UFC Middleweight champion Anderson Silva joined his next challenger Chael Sonnen, UFC president Dana White and co-main event fighters Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin on a media conference call to promote UFC 148 today. UFC 148 takes place on July 7 in Las Vegas, Nevada and promises the Silva-Sonnen rematch fans have been dying for since UFC 117 when Sonnen took Silva to the limit, dominating 4.5 rounds before getting tapped by a triangle choke.

Silva, surprisingly, was the one to start the smack-talk with the following barrage (via MMA Mania):

"Chael is a criminal. He's been convicted of crimes. He doesn't deserve to be in the Octagon. When the time is right, I'm going to break his face and break every one of his teeth in his mouth.

"I don't live in the past. The things in the past are in museums. Playtime is over. I'm gonna beat Chael like he's never been beat before. There's no more talking. I'm going to beat his ass out of the UFC. He's never gonna want to fight again after I'm done with him."

Sonnen's come back is after the jump along with a Dana White prediction for the # of PPVs they expect to sell.

Complete audio of the call via MMA Fighting is after the jump...

SBN coverage of UFC 148

Sonnen fired right back at Silva:

Chael Sonnen: All that happened was Anderson found himself in a fight for the first time. His skills are amateur. If you walk into a fight with your fists down, that's amateur. I treated him like an amateur the first time and I'll treat him like an amateur this time.

Chael Sonnen: The stakes are pretty high on this one. It's not like I'm trying to score points on the guy, he's trying to do damage to me.

Chael Sonnen: I've got two words for Anderson Silva: medium rare

And UFC president Dana White told reporters he expects to do more than 1,000,000 buys for UFC 148. He expects to match the nearly 1.5 million who ordered UFC 100 featuring Brock Lesnar and Georges St. Pierre.