The UFC 140: Jones vs. Machida event is scheduled to take place this Saturday in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It’s a solid event with a number of former champions on the card. It’s actually top heavy with the fights after the top three having little impact division wise in the UFC. However, there are some interesting storylines to check out and questions that need answers and that’s where I come in. Let’s get right to it.

•Will Jon Jones emerge as a PPV star on this card against Lyoto Machida?

Basically what I’m asking is will the buys from this card imply that Jon Jones is a legitimate PPV draw? The UFC is in desperate need of creating new stars and they’ve been pushing Jon Jones for a while now, and he’s been delivering inside the cage. However, at some point that needs to translate into PPV buys, but of course there are a ton of factors that go into that. It doesn’t help UFC 139 was just two weeks ago. The word is that card did right around 300K PPV buys as most of the PPV’s have done lately. I wonder if people will shell out money for this card knowing that Brock Lesnar will be fighting  just a few weeks down the road, not to mention it’s Christmas time and folk need money to buy gifts. Jones does have a little help in regards to name recognition with Frank Mir and Tito Ortiz on the card, but neither guy can be considered legitimate draws these days. UFC 135 did around 475K PPV buys when Jones defended his title for the first time against Rampage Jackson. UFC 128 saw similar numbers when Jones defeated Shogun Rua for the title earlier this year. It’ll be interesting to see what numbers UFC 140 can do, but it has a number of factors going against it. If it does over 300K that has to be considered good news in regards to Jones star power.

•Will Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira be forced into retirement after this fight with Frank Mir?

Nogueira is my favorite fighter of all time. Nogueira was facing a lot of retirement talk heading into his last fight at UFC 134 where he was a huge underdog to Brendan Schaub. However, Nogueira had other plans as he dispatched the young up and comer in quick fashion via knockout. He’ll be facing someone that did the same thing to him almost three years ago in Frank Mir. UFC President Dana White has already said that he’ll probably have that ‘talk’ with Nogueira should he get brutally knocked out. Mir is quite capable of doing it again.

•Will this be the last time we see either Tito Ortiz  or Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in the Octagon?

I feel like I’ve been asking this question about Tito Ortiz for a long time. However, he extended his career by getting the huge upset win against Ryan Bader at UFC 132 earlier this year. He got destroyed by Rashad Evans at UFC 133 after agreeing to take that fight on short notice. It was a very smart move on the part of Ortiz. Nobody expected him to beat Evans, he took the fight on short notice, and he did the UFC a huge favor by doing so. Which probably means he’ll get one more fight after this one should he lose to Nogueira. However, I’ve seen a few interviews lately where Tito seems to be closer and closer to ‘accepting’ that he’s near the end of his rope. Tito says that he wants to stand and strike with Nogueira but I don’t believe that for a second. Would Ortiz go out on a loss? It’ll be interesting to see how it all unfolds on Saturday night.

Be sure to make Pro MMA Now your home for UFC 140 coverage, and be sure to check back each day and I break down the main card fights for you gamblers looking to make some money :).

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