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The organization announced on Monday that the UFC Middleweight Championship will be on the line on June 23 at UFC 147, with the event emanating from the Joao Havelange Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The stadium is the future site of the 2016 Olympic Games, and is the home of football club Botafogo.
The UFC had initially hoped to bring a stadium event to Sao Paulo, Brazil, on June 16, but issues arose with city ordinances, making a stadium show impossible for the UFC at this juncture in the city. The switch was then made to Rio de Janeiro, and the planned date moved back a week.
Silva and Sonnen first met in August of 2010 at UFC 117, with Sonnen having the most success any fighter has had against "The Spider" in his UFC tenure. Sonnen controlled the action of the fight for 23 minutes of the Championship bout, taking Silva down numerous times, scoring with his strikes and going ahead four rounds to none into the final frame. However, the Champion caught Sonnen in a triangle choke with minutes left in the fight, and forced Sonnen to tap to retain his title.
After the bout, Sonnen was popped for having synthetic testosterone in his system, which he then attributed to ongoing testosterone replacement therapy that he had not gotten an exemption for from the California State Athletic Commission. After a farcical commission hearing, Sonnen had his suspension reduced to six months, and since returning he's notched wins over Brian Stann and Michael Bisping.
Since their first meeting, Silva has defended his title twice, knocking out Vitor Belfort with a front face kick in the first round last February, and stopping Yushin Okami in the second round last August.
Speaking of Belfort, the UFC also announced that his coaches bout with Wanderlei Silva following "The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil" will take place on this card, as expected. The fight is a rematch almost 14 years in the making, as the two squared off on the first ever UFC event in Brazil back in 1998.
"This will be the biggest sporting event of the year," UFC President Dana White on Monday. "Bigger than the NFL, the NBA, you name it - UFC 147 will be the biggest. The whole world wants to see this fight between Silva and Sonnen. We are broadcast in over 150 countries in 22 languages in half a billion homes. Wherever those fans are, they are going to be watching this fight."
Penick's Analysis: This is going to be a massive, massive event, and the UFC expects to break their own attendance and gate records that were set at UFC 129 last year. That card, at Toronto's Rogers Centre, drew 55,000 fans, and the UFC expects this to be near 80,000. This is a venue that was opened in 2007, and will be an Olympic venue as well, so it's going to be a massive spectacle for the organization, and they've got to hope this Silva-Sonnen feud will bring the crowd and reaction they're expecting. The move to a week later gives fans a one-weekend break from action, but this means the UFC will have events in two countries just a day apart, as UFC on FX 4 takes place on Friday, June 22 in Atlantic City. This will be a massive UFC weekend, with Gray Maynard vs. Clay Guida headlining the free card a night before this broadcast in Brazil.
Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_12877.shtml
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