*On the other hand, Georges St. Pierre suffered a knee injury in training for his Feb. 3 welterweight title defense with Matt Serra and has pulled out. This is the second time in St. Pierre's last three scheduled fights he's pulled out with a training injury. This means by the time he's back, GSP will have fought only once in the span of a year. Serra declined to take another fight on the show, not wanting to risk losing and blowing his guaranteed title shot.

Former champ Matt Hughes, who took his title-losing fight with St. Pierre just eight weeks after beating B.J. Penn, is expected to face Chris Lytle at UFC 68 in March. Hughes says on his website he asked for Diego Sanchez as his opponent, and while I have no reason not believe him, I haven't been able to confirm that with anyone associated with Sanchez.

*If UFC 66 hits its predicted buy rate of 1.2 million homes, Ortiz and Liddell would likely end up with somewhere around $3 million each when all is said and done. UFC reportedly pays out 25% of their share of the PPV gross (the amount left after the cable and satellite companies take their half off the top) as a bonus to their PPV headliners. Under this formula, Liddell and Randy Couture both ended up with about a million for their UFC 57 match, which drew about 400,000 buys. That doesn't include whatever sponsorship and endorsement money Ortiz and Liddell lined up.  

*Why is Eddie Sanchez the first UFC opponent for Mirko Cro Cop? No one has told me this, but this is just a hunch: Sanchez, who is 8-0, is a strong, wild puncher. In his UFC debut on the undercard of UFC 63 against Mario Neto, the two slugged it out in the first and then Sanchez took it in the second with a devastating overhand right.

Styles make fights, and UFC wants to show off Mirko's skills to an American audience before they put him into the title picture. With Sanchez, there's a strong chance this turns into a standup slugfest, maximizing the opportunity for one of Mirko's highlight-reel left kicks. And at the same time, Sanchez, while not an A-list fighter, isn't a tomato can, either, and has a puncher's chance.

*It is about time for UFC to start cracking down on fighters grabbing the fence, which is supposed to be a foul. There have been several recent instances of fighters clutching the cage to interrupt the flow of the fight -- Ken Florian grabbing with both hands to avoid being slammed by Sean Sherk comes to mind -- but rarely has it been more flagrant than what Andrei Arlovski pulled in his win over Marcio Cruz. The rule is on the books, start enforcing it.

*Is the unbeatable aura of PRIDE heavyweight champ Fedor Emelianenko starting to crack a little? The Russian menace had some bad moments against Mark Hunt in his title defense on Dec. 31 in Saitama before finally winning with a kimura in 8:16. Granted, Fedor wasn't able to train at full speed due to a toe injury, but Hunt, while a respected vet, isn't considered a top-10 pound-for-pound fighter, and he had Fedor in trouble in several instances.

*No such questions for PRIDE lightweight champ Takanori Gomi. The Fireball Kid ran right over Mitsuhiro Ishida. Could Northern California's Gilbert Melendez be in line for a shot? It might be a bit soon for that, but with each succeeding fight, including his unanimous decision win over Tatsuya Kawajiri last week, he looks more and more like one of the top lightweights in the world.

*One thing you'll never see in UFC is an unconscious fighter being dragged back into action to absorb more of a beating, as happened to Hidehiko Yoshida in his loss to James Thompson at the PRIDE show. If the video of that one gets in the wrong hands and taken out of context it will set MMA back to about 1997.

*I'm going to moderate a forum titled "Mixed Martial Arts: Fighting Its Way into the Mainstream" on Wednesday at a meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Sports Marketing Network at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza. Panelists include UFC vice-president Craig Borsari, IFL founder Gareb Shamus, and XBox executive Bill Neilsen. For more information, go here.

*We're going through a few changes in our MMA coverage on the site. It will take some time, but the end result will be far more coverage of the sport. In the meantime, some time over the next couple days we'll unveil the first FOXSports.com MMA pound-for-pound Top 10 list.