After the experience I had this past weekend, the friend of mine who is an employee of the UFC gave me a behind the scenes look at both the production and just random tidbits of Zuffa related info. First, I got to see the layout of how they group the fighters backstage. They put them in seprate locker rooms in groups of three (they take into consideration if there is bad blood between the fighters, or if there is a potential they could be fighting each other in the immediate future). A typical UFC/WEC production takes about one hundred Zuffa employees and numerous other contracted workers to make the stuff happen. They have a company contracted who just assembles/dissassembles the octagon, an army of private professional photographers, contracted sound engineers, numerous people manning trucks that send the feed around the world. The matchmaker from the WEC (it isnt Joe Silva) also designs the event posters for both the WEC and the UFC. The previous owner of the WEC still holds minor stakes in the WEC. Dana White in the past five years has gone through about an average of one assistant per month (he fired his first cousin in three weeks). Although his latest assistant holds the record of almost a year. Dana White's personal body guard is some dumb looking old dude who is also the head of security for the WEC/UFC. The UFC is looking at San Antonio for Dec or Jan, the only thing holding them back is (an this is her words "the spurs being so bad ass". Zuffa is trying to bring Kid Yamamoto over for Miguel Torres and then Faber said he plans to have the 135lb title, 145lb title, and the 155lb title. Enjoy the free WEC events on tv because they are planning to start doing ppv's for the bigger fights.
