| Straight-Shooting Sonnen aims to finish what he started against Filho |
It was going to be a holiday season Chael Sonnen would never forget. Not only was he going to be the WEC middleweight champion, but he was going to wear the belt because he had just apparently knocked out a man
many considered to be neck and neck with UFC champ Anderson Silva for the top spot in the world at 185 pounds, Paulo Filho.
Or so he thought.
Sonnen even got so excited when he hurt and dropped Filho in the first round of their December 12, 2007 bout that he immediately yelled to referee Josh Rosenthal “He’s out, he’s out,” sensing that the end was about to come.
“I hit him on our feet and he went out and in fact, I caught him,” recalled Sonnen. “I walked all the way around him and grabbed him. In hindsight I should have just let him fall forward. But I was so excited because I thought it was over and I told the ref “he’s out.” And he was. He wasn’t moving or budging, but of course, I’m laying on top of him. For whatever reason, that was the route I took.”
The 31 year old recounts what happened that night with a bemused air, one that says “hey, what can you do?” That’s because moments after seemingly knocking Filho out, the Brazilian recovered. And even though he was still running on autopilot for the rest of the opening round, by the second stanza he was back in business, and at the 4:55 mark, he submitted Sonnen (albeit controversially when there was a question whether the Oregon native verbally submitted or not) and retained his crown. Sonnen took the defeat hard, and as far as taking solace in his performance up until the finish, he’s not buying it.
“It hurts,” he said. “I don’t know what a moral victory means. If the shoe was on the other foot and I got handed one that I didn’t quite earn, I’d feel just as good about it. I’d be completely content and proud of myself. At the end of the night, it’s whoever gets his hand raised, and so it hurt a lot. It kept me up at night. I got right back into the gym, but I was going through the motions and it was really difficult. I didn’t know how it would play out and whether I’d have this void forever. I’ve had a lot of disappointments in athletics over the years and they hurt a lot. But that’s the risk you take. It’s a two-man sport and only one guy’s gonna win.”
But given Sonnen’s effort and the controversial nature of the defeat, a rematch was immediately scheduled for March 26th of this year. But less than two weeks before the bout, Filho withdrew to enter a rehab center in Brazil. Sonnen opted to fight anyway – against Bryan Baker – and he pounded out a three round win over his then-unbeaten foe. As for the rematch with Filho, it will take place this Wednesday (VERSUS 8pm ET / 5pm PT) at the Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida. Sonnen still won’t be convinced it’s happening until he is in the same room with the champion though.
“There was a part of me that thought it was never gonna happen – that part’s still here and hasn’t gone away,” explains Sonnen of the return bout. “I need to lay eyes on him in Florida. If I see him, I know the fight will happen.”
As for the game plan, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“Strategically, I’m gonna do the same thing,” he said. “I’m gonna throw him down and punch him in the face repeatedly.”
If Sonnen does what he did the last time, but also closes the deal with a victory, it will send shockwaves through the MMA world. Maybe not as many as it would have if he won the first time, but either way you cut it, beating Filho will be seen as an upset. It makes Sonnen wonder why – after putting together a 22-9-1 record in six years as a pro – he’s seen as such an underdog.
“I remember going into the (first) fight as a 4 to 1 underdog, and I was confused by that,” he said. “If you were to look at my schedule and Paulo’s schedule in terms of who we fought, I understand that he’s undefeated and did a great job, but my schedule’s been a little bit tougher than his, and I’ve never lost at 185 pounds either outside of that match with Paulo, which has a little asterisk next to it. I beat Amar Suloev, Travor Prangley, Mayhem Miller, Alex Stiebling, Jason Lambert, Homer Moore, and I’ve fought a lot of guys too, so yeah, it confused me a little bit, but at the same time, you have to understand that the guy’s undefeated, nobody’s even come close to him, so I’m not attempting to diminish his skills and accolades at all. He’s done a fantastic job and deserves to be ranked at the top – I get that. Maybe I was being a little too arrogant and buying into my own gimmick and thought that ‘geez, I didn’t know that everybody thought that I was such a slouch.’ That was news to me, but at any rate, I get one more shot at it.”
If he wins in that second shot, he will go down in the MMA record books as the WEC’s last middleweight champion (the organization is eliminating the 205-pound and 185-pound divisions to focus on the welterweight, lightweight, featherweight and bantamweight divisions after Wednesday’s card), but he will be far from done as a fighter. And since Sonnen will definitely be in the worldwide mix should he beat Filho, it will be interesting to see how everyone reacts to one of the straightest shooters in the game in the coming months. He chuckles.
“The only thing that I do that’s different than anyone else is I tell the truth,” said Sonnen. “Fighters just lie and lie and lie. I don’t know if they’re lying to themselves or they’re just trying to do what they perceive is a good interview.”
One of Sonnen’s favorite pet peeves has to do with fighters who claim to train for hours and hours everyday, leaving them no time for other pursuits. This is coming from a world-class MMA fighter who has also found time to run a real estate business and who has also served as an elected public official.
“I’m at the top gym in the world, and I’ve been to plenty of other gyms,” said the Team Quest standout. “I watched Randy Couture train for nine title fights, I’ve watched Dan Henderson and Matt Lindland train for title fights as well, and there’s nobody in the world who’s training more than three hours a day. But you’ve got these fighters who come out and lie – it takes so much time and they’re doing so much work, and I don’t know why they do that. Another thing they lie about is wanting to fight the best. ‘I want this guy at a hundred percent.’ Why? That’s not true. You don’t want the best. If they would hand you tomato cans, you would line up and fight ‘em one after the other. I just got asked yesterday, ‘do you hope Paulo’s
a hundred percent? Do you hope he brings his ‘A’ game?’ No. I hope he wakes up with the flu, I hope he has to be helped to the ring because he has some injury and can hardly stand, and then I’ll clean him up. The last time I fought Paulo he was probably at 70 percent and he was a monster. Why would I want him at a hundred percent?”
So is the world ready for Chael Sonnen?
“There are only a couple of fighters out there, myself included, that will really fight anybody,” he said. “So not only will I bring honor back to the middleweight division, but I’ll also bring a lot of honesty back.”
As for Thursday morning, the day after his rematch with Filho, Sonnen admits that he has thought about it, and how his life will change should he win the belt. And while he says that he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself, he will have no trouble finding motivation for what the future may bring.
“There was a gentleman that won a world championship in wrestling named Les Gutches, and he was a hero of mine for many years,” said Sonnen. “And Les told me that after he won that world championship that the next day was one of the most depressing days of his life because he worked every day for that, and he no longer had a goal. Fortunately for me, when I win that middleweight championship, there’s gonna be another guy on the other side of town named Anderson (Silva) that’s claiming to be a champion in that same weight class. And this isn’t the BCS college poll where we identify two champions. The term ‘champion’ is very exclusive, and it’s exclusive to one. And if I’m not the champion, I don’t want to be called it. So my intention (after Wednesday) will change to finding out who the true champion is.”
| " | “I remember going into the (first) fight as a 4 to 1 underdog, and I was confused by that,” he said. “If you were to look at my schedule and Paulo’s schedule in terms of who we fought, I understand that he’s undefeated and did a great job, but my schedule’s been a little bit tougher than his, and I’ve never lost at 185 pounds either outside of that match with Paulo, which has a little asterisk next to it. I beat Amar Suloev, Travor Prangley, Mayhem Miller, Alex Stiebling, Jason Lambert, Homer Moore, and I’ve fought a lot of guys too, so yeah, it confused me a little bit, but at the same time, you have to understand that the guy’s undefeated, nobody’s even come close to him, so I’m not attempting to diminish his skills and accolades at all. He’s done a fantastic job and deserves to be ranked at the top – I get that. Maybe I was being a little too arrogant and buying into my own gimmick and thought that ‘geez, I didn’t know that everybody thought that I was such a slouch.’ That was news to me, but at any rate, I get one more shot at it.” |
