There was a festive mood around the UFC 91 press conference. President Dana White has been there since the beginning of the UFC rebirth in 2001 as has returning heavyweight champ Randy Couture. Both spoke at length about how far the company has come mentioning that the public press conference in the MGM Grand lobby in front of close to 1000 fans was a gigantic deal.  

The UFC did its first public press conference in August at the Mall of America before UFC 87 in front of roughly 2,000 fans. Events on this grand scale were the last thing White could imagine as he and the Fertitta brothers were building the company. White said he thought they could close the doors at any moment between 2001-2005 before The Ultimate Fighter reality show helped move the sport towards the mainstream:

"We were just having trouble getting the mainstream exposure and people to know the fights were on. I didn't know until it started to hit and started to tip over. That's how I lost my hair. I had a pretty good head of hair when we started this thing. I thought we were going out of business every weekend."

Couture was thrilled to see the big turnout in Las Vegas:

"I don't think we have to wait until Saturday night to see how far the sport has come. This is an amazing press conference. My first UFC we did the weigh-ins at the Holiday Inn in Augusta, Georgia. They had the scale in a little broom closet over on the side. It's a remarkable transition."

Click below to listen to the question and answer portions of the press conference:

Part I:

Part II:

You can watch the opening statements of the presser at MMARated. The highlights included White dropping an s-bomb in a public forum. Couture talked about never really being inactive during his time without a fight. Preparing all of Xtreme Couture's big name fighters for their matchesover the last 15 months, kept Couture in the zone. But he did say to himself, "What the hell am I doing here" a few times while prepping for Brock Lesnar against a bevy of 275 lb. training parters.

Lesnar dropped a funny line about being in kindergarten the first time he saw a Couture fight in UFC. B.J. Penn and Anderson Silva were also on hand to ask questions. Penn mocked on Kenny Florian by asking if it was true that he was slated to play Couture's son in the next installment of the Scorpion King.

One interesting twist to the press conference was the addition of fan questions. Several attendees in the MGM lobby were allowed to throw some querys at the fighters and White. Somehow I don't see the NFL allowing that anytime soon. Maybe it's another example of how MMA has developed a close bond with its fans while the traditional power sports seem to have a chasm growing between their athletes and fans.

Yahoo! Sports/ESPNRadio1100 will be doing a live UFC 91 Post-Fight show from the MGM Grand on Saturday night. The show starts at 10:30p PT and will be taking calls from around the country. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON SATURDAY!