(The time for talk is over…but we still bugged Chael for one last quote before he rematches Anderson)
Anderson Silva can deny it all he wants, but Chael P. Sonnen has gotten inside his head. After years of Sonnen antagonizing the middleweight champion, Silva has appeared to snap emotionally.
First, “The Spider” lashed out at the challenger with threats during a recent Anderson Silva Promises to Beat Chael Sonnen So Badly It Will ‘Change the Image of the Sport’” href=”http://www.cagepotato.com/anderson-silva-promises-to-beat-chael-sonnen-so-badly-it-will-change-the-image-of-the-sport/” target=”_blank”>conference call promoting their UFC 148 rematch taking place Saturday night, and then on Friday he got in Sonnen’s face at the weigh ins in Las Vegas and hit him on the chin with a shoulder strike.
“Chael no respect nothing. Chael no respect [the] UFC, Chael no respect my country,” a fired up Silva told Joe Rogan moments after weighing in and striking Chael on stage. “Tomorrow, I go to fight.”
Sonnen appeared unmoved on stage after Silva’s surprise shoulder strike, leaving his hands up and standing stone-faced. We spoke with Sonnen a couple hours after the weigh in and asked him if he’d expected Silva to do something like that after all his trash talk, and if the shoulder bump had revved him up even more to fight his nemesis.
Sonnen had received an IV to help him rehydrate and begin recovering from his twenty pound water weight loss in just twenty four hours at that point and said he that he was done talking – But not without one last golden nugget of hype before going to war tomorrow.
In typical Sonnen form, Chael mostly ignored the specifics of our questions but laid it on thick with intensity and a colorful metaphor. “Listen to me. Please. Hell is coming to dinner and I’m coming with him,” Sonnen said.
We’re not sure what that means but damn if it doesn’t sound good and make us want to watch Sonnen take on Silva just a tiny bit more. About an hour later and just a few hours after weighing in at 185 pounds, Sonnen weighed in again privately, we are told, and had gotten back up to 204 pounds.
Life on the last day of the “Dolce Diet” may not be “fun,” and joyful as its namesake coach Mike Dolce insists (video below), but it has worked for the first half of what Sonnen needed – making weight. Saturday night we’ll get to see how well he and Silva fare against one another.
Don’t forget to read out live play-by-play blog for all the action!