MMA fighter and personality Chael Sonnen appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and discussed among other things The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3. He and opposing coach Wanderlei Silva were of course expected to fight at the close of the season. But Wand literally ran from a test and Sonnen failed two of them. Neither man has fought since.
However, the show did decent ratings, and produced Warlley Alves, Antonio Carlos Junior, and Vitor Miranda who are all doing well in the UFC. But Sonnen says the show was nearly scuttled and was only saved by Chael’s cunning stunt. It began when Wand failed to get an apology for all of Sonnen’s slights against the Brazilian people. There were many. Sonnen wouldn’t say sorry, and Wand left.
“I’ll tell you this, and you’ll think less of me,” said Sonnen as transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti for MMA Fighting. “You’ll go, ‘well, you’re a dick for doing that.’ I get that I’m a dick for doing it, but I was in a dust-up with Wanderlei.
“We were in Brazil, and the first day of the filming of The Ultimate Fighter, he quit. He quit the whole show. He goes, ‘I’m done and I’m leaving.’ And that was real. They didn’t show very much of it, but it was a mess. We couldn’t leave the set. We had to get Wanderlei back, but we had Dana on the phone. It was an absolute mess. We had Vitor on the phone, wondering, hey, if this guy really walks, will you get on a plane? It was that [bad]. We thought the show was over.”
“So, I’m trying to be real with him. I’m trying to be as real as I can, because this whole thing is about to blow up. I go, ‘Wanderlei, here’s the script, okay? I’m the bad guy. I insulted this entire nation. You wear the white hat. You get to come in and be the good guy. When you’re bullying me, when you’re physically starting fights with me, when you’re quitting and walking off set and leaving this whole thing hanging, you’re now making me vulnerable. If I’m vulnerable, then I become the good guy. I don’t want to be the good guy. But you do, so enjoy being the good guy. I’ll keep being the bad guy. But stay with me on this, because you’re ruining everything.’
“And [Silva] goes on and on about sportsmanship and honor. It’s like, dude, this isn’t little league baseball, man. You could take all those great little sayings that your coach told you or you got in a fortune cookie and you can shove them up your ass when I’m around, because I don’t care about any of them. This is a fistfight in a steel cage. There’s nothing about honor and sportsmanship. This is about an applause and a paycheck. That’s what it is. So I’m explaining this thing to him, and he’s telling me how to do it. ‘You’ve got to do this and you’ve got to do that.’ I just stop and I go: ‘Wanderlei, stop. Between us, just stop. I am the highest paid fighter in the history of the sport. I’m the biggest draw in the history of this sport. Do you really think you should be giving me advice, or should you be taking it? Should you be copying me?’
“He just tore right into me. This is the dick part. So, I’m on my phone. I’ve got my phone, I bank with Bank of America, I’ve got a mobile app. I log into my Bank of America app and I just show it to him. And I said, ‘do you really think that you should be giving me advice, or should you just come along for the ride and let me take it from here?’
“And his whole expression, he didn’t say it but he was like, alright, let’s go do the show. And that’s actually where that ended. I know that makes me a prick, but that’s what changed him right there, is I freaking showed him, ‘hey, I know what I’m doing here. You do your thing and let me carry us.’”
Sonnen comes off suspension in July.
“The bottom line is that I’ll come and I’ll tell these guys how to do it, and I’ll have, from reporters to fans to other fighters, come and want to argue with me,” said Sonnen. “They’ll want to tell me the way to do it. It’s like, guys, when I make a statement, I’m not asking you how it should be done. I’m teaching class. This is how you do it. When you sell as many tickets, t-shirts, or pay-per-views as I did, go ahead and share your opinion with me and I’ll be happy to hear it. But until then, shut your mouth and learn.”
