With hours remaining until the most anticipated MMA fight of the summer, and perhaps the year, one of the men making the most news isn't even going to be in the cage on Saturday night.

As Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen prepare to do battle for Silva's UFC Middleweight Championship on Saturday night in the main event at UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen, film star and Silva associate Steven Seagal is claiming to have taught Silva some new techniques that "the Spider" will use to defeat Sonnen on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

In a brief interview with Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com (see video below), the Under Siege star - an aikido master and high-profile associate of the Black House training camp that is home to Silva and former UFC light heavyweight kingpin Lyoto Machida, among other fighters - claims to have taught Silva "stuff that we thought was maybe illegal that's not illegal, and stuff like that. It turns out to not be illegal."

While the star of ReelzChannel's True Justice wouldn't elaborate beyond the fact that the techniques in question are used standing up - "Everything I'm teaching him is standing, and how to not go on the ground," he said - he also went on to take credit for Silva's more aggressive demeanor of late. The champion has generally been willing to sit and smile while Sonnen used everything from WWE-style trash talk to racist insults about his home country of Brazil to build interest in the fight, but has shown a different side of late. After making angry threats during a media conference call last week, Silva had to be restrained during a planned photo op during Tuesday's press conference.

According to Seagal, he's been encouraging that change in the champion's temperament.

"That's exactly what I've been telling him," Seagal said. "I said, 'You're too nice in the past. In this fight, we're not going to be nice. We're gonna be really, really, really deep.'"

Seagal won't be in Silva's corner on Saturday night - "because I don't want to be in the corner" - but said he plans to communicate with Silva's corner through the champion's manager/translator Ed Soares.

"He's determined," Seagal said of the champion, "and so am I. We're all determined to make this great."

Of course, there's probably little help that Silva needs from Seagal - he got to be the UFC's longest-reigning champion just fine before Seagal started showing up around the UFC - but Seagal's presence certainly adds a bit to the carnival atmosphere surrounding UFC 148, which goes down LIVE on Pay-Per-View on Saturday night.

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UFC, Steven seagal