The UFC held a public press conference on Tuesday to officially announce UFC 150: Henderson vs. Edgar II. UFC 150 will take place on August 11 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado.
In attendance at Tuesday’s press conference were UFC President Dana White, along with main event fighters Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar.
Below are highlights from the press conference thanks to MMAmania.com.
Dana White
- If Rampage didn’t turn down fighting in Denver because of the altitude, no one will.
- You never know in the lightweight division. There’s so many tough guys in there. It’s not getting to the top, it’s staying at the top. Anybody can win on any given day.
- Frankie Edgar is a special individual. I have a lot of respect for him. When this whole thing was going down, I was very public that I wanted him to move down a weight class but he was very insistent. He wanted this fight. He told me “give me this fight,” and I had to give him the fight.
- I like New Jersey the best for Athletic Commissions. They’re trying to make things better. Everyone has used technology to make this sport better and more fair except for combat sports. Refs can make bad calls. It can happen. The commission can be cageside, look at a replay and overrule a call. Maybe he was at a wrong angle and couldn’t see. Every other sport is using technology to make things better except combat sports, but they don’t listen to me.
- We try to use technology to make the production better and more informative. We added Compustrike and if you look at a fight and see a guy landed 130 more punches and didn’t win the fight, it is what it is.
- The rematches for Frankie Edgar prove that he’s tough and durable. I believe he should be at 145 pounds and he doesn’t agree with me. To be honest, the fact that I think he should be at 145 pounds, and the fact that he held the title at 155 and who he’s beat, that’s pretty damn telling. I think that proves he’d be a monster at 145 but I’ve got to respect it and that’s why we’re here today.
- We’re done buying companies.
- I’ll try to make some great fights, but I’m sure they’ll fall apart (joking).
- Every card that we’ve been putting on, even this card last Friday, the main card was awesome. It’s a fun sport to be involved in and a fun sport to be a fan of.
- Cuts are part of being in professional sports. When you look at professional sports, Ocho Cinco was looking for a place to land. He just got cut. Freaking Odom won the sixth man award multiple times and he gets cut. The thing about being involved in professional sports is, it’s awesome and glorious but it can go away just like that (snaps fingers).
- We are writing now, we’ve been working on India. We’re on television there and we’ll be there with a live event soon. Just three days ago, we started working to get a deal with South Africa. The sport is booming all over the world and yes, South Africa’s next.
- I’m sure we’ll be pulling some guys from Colorado for this card. I’m afraid to announce cards now.
- Gilbert Melendez is in Strikeforce
- Cerrone in Denver is possible. We’ll bring a great card.
- I’ll put Arianny’s ass to work when we get here.
- We’ll come back to Denver every year.
- I don’t know how open scoring would affect things.
- The number one thing we thought we would have trouble with is the ground game. The United States is a stand-up culture. John Wayne would never hit a man while he’s down. It’s “Un-American.” We knew that would be a huge problem and we started to get into it. It caught on a lot faster than we thought it would. One of the things we do is we have a lot of different charities. We’ve been funding a lot of mixed martial arts gyms and trying to educate the younger generation. When you’re watching the show, there’s no better educator for the masses than Joe Rogan. he sees everything before it happens.
- I can this, we’re always trying to get the best fighters in the world in the UFC. We’ve like to have [Eddie Alvarez] and we’ll see what happens.
- Brock said about a week and a half before the UFC 146 event that he wanted to come and that he wanted to talk. We went back and talk and it didn’t go well. We haven’t talked since.
Benson Henderson
- The answer to everything as far as MMA goes is “just win your next fight” period.
- The more information you give the casual fans, the more it helps, but it’s tough to weigh which is more important instead of just counting strikes in general. It can be tough to do that.
- Fighting in Denver for the first time since 2008, I’m gonna feed off the fans. They’ll get me pumped up.
- You never go into a fight 100 percent healthy. If you do, you’re doing something wrong in training camp. That last week before the fight, that’s when you get to heal those nicks and bruises.
- Every day I’m surprised when I’m walking down the streets and someone calls out my name. I don’t want to be jaded. I want to enjoy the journey. This fighting career is gonna be pretty short for me. I want to retire in a couple years so I want to enjoy it.
- I haven’t felt any additional pressure now that I’m defending.
- I have to get better and evolve. If I show up with the same skills and tools as last time, Frankie will beat the crap out of me.
- I want to break Anderson Silva’s records in the UFC.
- It feels good in our camp, to have a nice win streak and have guys come to our gym and do positive things. Jamie Varner came to the lab, got a call to the UFC and he handled him. That shows what Jamie brings to the table and he’s that skilled. It was more of a mental thing with him. It’s nice to have that feeling at the gym.
- I want to fight all the best guys in the world at 155. If you guys consider Eddie Alvarez one of the best in the world, I’d be willing to do that.
- Don’t believe everything you read, or read more. I said I’d work my butt off to make sure I’d beat Frankie Edgar 10 out of 10 times, not that it would automatically happen.
Frankie Edgar
- I’m involved with the Make-A-Wish foundation and I donate my time, auction off autographs and stuff whenever I can.
- It adds a little motivation because the outcome didn’t go my way last time.
- I’m gonna come out early and do some things so I can acclimate.
- It’s a balancing act training hard but staying injury free.
- Looking at tape, we’re gonna make the adjustments in these next couple months and see what we can capitalize on and Ben’s gonna make the adjustments as well.
- People think that just because I don’t cut weight means I take more punches and more damage in fights. I cut weight in college, but just because I don’t cut weight, doesn’t mean I won’t step in there and scrap hard.
- I’m bringing in guys to emulate Benson the best I can.
Below is the full UFC 150 press conference.
