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By: Jason Amadi, MMATorch Columnist
Brent writes: Do you really think Sonnen has gotten into Anderson's head? He's never let anybody do it before, why start now? On the other hand, Sonnen is a completely different monster on a mic than anyone else. Or do u think that Anderson is also hyping this fight? Seeing this as his last huge payday unless he moves to 205 and fights Jones?
A: I feel like people are looking way too deeply into Anderson Silva's conference call blow up. The truth is that Anderson Silva doesn't like Chael Sonnen; but so what? What does that really change? He didn't like him in their first meeting and he still fought like professional. He didn't like Vitor Belfort or Yushin Okami either, but he didn't fight with anymore emotion in those fights than he usually does.
As far as huge paydays for Anderson Silva go, he's making tons of money regardless of who he fights at this point. Silva isn't the kind of draw in North America where his presence alone means a ton of pay-per-view buys, but with the right opponent he can draw with the best of them.
Sure, if Anderson Silva gets matched up with a guy like Mark Munoz, yeah, it's probably not going to draw a ton of interest. But if he were to square off against a guy people care more about like Michael Bisping or someone who people might perceive to be his striking equal like Hector Lombard or Vitor Belfort (again), we're probably looking at big numbers.
Joel writes: My question is about something that will probably never happen, but bare with me for the sake of the question. Since no one watches or cares about TUF anymore I would love to see them do another come back season, with maybe heavyweights ( since causal fans love the big boys) and then get maybe Tim Sylvia, Arlovski, perhaps Todd Duffee. Anyway my question is who else would you put in that season and finally who would win?
A: For reasons I stated in my column earlier this week, I don't necessarily buy into the idea that interest in the Ultimate Fighter has just bottomed out all of a sudden. If you look at the UFC's numbers on FX, all of the Friday programming is significantly down from where it was on Spike last year, but the Saturday night prelims are on still on par.
But assuming that the season of TUF you hypothesized was actually put together, I'm not sure who else you could put in. There is a reason that you don't see a lot of heavyweight or light heavyweight seasons of the Ultimate Fighter; there really aren't many good fighters at those weights who aren't already signed to exclusive deals.
Really, outside of a guy like Bobby Lashley, who's seriously fallen off at this point, there aren't too many other name heavyweights to bring in. I think a season with Sylvia, Arlovski, Todd Duffee and Bobby Lashley would drum up a lot of interest and perhaps it could be a step up from some of the sloppy C-level action we've seen on recent seasons of TUF. Then again, considering the guys we're talking about, probably not.
Oliver writes: In light of the recent signing of Marcus Aurelio by Bellator, what is your opinion on how well the capoeira style he uses fits with MMA and how successful can a capoeira fighter be in this sport?
A: Capoeira, much like every other martial art, has its place in MMA. People get it into their minds that practitioners of "non-traditional" MMA styles like taekwondo, capoeira or even karate are just going to enter the ring or cage and fight like it's 1993, but that usually isn't the case. Everyone has to train boxing, muay thai, wrestling and jiu jitsu to be successful in MMA, but other disciplines like capoeira definitely have their place as well.
Capoeiristas have fast, unorthodox kicks. We saw Edson Barboza score what's probably going to go down as the year's best knockout with a spinning wheel kick; that's a bread and butter technique of capoeiristas all over the world.
In addition to a lethal kicking game, capoeristas also have really tricky footwork. If fighters supplement their capoeira game with the other disciplines like boxing, muay thai and wrestling there's no reason they can't be successful in MMA.
From what I've seen of him, Marcus Aurelio is a really talented fighter and probably shouldn't have much trouble finding success in Bellator. He's a dynamic striker with serious knockout power in his kicks and can keep more conventional fighters off balance with his footwork.
The only problem is that he's knocked out so many of his opponents early that we really haven't seen what his cardio looks like later on in a fight against a really good opponent. He went three rounds with Ken Tran before submitting him (which is a good sign) but in Bellator he'll be up against a much higher caliber of competition. If he has the conditioning to work his style in the third round of a tough fight, then he may be a forced to be reckoned with for years to come.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter @Jason Amadi and direct your "Ask the Torch" questions to mmatorch@gmail.com
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