UFC 140 press conference LIVE updates today (Dec. 8) for 'Jones vs Machida' in Toronto

Ultimate Fighting Championship will hold a public press conference today (Dec. 8, 2011) to promote UFC 140: "Jones vs. Machida", which is scheduled for Dec. 10, 2011.

The conference will begin at 1 p.m. ET live from the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, the home city of the event.

Scheduled to attend will be UFC president Dana White, as well as the headlining fighters of the evening, Jon Jones, Lyoto Machida, Frank Mir, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Tito Ortiz and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

Jones is the current UFC light heavyweight champion. "Bones" has risen to the top of the light heavyweight heap in 2011, winning the title from Mauricio Rua and then recently defending it last month with a submission against Quinton Jackson.

On the opposite side of the podium will be the challenger to his title, former champion Lyoto Machida. "The Dragon" was awarded a title shot after a knocking out MMA legend Randy Couture in highlight reel fashion at UFC 129. He stepped up when Rashad Evans couldn't heal up his injured thumb in time.

Frank Mir is a former two-time UFC heavyweight champion and has boosted back into the title picture after consecutive victories over veterans Mirko Filipovic and Roy Nelson. He'll be rematching the resurgent Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, a former interim UFC heavyweight champion who lost his title to Mir in 2009.

Lastly, former UFC light heavyweight champion, Tito Ortiz, one fight removed from an emotional first round upset of Ryan Bader, will be taking on veteran Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, who's dropped two tough fights in a row to strong wrestlers.

We'll have complete updates of the UFC 140 press conference after the jump:

Brian Hemminger here. The conference is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. eastern time.

1:10 p.m. - We're officially getting started.

Dana White: I love this fight. I think stylistically it's going to be a very exciting fight. I expect fireworks. Jones doesn't stop, he keeps coming forward and Machida is very defensive. This is a very fun fight.

Dana White: This is a big fight for both of these guys to get back in the heavyweight title picture and it's an important fight for them.

Jon Jones: I think I've gotten a lot more respect in the MMA community and people are starting to take me more legit as being their champion. I've just got to do the best I can in terms of winning these fights and the respect will come.

Dana White: Canada has been, I've always called it the mekka of the sport. Not just Canada, but Brazil is blowing up too. This sport is on its way worldwide.

Dana White: Lyoto wanted this fight really bad and this is a fun one. This one is gonna be very interesting. I think that Jon Jones, it's pretty clear that this guy is here to stay and this one has been the real deal.

Jon Jones: I had no problem with accepting the Lyoto Machida fight. I look at it this way, there's certain guys I'm gonna fight no matter what, Lyoto, Rashad and Henderson. It doesn't matter what order they come.

Lyoto Machida: Every time you fight for the belt, there's a little bit of added pressure but I feel more prepared right now when I fight for the title than when I fought Rashad.

Dana White: It doesn't matter what country you're from. It's about the fighters and the fights. We headlined two Brazilians in America, two Brazilians in Montreal. They've got guys they'll get behind and root for but people get behind you for your fighting style. People aren't buying tickets to hear Lyoto Machida walk in and give a speech, they're here to see him fight.

Lyoto Machida: After UFC Rio, the UFC really took off in Brazil. There's a lot more people watching right now because maybe people that couldn't pay for it before are watching now. I love it here. I felt it walking into his stadium.

Dana White: On Monday, we're gonna be casting for Ultimate Fighter Brazil. This show's gonna be huge there. We're gonna do Ultimate Fighter Canada, Australia and other places at the same time.

Big Nog: This is the new sport behind soccer. People love that sport right now. Brazilians they represent so good, we've got like 7-8 big idols in Brazil and it's good to fight over there but in Canada I feel really special to fight here because the people really follow this sport.

Lil Nog: I think the sport will get bigger and bigger in Brazil. It exploded after UFC 134.

Frank Mir: I'm just trying to be consistent as possible and keep on going. As long as I keep performing against name opponents, the performances will speak for itself.

Frank Mir: On thing that's helped me focus on this fight but I'm not silly, I know Nogueira underestimated me the first time around and he layed out the gameplan according to what he knew at the time. I caught him off guard. You try not to prepare specifically for a person because you don't know exactly what to expect. I know how it feels trying to avenge a loss against a guy.

Big Nog: To me, it means I got a second chance. I didn't make a good fight that day. He was faster, he won the fight and he threw more techniques and I didn't pick a good strategy. I will try to do my best and show a different fighter than I did that day.

Tito Ortiz: I think first, it's satisfying to have three fights in a year after coming off neck surgery and back surgery. I'm able to train again. I worked really hard for this fight and I'm gonna swing for the fences. I would have loved to squeeze in four, we'll see what happens.

Tito Ortiz: It's just keeping positive. It means someone that's been champion all the time and tried to give back. I remember signing autographs for over seven hours. I'm there for the fans. It's about showing that with hard work and determination, you can do anything in life. That switch from being negative to positive, that's what being "The People's Champ" is.

Dana White: I do all these interviews and we talk about 10 years and how fast it's grown but it's been a long 10 years. It's been like dog years. When you look back at that original crew, it's been a lot of hard work. We've definitely come a long way.

Tito Ortiz: (Tito originally refused to answer Ariel Helwani's question because "he didn't like him")Before the Bader fight, there was a lot of pressure on my back. Dana said I needed to win and I wasn't going anywhere. All the pressure was against me and enough was enough, I pushed all the negative away from me. I just stopped it, kept it out of my life and believed in positive and my life got better and better and better and I decided it was time to change my moniker, change my attitude. I've got three boys and I'd love for them to know me as the People's Champ and not the Bad Boy.

Jon Jones: I think it's the highest blessing to know what you're meant to do in this world. I'm just telling myself, this is my house, my zone, my place and to embrace it and love every moment of it, take it all in. When I crouch, I say a small prayer, for myself and my opponent. I pray for fluidity and then I get it on.

Tito Ortiz: It's not just in the Octagon, when it's fight time, I've got my poker face on. That bad boy's still there in the Octagon. When you fill yourself with hate, life becomes miserable. If you can accept what's in front of you, I believe that good things happen to good people when you do good things. Treat people the way you want to be treated.

Dana White: We knew the first time we got in Toronto that this would be a massive event. It brought in a lot of people globally for an event. You can't sell 55,000 tickets every time you show up. You have to have a very special fight to pull that off. You're not gonna sell out in minutes every time you go there and it's not always gonna be 55,000 seats. We knew we weren't gonna do that many ticket sales again.

Dana White: It doesn't suck when Georges St. Pierre fights, that's not a bad thing. Not just here in Canada, but worldwide. He's the most famous guy to come out of Canada, a worldwide superstar. He's the number one pound for pound pay-per-view star in mixed martial arts.

Dana White: We're really important with fighter safety. We don't cut any corners, we get them checked up before and after the fight is over. People talk about concussions and Parkinsons and all those things but when you go overboard on safety, things turn out alright.

Jon Jones: I think MMA has been proven time and time again as one of the safest sports. All sports risk concussions, basketball players, boxers, football players. Boxers get hit and then an 8 count to continue.

Tito Ortiz: I've been competing for over 15 years now and Fernando Vargas, and he's taken a lot of damage. When you can't intelligently defend yourself, it's over. An 8 count is very dangerous. I watched BJ Penn fight his last fight and to see the heart that he was taking, it reminded me of a boxing match. When I have problems and I start stuttering, and you can't understand the words I say, I don't want to be like that. The referees look out for our health all the time. Dana and Lorenzo have us come to Vegas and get brain scans all the time.

Frank Mir: Standing 8 counts are the most barbaric thing in the world. I have no fear whatsoever. I'm a father of four and brain damage is the least of my worries and in boxing, it's been proven you can't say that.

Dana White: I don't know if it's the strongest it's ever been, but it's always been a strong division. I see it getting better and better and better. These guys coming up have been training mixed martial arts since they were kids. Kids that would have played football, basketball, baseball, are now becoming mixed martial artists.

Jon Jones: I thought the crane kick video was hilarious. I wanted to retweet it but they had me losing so I didn't want to retweet it.

Dana White: It's pretty apparent, Tito and I get along a lot better than we used to. I wasn't so happy about the name change.

Tito Ortiz: It took me four hours to convince him, literally four hours.

Dana White: I think there's a lot of talk about that happening, it's never that bad. Do we have to jump through hoops? We have proved ourselves. I'll tell you what doesn't happen. We don't burn the city down after a UFC fight.

Dana White: He's been the Huntington Beach Bad Boy since he started and that's who he was. He called me and said he wanted to be the People's Champ and I was like "What does that even mean?" We talked for a couple hours and, well, he's the "People's Champ."

Jon Jones: He has a lot more footage for me to study. I studied when he was younger, the way he would move differently til now, in his most recent fights and there's a lot of things that he does the same.

Lyoto Machida: I was training this whole time but I had no fight commitments.

Big Nog: I love to fight with Rogerio because we can train together. Frank is left handed and I used my brother a lot for sparring and he used me because I'm right handed. I can use his sparring partners and he can use mine. It's a good vibe and good energy. We can stay in the same locker room and we did that couple times in Japan.

Lil Nog: It's gonna be a special night. Because I fight first, I have an opportunity to help motivate my brother.

Lyoto Machida: At the time, you don't understand why you go through this and it seems like it takes forever but I'm more mature as a fighter now.

Jon Jones: I know I'm not invincible and I've seen a lot of people end up losing. I want to never let that happen to me. The biggest part is training with Greg Jackson and I'm surrounded by some of the top fighters in the world. Diego Brandao and John Dodson just won the Ultimate Fighter and that's just the little guys. I'm four years into my MMA career and there's so much that I don't know. Jiu-jitsu, boxing, taekwondo, it's a whole culture. There's so much stuff that my teammates are way better than me at, but I'm so good at merging them all together. That keeps me aware of that I don't really know anything. That's what keeps aware, being at Greg Jackson's.

Jon Jones: We asked him to get us a minivan and I'll have a little more watchful eye over me at the meditation spot. I doubt we'll be finding any hoodlums to beat up on.

Dana White: What I'm looking forward to is in January because that's when our deal starts. The schedule is brutal to say the least but I'm really looking forward to getting this deal kicked off. The next two years are more important than the last 10. We've got a lot of work to do.

Dana White: We're gonna make sure Georges gets the right surgery with the right guy. I'm 100 percent confident that Georges St. Pierre will rebound from this injury and come back.

Jon Jones: I took taekwondo when I was a kid for two months, but I didn't do any formal karate training for Lyoto.

Jon Jones: I'm not scared to lose my title at all. it's a risk we take but with every risk we take, there's great reward.

Tito Ortiz: I had to get surgery, I had to get neck surgery. Is money worth my being paralyzed? No way. I've got three boys to take care of. I came back six months later and I saved my career. I'm very thankful because of it. I made a decision based on my health as a fighter and that's what I did. Liddell has done great things and he's been a great champion for the UFC.

Lyoto Machida: We talked a lot on the phone. He sent me some videos of stuff to check out and he told me what I should do and that's it.

Lyoto Machida: There is some pressure but I just focus on what I have to do, not my family or anything else. I just focus to come here and fight.

Lil Nog: For sure this is a very important fight. I've lost my last two fights. I've wanted to fight Tito for a while and I'm not gonna let this opportunity slip by.

Dana White: In January, when we go into this new deal, we're looking for a lot of new talent.

Dana White: That deal with Strikeforce should be wrapped up any day now and I'll make those decisions on who goes where and what happens. Hopefully by Monday I'll have those answers to those questions.

Dana White: Jon Jones wants to take some time off after this fight. He's fought four times this year. He's gonna take some time off. The FOX fight in January will be Evans vs Davis. If Evans wins that fight, he'll get the next shot at the title. If he doesn't, we'll see.