barbaric. “I’m a father of four, I’ll enter the cage everyday and not worry.”
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira:
- “I feel really special to fight in Canada because people really follow the sport here.”
- Loves fighting on the same card as his brother because they can help each other train. “It’s good energy… We did that a couple times in Japan.”
- “To me, it means I have a second chance to fight (Mir)… I’m going to try to do my best and show a difference fight this time.”
Tito Ortiz:
- His biggest accomplishment is to fight three times in a year after neck and back surgery. Would be willing to fight a fourth. “We’ll see what happens,” responds White.
- “Before the Bader fight there was a lot of pressure on my back… I wasn’t going anywhere. I pushed all the negative people away from me. Just stopped it, pushed all it away, and my life just got better and better.”
- “That bad boy is still in the cage when its fight time… but when you fill yourself with hate, life becomes miserable. Why make yourself miserable? I believe good things happen to good people when you do good things.”
- “A standing eight count makes very bad brain damage happen (in boxing).”
- To see the heart of B.J. Penn as he was taking shot after shot against Nick Diaz was incredible, but very scary.
- It took four hours to convince Dana White of the nickname change to “The People’s Champ”.
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira:
- MMA is the number two sport in Brazil next to soccer, and it’s only getting bigger.
- It’s an honor to fight in Canada.
- Since he fights first, he has an opportunity to put on a show and inspire his brother.
- For sure, this is a very important fight. I lost my last two fights and I’ve wanted to fight Tito for a long time.
