This Day in MMA History: April 27

Jon Jones-Chael Sonnen was a fight for which nobody on Earth—outside of Sonnen—was clamoring, yet once it had been spoken into existence, it somehow became a huge thing. As such, their meeting in the UFC 159 main event on April 27, 2013 managed to stand as a simultaneous testament to Jones’ dominance and Sonnen’s game-changing charisma while still offering fans a few surprises and a shocking near-miss.

While the matchup had been born of Jones’ refusal to fight Sonnen on eight days’ notice the previous September—leading to the unprecedented cancellation of UFC 151 and the introduction of “f------ sport killer” to the MMA lexicon—if the spurned challenger had been anyone but Sonnen, the…