Thank You Chael

After Chael Sonnen lost to Anderson Silva at UFC 117 last week fellow Middleweight Michael Bisping got on Twitter and made this comment, ""I'm gonna beat akiyama then beat sonnen, he can't do that to me. come on you salesman!!!! you can't hold me down f-g!"  To which Chael replied, "If Michael Bisping ever addresses me in public comment again, I will bury him where he stands."

This will go down as one of the best lines in sports history and will be part of my lexicon for years to come.  Just this week I have told at least a dozen people that I will bury them where they stand for a number of different reasons and it never gets old and always gets a great reaction.

Thank you Chael Sonnen.  Thank you for that beautiful line.  But not just that.  Thank you for being entertaining and not just another boring fighter that says the same things over and over again.  Thank you for not touching gloves with Silva at the start of the fight (I hate when guys talk trash in the lead up to a fight and then touch gloves before the bell rings, so lame).

Chael Sonnen is what I want the UFC to become, sports entertainment.  Growing up I was a huge wrestling fan and would watch every WWF pay per view and every episode of RAW.  As I got older I learned it was fake and become less and less interested in it as it was just acting and then choreographed fight scenes.  I liked the interviews and stuff because they were hilarious but the actual wrestling I could care less about.

Enter MMA and the UFC.  The UFC had the actual fighting but lacked in the entertainment side.  Guys would say the same things over and over again before fights and after fights.  

"I think opponent X is a great fighter so I'm gonna have to give it my all to win."  

"I think I am more well rounded and have more experience.  I want this fight more than him."

Boring.  Imagine Chael Sonnen had acted like that in the lead up to his fight with Anderson?  Would fans have cared even 1/4 as much?  When the fight was first announced I brushed it off as another easy win for Silva and didn't give Sonnen a chance in hell.

Then he opened his mouth.  The stuff this guy said before the fight made me think 1 of 2 things.  Either he is 1) the most confident person on the planet and might actually kill Anderson or 2) he is just trying to promote the fight and get fans interested.  Either way I was loving it.  

Chael Sonnen made me care about that fight more than I have cared about any other fight in UFC history. I went from apathetic to emotionally involved after his first interview in which he claimed the fight was going to be a one-sided pounding and he was swinging the hammer.  It brought me back to my WWF days except this time the interviews were real and the end result was going to be an actual fight instead of a choreographed dance.

Now Chael is going after Bisping and creating more interest and drama.  Now I wanna hear what these guys are going to say to one another even though they aren't going to fight anytime soon and all it took was Bisping calling Chael a f-g and Chael telling him he would bury him where he stood.

Chael isn't the first guy in the UFC to talk smack and he certainly won't be the last as it seems to becoming more common to talk trash before a fight and really disrespect your opponent.  The next season of the Ultimate Fighter hasn't even aired yet and already there are reports that Josh Koscheck's constant chirping really got to GSP.  Will that drive up interest in the fight?  Of course.  Koscheck knows how to promote fights just like Chaek.

Who could forget the when Koscheck fought Paul Daley and talked so much smack to him before and during the fight that Daley took a swing at him after the fight was over?  Daley wasn't innocent in the whole affair however as before the fight he held a contest on his website encouraging fans to photoshop pictures of Koscheck and he even gave the winning picture to Koscheck at the weigh-ins.

One of my favorite trash talking moments in UFC history occurred in the Countdown video for the Kenny Florian BJ Penn fight that took place at UFC 101.  Florian is mid interview and makes exclaims, "I am better on my feet than he is, I am better on the ground then he is and I have the ability to stop him, I might even beat him in the 1st round."  Then it cuts to BJ who looks furious and ask, "did he really say that shit?!"  Classic.

Going forward in the UFC I think more and more fighters are going to adopt Chael Sonnen's strategy for promoting fights.  Talk trash to get people interested.  I for one am on board.  The more the UFC becomes like the WWF the better.

And if one more person talks trash and then touches gloves with their opponent before the bell I will bury them where they stand.

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