After a convincing loss to Jon Jones on Saturday night, Chael Sonnen hinted that he was contemplating retirement, but just a few days it appears he’s had a change of heart.
“I’m not retiring,” Sonnen confirmed on the UFC Tonight show. “I’m 36 years old. I have a lot of goals and I’m not going to reach them if I retire. I don’t have a lot of options at 185. I’ve fought everyone in the top 10, including the champion a couple of times.
“So I moved up to 205, but I lost to the champ and it wasn’t a competitive enough match to warrant another chance. So what do I do? It was a lot better experience not having to get the weight off. I’ll give up the size, but have a smile on my face.”
Not only is he going to fight on, but Sonnen has already got an opponent in mind for his next Octagon outing – a grudge match with Wanderlei Silva.
“Wanderlei called me out before, but the fight never made sense. Now it does. I’m not going anywhere until me and Wanderlei straighten this thing out once and for all. Wanderlei pulled a dirt bag move on me one time. He said something to me that I couldn’t hear and then put it on YouTube with subtitles because he knew I couldn’t understand it and called me out.
“If you’re a fighter, that doesn’t fly. You must respond to him and I’m ready to respond to you Wanderlei.”
Sonnen is referring to a conversation between the two fighters that appeared on the net a couple of years (I’ve included the video below) that showed Silva telling him off for saying disrespectful things about the country of Brazil and it’s people in the build-up to his fight with Anderson Silva.
The two have never quite buried the hatchet since then and Silva is currently without a fight so it would make a lot of sense to let them settle their differences now inside the Octagon.
I’m curious to see what Sonnen’s longer term goals are though. He’s always maintained that he wouldn’t remain in the sport if he wasn’t fighting for a title, but at this stage unless either Anderson Silva or Jon Jones loses their belt then there’s absolutely no chance of that happening.
I certainly don’t have a problem with him continuing to fight on though. While he’s been soundly beaten by both aforementioned fighters, he’s still a tough fight for the majority of other middleweight or light-heavyweight fighters out there and so there’s plenty of interesting bouts out there for him.
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