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Just a friendly reminder that we will be streaming today’s UFC 136 press conference live starting at 12:00 pm ET.
The event will feature main card fighters Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard, Brian Stann and Chael Sonnen.
If nothing else, it’s worth tuning into to see what yarns Chael will spin.
Check out the player after the jump.
Just a friendly reminder that we will be streaming today’s UFC 136 press conference live starting at 12:00 pm ET.
The event will feature main card fighters Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard, Brian Stann and Chael Sonnen.
If nothing else, it’s worth tuning into to see what yarns Chael will spin.
Check out the player after the jump.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/UFC)
(Jon Jones buys his first new car — a $190,000 2012 Bentley. For more pics of the UFC light-heavyweight champ’s new ride, head to MMAConvert.)
Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. Starting today, we’ll be giving you guys short previews of each article we link to. We vouch for this stuff, so click, okay?
– My First Fight: Kenny Florian (MMA Fighting)
“Looking back, it’s crazy. The way that I trained, the way I ate, it was terrible. It was so far from what I do now…Ignorance is bliss, I guess, even when I was fighting on The Ultimate Fighter, weighing in at a chubby 178 pounds for a [185-pound fight], it was all kind of like I was just too dumb to know better.”
– Culinary Workers Union Creates Anti-UFC Website (The Fight Nerd)
“Maintained by the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, the website uses the acronym of UFC to stand for “Unfit For Children” instead of the “Ultimate Fighting Championship.” Dana White’s many rants are listed in detail on this page across a series of sub-categories, including “Obscenities,” “Slurs” which features many of the comments DFW directed at Loretta Hunt among others, “Cheap Shots” which focuses on remarks about random people involved in entertainment and sports, and “Other $#@%!!!” which documents rude comments that UFC fighters have said about others, including Chael Sonnen’s negative thoughts on Brazil.”
– Hired Hero: An Interview Exclusive With UFC 136 Fighter Brian Stann, Part Two (MMA Mania)
“The fact of the matter is, I don’t care who you are. If I hit you on the chin, there’s a good chance you’re going out. Anderson possesses that same ability. He’s only a man. I don’t put any fighter on a pedestal of being unbeatable. I train with guys like Jon Jones every day who is every bit as devastating.”
(Jon Jones buys his first new car — a $190,000 2012 Bentley. For more pics of the UFC light-heavyweight champ’s new ride, head to MMAConvert.)
Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. Starting today, we’ll be giving you guys short previews of each article we link to. We vouch for this stuff, so click, okay?
– My First Fight: Kenny Florian (MMA Fighting)
“Looking back, it’s crazy. The way that I trained, the way I ate, it was terrible. It was so far from what I do now…Ignorance is bliss, I guess, even when I was fighting on The Ultimate Fighter, weighing in at a chubby 178 pounds for a [185-pound fight], it was all kind of like I was just too dumb to know better.”
– Culinary Workers Union Creates Anti-UFC Website (The Fight Nerd)
“Maintained by the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, the website uses the acronym of UFC to stand for “Unfit For Children” instead of the “Ultimate Fighting Championship.” Dana White’s many rants are listed in detail on this page across a series of sub-categories, including “Obscenities,” “Slurs” which features many of the comments DFW directed at Loretta Hunt among others, “Cheap Shots” which focuses on remarks about random people involved in entertainment and sports, and “Other $#@%!!!” which documents rude comments that UFC fighters have said about others, including Chael Sonnen’s negative thoughts on Brazil.”
– Hired Hero: An Interview Exclusive With UFC 136 Fighter Brian Stann, Part Two (MMA Mania)
“The fact of the matter is, I don’t care who you are. If I hit you on the chin, there’s a good chance you’re going out. Anderson possesses that same ability. He’s only a man. I don’t put any fighter on a pedestal of being unbeatable. I train with guys like Jon Jones every day who is every bit as devastating.”
– Dana White’s Hate List: 50 People Who Have Enraged the UFC Chief (BleacherReport/MMA)
“39. Cage Potato (Ben Goldstein)
Certain MMA websites and publications have angered Dana White in the past, but perhaps none made him more angry than when CagePotato.com’s Ben Goldstein linked to leaked photos of UFC ring girl Arianny Celeste’s Playboy magazine photos.
According to Goldstein, he later received a phone call from the UFC President himself.
“What kind of scumbag are you?” Goldstein recalls White opening the call with. He then went on a verbal tirade, ripping Goldstein for releasing the pictures early and ended the call with a promise to “F— you up worse than you’ve ever been f—ed before,” and hung up.
To this day, Cage Potato and the UFC remain on shaky ground.”
– The Top Ten Alterations to MMA History That 100% Occurred in a Parallel Universe (MiddleEasy)
“Bas gets drunk one night and stumbles into a Swedish night club. Nothing about that sentence should surprise you. Rutten is known to occasionally get down in random countries. The story goes Bas was restrained by security guards and was told to leave the club because he was entirely too boisterous. Bas agreed, but wanted to find his friend who was still inside in the place. Apparently the bouncers were in the mood to pick a fight with El Guapo and begin to shove him around the hallway. Within seconds, Bas was throwing enough hooks to level all security personnel within the vicinity. After Rutten knocked out essentially everyone in the hallway he was trapped in, he realized that eventually the same guys he KOd would gain consciousness and continue to pursue him.”
– All Kinds of Messages Sent by UFC With Second Show on Same Day as Japan Event (Fight Opinion)
“There’s a reason every other major sport in the world has off-seasons. Fans need breaks and the product right now does not need diluting. However, Zuffa has so many guys under contract and in order to keep guys from floating away to promoters like Bellator, you have to run a lot of shows. So, UFC had a decision to make — contract the schedule and run less shows in hopes of making them more special or run every week ala WWE and just grind things out. We’ve seen how well (not) it’s worked out for WWE. I give Zuffa credit for going all-in and sticking their necks out on the line but I don’t think it’s a very good move in terms of eliminating the ’specialness’ of their product.
The immediate impact of this decision to run multiple shows in different locations on the same night is the amount of stress it will put on the UFC production teams. They are already overworked and stretched to capacity. The more workload you place on them, the less variety there will be in the way the shows are produced. Just like WWE shows today largely look the same as they did a decade ago, UFC could fall right into that same trap. This opens the door up for mistakes being made.”
– What’s Next for UFC on Versus 6′s Winners and Losers? (NBC Sports MMA)
“Stefan Struve: Shane Carwin
Carwin needs to work his way back up the heavyweight ladder, and a fight against Struve would be a good test for him. Struve has been adding muscle to frame, so I would be curious to see how he would fare against a strong wrestler like Carwin.”
– Dominick Cruz vs. Demetrious Johnson: Lighter Weight Divisions Struggle With Fans (LowKick)
“Dominick Cruz and Demetrious Johnson both delivered solid performances on Saturday night during their main event, a fight that saw Cruz defend his bantamweight title for a fourth consecutive time. Cruz and Johnson, two of the fastest fighters in the UFC put forth a sustained pace that few fighters competing in the heavier weight classes could even dream about. Yet for some, the matchup between Johnson’s striking and Cruz’s wrestling, strength and tenacity wasn’t enough.
Are the more technical aspects of a fight such as Saturday’s main event lost on some fans or is it simply a matter of wanting to see two behemoths stand in the center of the cage and swing until one gets knocked out? Yes, this is an oversimplification of the issue, but when it’s all boiled down, there is a huge disconnect in fan appreciation between the heavier and lighter fighters.”
– Top 2011 MMA Television Ratings (So Far) (MMA Payout)
“On November 12th, the UFC’s debut on FOX will no doubt break the television ratings record for 2011, and quite possibly the all-time record of 4.3 million viewers held by Elite XC on CBS, which is to-date the most watched MMA event in history. So far in 2011 (as of October 4th), the UFC’s March 26th Fight Night 24 broadcast on Spike TV featuring Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Phil Davis is the ratings leader with 2.2 million viewers. It was the highest rated event since the September 2009 broadcast of UFC Fight Night 19: Diaz vs. Guillard, which had 2.5 million viewers.”
– Dana White: “Melvin Guillard Was the Biggest Waste of Talent” (5th Round)
“I like Melvin and I like how he’s training hard. I always thought he was the biggest waste of talent and he really turned that around and I’m happy to see it…I’m excited to see him in there with Lauzon. If he beats Lauzon, it’s gonna be interesting to see who we end up pitting together to fight for the title next.”
– Phil Davis Caught Off-Guard by Mistaken Announcement of Match-Up With Machida (Five Ounces of Pain)
“All of this is news to me. I’m still recovering and training. That’s pretty much the story. I guess the boss must have looked to book me…I’m just not a go yet. I would love to be in there putting on a good show and fighting, but my leg just does not agree with that. You put a timetable on it, it just may not work. You’ve just got to play it by ear. I don’t want to tell the fans I’m going to be back next week, and then that turns into two weeks from now or two months from now.”
Filed under: UFCA star-studded UFC 136 press conference on Wednesday will feature lightweight champion Frankie Edgar and No. 1 contender Gray Maynard, featherweight champion Jose Aldo and No. 1 contender Kenny Florian, and middleweights Chael Sonnen an…
Filed under: UFC
A star-studded UFC 136 press conference on Wednesday will feature lightweight champion Frankie Edgar and No. 1 contender Gray Maynard, featherweight champion Jose Aldo and No. 1 contender Kenny Florian, and middleweights Chael Sonnen and Brian Stann. We’ll have them all live right here at MMAFighting.com.
The press conference will also feature UFC President Dana White, who will preside over the festivities at the Toyota Center in Houston.
The UFC 136 pre-fight press conference begins at 12 p.m. ET and the video is below.
Filed under: UFC, NewsBrian Stann probably should get used to this kind of treatment from his opponents.
Stann thought he had a fight against former Pride middleweight champ Wanderlei Silva earlier this year before Silva begged out – thanks-but-no-th…
Brian Stann probably should get used to this kind of treatment from his opponents.
Stann thought he had a fight against former Pride middleweight champ Wanderlei Silva earlier this year before Silva begged out – thanks-but-no-thanks. And then came Chael Sonnen, one of the most outspoken trash talkers in the sport. Sonnen fights Stann in a middleweight contenders bout Saturday at UFC 136 in Houston.
Sonnen said fighting Stann is something that simply has to be done – but admits he wishes he didn’t have to face the surging war hero, and thinks the same goes for the rest of the middleweight pack.
“Nobody wants to fight Brian, but somebody’s got to,” Sonnen said on a UFC 136 media call last week. “Our paths have to cross. We’re just in the same weight class, it’s not that big of a pool and he keeps whipping everybody. If he quit beating everybody, I wouldn’t have to fight him. But he decided to go out and become one of the top guys.”
Stann (11-3, 5-2 UFC), a former light heavyweight champion in the WEC, could punch his ticket to a title shot against UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva with a win over Sonnen, who is looking for a rematch with the record-setting titleholder.
But as for Sonnen’s famous mouth, which was on full display prior to his fight against Silva last year, Stann isn’t surprised it didn’t come out for this fight.
“I told everybody from the start I didn’t think (the trash talk) was going to happen,” Stann said. “I said this a couple times. I believe Chael is very genuine when he says if he has a problem with somebody, he’ll speak it. If he doesn’t have a problem with somebody, he won’t. … And I wouldn’t have taken it personally, anyway. I really think that our skill sets and the way that we fight has generated all the hype it needs.”
Stann has won three straight fights, all in dominating fashion. After a decision loss to Phil Davis at UFC 109, in which he was taken down all three rounds and dominated on the ground, Stann has been on a tear.
He submitted Mike Massenzio and UFC on Versus 2 last year, winning Fight of the Night. In January, he ran through Chris Leben on his way to a first-round TKO. The only other fighter to stop Leben with strikes? Anderson Silva. And in May, at UFC 130, Stann picked up another Fight of the Night check with his second-round TKO of the highly touted Jorge Santiago.
The UFC putting Stann in position to earn a title shot seemed natural. And Stann found out that at this level of the game, options for opponents start to thin out.
“This is the first fight where I just got a phone call and was told who I was fighting,” Stann said. “Normally, there’s a process, and my manager throws out a couple names and (UFC matchmaker) Joe Silva throws out a couple names. We were in that process, and all of a sudden after UFC 132, when Chris Leben knocked out Wanderlei Silva, it was 48 hours later that I got a phone call: ‘This is who you’re fighting. Here’s the bout agreement.'”
But even though Sonnen has admitted to a bit of reluctance to fight Stann, who has become one of the UFC’s biggest fan favorites, Stann doesn’t think Sonnen will hold anything back on Saturday night.
“I don’t think it’s something where Chael’s going to go lay on me Saturday,” Stann said. “I still fully anticipate the best Chael Sonnen in the Octagon, and a guy who’s going to to double-leg takedown me and try to push my head right though the canvas.”
To prepare for Sonnen’s elite-level wrestling, something he struggled with against Davis, it’s not surprising that Stann has been working on his own wrestling game. The Greg Jackson-trained fighter has honed his entire game in Albuquerque, N.M., but it’s wrestling he’s had to work on the most.
“What happens in fighting is, early in my career I had a very limited skill set,” Stann said. “But I was very comfortable with that skill set, so I could fight 100 miles an hour. When you can go somewhere where you’re introduced to 1,000 new skills, you become OK at all 1,000 of them and you try to do way too much in the cage and you fight now at 70 miles an hour. It took me some time to get comfortable with all these new skills, and now I can go 100 miles an hour again. … I’ve been training in wrestling for a long time now, but since that Phil Davis fight it’s been something I’ve spent most of my time on over the last three or four fights.”
If he can succeed against Sonnen where Silva failed for four and a half rounds last year (though a Silva rib injury also may have played a part in that), Stann could get his own shot at gold.
Stann and Sonnen fight on the main card of UFC 136 on Oct. 8 at the Toyota Center in Houston. The pay-per-view is headlined by a pair of title fights – the lightweight title rematch between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard, and a featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Kenny Florian.
Main card Lightweight Championship bout Frankie Edgar (c) vs Gray Maynard I always would pick Frank Edgar over opponents, but against Gray Maynard I think the last fight Gray just gassed himself out. I don’t expect that again. I’ve got Gray in this one. Featherweight Championship bout: José Aldo (c) vs Kenny Florian I want
I always would pick Frank Edgar over opponents, but against Gray Maynard I think the last fight Gray just gassed himself out. I don’t expect that again. I’ve got Gray in this one.
I want to pick Kenny Florian, but I can’t. Aldo faster, more technique, more dangerous.
Chael Sonnen. Expect takedown and grind down.
In the past Lauzon would be an easy pick here. However, Melvin Guillard has improved so much in the submission and submission defense. I think Guillard is going to be too much for Lauzon.
Nam Phan. A little more technique here might be the key to victory.
I like the improvements Demian Maia has made to his standup game and the agressive stance he has taken. If it goes to the ground Maia is better there, but Santiago is no slouch. Standup probably goes to Santiago, but hes definitely more wild.
Such a good fight. Both have great striking with Stephens being the bigger power puncher of the two. However, Jeremy is more wild. If it goes to the ground, Pettis, has a good advantage. On the feet I think its even, slight edge to Pettis, due to reach.
I can take the Mexicutioner in the dark here.
Pass
Interesting match. Two zombies that don’t stop coming forward despite taking damage. Schafer is not as good as doing damage as Simpson is. If it stays up I say Simpson.
Steve Cantwell. I don’t know what skills Massenzio has to beat Cantwell.
Filed under: UFC, NewsThe last time we saw Chael Sonnen before a fight, calling him outspoken would have been a massive understatement.
Ahead of his UFC middleweight title fight against champion Anderson Silva at UFC 117 in August 2010, Sonnen was a …
The last time we saw Chael Sonnen before a fight, calling him outspoken would have been a massive understatement.
Ahead of his UFC middleweight title fight against champion Anderson Silva at UFC 117 in August 2010, Sonnen was a whirlwind of controversial comments, outlandish outcries and, well, near lunacy.
Sonnen came closer than anyone before him in the UFC to stopping Silva, but his submission loss was followed by a suspension for elevated testosterone levels. And that was followed by a plea deal for money laundering in a mortgage fraud case. Is it possible that Sonnen has mellowed out?
Brian Stann, Sonnen’s opponent at UFC 136 next Saturday in Houston, thinks it’s a case of selective mellowing based on who Sonnen is fighting.
“I told everybody from the start I didn’t think (the trash talk) was going to happen,” Stann said Friday on a media call for the pay-per-view. “I said this a couple times. I believe Chael is very genuine when he says if he has a problem with somebody, he’ll speak it. If he doesn’t have a problem with somebody, he won’t. You saw his fights against Nate Marquardt, Dan Miller and Yushin Okami, he didn’t have anything to say about those guys. He spoke about the fight. So it wasn’t surprising to me at all that didn’t happen. And I wouldn’t have taken it personally, anyway. I really think that our skill sets and the way that we fight has generated all the hype it needs.”
When it comes to Stann, Sonnen (25-11-1, 4-4 UFC) has steered clear of any kind of trash talk. In fact, he’d actually prefer to not have to fight the war hero, who is on a three-fight winning streak. And he believes the same goes for the rest of the middleweight division.
“Nobody wants to fight Brian, but somebody’s got to,” Sonnen said. “Our paths have to cross. We’re just in the same weight class, it’s not that big of a pool and he keeps whipping everybody. If he quit beating everybody, I wouldn’t have to fight him. But he decided to go out and become one of the top guys. I’ve done my part and put my time in and I’m up there too, so our paths have to cross.”
With so much time off between fights, Sonnen said he’s happy to be back on the job, but admitted there’s no excitement that comes along with a task the likes of Stann (11-3, 5-2 UFC). It’s possible the winner will get the next crack at Silva – a rematch for Sonnen, and the biggest fight of his career for Stann, the former WEC light heavyweight champion.
With Stann on a three-fight streak, all stoppages with a submission win over Mike Massenzio and convincing TKOs of Chris Leben and Jorge Santiago earlier this year, it’s no wonder Sonnen won’t use the word “excited” about his first fight in more than a year.
“I don’t know that I ever look forward to (fighting),” Sonnen said. “I hear some guys say they’re excited (to fight), and I always get jealous of those guys. I’ve never been excited to have to go fight another man. I’m not excited now. I’m happy to be part of it – I got put in timeout for a while, and I’m glad that’s all over and behind me. But I go with a matter-of-fact approach – I’m not excited for the match. It’s a bunch of emotions that get combined into one, and excitement isn’t one of them.”
A brasher Sonnen, circa Summer 2010, might have approached such a question differently. And it just might be possible that Sonnen’s out-of-the-cage problems have him taking a different approach to how he portrays himself to the public. Possible.
“The happy part is, this is what I want to do and I got held out of it for a while,” Sonnen said. “I’ve always been grateful for these opportunities, but I think I’m a little more grateful now. Appreciative would be a much stronger feeling that I’m having – to make up for the excitement.”
Sonnen has even relaxed his stance on Silva – though make no mistake, a win over Stann and a possible rematch with his old nemesis would likely see him return to the Sonnen of old.
Sonnen said Silva has to be respected – but he still believes he’s better than the champion, who beat Yushin Okami last month, whom Sonnen helped train for the title fight.
“It’s getting harder and harder to deny he should be shown that appreciation,” Sonnen said. “He ducked Okami for years, but he did finally get in there and he made it look easy. So I think you’ve got to look at that. If you’re asking if I’d ever concede that Anderson’s better than me, no. I would refer you to the tape (of our fight). I think he and I are vastly different and that I could come down a lot and still be ahead of him. I also think he ducks and dodges opponents constantly, but his wins and losses speak for themselves. The fact of the matter, whether I like to admit this or not, is he’s done a better job than anybody, done a better job than me, and he is the champion.
“It doesn’t mean I’m going to quit poking my finger in his chest, but at some point I think fairness needs to kick in, too, and you need to look at what he’s done and tip your hat to him a little bit.”
What Sonnen hopes for more than anything is a win over Stann, and a chance to let that finger poking start up once again.
Sonnen and Stann fight on the main card of UFC 136 on Oct. 8 at the Toyota Center in Houston. The main card is headlined by a pair of title fights – the lightweight title rematch between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard, and a featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Kenny Florian.