After the WEC 31 card last night, Versus aired a new episode of Unscripted with Dennis Miller. The show revolves around Miller interviewing guests and then spouting off monologues with his sense of humor that sometimes goes over the head of half of his own viewers. Although I understood all the small jokes, it was apparent that many of his guests didn't.

During the show, the topic of which sport had the toughest competitors competing in it was on the plate. Bill Romanowski, Jeremy Roenick, Larry Holmes, and Forrest Griffin were all part of the panel of people participating in the discussion. Before the actual panel however, Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin both sat down for a small group conversation about the sport. Unlike their previous interviews, one of them actually was fairly funny, charismatic, and didn't sound dull. Take a guess at who that was.... yeah, you guessed it, Forrest Griffin.

Eerily similar to the Ultimate Fight NIght 11 appearances by Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin during a segment of the night, Liddell looked like he hadn't slept in days at times. He gave the same cliche answers to nearly every question, and didn't seem to excited about trying to hype up the Wanderlei Silva war that was about to occur at the end of the month. Griffin, on the other hand, was actually comical in some of the answers he gave and did seem to give some unscripted answers to Miller's questions... A+ to Forrest Griffin. And people still wonder why this guy is suddenly getting marketed.

Stop using Chuck Liddell

Chuck is a staple in the UFC's business, but he is too dull and soft spoken to hype a fight correctly. Every time he does an interview, it's exactly the same. The similarities between this interview, the UFN 11 interview, an interview I heard while driving home from work on TheScore 670 AM from Chicago, and about 2-3 other interviews I've heard is absolutely astounding. Although some of the interviews had some fairly humorous questions, Chuck didn't go with the flow. He would rather give the safe answers to keep his stature as a UFC ambassador in check.

The fact is, Liddell's only means to hype a fight is his ability to knock people out. For anybody who remotely follows the UFC or has watched Sportscenter the day after the big UFC events, those people know that Chuck Liddell has been defeated twice in his two most recent fights. Hardcore fans obviously know, but casual fans are also realizing that he doesn't have the pull that he used to have when he stood atop the division and demolished anyone coming to challenge him.

I won't put the blame entirely on Liddell however. The UFC is simply putting him in bad situations to hype his fights as well. Versus after the WEC 31 card? He needs to put put out on national networks. The only problem with that is, people are going to find out even faster how boring he is to interview.

What can be done?

Many columnists, blogs, websites, you name it have suggested one savior that could hype up Liddell vs. Silva. Do a 24/7 Liddell vs. Silva. Did they think of that before hand? No, they didn't. HBO beat them to the punch with Hatton-Mayweather, and by seeing that type of pre-fight hype vehicle for the fight, we now crave that for one of the most highly anticipated bouts of the year. Let's face it, the Countdown shows are terrible. The WEC put on a better pre-fight show than the UFC did, and they are owned by the same company. The UFC should think about the All-Access show except in the context of preparing for a fight.

Now, let me bring up one point that has become relevant as of late. Maybe not a point, but a person. Tito Ortiz. After watching Chuck Liddell on Unscripted and seeing such poor promotional material that the UFC puts out, they are seriously making Tito Ortiz look like a damn marketing genius. Instead of saying cliche scripted answers to questions, he rolls with the punches. Instead of saying he respects his opponent before the fight, he puts down his opponent and waits until after the fight to respect him. Basically, the guy can hype his own fights better than champions and he's barely in the middle-echelon of fighters in the Light Heavyweight division.

The UFC should hire Tito as a marketing director as this rate.

What should we get!

For hardcore fans, we all know what type of backstory there is to this battle between Liddell vs. Silva. We understand that stylistically, both fighters match up well. We understand that this is a classic puncher vs. counterpuncher explosion about to be set off. The one thing we aren't getting is the visuals of the tension, the hunger, the desire to win this fight. We don't see the stress that both fighters must be feeling. Both fighters coming off 2 losses, devastating losses in their careers. We don't see any of that in a dramatic context.

Instead of spending money on Countdown shows that don't do most of the fights justice, put more money into a small series that not only PROMOTES fighters, but it also PROMOTES the fight itself. It also solves your problem of not getting the UFC personalities out to the public.