Chael Sonnen is a contestant on the new Celebrity Apprentice season hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and for the first three weeks of the show he managed to survive weekly cuts to the cast despite losing the task he headed as project manager. But in week four he earned himself the special distinction of being the only person fired so far for cheating on the show. To be clear, this wasn’t the standard boardroom elimination: Chael was ‘fired’, not ‘terminated.’
The incident aired on NBC a mere two days following Chael’s quick loss to Tito Ortiz at Bellator 170, so it’s safe to say this has not been a great week for Sonnen.
The two celebrity teams were tasked by Schwarzenegger to make a brochure for the new Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios Hollywood. With only minutes to go and Chael’s team still not done the challenge, the Bellator fighter decided to take a pair of scissors to cables on the computer being used to work on graphic design.
“This was not cheating, this was a great move,” Chael explained to The Arnold shortly before being fired for cheating. “I’m very glad that we did this. The rule says you have to finish before 7:45, at 7:43 we were not done. You get one exception which is technical difficulties. So with a little creativity and some scissors, I gave us some technical difficulties.”
“I know that you think this is a gray area, but in my world, this is not a gray area,” Schwarzenegger responded. “I will not tolerate cheaters in my boardroom. You’re fired.”
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Chael knows a little bit about cheating and grey areas. After his first close fight with Anderson Silva, he tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone. His defense was that he had a therapeutic use exemption, and while that argument fell apart upon closer examination it did open up a ‘grey area’ other fighters then used for three years that allowed them to use testosterone if they had the appropriate doctor’s paperwork and disclosed it in their commission paperwork.
Fortunately, Schwarzenegger isn’t a dummy and left no wiggle room regarding what he thought of Chael’s tactics. So while we may not be able to trust athletic commissions to do the common sense thing, at least The Celebrity Apprentice is pure under Arnold’s watchful eye.
