Did Chael start taunting Jones knowing Henderson was injured?

The timeline leading up to calamitous demise of UFC 151, indicates that Chael Sonnen may well be the smartest fighter in MMA. A month after losing his shot at Anderson Silva’s middleweight title, Sonnen made the decision to move up to the light heavyweight division, and was booked ten days ago, into a bout with Forrest Griffin on December 29th.

When the media started to question his motives, Sonnen stated that he would be more motivated at light heavyweight, as a third fight with Silva after losing the first two would be a hard sell. He believed he could earn a shot at the title or fight with Jon Jones with a win over former Champion Forrest Griffin:

I don’t think there’s gonna be much left of Jones when Dan Henderson gets done with him, said Sonnen. If there’s anything left of him, I’d be happy to play cleanup.

This is of particular interest, because today we learned that Dan Henderson injured his MCL three weeks ago. The above quote was 10 days ago. Did Sonnen already know there might be a possiblity for a last minute replacement, and if he did, was his media attack on Jones a pre-emptive ploy to make the fight appealing to Jones?

Chael Sonnen and Dan Henderson have always been close, going back to their days training together at Team Quest. It is more than likely that Sonnen knew Henderson injured himself, and although he couldn’t be sure if it would effect the bout, he certainly could have started to taunt Jones in the media and Twitter… just in case.

In the three weeks since Dan Henderson injured himself, Chael Sonnen has directly attacked Jon Jones, calling him a kid facing a man, and predicting a Henderson win. Although, the UFC President said that Sonnen would not be able to talk himself into a title fight with Jones, perhaps that’s exactly what he planned and exactly what happend. Well not exactly, because the one thing nobody counted on happening, happened: Jon Jones refused the fight.

either Chael is the greatest evil genius in MMA of all-time or maybe it is all just a coincidence?