Chael: I have a pretty good idea who CM Punk will be fighting
Chael Sonnen: “You will know who he is and he will be a pretty-heavy favorite to win. CM Punk is not going to come in as the favorite.”
No one brought the sensibilities of professional wrestling to mixed martial arts like Chael Sonnen did, sometimes word for word. So when the sport’s dominant league signed former WWE champion CM Punk, it is only natural that Sonnen be sought out for comment.
“To me, CM Punk’s friend and a supporter, I think it’s cool” said Sonnen to Michael Stets for MMAMania. “He’s 36 and he wants to do this. He really has a passion to want to do it. He is not particularly worried about the outcome as much as he is the experience and the effort. I can tell you I can relate to that.”
“Dana doesn’t do the oddity fights and every few years he will. Every few years he will do something and give a chance to do something that is more based around fun than anything else. James Toney comes to mind. Way back before James Toney, it was back in 2005 they brought a guy in by the name Sean Gannon, who was a police officer that beat a guy named Kimbo Slice in this video that got put on YouTube and ‘went viral’ as the kids say. Every so often somebody’s lucky number comes up and they do something that is more based on fun. I think that is pretty clearly what is happening here.”
UFC president Dana White has said Brooks will be matched with a fighter of similar experience, bit Sonnen says that will not be the case.
“For the money that you got to pay him and the attention that is going to bring, he is likely to lose,” said Chael. “It does not make sense to do the build up and have him lose to a guy that cannot gain momentum in his own career. If you are going to give a guy a push and put him on a main card or co-main spot, which is where I think they are going to end up. You have to give it to a guy that if he wins and he is expected to win, than he can go on and do something. You can’t pay Punk the numbers you are paying him and then try and let it coast. You just can’t do it. I think you stick him on a pay-per-view and you have some fun with it and you let him have some fun with it. I think that is what this is about.”
“I have a pretty good idea who his opponent is… I’m going to keep that close to the vest. It would not make sense to give him a bottom-tier guy… Well he is not a bottom-tier guy, I can tell you that. You will know who he is and he will be a pretty-heavy favorite to win. Punk is not going to come in as the favorite.”
So UG, who do you think Sonnen is thinking or, or is he just making you think?