UFC 117: Chael Sonnen's big mouth

There are few sports that use showmanship and hype as well as boxing and Chael Sonnen has shown in his efforts leading up to his middleweight title fight with Anderson Silva at UFC 117 that mixed martial arts can definitely benefit from more self-promotion.  I doubt the name Chael Sonnen was even well known outside of the MMA community before his February win over Nate Marquardt that promoted him to the number one contender spot.  However, the trash-talking Sonnen has been all over the news lately with his funny and sometimes over the top antics building up his fight with Silva. 

Whenever Joe Rogan uses the term "good style matchup" when describing a challenger, I always think it means that Rogan is reaching for something, anything to make fans want to see the probable one-sided fight. Of course Rogan uses this term when describing Sonnen's chances against Silva and I still think that we have seen this type of fight before with Dan Henderson playing the part of Sonnen losing to Silva back in UFC 82 but Sonnen has turned on the hype machine and the fan interest for this Saturday is probably higher than it should be thanks to Sonnen's antics. 

I kind of think Sonnen is that loud mouth jock in high school who straddles the line between funny and obnoxious. It appears that Sonnen is a smart guy as he was running for State Representative in Oregon's House District 37 as a Republican before quitting to focus more on MMA. At the UFC 117 press conference Sonnen mentioned how in the last election he ran he got 99.6% of the vote... of course he also ran unopposed in that election.  It follows that because of his WWE (professional wrestling) style promos more than his in-ring attributes; Sonnen has gained more fan support and transformed himself from an unknown fighter to a marketable commodity who the UFC will want in marquee fights.

Sonnen is not the first fighter who said they were going to make Silva actually compete (see Forrest Griffin and we know how well that turned out) but he is definitely the loudest and funniest/most obnoxious. The funny thing is that I think more people will watch the fight not because the matchup intrigues them but more to see what Silva shows up.  Will we get the Silva who knocked foes out and ruthlessly finished them or will we get the Silva who has recently seemed disinterested in his opponents?  More so, if the latter Silva does show up then will UFC President Dana White actually go through with his threats and fire his middleweight champion who is arguably the best pound for pound MMA fighter on the planet?  The Sonnen-Silva fight itself should be a one-sided victory for Silva; it is the spectacle that Sonnen is creating around it that has gained fan interest and the fallout of the fight that genuinely interests a lot of fans.

Chael Sonnen quotes
Regarding Anderson Silva:
“This guy is no more real than the Loch Ness Monster. If he needs me to expose him, then I will... That guy's no more the top fighter out there than Bigfoot is roaming the woods."

“Anderson Silva speaks perfect English. He just has such a low amount of respect for you and all the rest of the media that he pretends he doesn’t.”

Regarding Lance Armstrong (note: Sonnen denies saying any of this telling Jim Rome "Jim, that doesn't sound anything like me... Sounds like a guy with a Hispanic accent to me."):
"When you screw up, you have to own it.  That stuff really gets under my skin.  Take Lance Armstrong.  Lance Armstrong did a number of things and he gave himself cancer.  He cheated.  He did drugs.  And he gave himself cancer.  Well, instead of saying, `Hey listen, I cheated and gave myself cancer, don't be like me,' he actually made himself the victim and then went out and profited something like  $15 million from this, `Hey, poor me, let's find a cure for cancer,' campaign instead of just coming clean and saying, `Look, here's what I did, I screwed myself up, and I hope people learn from  my mistakes.'  You just watch these guys and can't help but think, God, what a fraud.   You get the whole Michael Phelps being a pothead thing too.  I'm just glad I'm in the business I'm in so I can get them in the cage and kick the crap out of them."

Regarding Anderson Silva's manager Ed Soares (note: Sonnen also sometimes denies that he has a twitter account where the first two comments are from):
"Anderson just fired Ed Soares and replaced him with a Translation App he got on his phone for $14.95."

“Ed, pray to whatever Demon effigy you prance and dance in front of with your piglet tribe of savages that I decide not to CRUCIFY you."

“It would be very arrogant for Ed Soares to think he’s all of a sudden become like Cher or Prince and that this one name of Ed refers to him. Then again, he’s the world’s most famous interpreter. Somehow, he even got himself into the (UFC’s) video game.”