Issue 097
January 2013
In the first of our new preview columns, we break down the TUF 17 light heavyweight title showdown between Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen
The ever-entertaining Chael Sonnen is hardly the first fighter in UFC history to lose a fight and be granted an immediate title shot. Still, the announcement of his upcoming UFC light heavyweight championship match, against the seemingly unbeatable Jon Jones, inspired plenty of tweets, status updates, forum posts, emails and possibly even old-fashioned letters of the cut-up-bits-of-newspaper variety about what an appalling, sport-damaging fiasco this all is.
While certainly not ideal for a ‘pure sport’ perspective, the UFC is a business and Jones and Sonnen verbally sparring for 12 weeks as opposing coaches for season 17 of TUF should drive tremendous fan interest and make this one of the biggest fights of 2013.
Want a truly awful example of someone not deserving their title shot? In October 1998, UFC debutant John Lober unsuccessfully challenged this weight division’s first champion, Frank Shamrock, while coming off a six-fight stretch in which he lost five and drew one. True, Lober held a non-UFC win over Shamrock, but given the amount of bile Sonnen’s shot has inspired it’s clear most of the complainants weren’t following the sport in the late ‘90s or their heads would have exploded long before they found out the Millennium bug was a bigger non-event than season 16 of The Ultimate Fighter.
Plunging to unheard of depths in the TV ratings, TUF 16 – coached by Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson – may have caused plenty of worry and sleepless nights in the offices of Zuffa and its TV partners. The Fox family – which includes Fox Sports, FX and Fuel – did not pay up to $100 million per year for the rights to broadcast a veteran reality TV show with dangerously falling ratings. Both sides needed something to revive the TUF format, and who better than the most quotable man in the sport and one of its most devastating champions?
And, it’s not as if the fight was simply plucked out of thin air. The story dates back to Sonnen’s August 2012 Twitter rants about Jones and the champion’s truly staggering decision not to fight a completely unprepared Sonnen on eight days’ notice and save UFC 151 from oblivion. At that point, the fight seemed a dead issue, but circumstance and marketability conspired to put it firmly back on the map.
Let’s be honest. Sonnen (27-12-1) realistically has very little chance of winning this fight. But neither did Vitor Belfort, Jones’ last, and also clearly undeserving challenger. Yet Belfort caught Jones (17-1) with a first-round armbar so tight it caused ligament damage that put Jones on the shelf for several months.
Sonnen, who recently squeaked past Michael Bisping – with the help of some generous judging – and then took a painful second-round battering from Anderson Silva in a title rematch, really should have earned his title shot with at least a couple of wins. But is he really such a terrible challenger? Who else has a real, serious shot at taking Jones’ title?
His original UFC 151 opponent, Dan Henderson, has a tendency to fade late in fights, while Jones appears to have no obvious stamina issues. Henderson’s injury problems, size and age would also have made him a heavy underdog.
The point is, whatever Sonnen’s flaws as a title challenger, he’s hardly ‘stealing’ an opportunity from someone who’d be favored to actually win the title. And he’ll almost certainly help generate far more interest and money at this stage than anyone else in his position.
A decade older than Jones, Sonnen had his first professional fight when the reigning champion was nine years old. Seemingly approaching the end of his career, this looks like Chael’s final chance to win the world title he’s craved and worked so hard to win for so long. Perhaps he won’t win the title, but he’ll make the build-up into a great story and the fight itself a huge event.
