Phil Davis, Vinny Magalhaes Getting Head Start on Trash Talk for UFC 159
If the light heavyweight pairing of Phil Davis
and Vinny
Magalhaes recently announced for UFC
159 came as a surprise, it’s understandable. Magalhaes, who
washed out of the UFC in 2009 and returned in September to submit
Igor
Pokrajac, seems a curious choice for Davis, who was viewed as a
potential title contender just 12 months ago.
The matchup starts to make more sense when you see this tweet from Magalhaes, which came just after Davis’ win over Wagner Prado at UFC 153 in October:
According to Davis, who appeared Monday on MMAFighting.com’s “The MMA Hour,” Magalhaes already had a chance to fight him when Davis’ UFC 155 opponent, Forrest Griffin, withdrew from the event:
“It’s one thing if you want to call a guy out, that’s fine,” Davis said. “I don’t really call people out, that’s not what I do, but if that’s what you do, cool, no problem. But, after my buddy Forrest got hurt at 155, he called me out while I was still in Brazil, I had just got done fighting, I was still in the arena, and he tweets he wants to fight me next. That’s cool. That's really cool. I’m actually kind of amazed, I always I wanted to be at level where guys call me out, It’s weird that I’m at a level where ‘I want to fight this guy.’ I thought I was a nobody, and here, he proves me wrong by calling me out. That’s awesome. Now, if you have the opportunity to fight me, you can’t back down after you already have agreed. It’s just silly. The guy, he’s silly.”
Magalhaes responded (kind of) in an interview with BloodyElbow.com, not so much addressing Davis’ accusations but instead choosing to insult and troll his upcoming opponent:
“I'm not gonna disagree with him, that I'm being a troll on Twitter, because I got what I wanted, I got the fight. As far as how the fight is gonna go, I'm gonna get what I want there, too. It's gonna be a win for me. What is he gonna do? Outwrestle me? That's all he can do. His striking is horrible. His ground game is horrible. All the guys he's submitted don't have any ground game, so I don't know why he thinks that he can submit me. ... Phil thinks he's a good grappler, but as an expert, I feel I can comment on this, and he's not a good grappler by any means. It's not even like he's decent. He's not good at all. He's below average when it comes to ground game. For him to think that he's just gonna take me down and hold me down is going to be a huge mistake. I know I'm gonna submit him once it hits the ground. He can say whatever he wants, but there's a reason why I asked for this fight, and it's because I know I will beat him and it will put me up high in the rankings, and that's all I care about.”
With nearly three months to go before the fight, this probably won’t be the last we’ll hear from these two.
The matchup starts to make more sense when you see this tweet from Magalhaes, which came just after Davis’ win over Wagner Prado at UFC 153 in October:
I wish Joe Silva could send Phil Davis my way at some point. #UFC153 @ufc
— Vinny Magalhaes (@VinnyMMA) October 14, 2012
According to Davis, who appeared Monday on MMAFighting.com’s “The MMA Hour,” Magalhaes already had a chance to fight him when Davis’ UFC 155 opponent, Forrest Griffin, withdrew from the event:
“It’s one thing if you want to call a guy out, that’s fine,” Davis said. “I don’t really call people out, that’s not what I do, but if that’s what you do, cool, no problem. But, after my buddy Forrest got hurt at 155, he called me out while I was still in Brazil, I had just got done fighting, I was still in the arena, and he tweets he wants to fight me next. That’s cool. That's really cool. I’m actually kind of amazed, I always I wanted to be at level where guys call me out, It’s weird that I’m at a level where ‘I want to fight this guy.’ I thought I was a nobody, and here, he proves me wrong by calling me out. That’s awesome. Now, if you have the opportunity to fight me, you can’t back down after you already have agreed. It’s just silly. The guy, he’s silly.”
Magalhaes responded (kind of) in an interview with BloodyElbow.com, not so much addressing Davis’ accusations but instead choosing to insult and troll his upcoming opponent:
“I'm not gonna disagree with him, that I'm being a troll on Twitter, because I got what I wanted, I got the fight. As far as how the fight is gonna go, I'm gonna get what I want there, too. It's gonna be a win for me. What is he gonna do? Outwrestle me? That's all he can do. His striking is horrible. His ground game is horrible. All the guys he's submitted don't have any ground game, so I don't know why he thinks that he can submit me. ... Phil thinks he's a good grappler, but as an expert, I feel I can comment on this, and he's not a good grappler by any means. It's not even like he's decent. He's not good at all. He's below average when it comes to ground game. For him to think that he's just gonna take me down and hold me down is going to be a huge mistake. I know I'm gonna submit him once it hits the ground. He can say whatever he wants, but there's a reason why I asked for this fight, and it's because I know I will beat him and it will put me up high in the rankings, and that's all I care about.”
With nearly three months to go before the fight, this probably won’t be the last we’ll hear from these two.
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