Chael Sonnen says he’s fighting Jorge Masvidal next.
On Saturday, Sonnen concludes his rivalry with Anderson Silva in an exhibition boxing match in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It will be the first time Sonnen has competed since 2019 (a loss to Lyoto Machida in Bellator), and while Sonnen views it as a chance for redemption, it also serves another key purpose: As a warmup fight for an eventual showdown with Jorge Masvidal.
“When I put the word out about Jorge, when I finally got the call, ‘Hey, do you agree to be his backup if the fight with Nate [Diaz] doesn’t go down?’ — it was as though that word got to Brazil,” Sonnen said on The MMA Hour. “It just turned out they were looking for someone for Anderson. It was something along these lines, I said yeah and they said, ‘It’s going to be his retirement fight, can we bill it as the same for you?’ I said, ‘No. If I fight Anderson, it’s a comeback fight.’ I’m fighting Jorge Masvidal. This is part of the training and part of the process to get me to that turkey that never should have come on your show and he never should have mentioned my name.”
Sonne and Masvidal have sniped at each other through the media over the past few years, but things took a turn at the end of 2023 as the pair laid the groundwork for an eventual fight. Masvidal unretired at the start of 2024 and immediately suggested a fight against the 47-year-old Sonnen as something he’d be interested in. Sonnen is only too happy to oblige, but he does have one ongoing issue with Masvidal: The weight class.
“First thing Jorge Masvidal did, he said he wouldn’t throw his right hand and he’d even put it in the contract,” Sonnen said. “What a stupid thing to say. I accept. I hope he puts it in the contract. He said that he would pay me my biggest bag, which I didn’t even ask for! What an idiot! That’s his opening negotiation. OK, great. I’ll take both of those things.
“Now behind the scenes, all his has done since we’ve agreed to fight — and I do mean all he has done — is argue about the weight class. And he’s got reason to do that. In fairness, I am a bigger guy. But when you call out a bigger guy, you don’t get to complain that he’s a bigger guy. I’m agreeing to come to weight classes I haven’t seen in years; 202 is the last place we left off, but they’re trying to get it to 199. I’m just sharing with you — I haven’t weighed or fought at those in a meaningful period of time, so if you’re going to call me out, you can’t then call out a different version of me. It’s very weird.
“And I do want to tell that side because I think that Jorge has a level of courage. I do think if Jorge calls somebody out, he’ll do it. But he did call me out and I do accept. Make no mistake.”
While nothing is set in stone yet, Sonnen added that he is expecting the eventual fight to be a boxing match and not an MMA fight. But before they even get to that phase of things, Masvidal has his own business to attend to when he fights Nate Diaz in a 10-round boxing match on July 6 in Anaheim, Calif.
Regardless of the outcome, Sonnen says that once that’s over, he and Masvidal has business to settle.
“Your white knight called out a big guy, and he now doesn’t want to fight that big guy.” Sonnen said.
“So you ask if it matters if he beats Nate? Of course it doesn’t matter. There is zero chance that he beats Nate. He will not win a round against Nate. The same way he should not have won a single round against Nate when they fought in MMA. So no, I’m not factoring that in at all. I’m factoring in, warmup with Anderson Silva, I’m factoring in Jorge gets softened up by Nate Diaz, and I’m still going to accept him. And you want to know why? Because he issued me a challenge. And you never met a [man] like me. Never.”
