(Reposted as part of the WKR: Year in Review Series, originally written February 8th, 2010) Despite being a heavy favorite and most people considered him the best middleweight in the UFC outside of Silva and Belfort the UFC was probably ecstatic that Nate Marquardt lost to Chael Sonnen.  Chael Sonnen lacks great power, lacks strong submission skills, but if Anderson Silva beats Vitor Belfort the UFC will have reached euphoria.  If you have been paying attention at all in the past few months you know why.  Chael has made himself relevant due to the fact his mouth never closes and most of the time it is open he is sending verbal attacks toward Anderson Silva.  Chael Sonnen will be the perfect heal in selling a championship fight against Anderson Silva.

I know MMA fans hate pro wrestling comparisons, but with both sports there are two ways to become popular: in the ring (cage) or on the mic and Chael has blossomed to the man on the mic.  We as true fans should not be tricked by the magician on the microphone, but we are time and time again.  When fighters hate each other and spend the pre fight interviews attacking each other it gets us revved up even more.  Serra/Hughes, Trigg/Serra, Serra/Anyone, and we get excited, but in reality it does nothing to change what will happen in the cage.  When the referee throws his hand down to start the fight we are presented with two athletes who ultimate goal is to physically dominate each other.  If they like or hate each other we are going to see the same performance in the fight.  It is the match-up and not the rhetoric that should sell a fight, but we all know that is not always the case.  Do not get me wrong, Chael Sonnen is very good fighter, who has mastered an effective strategy, but I think a title fight against Silva is a bad match-up for him.  Five rounds is long time for a fighter who does not finish fights against a fighter that finishes them.  In three rounds of a beatdown, Chael still almost lost three times during the fight.  Ten more minutes against a much better fighter is probably not a good match-up.  Despite what he said, a fight against Vitor Belfort, who is not a strong finisher from the bottom, is a better match-up.

I digress though.  Below I have provided the reason the UFC cannot wait for a Chael Sonnen vs. Anderson Silva fight.  Remember, these are not all of Chael's quotes in the past few months, but simply the comments about Anderson.  This is all before he is even scheduled to fight Silva.  We will definitely need to be listening if this fight develops.  Enjoy the past and prepare for the future.

Quotes are pulled from MMA Weekly, Cage Writer, USA Today, Yahoo.

SBN coverage of UFC 109: Relentless

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UFC 124 is scheduled for Saturday, December 11th LIVE from Toronto Montreal. The main event is the long awaited rematch between Josh Koscheck and the UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre. This is one of the bigger main events of the year despite the belief of many in the media that the outcome is all but certain. There's a lot of buzz for the main event, but is the card really worth the 44.95 we're expected to shell out. Let's find out.

Thiago Alves vs John Howard - Will Thiago make weight? Assuming he does, he is coming off a loss to Jon Fitch. Meanwhile, "Doomsday" John Howard is coming off a swollen eye loss to Jake Ellenberger. Thiago Alves puts on good fights (when he makes weight and when he's not against wrestlers), so there should be some excitement in this. Howard is no chump either and even in losing has been exciting. This fight is, for all intents and purposes, a mismatch to rehab Alves who has not won in two years. Personally, I don't see the upside in an Alves win. He beats Howard, then a) that hurts Howard who has potential in the division and with Dana White running around with scissors, could get him cut and b) it does nothing for Alves who is currently ranked in the top 5 by most rankings while Howard isn't in the top 25 at WW. A Howard win build up Howard and gives the UFC justification to either cut Alves or force him to move to Middleweight. As for the fight, It's worth about $3.25 for the excitement possibility. 

Mac Danzig vs Joe Stevenson - I love this fight. Why? Because Mac Danzig will probably lose. Why is that important? I'm not a fan of Mac Danzig. Before you start your whining, that's no different from people wanting to see Koscheck lose. I can't support a man who doesn't eat meat. Like Omar Little said "You are not a man today". Both of these men are at a low in their careers, both have sub-.500 records in their last 6 fights. The loser of the fight will probably be cut. Therefore, it SHOULD be an exciting fight. Actually, I'm wrong, it should be a boring fight as both fighters will be super-cautious to not lose. Joe Daddy does train with Greg Jackson, but the flipside to that is he's had 3 FOTN awards in his last 4 fights. However, having your job be potentially on the line is a different thing. As the loser with a sub-.500 record, you aren't guaranteed to keep your job, even if you have an exciting fight. If Stevenson loses, it's 4 losses out of his last 6 and if Danzig loses, it's 5 out of his last 6. I expect a tentative fight and tentative usually equals boring. This fight also has no bearing on the immediate or even near lightweight future as both fighters are years away from title contention. $1.75 is what it's worth. 

Top 3 fights after the jump

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You know how it is in Black churches. You have the long morning service and then you go home and eat and then come back for another long evening service. So I have some whole new confessions for y'all. First the results.

Preliminary Card

Catchweight (130 lbs) bout: Josh Epps vs. J.W. Wright

Wright defeated Epps via submission (guillotine choke) at 1:29 of round 1.

Middleweight bout: Booker DeRousse vs. Coltin Cole

DeRousse defeated Cole via TKO (strikes) at 3:04 of round 2.

Light Heavyweight bout: Lee Brousseau vs. Mike Glenn

Glenn defeated Brousseau via TKO (strikes) at 2:00 of round 1.

Lightweight bout: Tom Aaron vs. Matt Ricehouse

Ricehouse defeated Aaron via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 29-28).

Middleweight bout: Lucas Lopes vs. Cortez Coleman

Coleman defeated Lopes via submission (guillotine choke) at 2:04 of round 1.

Light Heavyweight bout: Terrell Brown vs. Patrick Cummins

Cummins defeated Brown via TKO (strikes) at 2:44 of round 1.

Lightweight bout: Justin Lawrence vs. Max Martytniouk

Lawrence defeated Martytniouk via technical unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27). The fight was stopped in round

3 due to an accidental soccer kick by Lawrence.

Welterweight bout: Fernando Bettega vs. Wayne Phillips

Phillips defeated Bettega via split decision (29-28, 29-28, 28-29).

Main Card

Light Heavyweight bout: Benji Radach vs. Ovince St. Preux

St. Preux defeated Radach via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-26, 30-25).

Heavyweight bout: Antonio Silva vs Mike Kyle

Silva defeated Kyle via TKO (punches) at 2:49 of round 2.

Middleweight bout: Robbie Lawler vs. Matt Lindland

Lawler defeated Lindland via KO (punches) at 0:50 of round 1.

Welterweight bout: Paul Daley vs. Scott Smith

Daley defeated Smith via KO (punch) at 2:09 of round 1.

Light Heavyweight bout: Dan Henderson vs. Renato Sobral

Henderson defeated Sobral via KO (Punches) at 1:53 of round 1

Confessions after the break

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Every Sunday morning after a major MMA event, we give our confessions. This Sunday morning, we have twice the amount of things to confess. First the UFC full results.

Preliminary card

Middleweight bout: Rich Attonito vs. Dave Branch

Branch defeated Attonito via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Featherweight bout: Fredson Paixão vs. Pablo Garza

Garza defeated Paixão via KO (knee) at 0:51 of round 1.

Catchweight (138 lb) bout: Will Campuzano vs Nick Pace

Pace defeated Campuzano via submission (modified guillotine/triangle choke) at 4:32 of round 3.

Lightweight bout: Sako Chivitchian vs. Kyle Watson

Watson defeated Chivitchian via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28).

Featherweight bout: Tyler Toner vs. Ian Loveland

Loveland defeated Toner via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-26, 29-28).

Lightweight bout: Cody McKenzie vs. Aaron Wilkinson

McKenzie defeated Wilkinson via submission (guillotine choke) at 2:03 of round 1. This bout aired on the Spike

Main card

Featherweight bout: Nam Phan vs. Leonard Garcia

Garcia defeated Phan via split decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28).

Welterweight bout: Johny Hendricks vs. Rick Story

Story defeated Hendricks via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).

Middleweight bout: Demian Maia vs. Kendall Grove

Maia defeated Grove via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).

Light Heavyweight bout: Stephan Bonnar vs. Igor Pokrajac

Bonnar defeated Pokrajac via unanimous decision (29-26, 29-26, 29-26).

Lightweight bout: Jonathan Brookins vs. Michael Johnson

Brookins defeated Johnson via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-27) to become the Season 12 Lightweight winner of The Ultimate Fighter.

Confessions after the break

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• Do you see that black dot to my left? We learned Chael Sonnen's balls are actually that big. I mean should I really get into Chael Sonnen jokes now? Because now I've got a lot of them. Real talk, he shoulda just took the year like Weebay. 
• Dave Meltzer is rude. I mean dude was wearing a hat the whole time. 
• Chael Sonnen's doctor. He's the star of the show. He shows up smacking gum in a faded t-shirt and doesn't know shit. He looked like former WWF star "The Red Rooster" Terry Taylor. 
• Chael Sonnen's case had major holes in it. He claims to have never gone through puberty, but then he was only diagnosed with low testosterone 2 years ago.  That makes no sense. 
• Chael stated under oath that he informed Dr. Keith Kizer of the NSAC and that Kizer told him "don't bring this up". Mind you, I've had several conversations with Kizer, as well as Bix at Cageside Seats, this just isn't true. As a matter of fact, I contacted Kizer during this and let him know what was going on and was told "I have never spoken to Chael Sonnen." 
• Chael stated that he was too ashamed to talk about his condition around the other fighters. Didn't he say that he was the toughest man in the room and that if he wanted to hear country and Anderson wanted rap that you better believe country was being played. But now he's too shy? C'mon son.
• Sonnen's quack doctor gets up there and says that he had no idea that drug use could cause low testosterone. The commission was trying to hint at Sonnen being a possible former user of steroids whose natural levels have been depleted. How do you treat people for this and not be aware? 
• These SOBs had the audacity to threaten, in their low-key way, that they would appeal this up as high as possible under the Americans with Disabilities Act?? Are they out of their fucking minds? That's a disgrace to those Americans that are actually disabled. That's like those fat people that try to get handicapped stickers so they don't have to walk far at grocery stores. 
• I loved how Sonnen placed the blame on everyone from Matt Lindland to Keith Kizer to the old head of the CSAC basically alluding that they might have lost his paperwork.
• Dana White's name was brought up in a hilarious fashion. One of the board members was like "Who is Dana White?" and the response from Chael was "He's...uh, high capacity, huh UFC guy". 
• Back to Chael's incompetent doctor, he seemed like the guy every Black person in Compton goes to for their weed card. Dude didn't know any of the procedures for evaluating patients for TRT or anything.
• Some of the comments about the female commission member kinda threw me. MMA fans still have some latent sexism issues. 
• Uh, that's about it, all I have left are Chael Sonnen jokes and I don't want to be mean. I'll be back tomorrow to look at the media and how they covered it and if my predictions were correct. 

Initial reporting on the sales figures of EA Sports MMA was bad to say the least.

The money quote that was passed around the MMA-verse called the game "DOA" (for those who have never watched an episode of ER that means "dead on arrival"). While the doom and gloom was pretty stark next week Electronic Arts has an earnings report and sales figures will most likely be released. 

For video game watchers the big story will be whether or not Medal of Honor overcame poor reviews, poor design and one minor Taliban controversy to still sell well but for us in the MMA business the sales numbers will provide a big clue whether or not EA will try to stay in the MMA market.

The benefits of an UFC-WEC merger have been discussed ad nausem so we won't rehash them here except to say that two of the roadblocks that impeded the merger --the Versus and Spike television contracts and limited card space to take on two new divisions-- appear to have been overcome

That being said one topic that desperately needs reporting is how Versus' broadcast extension with the WEC was overcome in this merger. I suspect that once Zuffa, Spike and Versus came to an earlier agreement to show UFC programming on Versus without offending Spike's "exclusive" status it was only a matter of time before the merger became final.

Available card space will still be an issue as the WEC ran eight events a year and the new arrangement adds only two events on the back end (four if you count the two earlier UFC events on Versus that were previously negotiated). Some WEC lightweight fighters will be lost in the shuffle and some UFC lightweights can now become featherweights without the fear of a cut in salary. But a healthy equilibrium will be established in short order.

One question that jumped out was whether or not World Extreme Cagefighting was a success? I put the question out on Twitter and the immediate feedback from fans was an emphatic, "YES!"

The promotion did an excellent job of blocking rival promotions from obtaining a deal with Versus so in that sense it was a success. It also consistently put on great events with memorable fights. On the other hand it should be noted that the WEC ultimately failed to become a viable promotion. The ratings consistently dropped over the last eighteen months and none of the fighters could generate interest without major UFC cross promotion.

I suspect that the WEC will ultimately be known as MMA's Dreamcast: simultaneously loved and innovative while commercially unsustainable.

In Brock Lesnar's seventh MMA bout, he lost his second.  He lost to an undefeated Cain Velasquez that put on an amazing performance.  I'm of the opinion that the stoppage was quick - if rolling away from an opponent to avoid punches while simultaneously blocking with one arm and attempting to create distance to the other, I don't know what is.  I thought Cain was given an early stoppage against Rothwell, too - the man was being brutalized but literally stood up to his feet as Maz came in to waive Cain off - but that's not what I'm choosing to focus on here.  Brock is now 5-2, and Cain Velasquez is the #1 heavyweight in the world.

I'm watching the Chicago-Washington game right now, and Jay Cutler is being Jay Cutler.  He's talented, young and has a cannon for an arm, but he makes stupid decisions all the time and has been throwing picks left and right.  It's been like that for the extent of his NFL career, and yet fans haven't said that he's done or he'll never learn or he'll never get better.  Why?  Because it's an insanely asinine and stupid thing to do.

Fighters evolve.  Given physical tools and the desire to improve, athletes have shown the capacity to learn new skills, address previous weaknesses and excel anew.  Randy Couture was buried after his second loss to Chuck Liddell, only to come back and recapture the heavyweight belt (and even defend it as an underdog to Gonzaga).  Brock Lesnar has definitively shown that he has both the attributes necessary to compete in the highest levels of MMA and the desire necessary to utilize them - remember that this is a man that isn't fighting to feed his kids or pay alimony.  Lesnar has all the money in the world if he wants to hang up his gloves and not get punched in the face anymore.  He does this because he enjoys it.  He'll continue to do this because he enjoys it.

This was the first camp Brock had trained with a boxing coach.  Read that again.  He came right at Cain as soon as the fight began, at no point exhibiting the kind of response to punches (and, more importantly, the prospect of being punched) that he showed against Carwin.  He landed some punches, stayed in the pocket until wobbled, scored a takedown and recovered from a takedown.  Cain Velasquez is a fucking monster and he beat Brock Lesnar last night.  That is the extent of what we know.  Everything else - Brock's heart, Junior's chances - is speculation.  I think speculating that Brock Lesnar is a pussy is much more reflective of those leveling the charge than it is of Brock Lesnar.

One loss does not a career define.  Brock is now 5-2, with wins over two UFC HW champions (three if you could Carwin's interim belt) and losses to two UFC HW champions.  Bury his future at heavyweight at your own peril.