Oregon’s Chael Sonnen, Team Quest Mixed Martial Arts superstar, will fight in the co-main event of “UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship] On Fox” on Saturday, January 28, broadcast from Chicago by Fox at 5 pm. PST.Sonnen, generally regarded as the number one contender for the UFC’s Middleweight (185-pound) crown, will take on England’s Michael Bisping. The winner is expected to get a shot at Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva of Brazil.
The Fox broadcast of the UFC competition involving Chael Sonnen is only the second nationwide broadcast of an MMA bout on a major television network. The first was for the UFC Heavyweight Championship, in which Junior Dos Santos of Brazil defeated then-champion, Cain Velasquez of the U.S. Sonnen will be fighting before a Fox television audience of millions.
The colorful Sonnen, from West Lynn, OR, who is sometimes referred to as the “Quotable Chael Sonnen,” predicted at a pre-fight press conference in Chicago that he would not only defeat Bisping, but that he would go on to take away the title of Anderson Silva if Sonnen gets his longed-for second opportunity to fight Silva.
In his first fight with Silva, who has never been defeated and is often cited as the best fighter “pound-for-pound” in the world, Sonnen dominated Silva every minute of every round—until the last 30 seconds of the fifth and last round. Then, Silva, although appearing totally beaten up and defeated, managed to apply a Brazilian “triangle choke hold” that caused Sonnen to tap out just before passing out. Until that moment, the last seconds of the last round, every judge had given every round to Sonnen.
Sonnen has since then publicly called out Silva repeatedly to engage in a rematch. Sonnen vows he will take inflict Silva’s first loss on him, and take the Brazilian’s title. It is universally agreed that the toughest fight Silva has ever had was his first fight with Sonnen.
Now an MMA superstar, Sonnen, a wrestling team All American when he was at the University of Oregon, still resides in his home town of West Lynn, where he coaches kids in the “All Phase Wrestling Club” which is associated with West Lynn High School.
Sonnen, himself, rose to MMA stardom through his training at the now world famous Team Quest training center in Portland (Grisham), which has produced many MMA internationally known stars. Sonnen will enter the famed UFC Octagon on the Fox broadcast as a member of Team Quest.
Matt Lindland, Oregon native, MMA legend, certified MMA superstar, Oregon’s Olympic Silver Medalist (Greco Roman wrestling), Team Quest founder, coach, and fighter, said of Sonnen:
“Chael has trained with Team Quest since we began. This is an important fight for Chael. This is the equivalent of the semi-finals of the world championships. When he gets past Michael Bisping, which I am certain he will this Saturday night, Chael will move on to the world championship.”
MMA was once condemned and in some states barred as too violent. It has had a long hard road to recognition as a sport on an equal plane with other professional sports, even though so many of the competitors are college graduates who were All American wrestlers in college.
That long-sought acceptance was achieved with the signing of a contract between UFC and Fox for MMA event broadcasts on a par with baseball, football, or other professional sports. In short, the Fox decision to broadcast UFC MMA has the effect of legitimizing it and recognizing MMA for what it is, the fastest growing sport in America, involving some of the greatest athletes in the world.
It is significant that the second nationwide UFC broadcast will feature a world-class Oregon athlete, former All American wrestler, and now MMA superstar, Chael Sonnen of Team Quest.
The question remains: Why are Oregon’s internationally renown MMA athletes, among the best in the world, like Matt Lindland, Chael Sonnen, and other Team Quest fighters, so many of whom are proudly patriotic and donate great amounts of time working with, training, and putting on exhibitions for active duty military, given so little notice by the Oregonian and other media, which otherwise devote so much space or broadcast time to sports?
[Rees Lloyd, an attorney and resident of Portland, is a member of the Victoria Taft blogforce.]
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