One day after FX begins airing Season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter, tickets will go on sale for a UFC light heavyweight championship fight between coaches Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen.According to a press release from the UFC, tickets for UFC 159: Jones vs…
One day after FX begins airing Season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter, tickets will go on sale for a UFC light heavyweight championship fight between coaches Jon Jones and ChaelSonnen.
According to a press release from the UFC, tickets for UFC 159: Jones vs. Sonnen will be made available at 10am on Wednesday, January 23.
There has been a lot of discussion regarding this event. After Jones turned down a matchup with Sonnen at UFC 151, many feel that the champion was a coward who should have been stripped of his title. Others continue to argue that Sonnen is unworthy of the opportunity that he is being afforded.
UFC president Dana White spoke about the personal nature of the main event in today’s release:
Jon Jones has destroyed all the top guys in the light heavyweight division. He has defended the title four times and is one of the pound-for-pound best in the world. This fight with Chael is personal! Chael called Jones out and said a lot of things about him. Chael always comes to fight and I’m very interested in this matchup.
Subscribers to the UFC newsletter will have a 24 hour head start on tickets. Additionally, UFC Fight Club members will have even earlier access to tickets beginning on Monday, January 21 at 10 a.m. ET.
Tickets for the event cost as little as $60 up to $550 and can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com, charged by phone (800-745-3000) or at any Ticketmaster outlet.
The hotly anticipated UFC 159 takes place on Saturday, April 27 at the Prudential Center in downtown Newark, New Jersey. At the time of publication, Jones vs. Sonnen is the only fight currently announced for the card.
Former PRIDE middleweight champion Wanderlei Silva is no fan of “The American Gangster,” Chael Sonnen, and he made that abundantly clear when speaking with Sherdog on Thursday. “The Axe Murderer” said that he doesn’t expect UFC light heavyweight t…
Former PRIDE middleweight champion Wanderlei Silva is no fan of “The American Gangster,” ChaelSonnen, and he made that abundantly clear when speaking with Sherdog on Thursday.
“The Axe Murderer” said that he doesn’t expect UFC light heavyweight title holder Jon Jones to have any trouble when he defends his title against Sonnen at UFC 159 in April. He, however, did not phrase it so nicely:
“It was a fight I wanted to see; [but] Jones will swallow Sonnen. I spoke with Jones and told him that he can win the fight only with jabs, with one hand tied behind his back. The only person who can beat Jones today is Anderson [Silva].”
“Uncle Chael” will unquestionably be a huge underdog against the dominant champion, as “Bones” is riding an eight-fight win streak that includes seven finishes and four successful title defenses.
A win over Sonnen would tie Jones with UFC Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz for the most consecutive title defenses (five) at light heavyweight under the UFC banner.
This particular 205-pound title fight has drawn a fair share of criticism, considering that Sonnen has not competed at that weight since getting submitted by Renato Sobral at UFC 55 in Oct. 2005.
The Team Quest standout also suffered a knockout loss at the hands of arch rival/UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva at UFC 148 this past July in his most recent bout.
As for Wanderlei Silva, the tremendous fan favorite is at the tail end of an illustrious career, coming up short in seven of his past 10 bouts.
Nevertheless, the Brazilian brawler still feels he has something to prove, as he will compete against middleweight contender Brian Stann in the main event of UFC on FUEL TV 8 in March.
Worth noting is that this fight will be contested at light heavyweight.
Is Wanderlei Silva spot on in stating that Jones can defeat Sonnen anyway, as well as anytime,he wants, or is Sonnen being seriously underestimated and primed for a big upset?
Jon Jones is the best light heavyweight in the history of the UFC. There isn’t a metric out there that one can apply which doesn’t lead to that conclusion, save for total title defenses. Even that one is likely just a matter of time. He&rsq…
Jon Jones is the best light heavyweight in the history of the UFC.
There isn’t a metric out there that one can apply which doesn’t lead to that conclusion, save for total title defenses. Even that one is likely just a matter of time.
He’s beaten everyone in every way, doing it with a level of ease that is frightening to behold.
At UFC 159, the maligned, excessively despised champion will have a chance to officially cement his legacy as the best ever, when he meets professional mouth with fists ChaelSonnen in New Jersey.
Beat Sonnen, and Jones will be tied with Tito Ortiz for total defenses at 205 lbs, the final mark to fall in what has been a meteoric, sometimes turbulent, and always impressive run to the top.
But what if he doesn’t? What if West Linn, Oregon’s favourite son, pulls off the upset of the century and derails a seemingly invincible champion a decade his junior?
Well that, that would be just about as damaging to Jones’ reputation in the cage as drunkenly wrapping his Bentley around a light pole was to his reputation outside of it.
The fact of the matter is that Sonnen earned his chance at Jones after a steady run at middleweight and a steady run of verbal campaigning once he moved to 205.
He didn’t get there on in-cage merit. He didn’t get there because he was the best light heavyweight in the world. He talked louder and better than other guys, and he said he’d fight Jones when not many others seemed keen on it.
Sonnen is aging in a sport that doesn’t forgive the old, and he’s got a skill set that’s almost comicallyunderequipped to handle the most dominant champion in light heavyweight history. He relies on tireless takedowns and volume striking on the ground, occasionally backed up by some deceptively effective boxing.
Except good wrestlers—Matt Hamill, Ryan Bader, Vladimir Matyushenko, Rashad Evans—couldn’t put Jones on his back, and good boxers—Evans, VitorBelfort, Stephan Bonnar, Rampage Jackson—couldn’t put a hand on his chin. Even more versatile strikers like LyotoMachida and Shogun Rua had no answer for Jones on the feet.
So what’s Sonnen going to do that’s different? What’s he going to do that will prove more successful?
Probably nothing.
And that’s where the pitfall is for Jones.
If he loses to Sonnen, it will tarnish his legacy in a way that can never be washed clean. He’ll have lost to a guy perceived to have talked his way to an undeserved title shot, who also happened to have the worst style possible to try and dethrone the champion. A guy who, by the way, is essentially a blown-up middleweight returning to a division he hasn’t won in since 2005.
Even if Jones were to win a return engagement, there would always be that blemish.
Don’t think so? Look at Georges St-Pierre. St-Pierre lost a fight on a lucky punch by Matt Serra, who was almost out of the UFC entirely before winning his title shot on a reality show.
He came back to utterly demolish Serra in one of the most focused beatings the UFC ever put on pay-per-view, but he still can’t outrun getting clipped with one punch from a guy who should never have been in the cage with him at all.
So it would be for Jones with a loss to Sonnen. No matter the circumstance, there would be no justifiable, easy way for the champion to lose to this particular challenger. He could go on to win a hundred fights in a row afterward and his legacy would never be the same.
Fortunately for the champion, though, there’s an easy solution to that problem. He has to go into the cage in Newark come April, and he has to blast ChaelSonnen right out of the building. No close calls. No trouble spots. No doubts.
Then he can go on building what is already one of the most impressive resumes the sport has ever seen, and no one will be able to question it.
When the UFC announced that Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen would clash shortly after coaching opposite one another on The Ultimate Fighter, the MMA world was spun into a frenzy. The fight was immediately announced for April 27 at the Prudential Center in N…
When the UFC announced that Jon Jones and ChaelSonnen would clash shortly after coaching opposite one another on The Ultimate Fighter, the MMA world was spun into a frenzy. The fight was immediately announced for April 27 at the Prudential Center in New Jersey, although it was unclear as to which event the bout would headline.
According to a report from MMAJunkie.com, UFC 159 will serve as the home for one of the most hotly anticipated bouts in light heavyweight history.
This announcement comes exactly two weeks before the January 22 debut of The Ultimate Fighter, where Jones and Sonnen serve as coaches for the long-running program’s 17th season.
The history books need to be ready for this event, as Jones has the ability to tie the all-time record for consecutive light heavyweight title defenses and unofficially declare himself the greatest 205-pound fighter in MMA history.
Jones won his belt from Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in early 2011 and has gone on to defend the belt against world champions Rampage Jackson, LyotoMachida, Rashad Evans and, most recently, VitorBelfort back at UFC 152.
Meanwhile, this fight marks the first bout at light heavyweight for Sonnen in years. “The American Gangster” had previously gained fame as a middleweight when he upset undefeated WEC champion Paulo Filho and later gave UFC champion Anderson Silva all that he could handle back at UFC 117.
Tune in to The Ultimate Fighter 17 every Tuesday night on FX. The program airs 9pm EST.
The UFC’s transformation from a sports meritocracy into a league with a prohibitive focus on the bottom line has been remarkably swift. In years previous, The UFC almost had an aversion to the notion of putting on novelty fights, or fights that o…
The UFC’s transformation from a sports meritocracy into a league with a prohibitive focus on the bottom line has been remarkably swift.
In years previous, The UFC almost had an aversion to the notion of putting on novelty fights, or fights that otherwise didn’t make sense in the context of the MMA landscape at the time.
Sure, they booked Randy Couture vs. James Toney, in a matchup that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Japanese New Year show. But they did so almost reluctantly, making sure to surround the mismatch with a number of intriguing bouts.
I’m not suggesting that Zuffa have since even come close to the circus-like freakishness of that particular “contest,” but there is no doubt that standards have slipped over the past year or so.
I have no objection to the occasional non-canonical bout that exists in isolation from the surrounding context—I even penned an article in support of Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar.
There is a place in the sport for superfights and, for lack of a better term, “fun” fights. Not every bout has to be booked with rankings in mind. However, these fights cease to be novel once the UFC decides to book them every three months.
People will undoubtedly tune in to see Jon Jones take on ChaelSonnen at UFC 159, even though it appears to be a mismatch both in terms of size and skill. Similarly, Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz at UFC 158 will probably exceed 800,000 pay-per-view buys.
There is clearly an audience for these fights. But in a just world, Dan Henderson and Johnny Hendricks would be competing for the light heavyweight and welterweight titles, respectively.
It is as yet unclear whether this is the start of a trend, whereby the UFC values marketability over, well, plain old ability.
One could argue that the Zuffa brass have always weighted marketability over fighting talent to some extent, depending on the fighter and his ratio of ability to charisma.
One need only look at the career of Jon Fitch to realise that the UFC has never been entirely meritocratic. However, it seems clear that they have begun to place even greater emphasis on drawing power.
Such unconventional booking will perhaps be more bankable than the more conventional alternative, which will allow Dana White to claim that he is putting together the fights that the fans want to see.
While this may be true in a sense, does the UFC really want to sacrifice its integrity for the sake of a few extra pay-per-view buys? I would hope not, but it still remains to be seen.
Based on the reaction to some of the recent matchmaking, it appears as though most fans are hoping that the UFC is simply going through a phase.
Let’s hope so for the sake of the sport’s integrity.
Jon Jones is the best light heavyweight in the history of the UFC.