Did Chael start taunting Jones knowing Henderson was injured?

The timeline leading up to calamitous demise of UFC 151, indicates that Chael Sonnen may well be the smartest fighter in MMA. A month after losing his shot at Anderson Silva's middleweight title, Sonnen made the decision to move up to the light heavyweight division, and was booked ten days ago, into a bout with Forrest Griffin on December 29th.

When the media started to question his motives, Sonnen stated that he would be more motivated at light heavyweight, as a third fight with Silva after losing the first two would be a hard sell. He believed he could earn a shot at the title or fight with Jon Jones with a win over former Champion Forrest Griffin:

“I don’t think there’s gonna be much left of Jones when Dan Henderson gets done with him,” said Sonnen. “If there’s anything left of him, I’d be happy to play cleanup.”

This is of particular interest, because today we learned that Dan Henderson injured his MCL three weeks ago. The above quote was 10 days ago. Did Sonnen already know there might be a possiblity for a last minute replacement, and if he did, was his media attack on Jones a pre-emptive ploy to make the fight appealing to Jones?

Chael Sonnen and Dan Henderson have always been close, going back to their days training together at Team Quest. It is more than likely that Sonnen knew Henderson injured himself, and although he couldn't be sure if it would effect the bout, he certainly could have started to taunt Jones in the media and Twitter... just in case.

In the three weeks since Dan Henderson injured himself, Chael Sonnen has directly attacked Jon Jones, calling him a kid facing a man, and predicting a Henderson win. Although, the UFC President said that Sonnen would not be able to talk himself into a title fight with Jones, perhaps that's exactly what he planned and exactly what happend. Well not exactly, because the one thing nobody counted on happening, happened: Jon Jones refused the fight.

either Chael is the greatest evil genius in MMA of all-time or maybe it is all just a coincidence?

by John Morgan on Aug 21, 2012 at 12:25 pm ET

Despite his best efforts to stir up enough interest in a title fight to skip right through the light-heavyweight ranks, Chael Sonnen (28-12-1 MMA, 6-5 UFC) will not be awarded a title shot with a win over Forrest Griffin.

UFC President Dana White today made that declaration during an appearance on the "Dave and Mahoney" morning show on Las Vegas' KXTE X107.5 FM.

"He's a long way away," White said. "He's not coming off the (Anderson) Silva fight and just talking his way into a 205-pound world title shot."

Sonnen, a two-time UFC title challenger at 185 pounds, fought most recently at July's UFC 148 event, where he fell short against current middleweight champ Silva. He is now scheduled to face Griffin in a light-heavyweight matchup at December's UFC 155 event. One week ago, the always-outspoken Sonnen announced his move up to 205 pounds and also issued a bit of a challenge to current champion Jon Jones (16-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC).

"I could go up to 205, and I could take Jon Jones' belt the same as I could take his candy on Halloween – a little punk kid, I'd snatch it away all I want," Sonnen said while co-hosting FUEL TV's "UFC Tonight." "But there's something to be said in sportsmanship for earning your shot. And on the 29th of December, I'm going to go through Forrest to do it."

Jones heard the comments and immediately took to Twitter to lash back at the assault.

"Dude, you're not worth my time," Jones wrote. "Earn a title shot instead of trying to talk your way into one, and I'll be glad to hurt you."

Many observers viewed the exchange as Jones falling into Sonnen's tried-and-true method of booking matchups: Anger a higher-ranked opponent enough, and he'll welcome a chance to punch you in the face.

Things got more complicated this past weekend when Jones told MMAjunkie.com that he wasn't too thrilled about a potential rematch with Lyoto Machida, whom "Bones" defeated this past December but was granted No. 1 contender status with his UFC on FOX 4 knockout of Ryan Bader. That led many to believe both Jones and Sonnen were working behind the scenes to arrange for a future contest should the challenger down Griffin at UFC 155.

However, White said that's not going to happen – at least not right away.

"[Sonnen] is going to have to beat a couple of the best of the world," White said. "If he beats Forrest Griffin, we'll shoot him right into the Top 5 and let him fight some of those guys there, and we'll see what happens."

I think it is possible. Though the way chale spreads his smack talk, who knows? Jones is any easy Target already and he was fighting hendo and talking shit about Dan.

GDPofDRC wrote:

I think it is possible. Though the way chale spreads his smack talk, who knows? Jones is any easy Target already and he was fighting hendo and talking shit about Dan.

I think Chael absolutely knew. Him and Dan are buddies. I'm sure they're have mutual friends and training partners. The word gets to Chael and he knows Dan might have to pull out. He wants to step in. He starts running his mouth and makes the champ say he'll fight him. Jones did. Too bad the champ wasn't true to his word.

Possible but Chael was moving up to LHW anyway.

with out a doubt him and dan are boys so he was also training the whole time knowing he could have a chance. This is chael were talking about.