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Chael Sonnen ended retirement because of pure anger at the state of the game.
Much has changed since the mixed martial arts world last saw Chael Sonnen compete in 2013.
Sonnen, at the time, was the fight game's preeminent carnival barker, a salesmen who rode a loquacious approach to record success and secured a string of monster paydays despite never winning a UFC belt. In retrospect, those were simpler times -- an era before Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz smashed financial records and championed the ideals of the money fight, before buzz words like leverage and renegotiation cemented themselves in the day-to-day MMA lexicon.
And while many would view those changes as a positive evolution of the game -- after all, the uptick in dialogue has only led to an uptick in wages for top-level fighters -- Sonnen dislikes the direction he sees the fight game heading, and that dislike was actually one of the primary motivations for ending his retirement and signing a multi-year deal with Bellator MMA.
"I keep watching these guys, and it's like Marshall Mathers says: they might walk like me and talk like me, dress, act, not give a dang like me, and they just might be the next best thing, but they are not quite me," Sonnen said Friday on a Bellator conference call. "I'm watching these guys and they're talking about money and who their opponents are and the weight class and then this happens. Who cares about all of that stuff?
"You either want to fight or you don't, and one of my main motivations for coming back is pure anger. I sit back as a fan, I watch these guys quibble and squabble. I put this deal together with Coker over three phone calls. I didn't negotiate. I didn't ask for anything. I wanted an opportunity to fight, that was it. And he'll tell you the same thing. It was as simple as that."
Sonnen, 39, didn't point to any direct examples of the behavior he meant, but there are plenty to choose from over the past year in MMA.
Most notably, McGregor and Diaz publicly warred with the UFC over money ahead of their UFC 196 and UFC 202 bouts, both of which ended up being blockbuster successes at the box office. More recently, top contenders Luke Rockhold and Donald Cerrone both publicly complained about their pay, with Rockhold even refusing to accept a UFC 205 fight against Ronaldo Souza without renegotiating his UFC contract.
"I am legitimately pissed off as a fan when I sit and read about guys who will only do this for ‘x' amount of money, and everybody needs to be bribed," Sonnen said. "They need this big carrot dangled in front of their face. It comes back to the Olympic spirit. It comes back to ‘let's get that world championship.'
"Do you want to do it or not? And the right guy, the best guy, every time says yes. And (number) three and four and five can go and do all these pity parties and come up with all of these reasons why they don't want to jump and fight. I'm not one of those guys. I want to do it."
While opining why the old-school philosophy of fighting anyone at any time is missing from today's fighter dialogues, Sonnen also took aim at those competitors who overly concern themselves with weight. Sonnen said he plans to compete anywhere from middleweight to heavyweight in the Bellator cage, and he wishes more fighters would test themselves and look to do the same.
"That goes back to the willingness that I'm talking about," Sonnen said. "The right guy steps forward. If you can beat a guy but you're in a different weight class, then fix the weight class and get the fight done.
"I'm going to out and fight as hard as I can, and when time runs out, someone's going to get their hand raised. But I'm going to fight them all as hard as I possibly can."
A majority of the philosophies Sonnen espoused on Friday were consistent with what "The American Gangster" has championed throughout his MMA career.
In many ways, the simplicity and reliability of his "anyone, anytime" mantra helped Sonnen achieve the heights of success that most fighters only dream about. And although he may be a little older than h
Much has changed since the mixed martial arts world last saw Chael Sonnen compete in 2013.
Sonnen, at the time, was the fight game's preeminent carnival barker, a salesmen who rode a loquacious approach to record success and secured a string of monster paydays despite never winning a UFC belt. In retrospect, those were simpler times -- an era before Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz smashed financial records and championed the ideals of the money fight, before buzz words like leverage and renegotiation cemented themselves in the day-to-day MMA lexicon.
And while many would view those changes as a positive evolution of the game -- after all, the uptick in dialogue has only led to an uptick in wages for top-level fighters -- Sonnen dislikes the direction he sees the fight game heading, and that dislike was actually one of the primary motivations for ending his retirement and signing a multi-year deal with Bellator MMA.
"I keep watching these guys, and it's like Marshall Mathers says: they might walk like me and talk like me, dress, act, not give a dang like me, and they just might be the next best thing, but they are not quite me," Sonnen said Friday on a Bellator conference call. "I'm watching these guys and they're talking about money and who their opponents are and the weight class and then this happens. Who cares about all of that stuff?
"You either want to fight or you don't, and one of my main motivations for coming back is pure anger. I sit back as a fan, I watch these guys quibble and squabble. I put this deal together with Coker over three phone calls. I didn't negotiate. I didn't ask for anything. I wanted an opportunity to fight, that was it. And he'll tell you the same thing. It was as simple as that."
Sonnen, 39, didn't point to any direct examples of the behavior he meant, but there are plenty to choose from over the past year in MMA.
Most notably, McGregor and Diaz publicly warred with the UFC over money ahead of their UFC 196 and UFC 202 bouts, both of which ended up being blockbuster successes at the box office. More recently, top contenders Luke Rockhold and Donald Cerrone both publicly complained about their pay, with Rockhold even refusing to accept a UFC 205 fight against Ronaldo Souza without renegotiating his UFC contract.
"I am legitimately pissed off as a fan when I sit and read about guys who will only do this for ‘x' amount of money, and everybody needs to be bribed," Sonnen said. "They need this big carrot dangled in front of their face. It comes back to the Olympic spirit. It comes back to ‘let's get that world championship.'
"Do you want to do it or not? And the right guy, the best guy, every time says yes. And (number) three and four and five can go and do all these pity parties and come up with all of these reasons why they don't want to jump and fight. I'm not one of those guys. I want to do it."
While opining why the old-school philosophy of fighting anyone at any time is missing from today's fighter dialogues, Sonnen also took aim at those competitors who overly concern themselves with weight. Sonnen said he plans to compete anywhere from middleweight to heavyweight in the Bellator cage, and he wishes more fighters would test themselves and look to do the same.
"That goes back to the willingness that I'm talking about," Sonnen said. "The right guy steps forward. If you can beat a guy but you're in a different weight class, then fix the weight class and get the fight done.
"I'm going to out and fight as hard as I can, and when time runs out, someone's going to get their hand raised. But I'm going to fight them all as hard as I possibly can."
A majority of the philosophies Sonnen espoused on Friday were consistent with what "The American Gangster" has championed throughout his MMA career.
In many ways, the simplicity and reliability of his "anyone, anytime" mantra helped Sonnen achieve the heights of success that most fighters only dream about. And although he may be a little older than h
