MMA Weekly reports that the UFC will run a GSP-Jake Shields “Primetime” series in leading up to their main event at UFC 129 in Toronto.
Via MMA Weekly:
“Yeah we’re going to do a Primetime on those two,” White confirmed to MMAWeekly.com. “So everything you didn’t know about Georges St-Pierre from the other 7 Primetimes, you’ll learn in this one.”
The other possibility that may happen during the Primetime series are Shields past fights from organizations like Elite XC and Strikeforce. See with the recent purchase of the San Jose based promotion, the UFC now retains their entire catalog of videos as well, which includes some of Shields biggest wins including victories over Dan Henderson, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, and Paul Daley.
Payout Perspective:
With the Primetime series its unlikely that we’d see an “In the Moment: Jake Shields” pre-event preview like Jon Jones. The fact that GSP is favored to win the fight is another reason an ITM preview would not be produced. It will be interesting to see what angle the series can play that has not been seen with GSP in this series. The series was expected as the UFC is bringing out all the bells and whistles for this huge event.
While we’ve seen a lot of GSP, I expect this series will probably spend a lot of time focusing on Shields.
GSP will be the draw, but by the end of the series everybody will know who Jake Shields is. Considering his run of victories they should be left with the impression that he’s a serious challenge for GSP, which equals more PPV buys.