Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva are helping a cast of UFC hopefuls hone their skill sets on The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 3, and the two coaches and UFC superstars recently decided to give their teams a live demonstration of the fight game.
Mixed martial arts fans have heard about this brawl for some time, knowing that Sonnen got punched in the back of the head by one of Silva’s assistants, but we finally got to see firsthand what went down Sunday on UFC Fight Pass.
GIF extraordinaire Zombie Prophet posted a recap of the clash on Twitter. Let’s break it down.
After the weigh-ins for the episode’s fight between Team Silva’s Richardson Moreira and Team Sonnen’s Job Kleber, the two coaches engage in a tense staredown.
Words are exchanged. Sonnen unleashes a bit of sarcastic, not-sure-if-serious threats, and a shoving match ensues.
Silva lunges at Sonnen first and then backs off, only for the war of words to resume. Sonnen then returns the favor with a solid push of his own, and the two assume a fighting stance. Sonnen holds his hands high and bounces around for a bit before shooting a double-leg takedown on Silva, planting his foe on his back in the middle of the room.
The all-out war begins at this point, with coaches and cast members from both squads swarming the scene in an attempt to break up the action.
Sonnen gets punched in the back of the head, as expected, by Team Silva’s Andre Dida, an assistant coach this season. Interestingly enough, Dida told MMAFighting.com’s Guilherme Cruz that he struck Sonnen to stop the brawl, not to intensify it.
That worked well, didn’t it?
Eventually, the nonsense ended, and both coaches regained their composure and settled in for the fight that mattered—the one that the show is built around.
For a little more depth from the perspective of The American Gangster, Sonnen talks to Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole about the incident here.
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