Tag: quick quote

Fans who watched the UFC 136 main card won’t soon forget the “Loser leaves town” speech that UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen gave after his impressive submission win over Brian Stann on October 8th.

Sonnen issued a challenge to fight UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva on Super Bowl weekend saying that if he loses he’ll leave the UFC forever, but if he wins Silva has to leave the 185 lbs division.

‘The Spider’ was in fact in the audience at the Houston, Texas event putting his hand over his mouth and offering a smile for the camera. Silva, nor his camp, have talked anything close to accepting the bout or it’s terms leaving at this time.

Whether Sonnen was serious or not (when is he really?), the former No. 1 contender has now come out to say the deal is now off the table during an appearance on Jim Rome’s national radio show (transcription via ESPN.com).

“That offer was good when I made it, but it’s like any offer, they’ve got to expire. Apparently, that didn’t work. I’m doing anything I can to lure him out … [If] he wanted to accept that offer, all he needed to do was nod to me, or have one of his handlers come into the back and say ‘Anderson accepts.’ He did the exact opposite. He went to the media and said ‘I do not want to fight that guy.’ So what can I do? Now I have to come up with a new offer.”

Eventually whether this fight happens or not, will be up to UFC President Dana White to make happen. Fans are certainly clamoring to see the rematch of their UFC 117 bout, to see if Sonnen can dominate the fight once again, or whether or not Silva can pull out another last second victory.

Many hard core mixed martial arts fans are probably already familiar with Master Rafael Cordeiro and his “Kings MMA” gym in Huntington Beach, California.

For those who may not be, Cordeiro is a former Brazilian MMA and Muay Thai fighter who at one time was affiliated with the famous Chute Boxe Academy. Four years ago he opened the “Kings MMA” gym in Huntington Beach and recently expanded the gym to double in size. He trains such big names as Tito Ortiz, Fabricio Werdum, Mark Munoz, Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller, Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral, and Wanderlei Silva. He even helped Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua prepare for his UFC 134 bout with Forrest Griffin.

Speaking to Tatame.com, Cordeiro talked about one of his favorite fighters, Wanderlei Silva, as the former PRIDE champ prepares for his upcoming UFC 139 bout with Cung Le in San Jose. Despite Silva’s devastating knockout loss to Chris Leben in Silva’s last fight, ‘The Axe Murderer’ is “pouring his heart out” preparing for this upcoming match.

Is Wanderlei training with you guys for Cung Le?
He’s here, he’s practically living here. He’s done a marathon here, he’s pouring his heart out on the trainings. We’re having good results on the trainings with Werdum, Babalu, Munoz, Dida, quality guys. And he’s doing great. We’re much confident because of the work we’ve been doing here.

What are your expectations for this fight? Is this a good match-up?
It’s a very good fight, it’s a good match-up. Both likes to strike, they move forward. It’ll be a great fight, very busy. We’ll do everything in our power to bring this win home. We’ll be clever about it. If we have to fight for three rounds in order to get the win, we’ll do it. We’ll respect Cung Le, who has a great history in the sport and is a true martial artist.

Silva faces Le on November 19 at the HP Pavilon in San Jose, California. The two veterans are set to co-headline the pay-per-view card.

The news this afternoon that UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre had suffered a knee injury and was withdrawing from UFC 137, it caught everyone by surprise, including his opponent Carlos ‘The Natural Born Killer’ Condit (27-5).

With Condit having already stepped up as a replacement for Nick Diaz, the former WEC champ was quick to decide that he’d wait for the champ to heal rather than take a fight with another opponent on short notice.

UFC President Dana White even Tweeted to fans that Josh Koscheck had been willing to step up on a weeks notice, but Condit explained to MMAFighting.com that it didn’t “make sense” for him to fight another opponent.

“It was a surprise…This has probably been the longest training camp of my career. Everything’s been going well, and then I get the call that [St-Pierre] is hurt. It took the wind out of my sails to say the least.”

“From the sound of it, Georges, his recovery time isn’t going to be six months or anything like that,” said Condit. “From what I heard, they’re looking at more like six weeks. To take another fight just doesn’t make sense.”

Both men were to have met in the headliner of UFC 137, which is scheduled to take place on October 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Former IFL heavyweight champ, and season ten winner of “The Ultimate Fighter”, UFC fighter Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson (15-6) has hit a small bump in the road, coming off of back-to-back unanimous losses to Junior dos Santos and Frank Mir.

After his rise from “TUF” 10, to culminating with his No. 1 contender loss to Dos Santos, ‘Big Country’ faces the prospect of losing three straight in the UFC.

His next Octagon appearance is set for the end of this month, Oct. 29, when he meets Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic at the UFC 137 event in Las Vegas.

Speaking to MMAMania.com, Nelson tells them that after “standing” against all of his opponents in the UFC, he plans on going back to his Jiu-Jitsu roots by taking the fight to the ground against his Croatian opponent.

(MMAmania.com): Did you kind of see that as people almost taking you for granted when they got on you after your last fight with Mir?
Roy Nelson: No, not really. Everybody’s always got to criticize something. I already knew the reason why I was that way in that fight (the walking pneumonia). I gave all I got. As long as you give 100 percent, I don’t care who it is. Like, I know Ben Rothwell ran out of gas but at least he got up and kept going forward. As long as you give 100 percent, that’s all that matters. It’s just when a guy lays there and doesn’t try, that’s when you should get mad as a fan.

(MMAmania.com): I know that this is the last fight on Mirko Cro Cop’s contract. Is it in the back of your head that he might have nothing to lose, that he might try something different, try something crazy?
Roy Nelson: You know what? Anything is possible. The one thing you’ve got to remember, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got one fight on your contract or 12 fights on your contract. You never know how long you’ll actually be in the UFC. It doesn’t, that’s never a factor. I think as an athlete, a lot of people just go out there and they just want to win. As long as he wants to win, that’s the thing that scares you about any athlete, the challenges of the other guy that wants to be better than they are and you just know you didn’t bring your A-Game and he always brings his A-Game.

(MMAmania.com): Do you feel confident standing with him? I know he’s got that aura of being an amazing kickboxer, but all your last wins have been knockouts.
Roy Nelson: I feel standing, like I think I’ve stood up with some of the best heavyweights in the world. I stood up with Junior [dos Santos] so like, I think I might regress for this fight and go back to my roots, go back to my first five or six wins were all submissions. Maybe I’ll regress in the chain of being an MMA fighter.

Fans were no doubt disappointed to hear this afternoon, that UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre had been forced to withdraw from his upcoming UFC 137 title defense against Carlos Condit due to a knee injury.

As always, fans and media alike, scramble to hear the latest news on the champ, and challenger.

Condit has opted to wait for St-Pierre to recover, while Tri-Star trainer and coach to the French-Canadian fighter, Firas Zahabi offered everyone a brief update on the champs condition and the incident.

Speaking to MMAjunkie.com on Tuesday evening, Zahabi explained to them that the injury to GSP happened during a takedown attempt by a sparring partner and that, in his opinion, fans can expect the Champ to be out for two-to-five weeks

“After he cooled down, I knew he couldn’t fight anymore,” Zahabi said. “I’ve been around, I’ve seen injuries, and I know that that kind of injury is going to take at least two to five weeks of not standing on it for it to be really good (and) sturdy to fight. That’s just me estimating with what I’ve seen in the past.”

“I don’t know what the medical term is,” Zahabi said. “I don’t know which tendon, or ligament, or whatever is sprained. I’m not a doctor, but I know he’s [had] an MRI, he got tested, and he won’t be able to fight…”

“I don’t want Georges coming back too early and making it worse,” Zahabi said. “I want him to heal 100 percent and have plenty of time for the next training camp.”

Stepping into the main event slot for the St-Pierre vs. Condit bout will be co-main event headliners BJ Penn and Nick Diaz at the Las Vegas event.