5 greatest callouts in UFC history

#2. Chael Sonnen vs. Anderson Silva (UFC 136)

Chael Sonnen's skills on the mic made his call-out of Anderson Silva a classic

Prior to 2010, Chael Sonnen had a reputation as a solid fighter with excellent wrestling. What he didn’t have was a reputation as an expert on the microphone. That quickly changed when ‘The American Gangster’ secured a shot at UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva.

Suddenly, Sonnen changed his tune entirely and morphed seemingly overnight into a master of trash talk, hitting Silva with a ridiculous amount of witty barbs and building himself into the promotion’s biggest villain in the process.

Unfortunately for Sonnen, no amount of trash talk – nor, according to the post-fight tests, performance enhancing drugs – could lead him to a victory over ‘The Spider’. Instead, despite dominating their title bout, he fell prey to a fifth-round triangle choke.

Following his positive drug test, Sonnen found himself sidelined for over a year. When he returned, it was clear that his feud with Silva wasn’t over. So when he defeated Brian Stann in his comeback fight, he quickly went about calling him out in the craziest way possible.

Starting his callout by literally stating “Anderson Silva, you absolutely suck,” ‘The American Gangster’ went about challenging ‘The Spider’ to a rematch, suggesting that if he won, Silva would have to abandon the division. Meanwhile, if he lost, he’d leave the UFC for good.

Naturally, the callout immediately became the biggest talking point in the sport. When the promotion booked the fight, it became the biggest of 2012.

While Sonnen didn’t live up to his promise to leave the UFC after he was defeated for a second time, his callout remains one of the best in the promotion’s history to this day.

---

#1. Nate Diaz vs. Conor McGregor (UFC on Fox 17)

Nate Diaz's call-out of Conor McGregor set up two of the biggest fights in UFC history

When Nate Diaz stepped into the octagon at UFC on Fox 17 to take on Michael Johnson, a prospective fight with Conor McGregor was not on the mind of many fans at all.

It simply didn’t seem to make sense, given Diaz hadn’t fought for a year since his loss to Rafael dos Anjos, while McGregor was coming off the biggest win of his career, his featherweight title victory over Jose Aldo.

More to the point, at that time, ‘The Notorious’ had never fought above 145 pounds in the octagon before, while Diaz had always fought at either 155 pounds or 170 pounds.

However, all of those thoughts went out of the window when Diaz shellacked Johnson and wasted no time in ranting an epic call-out at McGregor. In an expletive-leaden tirade, Diaz claimed that the Irishman had “taken everything he’d ever worked for” and that he wanted to fight him next.

Plenty of fighters had called McGregor out at the time, but none were as effective as Diaz had been, perhaps because his rant was not in any way pre-meditated. While the UFC didn’t initially book a fight between the two, when dos Anjos dropped out of his planned fight with ‘The Notorious’, it quickly became clear which fighter the fans wanted to see face the Irishman.

Sure enough, McGregor vs. Diaz headlined UFC 196 and instantly became one of the promotion’s biggest-ever shows, drawing well over a million buys on pay-per-view. Five months later, their rematch set a new pay-per-view record for the company, proving the true power of an effective call-out.