MMA Roundup: UFC 117 and 118 Injuries, Sonnen-Silva, Tito Ortiz

In our last MMA Roundup, we were talking about making fights, in this one, we’ll talk about breaking them. See which unfortunate injuries will change up a couple of bouts from upcoming UFC events. Also, Chael Sonnen is still talking, and Tito Ortiz gets an opponent not named “Chuck Liddell”. All this and more is covered in today’s edition of the MMA Roundup.

Injuries Knock Thiago Silva, Phil Baroni Out of Upcoming Bouts

While nothing has happened yet this year to rival last winter when it comes to injuries, UFC 117 and 118 will be undergoing changes due to unfortunate injuries to Thiago Silva and Phil Baroni. Thiago Silva was due to face Tim Boetsch, who is making his UFC return after three straight wins in various shows over the last year and a half. Boetsch was released from the UFC following a decision loss to Jason Brilz in March of 2009. Now, Boetsch will draw Todd Brown in place of Silva, who brings an 11-1 record with him into the Octagon.

Meanwhile, Phil Baroni will not be able to take on John Salter at UFC 118 due to an injury to his collarbone. Instead, Salter will face the tough Dan Miller, who has lost three consecutive bouts (all by decision) to the likes of Chael Sonnen, Michael Bisping and Demian Maia. Nothing to be ashamed of there, but Miller will be desperate for a win against Salter, who is 5-1, including a 1-1 record in the UFC. Salter has beaten Roberto Traven and James Hammortree of “The Ultimate Fighter: Liddell vs. Ortiz”. In the UFC, Salter has lost to Gerald Harris by TKO and won against Jason MacDonald, where Salter faced some criticism for celebrating like a madman after an awkward takedown resulted in a badly broken leg for MacDonald.

Boetsch unquestionably gets an easier fight (though against an unknown commodity) with the Silva injury, but Salter is really unlucky with the injury to Baroni. Salter is a grappler who would likely have taken Baroni down and worked where Baroni was weakest, but he will face a much more difficult task against Miller. Lesser columnists would make some kind of comment about “karma” here because of Salter’s celebration after MacDonald’s injury, but I do not personally believe in such silliness.

Sonnen (Yaaawwwwn) Is At It Again

One hopes that Chael Sonnen’s in-cage performance on August 7th will be half as good as his outside of the cage performance has been up to this point. Love him, hate him, or anywhere in between, you can’t deny that Sonnen has brought quite a bit of entertainment to us all through his increasingly nonsensical and just plain crazy comments. Therefore, you just knew Sonnen would be bringing the thunder during the customary pre-event conference call with himself, Anderson Silva, and constant third wheel Ed Soares.

While Sonnen disappointingly recycled much of his earlier material (is he running out?), such as his claim that Silva has only fought the likes of a “math teacher from Ohio” (Rich Franklin) and “a one-legged fighter from Canada” (Patrick Cote), he did have a few amusing lines. Much of his talk centered around obvious frustration that he has been the only one “promoting” the fight with Silva. Sonnen pointed out that Silva was usually only bothering to answer questions with a simple “yes” or “no”, and said none of the fans care about Silva. He even said that no one wants to sponsor Silva because of this supposed fact.

Sonnen did his standard tough guy talk during the call, saying he can “drag Anderson Silva outside the hotel and beat him” whenever he wants, and claiming that he has a better overall MMA record than Silva, even though he concedes (with rare sensibility) that Silva has had the more accomplished UFC career. He also says that he will beat Silva, then Dana White will the former Chute Boxe fighter the next day.

For his part, Silva avoided being sucked into Sonnen’s games, saying that he finds Sonnen’s trash talk “amusing” and denying that Sonnen was not worthy to challenge for the belt. Surprisingly enough, Silva also said that he isn’t bored with the middleweight division, and he intends to stay there right up until he retires. He seemed disinterested with hypothetical bouts with Georges St. Pierre at welterweight and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at light heavyweight, saying that other fighters could come to his division if they wanted to face him.

Tito Ortiz will face Matt Hamill at UFC 121

I once theorized that one of the reasons that the always-crafty Tito Ortiz supposedly took Matt Hamill under his wing on “The Ultimate Fighter” is to avoid having to one day face him. After all, Ortiz may be in trouble against a superior wrestler, and he wasn’t above using “friendship” to avoid fights in the past. However, the fight will happen anyway, as Ortiz and Hamill will face off at UFC 121, on the same card where Brock Lesnar will defend his heavyweight title against Cain Velasquez.

Hamill is already the slight betting favorite in the bout, and Ortiz is already playing up the friendship angle in his comments. Ortiz says having to fight Hamill “sucks, but this is business.” On the same card, we will see the UFC debut of Jake Shields, who is a heavy favorite right out of the gate to defeat fellow top ten welterweight Martin Kampmann.

Quick Shots

–”Big” John McCarthy will be making his return to refereeing in the Octagon this weekend on the UFC’s second live card to be aired on Versus. McCarthy, who briefly retired from the gig, has not reffed a UFC fight since December of 2007. He is not currently an active referee in Nevada, which many believe is due to his public criticisms of the UFC following his initial retirement. However, he has been an active referee in California for some time, where he has officiated big fights for the likes of Strikeforce, Affliction and others. This Sunday’s event will take place in California, and MMAFighting.com reports that though McCarthy will be taking part, it is not yet known which specific fights he will be officiating.

–Current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua has said that he plans to fight again in December of this year or January of 2011. In a video interview on Sherdog.com, Rua said that his knee injury to repair his ACL went well, and that there was nothing wrong with his meniscus or other areas of his knee. He stuck to his story that the injury happened during the second Machida fight, saying that his knee popped when he defended Machida’s second takedown attempt in the bout. Rua also acknowledged that Rashad Evans is likely to be his first challenger, though he says nothing has been discussed with him officially.

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Tags: Anderson Silva, Chael Sonnen, Dan Miller, Ed Soares, John McCarthy, Matt Hamill, Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua, Phil Baroni, Rashad Evans, Thiago Silva, Tim Boetsch, Tito Ortiz, UFC, UFC 117, UFC 118