Chael Sonnen is already writing more checks with his mouth.
Not moments after the conclusion of an odd five-round boxing match in Brazil against longtime rival Anderson Silva, Sonnen was up to his old tricks on the microphone. There was no official winner due to the bout being booked as an exhibition, but Silva appeared to get the better of Sonnen over five rounds. MMA Fighting scored the fight 50-45 in Silva’s favor.
That wasn’t how Sonnen saw it.
“I thought I won the first three rounds,” Sonnen said in a post-fight media scrum. “You have to understand, he let me win the first one. He always lets me win the first round. That’s one of his strategies, he feels you out. He lets everybody win the first round, and I did the same thing in Rounds 2 and 3 that I did in the first round.
“But I slipped somewhere in the fourth round, and then they brought the doctor in at some point because I had a bloody nose or something. It’s like, come on, you’re making this look way worse than it is. It was three rounds to two, I thought I won that fight.”
Sonnen has often boasted that he is not only undefeated (in actuality, he owns a 31-17-1 in MMA), but that he also got the better of Silva in their previous UFC fights. At UFC 117, Sonnen dominated Silva with his grappling for more than 20 minutes before Silva caught him with a triangle armbar submission in the fifth round. In their rematch at UFC 148, Silva defeated Sonnen by second-round TKO.
With his liberal interpretation of how fights are scored, Sonnen explained how he still has the advantage over “The Spider.”
“You have to understand, the last two fights, whether I like it or not, were stoppage losses, so a draw is a big step in the right direction,” Sonnen said. “On the other hand, of the six completed rounds I’ve had with Anderson Silva, I won all six. He has never won a round against me, that’s a reality.
“Tonight, he won rounds, so big deal for me to get a draw, big deal for him to win a round.”
While Silva is yet to reveal his plans following his third fight with Sonnen, there is no uncertainty on Sonnen’s side as to what’s next. He wants a piece of fellow former UFC star Jorge Masvidal.
“This whole thing was just part of the process,” Sonnen said. “I’m boxing Jorge Masvidal. I got called out for that fight, I have agreed to that fight, this was all part of the training process, and I learned some stuff tonight. Anderson, when he gets going, he tricked me a number of times, and I do not like to get tricked in there. I like to see that stuff coming. But, I mean, he would move one way and hit you with the other, he’d show you the right hand and then hit you with the left. He was very tricky and he was very fast.
“I only say that because the guy is the better part of 50. If he is tricking me to the point that he can get some of those hands on me, I’m going to have to respect Jorge Masvidal a little bit more than I wanted to.”
Currently, Masvidal is booked to fight Nate Diaz in a boxing match on July 6. Masvidal has regularly traded public barbs with Sonnen, to which Sonnen hasn’t shied away from responding.
When Masvidal’s business with Diaz is resolved, Sonnen expects the former “BMF” champion to follow up on all the talk and meet him in the ring.
“Masvidal’s a little bit overrated, in all fairness, within his own mind,” Sonnen said. “I can’t remember the last time that he won a fight. He gave me a threat, he said, ‘I won’t even use my right hand. I’ll put that in the contract.’ I’m like, ‘OK, stupid, put that in the contract. I didn’t ask for that, but go ahead and put that in there.’ Then he talks about, ‘I’m going to pay you $10 million.’ Well, I didn’t ask for $10 million, but again, stupid, put that in the contract. Just keep talking.
“It just keeps getting worse for Jorge Masvidal. There’s some people you play with, there’s some people you don’t; put me in the category of ‘don’t.’ Do not challenge me unless you want to fight me.”
