Beyond that though the largest audience in MMA history is going to be able to see the future of the sport in nearly every division! Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up in terms of who is involved and who to pay attention to.

155 pounds Lightweight
Jim Miller - Jim will be bringing into UFC 100 a 13 and 2 record with his only recent lost to Gray Maynard. Gray is an absolute beast in the weight division and has disposed of not only Jim Miller, but also Frankie Edgar who recently beat Sean Sherk at UFC 98. Jim has all the tools to be a top guy at 155 and at UFC 100 everyone will get a chance to see him against Mac Danzig who will be given his walking papers after he loses.

170 pounds Middleweight
At UFC 100 we are going to be lucky enough to see two of the top 170 pound contenders in the world in Jon Fitch and Dong Hyun Kim. Jon Fitch’s only lost in the last 9 fights has come at the hands of Georges St. Pierre and he’s easily a top 5 Middleweight in the world. Dong just recently lost until the commission rulled it a NC after Karo tested positive for some illegal medication. Both are heavy favorites to dispose of their opponents and both should be ranked in probably the top 5.

In the co-main event we are going to be seeing Georges St-Pierre defend his belt against Thiago Alves in a fight where the combine record is a staggering 40 wins with 6 losses. The last time either of them lost was 12 fights ago. This fight to me is the breakthrough fight for Georges St-Pierre because it is going to bring him truly to the mainstream. He’s nearly cleaned out the division, signed a huge deal with CAA, been in a Gatorade commercial, but will finally have the massive audience to bring him to that next level.

Thiago presents a wealth of problems for George, but my prediction is here is we are going to get to see George physically finish his first opponent since recapturing the belt. BJ Penn quit after the 4th round, but did not officially have the referee stop it and I think we will see that here.  Georges is going to really impress fans with his ability to not discouraged when struggling for a takedown early and will leverage all of talent he has for a late stoppage win.  I think a win like that really gets the fans behind someone like Georges.

185 pounds Middleweight

Yoshihiro Akiyama makes his debut at this UFC event.  As we wrote about previously Akiyama is a guy who finishes fights and has yet to go to a decision.  The fight is going to be on the PPV for sure so the public is going to get to see this fine specimen.  Just how fine is he?  Well people often refer to him as Sexyama.  Poor Alan Belcher won’t know what hit him when Sexyama kills him much to the shagrin of every person watching on PPV.

Here is where this Pay Per View gets really interesting.  In this event you have what I am dubbing as the Yin and Yang match and potentially the launch of another bonefied superstar in the division.  Let’s start with Yin and Yang.

Michael Bisping versus Dan Henderson.  Michael has been on quite a run since dropping to 185 pounds winning 3 in a row and really getting the crowds behind him.  He’s young, a former reality show winner and demonstrates excellent standup.  His opponent is on the down slope of his career recently dropping back to 185 pounds for another shot at Anderson Silva.  He’s nearly 40, has fake teeth and is really uncharismatic.  His fight style is of the old school, he violently swings at you until he can leverage a take down and hump you for 3 rounds.  It reminds me of Matt Hughes and needs to go.

205 pounds Light Heavyweight

Also we have another match with Jon “Bones” Jones.  Who has rattled off wins over Andre Gusmao and Stephan Bonner in dominant fashion.  He’s a Grecko Roman wrestler who makes up moves on the fly.  Between his crazy takedowns and spinning back elbows to the head he is the most exciting guy at 205.  Yes more exciting than Machida.  He’ll be taking on the punching bag Jake O’Brien who they fed to Arlovski and Cain Velasquez.  I don’t see anything different happening here except Jake being outclassed in every position.

Mark Coleman is also fighting at this pay per view, but on the undercard.  I’m not even sure its worth discussing, but he has little left in the tank.  Against Shogun he laid turtled up in a ball trying to protect himself.

We will discuss Heavyweight tomorrow.

The reasons are many why this game will be successful. So let’s get started with the audience this game caters to.

Lately UFC PPV’s have been crossing 800,000 buys and internal metrics are showing that the average audience who buys the ppv is more than 1 person and most likely between 8 and 10. UFC is currently the king of the 18 to 34 male demographic, consistently out drawing sporting events on TV with their MMA content. These men play video games and have the coin to shell out $59.99 for the video game and $44.95 a month for the pay per view.

The game is reviewing great:
Gamepro already debuted their exclusive review giving the game a perfect score. The demo has been in the top 3 since releasing on the Xbox live network.
There is a massive audience for this title:

Graphics:
As game consoles have advanced it is well proven the first thing that attracts people to them are the graphics. You have your 1080p TV and 5.1 sound system and want to show it off.

Gameplay:
When you put this game in front of people they are instantly drawn to it. The gameplay centers around two types of fighting, the ground and standup. The control scheme is instantly simple for people to pick up, but has enough depth that after many hours you are still discovering things. The main buttons control if you punch or kick with your left or right hand. This leads to the beginners instantly getting results by “button mashing”. In this day and age games have gotten so complex that you are seeing people gravitate towards a console like the Wii because they know they will be able to play it. UFC Undisputed accomplishes this task with flying colors.

Initial Sales Projections:
The game launches tomorrow on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Wallstreet pegs the game at moving 2 million copies in the first 9 months of its existence. To put that in perspective Madden NFL 2008 sold 6.6 million copies releasing on gameboy, psp, ps3, xbox 360, etc. Proportionally I’d say UFC Undisputed is off to a great start to become the #2 sports franchise on video game consoles.

Jon Bones Jones burst on the scene at 20 disposing of Andre Gusmao at UFC 87 Seek and Destroy and he has not looked back. At UFC 94 he then took on Stephan Bonnar and beat him handidly showing some pretty amazing wrestling and unique striking ability. At one point he threw a spinning back elbow that knocked Stephan out only to have him come back to life when his head bounced off the mat.

Jake O’Brien’s roller coaster with the UFC has been pretty rough. Battling injury as well as being released. He formally fought at heavyweight recently losing to Cain Velazquez, but has moved to Light Heavyweight and won a split decision at UFC 94.

Jake’s main skillset revolves around his wrestling background, but so does Bones Jones. Jake is not nearly as innovative on the feet as Jones and I expect that to be the difference in this fight. When you have wrestlers of this caliber the standup and clinch game becomes the difference and in this fight Bones Jones has a huge advantage.

Bones Jones

To me this match is one that has serious implications for Mac Danzig. Nobody wants to be the first winner of the ultimate fighter cut from the UFC. To me its nearly as bad as being an American Idol winner like Ruben dropped from your label. He lost to Clay Guida, lost to Josh Neer and frankly stands little chance of beating Jim Miller.

Jim Miller has only lost 2 times in his career. Both times to undefeated fighters in Frankie Edger and Gray Maynard. Oddly enough Gray Maynard handed Edgar his first loss back in 2008.

Good luck Mac cause your career is on the downward and this fight will not even be broadcasted.

Video Quality:
-Still 1080i with two channel Dolby Digital.
-Video is in VC-1 Codec with a great Bit Rate climbing well above 30mbps at points
-The UFC in 1080i is just unbelievable, it is so crystal clear.
-If you skip ahead a chapter it takes you to the next round. Great work UFC
-The UFC must not want to have paid for image rights to the fighters on the intro tale of the tape video. Instead of their photos it shows the flag of the nation they are from.
-Anderson Silva in High Definition almost makes me question why I like women
-The Fight Clock is redone with the Best of 2008 and the octagon timer in the middle

Intro:
Mike Goldberg walks you through everything that went down in 2008. Starting with BJ Penn capturing the lightweight championship all the way to Sugar Rashad beating down Forrest. Overall I’d say the intro is a great recap of the year, but really lacks the get fired up attitude that the intro on the Ultimate Knockouts disc did.

The introduction ran a total of about 6 minutes before the fights started.

Fights in Order
-BJ Penn vs Joe Stevenson
-BJ Penn vs Sean Sherk
-GSP vs. Matt Serra
-An Anderson Silva year recap showing him dismantling Dan Henderson, Patrick Cote and of course the sterioder James Irvin.
-Wanderlei Silva vs. Keith Jardine
-UFC Fight for the Troops video package. Oddly they did not show Corey Hill’s leg breaking in half or the various other carnage that occurred at that event.
-Evan Tanner Video Package.
-Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir. This fight still upsets me simply based on the fact Lesnar was docked a point and the fight was stood up due to Frank turtling into a ball.
-Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture. I wish this fight never had happened. The legend of Randy Couture was so awesome. Beating Sylvia’s ass, breaking Gonzaga’s nose…now we remember him getting Donkey Kong punched by Lesnar.
-Frank Mir vs. Antonio Nogueria. Nogueria brought a staph infection into this fight and just looked terrible. Fat, out of shape and worthless.
-End of Disk 1 with a recap of who the contenders are for all of the belts defended in Disk 1. Montage of Kenny Florian shouting “I want BJ’s Belt”, Nate Diaz flipping the bird, Thiago Alves tearing Matt Hughes ACL, Gabriel Gonzaga and Cheik Kongo’s rise back to the top of the Heavyweight Heep. Sorry Gabe you just got steam rolled by Shane Carwin. Michael Bisping also gets some face time, Damien Mia’s sick triangle choke of Ed Herman is shown, Lyoto Machida is shown knee’s Ortiz in the ribs.
On to Disk 2
-A quick recap of the Ultimate Fighter reality show and how it was a springboard for new champions
-Forrest Griffin versus Rampage Jackson. Everytime I watch this fight I cry when Rampage gets his knee hurt and eventually loses the fight and his mind.
-Rampage Jackson versus Wanderlei Silva.
-Chuck Liddell versus Rashad Evans. Probably knockout of the year in this one
-Forrest Griffin versus Rashad Evans

Extra Features
-Promo for UFC Ultimate Comebacks
-Top 5 Knockouts of 2008. Rumble Johnson’s KO of Kevin Burnes is in this reel.
-Top 5 Submissions of 2008. The only place I know of where you will find the imfamous armbar by Dustin Hazlett in High Definition!
-Behind the Scenes for 2008. Here you get to see some behind the scenes footage from BJ Penn’s defense against Stevenson. Bob Cook can’t shut up about how great BJ is. I won’t spoil anymore of this, but it’s 30 minutes long and totally worth watching.

Here is what we know: Akiyama is a finisher; of his 13 professional fights none have gone the distance and he has the ability to finish with submissions or strikes…see his Spinning Back Kick from Hero’s 5. I’m always worried about debut’s from overseas strictly on the fact they drug test here in the United States. I think we can all agree that Shogun, Cro-Cop and Kang have not looked the same since coming over to the United States.

I think Alan Belcher in this fight is heavily over matched. Though Alan has showed he can dig deep for a victory…see his fight against Dennis Kang, he seems to have flaws that Jason Day exploited. I think one of the reasons Belcher was able to eventually catch Kang was his gas tank and the fact Kang wasn’t throwing a lot of strikes. Hopefully we can get some headcuts going back when Belcher exposed half of Kalib Starne’s skull to the crowd.

Fun Facts:
-Akiyama has 12 wins and 1 loss. Every fight has ended by submission or Knockout.
-I personally have lost $800 betting against Belcher. I lost $500 when he fought Sean Salmon and another $300 when he beat Starnes
-Belcher stand six feet two inches towering over Akiyama’s 5 foot 10 inch frame
-Belcher has a huge tattoo of Johnny Cash on his right arm. Do we honestly think coming out to Ring of Fire will save him from Akiyama?
-Akiyama has a smoking hot wife

Anyone remember Jon Fitch? He was the guy who tied the record for most consecutive wins in the UFC Octagon including beating Thiago Alves before fighting Georges St-Pierre, losing badly and being forced to fight on the Undercard of UFC 94. Well it looks like our old buddy Jon Fitch is back fighting on the broadcasted card against non other than American Kickboxing Academy nemesis Paulo Thiago.

Paulo Thiago remains undefeated after everyone expected Josh Koscheck to dispose of him at UFC 95. Well Paulo caught Josh with his head down and knocked him straight into next week. Oddly enough Paulo is a submission specialist winning 7 of his 11 fights by submission. Sadly I do not see Paulo being able to get a submission on Fitch and Fitch will grind this fight out to a decision.

Fun Facts:
-Paulo has already beaten American Kickboxing Academy member Josh Koscheck
-Jon has only lost two fights since 2002
-The combine record of Jon Fitch and Paulo Thiago is 29 wins with 3 loses
-Paulo’s standup is freaking terrible

Here are some the things that you NEED to know:

Book Your Hotel!

If you haven’t booked your hotel yet, then what the hell are you waiting for?!?  A while back, we put together a list of some of the best hotel deals going on for the weekend of “100″.  Check out the list, and check in with the hotels to see if you can still take advantage of some great deals.

Buy Your Tickets!

OK, so tickets aren’t on sale yet.  But you’re gonna want to put these dates on your calendar so you’re not left out:

General Public: tickets go on sale on April 11, 2009 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT

UFC.com Newsletter Subscribers: tickets go on sale April 10, 2009 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT.  Don’t subscribe yet?  Sign up here, and be entered into a UFC drawing for a free Fight Club membership.

UFC Fight Club Members: tickets go on sale April 9, 2009 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT.  What’s the deal with Fight Club? It costs $74.95 to join for one year, and you’ll get a crack at pre-sale tickets for UFC events (like “100″), an exclusive UFC Fight Club t-shirt, 10% off UFC goodies at the online store, and some other cool stuff.

Don’t believe us on ticket info?  UFC 100 Tickets.

Get There Early!

Brand new for UFC 100 is the UFC Fan Expo.  Taking place on July 10-11 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino will be everything MMA, featuring over 100 vendors.  There aren’t any details yet, but you should be able to score some good autographs at this event, too.

Watch the Fights!

Of course!  The fights!  Nothing has been formally announced by the UFC, but here’s what we’re most likely looking at:

UFC Heavyweight Championship (Unification)

Brock Lesnar (3-1) vs. Frank Mir (12-3)

UFC Welterweight Championship

Georges St-Pierre (18-2) vs. Thiago Alves (16-3)

Middleweight Bout

Michael Bisping (18-1) vs. Dan Henderson (24-7)

Light Heavyweight Bout

Stephan Bonnar (11-5) vs. Mark Coleman (15-9)

Welterweight Bout

Jon Fitch (18-3) vs. Paulo Thiago (11-0)

Middleweight Bout

Alan Belcher (14-5) vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama (12-1)

Light Heavyweight Bout

Jon Jones (8-0) vs. Jake O’Brien (11-2)

Middleweight Bout

C.B. Dollaway (8-1) vs. Tom Lawlor (5-1)

Welterweight Bout

Dong Hyun Kim (11-0) vs. Jonathan Goulet (22-10)

Lightweight Bout

Matt Grice (9-2) vs. Shannon Gugerty (11-3)

In case you were wondering, there are 237 combined MMA victories among all the fighters expected on this card.  I don’t have the time nor the patience to add up the combined victories of past events, but I’m pretty damned sure this has to be one of the winningest cards in recent (if not all of) UFC history.

Main Event
Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir for the Unified Heavyweight UFC Championship

Broadcasted Fights
Georges St-Pierre vs. Thiago Alves for the Welterweight UFC Championship
Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping for the #1 Contender Spot at Middleweight

Unbroadcasted Fights
Dong Hyun Kim vs Jonathan Goulet (both fighters are coming off losses to Karo and Mike Swick respectively.
Stephen Bonner vs. Mark “Hammer” Coleman (I’m pumped for this fight, both fighters are desperate for a win and hopefully Coleman can use the money from the last fight for better training.

Sadly no word from BJ Penn if he’ll take a fight at UFC 100 yet.

Las Vegas, NV (USA) – For over 15 years, the Ultimate Fighting Championship® has been the gold standard for mixed martial arts (MMA), the leader in the world’s premier combat sport. So it is with great pride that the UFC® announces an event that will celebrate the past, the present, and the future of this organization. On Saturday, July 11th, Bud Light® will present UFC 100 live from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it will be a night no fight fan will ever forget.

None of here at Road can wait for this epic event. As more details rollout we’ll keep you updated.