Gone was the happy, smiling Junior dos Santos. The guy who's 12-1 with eight knockouts to his credit, sat on stage in Vancouver and gave his prediction for his fight against Shane Carwin on Saturday night at UFC 131.
"Shane Carwin comes from wrestling. I think I'm faster than him. As soon as he feels my hands, my speed, I think he's gonna try to take me down," said dos Santos (26:55 mark).
That was short and sweet, but it didn't even cause a ripple from Carwin. The 6-foot-2, 255 pounder believes in his power and keeps saying he'll stand and trade with the Brazilian.
"I am a great at wrestling and I was blessed with huge power in my oversized XXXL hands, but I've just got a lot to learn. [...] On Saturday I will be facing a guy that, like me, can finish a fight with one just punch. He comes from an amazing training camp and he is not only a powerful striker, but one of the most accurate strikers too," Carwin wrote in his Yahoo! Sports' "Monster" blog. [...] But I believe I will be the one doing the knocking out. My power is derived from my legs and ass. I have the ability to generate a lot of power even in short or tight spaces because of the power from my big legs … which is great for punching but makes it nearly impossible for me to get keys from my jeans pocket."
During the prefight press conference at the University of B.C.'s Robson Plaza, UFC president Dana White raved about the fight. He expects fireworks and said the winner will face Cain Velasquez in the next four or five months. Velasquez has mentioned October in Houston as his target for a return.
White also discussed one of the big rumors of the week - the UFC's future television deal plans and the possibility of leaving Spike and buying a stake in the Comcast/NBC-owned G4.
"We're talking to everybody right now. There is no deal with anybody. If that was true, trust me, I'd be up here talking about it right now," said White (11:30 mark).
Meanwhile, MMAFighting's Mike Chiapetta reported that rumors persist about the UFC looking to buy G4. Sources at Spike are telling Chiappetta that Bellator, currently on MTV2, would then be an option for Spike.
Bloomsberg.com checked into the G4 story.
NBC Universal's G4 channel may fetch as much as $600 million in a sale to Ultimate Fighting Championship, according to analysts including David Joyce of Miller Tabak & Co.
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Negotiations are early and a deal may not be reached, said the people, who aren't authorized to speak publicly. Ultimate Fighting Championship's contract with Viacom Inc. (VIA/B)'s Spike TV ends this year, one of the people said. More broadly distributed cable channels with bigger advertising revenue can fetch as much as $20 per subscriber, Joyce said.
The New York Times confirmed the UFC's talks to buy the channel that's currently seen in 60 million homes. Spike is available in 99 million homes. UFC would have to work on the recent DirecTV issue with G4. The channel was dropped by DirecTV at the end of the 2010.
Brian Stelter of the Times reported that Comcast, the new owner of G4, met with UFC representatives on Wednesday.
Two of the people with knowledge of the NBCUniversal talks said that UFC, which is privately held, could take ownership of 60 percent or more of G4, which is one of the lowest-rated cable channels in Comcast's portfolio. Its target audience of men ages 18 to 34 overlaps nicely with UFC's audience on Spike, a unit of Viacom, which has carried a fighting reality show for the last six years.
According to Stelter, the UFC is looking for a bigger deal this time around from Spike.
Spike's $170 million-a-year deal with UFC for the show, "The Ultimate Fighter," and for live fights expires in six months. Negotiations between Spike and UFC for a new deal started almost one year ago, one of the people said, but broke down after UFC proposed a $325 million-a-year fee, a price that was far steeper than Spike was willing to pay.
You can watch UFC 131 right here on Yahoo! Sports
Leo Kinnunen Danny Kladis Hans Klenk Peter de Klerk Christian Klien
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