Anyone who, like me, grew up on pro wrestling in the eighties has realized by now that Dana White is some sort of bizarre hybrid between Vince McMahon and a legitimate professional athletic commissioner. And as we head into this week’s UFC 148 card, his brain must be buzzing as both aspects of that persona are watching a dream scenario unfold. Every pro wrestling promoter knows the most important part of creating an explosive main event is creating a dramatic back story involving two characters that force fans to pick a side. For the uninitiated, that scenario traditionally involves a heel (bad guy) and a babyface (good guy).
Going into UFC 148, Chael Sonnen is clearly the heal. In real life, he may not actually be the biggest asshole in the world but at this point, it doesn’t even matter because he has become his character. He has let an endless stream of arrogant guarantees interspersed with blatantly disrespectful trash talk ooze out of him throughout his rivalry with Anderson Silva. On top of that, he was suspended after the first Silva fight for having elevated levels of testosterone. If Sonnen ever gets tired of putting his body in jeopardy in the octagon, he could take his gimmick to the WWE and not have to change a thing.
On the other side of this middleweight title matchup is the ideal babyface. Again, I’m not really sure if Anderson Silva is Bruce Lee reincarnated but it doesn’t matter because he too has become his character. Silva is a martial artist. He’s a family man. He respects the traditions of the sport. He does nothing but train hard, say his prayers and eat his vitamins. He already defeated Sonnen once and still Sonnen antagonizes him. Finally, Silva has snapped. Now he is threatening Sonnen. And who can blame him. Even a peaceful warrior must eventually stand up to a bully and that moment has now arrived.
We have our heel. We have our babyface. All we need now is a back story. And as you may have heard, these two men have fought before. In typical pro wrestling fashion, the heel beat the face around the cage for twenty three straight minutes. The fight seemed over. Sonnen was dominating. But in an instant, the whole course of the fight changed. Silva slapped on a triangle, Sonnen panic tapped, tried to pretend he didn’t and then realized that he just lost the biggest fight of his life.
On Saturday night, we get to see the rematch that was inevitable from the moment Sonnen felt Silva’s spider legs pressing against his arteries. I expect the atmosphere to be one of the most electric in MMA history. If I was Dana White, I would hire Gorilla Monsoon for one night just so he could say, “You can cut the electricity with a knife!” Only the most professional, detached and potentially non-human observers will be watching this without at least a slight rooting interest.
My brain is well aware that Chael Sonnen is not the person he portrays himself to be to sell fights and Anderson Silva isn’t a real life version of the ninja from the NES Ninja Gaiden series. Both men are great athletes looking to test their skills at the highest level of combat sports and Sonnen is doing everything he can to make both men as much money as possible. And normally, that would be my mindset for watching a fight. But for some reason, this matchup brings back those pro wrestling days and I’m going to choose to suspend my disbelief for one evening. I’m going to buy what the hype machine is selling me and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.