Author: Ben Fowlkes

Filed under: UFC

SAN FRANCISCO – As Chael Sonnen demonstrated at the UFC 117 press conference, the key to any good schtick is to maintain the ruse that it is not a schtick at all.

Don’t laugh at your own jokes. Don’t crack a smile. Don’t nod and wink your way through your routine. Just keep plowing forward as if you have no idea that the words coming out of your mouth are utterly absurd.

For the better part of a half-hour in the Fisherman’s Wharf Hilton on Thursday afternoon, this is exactly the game plan Sonnen followed. By the time it was over, Sonnen was the only one who could keep a straight face.

His insult comedy routine got off the ground right away, as he accused Anderson Silva‘s manager, Ed Soares, of mistranslating one of Silva’s remarks.

“You’re not the only one in the room who speaks Portuguese even though you act like you are,” Sonnen boomed. “It’s a step harder picking up that language than it is understanding Pig Latin.”

Filed under: UFC

Dana White says he’ll fire UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva if he decides he’d rather dance than fight at UFC 117. His opponent, Chael Sonnen, says he’s going to come right at Silva and force him to do something – anything – other than play his own private game for five rounds.

You add those two motivating forces together, throw in a dash of vocal displeasure from fans and media over his last title defense against Demian Maia, and you’d think that what we have here is a recipe for a real fight.

At least, it would be if we were dealing with a normal fighter, but we aren’t. We’re dealing with Anderson Silva. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about him over the last few years, it’s that he’s going to do whatever he feels like once that cage door shuts, and he doesn’t particularly seem to care what anyone else thinks about it.