Will Dana White Resurrect the Word “Ultimate” for 2010's Year-End Show?

It was billed the ultimate event of that year. UFC 92, also branded as Ultimate 2008.

“Suga” Rashad Evans grounded and pounded the light heavyweight belt away from Forrest Griffin.

Former heavyweight champion Frank Mir picked apart PRIDE Legend Antonio “Minotauro” Nogueira, capturing his second interim belt in the process.

And if that weren’t enough, Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson stood toe to toe, only to see Jackson drop Silva with a devastating left hook.

The star-studded fight card not only delivered for fight fans but the UFC also cashed in big when it became the third PPV in UFC history to surpass the one million buy rate.

It wasn’t the first time the UFC had brought out the start power for a year-end show.

UFC 66: Liddell-Ortiz 2 took pace on Dec. 30, 2006. It also featured a fight between popular TUF alum Forrest Griffin and Keith Jardine, and it was the first PPV in UFC history to do over one million PPV buys.

UFC 79: Nemesis took place on Dec. 29, 2007, and featured a long overdue fight between Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva. The main event saw Georges St-Pierre submitting Matt Hughes, in what was their second fight, to claim the interim welterweight belt.

While those shows were high-powered, UFC 92, also billed as Ultimate 2008, set a new standard for year-end shows, a standard that perhaps gave 2009 performance anxiety.

As we got further into the year, everyone was buzzing about what the UFC would put together for “Ultimate 2009” as it was being labeled even before officially announced as such.

Headlining Fights that were talked about and eventually scrapped included:

Anderson Silva versus Vitor Belfort

Brock Lesnar against Shane Carwin

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira versus Cain Velasquez

A possible Velasquez-Carwin match for an interim belt had been ruled out as a new main event due to Carwin undergoing knee surgery. The UFC seemed to be scrambling to give UFC 108 the fights needed to justify calling it Ultimate 2009, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Rashad Evans-Thiago Silva ended up headlining, and the card pulled in a barely breathing 300,000 PPV buys. It was the winter of discontent in the sport of MMA.

But summer is now here, and the livin', well it’s easy.

With Rashad against Rampage in the books, we still have bevy of great fights that await. While it’s way too early to start thinking about the end of the year fight card, Georges St. Pierre inconspicuously confirmed that his fight against Josh Koscheck will be in December.

While it didn’t take rocket science to plot when the fight would take place, St. Pierres' confirmation allows the mind to wonder and consider: could Georges St. Pierre and Josh Koscheck help the world Ultimate resurface for 2010’s year-end show?

Ultimate 2010

So what would it take for Dana White to resurrect a word that has such a nice ring to it when placed alongside the current year?

A title fight between “good versus evil” in GSP against Kos would be a good start (assuming they don't put it on an earlier December fight card like they were planning on doing with Rampage-Rashad for UFC 107, Dec. 12 of last year).

But what else could the UFC add to the lineup to make it worthy of such a title. They would need two more headlining fights to truly do it justice (think UFC 92 or 100).

With Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin fighting July 3, if they wanted to fight Cain Velasquez against the winner they certainly could, but would waiting six months to have it on the year-end card be justifiable? They are already holding up another number one contender in Junior Dos Santos as it is.

What about a Shogun Rua-Rashad Evans light heavyweight title fight?

Again, they would be putting off a title fight for quite some time, and possibly putting the division on hold. If the two fought in September, they could possibly do a quick turnaround and have a second light heavyweight title fight by year's end.

Moving down to Middleweight, if Anderson Silva does what everyone thinks he will, and dispatches of Chael Sonnen, they could try to reschedule the fight with Vitor Belfort that never happened on last year's year-end show.

Or, imagine if Shogun beat Rashad in say, September. They could set up Shogun against Anderson, which was the only fight that fans were buzzing about right after Shogun put the first loss on Lyoto Machida’s previously unblemished record.

Skipping over the welterweights, since we already have that title fight confirmed, we are left with the 155 pound division.

With the Frankie Edgar-B.J. Penn rematch set for Aug. 28, and Kenny Florian taking on Gray Maynard on the same night, it would make sense for the two winners to square off on what could aptly be billed Ultimate 2010 if the stars align and the injury plague gives us a break this year.