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UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen II Thread


The Natural

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he's doing a WWE style thing and we are trying to legitamize the sport and he's carrying on like Billy Graham?

 

How is creating an interest in a fight a bad thing? And how does it take legitimacy away? Combat sports have always had their fair share of colourful characters and if Dana and Co. thought that Sonnen's wrestling style promos and general bullshit were bad for business, they wouldn't be pushing this whole thing as hard as they are.

 

In truth, the Shit that Sonnen spouts (and probably doesn't believe 99% of it) will see this as one of the biggest shows ever in terms of buys, and get more people interested in the sport on a whole based on the coverage it will get.

 

Good for business I say.

 

I'm with Silky Kisser. I'm a casual UFC fan in the extreme - the last thing I watched was the Lesnar-Overeem show - but I want to see this one because of Sonnen carrying on like Billy Graham. I'm not fussed about the legitimate sporting contest, I want to see the culmination of the, for lack of a better term, Sonnen-Silva angle.

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Facts prove the above to be true. UFC PPV's have had a spike in business when they have featured fights with Pro Wrestling like feuds. From Ortiz/Shamrock, Rampage/Rashad, Lesnar/Mir and now Sonnen/Silva.

 

A lot of Casual/Pro Wrestling fans plunk down there money exclusively for these. They will not care about say Aldo vs Mendes, like the hardcore fans like my good self do.

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HarmonicGenerator is pretty much the audience UFC have to go after. The 'mainstream' want stars and big personalities, not "this bloke is good, and so is this one. LIVE ON PAY-PER-VIEW!". If it wasn't for smack talk, UFC would be dead anyway (see Shamrock/Ortiz). It's no coincidence that their last 1+M PPV had Rampage/Evans as it's main event, a feud that featured both men talking trash for months.

 

What will hurt MMA is if they fail to make stars, or the fighters fail to realise they need to make themselves a bit larger than life.

 

Sonnen has done the majority of work selling this fight, by doing 'pro-wrestling'.

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HarmonicGenerator is pretty much the audience UFC have to go after. The 'mainstream' want stars and big personalities, not "this bloke is good, and so is this one. LIVE ON PAY-PER-VIEW!". If it wasn't for smack talk, UFC would be dead anyway (see Shamrock/Ortiz). It's no coincidence that their last 1+M PPV had Rampage/Evans as it's main event, a feud that featured both men talking trash for months.

 

What will hurt MMA is if they fail to make stars, or the fighters fail to realise they need to make themselves a bit larger than life.

 

Sonnen has done the majority of work selling this fight, by doing 'pro-wrestling'.

Sorry to be petty, but Lesnar vs Carwin and Lesnar vs Cain after that drew over the Million mark. GSP vs Shields also did. I agree with your basic point though, the GSP show drew because it was a stacked card with GSP, Couture and Aldo on it, that is the only other way other than a feud that UFC draws those big numbers by stacking the card which is hard to do these days due to the amount of PPV's they put out.

 

The two Lesnar fights drew because of Brocky boy, he was making the casual fans plunk down their cash and the hardcores were still paying to see him get beat, every fight with his was full of his trash talk towards his oppenents and a big fight atmosphere not seen since Mike Tyson in the 90's. As said above it is all about stars, Nick Diaz and Jon Jones have proved the past year to be two new stars who the UFC can depend on at the Box Office, when you mix stars with feuds you are on to a winner with PPV buys.

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Chael Sonnen is the reason I got interested in MMA/UFC after plenty of attempts from friends to convince me it was interesting. The thing about it is, it can be an incredibly exciting spectacle, but it can also be boring as fuck. I realise you can apply this argument to many sports, not least football, but take Saturday night for example. I woke up late in the day and could easily have stayed up til 6am to watch Jones/Rashad but at about 2am I thought, fuck it, it could be over in five seconds or could be 25 minutes of two dudes hugging.

 

Sonnen goes beyond that. He makes me give a shit about the fight. That's what a fight should be, no matter the format. He's a conman? No fucking shit. He's a worker? Duh. It's brilliant. He's amazing. Long may it last. The fact that he actually pisses off morons like Snake Plissken makes it all the sweeter. He might get his head kicked in by Silva in five seconds, but he'll always have a place in my heart.

 

WAR SONNEN.

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On the opposite end of the scale, I hate Sonnen and think he's a proper dickhead. That's not solely because of the trash talk, it's more down to his politics and the real estate money laundering, but the trash talk reminds me that I hate him, and makes me want to watch so I can see Silva hilariously beat him again. That's a win for UFC. I've been missing tons of UFC lately, but there's not a chance I'd ever miss this one.

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UFC 148: Silva/Sonnen II is going to bring a lot of money in for the reasons already given (rematch of one of the greatest UFC fights ever, wondering how the fight goes down this time, those who like/don't like Chael Sonnen, the promotion of the fight and casuals/hardcore fans interest in the fight).

 

Urijah Faber vs. Dominick Cruz I from WEC 26 and Dominick Cruz vs. Urijah Faber II from UFC 132 are still free to view on the UFC's website:

 

http://www.ufc.tv/ufc/video/urijah-faber-v...ruz-wec-26/1357

http://www.ufc.tv/ufc/video/dominick-cruz-...er-ufc-132/1358

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i seriously can't believe anyone who has a remote interest in MMA has any objections to the way Chael Sonnen sells a fight.

It's like what Piper said, people weren't buying it just to see Hulk Hogan, they were buying it to see Hogan kick Piper's ass. A buy is a buy.

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I don't think it's a case of people 'getting' or 'not getting' Sonnen. His gimmick is hardly multi-layered & cerebral. I think a lot of people, myself included found it to be amusing & a breath of fresh air at first but then his schtick quickly became tiresome. Like chuckling at a 'Little Britain' sketch on initial viewing only for the same gag to be repeated for 3 series he's a caricature of himself now. That said, I'm sure there's plenty of people who found 'Little Britain' hilarious right up to the end & still piss themselves at the repeats.

 

These days I cringe every time I see a post saying 'ZOMG! Guess what Sonnen's said now? HILARIOUS'

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Dana's been talking about the security measures they had to take just to get Chael into Brazil for the press conference

 

295256_10150696424333379_514178378_9436129_336036460_n_large.jpg

 

"With the stuff he said and everything else, we made sure we had proper security. We had seven guys with us who do this for a living. We mapped out the whole route. We literally landed at the airport in Rio, went through customers, then jumped on helicopters that took us right through to the hotel. I came in the front door and we put him through the side door, had him in a holding room.

 

"You know those disguises with the mustaches and the glasses you get at a joke shop? He had one of those on and he said

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