Author: Jeremy Botter

UFC 148: Urijah Faber Says That MMA Needs Fighters Like Chael Sonnen

Whether you love or hate Chael Sonnen, you can’t deny that his approach to building up fights has been effective. And at the end of the day, that’s ultimately what Sonnen’s shtick is all about. Maybe you’re the type who loves his brand of trash-ta…

Whether you love or hate Chael Sonnen, you can’t deny that his approach to building up fights has been effective. 

And at the end of the day, that’s ultimately what Sonnen’s shtick is all about. Maybe you’re the type who loves his brand of trash-talking. Perhaps you take him seriously, or don’t take him seriously, but hate the professional wrestling-influenced style he uses.

Either way, Sonnen’s getting what he wants.

In the promotion business—and mixed martial arts falls under that category—being cared about, one way or another, is the only thing that matters. If the fans love to watch you fight, that’s great. If they want to pay to see you get your ass kicked, that’s also great. It’s when they stop caring that you fall by the wayside.

Urijah Faber is a fighter who understands where Sonnen is coming from. Faber, who faces Renan Barao later this month at UFC 149, recently commented on Sonnen’s rise from obscurity to fame:   

I think this sport needs guys like Chael Sonnen.

The guy was coming over from the WEC as world champion and then came over and got put on the undercard for the UFC. I think he chose to make a switch and said I need to stand out in this sport and just being the nice, intelligent guy that I am is not enough.

He probably won’t admit to that, but the guy made a switch and decided, hey, I’m gonna stand out in this sport. I’m gonna create my own opportunities and he does it in an interesting way that people either really hate or really love.

Faber makes a valid point, but it’s not entirely accurate. Sonnen’s first fight upon his return to the UFC was against Demian Maia, and it was on the main card of UFC 95. His next fight, against Dan Miller at UFC 98, was also a main-card fight.

As a matter of fact, Sonnen’s only preliminary-card appearance since his return to the UFC came against Yushin Okami at UFC 104.

But the point is still valid.

Sonnen toiled in obscurity until he started verbally bashing Anderson Silva. He made a conscious decision to get his name in front of the public by doing whatever it took, and it worked like a charm. Whether you love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Sonnen is now considered one of the biggest stars in the UFC.

This is not to say that every fighter in the UFC should take Sonnen’s approach, because a bunch of guys cutting wacky pro wrestling-style promos would get old quickly.

But fighters need to do something to stand out from the pack. Instead of blandly saying, “I’ll fight whoever the UFC wants me to” after scoring a big win, take some initiative. Find a guy ranked above you in your division and call him out. Joe Silva loves it when fighters make his job easier, and making his job easier is a sure-fire way of getting some attention for yourself.   

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Greg Jackson Attempts to Explain Guida’s Strategy but Gets It All Wrong

We’ve gone over Clay Guida’s baffling strategy from his UFC on FX 4 fight against Gray Maynard ad nauseum.The fight was terrible. Guida executed a strategy that not only cost him a fight, but also cost him many fans in the process.We’ve heard it all.Bu…

We’ve gone over Clay Guida‘s baffling strategy from his UFC on FX 4 fight against Gray Maynard ad nauseum.

The fight was terrible. Guida executed a strategy that not only cost him a fight, but also cost him many fans in the process.

We’ve heard it all.

But we haven’t heard much from Jackson, who was quickly and wrongly derided by fans for creating nothing but safe fighters and boring game plans.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, and it’s interesting that the fans making that claim willingly overlook Cub Swanson’s knockout-of-the-night-winning performance from earlier in the night. They’re also overlooking a history of exciting performances from Jackson-coached guys like Jon Jones and Brian Stann.

Jackson was asked his thoughts on the hatred being directed at Guida after the fight, and he attempted to explain his fighter’s mindset going into the bout to Sherdog.com:

In a lot of those fun, exciting fights, he ended up on the wrong side of those. He would get dropped or he’d get choked out a lot of times. You have to be able to fight the guy that’s in front of you, and Gray is an incredible fighter. … To just run at that guy and throw caution to the wind and hope you don’t get caught with a big punch and choked out again, it is a little silly. You do want to be able to try to do something that maybe favors you a little bit.

Now again, we should have engaged a little bit more, and that’s just the way the fight went down, but I’m never going to tell my guy, ‘Listen, this guy does everything better than you. I just want you to take all the damage you can until he gets tired of punching you in the face so that everybody’s jumping up and down and then maybe you’ll win, but maybe you’ll just get choked out.’ That doesn’t seem very smart to me at all. … I’m always going to be trying to do it smartly. It’s got to be an entertaining fight obviously, but at the same time you can’t just jump on somebody that’s stronger than you, that hits harder than you and has better wrestling than you do.

Jackson is right. Guida’s penchant for exciting, crowd-pleasing fights has cost him in the past. 

But there’s one thing Jackson is overlooking. Being the kind of fighter who sends the crowd into raptures while occasionally losing can actually help your career far more than being a boring fighter that consistently wins. 

Look at Jon Fitch. He’s an excellent fighter and has often been considered one of the best welterweights in the world. But he also has a nasty habit for putting on slow, grinding fights. He was given a world-title shot only because he’d put together a winning streak so vast that he couldn’t be denied.

And then, once he lost to Georges St-Pierre, he was sent to the back of the line. Fitch will have an incredibly difficult time ever getting another title shot unless he puts together a massive winning streak, and it’s all due to his style.

Conversely, take a look at Dan Hardy. The guy lost four fights in a row and still wasn’t cut from the roster. Why? Because he puts on exciting fights every time he goes in the cage, the Anthony Johnson bout notwithstanding. 

Chan Sung Jung is another example. He lost his final two fights in the WEC, but after stringing together three consecutive wins in the UFC, he’s being seriously considered for a title shot, and it’s all due to his exciting style.

This sport is about winning fights, yes. That should be the goal of every fighter who goes in the cage.

But it’s also about entertaining the fans, about giving them something to remember you by and making them want to tune in when you fight. When you do that, you help the UFC’s bottom line. And when you help the UFC’s bottom line, the UFC helps you by giving you a ton of exposure and pushing your career to new heights. 

There’s a fine balance to be struck here, and it’s not an easy thing to juggle. 

Guida can’t go into the cage and lose fights because he’s trying to be—above all else—an entertaining fighter. But he also can’t utilize the kind of game plans he executed in the Maynard bout and expect to receive the same kind of support from the UFC that he’s enjoyed in the past.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 148: Sonnen Says Anderson Is Like Mike Tyson, but He’s Also a Wimp

File this one under the “not sure if serious” department: Chael Sonnen says that Anderson Silva truly is the Mike Tyson of our generation. But he also says some more stuff:You hear those things but they told us that about Mike Tyson too and what a wimp…

File this one under the “not sure if serious” department: Chael Sonnen says that Anderson Silva truly is the Mike Tyson of our generation. But he also says some more stuff:

You hear those things but they told us that about Mike Tyson too and what a wimp that guy turned out to be when he finally got some real competition. He’s kind of like the Mike Tyson of our era where they say certain things but at the end of the day when they lock that cage door he’s not going to have a friend and he’s not going to have a two-by-four and I’m sure he could use either one when I get my hands on him.

Mike Tyson was undefeated for five years, and he wasn’t fighting scrubs during that stretch run. Also? He was absolutely and utterly terrifying during that time period.

Nobody in this world would argue that Tyson was not the baddest dude on the planet during his heyday in the 1980s. Tyson was 37-0 when he was finally defeated by Buster Douglas in 1990, and the vast majority of those came by utterly vicious knockouts, often in the first or second round.

Mike Tyson wasn’t a wimp. But I get that he’s a sympathetic character right now, even after all of the legal trouble he went through, so taking pot shots at him might help get you a little bit of publicity. 

Anderson Silva? He’s not a wimp. Nobody that steps in that cage for a living is a wimp. Sonnen knows this, so we can file this one under “just saying stuff” as well. 

But he’s also not the Mike Tyson of our generation. If Silva was known the world over and was a truly legitimate sporting star in the eyes of the mainstream, then he might be viewed as Tyson-like. As it is, he’s just the scariest man in professional cage fighting. And hey, that still stands for something.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 148: Debating Tito’s and Forrest’s Places in UFC History

Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin were never the best fighters in the world. There was a time when Ortiz could have been considered for that honor. Back in 2000 and 2001, Ortiz ruled supreme in the UFC’s light-heavyweight division. But that was …

Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin were never the best fighters in the world. 

There was a time when Ortiz could have been considered for that honor. Back in 2000 and 2001, Ortiz ruled supreme in the UFC’s light-heavyweight division. But that was before Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell came along to put a permanent end to his reign as the UFC light-heavyweight champion.

Ortiz recovered from those two consecutive losses, winning his next five fights, but he was never really the same dominant fighter that he once was. 

Griffin was never a dominant fighter. Sure, he once held the UFC light-heavyweight title, but it always felt like more of an aberration than a sign of changing tides at the top of the division. He’s gone 2-3 since winning that title, with both of his wins coming over aging opponents, Ortiz and Rich Franklin. 

What do we make of these two fighters? Are they legends of the sport?

Ortiz certainly qualifies in that category. He’s going into the UFC Hall of Fame, and, according to UFC.com, he’s incredibly happy with the honor:

“It is a huge honor to be recognized as one of the greatest fighters of all time by the UFC,” Ortiz said. “To be inducted into the Hall of Fame is final proof that all the hard work and dedication, all the pain and sacrifices, were all worth it. To be able to walk to the Octagon one last time as an official UFC Hall of Fame level fighter is going to be humbling and awesome. I’m very grateful to have this opportunity to end my career on such a high like this.”

I think what we’re looking at here are two guys who, while they may not go down among the greatest fighters of all time, are certainly men who have established strong personal connections and legacies within the confines of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. 

Take Ortiz, for example. He had his battles with Dana White, to be sure, and at times he harmed the UFC brand more than he helped it—or attempted to, anyway.

But Ortiz was also partially responsible for the promotion’s surge in popularity with the casual viewer. His rivalry with Ken Shamrock took the UFC to heights that it had never before experienced, at least from pay-per-view and television-ratings perspectives.

The same thing goes for Griffin. As part of that epic first Ultimate Fighter finale, with Stephan Bonnar, Griffin helped establish the UFC as an exciting and watchable television product. He, along with Dana White and a handful of other fighters, was responsible for helping push the UFC even further into the mainstream.

In essence, he took the torch initially carried by Ortiz and ran it just a bit further down the path.

No, Ortiz and Griffin won’t go down in history alongside Georges St-Pierres, Anderson Silva and Fedor Emelianenko as two of the best fighters of all time. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t built legacies for themselves.

They’ve been crucial to the UFC’s rise in the public consciousness, and they deserve all the credit in the world for that. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 148 Preview: Randy Couture Says Roles Are Reversed in Silva vs. Sonnen 2

Randy Couture is a smart dude. His body of work throughout his career showed an ability to adapt and to change tactics in order to implement smart game plans depending on the fighter he was facing in the cage on any given night.That tactical brilliance…

Randy Couture is a smart dude. His body of work throughout his career showed an ability to adapt and to change tactics in order to implement smart game plans depending on the fighter he was facing in the cage on any given night.

That tactical brilliance took Couture a long way. He was never the guy with the biggest skill set. He was never the guy with the kind of raw potential of a Jon Jones. However, he was smart, and that trait helped him become a multiple-time world champion and Hall of Famer. 

So that’s why it’s important that we listen when Couture talks tactics regarding upcoming fights. Luke Thomas from MMAFighting.com caught up with Couture at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas to discuss next week’s huge bout between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen, and Couture discussed why the usual tactical roles found in rematches are probably reversed for this middleweight title fight:

“It’s kind of odd,” Couture told MMA Fighting at his Xtreme Couture facility recently in Las Vegas, Nevada. “Normally I would say that the onus is on the guy who won the first fight to anticipate the changes the loser is going to make and get the same outcome.”

“If you look at Anderson and Chael, Anderson won by triangle choke with two minutes left. He didn’t really win the fight. He got his ass whooped – literally – for four-plus rounds,” Couture continued, “but it’s almost like he was the guy that won. He wants it to go the same minus the triangle.”

Couture makes a cogent point here. We know what Sonnen is going to do when he steps in that cage. He’s going to do what he always does. He’ll look for the first opportunity to drive Silva against the cage with a double-leg and then try to drag him to the ground, where he’ll smother him with hundreds of punches and a dirty, physically draining wrestling game.

We know Sonnen will do this because it’s what Sonnen has done for his entire career. It’s what brought him to the dance, what made him one of the best middleweights in the world.

Silva couldn’t stop it for the majority of the first fight; why would Sonnen change his plan now? He won’t. This time around, it’s up to Silva to change the way he approaches the fight, because he has to avoid the very same tactics Sonnen was able to execute the first time around. If he doesn’t, there’s a good chance he’ll spend another 20 minutes or so on his back, and I can’t imagine Silva wanting to repeat that process. 

Sonnen’s one big change, the one thing he had to do differently, came in the form of submission defense. He brought Vinny Magalhaes—the world champion jiu-jitsu player—into his camp to help him shore up that aspect of his game, to help him avoid leaving his arm in the kind of traps that lead to triangle chokes and armbars.

There’s no guarantee Sonnen will be able to execute the same game plan that worked so well in the last fight. And we don’t know how much that rib injury affected Silva two years ago.

There’s been plenty of talk surrounding this fight, and most of it is personal in nature.

However, we forget that this is still a very interesting clash of styles. And I, for one, can’t wait to see how it plays out in the cage.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Ian McCall Doesn’t Think Demetrious Johnson Can Beat Joseph Benavidez

There are plenty of UFC fights I’m looking forward to for the remainder of 2012. Next Saturday’s bout between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen is probably the most anticipated. There’s also Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson, Georges St-Pierre vs. Carlos …

There are plenty of UFC fights I’m looking forward to for the remainder of 2012. 

Next Saturday’s bout between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen is probably the most anticipated. There’s also Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson, Georges St-Pierre vs. Carlos Condit, Junior dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez 2 and Rory MacDonald vs. B.J. Penn. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

But there may be no fight I’m looking forward to more than Joseph Benavidez vs. Demetrious Johnson. 

I know it doesn’t have the big-name appeal of the previous bouts I listed. But this battle to crown the UFC’s first flyweight champion should be an absolute technical beauty. Oh, and it’ll be pretty fast-paced, as well.

Ian McCall knows a little something about Johnson. After all, he did face the guy twice. And McCall, one of the world’s premiere flyweights, says that he doesn’t see his two-time opponent standing much of a chance against Benavidez:

Ian McCall: I don’t even know if DJ can get past Joseph Benavidez, to be honest. Nothing against Joe, I like Joe more than I like Demetrious, but I would like Demetrious to beat Joe, because it would make me look better and give me a little more satisfaction in life [laughs], but I don’t know if I really see that happening.

Interviewer: Why is it that you feel DJ won’t win? Can you give specific reasons, or point out where you think Benavidez will be stronger?

Ian McCall: I just don’t see him beating Joe. It could happen. He beat me, and I never thought that would happen. I see Joe coming in more prepared than I was. Demetrious will just do what he did to me. Sneak in, potshot, and back out. He runs, but not in a bad way. He runs because it’s what he’s good at. He still engages and stuff. We’ll see how it goes. I’m definitely interested in watching their fight.

McCall speaks the truth. I’m not saying that Johnson can’t win the fight. What I’m saying, right here and now, is that Johnson has an incredibly difficult path to victory.

His speed and wrestling are his biggest strengths. Benavidez has much better wrestling and has the takedown defense to stay off his back. Plus, he’ll have a significant size advantage while also remaining nearly as quick as “Mighty Mouse.” 

The odds are great that Benavidez will walk out as the first UFC flyweight champ. And you know what? I’m hoping we get to see “Joe-Jitsu” defend his title against McCall at some point in the future, because that, too, would be an incredible fight.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com