Chael Sonnen Calls Out Shogun Rua, Calls Nogueira A Chicken

Since the news that Antonio Rogerio Nogueira was injured, we have all been wondering who will replace the fallen Brazilian. It’s such a short notice fight for any top Light-Heavyweight to take, even if they have been inactive for a couple of months, let alone having fought recently. Chael Sonnen doesn’t seem to think so, the ‘American Gangster’ took to his twitter to call out Mauricio Rua:

@shogunrua I HEAR BRAZILIAN CHICKEN IS OFF THE MENU. AMERICAN GANGSTER IS STILL AVAILABLE IF YOU WANT TO SEND YOUR WAITRESS OVER.

— chael sonnen (@sonnench) June 3, 2013

Now as much as I adore Sonnen (and I don’t) this may be a bit more than he can chew. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be a great fight-but Shogun seems to have been training pretty hard for this fight. I expect to see the best Rua that we have seen in years, maybe even since the Pride FC days. Bad news for any perspective replacements.

In reality, who is there left to replace Nogueira? Latifi? A rematch with Gus? MoUSAsi? To be honest, at this stage it is going to be a case of which high profile fighter is available on short notice, the emphasis being on high profile. The last thing the UFC needs is to put a can in front of Shogun and completely total the PPV card.

So is UFC 161 still savable after numerous injuries have reshaped the card? Stay tuned to Lowkick!