If asked the name the most hated man in MMA, Chael Sonnen would be at or top the list for most fans. Truth though, and you can ask anyone who knows him, is that Chael Sonnen is a remarkably smart and kind man.
One example was revealed when Mike Riordan was interviewing Olympian wrestler Andy Hrovat recently. Sonnen had wrestled Riordan in college, but otherwise they did not know each other. Despite that, Sonnen financed months of training in North Ossetia for Riordan.
If North Ossetia is not on your radar as must places to train in combat sports, consider this. In 2008, the combined four continents of North America, South America, Africa, and Australia produced one medal in freestyle wrestling. North Ossetta, with like North Dakota a population of 700,000, produced seven.
Sonnen watched a 2009 interview with Riordan after he failed to place in the 2008 Olympics, and then failed to make the 2009 team, and determined to help.
Riordan explains.
“I’ve wrestled [Sonnen] once,” said Riordan. “It was at University Nationals, it was my freshman year in college, I didn’t even think he’d remember it…
“I get an email from him saying ‘Hey, I want to send you some money, it’s going to be in an envelope that looks like junk mail, because it was from his bank, his bank just cut a check and sent it and they send them in unmarked envelopes so people don’t steal the mail.
“He sent me three or four thousand dollars, and for me every thousand dollars was a month’s pay. Room and board were a thousand dollars a month.
“Chael is a big wrestling fan, and I had a rough year in 2009, I had a staph infection in my ankle so i wasn’t able to wrestle. I was up a weight at the [World Team] trials, and lost only one match, in the clinch, and it really hurt me. [Sonnen] said he saw an interview afterward where I said I wanted to go to Russia for a year and train, and he said he thought that was a really great idea and he wanted to help contribute, get me over there, and help me out along the way.
“After I was already there, I won three tournaments, I beat the number three wrestler in Russia from the year before. [Sonnen] ended up sending me another 2 or 3 thousand dollars, he told me to enjoy myself over there.
“He would send me emails every once in a while and check up on me, see how I was doing, and I was doing the same with him. He was just following up and seeing how training was going. We talked about the experience over there.
“I had no existing relationship with him before this, but now we still keep in touch.”
Hrovat did not make the Olympic team a second time, but is now passing on what he learned as the head coach of the revered Cliff Keen wrestling club.
