Author: Jeremy Botter

UFC 148 Preview: 3 Questions Heading into Silva vs. Sonnen 2

It’s the biggest UFC event of the year, and it’s only a little more than 48 hours away.On Saturday night in Las Vegas, Chael Sonnen will finally get his long-awaited rematch with Anderson Silva for the UFC middleweight title. Anticipation here in Las V…

It’s the biggest UFC event of the year, and it’s only a little more than 48 hours away.

On Saturday night in Las Vegas, Chael Sonnen will finally get his long-awaited rematch with Anderson Silva for the UFC middleweight title. Anticipation here in Las Vegas is high, and UFC fans around the world are ready for action.

Let’s take a closer look at three questions I have leading into one of the biggest fights in UFC history.

 

Is Anderson Silva actually angry, or is he just selling a fight?

For the longest time, Anderson Silva refused to respond to the barbs Chael Sonnen flung his way.

This was highlighted in Like Water, the excellent documentary that covered Silva’s preparation for his first bout with Sonnen. During the UFC 117 media conference call, Silva was curt with his answers, refusing to offer much in the way of rebuttals or even in-depth answers to legitimate questions.

Silva’s manager, Ed Soares, shook his head and said he didn’t know whether Silva didn’t understand the fight promotion business or if he just didn’t care.

That all changed two weeks ago during the media call for UFC 148.

A very different Silva emerged, angrily calling Sonnen a cheater and describing in great detail the amount of personal pain he planned on causing his opponent on Saturday night. Silva continued his verbal attack during Tuesday’s press conference and then did his best to invade Sonnen’s personal space during the faceoff.

The question is: Is Silva actually angry, or did he finally come to the realization that he needed to do his part in promoting the fight?

I think he’s angry.

Silva has never been concerned with selling fights. It’s just not in his nature. He cares about the martial arts aspect of the sport, and that’s about it. Even when his paycheck is dependent upon the success of the pay-per-view—like many others, Silva receives a portion of the profits from the broadcast—he has shown little desire to hype his fights.

This is an angry Silva. It took a long time to build up, but it finally bubbled over. It’s legitimate, and it’s a little scary.

 

Will that anger cost Silva the fight?

We’ve seen slightly angry versions of Silva in the past. We saw it during his bouts with Demian Maia and Vitor Belfort, both of whom Silva felt disrespected by, and for very different reasons.

And the resulting fights were very different. His bout with Maia was one of the worst in UFC history, while the Belfort fight produced one of the greatest knockouts in UFC history.

This is a different type of anger, but how will it affect Silva during the actual fight? 

It’s hard to say.

If Silva loses his mind in the cage and tries to destroy Sonnen early, it could leave him prone to making big mistakes. Bloodlust can be a very bad thing in a cage fight, and Sonnen will no doubt capitalize on those mistakes. 

I think Silva is a brilliant fighter. And I think he’s smart enough to realize that he can’t abandon his discipline and his game plan in an effort to, as he so eloquently said, “break all of his bones.”

 

Who wins the fight?

I’ve done an informal poll of various friends in the media on this fight, and I’m shocked at how many are picking Sonnen to win. This is hardly scientific, but I’d say that roughly 80 percent are picking the challenger to take the belt back to Oregon.

I can’t side with them. And I can’t pick against Silva.

Sonnen has a very real chance to win this fight. I think the early portions of the fight are going to be eerily similar to the first fight, with Sonnen putting Silva on his back and keeping him there. And I do believe Sonnen will take at least two rounds, perhaps three. 

But in the end, Silva is the best fighter in the history of the sport for a reason, and I think he’ll recover from an early Sonnen assault and finish the fight via strikes in the third round.

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Wanderlei Silva: Does the Legendary Fighter Need to Retire?

It seems we can’t go a day or two without someone discussing why Wanderlei Silva needs to retire.I’ll admit that I was on that bandwagon prior to his UFC 147 fight with Rich Franklin. I felt like the sport had passed Silva by, and I was worried that th…

It seems we can’t go a day or two without someone discussing why Wanderlei Silva needs to retire.

I’ll admit that I was on that bandwagon prior to his UFC 147 fight with Rich Franklin. I felt like the sport had passed Silva by, and I was worried that the Franklin bout would not end well. 

As it turned out, Silva wasn’t quite done. Franklin is hardly known for his knockout power, but he hits hard. Very hard. And Silva didn’t just survive Franklin’s punches—he also delivered plenty of action on his own, nearly finishing Franklin in the second round.

Does this mean Silva has plenty of fights left in him? I don’t think so. At the end of the day, he’s still gone through plenty of wars throughout his career, and he’s still suffered more knockouts than I’m comfortable with for any fighter.

UFC president Dana White agrees with me. 

Wanderlei is a guy, yeah, I want to talk to. He looked good in that fight. He almost won, and it’s not like he got knocked out. And Rich Franklin can crack. He just knocked Chuck out.

I think Wanderlei is coming to the end. I think he knows that too. There’s nothing wrong with that. We all get old, and this is a young man’s game. We’ll see what happens.

I’m not saying he needs to retire, but he’s getting close.

Prior to UFC 147, White said that if Silva suffered a bad knockout, he would talk to him about retiring. That didn’t happen, but White clearly still isn’t all that comfortable with the idea of Silva continuing his fighting career.

I’m not all that comfortable with the idea, either. But I also believe that Silva proved he can still compete. He’ll never beat the top five guys in the middleweight division. And he might not even compete against the top 10.

But his performance against Franklin earned him at least one more walk to the Octagon.

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UFC 148 Fight Week Diary: Media Workouts with Cormier, Benavidez, Pyle, Belcher

It’s currently 5 p.m. local time here in Las Vegas, and I cannot move my legs. By this I mean that just sitting in bed is painful. Walking is almost impossible. Instead of hitting the strip tonight, I’ll be staying in my room. I may not get out of…

It’s currently 5 p.m. local time here in Las Vegas, and I cannot move my legs. 

By this I mean that just sitting in bed is painful. Walking is almost impossible. Instead of hitting the strip tonight, I’ll be staying in my room. I may not get out of bed. I’ll probably end up ordering room service and falling asleep by 9 p.m.

I’m in one of the most amazing cities in the world, and yet I’ll be asleep long before those burning the midnight oil even go out on the town.

And who do I have to thank for this horrible feeling? Daniel Cormier.

To be fair, it wasn’t solely Cormier’s fault. It was also Joseph Benavidez, Alan Belcher and Mike Pyle. I hate all of them almost equally right now, but Cormier was on a different level.

What I’m referring to is today’s media workouts with the aforementioned fighters. It’s a first. The UFC has never done anything quite like this before.

It was designed for members of the media who may not know all that much about the sport or what kind of grueling paces these guys go through on a daily basis. What better way to teach them than to actually put them through a workout?

And so myself and the other B/R folks here in Vegas decided to give it a whirl. It sounded like fun, and it was at the Ultimate Fighter gym. That’s a cool experience in and of itself, to see the gym we constantly see on television. I’ve been there numerous times for media events, but the rest of the guys hadn’t gotten the chance.

Off we went to the gym. We checked in and got a workout bag and a couple of UFC shirts. Cool stuff, too. We waited around until the 11 a.m. start time, and I did some stretching to get ready.

I was fairly confident I’d be okay with whatever we were asked to do. See, I started doing Crossfit three weeks ago, and I love it. I’ve been eating right every single day, and I’m in the best shape I’ve been in since my days in the Army.  

We were split up into groups of three, with each group sent to a different station. Each station focused on one discipline: wrestling, jiujitsu or striking. I started with the jiujitsu group, which was coached by Belcher and Benavidez. Benavidez took us through a great warmup and then took us through a north-south choke, a mounted guillotine and arm bar.

I teamed up with Snowden, and we took turns trying out the submissions on one another. I’ve done jiujitsu before, so I think I did well here. It was fun.

Pyle’s station was next. This was a ton of footwork and cardio, with jabs, straights, hooks and knees thrown in. Oh, and squats. Pyle loves squats, and he loves keeping the wrong count so that you end up doing 24 squats instead of the assigned 10. It was great fun.

And then came Cormier. I talked to “Showdown” Joe Ferraro shortly before going in the TUF cage to work out with Cormier, and he informed me that I was about to experience the most difficult of the three groups.

He wasn’t lying.

Cormier had us drop into a wrestling crouch, which is pretty much a squat for all intents and purposes. He instructed us to walk forward while keeping the crouch. This was difficult, but it was made much more difficult by Cormier pushing me down and pulling me back while I tried to walk forward.

Why did Cormier single me out? A mutual friend of ours—Daniel Rubenstein, who once grappled Ben Askren in a tournament—told me to go up to him before the workout and tell him “Boomer Sooner.” I took this advice and delivered the message, all the while forgetting that Cormier attended Oklahoma State and is not really a fan of the Oklahoma Sooners.

This was a hilarious prank. Except not really, because it earned me some extra punishment courtesy of the man who may just be the next UFC heavyweight champion.

After the workout concluded, we all gathered for a good old-fashioned barbecue cookout, complete with plenty of cold beer. Bud Light Lime never tasted so good. 

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UFC 148 Video: UFC Stars Turn Tables on Media During Grueling Workout

Open workouts are a staple of any UFC fight week.The media gathers and watches the participants on that week’s card as they go through a workout for the cameras a few days before the event.Some fighters take it seriously, using the time as an extension…

Open workouts are a staple of any UFC fight week.

The media gathers and watches the participants on that week’s card as they go through a workout for the cameras a few days before the event.

Some fighters take it seriously, using the time as an extension of their normal workouts. A handful of them treat them like a joke, doing a few shadowboxing poses before moving on with their lives. It’s part of the process of fight week; it might not be enjoyable, but it’s an obligation of fight-week promotion.

But during this International Fight Week, the tables were turned on the journalists that cover the sport. Not literally, but certainly physically.

UFC stars Joseph Benavidez, Mike Pyle, Alan Belcher and Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix winner Daniel Cormier led workout sessions for the media at the famous Ultimate Fighter gym, just miles from the Las Vegas Strip. It was their chance to give the assembled media a small taste of what they go through on a daily basis.

Bleacher Report staffers Jonathan Snowden, Jeremy Botter and Matt Roth participated in the 60-minute workout, which was designed around three stations: jiu-jitsu, striking and wrestling, all with a heavy emphasis on cardiovascular exercises.

Watch the video above to see how Botter, Roth and Snowden fared under the intense coaching tutelage of a few of the best fighters in the world. 

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UFC 148 Fight Week Diary: Silva and Sonnen Face off in Heated Confrontation

Most UFC press conferences are made up of the same scenario. We in the media ask questions, the fans ask questions, and then the fighters involved do a contrived face-off for the media.Today’s July 3 Silva/Sonnen press conference? It was entirely diffe…

Most UFC press conferences are made up of the same scenario. We in the media ask questions, the fans ask questions, and then the fighters involved do a contrived face-off for the media.

Today’s July 3 Silva/Sonnen press conference? It was entirely different.

For starters, there was the location. These things are usually held at the venue of the event. But this fight week—dubbed “International Fight Week 2012″—is different. It’s the UFC’s new version of WWE’s WrestleMania, the biggest fight week of the year.

And this year’s version is built around the rematch between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen in what will likely be the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view event of the entire year.

The very reason for all of that hype was on full display at today’s press conference. In spades. Sonnen continued his verbal assaults of the past two years, but Silva—reminiscent of last week’s media conference call—didn’t hold anything back either.

It was a different Silva than most are used to seeing at these things. Sure, there was a smile every once in awhile, but for the most part, Silva’s face was a reflection of the anger he’s finally allowing to bubble to the surface. He again accused Sonnen of being a cheater and a criminal, and when asked for a prediction on the fight by a fan in the crowd, he said that he would finish Sonnen in the first round.

And then came the face-off. (Video here from the good folks at MMAFighting, via Bloody Elbow.)

Sonnen assumed his normal fighting pose, but Silva walked purposefully, directly into his chest. His continually flexed hands and feet suggested the Spider was incredibly close to attacking his nemesis right there on stage, but Dana White and his bodyguard stepped in.

Silva planted a kiss on Sonnen’s cheek and whispered something in his ear. Brazilian reporters said that Silva told Sonnen “you’re gonna die,” and watching the events unfold on stage, I couldn’t help but believe that he’s speaking the truth. Or, at least what he thinks is the truth.

Sonnen was escorted from the stage by security, but Silva never took his eyes off his American challenger. As Sonnen left the room, Silva stood on the edge of the stairs—his eyes focused on his foe, his hands flexing and his body language clearly suggesting that he’s ready to deliver a punishment the likes of which we’ve never seen.

That’s a scary thing. We may not know how Saturday’s fight will ultimately play out, but we do know one thing: Anderson Silva is out for blood, and he’s out for revenge. UFC 148, this is one you don’t want to miss.

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UFC 148 Fight Week Diary, Day 1: Leaving for Las Vegas

The arrival of fight week often brings a sense of anticipation for those of us who travel to cover it. The feeling never really goes away, no matter how big or small the event may be.I think this is because we’ve all been conditioned to know that we’ll…

The arrival of fight week often brings a sense of anticipation for those of us who travel to cover it. The feeling never really goes away, no matter how big or small the event may be.

I think this is because we’ve all been conditioned to know that we’ll probably see something we hadn’t anticipated. Whether it’s a unique moment brought about by the various media obligations we attend—such as press conferences or open workouts—or a surprising result on the fight card itself, we’ve learned to expect the unexpected.

But this week is different. 

Rarely is the UFC able to present a main event with the weight of Saturday’s title fight between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen. Lately, it seems like one thing or another is preventing us from seeing truly the big fights take place. Drug test failures and injuries have wrecked plenty of big fights over the past 12 months—so much so that we’re not even surprised when something goes wrong. It’s normal.

But Silva vs. Sonnen 2 is happening, barring some kind of freak fight-week accident. And yes, I’m knocking on wood at a furious pace right now.

Much of the heft of Silva vs. Sonnen comes from the deeply personal rivalry they’ve developed over the past two years.

It comes from hearing all of the terrible things Sonnen has said about Silva, his country, his training partners and his family. It comes from knowing that Sonnen came so very close to becoming the first man to beat Silva. It comes from reliving that magical first fight over and over again, from the four dominant Sonnen rounds to that miracle moment when Silva pulled out the submission win, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

We haven’t seen a rivalry like this in a long time. And maybe we’ve never seen a UFC rivalry quite like this one. The last big main event I can remember with this much anticipation and heat was the heavyweight title fight between Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar, way back at UFC 100, and I’m not sure it’s even comparable to what we will see on Saturday night.

I leave for Las Vegas tomorrow morning. Matt Roth is already stationed in Vegas, and Jonathan Snowden will join us tomorrow afternoon. We’ll be providing a ton of written stories and video content, and we’ll be updating this fight week diary on a daily basis with notes from behind the scenes.

Stay tuned to Caged In every day. This is one week—and one extraordinary fight—that you’re not going to want to miss. And be sure to follow myself, Snowden and Roth on Twitter for live updates. 

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