Love him or hate him, the often controversial UFC star Chael Sonnen is unquestionably a compelling character who stands out as one of the most unique fighters in the sport.
Never is this more apparent than in a new interview conducted by Ariel Helwani with Sonnen prior to UFC 132 last weekend in which he holds court on a number of matters in often hilarious fashion.
Take for instance Sonnen’s defense for having being alleged to have made negative comments about Brazil for instance.
According to the middleweight division’s former No.1 contender he “chooses his medium carefully” and as such only made comments about Brazil on the internet as he assumed that they “don’t have computers over there.”
He goes on to recall a tongue-in-cheek tale about the Nogueira brothers to back up that notion.
“I was in Las Vegas when the Nogueira brothers first touched down in America. There was a bus…this is a true story…there was a bus that pulled up to a red light and ‘Lil Nog’ tried to feed it a carrot while ‘Big Nog’ was petting it. He thought it was a horse. This really happened? Do you believe me that that happened? He tried to feed a bus a carrot and now you’re telling me their country has computers? I didn’t know that!”
Never one to skirt around controversy, Sonnen also claims during the interview that all Japanese events were fake which he believes explains why the likes of Wanderlei Silva and Mirko Cro Cop won countless fights in PRIDE, but can’t seem to get a winning streak going in the U.S.
“What happened Mirko, what happened to your legs? Nothing happened. The referee’s not wearing an earpiece. The promoter didn’t come in the back and tell your opponent when to go down. That’s what happened. ‘I lost my motivation.’ No you didn’t – you suck. You suck just like Wanderlei sucks, just like Fedor sucks. Big difference when that referee is real isn’t it?”
So as you’ll by now have gathered, despite having spent most of the last year on the sidelines after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs and also narrowly avoiding a prison sentence for money laundering, Sonnen isn’t ready to turn over a new leaf and fall into line.
So that means you can expect plenty more outlandish statements and off-the-cuff remarks in the lead up to his return to the UFC which it was announced yesterday will be against Brian Stann at UFC 136 in October.
In the mean time, check Sonnen’s full interview with Helwani below courtesy of MMAfighting.
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