UFC Primetime: St. Pierre vs. Penn, $1.7M Project is 'The Best TV We've Ever Done'

By Michael David Smith - Lead Blogger

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UFC President Dana White is setting the bar high for the promotion of his organization's January 31 fight between lightweight champion B.J. Penn and welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre.

The Penn-St. Pierre fight, which is the main event at UFC 94, will be the subject of UFC Primetime: St. Pierre vs. Penn, a three-part special on Spike that will air each Wednesday night for the next three weeks. And White is calling it "the best television show we've ever done."

I talked to White today from Dublin, where he's preparing for Saturday's UFC 93 show, and he said the UFC has spared no expense in promoting St. Pierre vs. Penn.

"This thing is going to be 69 minutes," White said of the three segments, "and it's costing us $1.7 million to produce."

White said the finished product is going to be a dramatic look at the daily lives of Penn and St. Pierre in the weeks leading up to their fight, and that the faster turnaround time will give Primetime a more urgent feel than UFC's Countdown.

"It's more like a docu-drama or a docu-soap," White said. "It's so real time following the fighters that we're still editing now and it airs tomorrow night. The voiceovers will be done tonight and we'll literally still be working on this thing -- we'll get it to Spike two hours before it airs. ... Stuff that happened today will air tomorrow. These editors are working in shifts, working basically 24 hours around the clock in shifts. It's going to be the best show we've ever produced."

UPDATE: Read a review of the first episode.

Read More: b.j.penn, dana white, danawhite, georgesst.pierre, ufc 94, ufc94, mma media watch, mma videos, B.J. Penn (MMA), Georges St. Pierre (MMA)

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