It wasn’t long ago that the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s website was fairly worthless. It really didn’t provide anything other than fight cards and schedules. In fact, they didn’t even own www.ufc.com, instead they had to settle for second best, www.ufc.tv. Hard to have a lot of legitimacy with the .tv top-level domain name.

I haven’t really paid too much attention to the evolution of the UFC website until I visited the official UFC 66 website yesterday. The site is superior in many ways. The design is strong, the content is deep, and the usability is slick. It really feels like the UFC has made a quantum leap in the last year with its website. For a company that sells “fighting” it is kind of odd that their website is so cutting edge. They obviously are making some good cash these days as sites like theirs are not cheap to produce. With a background in web production, I’d say that most web agencies would charge $200k or more for the UFC 66 site. Now think of how many events they have a year. At this rate, we’re looking at two million dollars a year spent on UFC website. Think about it, the UFC is spending more on their event websites than they are for their top fighters!

More props to the UFC for breaking ground a developing websites at this level. They really add to the image of mixed martial art as being the “real deal” and the sport of a newer generation.

Video, animation, fight analysis, interviews, I love it!

Go to the UFC Liddell vs. Ortiz 2 website and take a minute to reflect on how much the sport has evolved, offline and online. Now let’s see if the PrideFC website steps up.

Royce Gracie, Rickson Gracie, Renzo Grazie, etc. All great fighters in their prime no disputing that. They have also been amazing ambassadors to the mixed martial arts world. However, it’s been many years since a Gracie has been dominant.

Introducing, Roger Gracie. Roger had his first MMA fight over the weekend at BodogFIGHT. He’s a 25 year old Abu Dhabi champ who was handed a worthy challenger in Ron “H20″ Waterman. In his first match, Gracie was able to submit the strong wrestler Waterman via armbar in the first round. This guy looks legit and I’m excited to see his next fight. We need a new Gracie. Roger, are you the “one?”

Here are some words from the new kid on the MMA block:

“I thought [it would end] by choke to be honest,” said Gracie following the bout. “I was expecting at some point to get on top of him. I knew he was strong so it would be hard to catch an arm. But I thought at some point I would be able to reverse and I’m on top, him trying to escape, I’m going to be able to put a choke on. But it didn’t go that far.”

“I’m a very calm person always,” he said. “When I’m grappling a lot of people come to ask me how come I’m so relaxed. It’s pretty much in my nature; I’m calm like that. Even sometimes when I shouldn’t be, I’m more relaxed. That’s reflected when I fight. With those guys in my corner, there’s no way I cannot be relaxed. The confidence that they pass me is great. Renzo. Helio. My father. All of them.”

As reported earlier, Pride Fighting Championship’s Middleweight Champion is set to make his mark in the U.S. by staring in an upcoming mixed martial arts movie called Never Submit.

And if that wasn’t cool enough, Wandi is finally coming to the U.S. to fight! The Axe murder is scheduled to fight at PRIDE 33 at the Thomas and Mack Center in Sin City, Las Vegas. Unfortunately we don’t know who his opponent will be just yet.

Are we going to have a match-up the likes of Fedor vs Coleman? I know Pride will want to have an American fight Silva as that will be a bigger draw to the U.S. audience. I just pray it will be a real contender. It won’t be the Ice Man Liddell nor da’ Bad Boy Ortiz at this point. So who outside of the UFC world would be a good match up for Wanderlei? Will they bring an existing American Pride fighter over for the match up or will they find some new but recognizable blood?

Drum roll…..Ken Shamrock, I pray not! Bas Rutten, I pray so!

Wanderlei Silva is coming to America for a reason and he’s here to stay. Pride will have a new posterboy. More to come…

Pride Fighting Championship has announced that Fedor Emelianenko will be defending his heavyweight title against Mark Hunt at their Shockwave 2006 show. First off, Hunt doesn’t even deserve a shot at the title. Second, what the hell happened to Mirko “Cro Cop” Mirko Filipovic? With his destruction of Wanderli Silva and his dismanteling of Baby Face Josh Barnett, no one deserves a title shot more than Cro Cop. Does he feel like he needs more time to prepare before facing Fedor? Has he sustained an injury? Will he be facing another fighter on the same card? Is he holding out, again, due to contract disputes? It would be nice if Pride made some announcments. As of now, the only fight listed for Shockwave 2006 is the Fedor Hunt fight. What’s the haps DSE? Time is ticking people….