The main event of UFC 110 was one of the most anticipated heavyweight matches in recent months, with many observers predicting that the clash between young, powerful wrestler Cain Velasquez and the veteran, resilient grappler Antonio Nogueria would produce a scientific battle with Velasquez trying to impose his will on the ground while Nogueria hunted for a submission. Instead, we saw Cain Velasquez dominant the future Hall of Famer in a way that nobody (not even Fedor) has ever managed. While it wasn’t the expected fight of the night it was a remarkable, breakout performance from Cain Velasquez as he finished Nogueria within three minutes after dissecting him in  a fluid, devastating kickboxing performance.

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Saturday saw Sky Sports and Frank Warren Promotions organize a three-hour live special to highlight some of the young boxers that their promoter is already predicting will be part of a new golden age for British boxing. While the event was plagued with problems including British champion Danny Williams pulling out with an injury at the last minute, the Wembley Arena show delivered plenty of action with Kevin Mitchell earning a shot at the WBO Lightweight Title, Nathan Cleverly winning the European Light-Heavyweight Title and several of Warren’s younger boxers securing important victories.

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Randy Couture likes proving people wrong.

If anything defines him, it is that. His career has been a series of outstanding upset victories that both defied the odds and took people’s breath away. People said that he was too old and too slow to defeat Chuck Liddell in 2003, but somehow he managed to do it. People said that we was too old and too small to defeat Tim Sylvia in 2007, but somehow he managed to do it. So as he stood victorious for the first time on American soil since 2007 it seemed like ‘The Natural’ had once again confounded those who had written him off. But when you dig beneath the surface, Couture’s performance failed to silence the doubters.

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British boxing had a Spring to forget last year. First, Joe Calzaghe confirmed his retirement. Then, Ricky Hatton was overwhelmed by Manny Pacquiao in just two rounds. With its two biggest stars seemingly gone, it seemed that a golden era of box office success in the United Kingdom was about to come to a close. However, we’re only a few weeks into a new year and it appears that 2010 could be the biggest year in the history of British boxing.

On Wednesday, Ricky Hatton confirmed that he’ll be making a comeback. This ends a period of public deliberation as Hatton has being talking for months about feeling the itch to return to boxing. He had spoken about wanting to fight in front of his devoted home fans one more time and for his career to end on a more positive note than his brutal KO defeat against Manny Pacquiao last May. Having previously announced that he would be weighing his options over Christmas, the announcement last week that he would return came as a surprise to absolutely nobody. His opponent is yet to be confirmed but he said that he will be fighting against either a top-ranked fighter or a world champion.

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The big story coming out of the UFC this week had nothing to do with Monday Night’s Ultimate Fight Night, but rather with the news that a 10% stake in its parent company Zuffa had been sold to Flash Entertainment. The previous reluctance of White and the Fertittas to go public or sell part of the organization to outsiders made the sale something of a surprise, but its a move that they had to make to continue their international expansion.

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The 2009 Inside Fights MMA Awards are finish with our fourth and final part where we reveal who won our Fight of the Year and Fighter of the Year awards. You can check out Parts 1, 2 and 3 to see who won our other awards.

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UFC 108 sees the UFC start the new year with a card headlined by Rashad Evans taking on Thiago Silva. Other fights include Paul Daley vs Dustin Hazelett and Junior dos Santos vs. Gilbert Yvel. Join Will Cooling for live coverage of all the action.

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2009 was a year full of great in-ring action as dominant champions such as George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva took the sport to new heights with breathtaking performances, while heated grudge matches such as Henderson-Bisping or Lesnar-Mir provided visceral entertainment. However, often the big stories were outside the ring with backstage developments and feuds often dominating the headlines in the MMA press.

Here are the top ten news stories from the past twelve month.

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Last weekend, World Extreme Cagefighting put on yet another great night of fights with several excellent, fast paced matches between fighters at the very top of their weight classes. This was just the latest in a series of great WEC events with 2009 seeing Faber-Brown II, Torres-Bowles and Brown-Aldo proving that the 135Ibs and 145Ibs weight classes are second to none in terms of in-ring excitement and excellence. And yet while BJ Penn-Kenny Florian main-evented a PPV in lightweight championship fight, and fans are still buzzing from Shogun Rua dismantling Lyoto Machida, only a small audience of MMA diehards saw Brown retain against Faber in a twenty-five minute classic or Bowles shock the seemingly untouchable Torres. That disparity between the level of attention given to the five UFC weight classes and the two WEC weight classes is a symptom of the wider problems created by Zuffa’s handling of the featherweights and bantamweights.

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After the collapse of Setanta in the UK the UFC made ESPN its British home. However due to the rushed entry of ESPN into the UK sports broadcasting market, only now have we started to get any information about how the UFC is doing ratings wise. And from the first three weeks we can see that UFC is very valuable programming to ESPN with UFC always having at least one show in the station’s top ten most watched shows.

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