Tuesday, May 3, 2011

UFC adds its own online prefight and postfight show

The media isn't moving fast enough for the UFC, so the promotion has decided to move forward with its own prefight and postfight shows. The sport is badly in need of consistent shows before and after the fights. Various websites and even ESPN has dipped their toe into prefight/postfight field, now the UFC is introducing UFC Central at UFC 129.

According to MMAjunkie, the show will be hosted by former WEC voice Todd Harris along with CBS Sports' anchor Molly Qerim. UFC fighters Stephan Bonnar and Kenny Florian will serve as analysts.

The UFC adds that during the PPV event UFC Central gives extra access to the viewer:

Once the UFC 129 live broadcast begins at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, UFC Central will only be available to fans that purchased the event for viewing on UFC.TV and will capture interviews with fighters on the fight card during the live broadcast as well as other analyst commentary.

UFC Central will be offered as a seventh video feed and fifth audio feed, leveraging UFC.TV's multi-camera view and multi-audio feed experience. During the live event, fans will have the option inside of UFC.TV to select UFC Central as the main broadcast; or, drag and drop it into Picture-n-Picture or Quad View so that UFC Central can be watched and/or listened to alongside the broadcast of the main fight card.

Immediately following the live broadcast, UFC Central will be offered for free at UFC.TV with post-fight analysis, making it the ultimate destination for the most comprehensive UFC 129 news.

The show on UFC.tv airs at 8 p.m. ET. MMAConvert points out that it's an interesting time slot because it counterprograms the UFC 129 undercard fights on Spike TV at 8.

One would assume this is the beginning of plenty of programming on "UFC Central." UFC president Dana White has always been bullish on the Internet.

"It is (the future), I'm telling you," White told MMAjunkie.com. "I've been saying it for 10 years. Everything is going Internet. I believe that everybody is going to be watching TV and be on the Internet."

The promotion is showing the first five undercard fights on its Facebook page beginning at 6 p.m. ET.

You can watch UFC 129 on PPV (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT) right here on Yahoo! Sports.

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