Junior dos Santos looked awfully impressive in the UFC’s debut on FOX, finishing reigning heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez in a mere 64 seconds. JDS once again showed that his MMA boxing is something special and that few, if any, fighters in th…
Junior dos Santos looked awfully impressive in the UFC‘s debut on FOX, finishing reigning heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez in a mere 64 seconds.
JDS once again showed that his MMA boxing is something special and that few, if any, fighters in the heavyweight division will be able to stand and trade with the heavy-handed Brazilian.
Interestingly, one of “Cigano’s” main sparring partners is Black House teammate Anderson Silva.
While a fight with the reigning UFC middleweight champion is incredibly unlikely, given JDS’s recent title win, it is compelling to sit down and think about what a super fight between these two exceptional strikers would look like.
Let’s take a look at how this fantasy fight could play out.
Whether Anderson Silva likes it or not, he will face Chael Sonnen once again.UFC President Dana White announced the bout earlier this week during a guest appearance on The Jim Rome Show earlier this week. Although he remained quiet about the poten…
Whether Anderson Silva likes it or not, he will face Chael Sonnen once again.
UFC President Dana White announced the bout earlier this week during a guest appearance on The Jim Rome Show earlier this week. Although he remained quiet about the potential bout prior, White said that it’s a fight the fans have demanded for a while.
“It’s a fight that everybody wants to see, people want to see Chael versus Anderson,” White said.
Sonnen has begged and pleaded for a rematch with the UFC middleweight champion since their last encounter at UFC 117.
While the bout has not been officially finalized, Silva has been reluctant to face Sonnen since then, and has done his best to avoid him, but the outspoken Sonnen has continuously harassed the Brazilian. Although Silva has no interest in a rematch with “The American Gangster,” White assured the champion will ultimately proceed with the bout.
“Anderson feels like he’s been put in this position where he feels like this guys has been so disrespectful that he doesn’t want to give him a shot and everything else, but Anderson will end up fighting Chael Sonnen,” he said.
Silva and Sonnen met at UFC 117 that saw the Brazilian dominated for a majority of the bout until he submitted his opponent in the fifth round. “The Spider” has not been cleared to fight as he is currently nursing an injury.
It is expected that Silva and Sonnen will meet in 2012.
With the UFC making its jump to network television this weekend, the entire MMA world is eagerly anticipating the heavyweight title fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos. With so much hype surrounding the main event, it almost feels like t…
With the UFC making its jump to network television this weekend, the entire MMA world is eagerly anticipating the heavyweight title fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos.
With so much hype surrounding the main event, it almost feels like the UFC is at a standstill, but behind the scenes the ZUFFA machine is still moving along and they have got to be close to working on the next main event to air on FOX.
With the UFC set to have four fights on network TV next year, it seems obvious that they would do one in each quarter, and the earlier they capitalize on what is sure to be a huge event this weekend, the better.
Ideally, the next Fox event would take place in early March 2012, which leaves the UFC with two big fights that it could promote for the card.
The first is a light heavyweight battle between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans, which would be great, except that this scenario would depend on Jones defending his UFC title against Lyoto Machida at UFC 140.
The second is the most anticipated fight of 2012, Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II.
Putting Silva vs. Sonnen on FOX makes sense on so many levels, and the fact that it would be for the UFC middleweight title only strengthens the argument.
Over the past five years, no fighter has come close to dominating the sport like Anderson Silva has, taking out every fighter he has ever fought with relative ease.
The only fighter to have come close to defeating him was Sonnen.
Sonnen dominated the first fight against Silva for 23 minutes of the scheduled 25-minute fight, before “The Spider” miraculously pulled off a fight-ending triangle choke to save his championship.
While many fans have sworn that this fight just added to the legacy of the greatest fighter ever to live, Sonnen supporters (and Sonnen himself) have repeatedly stated that the win was a fluke.
Sonnen’s insistence that Anderson got lucky is really what makes this fight so interesting.
No one in MMA can hold a candle to the verbal beatings that Sonnen dishes out every time a microphone is put in front of his face, and his constant barrage of insults towards the champion has made the upcoming fight even more interesting than the first.
While an argument could be made that the UFC should save this fight for PPV, it really doesn’t make sense.
Silva has never been a huge draw as far as PPV numbers are concerned, and outside of true MMA fans, the general public hasn’t even heard of Chael Sonnen, so why not throw the best fighter in the sport up against the best talker in the sport for the world to see.
As good as FOX has been at promoting the Velasquez-Dos Santos fight, neither fighter exactly oozes charisma the way that Sonnen does.
If the UFC can convince him to tone it down just a little, he can do as much promoting with his mouth as FOX can with its commercials.
To throw any other fight on FOX early next year would be the wrong business move for the UFC, and Dana White and company are some of the best businessmen in sports.
With that said, fans shouldn’t ask, they should beg Dana White to put the rematch for the middleweight title on FOX.
The UFC always says they give fans the fights they want to see, and by putting Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II on network TV, they would give more fans a chance to do just that.
Since entering the UFC in June of 2006, Anderson Silva has established himself as arguably the greatest mixed martial artist of all time.In fact, Silva has never lost when entering the Octagon, posting a perfect 14-0 record.Not only has Silva been succ…
Since entering the UFC in June of 2006, Anderson Silva has established himself as arguably the greatest mixed martial artist of all time.
In fact, Silva has never lost when entering the Octagon, posting a perfect 14-0 record.
Not only has Silva been successful, as he is the reigning UFC middleweight champion, but he’s beaten some of the world’s greatest fighters in Dan Henderson, Chael Sonnen and Vitor Belfort.
However, every historical run must come to an end.
And, for Silva, his unbeaten streak in the UFC will come to an end when he meets Sonnen for a second time in early 2012.
So, the following slides display five reasons why Silva’s reign as champion will come to an end.
Another busy week wrapped up in the MMA world with the UFC announcing plans for upcoming cards and the new year. Middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva’s next opponent will be the man who nearly dethroned him at UFC 117, Chael Sonnen.Although Carlos …
Another busy week wrapped up in the MMA world with the UFC announcing plans for upcoming cards and the new year.
Middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva’s next opponent will be the man who nearly dethroned him at UFC 117, Chael Sonnen.
Although Carlos Condit will no longer be fighting for the welterweight title at UFC 143, the contender will take on former title-challenger Josh Koscheck at the February event.
In 2012, the UFC’s preliminary card bouts will no longer stream on Facebook and will instead be shown on the cable network Fuel TV.
Additionally, a former Strikeforce champ is suing his former management, as well as a Bellator champ returning to action.
Rob Tatum is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA. You can also find Rob’s work at TheMMACorner.com. For anything related to MMA, you can follow Rob on Twitter @RobTatumMMA.
Dana White has now confirmed that the next opponent for Anderson Silva will be Chael Sonnen.White knows it’s what the fans want and as he always says, the UFC will give the fans the fights they want.Of course, the UFC wants this fight as well.The first…
White knows it’s what the fans want and as he always says, the UFC will give the fans the fights they want.
Of course, the UFC wants this fight as well.
The first meeting between the two men saw PPV numbers rise for Silva as Sonnen badgered “the Spider” for weeks leading up to the bout.
A rematch could be one of the most profitable matches in 2012 outside of the Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz fight.
Earlier this week, Sonnen tweeted that Anderson and himself were having a meeting, which only enticed fans about the prospects of them fighting again.
Given his opponent for UFC 136, the former soldier Brian Stann, Sonnen remained relatively quiet in the lead-up to the event. His silence ended after his win. Sonnen really got the ball rolling for a rematch with his WWE-style UFC 136 post-fight interview and has since gone on The Jim Rome Show and claimed “he is the real 185-pound champion.”
When presented with the notion that Sonnen lost the fight, he replied he isn’t sure how you win after taking 300 blows and then wrapping your legs around someone’s head for five seconds.
It would seem Sonnen will have a chance to finally proved that besides being “the people’s champ,” he can be the UFC champ.
No word yet on if it’s been announced as a “loser leaves town” match.
Whether