Tag: Caged In

For a UFC star like Chael Sonnen, fight week can be a very busy grind. After amazing fans at the Question and Answer session with some admittedly funny zingers, Chael’s day was not done.

At the Microsoft Store at Lenox Mall in Atlanta, Chael and The Ultimate Show host Kenda Perez met fans, signed autographs, and posed for pictures with some of the UFC’s most hardcore fans.

The event was in support of The X-Box Live’s new UFC App. In addition to streaming the pay per views, you can watch a variety of UFC content, including a cool looking “Fight Stories” section that breaks down a feud like Jones-Evans into individual fights available for purchase a la carte.

From the press release:

Video On Demand Catalog – Review the history of head-to-head battles between Champion fighters in a convenient narrative timeline packed with high octane video content. The Fight Stories Video on Demand catalog delivers resources to enhance your UFC experience, including past fights, interviews and more. Content is available from $3 – $10 can be purchased directly with the credit card associated with your Xbox LIVE account.

Social Fight Picks – Engage in friendly competition with newly enhanced Fight Picks, allowing you to compete with those on your friends list and others in the Xbox LIVE community

Leaderboard– Score Entertainment Achievements points for winning Fight Card picks to boost scores and visibility with friends and community on the Leaderboard available via the app hub.

We’ll have more on the new app in the days to come. But right now all anyone can think about is the fight. Two of the best light heavyweights in history will collide in the cage in Atlanta. If you’re a fan, you owe it to yourself to watch this one.

Jeremy Botter: I’m sitting in a suite in the Philips Arena with Clay Guida. The Arena, as the kind gentleman standing outside Ted’s Bison Grill referred to it, is the home of tomorrow night’s UFC 145 card. We spend plenty of time talking about basketball, but I’m not much of an expert on the sport these days. My hometown Rockets just completed an epic failure to reach the playoffs, so we don’t have much to be excited about.

I ask Guida about the main event with Jones and Evans, and if it’s tough for him to see two men who were once his training partners embroiled in such a bitter rivalry.

“It is. Rashad is the guy who brought me to Jackson’s MMA in the first place,” Guida says. 

These are the stories we don’t hear much of when we’re discussing Jones vs. Evans and the friendship they once had. How does it affect guys like Guida, who consider both men friends? It’s apparent from reading Guida’s facial expressions that it’s not an easy subject to talk about. 

At the core, though, Guida is still a fight fan. We discuss Jon Jones and the world of potential he has. He believes, like I do, that Jones is eventually going to be a force in the heavyweight division. Over the next 18 months or so, he could quite literally become the greatest fighter in the history of the sport. Guida notes Jones’ frame and how, with ten to fifteen pounds of muscle, he could be absolutely terrifying at heavyweight.

One thing is clear: Guida, like everyone else, is a fight fan. And he can’t wait to see the action unfold tomorrow night.

Jeremy Botter: I rarely get goosebumps from weigh-in events. By my account, I’ve attended roughly fifty of these things, and most of them are the same as any other. It’s a chance to grab some photos and some video and perhaps hear a few more words about how this guy is going to beat up the other guy, and vice versa.

And then you have moments like today, when Jon Jones and Rashad Evans stepped on the stage at the Fox Theater. The crowd came alive. Both men were heavily cheered and heavily booed. Evans weighed in, then Jones.

Jones uttered a primal scream, and then calmly walked over and got directly in Evans’ face. They went forehead to forehead before matchmaker Joe Silva – who is playing the role of Dana White while White stays back in Vegas to film The Ultimate Fighter – urged them to walk away. Jones did an about-face and walked to the other side of the stage, but Evans refused to take his eyes off the champ.

This is a big fight. The biggest I can remember in quite some time. And the “story” we’ve heard countless times doesn’t matter any more. What matters? The fact that the two best light heavyweights in the entire world are going to step in the cage and test their skills against each other on Saturday night. 

It’s going to be an incredible fight.

Jonathan Snowden:

Our video editor Tony and I got an amazing opportunity last night to spend some time with the one and only Chael Sonnen. The middleweight great was very generous and spoke to us at length about a number of topics. You can expect to see that here shortly. Like Joe Rogan, it was our honor to be in the presence of greatness.

It’s also fun when you and a fighter have a mutual interest. For me and former UFC champion Josh Barnett, that interest is catch wrestling and its history. Barnett can speak at length about the hundred plus year history of professional wrestling as a major spectator sport, and did at length exclusively for Bleacher Report.

Today at the Sonnen Q+A the passion of UFC fans was on full display. They love this sport and the fighters love them right back. Sonnen, for all his bluster, was generous with the fans, handing out more than his share of hugs and handshakes. It’s great to see.

Jeremy Botter: Chael Sonnen’s Q&A sessions are the stuff of legend. These are the venues where Sonnen typically unveils his carefully-crafted and highly entertaining banter. I’m not using hyperbole when I say that Chael Sonnen, the middleweight who turned himself into one of the more popular fighters in the world, did so on the back of theseUFC Fight Club Q&A sessions.

Today was more of the same, but it was no less entertaining than it always is. Standing on the stage of the historic Fox Theater, Sonnen took more shots at Anderson Silva and continues to say that he hasn’t received a contract to fight Silva. That part might actually be true; with the date for the fight not actually locked in, they won’t have the fighters sign the contracts.

One fan asked Sonnen about the possibility of his fight moving to Vegas from Brazil. Sonnen decided to answer the question by calling Dana White on his cell phone. White did not answer, but we did get to listen to White’s Beastie Boys-styled caller ringback music. White eventually texted back with this terse message: “Why are you calling me?”

Sonnen is clearly accumulating a legion of fans who are into his brand of entertainment. A long time ago, I thought Sonnen’s shtick would grow old. For some people, perhaps it has. But for me? I’m still entertained by Chael P. Sonnen, and I think I always will be.