Hosted by UFC President Dana White and FOX Sports Media Group President Eric Shanks, a conference call for the upcoming UFC on FOX 5 event, scheduled for December 8 in Seattle, was held today.
Headliners Nate Diaz and UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson, along with co-headliner Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, as well as Rory MacDonald and B.J. Penn participated in the call.
Topics included (in order):
- Why B.J. Penn wanted to come out of “retirement” to fight Rory MacDonald
- A potential new FOX Sports One channel and UFC’s role on the network
- If Benson Henderson feels he needs to finish Nate Diaz to prove a point
- Future plans for B.J. Penn following the bout with Rory MacDonald
- The reasoning behind putting a title fight on FOX
- “Road to the Octagon” airing on FOX this Sunday
- What the title shot means to Nate Diaz
- B.J. Penn’s opinion on “super fights”
- What the first year on FOX has meant for the UFC’s popularity and growth
- The UFC – FOX relationship and where it’s headed
- UFC on FOX television ratings
- Rory MacDonald’s desire to fight more often
- Dana White’s thoughts on Rory MacDonald’s potential and how he matches up with B.J. Penn
- UFC 154: St-Pierre vs. Condit’s Pay-Per-View numbers
- Changes Rory MacDonald has made to his training regimen
- How much help Rory MacDonald got from Georges St-Pierre for B.J. Penn, being that he has fought him twice
- Where a win over Alexander Gustafsson will put Shogun in the title shot picture
- Changes Shogun made in his training for Gustafsson
- If Shogun regrets not taking the fight with Jon Jones and how he feels he matches up with Gustafsson
- What Penn expects out of himself against MacDonald and why having the fight postponed was a good thing for him
- Penn’s thoughts on Anderson Silva vs. Georges St-Pierre
- Why it upsets Penn not to hear his name in the pound-for-pound best talks anymore and how it affected his decision to return
- How Benson Henderson feels about his popularity inside the UFC and if he needs to do anything different to get the media to pay attention to him
- FOX wants a UFC event Superbowl week
The full audio recording is below: