Author: Charttopper

Chael Sonnen Compares Nogueira BJJ Belt To A Happy Meal

UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen has been talking up a storm, most of it of the manure persuasion, as the days count down to his title fight with champ Anderson Silva.
At Friday’s UFC Q&A session in Vancouver, Canada (video highlights) Sonnen talked about his upcoming fight with Silva and talked about the Brazilians black belt in […]

Chael SonnenUFC middleweight Chael Sonnen has been talking up a storm, most of it of the manure persuasion, as the days count down to his title fight with champ Anderson Silva.

At Friday’s UFC Q&A session in Vancouver, Canada (video highlights) Sonnen talked about his upcoming fight with Silva and talked about the Brazilians black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which was awarded to him under the Nogueira’s. He compared having one under their tutelage akin to getting the toy from a Happy Meal.

“When you get him down you’re not out of the woods yet. But he has a black belt from the Nogueira brothers, which is like getting a toy in your happy meal if you ask me. One of them is a punching bag and the other is really just irrelevant.”

“When the music hits and I make the walk to the ring it’s pure focus at that point because I come from a real sport — wrestling. You take me to the Olympic Village and show me the centre of Muay Thai.

“What is Muay Thai anyway? We know what Thai is, it’s short for Thailand. But what is this “Muay” word? So what, he’s good at Muay Thai? It’s like the Crackerjack award he’s got from the Nogueira brothers.

“I am outing the guy. He’s a fraud. He likes to get in the ring and bow — if you bow to him he’ll hit you over your head and take your wallet. I’m the same way, though. I’ll smile at him, and when he turns his back I’ll stick a knife in it. “

(transcribed by ESPN.co.uk)

Sonnen’s trash talk has been relentless since even before their announced matchup, and some of that talk, some of which has emanated on Twitter.com/sonnench, may cause issues as he runs for office representing the Republican party in the Oregon State Legislature.

A Huffington Post reporter challenged Sonnen and his controversial Tweets.

On twitter.com/sonnench there are memorable tweets such as: “I’m a gangster from Oregon”… “Anderson, you are going to be on your back more than a pornstar with a mortgage”… and what I find most offensive “Ed, pray to whatever Demon effigy you prance and dance in front of with your piglet tribe of savages that I decide not to CRUCIFY you.”

I see this last tweet as racist and xenophobic and was wondering how a candidate of a major party for the State Legislature was getting away with this. So I reached out to some Oregon press asking them why they haven’t challenged this candidate on this type of talk. A reporter I emailed said he would take up the story. A couple of days ago he emailed me and said that Sonnen denied that he ever made the statements and that the twitter account is a fake one.

It will be interesting to see if Sonnen’s ambition for UFC gold will hurt him on the political side, or if pressure from his political career will see him turn down the level of trash talk.

MFC: Ring Or The Cage?

Press Release
“Ring or cage?” is MMA’s biggest debate. Fans of the ring often say that it promotes better fighting technique, while defenders of the cage like that enclosure’s dramatic “no escape” appeal. The Maximum Fighting Championship (MFC) has always taken place in a ring, and it always will. Why? Because the ring provides more exciting […]

RING
Press Release
“Ring or cage?” is MMA’s biggest debate. Fans of the ring often say that it promotes better fighting technique, while defenders of the cage like that enclosure’s dramatic “no escape” appeal. The Maximum Fighting Championship (MFC) has always taken place in a ring, and it always will. Why? Because the ring provides more exciting fights and a better overall experience for the fans.

MOST OF MMA’S HISTORY IS IN THE RING
Long before MMA arrived in North America, the pre-MMA pioneers in Brazil and Japan fought in a ring. In December 1963, “Judo” Gene Lebell and boxer Milo Savage stepped into a ring in Salt Lake City, Utah to square off in North America’s first televised MMA match. Cage fighting wasn’t presented to North American TV audiences until 1993, when the aim was to promote MMA as a “deathmatch”-style spectacle.

MMA IN THE RING = CLEANER FIGHTING TECHNIQUE
Very few MMA fans have seen more fights than Eddie Goldman, who has been covering our sport for over 15 years through his legendary show, No Holds Barred (http://eddiegoldman.com ). Widely viewed as “the godfather of MMA media”, Goldman has been an outspoken proponent of the ring, citing clean techniques as the reason for his preference:

“Over the years, cage fighters have learned how to use the cage enclosure as part of their strategy. Many fighters push their opponents up against the cage, or even move them to it after taking them down. This aids brawling, but not the use of submissions or clean striking. Just look at the decline of the number of submissions in so many of the top fights in most of the companies which use a cage, then compare that to the flow of action and the aesthetics of the fights in companies like the Maximum Fighting Championship (MFC), who use the ring.” – Eddie Goldman, No Holds Barred (http://eddiegoldman.com )

MMA IN A RING IS BETTER FOR SPECTATORS
It’s no secret that watching MMA in a cage isn’t great for spectators. Many MMA fans have paid hundreds of dollars for a cageside seat only to discover that they get a better view by watching the fight on the TV screens. But sight lines aren’t the only issue – the action is different too. When not inside the unforgiving walls of a cage, fighters are forced to move and press the action. There’s none of the wedged-into-the-cage ground-and-pound or wall wrestling, there’s more stand-up fighting, more movement, and more overall excitement.

CORPORATE SPONSORS PREFER TO SEE MMA IN A RING
According to MFC CEO Mark Pavelich, most of the reservations about MMA he consistently hears from potential corporate sponsors have to do with the cage. As he stated in his interview on No Holds Barred:
“I hate the cage. I’ve never liked it. It’s completely non-sport-oriented. Why do you think that big companies like Nike aren’t involved in mixed martial arts? Because the second they hear the word ‘cage’, the executives ask, ‘why are these people fighting in a cage?’”

“I run the Maximum Fighting Championship like a professional sports organization. People can debate this night and day, back and forth, for the next hundred years, but it doesn’t matter what apparatus is better to fight in. It matters what’s more acceptable to the corporate sponsors that are going to generate money for your organization to keep it alive and keep it rolling.”

THE MAXIMUM FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP WILL ALWAYS BE IN A RING
So cage or ring? The choice of fighting enclosure is going to play a big role in our sport’s future. If MMA is to continue to grow and be embraced by TV networks and combat sports fans worldwide, the ring is probably the path to follow. The Maximum Fighting Championship will always take place in a ring and for anyone who doesn’t believe that the ring promotes exciting fights, we formally invite you to come to MFC 26: Retribution. You WILL be proven wrong. Again.

Russian Politics Won’t Stop Fedor From Competing

With the recent news that WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko had been nominated for a seat in the Russian Parliament, speculation had begun regarding his future and whether he’d be retiring after his Strikeforce contract for politics.
Not so say’s M-1 Global’s Director of Operations, Evgeni Kogan, who spoke to MMAWeekly.com about the worlds number 1 […]

08With the recent news that WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko had been nominated for a seat in the Russian Parliament, speculation had begun regarding his future and whether he’d be retiring after his Strikeforce contract for politics.

Not so say’s M-1 Global’s Director of Operations, Evgeni Kogan, who spoke to MMAWeekly.com about the worlds number 1 heavyweight.

“He was basically nominated as one of the 58 candidates in the Belgorod Region, to be a candidate for the ruling party, for the Russian ruling party essentially,” said Kogan. “As far as I know, after he won a seat in the Russian Parliament or Senate, and it just kind of exploded from there.”

While working as a politician can have some similarities to fighting, the most dominant heavyweight in MMA history isn’t switching careers or even taking that much time away to tend to his Parliament duties.

“There’s no substance to them at all,” Kogan said about retirement talk. “He was nominated, I’m pretty sure he didn’t nominate himself, so he was nominated by other people. He is one of a number of a dozen people in the same position, and even if he goes through the duties that he would have to undertake as part of that role, (it) would be negligible.”

Well fight fans, there’s still hope that we may one day see one of the world’s most dominant fighter in the octagon yet.

Photo courtesy of M-1 Global.