FanHouse UFC79

At UFC 79 tonight, Georges St.-Pierre dominated Matt Hughes from the start, punishing him for all of the first round and most of the second before Hughes finally tapped out.

The win makes St.-Pierre the interim UFC welterweight title holder, and guarantees that he'll fight former champion Matt Serra, who had been scheduled to take on Hughes tonight until an injury canceled that fight. Serra has been guaranteed a title shot. After the fight, St.-Pierre took off his title belt and said, "The real champion is Matt Serra," and that he will only consider himself the real champ when and if he beats Serra.

The win is a bit of an embarrassment for Hughes, who was totally outclassed throughout and looked somewhat unprepared, even though Hughes is the one who had more time to prepare for the fight. But Hughes, who verbally tapped out in the second round when St.-Pierre got him in an arm bar, said it best afterward: "Georges is just the better fighter."

Previously on FanHouse:
UFC 79 Live Blog: Georges St.-Pierre vs. Matt Hughes for Welterweight Championship
UFC 79: Chuck Liddell Beats Wanderlei Silva
UFC 79: Nemesis Live Blog -- Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva
With Couture Out, Tim Sylvia vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for UFC Title
UFC 79 Undercard Live Blog: Machida- Sokoudjou, Clementi-Guillard, Sanchez-Palalei

This is the FanHouse live blog of the main event for tonight's UFC 79, featuring Matt Hughes taking on Georges St.-Pierre for the UFC interim welterweight title.

The undercard is over, and the Hughes vs. St.-Pierre main event should start a little after midnight Eastern.

You can follow along with live, round-by-round coverage of St.-Pierre vs. Hughes after the jump.

The Iceman is back.

At UFC 79, America's most popular mixed martial arts fighter, Chuck Liddell, beat the Brazilian Wanderlei Silva with a dominant unanimous decision.

For Liddell, it was an opportunity to get back on track after losing his last two fights. He badly hurt Silva, bloodied him, and beat him senseless. It's a credit to Silva that he wasn't knocked out, but it was clear that Liddell won the fight handily.

It's great news for UFC that it's biggest star is back on the winning side of the ledger.

Silva now has a three-fight losing streak.

This is the FanHouse live blog of tonight's UFC 79 co-main event, featuring live, round-by-round updates of all the action as Chuck Liddell takes on Wanderlei Silva.

The Liddell-Silva fight should begin a little after 11:30 p.m.

After the Liddell-Silva fight is over, you can check out our Matt Hughes vs. Georges St.-Pierre live blog.

Full, round-by-round updates of Liddell-Silva are available after the jump.

UPDATE: The undercard is over. Join us now for our Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva live blog.

This is the FanHouse live blog of UFC 79, where we'll provide live, round-by-round updates of the three undercard fights, featuring light heavyweights Lyoto Machida and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, lightweights Rich Clementi and Melvin Guillard and heavyweights Eddie Sanchez and Soa Palalei.

The pay-per-view show has now started. In the non-televised portion of the program, James Irvin beat Luis Cane by disqualification, Manny Gamburyan beat Nate Mohr by submission, Dean Lister beat Jordan Radev by unanimous decision, Roan Carneiro beat Tony DeSouza by TKO and Mark Bocek beat Doug Evans by unanimous decision.

When the three undercard fights are over, join us for our Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva live blog, followed by our Georges St.-Pierre vs. Matt Hughes live blog.

Full round-by-round updates are after the jump.

The mainstream sports media still, for the most part, dismisses mixed martial arts as somehow less than a legitimate sport. I think one reason for that is that people don't understand what phenomenal athletes the guys in UFC are. To get a taste of just what kind of training a UFC champion endures, check out Georges St.-Pierre demonstrating his training regimen:

St.-Pierre is every bit as dedicated to his craft as athletes in other sports are. Furthermore, the weight classes in sports like mixed martial arts and boxing typically demand those athletes to actually be better conditioned, all things considered, than athletes in other sports.

St.-Pierre will take on Matt Hughes for the UFC welterweight championship tonight at UFC 79. We'll be live blogging UFC 79 here at FanHouse.

At UFC 79 tonight, Chuck Liddell will take on Wanderlei Silva. Here's their pre-fight press conference:

Liddell, despite his two-match losing streak, continues to talk tough.

"I'm just excited this fight's finally happening, it's been a long time getting this one going," Liddell said. "When they offered me this fight I got real excited again, I got back in the gym. So I'm ready to go, I'm real excited, and I promise you, like I said before I'm going to knock you out."

Silva isn't quite the talker Liddell is, but Silva continues to discuss his training, which, he says, has been the hardest of his career. In my view, it's that superior conditioning that is going to be the difference tonight, and it's Silva who will knock Liddell out.

We'll be live blogging UFC 79 here at FanHouse.

UFC continues to show that it has a better handle on how to market itself via YouTube than any other sports league, as this UFC 79 preview video is, by far, the most-watched video on YouTube today:

UFC 79 features co-main events of Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva and Georges St.-Pierre vs. Matt Hughes.

We'll be live-blogging UFC 79 here at FanHouse.

At UFC 79 on Saturday night, Wanderlei Silva will take on Chuck Liddell in a fight that doesn't have anywhere near the appeal that it would have had a year and a half ago. But while fans might not see this fight as quite as big a deal as it could have been, Silva says in this ESPN-produced video that he's taking the fight very seriously:

"I changed my life for this match," Silva said, "moving for training here in Vegas, I and my family, I changed everything, you know, I changed my trainer, I changed my gym, I changed my system for jiu-jitsu training, all for this match."

After the jump, see what Liddell had to say about Silva.