Issue 189

March 2020

Chael Sonnen, the former fighter turned broadcaster reflects on his professional career and offers a personal perspective on what the future holds for MMA.

There are so many aspects of mixed martial arts that will come to the fore in the 2020s, in the coming decade. The sport will develop beyond recognition. Safety is a key aspect, as is weight-cutting and I will come to that through my own experience of how I trained, particularly at the end of my career. I always wore a headboard in training, for example, and many do not. I see that changing.

But right now, in the immediate future, I’d like to see if Georges St-Pierre can come back, for one, and I like the fact that Conor McGregor came back at the very start of the decade. We need the most talented to be active. It enhances the sport, opens new doors, thrills fans. I think there has to be something said for attitude. Something said for someone who has goals, as well as achieves them. 

When I look at GSP, and what he has, if I weigh what Georges weighs, I would not beat him. He was better, it pains me, but he was. At middleweight I could compete with him, though. Beat him? Not so sure.

MMA will eventually make it into the Olympics, and by the end of the decade we will be there, just as I think there may be a women’s middleweight division by 2030. Globally, the sport will grow and grow in Asia and Africa. I think African fighters, directly from Africa, will be emerging strongly by the end of the year. Particularly with the talent around. I think Africa is already on the rise. They’ve been very competitive as it stands. We’ve got Kamaru Usman and Francis Ngannou. Look what they have achieved and imagine the new fighters inspired by them. I think it’s the next push, I really do, there is so much untapped talent on the African content. Asia is about martial arts resurfacing. They kind of started everything, and I think the sport will continue to grow there, and bring more champions.

Eastern Europeans were one of one of the great forces in boxing, in the last decade. You remember when the Russia invasion started? We all predicted they would be a problem. Another country as strong as the Russians is the Cubans. I’ve been waiting for the Cuban invasion. It seems to be a lot slower, but some of that is politics. That’s another country that needs to be taken seriously in MMA. 

Then look at Mexico, which is a whole other conversation. Why haven’t they got into mixed martial arts? It appears because of their boxing roots that they’re not big fans of grappling. I think that’s historical. I don’t know if you could say that about Cuba. Much like the Russians, they take the ground game very seriously. They just seem like a natural fit.

We are seeing the greatest of all time in several divisions, but everyone has their time. Khabib Nurmagomedov probably has the claim to being one of the GOATs particularly if you narrow it down to lightweight. If you were to just say the greatest ever, Khabib still has an argument, but I don’t know if he would win it. There is something to be said when you are on a very long unbeaten streak in any division, you make that division your own, just like Jon Jones has done at light heavyweight.

We must all be excited that Tony Ferguson and Khabib are meeting this year, finally, and it will be the Russian’s greatest test, I’m sure. Ferguson brings a whole other game: he can attack you from the back, from anywhere and you don’t know what he’s going to do. I would never count him out. I think that whoever wins that fight is the best ever in the lightweight division, but it’s very hard to pick against Khabib with what we’ve seen from him time and again. I really do like Tony’s chances going into this fight, and I like them more and more as the fight gets closer. I do think as that gets a little closer, it’ll get a little more exciting, but I think it’s very competitive.

I have to say I feel lucky to be in MMA. It’s rare in life that you get to do what you want to do. That’s a very rare thing. We do have an opportunity to see the world, make friends, talk about something we love, something we know about because we have experience and are able to give our views on someone else’s experience. 

I started in mixed martial arts with one goal: to win a world championship. It was a promise I made to my dad, and it’s the only promise I ever made to him that I have not kept. 

I have done everything in my power to keep the promise. I got close a few times – against Anderson Silva, for example, in that first fight with another who I consider to be one of the GOATs from the last decade – but in the end I have always come in second. 

The competitive urge never goes away; competition is filled with an anxiety that exists in no other sport. You experience everything from fear to excitement which runs through you. It’s very hard to truly explain the feeling, and it isn’t overly pleasant. You’re competing not just with your career on the line but also your health and well-being. Fighting is a sport that’s all about damage. You’re trying to hurt the other person, and that makes it different from all other sports. 

You grow up, you learn, and I think that fighters will become greater at handling their preparation in this decade, as sports science informs us in more detail about the risks we are taking, both in fights and in training. Both aspects will have to be considered as we learn more about what it does to us. 

As a competitor in fighting, you do learn with experience to handle your emotions better, which in turn makes you better at what you do. The key is that you come to the understanding that you’re not really in control. It sounds obvious, but It’s stressful to be in a fight. 

Being at the fights as a TV commentator is a completely opposite experience. I feel totally comfortable at the microphone. Talking about fights just comes naturally. 

When I was a kid we would sit around with my dad and in groups and watch fights live and comment on them together. It’s how I learnt to do what I now do for a living.

I thought I was on my way to a world championship when I fought Fedor Emelianenko in the Bellator heavyweight grand prix, but I fell short. Back in 2010, I had a chance against Silva. I did everything I could do to beat him, but I lost fair and square, though I did beat Anderson for 90 per cent of that fight. But that’s not how these things end. For the most part, despite competing at the highest level against legends of the sport, those are negative memories. That’s why I try not to look back. I mostly remember the bad stuff. I remember letting up here or messing up there.

The most positive memory I have in this sport is from a fight that probably nobody saw. It was on a UFC undercard 10 years ago against a guy named Yushin Okami. I was No. 9 in the world at the time; he was No. 2. After I had won, I knew that day that if I could perform that way every time, I knew that I was going to win most of my matches. 

Everything just felt right that night. Mentally strong, I kept my focus. Those are the types of things that will never change, and will be the same in the coming decade, and every decade going forward. A fight is a fight, is a fight. That will never change. How fighters deal with those moments will go on forever.

 The older I get, the more removed from actual fighting, the more I’m so very aware of the damage that fighting can do. This is a contact sport. Nobody has ever said that MMA is good for you. We do many things to keep it as safe as we can, but that’s the best we can do. I’ve always taken precautions. In practice, for example, I had many teammates and I was the only one who wore headgear every day at training. I did that for my entire career. And I also never actually really fought in practice. I know a lot of guys who do, and I think that is changing, and will change dramatically. The more you can reduce trauma to the body and head in training, the longer the career, the safer it can become. One thing is for sure – by the end of the decade MMA will be bigger and more prominent than it is today, just as it was from the decade starting in 2010. Huge changes in that period. And it will only accelerate.