How I Became a Heel, by Chael P. Sonnen
Chael Sonnen: “Anybody in politics will tell you that when there’s a problem you steer into it, so I came out of that mess and I just came out and said, ‘Yea, I’m a gangster.”
The UFC is as real as it gets, but one of the most compelling fighters in the league’s history was a conscious fabrication. Now serving a two-year suspension for PED use, Chael Sonnen spoke recently with Jason Bryant on the Short Time Wrestling Podcast, and pulled back the curtain.
Generations ago, when boxing promoters were trying to match up an Irishman and an Italian, pro wrestling promoters discovered that fans gravitated towards with contests featuring a babyface and a heel. The good vs. evil tableau continues to this day in ‘rasslin, and ambiguous cases like Stone Cold Steve Austin serve only as exceptions that prove the rule.
No one in combat sports understands this as well as Chael Sonnen. In 2011, the fighter pleaded guilty to money laundering and tested positive for elevated testosterone levels following his UFC 117 loss to then middleweight champion Anderson Silva. So fiction imitated truth, and Sonnen concocted The Gangster from Oregon.
“I got hit with a PED charge and a criminal charge in the same month,” said Sonnen as transcribed by By David St. Martin for MMAFighting. “The whole ‘silly me’ defense is a pretty good one. When you go, ‘Listen, I didn’t know. I didn’t know the rules.’ That works. That’s a good, solid defense. One time.
“I needed it twice in the same month. So I just knew I was beat. As far as a PR standpoint goes, this is a disaster. Anybody in politics will tell you that when there’s a problem you steer into it, so I came out of that mess and I just came out and said, ‘Yeah, I’m a gangster. This is the life. This is what gangsters do.’
“Before I knew it they were making t-shirts that said ‘American Gangster’ on it. It became the No. 2 selling t-shirt of all time for Tapout. People just started going into it. I just kept going with it, too. ‘This is nothing. These are just the things I was caught for. You should hear what I got away with.’ I started going really hard into it. Yea, it was a lot of fun and it did turn it around.”
“Whenever you can evoke a strong emotion and want somebody to tune in, whether it’s to see you win or get beat up, and I’ve been on both sides of that, it’s a win. What you don’t want is for somebody to not care. Whenever they have no feeling at all, that’s bad. Even if they kind of like you or they kind of don’t, that’s also bad. It’s got to be a strong emotion one way or the other.
“For me, I prefer to be the heel. I just have always preferred to incite them and make them angry. I had death threats in Brazil, but if you’re a heel, this is a major win. What’s stronger than that? It’s always fun for me. One thing I picked up on was that nobody else wanted that. If you’re up there competing for popularity, well, everybody wants to be liked. Everyone wants to be patted on the back. Now you’re competing with everybody.
“If you go to the other end of the pool, you can have the water all to yourself. I became the biggest heel in MMA and possibly in sports kind of by just swimming down there and saying, ‘Well, I want to be down here.’ If I could do it over again, I’d definitely chose the same route. I might have laid it on a bit thicker at times but I would never go back.”
And here’s the best part – maybe nothing Sonnen said above is exactly true. Maybe he’s still in character, this time as a wholly reformed man, confessing all. Or maybe he really is.
It’s beautiful.
And it never ends. Here is Sonnen announcing he earned a purple belt in BJJ, while wearing his favorite gi.
chael sonnen @sonnench
•The face of BJJ just got his purple belt – 11:07 PM – 4 Sep 2014
•Blue today. Brown by METAMORIS in May. Black by Abu Dhabi in Sept. – 1:20 AM – 5 Sep 2014
May it never end.
