UFC Quick Quote: Tim Kennedy is Chael Sonnen with better jiu-jitsu and better hands

"I need to be considered one of the best athletes in the world in my division and that I can finish a fight anywhere. I've got a lot to prove. I would love to go out there and ... not to go out there and give it my best shot. That's what losers say. I think I could beat [Silva]. Everybody will be shaking their head, 'Oh my gosh, Tim is insane!' No. Stylistically, I think I'm a bad match-up for him. I'm Chael Sonnen with better jiu-jitsu and better hands. How I look in the first round is how I look in the fifth round. I love making fights ugly. It's a fight that I can go out there and make a guy that is music personified into violence - like Anderson - and just grab the record and start going [record-scratching noises] and play my own song."

Former Strikeforce middleweight number one contender, Tim Kennedy, is all set to make his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debut as part of the UFC 162: "Silva vs. Weidman" pay-per-view (PPV) event on July 6, 2013 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. That could be bad news for the rest of the 185-pound division, if his self-assessment at Above and Beyond MMA turns out to be true. Kennedy, who was 6-2 under the Strikeforce banner, can certainly do the pre-fight hype like Chael Sonnen (example here) and like "The American Gangster," he's also 0-2 in middleweight title fights. But, before he work his way up to the winner of Anderson Silva vs. Chris Weidman, who also bang it out in "Sin City," the "Chosen Soldier" has to dishonorably discharge Roger Gracie from the Octagon during the Fourth of July weekend. See more on their upcoming fight here.