UFC 134 will be live Saturday night from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. . With the event being held in Rio, it will be a homecoming for many Brazilian fighters on the card. The card features former champions Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Forrest Griffin, …
UFC 134 will be live Saturday night from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. .
With the event being held in Rio, it will be a homecoming for many Brazilian fighters on the card.
The card features former champions Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Forrest Griffin, and Antonio “Rodrigo” Nogueira, as well as up-and-comers Ross Pearson, Edson Barboza, and Brendan Schaub.
The main event will feature the highly anticipated rematch between UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and Japan’s Yushin Okami.
UFC 134 will have many fireworks and is sure to be a talked about card. Here are some reasons why you can’t miss this one.
Since the sport’s beginning, Brazil has produced some of the most successful mixed martial artists in the world. However, the world’s largest MMA promotion hasn’t made its way to the South American country since October 1998.This Saturday, the UFC will…
Since the sport’s beginning, Brazil has produced some of the most successful mixed martial artists in the world. However, the world’s largest MMA promotion hasn’t made its way to the South American country since October 1998.
This Saturday, the UFC will return to Brazil for the first time in nearly 13 years for UFC 134 in Rio de Janeiro. The main card will feature a number of Brazilian stars, such as Shogun Rua, who will rematch Forrest Griffin, and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira collides with Brendan Schaub.
The main event will showcase a middleweight title fight between the greatest Brazilian fighter of all time, Anderson Silva, and Yushin Okami.
This article will provide previews for every bout on the fight card. After each fight, check back here for live results and an analysis of every matchup.
Live results will begin at approximately 6 p.m. ET on Saturday, August 27th.
After some recent controversy, all signs pointed to UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen being in Yushin Okami’s corner when he had his title shot against Anderson Silva at UFC 134. However, it looks like Sonnen’s plane ticket to Rio will go to wa…
The source, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that if Sonnen attended, the Praetorian would discontinue its sponsorship of Okami.
“There’s a line of people that want to kick his ass,” the source said, when explaining the rationalization behind the decision.
While that piece of news is not all that shocking, many will agree that the next piece of information is.
According to MMA Junkie, friends of Sonnen over in Brazil brought the Team Quest standout’s attention to a local media report.
“A police chief threatened to arrest him on sight if he showed. The official cited a law that makes disparaging the national identity a crime,” MMA Junkie reported.
Sonnen retaliated by saying “You don’t have freedom of speech in Brazil; put it like that.”
Brazil based MMA manager Alex Davis refuted the police chief’s claim, stating that:
“Brazilian authorities would not arrest Sonnen for anything he said. They would defend him. But he is talking about people that a whole generation of fighters worship.”
Sonnen has reserved his verbal war of words against Brazilian fighters, for the most part, to team Black House members including Lyoto Machida, the Nogueira brothers, featherweight champ Jose Aldo and of course reigning middleweight champ Anderson Silva.
Despite not being able to support his friend and training partner in person, Sonnen has shown no problem backing away from the situation given the circumstances.
“I only want to be there to help him,” Sonnen said.
“I don’t need to see the show. I can watch the show on TV. I was going exclusively in support of Yushin, and frankly, it’s been headed this way for a long time. It’s been headed the direction of, ‘Hey, this is becoming a distraction.”
Sonnen then acknowledged that August 27 is Okami’s time to shine, not his.
“This fight isn’t about me. I’m not involved. I’m here to lend you support. But I don’t want things thrown at what will unintentionally be him while he’s in the ring or we’re going to the ring. This is serious business. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it’s not my place to disturb it or shift any type of attention to me. This is his moment, his night, his time to be the world champ.”
The only man who has given Anderson Silva a run for his money in years, Sonnen has a chance to earn another title shot with a win over Brian Stann at UFC 136.
However, a recent report indicates that Sonnen could be pulled from UFC 136 in favor of a rematch with Silva on November 12, the UFC’s first event on Fox.
On Saturday, August 27 the UFC will return to Brazil for the first time since October 16, 1998. That event, “Ultimate Brazil” was headlined by a middleweight title bout between Frank Shamrock and John Lober, but it is perhaps best remembered …
On Saturday, August 27 the UFC will return to Brazil for the first time since October 16, 1998. That event, “Ultimate Brazil” was headlined by a middleweight title bout between Frank Shamrock and John Lober, but it is perhaps best remembered for the 44 second beating Vitor Belfort gave to Wanderlei Silva.
The promotion will bring UFC 134 to the HSBC Arena in Rio next Saturday and the event, like the first UFC Brazil event, will be headlined by a middleweight title fight as Anderson Silva defends his title against Yushin Okami. The co-main event will feature Mauricio “Shogun” Rua facing Forrest Griffin. In all, 14 Brazilian fighters will be competing on the 12 fight card. Only one contest will be without a Brazilian fighter.
UFC president Dana White recently posted the first installment of his fight week video blog earlier this week. In the vlog, which flashes back last Thursday’s announcement of the UFC’s deal with FOX, White catches up with Rob Dyrdek, Rashad Evans and Frankie Edgar and gets some of their predictions for UFC 134. The three predict the main event, which will pit Anderson Silva against Yushin Okami and the co-main event which will feature Forrest Griffin and Yushin Okami.
RIO DE JANEIRO — MMA Fighting spoke to Anderson Silva at Wednesday’s media workouts at the Copacabana beach about his UFC 134 fight against Yushin Okami, the reception he received from the fans in Brazil, his new blue-chip endorsement deals, his first fight against Okami and whether he will be fighting on the first UFC on FOX show in November.
RIO DE JANEIRO — MMA Fighting spoke to Anderson Silva at Wednesday’s media workouts at the Copacabana beach about his UFC 134 fight against Yushin Okami, the reception he received from the fans in Brazil, his new blue-chip endorsement deals, his first fight against Okami and whether he will be fighting on the first UFC on FOX show in November.
The last time the UFC was in Brazil, there was no such thing as Spike TV or Facebook.
But for Saturday’s UFC 134, the promotion’s first trip to the South American cradle of MMA since 1998, fans can watch all 12 fights on a combination of Facebook, Spike and pay-per-view.
This will be the 15th consecutive event that the UFC has utilized Facebook to air preliminary card fights, dating back to January. And for the ninth straight event, each fight on the card will be broadcast in some form. The first five UFC 134 prelims will stream live on Facebook, followed by a pair of fights on Spike leading into the pay-per-view broadcast.
A pair of fights between Brazilians and Americans leads the Spike broadcast. A middleweight bout between Rousimar Palhares and Dan Miller kicks things off, followed by a lightweight bout between Thiago Tavares and Spencer Fisher.
Palhares (12-3, 5-2 UFC) fought exclusively in his native Brazil until signing with the UFC in 2008. His last three wins have been by submission. Miller (13-5, 1 NC, 5-4 UFC) has struggled since starting his UFC career 3-0. He suffered a three-fight skid with decision losses to Chael Sonnen, Demian Maia and Michael Bisping, but rebounded with back-to-back wins over John Salter and Joe Doerksen. But in March, he lost a unanimous decision to Nate Marquardt in his native New Jersey.
Tavares (15-4-1, 5-4-1 UFC) started his career 12-0 but has gone just 3-4-1 in his last eight fights. In March, he was knocked out by Shane Roller at UFC on Versus 3. Fisher (24-7, 9-6 UFC) is also coming off a loss. Ross Pearson took a unanimous decision from him at UFC 127 in Sydney in February, giving the Iowa-based fighter three losses in four fights.
On the UFC’s Facebook page, fans will get a Brazilian-heavy lineup. An opening bantamweight bout between Canada’s Yves Jabouin and American Ian Loveland is the only fight on the card to not feature a Brazilian. Three fights on the Facebook prelims feature Brazilians debuting in the UFC against fellow Brazilians. And Paulo Thiago (13-3, 3-3 UFC) looks to end a two-fight skid against David Mitchell (11-1, 0-1 UFC).
To gain access to the Facebook fights, which will begin at 6 p.m. Eastern, viewers must “like” the UFC on Facebook. As of Wednesday afternoon, the UFC had more than 6.2 million fans at the site. When the UFC first started streaming prelims fights on Facebook in January, it had approximately 4.5 million fans at the social networking site.
The UFC began streaming preliminary fights in January with its Fight for the Troops 2 show at Fort Hood, Texas. Since then, the promotion has included free Facebook fights for each event, regardless of the main card’s platform – be it on pay-per-view, Spike or Versus. For the historic UFC 129 card in Toronto in April, five prelims were aired on Facebook, followed by a pair on Spike leading into the pay-per-view – meaning for the first time, fans were guaranteed the opportunity to see each fight on the card. That has continued for each of the eight events since then, including Saturday’s card in Rio.
UFC 134 features a main event middleweight title fight between champion Anderson Silva and Yushin Okami, the last man to beat him – albeit by disqualification when Silva delivered an illegal upkick and Okami couldn’t continue. The co-main event features a rematch between former light heavyweight champions Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Forrest Griffin. And also on the main card, heavyweight Brendan Schaub looks for his fifth straight win in a matchup against Brazilian legend Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.
UFC 134 will be live Saturday night from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. .
The last time the