Last night at the weigh-ins for UFC 148, UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva uncharacteristically threw his shoulder in to Chael Sonnen’s chest. This was a different side of Silva, an aggressive one that most have never seen before. This includes myself and Strikeforce Welterweight contender Roger Bowling. Roger opened up to BJpenn.com with his thoughts on the incident.

“I’m surprised more didn’t happen”, Bowling joked. “I was surprised it was so low key with all of the hype coming in to this fight”.

Some of the fans on the internet filled the forums with posts speculating that Chael might have looked scared, but Bowling disagrees.

“Sonnen is always so confident”, Roger said. “He might be scared sometimes in the middle of the night when he’s alone or something. He wasn’t scared last night. He hypes himself up so much that he probably doesn’t have time to be scared”.

Fighting angry is not something most coaches would advise and Silva looked straight pissed off. I, along with others believe this might affect his performance. Roger doesn’t think it will be a factor.

“I think it’s going to be a lot more of the same from him. He’s going to have cleaned a lot of it up going in to this fight like takedown defense. I don’t think he’s going to be that angry come fight time”.

Steven Seagal has been his usual self in the days building up to the fight. Through his MMA news site mouthpiece Ariel Helwani, Seagal boasted that he has taught Anderson some more “never-before-seen” techniques. These techniques will apparently tip the scales heavily in Anderson’s favor. Bowling along with fighters like Cung Le believe Seagal is trying to capitalize off Silva’s success and nothing more.

“Uh, no. Seagal has no effect on Anderson’s successful fighting style”, Roger stated. “I think he’s just using this as a publicity stunt and trying to get back in the spotlight again”.

Sonnen put on a clinic in his first fight with Silva. For four and a half rounds he pummeled Anderson. The submission finish in the 5th and final round by Silva is now legendary. A surprising number of fans expect more of the same only without the hail mary submission, and so does Bowling.

“I think what he (Chael) did is the only way to win for him”, Roger said. “I don’t see him coming out there and trying to stand with Silva. He won’t change his gameplan. He’ll throw wild punches and take him down. He’s going to start off where he left off. Then Anderson will be overly cautious to not get taken down”.

As for who will win there is no question for Roger.

“Sonnen”, Bowling said. “Sonnen will win this one. I picked him winning the first one. We will have a new champion after tonight”.

You can follow Roger Bowling on Twitter @Rogerbowling

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