Issue 090

July 2012

The UFC middleweight title’s number-one challenger has his wish, a return with Anderson Silva. But is Chael Sonnen ready to go one step further than last time? What do you think?

The words are like the beating of a warpath drum once again. Rhythmical, gaining momentum and reason, as they build. Chael Sonnen – Saturday-night steel-cage fist fighter, as he calls himself – is on a rant. It feels rehearsed. It isn’t. It will become more pronounced, more polished as the UFC middleweight title fight draws nearer. No one escapes Sonnen’s wrath, a critique of all things running against him in the current. The vitriol pours forth, but it is clean, reasoned, mesmerizing… it’s also often amusing.

Anderson Silva, like Mike Tyson, is a phony; his conditions for the rematch and his demands for seven million US dollars are treated as laughable by the American farm-boy wrestler. Ed Soares, Silva’s manager, also gets the treatment. So, too, Steven Seagal, who has also been paying the champion, Sonnen alleges, to gain notoriety for the kicks that demolished opponents. Another spurious act, proclaims the challenger.

Sonnen laughs at the notion of legacy; ridicules Anderson for trying to create one, and even celebrates the fact many people still see MMA as barbaric... It’s all just another day in the life of Chael P Sonnen.    

Sonnen finally got the rematch with Anderson Silva after a great deal of heaving and hauling. Originally scheduled for Brazil, but pushed back two weeks to Las Vegas on July 7th, the appointment for him remains the same regardless of destination.  

“Yeah, I finally got it,” he says, stretching back in his home office armchair following his second practice of the day. “I’ve had it a few times and we can’t get him to agree. They tried to sign the fight a number of times. It takes two to tango, as they say, but yeah, finally – I had to meet every damn condition in the world that he put out there – but yeah. Finally. I’ve got him.”

Perhaps Chael’s mission impossible has been helped by the shift from an 80,000-capacity Brazilian soccer stadium to Nevada, yet the MMA universe is still talking about this matchup as being the biggest fight in MMA history. Sonnen agrees: “I’m a fan of the heavyweights, I like to see the big guys go at it. But heavyweights being the biggest ticket kind of went out in the ’80s. In boxing, we’ve had [Oscar] De La Hoya, [Floyd] Mayweather, [Manny] Pacquiao since then. They’ve all surpassed the heavyweights. In any form of combat, the guys have realized the talent lies a little bit in the lighter weights.

“And as for ‘mission impossible,’ listen, I hope those people bet big. I hope they mortgage their house and bet on [Silva]. If they’re so sure that’s what they should do. But at the end of the day, if they believe in me, or they believe in him, we’re still going to have to go out and fight and he’s not going to get any extra points because somebody made a statement and coined a phrase that had a horrible movie franchise behind it.

“It really doesn’t make a difference and I have good things in my favor, too. As much as I appreciate that, it doesn’t help me land a right cross once that door closes in a fist fight on a Saturday night. Commenting on those things is like commenting on Ed Soares. He’s not in the UFC. The guy doesn’t matter, and the guy gets press anyway. It’s one of those really bizarre deals like when I get asked questions to comment on what somebody else thinks.

“It’s easier than that: we’re not building a piano; it’s a fist fight. There’s few things in life more simplistic than what we’re going to go out and do.”

Worryingly, Sonnen received numerous death threats from Brazil, and was given a less-than-warm reception at the Rio de Janeiro press conference where the UFC reluctantly announced the venue switch. Yet did the middleweight title challenger fear for his own safety? What do you think?

“We had security but I don’t walk around afraid,” he acknowledges. “In Brazil, they behave like fools and that’s the truth. Then their feelings get hurt when you point it out. They’re just a bunch of idiots that chant ‘you will die’ as you walk to the ring. They want to behave like savages and they can’t. If any one of them touched me I would stomp them in front of their friends. I will stomp them if they even look at me sideways, just to set an example. If they want to get stupid, we can get stupid.

“I’m being asked if it intimidated me, the thought of going into the ‘lion’s den.’ I couldn’t possibly care less. Look, the only headache is that nobody wants to go international. Nobody wants to sit on an aeroplane, nobody wants to try to figure out how to order food in a country where you can’t speak the language, but somebody has to do it. Whether Anderson comes here or if I go there, it’s just sport. It doesn’t make a difference to me.

“I’ve got to deal with people all the time. I got this fight after beating this guy Michael Bisping in Chicago and somebody asked me out in Chicago, ‘What’s your worries about going to Brazil?’ My reply was that, ‘You might wanna read your own newspaper. You guys aren’t exactly a haven for civility all the time down here in Chicago. I don’t know if I’m any safer on you guys’ streets than I will be there.’

“But as I’ve always said, I’ll fight this guy anywhere. Give me the fight, give me the contract. We’re on. I don’t give a damn, I don’t sit around and worry and wonder about those things. It’s a two-way street. Look, Anderson Silva’s the toughest of all people and I destroyed him, so if you are admittedly not as tough as the guy I just destroyed and you want to take your best shot, by all means, people, get in line. I’ll run through every goddamn one of you.”

For now, the only thing on the mind of the Oregon native is work, and plenty of it. “The schedule has been the boss. All I’ve had is a lot of hard work. I’ve had a schedule in front of me and I show up to whatever that schedule says. That schedule’s been the boss, not me. If the schedule said to be at practice, I show up to practice and I do what’s asked of me. If the schedule said be on the track and be ready to run, I’ve been on the track and ready to run.

“If the schedule reads I’ve got an interview, like I’ve got with you right now, then that’s what I go do. I’m just a reactor. I don’t come up with the plan as I go, I’m not the boss. I’ve got coaches and trainers for all that stuff. But I’ve had a lot of hard work. Hard, hard work. That’ll be the big difference in this fight.

“People always wonder why I’m so confident. Before the first fight, I told everybody, ‘This isn’t going to be close, say what you want, but when this fight’s done you’re going to see our skills aren’t even remotely comparable, I will walk through this guy.’ I told everybody that.

“Then as soon as the fight was over, in came all the excuses, the same ones I predicted would happen, from his rib to his whatever. The same ones I had predicted and told people he would be saying. We could not be close skill-wise. He can’t keep up with me. He couldn’t walk one day in my life, he can’t train like me, none of these guys can. None of them can work like I work, none of them have discipline like I have discipline.

“None of them can show up to as many practices in a week as I can show up to and I know that, and that’s not bragging: these are facts, and I’m proud these are facts. None of these guys can work like I can work, and none of them do.

“When you get that little pretty-boy image off, you take off his little diamond earrings and his little pink T-shirt and he finds out he’s in a fist fight with somebody who doesn’t give a goddamn about what the reports like to say about him, that’s when he knows he’s in trouble.” 

Having witnessed the YouTube montage of Sonnen’s proclamations and the faux apology on UFC Tonight, the American clearly loves the wind-up. “I thrive on it. I don’t have any idea if it gets to him. I’m just picking a fight,” Sonnen smiles. “At the end of the day, these guys can pretend it’s about honor, but it’s not. They can pretend it’s about skills and sportsmanship, and it’s not. It’s a fist fight on a Saturday night in a steel cage, between two half-naked men for a paycheck and the applause of a drunken audience.

“They can pretend that it’s about honor and value, but I’m not going to sign up to that crap. I’m not going to apologize to any one of these guys. I’m going to make a fist and I’m going to run it into their hero’s face and I’m going to feel good about it when it’s done.”

Anderson Silva’s brief flirtation with returning the sledging extended to accusing Sonnen of disrespecting idols in the history of professional sport, like cycling legend Lance Armstrong, who battled testicular cancer. Silva said Sonnen was “complicated,” that he has “personal issues.”

How did Sonnen respond to that? “I didn’t.” Does Sonnen take notice of what Silva says at all? “I don’t think any of us do,” he says seriously, yet it comes across as a comical moment. Sonnen is convinced Silva is fake, non-authentic. “From his phony persona to his fake routine that’s a bunch of crap, to everything that this guy does – all the way down to what the reporters say about him. It’s all fake.

“Who has he ever beaten worth a damn? They like to say the guy’s won more UFC fights than anybody, well hold on… who has this guy ever beat? He gets out there, he dances around, you get a bunch of reporters who have never been in a fight, Joe Rogan declaring the guy is the best, and then the reporters just writing it down because they don’t even have any idea what they’re watching in the first place. The whole thing’s fake. It’s as fake as Mike Tyson.

“I remember growing up hearing about Mike Tyson. He fought nobody, he was protected, and I’ve got to hear that he’s the greatest fighter in the world. I’m 11 years old and I’m turning to my dad and going, ‘This guy sucks. What’s this guy do?’ And here we are now with Anderson Silva, apparently, the best fighter in the world. Well OK, how about you fight somebody worth a damn.

“You wanna fight me? You got it. I don’t need a goddamn contract. Silva needs more than that. He needs seven million dollars. He needed me to come to his hometown. He needs me to beat this guy and then to beat this guy again. He needs me to do all these things to find some kind of motivation to fight. If I was a one-legged Canadian with a poor record, he wouldn’t mind fighting me then, would he?”

Typical Sonnen. But so, too, is his retort when his sport is described as ‘barbaric.’ Rather than repeal it, he embraces it. “I like the way the sport’s understood and I’ve never understood some of the debates in the first place. I’ve heard people say this is a barbaric sport, which blows my mind. How you’re going to say two guys, half naked, in a fist fight, in a steel cage, for a paycheck, and the applause of a drunken audience isn’t barbaric is so far beyond my ability to comprehend I can’t even… it’s laughable – it is barbaric! But barbaric isn’t illegal. And barbaric isn’t something you need to apologize for or run from. It’s barbaric. So what? Move on. It’s regulated, it’s not gladiators fighting for their freedom in Rome.

“Let’s not distract from the argument, the simple word people like to use is ‘barbaric’. Go look it up in the dictionary, barbaric isn’t all that bad. This is a volunteer army, no one’s forced to do these things but we don’t have to go that far. It’s regulated. That means if you have a problem go talk to the governor of the 46 different states and then sign the bill that puts it in to action, that puts it in to law, don’t come to us.

“You’ve got to deal with these crybabies. People don’t want to see a guy get a black eye willingly as a grown man, but the same people are pro choice, you can go out and kill an innocent baby but by God you’re not going to see a guy get a bloody nose, not on my watch. Why even talk to those people? Screw ‘em. Let them just go and talk to themselves.”

When legacy is brought up, Sonnen moves back through his gears. He is revving again. He is onto the Silva slaying again, a self-appointed nemesis. “You ask me what my future is or how I look at it, that’s another pitfall guys fall into. I’ve heard Anderson talking about that, about how he will have a legacy. Anderson won’t have a le-ga-cy. He will be forgotten as soon as he leaves the sport as will I and as we should! I would be a failure if my life’s work took place in a steel cage.

“Anderson really thinks it has meaning and he is surrounded by ‘yes’ men that think that, but I will never do that. If someone wants to fight me, they will be fighting me. You’ll never hear me say, ‘Oh, if he wants a couple more fights,’ or ‘I don’t think he deserves it…’ that’s just stupid! If you want to fight, if you can make the weight class then you got it.

“I have no interest in a legacy. Whatever I do, I will do to the best of my ability. Whether it’s being a husband, being a father, being an uncle, doing what I am right now, I will do my best, whether I’m a coach, or whatever. I don’t need to be in the spotlight, I don’t need attention and I don’t need to wear a shirt and stupid earrings to get attention. I will keep to myself just fine.”

And so to his fight camp. I am curious to know who – aside from the schedule – is steering Sonnen’s preparations. And the Team Quest veteran reveals little has changed since his early days. “The guys that mentored me that I always look to and always will are Dan Henderson, Matt Lindland and Randy Couture,” he acknowledges.

“I also have my coach Scott McQuarrie and my trainer Quinton Hyers. And those are the guys that will be close on the ground and that really will be calling the shots from now. Mike Dolce is also with me, but if I need to reach to somebody for guidance, I got the three fighters I mentioned on the end of the phone.”

The pattern runs to clockwork, as it has for years. “I do the same thing every time. I do one month in Texas to do the initial strength and conditioning to get the base, get the cobwebs out, and then come back to do the official training camp. So I did my month in Texas. I will stay in Oregon until it’s time to go and fight.”

He says he keeps it simple, mentally and physically. Step by step. “Yeah, I don’t always think about that, about the end. I just think about it day-to-day. I gotta get the practice today, I gotta get better, gotta get the punches in and, once I get all that done, I have about four hours, then I gotta do it again.

“Each workout is the focus. Sometimes you’re so tired and rundown. Right now I am so tired my whole body is so sore and it was so difficult to go to train today, so you have to break it down even further. You say, ‘Let’s just be there on time, let’s start with that.’ So you start looking around and you’ve got your clothes changed and then you think, ‘OK let’s just get the warm-up done.’ So, 15 minutes later, you’ve got a good sweat on, so, you think, ‘Let’s just get the striking done,’ and so on. Then before you know it you’ve got the workout done.

“But that’s how it is, you know, you’re constantly playing these mind games with yourself just to get through a workout each day of a 12-week training camp, so you know it’s tough. It’s a real grind and you’ve got to try and find motivation and reasons to pass but even if you’re not, even if you’re sore, you’ve still got to warm-up, you’ve still got to do your striking, you’ve still got to do your grappling, you’ve still gotta throw your punches, you’ve still got to do your strengths, you’ve still got to climb your rope, so if you want it to be pleasant or unpleasant, I will just make sure I get it done either way.”

Sonnen derides Silva’s proclamations he was injured when they fought for the first time in California at UFC 117. The Team Nogueria camp insisted the UFC champion had badly damaged his ribs before the contest, and been advised not to fight. Chael shakes his head. Then he turns his cutting wit on actor Steven Seagal…

“You never know what kind of resistance, strategy or motivations Silva’s going to bring in,” he states. “I hear the new marketing is to do a fight and when you’re done it is to claim to the world that you were hurt. Of course, they did that Steven Seagal thing for a little while. If you’re an Ed Soares fighter, you can rest assured you’re going to have to make up an injury.

“Steven Seagal, here’s the truth... He paid those guys to say those things about him, and it’s no different to any other sponsor. He gave them a paycheck, and they said he taught them a technique. Good for them.

“Everyone is hurt going into a fight. You couldn’t tell what was wrong with me going into a fight. Do you know why you couldn’t tell? Because I don’t talk about it. It doesn’t make any difference. It doesn’t matter if you’re hurt, sick or feeling bad. The contract is signed and injured or not, I will show up and I will keep my mouth shut when it’s over.

“It’s nobody’s business but, you know, for some reason, they got made to say they were hurt. [Junior] Dos Santos did it too, and it was a scumbag move. He is a very nice guy, but he’s a true scumbag for beating Cain Velasquez and then coming out and proclaiming he was also hurt.”

While Sonnen claims he has had to wait for Silva, he tells me he would give Silva a re-match in a heartbeat, that he has his number. Sonnen, on a roll, is not a man to gather any moss. He responds that he believes he has the matrix to be Silva’s nemesis in MMA.  

“Absolutely. Anderson Silva is easy money. I’d fight that guy every day. That guy sucks. I love easy fights; I hate the hard fights.”

The character of Sonnen himself might easily have been written by an HBO scriptwriter, or a Hollywood producer. The man and the fighter are poles apart. Sonnen is a character searching for an author. But the intelligent sledger turns clinical fighter once the cage door closes. Sonnen has become both loved and hated. Polarizing? Yes. Genius? Probably. Good enough to beat Silva? Only when the door to the cage is locked for their second installment will we truly know for sure.