A week after returning from Japan last spring, when he had signed papers to complete the purchase of the Pride Fighting Championship, it was rare that UFC president Dana White wasn't beaming ear-to-ear.

The thought of the matches he could put together was making the fight fan in him nearly giddy.

"These," White said at the time, "will be some of the greatest fights, ever."

He talked about pitting the Pride champions against the UFC champions in something of a Super Bowl of mixed martial arts.

They would be, he said, almost salivating at the thought, some of the most important matches in mixed martial arts history.

The first of those will be on Saturday at the O2 Arena in London. UFC light heavyweight champion Rampage Jackson will pit his belt against that of Pride champion Dan Henderson.

It's arguably the UFC's most significant bout of the year, but White made the decision to put the fight on Spike TV, on basic cable, where it will reach nearly 92 million homes, instead of offering it

LAS VEGAS – Brandon Vera never imagined a day would come that he would think such dark thoughts. He never believed he could be so filled with rage, with hate, for one human being.

He was proud of the fact that he could face the toughest challenges in a fight and remain in control of his emotions, but just the sight of his manager across a table is enough to make him consider an untold act.

Vera's career as a mixed martial artist flourished under the management of Mark Dion. It reached its zenith on Nov. 18, when he needed just 69 seconds to stop ex-heavyweight champion Frank Mir at UFC 65 in Sacramento, Calif.

UFC president Dana White was effusive in his praise of Vera, who was on the fast track to the title.

White had been telling the media prior to UFC 65 that the winner of the Vera-Mir fight would face the winner of the Tim Sylvia-Jeff Monson fight, which was also being held that night, for the championship.

But nine months after that epic win, Vera is farther away from the UFC

Pedro Rizzo is nearly 11 years younger than Randy Couture, the UFC heavyweight champion. And he's a year-and-a-half younger than Jeff Monson, against whom he'll defend the International Fighters Association heavyweight title Saturday on the Art of War 3 card at American Airlines Arena in Dallas.

But Rizzo is trying to shake a reputation that he's old and over the hill as a mixed martial artist, a tag which has followed him for at least four years.

"I started in this business so young, which is why people think I'm old now," the 33-year old Rizzo said.

"But I've got a lot of great fights left in me. I'm healthy now and that was really the biggest issue with me. My best is yet to come."

Rizzo was once one of the most feared strikers in MMA and has wins over some of the sport’s greatest heavyweights to prove it.

He's defeated Josh Barnett, Andrei Arlovski, Mark Coleman, Ricco Rodriguez and UFC Hall of Famer Dan Severn.

Rizzo, though, hasn't had an easy time of it since his back-to-back

Kendall Holt lives a ballet dance of a life, where he tiptoes between the Father Knows Best world of life in the suburbs and the grimy reality of an existence with a murderer in the family and danger around every corner.

It's not every day when one comes home from picking up a chicken dinner at a local restaurant and has to dodge bullets from two guys shooting at each other over, as he says matter-of-factly, "something really stupid, probably."

That, though, is what happened to Holt on Monday in Paterson, N.J., a day before he left home to fly to Barranquilla, Colombia, where he'll fight Ricardo Torres on Saturday for the WBO super lightweight championship.

He's almost assuredly walking into an ambush on Saturday, with the crowd, the promoter and, perhaps, the officials decidedly against him, but he essentially shrugs his shoulders with indifference.

He's not, he says cheerfully, concerned in the least about getting cheated out of a lifelong dream.

"When you've lived the life I've

The inbox was overflowing this week with reaction to Randy Couture's successful UFC heavyweight title defense against Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 74 on Saturday at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Couture stopped Gonzaga in the third round, prompting rejoicing from many Yahoo! Sports readers, who clearly are Couture diehards.

But for all of you who are now saying, "I told you so," I have a simple question: Where were you before the fight?

Before the fight, I was receiving a heavy dose of messages from Couture fans expressing concern for his safety.

I'll tackle the Couture questions as well as assorted other mixed martial arts and boxing topics in this edition of the mailbag.

My answers appear in italics below the questions.

AMAZING COUTURE

How does Randy do it? He just leaves me speechless. Competing at that level at that age is one of the most amazing sports stories the general public has never heard. I think what he did Saturday night is about as impressive as any single sports moment I've ever

LAS VEGAS – The crowd at the Mandalay Bay Events Center did the right thing at UFC 74 Saturday when light heavyweight Renato "Babalu" Sobral – henceforth forever known in this space as "Babaloser" – ignored the submission of David Heath and the pleas of referee Steve Mazzagatti and continued to hang onto a choke.

It booed him vociferously after having been clearly behind him during the bout. We can only hope that the Nevada Athletic Commission and UFC president Dana White have the same strong sense of right and wrong that the 11,118 in the arena did.

What set Babaloser off was that Heath had said, "You're going down, mother (expletive)," as they posed for photographers after Friday's weigh-in.

As a result, when he got the opportunity, he squeezed the choke for nearly four additional seconds after Heath tapped his submission, as Mazzagatti attempted to pry the Brazilian's arm from around Heath's throat.

In the ring after the fight, Babaloser was defiant when questioned by UFC color

LAS VEGAS – When Randy Couture made the decision last November to end a brief retirement and make a run at the UFC's heavyweight title, the division was one of the company's weakest.

Just 10 months and two title victories later, the 44-year-old Hall of Famer sits atop perhaps the most stacked division in the game.

Men such as Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and, perhaps soon, the finest of them all, Fedor Emelianenko, have come to the UFC and sit atop a loaded division waiting for a piece of a guy thought to be too old four years ago.

But on Saturday, after dominating Gabriel Gonzaga and stopping him at 1:37 of the third round of their title bout at UFC 74 in front of 11,118 at Mandalay Bay, Couture proved that it's not a stretch to think he'll still be an effective mixed martial arts fighter at 50.

After a recent workout in preparation for his demolition of Gonzaga, Couture shrugged his shoulders when asked whether it would be possible to still compete at 50.

He's

LAS VEGAS – Randy Couture has listened for weeks to the talk about how badly he matches up against Gabriel Gonzaga.

And Couture, at 44 the UFC heavyweight champion for a third time, understands the risks he'll face when he defends his belt on Saturday against the highly regarded Brazilian at UFC 74 at Mandalay Bay.

He knows a mistake on the ground can mean a title-losing submission. He was octagonside in April when Gonzaga stunned the mixed martial arts world by knocking out Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic with a kick to the head.

Couture, more than anyone, grasps what he's up against. His margin for error is nil. "A talented kid," Couture says. "Real talented."