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Chael Sonnen is a UFC legend and member of the promotion’s hall of fame.
Though for the majority of his career, his mouth wrote checks that his body could not cash.
Sonnen was never a champion. He was 0-3 in title fights. And his UFC career record was just 7-7.
So, you might be asking yourself how he ended up as a hall of famer?
Well, Sonnen can talk like it’s nobody’s business. He may well be the best promoter the UFC has ever had among fighters. And he did so by playing the role of a simple pro wrestling bad guy.
Sonnen’s mouth earned him several title fights that his record otherwise wouldn’t have. And despite him routinely losing those fights, including one which he proceeded to test positive for steroids after, he kept landing big name opponents.
Sonnen is now long retired. But he’s still talking. This time he’s taking aim at UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones. Jones is one of the company’s all-time greatest fighters, if not the company’s all-time greatest fighter. He’s held titles in two divisions, and he stopped Sonnen inside of one round when the two met in 2013.
But Chael is gonna Chael, whether the facts or on his side or not.
“Look, you’ve got a sport going on here, and Jon Jones, he’s great at the sport. But then you have the fight business, and that’s a game that not very many guys play,” Sonnen said recently on The MMA Hour. “Izzy plays it, Conor plays it. Jon does not play it. And so it’s just, it’s a different level, it’s a different thing that’s going on with these guys. Like, if Jon watched this piece right now, he wouldn’t know what I’m saying. ‘What is he saying? What is the fight business? What’s he talking about?’ He doesn’t even know, and there’s only four or five guys that know. But those are the guys. Those are the guys that matter. Those are the guys that move the needle.
“Those are the guys that can make a show by not even competing. And that’s where Adesanya’s at. Jon Jones missed the fight with [Francis] Ngannou because they botched that spot. There was ways to make that, you could make that fight happen. … Then all sudden one of them’s not under contract and Jon gets pissed, he wants to fight him. Well, you had your chance dum-dum, but you’re too busy doing the sport and not focusing on the business.”
“You could have made that fight,” Sonnen continued. “You want to go walk around and say you’re the greatest in the sport? You can’t get a goddamn fight to happen? You can’t get a fight to happen that the promoter wants to happen? Then you’re not one of the greats in the sport. You’re not great at it at all. You kind of suck at it. That’s where he’s at, on the business side of it. He can throw the punches and kicks. So what? Try to pay a bill with those.”
What you say, Chael.