Issue 116

July 2014

Gareth A Davies, MMA and Boxing Correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, London, on the effects of Wanderlei and Chael coming to blows on TUF.

Outraged. Truly outraged. The footage which emerged showing one of the most anticipated, yet unsanctioned, fights of the year between Wanderlei Silva and Chael Sonnen was like a video nasty.

The brawl between The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3 coaches was wrong on so many levels – and it has ruined the series, and, in some ways, reputations.

Silva’s grudge with Sonnen has changed some people’s view of him and the sport in Brazil. One of the issues is his refusal to let the grudge lie, or just settle it in the Octagon.

We know Silva is a proud Brazilian. Rightly so. He is a legend in the sport. And with such status he has so much influence.

But his feud with Sonnen is personal. It stems from the lead-ups to Sonnen’s two fights with former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva.

Sonnen overstepped the mark back then, and insulted Brazilian culture. In the mix were insults hurled at Wanderlei as well as Anderson.

‘The Axe Murderer’ has wanted an apology for some time. Sonnen refuses. During the series, things came to a head. But it was very ugly.

In my books, Wanderlei Silva and his coach Andre Dida have brought the sport into disrepute. There was a time not long ago when MMA was under fire as being thuggish and having no place in society. That has changed.

In MMA, as in any fight sport, say what you want, feel what you want, but do your fighting in a safe environment.

It is the basis for all combat sport. Controlled aggression. And Wanderlei is clearly out of control on this one.

The altercation was on a concrete floor. In Orlando, at the UFC event there, Dana White revealed the Silva-Sonnen bout had been delayed because of injury to Silva in that unsanctioned brawl.

As I said, it was an ugly scene in which Silva approached Sonnen, pointing his finger at him, a few angry words were exchanged and then next thing the two were grappling on the floor.

Silva’s assistant coach Andre Dida then jumped in and punched Sonnen repeatedly. Sonnen emerged without his shirt, and a small cut on his forehead. Afterwards, being filmed, Dida and Silva celebrated. “I’m taking this home. This is worth gold,” Dida said with Sonnen’s jersey in hand. They high-fived.

Sonnen’s disrespectful words about Brazil were overshadowed by Silva’s actions. Sonnen should apologize publicly, but explain he was just hyping the fight with Anderson Silva.

Fortunately, the whole of Brazil does not feel the same as Wanderlei Silva. Bad move. Disrepute territory.

Coach Kavanagh’s Irish renaissance

There will be one man skipping an extra step in the next few weeks, and he’s fully deserving of it: John Kavanagh, head coach at Straight Blast Gym (SBG) in Dublin, who has worked wonders with his team there.

The combat sports media, myself included, have failed to recognize Kavanagh’s work properly. He’s put the flag of MMA securely on the map in Ireland. And the global invasion has now begun.

Conor McGregor will headline the Dublin card on July 19th against Cole Miller; Gunnar Nelson will meet Ryan LaFlare in the co-main event. Currently, although it’s already been filmed, two of Kavanagh’s long-standing pupils, Cathal Pendred and Chris Fields, are in TUF 19.

“We all started in this together, really,” Kavanagh explained to me for Fighters Only about the quartet of fighters gaining prominence in the UFC.

“The last time the UFC came to Ireland just over five years ago, I had Tom Egan and he was just starting out at this level. A group of us have grown up together in the last five years – Conor, Gunnar, Cathal and Chris and myself as coach – and we’re seeing a great deal of hard work beginning to bear fruit.”

Dublin in July will be a homecoming party for Kavanagh, and although he will not praise himself, he admits he’ll feel a warm glow. Speak to anyone about his intrinsic work there – and he is regarded as a ‘guru’. But true to form, it will, in his mind, depend on how his charges perform on the night.

The great trainers have always had open, discursive relationships with the media. Kavanagh, by his nature, is very modest.

When Gunnar Nelson performed brilliantly at the UFC event in London, crushing Omari Akhmedov with brilliant stand-up, takedowns and jiu-jitsu, an emotional Kavanagh rushed over and declared: “You see that? Kavanagh jiu-jitsu!” He wanted to remind me of his work. And rightly so. Kavanagh has been building a great team, and if you build it, they will come.