You Mad? - A Recap of this Week’s Beefs, Twitter Beefs, Squabbles, Rants, Wars of Words and Other Assorted Drama in MMA

Happy Monday, people! I hope you all had a lovely weekend even though the UFC was off. There were plenty of other fights to watch (and boxing!) so I'm sure you got through it somehow. I don't even want to discuss college football since my formerly undefeated team is now, well, defeated. It was sad.

In further support of my theory about UFC fight weeks being mostly drama-free, this non-UFC fight week had some drama. It was nothing too scandalous this time around, but just enough to give us all something to talk about. Here we go!

Chael Sonnen vs. Anderson Silva: When Chael Sonnen challenged Anderson Silva after Sonnen won his fight against Brian Stann at UFC 136, you certainly didn't expect the interested parties to not talk about it at all this week. Of course they talked, and said a good bit.

First off, we had Anderson Silva's manager, Ed Soares, responding. He basically said that Chael should be in jail, should not get the next title shot, and should just get in line and wait his turn for another fight with Silva. Soares later said that Silva only has about four fights left in his career and since Chael (and Vitor Belfort for that matter) squandered his chance, he shouldn't get one of the remaining fights. He did not, however, discuss who else might be a viable contender that anyone really was interested in watching Silva fight. In an interview with Inside MMA, Soares also said Chael was delusional. Weird.

Back over in Camp Chael, everyone's saying Silva is ducking Chael. Well, Matt Lindland is, at least. He responded directly to Soares's comments:

Haha. Anderson will to find a way to weasel out of that fight. I don't know what his contractual obligations are as far as who he has to fight as a champion but they're already laying the ground work; I mean look at the article that came out this morning on Bloody Elbow.

His manager Ed Soares is already making excuses for Anderson to not take that fight so yeah I think they're going to try to weasel out of it. I don't know what his obligations are contractually to the UFC but his obligations to the fans are that he needs to take that fight.

Every one of the fans know that Chael's the number one contender and the guy that has a chance of beating him, can beat him and exposed his weaknesses in that fight. The fans want to see that fight and Anderson owes the fans that fight.

And, Chael is certainly not keeping quiet on Twitter:

If you're keeping track, this is, of course, in reference to Chael's previous quote about Anderson Silva's "lady" that he made a few weeks back:

"You tell Anderson Silva I'm coming over and I'm kicking down his backdoor and patting his little lady on the ass and I'm telling her to make me a steak, medium-rare just how I like it."

Chael also posted this tweet on Saturday:

More on Chael vs. Anderson and also more drama and Miscellaneous Trash Talk after the jump!

Finally, Chael's manager, Mike Roberts, told MMA Weekly:

“I think there’s no question Chael’s deserving of a rematch with Anderson,” Roberts said. “I mean he pushed him as far as anybody ever pushed him, it was one of the best fights of the year, but the biggest thing is this is the fight the fans want. Dana and everyone are all about giving the fans what they want, and there his no question that this is the fight the fans want to see. People love Chael or they hate him, but they want to see this fight.

"The bottom line is it doesn’t matter what I think and it doesn’t matter what Ed thinks. It matters what Dana (White) thinks. Ed’s not the matchmaker, I’m not the matchmaker, you’re not the matchmaker. Joe Silva and Dana White make the matches,” Roberts commented.

“I don’t think Anderson’s scared of Chael at all. I mean Anderson may be the greatest fighter of all time. Do I think he wants to fight Chael? There’s probably other people he’d rather fight at this point in his career. Chael poses some problems that a lot of these other guys don’t, and we’ll see,” Roberts said.

Roberts also defended his client against the "personal things" that Ed Soares has said about him:

“Ed’s saying some personal things about Chael and I don’t think Ed or I are in a position where it’s good to throw insults at anybody. I think Ed’s a good guy that’s maybe got caught up a little emotionally himself with some of the things Chael has said about Anderson. It’s just better in my opinion if we leave that to the fighters,” Roberts stated.

“Chael is who he is, who am I to stop Chael from being who he is.”

See what I mean? LOTS of talking.

Status: I have not seen a response yet from Silva nor anything more from Sonnen himself but I certainly hope we know more soon. I want this fight to happen.

Wanderlei Silva vs. Cung Le: These two are going to fight at UFC 139 and they're doing a little talking about it back and forth. Well, they and some of their people are doing a little talking. In a video showcasing Silva's training camp that was put out by Wand Fight Team, Silva's coach Rafael Cordeiro said,

"Cung Le can be a predictable guy, we know what to do to match his game. This is a great match for Wanderlei. This fight won't pass blank. Cung Le is going to sleep in this one. In the best way, with brutality. Wanderlei will show everyonw that he belongs on top. We are all united for this, and Cung Le will pay the price."

Poor Cung Le, with Cordeiro saying all those mean things. But, Cung Le kept it classy and responded with this on Twitter:

And, he posted a few other Tweets saying how excited he is for UFC 139. Those were nice.

Status: This was fairly mild trash talk and and didn't amount to much. This is not really a match-up where I expect anything too harsh before the fight, but we'll see.

Andrew Siciliano vs. MMA: I think most MMA fans would respect and understand how someone might not either "get" MMA or care for it. It is a violent and brutal sport that, at first glance, just looks like two people inside a cage trying to kill each other. Of course, just a little further examination will reveal that there are, in fact, rules, strategy, technique and mutual respect between fighters (most of the time). In addition to all that, most fighters who can really make something of a fighting career are extremely well-trained and prepared for the battle they will be facing in the cage. However, even after realizing all that, I still can see how MMA just might not be someone's cup of tea. And, that's all fine because different people have different tastes.

One might also expect a hatred of the sport backed up only by ignorant statements coming from someone who hasn't bothered to learn anything about MMA. However, one might not expect that to come from someone who is an anchor and analyst on a sports channel. Because, wouldn't that make that person sound like he doesn't know what he's talking about and like he's just really arrogant? Hint: The answer is "Yes".

Apparently, NFL Red Zone's Andrew Siciliano was just that sports guy who thought it was a good idea to bash MMA in an interview with Caged Insider. It all started off OK with them bringing up that he has been a long-time hater of MMA, which is fine, so I would expect a coherent argument against the sport since he's been thinking about it for so long. And, I wouldn't get it. Instead, Siciliano goes on to say that only "top level" MMA fighters are great athletes and that despite him expressing how much he hates MMA, he encourages everyone to order the Pay-Per-Views because he works for DirecTV. He continues on to call MMA "garbage" and the reason why is that it's "a bar fight". Siciliano also brags about how he didn't know who fought the past weekend and couldn't recognize any of the names and faces if asked. He says he's proud of this. Siciliano says he realizes that boxing is bad because it's boring right now and because Floyd Mayweather is a criminal, but still thinks boxing is better than MMA because in MMA someone can "choke a dude, put a knee in his larynx and punch the side of his face until he yells 'Please. Stop.'". He says this makes it a bar fight. He also says "bar fight", 108 more times.

When asked about why boxing is different and also OK, Siciliano says it's because in boxing "If I knock you down, it's over". He then brings up the fact that MMA is fought in a cage and makes his point by saying, "What else do you want me to say?". And, he brings up gladiators in Rome.

Status: Ugh. This was so lame. I would NOT want to have a beer and discuss sports with this guy, which is a shame since he is a sports guy!

Miscellaneous Trash Talk

Chael Sonnen:

Boy, I don't know where you are from, but you need to go back the way you came. I'm the wrong guy and I'm only gonna tell you this once...

Lorenzo Fertitta:

If you have been stolen from boxing again tonight save your money for UFC! Wow!

Boxing keeps stealing from us

Joe Rogan (while watching "Bully Beatdown"):

There ain't no ass whipping quite like the ass whipping a trained woman fighter can give to an untrained woman

Jason Miller*:

good. We fight in a cage. I'm gonna puppetfuck him

In response to a tweet from a "fan":

you know your name doesn't even belong in the same ring as @bisping. Your a ratings whore for the UFC

Michael Bisping:

listen! We Team Bisping may of lost some battles, but we havnt lost the war!

just finished my run, off to do jujitsu/wrestling then MMA sparring tonight. Feeling good, could fight this weekend and smash that fool.

Photo via images.mirror.co.uk