Chael Sonnen fought for both the UFC middleweight and light heavyweight championship vs. the two leading candidates for UFC G.O.A.T., Anderson Silva and Jon Jones, respectively. And vs. Silva, he was winning handily until he was triangled with less than two minutes in the fifth and final round. He fought and armbarred WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho, but Filho failed to make weight, so the title was on the line.
Leading into the fight vs. Lyoto Machida Bellator 222 on Friday night, he said if he didn’t win and go on to win the Bellator belt, he would consider his career a failure, and related that he told his father he would fight on until he won a world title.
But he didn’t win, and Friday night he retired at the age of 42. At the post-fight press conference, he talked about the long, strange trip.
You’ve got to be tough in this sport,” he said at the post-fight press conference, as transcribed by Alexander K. Lee for MMA Fighting. “And I feel like I used all my toughness up. here were some positions in there that before in my career I would have walked right through them. I didn’t mind losing to him in his spots, like some of the stuff on our feet, those jumping knees and whatnot, but I did mind losing to him in my spots. He was on top of me, I didn’t think he’d be on top of me, I thought I could have scrambled, I got up.
I used to be tougher. I used to want it more. I used to have more grit. And I just felt like maybe I fired my last bullet, I didn’t have that same grit and it’s time to move on.
I didn’t have [the retirement] planned. I thought I was going to win this fight, I was going to call out Ryan Bader. Everything was going my way until it wasn’t. But I don’t regret it. It was a No. 1 contender’s match, I thought it was a big opportunity, and it was. And it’s somebody else’s turn.
The referee said to me when the fight was over, ‘Chael, I was trying to help.’
I said, ‘What took you so long?’
He said, ‘Are you going to retire?’
I said, ‘Retire? I retired three minutes ago. I don’t even know why we went to the second round here!’
So I think when you feel like that, even if it’s for a moment, you’ve got to go.
I think that maybe I helped us get over to the entertainment era that we’re in right now for better or worse, but I think I had a hand in that. I don’t know about a mark necessarily. I think maybe if I was to be remembered, I was very proud of the way my career started and the guys that I had to look up to. They were true tough guys, they were legitimate tough guys, but I had my sixth fight before I even saw a scale. We didn’t worry about who you were fighting, you didn’t need a bunch of money or attention or anything else. You just wanted to compete.
I really like the competitors that we have in the sport, but I think they’re a little few and far between. If there was something that I could pass to the locker rooms it would be to go back to that competitive era. Guys that want to do it and they enjoy the sport and they just want to see who’s the best.
Sonnen was asked about his promise to his father.
I’d just tell him I tried.
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