Bellator CEO Scott Coker has quickly sought to shut down claims at the weekend that Chael Sonnen may have ‘fixed’ his fight with Fedor Emelianenko on Saturday night.
“I mean, come on – that doesn’t even deserve a response to the people that are saying it,” Coker stated after Bellator 208. “Listen, Chael got clipped. He told me, he said, ‘Man, he hit me, and he hit me really good.’ And he was done. That’s it. With Chael, the thing with Tito (Ortiz), ‘Oh, he let him go,’ or something. Come on. Why would you do that? You’re a professional athlete. You’re a fighter. He wants to continue, he wants to go to the next round of the tournament. That’s just all rubbish.”
Sonnen was dropped by practically the first punch of the fight by Fedor, but managed to soldier on until near the end of the first round, when a clumsy attempt to change position on the mat led to ‘The Bad guy’ being ground and pounded to a TKO finish by the Russian star.
“I don’t know (why people say that). To me, they see Chael, he’s got this character and they just feel like with Chael he’s this character, so maybe that’s what they’re thinking (it’s fixed). If you had Fedor punching you and kicking you and kneeing you like he was doing today – that was real. That was not fake.”
