Carlos Condit, in a recent interview with Carlos Arias of the OC Register, was very candid about where he thinks he’s at in his career right now and where he thinks he can be should he reach his full potential:

“But I feel, me being the champion, I can deal with any one of those guys in the UFC and beat quite a few of them and give any of them a run for their money.”

“I want to fight anyone who is above me. I don’t put too much thought into who I’m going to fight next or anything like that. I focus on improving myself and being the best that I can be. I know that if I reach my potential, then I can beat those guys, I can beat guys like GSP, I can beat guys like (Jon) Fitch. I can fight any of these guys. When I reach my prime, it’s going to be a scary, scary thing for everybody in the welterweight division.”

I think Condit is spot on. He is one of the most underrated welterweights in the world right now. I have no doubt that some day, after he’s cleaned out the WEC’s welterweight division, he’ll make his way into the UFC. And when he does? Look out. Condit is one of these guys that doesn’t look like he’s all that but he has shown time and time again that he is tough as nails, trains extremely hard, and has the overall game to be one of the best fighters in the world. Making Brock Larson and Carlo Prater look like clown shoes is a pretty hard thing to do and Condit made it look easy.

When he makes it to the UFC I have no doubt that he will stir up the division and make a lot of noise. There are some very intriguing matchups for him there and I look forward to seeing him there sooner than later. I understand that ZUFFA is trying to build a brand with the WEC but you can only deny talent for so long and Condit has it in spades.

Good stuff here, especially at the end when Condit KO’s a U.S. soldier while “demonstrating some standup.” Condit will be in action on August 3 against Hiromitsu Miura at WEC 35, defending his WEC welterweight championship.

Yahoo! is reporting that the UFC sold 7,850 tickets for this past weekend’s UFC 72 card in Belfast, Ireland, for a total house of $1.2 million. I’m not sure how legitimate those claims are because there have been a lot of reports that tickets didn’t sell as well as expected and that the house had to be “papered.”

The payouts for last Tuesday’s UFC Fight Night 10 card have been made available by the state of Florida. These figures do not include deductions or bonuses:

Spencer Fisher ($26,000) defeated Sam Stout ($6,000)

Jon Fitch ($36,000) defeated Roan Carneiro ($5,000)

Drew McFedries ($14,000) defeated Jordan Radev ($5,000)

Thiago Tavares ($10,000) defeated Jason Black ($6,000)

Forrest Petz ($8,000) defeated Luigi Fioravanto ($8,000)

Tamdan McCory ($8,000) defeated Pete Spratt ($12,000)

Gleison Tibau ($10,000) defeated Jeff Cox ($3,500)

Anthony Johnson ($6,000) defeated Chad Reiner ($3,000)

Nate Mohr ($6,000) defeated Luke Caudillo ($3,000)

411mania.com has a rundown of the post-fight press conference notes from UFC at:

http://www.411mania.com/MMA/news/55873/UFC-72:-Post-Fight-Press-Conference-Notes.htm

Those who will be receiving bonuses include Tyson Griffin and Clay Guida for “Fight of the Night,” Marcus Davis for “Knockout of the Night,” and Ed Herman for “Submission of the Night.”

During a post-fight interview with UFC.com, Davis said he’d like to fight Takanori Gomi. I don’t think the match will ever happen, but it’s still interesting.

At one point, someone asked about both Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle. White said that they hadn’t spoken to Lesnar (although in the past he’s said that the UFC is interested in Lesnar) but were speaking with Angle. White reiterated how he didn’t think Angle could make the jump right to the UFC and would need proper training. It’s interesting, because the Wrestling Observer reports that Angle recently canceled meetings with Bodog that could have led to a finalized contract with the promotion. Was it a case of Angle not wanting to get into MMA, or was it a case of trying to give the UFC another chance to negotiate?

A lot of people believe Angle is just talking MMA to keep his name in the mainstream news but as I’ve said on the record before, I believe he’s going to fight MMA. However, he’s going to have to do it sooner rather than later because he’s not getting any younger.

White also confirmed that Rich Franklin will get the next UFC middleweight title shot. As for Phil Baroni, White confirmed that he could fight again for the promotion if he beats Frank Shamrock (but he apparently wouldn’t say Shamrock’s name).

Forrest Griffin also apologized for being “rude” and “curt” with the fans and media leading up to the fight. He said that the pressure to win has grown very big.

I thought UFC 72 was a solid show, coming off a great show this past Tuesday night at UFC Fight Night 10. The first two matches were clearly the best, and made the PPV worth the price.

In regard to the opener, Ed Herman vs. Scott Smith, how come the UFC rejected UFCMania.com as a sponsor yet gave the thumbs up to Ed Herman for his “CondomDepot.com” sponsorship? I was waiting for him to thank them for being his sponsor during his post-fight interview. It never happened.

As for the match itself, both fighters are aggressive. Like Joe Rogan said, I can’t think of a Scott Smith match that has been boring. His W/L record in the UFC might not be great but they should keep him around. As for Herman, he’s looked a lot better his last two fights but he still looks like a second-tier middleweight.

Clay Guida vs. Tyson Griffin may have been better than Frankie Edgar vs. Tyson Griffin. We got to see a little bit of everything. The transitions were great, as were some of the near submissions. In my opinion, Guida should have gotten the decision. Despite the loss, he has nothing to be ashamed of… well, except for his entrance music, which might be the worse in UFC history. It was just a little too… happy? In reality, Griffin has lost two fights in a row but it’s hard to discount the guy because he’s looked so good in each loss. Against Edgar and Guida, he faced game opponents who really stepped up. I think I’m really starting to favor the lighter weight fighters and the faster pace in which they fight at.

Rory Singer vs. Jason MacDonald was fine for what it was. Singer looked good the first round before losing the fight in the second.

When Forrest Griffin publicly questioned his own chin last week, I thought he’d fight more tentative against Hector Ramirez. However, Forrest didn’t fight tentative, he fought smart. Great foot work. I also liked the fact that he only entered Ramirez’s range if he was going to throw a combination. If he knew he wasn’t going to throw something, he disengaged completely. Forrest moved well and he made it hard for Ramirez to track him down because of all the legs kicks he delivered. I think Forrest played it a little too safe in the third round, as Ramirez was clearly tired and I thought Griffin could have finished the fight during the couple of times he had Ramirez against the cage.

The reaction Griffin got was unreal. He was clearly the biggest star on the show in the eyes of the Belfast audience. A fight between Michael Bisping and Griffin in either England or Ireland has money written all over it.

They really need to stop telling fighters before their fights that if they win, they’ll get a title shot. It seems like every time a fighter hears that from the UFC he fights in safe mode. Franklin didn’t push the action much and making things worse was that Okami didn’t push the action at all until the third. The third round saved the match, but I was still a little disappointed. BTW, why didn’t they show a replay of Okami nearly tapping out Franklin with the Kimura? Or, did I blink and miss it?

A few other notes…

Mike Goldberg said during the broadcast that Rich Franklin would get a rematch for the UFC middleweight title if Anderson Silva successfully defends the title at UFC 73. They mentioned the news again, and I’m assuming that Franklin still gets the next shot even if Nathan Marquardt wins.

It was also announced that Quinton “Rampage” Jackson will fight Dan Henderson at UFC 75 in London, England on September 8.

Left without an opponent, Tom Murphy has been removed from the UFC 72 card this Saturday in Belfast, Ireland.

UFCJunkie.com broke the news late last week that Jake O’Brien had to pull out of the match against Murphy with a back injury (which could be career-threatening, according to his agent, Ken Pavia).  The UFC had contacted Justin McCully about filling in as a last-minute replacement but he couldn’t get his injury suspension reduced.

The UFC has confirmed the main televised portion of the UFC 72: Victory card set for June 16 at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Ireland.

The main event will be Rich Franklin vs. Yushin Okami. Also, Forrest Griffin will take on Hector “Sick Dog” Ramirez, Jason MacDonald vs. Rory Singer, and Tyson Griffin vs. Clay Guida.

Interestingly, a fifth bout for the telecast has not been designated. The UFC traditionally has always televised at least five bouts per PPV telecast. Perhaps they will be selecting the best match from the preliminary portion of the card which includes bouts between Jake O’Brien vs. Tom Murphy, Ed Herman vs. Scott Smith, Marcus Davis vs. Jason Tan, Eddie Sanchez vs. Colin Robinson, and Dustin Hazelett vs. Steve Lynch.