Chael Sonnen is brash, bold, loud-mouthed, hyperbolic, arrogant and plenty of other adjectives, and he’s already won every fight that he’s ever been in weeks before the fight even happens. And despite the fact that he loses the fights that matter and has never won a title, Sonnen just keeps on talking trash like nothing ever happened. Basically, he’s the Philadelphia Eagles of the UFC.
But I’ll be damned if I don’t enjoy every second of it, as his ramblings more than make up for the overwhelming lack of charisma in so many of the other fighters, and he has been bringing his A game all week, leading up to tomorrow night’s main event fight against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC Fight Night on Fox Sports 1. In fact, it’s hard to keep track of what Sonnen is babbling about, between the slam poems and late night hotel ramblings, so I missed him telling Ariel Helwani that he is applying to ref the rematch between Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman.
“I’m unbiased as a journalist. But you’re the insider and you probably know that I’m putting in an application to get my referee’s license and I’m hoping to officiate that match. I’ve reffed plenty of other matches in other jurisdictions, so I’m applying for that in Nevada.”
Of course, the typically confident Sonnen doesn’t think that he’ll actually get the job, but we all know how it would play out if he was allowed to ref the match. For starters, he’d probably want a headset so he could call the fight at the same time, and I keep imagining Silva and Weidman turning on him and pummeling him, because he won’t shut up. But if the headset doesn’t happen, then everyone knows that Sonnen would make the post-fight all about him, as he’d immediately challenge the winner.
For that to even come close to happening, though, Sonnen would have to win his light heavyweight fight against Shogun tomorrow night, which is, of course, his last fight at that weight, as he also told Helwani that he’s chasing Wanderlei Silva down to Middleweight.
“I’ve been chasing Wanderlei for a long time. Every time the UFC asks him to fight me, he says no. Every time the media asks him, he just can’t wait to fight me. Can’t get in there quick enough. I don’t want to give him any way out, I just want him to say he doesn’t want to do the fight. That’s good enough for me. He likes to talk tough and subtitle it weeks later, I like to speak clearly and directly. I will follow him anywhere, to any venue, to any country, at any weight class.”
Sonnen also doesn’t think that he’s going to get his match with Silva, and he guesses that his next fight will be against Vitor Belfort. All speculation, of course, but it sort of lines up to give Sonnen that possible shot at Weidman (or Silva) down the road that he will, of course, end up losing.
