In case you didn't hear, Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen do not like each other very much. Prior to their anticipated rematch yesterday night at UFC 148, each had thrown their share of insults and threats at each other. This was the norm for Sonnen, but uncharacteristic for Silva who is usually soft spoken and speaks nothing of respect for his opponent. He went so far as to get physical and threw a shoulder at Sonnen during the weigh ins for the fight. Sonnen dominated their first fight until he tapped to a triangle choke towards the end of the last round. Since then he has questioned Silva's skill and called him out after UFC 136 by telling him he "absolutely sucked" to the whole audience in attendance and watching at home. I've been a fan of the UFC for some time now and I had not seen this much true hatred between two fighters. Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans or Matt Hughes and Matt Serra would be the closest I have seen, but this one already had an epic first fight as well as the perceived invincibility of Anderson Silva on the line.
The fight itself, however, displayed the fine line between trash talking and respecting the skill of your opponent. Sonnen fought exactly how I expected him to. Aggressive, angry. And it worked, at first. He scored a take down early in the fight and maintained a dominant position for most of the first round. It actually looked quite similar to their first fight which, as a Silva fan, had me a bit worried. The second round was more of the same as Sonnen immediately closed the distance between him and Silva to eliminate Silva's long limbs and just leaned on him against the cage. After one such occasion, they broke apart and Sonnen saw what he thought was an opening. What he did next, I cannot completely attribute to all his talk before the fight, but it was a wildly aggressive move. Sonnen, known for his wrestling, threw a wild spinning backfist that really did not even come close to hitting Silva. His momentum caused him to stumble and fall to the ground. Some may see it differently, but for one moment it looked like Chael underestimated Silva and went out of his game plan to punish him.
Once Sonnen missed, Silva showed not only why he is the best pound for pound fighter in MMA, but also how to keep your emotions in check to achieve your best performance output in what you are doing. Silva could have jumped all over Sonnen if he wanted to. He could have thrown wildly and truly try to break his arms and legs as he vowed to do. Instead, he paused for a second, measured his opponent, and threw a well placed knee to the sternum (although it looked like his face in real time, which may have been illegal). He then got on top of Sonnen and began throwing well placed punches with Sonnen swinging wildly. Sonnen got to his feet momentarily only to be dropped by a well placed jab. Seconds later the fight was stopped and Silva retained his title. What I found most amazing was Silva's control. I expected him to come out doing something crazy or be highly aggressive. Instead, everything was very calculated. Even in the first round when he was on his back, he showed good wrist control and did not try anything risky to try and punish Sonnen at the risk of being submitted or knocked out himself. Silva could have easily talked plenty more trash after the fight with a 2-0 record against Sonnen, but went back to being his normal self and was respectful to Chael and asked the audience in attendance to not boo Sonnen.
From personal experience, staying within yourself and controlling your emotions is very hard to do when trash talk is being said to you. Watching the fight as an Anderson Silva fan, I was glad he won but disappointed that Sonnen did not get a complete ass whooping and bloodied up a bit, as sadist as that sounds. But I'm sure that anyone that is reading this that has played sports has felt that way about someone before. Someone keeps talking trash and, although you know you have to stay focused on the task at hand, on the side you want to knock this person out or shut him/her up. This is when you start doing uncharacteristic things (Sonnen back fist). In team sports it usually winds up being someone over pursuing to try and get said trash talker at the expense of being out of position and leaving their team mates out to dry or getting a stupid penalty. When I played hockey there was one game where this guy would not shut up. I gave him a little slash on the leg during play and we had a little exchange along the lines of: Him: "Slash me again b***h" Me: "Alright f****r." I proceeded to slash him right in front of the ref as we were getting ready for a face off. I got kicked out of the game and quite a talking to from the person in charge of our league. I do get heated at anything competitive, but that was completely out of character for me. A certain broom ball game with a certain organization this past spring would be another example of players boiling over (only some readers will get this reference).
On the flip side, you have the trash talkers. Watch this segement on NBA TV if you have the time as some NBA greats talk about the nature or art of trash talking. One point Reggie Miller brings up is that he used it to fire himself up. It gets some players in the zone so to speak and I can see how that is the case. It could definitely be a confidence booster especially if you manage to break the other person/team or get inside their heads. There is one thing however, that I think could have a negative impact on trash talkers. That is that now you must live up to your talk. Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, these were players that could back up what they said. That is why you really won't see bad players trash talking. And if you do, it is almost seen as a joke. To go back to Silva and Sonnen, before they fought the first time I honestly had no idea who Chael Sonnen was. I thought he was just another fighter for Silva to dominate, yet he was running his mouth like he was the greatest fighter to ever walk the planet. Although he proved himself a worthy opponent in the first fight and during the first round in their second fight, he had yet to prove it and came off looking dumb in my opinion.
The most embarrassing instance I've seen of trash talking making you look dumb was the Seahawks vs the Packers in the 2003 Wild Card Playoff game. The Seahawks win the coin toss and Matt Hasselbeck, their quarterback, tells the ref, "we want the ball and we're going to score," which just happened to be picked up by the ref's mic and projected to the Packer faithful in attendance. To his credit, that takes some huevos but not a lot of brains. Hasselbeck actually did wind up throwing the game winning touchdown, but his pass was an interception returned by the Packers that sent the Seahawks packing and eliminated them from the playoffs. He looked like a dope and was probably the laughing stock of Green Bay for years. But making a claim like that, regardless of what the players say, has to have some kind of effect on you. When you lose the talk caused pressure to perform, when you win the talk helped focus you and rattle your opponent. Effective trash talk is all based on perception but the problem is that once the words start flying, the only acceptable outcome if winning. If not, you just look like an arrogant asshole that will be ridiculed and mocked by the general public.
So should you talk trash? Sure. Use it as a means to psyche yourself up or your opponent out. Just remember that certain opponent is trying to achieve the same thing you are but only one can reach it. And they would not hesitate for a second to beat you at that game, shut you up, and walk home the winner while the only thing left to trash talk is yourself.
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