JUST OVER EIGHT months have passed since Chael Sonnen somewhat surprisingly picked a fight with the supremely dominant light heavyweight champion Jon Jones.

An accumulation of intelligent talking and a little bit of good timing meant that Sonnen not only got his title shot but also talked his way into a coaching role on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ as well.

He managed to do all this despite never having won a fight in this weight division in the UFC and enters the bout off the back of a comprehensive defeat to Anderson Silva, showing he is the ultimate master of self-promotion.

England’s Michael Bisping has certainly taken a leaf out of Sonnen’s book as all his trash talk with Alan Belcher in the lead up to this weekend’s fight means that their scrap is also now a must-see on the main card.

Roy Nelson and Cheick Kongo look to prove that they can still be contenders in the heavyweight division while like Phil Davis and Vinny Magalhaes, Jim Miller and Pat Healy’s fight has certainly flown under the radar this week.

Time for talk is over

The moment Chael Sonnen offered to step in and fight one of the greatest fighters the sport has ever seen on just one week’s notice last September was one of the smartest moves by any UFC fighter ever.

Realising that he wasn’t going to be able to fight forever and his chance at middleweight glory had passed him by, Sonnen’s unrelenting thirst for UFC gold lead him to pick a fight with Jon ‘Bones’ Jones, despite spending the majority of his career in a weight division lower.

After the outrage that followed that ill-fated UFC 151 non-event, Jones has somewhat redeemed himself by agreeing to face Sonnen after ducking him the first time round. When it was announced that the two would coach opposite each other in ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ the hype reached fever pitch.

Then, rather disappointedly, the two seemed to get on with each other throughout the series and the expected barrage of trash talking never materialised. Rumblings of ill-feeling surfaced again this week but as Sonnen ramped it up, Jones elected to maintain a civilised silence.

The reason for this is that Jones must be quietly confident and is allowing Chael to dig a verbal hole for himself. Unless Sonnen can reproduce the form and intensity from his first Anderson Silva fight it’s hard to see anything other than a Jones win here.

Sonnen won’t be able to KO him with his stand-up game and will struggle to impose his main strength, wrestling, as Jones is more than a match for him in that department. Although a Jones’ win seems to be a formality, the ‘American Gangster’ had one final pop at his opponent:

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Bisping and Belcher crank up the hype

It is tough to gain any degree of airtime when Chael Sonnen is on the card but Michael Bisping has gotten his fair share of media coverage this week with his outspoken antics in the build-up to his fight against Alan Belcher.

He is perhaps trying to get any sort of edge in what is a very tight matchup but Belcher hasn’t really risen to the bait and is instead concentrating on the fight itself. Both men have very similar skillsets but if Bisping channels his obvious ill-feeling correctly, he could get the better of Belcher. Either way, this could be a very close fight.

Warning: contains strong language

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Cheick Kongo has been on the fringes of the top end of the heavyweight division for a long time and it seems as if his chance at a title shot has passed, although that doesn’t make him any less of a threat. He was underwhelming in his last fight against Shawn Jordan so favour may side with Roy Nelson in this bout as he will land one of his fearsome right hands at least once in this fight.

Phil Davis is perhaps paying for his lack of exciting fights as he has gone through this week almost unnoticed. ‘Mr Wonderful’ has lost only once in his professional career but his over reliance on his wrestling means he is labelled as someone who simply grinds out results, something he will probably do again against Vinny Magalhaes.

Jim Miller on the other hand, has a ‘knock out or get knocked out’ attitude which always makes for exciting fights and his matchup against Pat Healy should prove no different. The well rounded Miller should have what it takes to overcome Healy regardless of where the fight ends up.