Never let it be said that UFC fighter Chael Sonnen is not the forgiving type.
Over the Fourth of July holiday, Sonnen hosted a Q&A session during the UFC 162 fan expo in Las Vegas, during which Sonnen lashed out at Miami Heat superstar LeBron James: “He’s been invited to the show (UFC 162), and if he comes tonight, I’m going to beat his ass and put the picture up on Twitter. I’m telling you that now for the lawsuit. He’s been warned. I would have beat his ass at the last show if I could have got to him. He knows what he did, ask him.”
Sonnen had to cross that scheduled beating off his to-do list, as James was a no-show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena the night of the Anderson Silva-Chris Weidman fight.
Now it seems as if things have been patched up between the two. Sonnen, appearing on “The Toucher and Rich Show” on 98.5 Boston Thursday morning, stated:
“LeBron is off the hook. LeBron has made it right. He’s off the hook. That’s between LeBron and I, but he did the right thing and I forgive him. I was going to beat him up and tweet out the photos of it.”
While Sonnen did not say what he was forgiving James for, it would not be a stretch to imagine it was an incident that reportedly occurred between James and Sonnen’s fiancée (now wife) backstage at UFC 148. Sonnen recently recalled the incident to Bleacher Report’s Jeremy Botter: “This guy walked up to my fiancée backstage and asks her if there’s a Tic Tac in her blouse or if she was just happy to see him.”
Whatever the case, it looks like any beef between Sonnen and James, the recent multiple ESPY Award winner, has been squashed.
Now we’ll have to see if Sonnen invites James as his special guest when Sonnen faces Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in the main event of the inaugural UFC card on Fox Sports 1 on Aug. 17 from the TD Garden in Boston.
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