UFC 96 Fallout: Press Conference Wrap, UFC 98 Update, Dana White Video Blog

Here are some news and notes coming out of last night's UFC 96 press conference. For the full recap of the evening's proceedings, here you go.

—Non-Press Conference related: Attendance was 17,033 for a live gate $1.8 million. That seems low, but there was a sentiment of making some tickets available at some fan friendly prices.

—Earning $60k bonuses were Rampage Jackson and Keith Jardine for their Fight of the Night and Matt Hamill for Knockout of the Night. There were no submission finishes.

—Dana White said that Mark Munoz was OK post-fight. They gave him oxygen and he was fine, walking out on his own. White was more concerned about Pete Sell who was sent to the hospital for an MRI.

—White thought that there should be a rematch of Shane Nelson and Aaron Riley due to the bad ref stoppage. White said that those situations drive him crazy as the fighters train so much only to have these chances taken away by situations like this.

—He went on to say there's a couple refs that "know what they're doing" and said that Yves Lavigne usually does a good job but that "tonight was horrible." He said that he has never reacted to a fight like before. He was banging on the cage and specifically mentioned that Herb Dean and Mario Namasaki were good. When trying to say Namasaki's name, he accidentally said Mazzagatti and made a point to correct himself quite voraciously.

—White said of Jardine that he's still in the mix and that it was unfortunate that he gets a big win, then loses one, wins a big one, then loses one. Jardine had pretty heavy bruising around his eyes and later would say he had some problems with conditioning.

—Matt Brown said he didn't want to inflict any unnecessary damage and that he did what he had to do to get the fight over with.

—White said he wasn't aware of Mir's injury until Friday when several writers approached him with the news. He had to do a satellite tour promoting the Saturday card and after that, he and Joe Silva started making calls to figure things out.

—In the big news of the conference, the main event for UFC 98 that they pushed hard all night long is not a definite. In fact, Jackson wasn't aware of the May 23rd date until 15 minutes before the presser. Jackson said he had been training quite heavy and felt overtrained. If you think of it, a May fight would be his third in roughly five months. That's a tough pace for any fighter.

—Jackson, who was pretty subdued for the most part, said he wants his belt back but has to talk to his manager about whether the 23rd is a go. White said the fight isn't a done deal and that Jackson has to be sure he's 100 percent going in. If he can't make the fight, Lyoto Machida will get the shot, which he has accepted.

—White said that Mir could have done the fight, but he'd only have three weeks to train because of confidence issues following knee surgery. White initially said the timeframe for the fight was "this summer" but when a reporter asked if that meant UFC 100, White said that "probably is correct."

—Matt Hamill was asked to comment on those who thought it was in bad taste for him to celebrate when Munoz was still down and obviously hurt. Hamill said he was so excited to score his first-ever knockout that he assumed Munoz was fine and didn't know there was an issue. White corroborated Hamill's account. Even at the post-fight presser, Hamill bounded into the room, obviously still very excited about his victory.

—There was no definitive next opponent for Shane Carwin and when he fights next depends on how he feels, considering his nose was broken. White said after his victory over Gonzaga, they could put him up against anyone.

—Gray Maynard didn't really have an opinion on when he thought he should get a title shot and that the next shot was going to Kenny Florian so he was just going to prepare like normal.

—When asked if conditioning would eventually be a concern considering his short fights, Carwin said that he felt conditioning was one of his strong points. He is still a full-time engineer, but admitted he might be coming to the point he has to make a decision of becoming a full-time fighter.

—White addressed Tamdan McCrory's post-fight comments about White vetoing his choice of song which he admitted to, saying he lets the fighters all pick out their songs and then changes it if he doesn't like it. He initially said no to Hamill's music ("Hang On Sloopy") until he was told it was a big song for Ohio.

—Jackson closed out the conference with a hilarious rant on how he was looking forward to hanging out with some "Asian girls" and going to the islands for the next few weeks to relax, but that the May 23rd fight might change that. He also asked that whoever stole their Cagefighter jacket in the back should return the cell phone that was in it. Funny few minutes here.

White added that if Jackson feels he can't take the fight, they won't force him to do it. In listening to this, I have a feeling we're going to see Machida instead.

—Here's Dana White's post UFC 96 video blog which is pretty interesting as always. You'll see his reaction to the Sell non-stoppage, what he thought about the early stoppage, Hamill's KO up close and Jackson's reaction to being asked to fight again on May 23rd:



Josh Nason - josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com] - has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. If you are using any content or recapping from this site, please include a link to www.ropesringandcage.com. Thank you for your support!