Sonnen: McGregor a bigger star than Rousey

Chael Sonnen is one of the great question answerers in sports. Submission Radio is one of the greatest question askers in sports. The two came together for another awesome interview recently.

At some point, UFC president Dana White is going to burn out, and the league will be looking for a new leader. Sonnen would be a solid choice, if not for boss, then for consigliere to whatever exec is hired.

Seriously.

Sonnen on Ronda Rousey

[Holly Holm] had a major opportunity to fight Ronda Rousey in an immediate rematch. And the way her contract works and the way the UFC analytics projections work, they would have paid her about 10 million dollars.

“On the other side of it is, who knows if Ronda is ever going to come back? You know, why should Holly wait till November? She’s got this new contact, she’s the new champion, she’s not a rich gal. This contract has the ability to make her rich, but she’s got to go out and activate it, which means she had to fight somebody. If I was in Holly’s shoes I would have done the same thing. I would have gone out and competed, expected to win, expected to just meet Ronda later. So you know, critiquing her isn’t totally fair when I would have done the same thing, but it is the reality.

“She’s got a manager that does not know what he’s doing. He’s not an MMA guy, he came from the boxing world. And he can be a perfectly nice guy, that’s not to be an insult to him, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he got her a bad deal. And that’s just the reality. Even her fight that she just had with Miesha Tate, he got her a bad deal. And he thought that he did a great job. He doesn’t know this business.

What the UFC will do is they would make Tate versus Rousey 3. But what I would do, is I would just leave the title out of it completely and I would do an immediate rematch with Ronda versus Holly Holm. The way the minds work at Zuffa is, ‘look we got UFC 200, we gotta put the belt on the line, we gotta put our top stars against whoever the champ is’. I disagree.

“I think sometimes you just gotta make a fight. You know, Anderson versus Bisping. There was no title on the line, but that was a fight. Conor versus Diaz – which currently holds every UFC record there is, at least on pay-per-view. Not live gate, but pay-per-view – there was no title on the line. It was just the fight that people wanted to see. Because I think sometimes you just gotta make the fight. But I know the way that they think over there and they think, ‘well, we lost that fight because Miesha’s now champ. Now it’s Miesha versus Ronda,’ so that’s at least what will be offered. I would just hope that somebody in the room at least makes the suggestion of ‘why do we have to do it for the title? Why can’t we just do the fight everyone wants to see?'”

Sonnen on how much McGregor loss will drop his drawing power

No, it definitely won’t. Not in the short-term. You know, he’s still the world champion and he still goes back down. He can patch up the boat with two or three microphones in his hand. Unlike most other fighters, he’s got a different skillset.

“So no, he’s going to do real well, and frankly that invincibility factor traditionally has worked against guys. You know, there’s only been one heavyweight of all time that could fight and draw being invincible, and that was Mike Tyson. Even Jon Jones, as great as he is, until recently wasn’t able to draw very well. Anderson never drew until I came around – and I don’t mean to insert myself into this, but again, that’s just a number. So no, being invincible isn’t a tremendous drawing point, good competition is, somebody that’s exciting.

“So he’s going to do fine, but to say that he’s not going to take a dip, yeah I think he’ll take a little bit of a dip. But even with a dip he’ll still be the biggest star the company’s got right now.

He’s always been, he’s always been [The biggest star]. That’s never been true [that Ronda was a bigger star]. She’s a good friend, I don’t mean this negative, not even a tiny bit, but that’s never been true. I never understood why they have constantly said it. God bless them, it’s just simply not true. But Conor holds the gate records and he holds the pay-per-view records and she hasn’t touched him. And that’s the truth, regardless of what you might read in the media.

Still, Sonnen explains there is no guarantee McGregor doesn’t lose the next fight, too.

Oh yeah, oh yeah definitely; two or three or four,” said Sonnen. “You know, you gotta understand how tough the weight classes that he’s in are. You know, the strap changes hands constantly. Jose Aldo held it for a record period of time and that record’s not gonna be beat anytime soon. That weight is just too hard.

“Same thing with 155, that belt’s on somebody new constantly. Anthony Pettis was on the cover of the Wheaties box, what was that, 18 months ago? And now he’s just one of the guys – and he’s one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen. Anthony Pettis can do just amazing and crazy things, but that weight class is that hard. It’s so tough at 155. 145 is even tougher.

“So yeah, could he lose to Frankie? Absolutely. Where does he go from there? Well, he goes right into another stud because he’s such a big draw and he’s always going to be a main event, whether it’s fighting for the belt or not. He’s going to be the main event in the foreseeable future, which means he’s fighting another stud from the toughest weight class there is. Yeah he’s going to get beat, but so is Frankie, so is Jose, they just are. So is Cub Swanson. You go through the list; they’re just going to get beat. It’s just that kind of weight class.”

On grappling Michael Bisping at UR Fight on 3/20

I got asked to fight on the card. I initially got asked to fight in boxing against Roy Jones Jr. I can’t fight at any capacity for another few months. I’m on a suspension right now and I can’t do any kind of fight. Whether you wanna call it boxing or MMA, I just can’t do it.

“So I said, ‘you know I’d love to participate but I can’t. I’m suspended from fighting’. So they said, ‘well that’s in Nevada, we’re gonna hold this in Abu Dhabi. That’s officially where this is going to be, on a rooftop in Abu Dhabi’. And I said, ‘man I don’t care where you put it, I made a deal specifically with Pat Lundvall, she spoke for the whole commission, but specifically I looked her in the eye and told her I won’t fight for two years. I can’t fight’.

“So they said, ‘alright, you wanna commentate?’ And I said, ‘yeah I’ll commentate,’ and somehow it transferred to ‘how about a grappling match?’ Well that I can do. So I was going to wrestle with Rampage and we both signed contracts, and about four to five hours after we sign, Rampage calls up and says, ‘I gotta pull that out’. He said, ‘Viacom just stepped in and you know, they’re going to give me some problems if I go through with it’. So we looked around for somebody else and Bisping agreed to it in about a half a second and that was really it.

I’ll make this really simple for you…Michael Bisping has no chance. … I’m better.

“I know guys that wrestle with him on a regular basis and he doesn’t always need that wall, that’s primarily what he trains with as an MMA fighter – he doesn’t go out and do grappling, this is a new experience for him – but they say he scrambles well, that you know, in fighting he uses that wall a lot, but even in the open he sort of scrambles pretty well and gets back up. And that’s a strength of mine too in the open, is on top to not let guys up. So it’s gonna be hard, it’s gonna be hard work. You know, he always shows up in shape, and I’m gonna be in shape and we’ll be ready to go. But yeah, he’s a problem. He’s a problem for anybody. He’s a black belt, I’m a purple belt, but I’m a wrestler and he comes from England. They don’t have wrestling, so I’ll be a little better in that realm for sure.

“I would have whipped Roy’s ass [in a boxing match]. Yes I would have definitely done it. I still might whip Roy’s ass someday; it just won’t be till I’m off the suspension.

Lastly, Sonnen cleared up some chatter that originated with his manager that he was definitely coming back after his suspension is up.

Well I would tell you this, he does believe that,” said Sonnen. “He argues with me all the time, and it’s very playful, but he just tells it – I always tell him, ‘man my race is ran and I’m done,’ and he says, ‘yeah I don’t believe you. I think you’re going to come back. I know you’re in the gym, and blah blah blah’. So he is sharing his opinion. The only push back I would give is that he said ‘for the right fight.’ Man, I’m not a bully, I’m not coming in to fight some dinosaur like, you know, Vitor, Rich Franklin. If I come back, I’m gonna whip all their asses – and I’m not coming back, but if I did, it wouldn’t be for the ‘right’ fight. I would come back and fight anybody that fought me.