Sonnen: Aldo injury story ‘Fugazi’ expects him to pull out again
Chael Sonnen: “That story is extremely fugazi. Two different x-rays came out. Five different stories came out. His coach says he doesn’t want to coach him anymore.”
Controversial and brilliant retired fighter and current fight analyst Chael Sonnen says he believes UFC featherweight Jose Aldo could have fought now Interim champion Conor McGregor at UFC 189 on July 11.
“Yea, I do,” said Sonnen to Michael Landsberg on TSN’s Off the Record as transcribed by David St. Martin for MMAFighting.com. “I want to be responsible with my words because a guy’s health comes first but that story is extremely fugazi. Two different x-rays came out. Five different stories came out. His coach says he doesn’t want to coach him anymore.
“Jose says he doesn’t want to be in the weight class anymore and his own teammate, after he injures him, goes on a media tour telling everybody how he did it. That was a weird, weird deal.”
“Our president Dana White is a gambler. I think he will gamble and throw down a bunch of money and try to put it together again. No, I don’t imagine … I don’t know why [Aldo and McGregor] would [fight]. It’s not going to be bigger than it just was [at UFC 189] and Jose just didn’t show up.
“What’s the expression? ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.’ Come on. Jose Aldo’s pulled out of five fights. The guy’s an excellent fighter. I’m not trying to kick a guy when he’s down, but that’s a bunch of crap what he just pulled.”
Sonnen has a penchant for stirring things up with Brazilians, and there is no way he could know with certainty what Aldo’s ribs felt like.
UFC bantamweight TJ Dillashaw, a member of Team Alpha Male, rivals to Nova Uniao, but he never the less expressed support for Aldo.
It was definitely impossible to fight through the injury, said Dillashaw to MMAjunkie. Mine was a fracture, so they wouldn’t even let me fight because it was too dangerous. Even with separated ribs, bruised ribs or broken ribs, I don’t think you realize until you have that injury how much it affects you.
You can’t even sneeze, cough, laugh, and even watching a funny movie is not a great idea. Getting out of bed hurts. If you can’t even get out of bed, how the heck are you supposed to go and fight another man, especially for a world title?
However, Chael Sonnen has never pulled out of a fight in some 14 fights under the UFC/WEC banner, which earned him the right to opine about pull outs. Further, Sonnen is correct that something felt fugazi about the rib injury fiasco.
Time will tell if he is right about the fight never happening.
SWe sure hope he’s wrong.
