Chael Sonnen. Over the last few years he has been one of the most talked about fighters in the UFC, and generally not for all the right reasons. Chael has developed into a top-level fighter in the UFC, but what has stood out as a more interesting component of his game is his ability to talk up a fight. He has gone from being “gate-keeper” at best, to one of the top talents in two different divisions (one of which he has yet to even fight at).
On March 26th 2008, Chael Sonnen was coming off a less than inspiring win over WEC contender, Bryan Baker. It was a fight that would position the winner for a title shot at middleweight champ Paul Filho. Fliho was considered by many to be the future of the middleweight division, and the man who could beat the invincible Anderson Silva. To everyone’s surprise, Sonnen pulled off an upset victory over Filho, who seemed very distracted (“paranoid/delusional” comes to mind) throughout the fight. The impact of Sonnen’s win was marginalized as a result, as Filho appeared to have lost his mind during the fight.
So, when the WEC merged with the UFC and Sonnen entered the middleweight division, no one really gave him much of chance of being a high-level contender.
His first match-ups in the UFC lent credence to this point. In his first contest in the post-WEC era, he was set to match-up against up and comer Dan Miller. After a slow and boring fight, he managed to grind out the decision. In his next fight, he was given perennial contender Yushin Okami, and the result was much the same – slow, uneventful, but a win for Sonnen nonetheless. It was his next fight that would garner him some attention.
On February 6th, 2010 Sonnen was set to face Nate Marquardt – the winner would get a shot at middleweight champion Anderson Silva. The fight was meant to set-up a re-match between Silva and Marquardt – but, again, Sonnen did not comply and pushed forward, winning the decision. It was the result very few wanted, yet for Sonnen, he had his title shot.
Little interest surrounded the main event at UFC 117. Sonnen’s fights had been less than inspiring, and recent Anderson Silva fights had been some of his least exciting to watch. UFC 117, however, ended up becoming legendary! Why? It all came from one side of the main event – Chael Sonnen’s.
Before a single punch or takedown had even taken place, a hype machine around UFC 117 had run away with the card. Sonnen did what very few fighters at the time had done effectively – he trashed his opponent and started to sound like he was convinced he had the recipe for success against the Spider. Of course he was mostly alone as few game him any chance to beat Silva before the fight was announced, but his full-court press on the media was starting to turn doubters into believers.
Many wanted to tune into the fight just to see Sonnen knocked out by Silva. Strangely, the complete opposite happened – Sonnen dominated the fight for four-and-a-half rounds! It wasn’t until a late fourth round triangle choke by the champ that we had a winner, but take nothing away from Chael – he backed his hype! Creating pre-match hype is important in the UFC, but it’s irrelevant if you got and get a your ass handed to you.
Many fighters have followed Sonnen’s hype-machine style, but failed miserably. Why? Sonnen is not only quick on his feet, but he is so over-the-top and ridiculous, that people just want to see what he will say next. In his last fight he actually seemed to get under the cool, calm demenour of Anderson Silva – this combined with near victory in his last fight, made the event absolutely enormous (in terms of pay-per-view buys).
And that’s been his recipe – pushing every limit on what he will say, combined with results. Sounds simple? It’s not, and that’s why so many has failed. Trash-talking in of itself is a fine art (as any WWE fan will tell you), but being able to produce against a fighter like Anderson Silva, who many consider to be the best in the sport, is a whole new level of “wow”.
This is also part of the reason that Sonnen was given the opportunity to take on light heavyweight champ Jon Jones in a fill-in position against Dan Henderson. Dana White knew that Sonnen could step-up in a hurry, hype up the fight in a few weeks to levels that had yet to be seen with that card and still put on an impressive performance against Jones.
Love him or hate him, every time you will tune in to watch him. Not only because you love to hate him, but because you know that he actually has a legitimate chance of putting together a victory against any fighter he is given. If he can beat, well almost beat, Silva, he can probably almost beat pretty much anyone!
… and that is the last word.
