Another busy week for the world of MMA has concluded. A current UFC champion announced an injury that may keep him out for the remainder of the year, a former UFC champion will welcome a former Strikeforce champion to the promotion, and another fo…
Another busy week for the world of MMA has concluded.
A current UFC champion announced an injury that may keep him out for the remainder of the year, a former UFC champion will welcome a former Strikeforce champion to the promotion, and another former UFC champ will battle a legend of the sport.
UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva recently revealed that he suffered a shoulder injury prior to his UFC 134 title defense against Yushin Okami. Silva defended his belt, but it looks like he may be forced out of action as a result.
Vitor Belfort announced his return to action against former Strikeforce middleweight title holder Cung Le at UFC 139 in November.
Former light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz will lock horns with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira at UFC 140 in December.
Always colorful and entertaining UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen appeared on MMAFighting’s The MMA Hour yesterday and among other topics, gave his thoughts on being public enemy number one in Brazil. According to the outspoken self-professed American Gangster, he decided against travelling to Rio de Janeiro to corner his friend and training partner Yushin Okami against Anderson Silva at UFC 134 when he received more than the usual number of death threats, particularly when he felt that shit got real.
(Video courtesy of AOL Fanhouse)
Always colorful and entertaining UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen appeared on MMAFighting’s The MMA Hour yesterday and among other topics, gave his thoughts on being public enemy number one in Brazil. According to the outspoken self-professed American Gangster, he decided against travelling to Rio de Janeiro to corner his friend and training partner Yushin Okami against Anderson Silva at UFC 134 when he received more than the usual number of death threats, particularly when he felt that shit got real.
“I became a big distraction. I wanted to go and be part of that for one reason, which was to help Yushin. I could watch the show from my living room, but I wanted to be there and support him, and that was it. Quite frankly, I became a big distraction. It got a little bit out of hand even. The level of death threats got a little bit high. I reached 10 and…10 death threats and I think number seven was actually serious,” he pointed out. “By the looks in his eyes, it looked like he’d stabbed somebody before, so.. The final call came down to… Yushin had a sponsor who said, ‘Look, we’d rather he didn’t come. The feeling on the ground here in Brazil is this could actually turn into a true incident, so that was it. If a sponsor makes a request, you follow through with it. And it wasn’t my show. It wasn’t my night and I didn’t want to take any attention off Yushin. I truly believed he was going to win the championship and the last thing I wanted to do was take away from that.”
Although he says that he was surprised with the reaction his inflammatory comments garnered him from the fans in Rio even though he wasn’t fighting on the card, Sonnen says he was “flattered” that they cared so much even if their care came in the form of vitriol and death threats targeting him.
“In Brazil they have two newspapers. Two newspapers kind of cover the whole country and one of those newspapers had me on the front page and I wasn’t even on the card. I was a little bit surprised that I had gotten so inundated with it. At the same time I was flattered. It just wasn’t my night. I wasn’t a part of this. I was no more than a fan and that’s all I ever wanted to be. I wanted to go out, be a fan, pat Yushin on the back, warm him up and support him that way — hold the water bucket for him.”
In a strange twist, the onetime Republican senate hopeful blasted American fans for their lack of loyalty to their own and praised Brazilian fans for sticking by their countrymen.
“I admire [their passion]. I like that they get like that. I’ll tell you what I mean, each country you fight in is different. In Japan, the crowd is silent. They’re silent, not because they’re not into the matches — there’s 40,000 strong at some of these events. It’s a sign of respect to be quiet and let the competition and the sport itself take place in front of you. In Brazil it’s totally different, but I like it. In Brazil they do it right. They support their fellow countrymen,” Sonnen explained. “In North America, we don’t support our countrymen. I have people that are American who want to see me lose to Anderson and that’s okay, but it’s a little odd. In no other country would you see people turn against their own countrymen. I’ll give you a great example and I don’t know if you were at this fight or not, but Matt Hughes fought Royce Gracie and that crowd booed…it took place in Los Angeles…they booed Matt Hughes so loud and they cheered Royce with all of their might. In no other country would you cheer against your own man, except North America. I love the American crowd, but it does alway confuse me. I love the Brazilian fans for backing their own. It shouldn’t matter what people say, if a countryman is fighting a fellow countryman, you support your guy. Brazil does it right. North American fans need to take a page out of their book.”
I’m surprised he conceded that Brazilians have books, or maybe when he said “book” he was inferring that the country only has one.
Following his victory over Yushin Okami at UFC 134, UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva has now revealed he fought through a shoulder injury. The win gave Silva his ninth consecutive title defense, improving his professional record to 34-4 an…
Following his victory over Yushin Okami at UFC 134, UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva has now revealed he fought through a shoulder injury.
The win gave Silva his ninth consecutive title defense, improving his professional record to 34-4 and his UFC record to 14-0. The recent news is quite surprising, considering how convincingly the Brazilian was able to dispatch his opponent.
“A month before the fight I injured my shoulder while training with Junior dos Santos, and I was feeling a lot of pain in Rio. I’ve had to take some medicine and warn the athletic commission about it,” Silva told Veja, courtesy of TATAME.com.
“It’s a small injury, but I guess it’s on the cuff and bothers me. I’ll rest for a while and get healed.”
Despite suffering from pain in his shoulder, Silva said his injury was not as serious, and he was cleared to compete.
This brings up a lot of credibility to his bout against Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 where Silva retained his title but confessed he had suffered a rib injury in the post-fight interview. It is expected he will defend his middleweight crown against either Chael Sonnen or Brian Stann, where he will be looking to successfully defend the title for a tenth consecutive time.
Silva’s antics and effortless performance proved why he is undoubtedly one of the best fighters in the world.
At 36 years old, however, this also might be a sign that Silva is gradually slowing down as a fighter.
According to UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, he injured his shoulder while sparring with Junior dos Santos prior to his UFC 134 bout with Yushin Okami and was put on painkillers for the injury. Silva revealed to the Brazilian magazine Veja that he was in pain the day of the bout and that he took some painkillers to ensure he could fight, but says that unlike guys like Bas Rutten and Karo Parisyan who failed to reveal their use of analgesics to their respective athletic commissions prior to bouts, he did tell the group in charge of overseeing the event that he took the unnamed drug prior to the bout.
“A month before the fight I injured my shoulder while training with Junior dos Santos and I was feeling a lot of pain in Rio. I had to take some medicine and warn the athletic commission about it. I’ve talked to my doctors. I had an MRI and then I started feeling pains in my shoulder but the doctors let me go and said it was not that serious,” Silva says. “It’s a small injury, but I guess it’s on the [rotator] cuff and bothers me. I’ll rest for a while and get healed.”
(“Can’t….stop….giggling.”)
According to UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, he injured his shoulder while sparring with Junior dos Santos prior to his UFC 134 bout with Yushin Okami and was put on painkillers for the injury. Silva revealed to the Brazilian magazine Veja that he was in pain the day of the bout and that he took some painkillers to ensure he could fight, but says that unlike guys like Bas Rutten and Karo Parisyan who failed to reveal their use of analgesics to their respective athletic commissions prior to bouts, he did tell the group in charge of overseeing the event that he took the unnamed drug prior to the bout.
“A month before the fight I injured my shoulder while training with Junior dos Santos and I was feeling a lot of pain in Rio. I had to take some medicine and warn the athletic commission about it. I’ve talked to my doctors. I had an MRI and then I started feeling pains in my shoulder but the doctors let me go and said it was not that serious,” Silva says. “It’s a small injury, but I guess it’s on the [rotator] cuff and bothers me. I’ll rest for a while and get healed.”
The problem lies in the fact that the “commission” in this case was actually the UFC and whether or not the type of medication he took prior to the bout is an approved one and if not, will the UFC report it remains to be seen. The promotion has revealed positive drug tests in the past as they did in the case of Chris Leben who tested positive for the anabolic steroid Stanozolol following his UFC 89 loss to Michael Bisping, but what if the guilty party was its most popular champion and arguably its biggest asset?
Banned painkillers include oxycodone and oxymorphone, while approved ones include ibuprofen and acetaminophen.
It will be interesting to hear if the type of drug is revealed by the UFC or if anyone bothers to ask.
Despite what Chael Sonnen says, Anderson Silva is the most dominant champion the UFC has ever seen. Silva has defended his middleweight title a record nine times and put together a UFC record 14 straight victories in the process. As UFC president…
Despite what Chael Sonnen says, Anderson Silva is the most dominant champion the UFC has ever seen. Silva has defended his middleweight title a record nine times and put together a UFC record 14 straight victories in the process. As UFC president Dana White has said, Silva is the best mixed martial arts fighter ever. You could argue that fact, but in all honesty, it would be a pointless argument, going through the motions just to be contrary.
It’s been a week since Silva put his latest opponent, Yushin Okami, away at UFC 134 and with his latest title defense safely behind him, it’s time to take a look at the fight, however brief it was, that was Silva versus Okami.
Silva faced a great deal of pressure heading into this fight. He was fighting in Brazil for the first time in his storied UFC career and he was representing two international sponsors in Nike and Burger King, who surely wanted their name tied to a winner. The pressure was on him to deliver for both the fans in his home country that had never seen him fight live and the sponsors that had put their capital behind him.
“The Spider” did not disappoint.
It’s almost amusing to compare Silva’s appearance to that of his opponents. He’s tall and lanky and while he is fit, one would be hard pressed to call his build impressive or threatening. Standing next to some of his recent opponents, such as Vitor Belfort or Chael Sonnen, the difference in physique is almost jarring, but as we have seen time and time again when Silva steps into the cage, looks can be deceiving.
A great deal of talk heading into the Silva versus Okami fight focused on the size and strength of the challenger, an alleged advantage that Silva negated with his style and skill.
During the first round the fighters didn’t engage a great deal, instead they circled, judging distances, picking up clues, looking for openings, and feeling each other out. When they did engage the fighters worked in close quarters against the cage, breaking apart near the end of the round.
When the second round began Silva was all movement and feints, using that activity to gather more information on his opponent and then almost exactly 30 seconds into the second round Silva downshifted, dropping his hands to his side and slowing his pace.
Watching the replay of the fight a few times, it’s almost as if Silva used the first five and a half minutes to gather as much information as possible on Okami. In that time he analyzed every movement, every space, every tendency and at the 30 second mark of Round 2 the superior MMA mind of Silva kicked out a full fledged report on his opponent and told him “You got this.”
Once Silva had all the information he needed, it seemed as if the fight was effectively over, Silva stood in front of his opponent, relaxed, hands at his sides, easily eluding the few punches Okami attempted to land. Silva then reciprocated with a single punch of his own, a straight right that dropped Okami to his back. Silva refused to follow his opponent to the ground, allowing Okami to regain his feet and after a short time he once again sent Okami down, this time, with a right hook before following him to the ground and earning the TKO win.
The entire fight is something to behold. Silva truly is working on another plane and despite the protestations of Chael Sonnen; Silva is the best fighter in MMA.
From his epic war with Stephan Bonnar to winning the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship from Quinton Jackson, Forrest Griffin has had an amazing career in mixed martial arts.During his time with the UFC, Griffin has put on many memorable performances a…
From his epic war with Stephan Bonnar to winning the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship from Quinton Jackson, Forrest Griffin has had an amazing career in mixed martial arts.
During his time with the UFC, Griffin has put on many memorable performances and accumulated a larger fan following than most fighters could even dream of.
He has been such a consistent presence in the UFC for so long now, that picturing the promotion without him seems strange.
But, all good things must come to an end.
At UFC 134, Griffin was knocked out by Mauricio Rua in under two minutes, putting him at 2-3 in his past five fights.
Indeed, it’s been while since we’ve seen Griffin put on a performance like he gave against Jackson to win the light heavyweight strap and it seems like the former champ is on the decline.
Here’s six reasons Forrest Griffin should be considering retirement right now…
Following his victory over Yushin Okami at 