MMASucka

“Oh my god. How embarrassing is that?”

These were the words that came from the table next to mine after Chael Sonnen’s first cringe-inducing interview of Saturday evening. The one where he had compared himself to cigarettes before turning to the camera in David Caruso-like fashion and claimed that he “may be hazardous to your health”, looking for all the world that he was waiting for “Won’t Get Fooled Again” to kick off the opening credits to CSI: Miami.

I had successfully negotiated with the owner of the establishment to turn the TV from the NHL All-Stars skill competition to the UFC’s second Fox telecast. I knew that while it appeared to be a UFC neophyte crowd, they would surely fall as head over heels as I have with the sport and be glued to the human drama, the technique, and yes, a little organized violence. Then Sonnen spoke, and you could feel the air be let out of the room.

“Is this wrestling?” I heard another female patron ask. The evening had just become an uphill battle in the crusade to win over fans to mixed martial arts.

Recently, the “pro wrestling” antics of Sonnen and others have become a hot topic on MMASucka. Trevor Dueck wrote an article where he extolled the virtues of UFC/WWF crossover, and this past week on MMASucka Radio Canadian MMA personality Paul “The Mauler” Lazenby blasted anyone who thinks otherwise. Dueck and Lazenby are both great people. Dueck is an old-school WWF fan, while Lazenby is a former pro wrestler himself and friend of Sonnen’s. While I understand and respect their point of view, it may be time for them to step back and see how the other half lives.

Indeed, the most interesting Sonnen was on Saturday night were the fifteen minutes he spent in the cage doing battle with Michael Bisping. Not the Caruso moment before the fight, not the post-fight interview where he ripped off an old WWF interview from the 70′s. But since the crux of the argument of people who enjoy the pro wrestling antics is that it draws people to the sport, let’s examine that shall we?

Sonnen’s first foray into the pro wrestling style interviews was in the lead-up to his Middleweight title shot against Anderson Silva at UFC 117. He was lauded for his trash-talking abilities and there were many who agreed that Sonnen had done the best job possible in promoting the fight. Some analysts, including Yahoo’s Dave Meltzer, predicted a monster pay-per-view buyrates.

The fight itself was incredible, as Sonnen fought a blistering pace for over four rounds, punishing the champion before being caught in a submission in the final frame. But the monster business that Sonnen was supposedly driving? Well, that didn’t exactly happen. UFC 117 did 600,000 buys, no slouch by any standards. The numbers were up slightly from Silva’s previous defence against Demian Maia, but below what Silva had done the previous year against Forrest Griffin.

The most telling number is that of Silva’s defence after he fought Sonnen. Silva faced off against fellow Brazilian Vitor Belfort, a man who couldn’t be less like Sonnen if he tried. Belfort’s pre-fight talk centers more on his training and spiritual beliefs then anything that sounds like it came from Roddy Piper. Yet Silva-Belfort did 725,000 buys, easily besting the Sonnen number without any of the pro wrestling style interviews preceding it.

If Sonnen was drawing so many new eyeballs to the sport, why wasn’t his number against Silva greater than Belfort’s? Moreover, why did none of these Sonnen fans spend money to see his comeback fight against Brian Stann? Sonnen’s comeback fight against Stann after sitting out a CSAC suspension for elevated testosterone levels was featured on UFC 136, an event which drew a paltry 225,000 buys. That number was the lowest for UFC’s pay-per-view offerings last year.

Saturday’s Fox event, an event supposedly buoyed by the trash-talk between Sonnen and Bisping, failed to meet the numbers of UFC’s premiere Fox event. The Sonnen-Bisping segment had less viewers than the main event of Evans-Davis, so was it really Chael’s WWF spiel people were tuning in for, or the fights themselves?

The other name that gets bandied about when people speak to the advantages of WWF-style promoting is Brock Lesnar. Lesnar turned to MMA after being a WWF star and became the biggest draw in UFC during his career. This much is true. Was it really the WWF-style antics that made people want to see Lesnar though? Initially, perhaps. Lesnar’s UFC debut against Frank Mir did a good number based at least in part of people wanting to see how a “WWF guy” would do in the cage against a UFC fighter.

People liked what they saw and obviously continued to follow Lesnar. But did WWF theatrics really have much to do with it? Or was it because people saw the massive, agile Lesnar laying beatings on Mir, Heath Herring, and Randy Couture and decided he was a fighter worth paying attention to? The Heavyweight championship in any combat sport is considered the pinnacle, and when you have a Heavyweight champion that looks as impressive as Lesnar did in stopping his opponents, that’s basically a license to print money.

If it was based on the WWF tie-in, why did Lesnar never do those kinds of numbers while he was headlining WWF pay-per-views? WWF pay-per-views headlined by Lesnar in 2002-04 averaged between the 275,000-400,000 buy range. If so much of Lesnar’s appeal came from pro wrestling, why were his actual pro wrestling numbers less than half of the business he was doing in UFC?

Now other fighters are hoping to jump on the Sonnen bandwagon and use pro wrestling style hype to their advantage. Ronda Rousey is the latest doing the schtick, laying it on thick in recent interviews trash-talking her upcoming opponent Miesha Tate, as well as telling former women’s champion “Cyborg” Santos that Santos “has a dick”. Rousey went on to criticize UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre for not being entertaining enough and saying that GSP has done all he can do for the sport.

I know Rousey is trying to get her name out there but this is just silliness. GSP is now the number one draw for the promotion. Dana White freely says GSP is the biggest star in the sport, even insisting that GSP is a bigger worldwide star than Wayne Gretzky (often to the chuckles of Canadians). GSP is also the prime example of how an athlete should carry themselves in public. Always affable and respectful outside of the cage, and a precision technician inside of it. The court of public opinion seems to rest on GSP’s side as well, as UFC events featuring the French Canadian since he became champion have topped 7.5 million buys. Rousey’s career pay-per-view total? Zero.

What the more vocal of the pro wrestling/MMA crossover audience fails to realize is that UFC is still struggling for mainstream acceptance. The pro wrestling shenanigans will do more harm than good in the long run in achieving this goal. The NFL is the top dog in mainstream sports right now, with over $9 billion in annual revenue. Who was the biggest story in the NFL this year? Tim Tebow. Tebow’s humble “aw, shucks” demeanor and constant shout-outs to his god are the kinds of wholesome stories that the mainstream media loves. As a confirmed and practicing atheist, I’m certainly not suggesting every fighter drop to a knee in prayer after every round, but Tebow’s story is one that people everywhere latched on to. Sonnen’s or Rousey’s have yet to permeate.

For years, the UFC struggled finding top-shelf mainstream sponsors for their product. I cringed a little whenever I heard Bruce Buffer yell out the slogan for Mickey’s Malt Liquor “get stung!”. Now the UFC has finally got excellent sponsorships with companies such as Bud Light and Harley-Davidson. Meanwhile, despite pulling good ratings on cable for a generation, Vince McMahon’s Monday Night Raw still finds itself lacking when it comes to top-flight sponsors. McMahon is also forced to accept a much lower ad rate than shows with comparable numbers. This is because corporate America views wrestling fans as low-income and low-education. Whether they’re right or wrong, perception is reality. Should UFC be trying to be more like the NFL or the WWF?

The ratings for Saturday night’s broadcast told another interesting story. Among the top markets tuning in were: Louisville, KY; Greenville, SC; Tulsa, OK; and Knoxville, TN. The UFC did almost double the number in those markets than they did in New York or Los Angeles. Mainstream sponsors appreciate the numbers in middle America, but assuredly they would like to see them stronger in the largest US markets, where many of them are headquartered. Making the presentation more like pro wrestling is not going to help matters in that area.

I love mixed martial arts. We are fortunate to be fans of the most exciting sport in the world. It’s aggressive yet technical, there are great human interest stories, it’s everything a fan of sports could want. I look forward to the day when this weekend’s Diaz-Condit fight is as highly anticipated as the Super Bowl the next day. Not one where people are looking down on what they see and are clamoring to have the TV put back on hockey players doing practice drills.  Dragging MMA down to the level of pro wrestling is not what’s going to get it there.

When the Ultimate Fighting Championship made their first showing on the FOX platform most walked away from their television screens disappointed – It took Brazilian bomber Junior dos Santos a little over a minute to put away Cain Velasquez and take a seat at the top of the division.

Don’t get me wrong, the fight was exciting and action packed but it was still only 64-seconds [And yes, that is what she said] and once again many watching UFC on FOX tonight might would have left with a similar feeling of disappointment.

This time out the UFC featured three interesting match-ups, two of which were title-eliminators.

Opening up the FOX telecast was a middleweight tilt between former UFC middleweight title challenger Demian Maia facing rapidly rising star Chris Weidman – Weidman stepped in on eleven days’ notice having a battle outside of the cage having to shed 40-pounds of water weight to be on target when he stepped onto the scales.

This dramatic cut in weight played a big factor in their scrap, both combatants are accomplished on the mat but won’t be putting out any kickboxing instructionals anytime soon – Both were respectful of what the other could do on the floor so the fight didn’t make it there often.

By the time the third round rolled around it resembled a brawl that broke out at a retirement home with two guys throwing punches with no force behind them in super-slow motion. Come to think of it, it would probably make for a fun video game but can’t say the same for good television.

Following it up was a battle to determine who will face UFC middleweight champ and consensus pound-for-pound king of the sport Anderson Silva in one of the biggest fights in the promotions history, reportedly in a soccer stadium in Brazil.

Chael Sonnen strutted around the windy city this week with a replica UFC championship but to get his grubby little mitts on the real deal he had to get past “The Ultimate Fighter” season three champ Michael Bisping – What he needed was a performance similar to his dismantling of Brian Stann months prior but it seemed the Brit didn’t get the memo.

If you had of told me that Michael Bisping would bully the wrestler against the cage and nullify Sonnens wrestling game for a lot of the fight I would have probably laughed in your face but that’s what he did, early on Sonnen secured some thunderous takedowns but wasn’t able to keep him down and Bisping controlled a lot of the bout early on.

The most dominate round came in the end with Sonnen taking control, he put the striker on his butt early and kept him there for the better part of the round with an effective top game while seeking a rear-naked-choke finish along the way.

Finally, the bout that received top billing was ready to save the day with former UFC light-heavyweight champion Rashad Evans testing four-time All-American wrestler and the toughest man to wear pink, Phil Davis.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the bout to set peoples worlds on fire either – A tentative and cautious Evans showed off why there’s a real difference between amateur wrestling and wrestling inside the octagon.

Despite his wrestling pedigree Evans was able to put Davis down early and often, the previously unbeaten Davis repeatedly paid the price for using his leg kick with it being the main reason Evans was able to sweep him and put him on the floor.

In all honesty if you watched the first two-rounds then walked away you wouldn’t have missed much because it was wash, rinse, repeat as the former top dog at 205-pounds showed that he’s on a different level than the inexperienced challenger.

As always, I’ll take a look at each of the main card winners and see who they should be paired up with next.

Rashad Evans:

Well, this one’s a bit of a no brainer – “Suga” Rashad Evans has wanted to step into the cage with his former friend and training partner Jon Jones since he stepped up to the plate against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua to take the belt that Rashad was gunning for.

You have all heard the story of their fallout more times than you can count so I won’t bore you with it again, I will however tell you that this bout will take place at the Phillips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia in the featured fight for UFC 145, provided that Evans comes out unscaved after tonight’s performance.

With their built-in storyline and two silver tongued fighters this one will turn out to be one of the most anticipated fights of the year so circle April 21 on your calendar immediately.

Chael Sonnen:

Once again, not one that requires a lot of thinking – Sonnen has slandered, insulted and done just about everything conceivable to get under the skin of the man he came within minutes of defeating in 2010 and it seems that he is finally going to get his rematch now.

Sonnen might not have made the statement that he wanted tonight and if this version of the gangta from the street of West Linn, Oregon showed up to face Silva it would be a long night for him so he better come prepared, especially if this takes place in the champions backyard.

Provided that he spends more time worrying about what he will do inside the cage rather than his post-fight interview like tonight it should make for a fantastic fight just like their first go around.

Chris Weidman:

It’s no secret that I am a supporter of Chris Weidman and have been for quite some time now, ever since I saw him be competitive with one of the most accomplished Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belts in the game today Andre Galvao at the 2009 Abu-Dhabi World Submission Grappling Championships I knew he was someone to keep an eye on.

Today in the eyes of many he took a huge step-up from up-and-comer to being a player in the ranks at 185-pounds but in my eyes let’s not throw him into the deep water right away.

The UFC on FOX broadcast team praised the All-American wrestler for being a top-ten ranked middleweight pre-fight but that was being a little generous, the reality is he’s still 27-years-old and has the better part of a decade to be around in the octagon, give him a little more time to develop.

Pairing him up with the winner of the upcoming Brian Stann vs. Alessio Sakara bout that is scheduled to take place on the UFC on Fuel 2 card in Sweden would be an appropriate fight giving him three or four fights to be groomed into a contender, instead of being pushed too quick like we saw happen with Phil Davis tonight.

As always, send your hate mail in 140 characters or less to @justinfauxmma

Although putting out a valiant effort, Michael Bisping was not able to take advantage of his last minute windfall of a title contender-ship match against Chael Sonnen.

Chael started the first round with 2 strong take downs, but was unable to keep Bisping on his back.  Bisping surprisingly was able to control Sonnen against the fence for the majority of the round.

The second round was a bit closer as both fighters exchanged the dominant position against the octagon.

Sonnen took control of the third round as he finally was able to control Bisping on the ground after landing a power double leg in the middle of the ring.  Sonnen threatened a rear naked choke.  As Bisping defended the choke, Sonnen gained a full mount to cement the round in his favor.

The win Garantees Sonnen the rematch against Anderson Silva for the middleweight title.

After rumors persisted about Chicago native and WWE superstar CM Punk walking down to the Octagon with Chael Sonnen at UFC on FOX 2 this Saturday night, it made me wonder if the UFC and WWE can work together and crossover. When talking to MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, Chael Sonnen made an interesting point about why he wanted “The Voice of the Voiceless” to walk out to the cage with him.

One… we’re friends, two… I really like him, three… it’s his hometown, four… he’s a big UFC fan and five… there is major crossover.  A number of years ago I think we all thought we had to compete with each other. That boxing, MMA and wrestling thought that we were going to have to have our own fans but what we have learned with time is that it’s not true. People are crossover fans and just all around fans, especially when you’re talking about CM Punk here in Chicago. That guy is royalty around here and I think it would have been fun for both of us.

Chael touched on an interesting point that I have been saying for years. How is professional wrestling, which is sports entertainment, in direct competition with the UFC? They don’t compete directly with PPVs nor do they compete directly on cable television. Show me how the UFC or the WWE have suffered in pay-per-view revenue because of one another?

It also seems that Dana White has a great deal of respect and admiration towards Vince McMahon. You can see how some of the marketing over the last couple of years has emulated professional wrestling in some respects. Yes MMA is a legitimate sport, and professional wrestling is professional athletes acting. I know… I get it. Please keep the hate mail to yourself and hear me out.

I know some of you are pulling your hair out once again because I just compared the UFC to the WWE, but I hate to burst your bubble, there are  a lot of fighters who have also grasped onto the idea that marketing oneself through cutting a good promo and hyping a fight is a great way to get noticed and make money. Sure nobody is ripping their shirts off and telling you to say your prayers and eat your vitamins, but adding a little spice and bringing out some personality is sure a hell of a lot better than thanking your trainers, God, and telling the fans that you will fight whoever the UFC lines up. Zzzzz…boring.

Chael Sonnen seems to understand this “technique” the most. Sure, it’s not for everyone. The sport still needs guys like GSP and Junior Dos Santos; all round good guys who do their talking in the cage. The sport is full of honorable classy guys and gals who feel they don’t need to talk a bit of trash, but you have to love Nick Diaz, Chael Sonnen, Michael Bisping, Josh Koscheck, Ronda Rousey and Josh Barnett for stepping out of that mold and giving the UFC and Strikeforce some personality. Imagine if all fighters were like NHL hockey players? I don’t think the sport would survive. It’s the fight game and with fights there needs to be hype. This has been the way since the beginning of time. Hell, it worked wonders when the Romans promoted their Gladiators. Not much has changed.

Getting back to the point or the question of why the UFC can’t cross promote with the WWE? It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Remember when Ken Shamrock made his run in the WWF back in the 90’s? He came into professional wrestling  in his prime and was marketed as the “The World’s Most Dangerous Man,” a moniker ABC News gave him while he was fighting in the controversial UFC.  He was a UFC fighter getting into the WWF ring to feud with the likes of Vader, Brett “The Hitman” Hart and Shawn Michaels to name a few.

The WWF at the time had no problems having a former UFC fighter in their stable. To them it brought more legitimacy to their brand of sports entertainment.  Since then we have seen boxers like Mike Tyson, Buster Douglas and Floyd Mayweather cross promote within the WWE realm. Why would it be so crazy to see a UFC fighter do the same? Or vice versa?

Before Brock Lesnar retired there were rumors of him doing a special appearance at a Wrestlemania event to promote his upcoming UFC bout. Now how close that was to coming to actual fruition is not known. Those were merely just rumors and nobody really knows if that was accurate.

However, now that Lesnar is retired, do you not think that if he returned to the WWE that the storyline would be a former UFC heavyweight champ makes his return to the WWE ring? First off,  it’s not a matter of “if” it’s a matter of “when” Brock Lesnar returns to the WWE. They wouldn’t all of a sudden put him into their video game if they didn’t think he would make a return. The WWE is going to take their time in building his return to professional wrestling much like they have done with The Rock and his upcoming Wrestlemania bout with John Cena. Think about it, Lesnar hasn’t been in a WWE video game since “Here Comes The Pain” in 2003. Why did they all of a sudden include him now? When Lesnar does make his much anticipated debut how many UFC fans do you think will be tuning in? Don’t lie…you’ll watch.

Professional Wrestling, the UFC and boxing have proved that they can co-exist because in some ways they have very different target markets. Guess what? Some of their audience do crossover to each other. It is true Boxing has an older demographic, WWE has a younger demographic and the UFC seems to have an audience somewhere in the middle. Since the UFC has become more mainstream, those audiences are starting to blur into each other, which is great for all three sport entities. Why can’t someone enjoy boxing, MMA and wrestling? From what I’m seeing there are quite a few people who do.

Chael Sonnen is now playing down CM Punk’s appearance at UFC on FOX 2, claiming Vince McMahon kyboshed the idea. Who knows how accurate that is? WWE’s Royal Rumble is the next day and a little advertising at a UFC event to try and get a few more PPV buys doesn’t hurt. I wonder if this is Chael playing the media to make CM Punk’s appearance even more surprising when it does happen. We shall see. Nothing surprises me anymore.

Last year, there were meetings between Dana White and Vince McMahon. DW has never really divulged what those meetings were about. I do know at the time the WWE needed permission to use Brock Lesnar in their 2012 WWE video game and also allow Brock to promote it. Maybe there was an agreement in place to work together when it was convenient to help promote pay-per-views. With economic times being tough in the States, finding another marketing channel to advertise on once in a while is not always a bad thing.

Why would it be so crazy to see CM Punk walk down with Sonnen? It’s really not that big of a deal. We have seen WWE stars at live UFC events in the past. If Mike Goldberg were to mention that CM Punk is walking out with Chael Sonnen, and elude to the fact that he is involved in the WWE’s Royal Rumble on Sunday afternoon, would that be a bad thing? We have seen boxing and the WWE do crossovers. This symbiotic relationship has led to Batista walking out with Manny Pacquiao and HHH accompanying Mayweather to the ring.

On occasion, I don’t think there is anything wrong with having a UFC fighter do an appearance at a WWE event, or seeing a WWE guy walk out with a UFC fighter. Or maybe we see a UFC star like Nick Diaz try his hand at professional boxing or a high profile professional boxer enter the Octagon…oh wait we saw that already…never mind. You get what I mean.

MMA fans quiver when someone compares their sport to professional wrestling. What people forget is that if it wasn’t for professional wrestling, there would be no UFC. Here is something you may not have known. The UFC would have never had season one of the Ultimate Fighter on Spike had it not been for Vince McMahon giving Spike permission to air the show after Monday Night Raw. The rest is history. That is a fact.

That said, the UFC and WWE can work together on occasion and it can be mutually beneficial. I’m not sure what the big deal is. I haven’t been a huge WWE fan since “The Attitude Era” ended but I can understand the buzz that is created when the two organizations do a little crossover. It’s all in good fun. It’s true that Professional wrestling and MMA are apples and oranges but let’s not forget that they do come from the same fruit bowl.

-Corner Man-

Follow Trevor Dueck on Twitter @tdueckmania

At UFC on Fox 2, Chael Sonnen will be taking on a very determined Mark Munoz, but that hasn’t stopped him from letting his mouth fly at every fighter possible. In a preview for tonights “Chael’s Corner” which is a part of “UFC Tonight” he states, ”I will be announcing who I’ll be fighting very soon, but I promise you this: If I was GSP or Jon Jones, I’d be swallowing real deep right now.”

With those words being thrown, another light heavyweight was not scared to throw around some bones in Sonnen’s direction. None other than former light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida had this to say via his twitter account,

“Chael Sonnen, I just got out of surgery, but can give you your gift inside the octagon with one arm and only if you accept the fight.”

Sonnen being someone who does not let actions slide had a response rather quickly for Machida…

“I don’t have time for “pee pee” mouth,” Sonnen replied via Twitter. ”All the time I can spare him is enough to cold cock him and walk away.”

Sonnen has made it clear that he hopes to make a move to the light heavyweight division. No time frame on that has been set, but his focus at this point should not be Jones, GSP or Machida, it should be straight on his UFC on Fox 2 opponent Mark Munoz.

Chael Sonnen has been the most entertaining fighter of 2011 even though he has only fought once in 2011. His biggest feud of 2011 was his verbal warfare against Anderson Silva. He has made plenty of verbal jabs at him, but is supposedly over him and has moved on to wanting to face off against either Georges St-Pierre or Jon Jones.

From the sounds of things from the preview video below he will be calling out one of those guys sometime soon. ]

“UFC Tonight” which is hosted by Kenny Florian will air every Tuesday at 7pm PT/ 10pm ET on FUEL TV.

It was back in November when the MMA world had a hay day on Canada’s own Michael Lansberg when Chael Sonnen got up and left the set of ‘Off The Record’. Well it looks like Sonnen might have forgiven Lansberg and given him a second chance. Today TSN.ca released a sneak peak at the interview which will air in its entirety today (Dec.23) at 2pm PT/5pm ET.

“I’m done with the guy. He and I have no business. This guy is cold product, man, he’s like jerry curls and Pepsi clear. He’s yesterday’s news. I destroyed this guy back when he was tough. That was years ago. He’s so far over the hill and past his prime, it’s not worth talking about. I’m going to become the number one contender on Jan. 28. But despite what you may think, I’m not going to use that voucher to fight Anderson Silva. I’ll be looking at (Junior) dos Santos, (Jon) Jones, and possibly (Georges) St. Pierre. But that, I will take that voucher to Dana White and I will pick one of those three guys. My time with Anderson is done.” – Transcription thanks to MMAmania.com

Sonnen states that he is done with Anderson Silva after the people at TSN sent him a life size cut out of the middleweight champion. Whether or not he really wants to fight the champ, he has to first get past Mark Munoz at UFC on Fox 2 on Jan. 28 in Chicago, Illinois. If that happens then he will officially be next in line for the title, which Sonnen already believes is his.

Related Posts:

• Chael Sonnen Had Enough and Storms off Set of ‘Off the Record’

Yesterday via Dan Henderson’s twitter account he shared his thoughts regarding the #1 contender status in the middleweight division of the UFC. Michael Bisping who won his main event fight against Jason “Mayhem” Miller last Saturday at the TUF 14 Finale, believed a win would put him in line for a title shot. He, however, following the fight believed he needed to do more to deserve a title shot. Hendo believes that if Bisping were to get the immediate title shot that Silva’s injuries would “heal real fast”.

Henderson who is now riding a four fight winning streak is looking to get a crack at Jon Jones’ Light Heavyweight belt. He has stated in plenty of interviews that he would much rather stay in the light heavyweight division. Dana White, however, has stated that Henderson would be able to fight for a title at both middleweight and light heavyweight if given the chance.

This Saturday evening at the TUF 14 finale, Michael Bisping will throw down with Jason “Mayhem” Miller in the main event. Bisping believes that a win over “Mayhem” will push him into title contention, as he is riding a three fight winning streak.

Bisping and Miller were the coaches on the most recent season of The Ultimate Fighter and will duke it out in the finale.  MMA30.com spoke with a bunch of UFC fighters to see who they thought would win between the two, but before they asked that question, they wanted to find out who was the better trash talker, Chael Sonnen or Jason “Mayhem” Miller.

What do you all think? Sonnen or Mayhem?

It is expected to be announced in the next few days that Mark Munoz will face off against Chael Sonnen for the number one contender status in the middleweight division. This fight is expected to headline the UFC on Fox 2 card on Jan. 28 at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.

In an interview with csnwashington.com Munoz recalled a “wrestling duo” during his years at Oklahoma State University.

(Chael Sonnen and I) competed in college together. He wrestled at Oregon; I wrestled at Oklahoma State. We end up dueling, which is just a one-team duel, a one-team competition between two schools. So, I end up matching up with him at 184 pounds. We end up going at it and I end up beating him pretty handily. But, in that fight, he tried to submit me in a kneebar and then changed it into a heel hook. Not a legal move in wrestling. He tried doing that to me, and I felt my ankle pop and was like ‘aaaahhh,’ and I knew that he did it so that he could try to come back. I was actually beating him pretty handily and got upset during that match and was just ruthless in that fight afterwards.