Three days after his epic loss to Anderson Silva in the main event of UFC 148, Chael Sonnen hasn’t made any major decisions regarding his future. But he made one thing clear: He has no plans of dwelling on his second-round TKO loss, either.
Serving as a co-host to the UFC on Fuel TV 4 weigh-ins in San Jose, Calif., the vanquished contender swatted down erroneous Internet reports which claimed his camp was planning on appealing the fight’s result to the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Sonnen told Jay Glazer and MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani that Silva’s knee to the chest while Sonnen was downed, the move in question, was something he has moved beyond.
“Here’s the reality,” said Sonnen. “We don’t do instant replay in this sport and we shouldn’t. It comes down to a judgement call and wherever the referee [Yves Lavigne] says the knee landed officially, that’s where the knee landed. That’s an excellent official, they all are, he made his call and that’s the way it goes and I will never complain or look back. …
“The referee’s judgement is what stands. I trust in that and it works both ways. I’ve thrown knees before, the referee makes his decision, that is the decision and we would never appeal it, except with knees. If we would have a chance to re-do it, that’s a different thing, but we would never go and appeal the decision. Part of competing is you got to know how to lose. It’s really easy to win, but you’ve got to know how to lose. Sometimes you have to man up, swallow it, and walk out.”
Although Sonnen has yet to plot his next career move, he believe that the immediate aftermath of a fight isn’t the time to make such a decision.
“I don’t think any athlete should even begin to talk like that or even think like that,” he said. “You let about 30 days go by. Anything in life, you don’t want to make a decision based on emotion. You have very big highs and very big lows in this sport. You don’t want to make any drastic decisions. I think it’s an insult to the fans when guys like to come out and say ‘I’m retired.’ What they really mean is ‘Hey, I’ll see everyone in 18 months because I’m coming back.’ I don’t want to see that. When I get to that point in my career I’ll make a statement and never look back.”
Glazer couldn’t help but ask about the move during the bout which had the MMA world buzzing, the wild missed spinning back fist which turned the fight in Silva’s favor.
Asked point-blank “What were you thinking?” Sonnen said “You know, I really wish that I knew, and I don’t know. Listen, had that landed, we’d all be talking about what a wonderful spinning punch it it was, but it didn’t and I fell down like a doofus.”
The middleweight instead credited Silva for his comeback abilities.
“It’s very rare in a competition where a guy will fall apart and come back within the same night. … In my first fight with Anderson, he fell apart, and then at some point he said, you know what I think I can win this thing. And I really admire that in him. I look up to that in an athlete. He does that, Randy Couture does that really well. And Anderson did that in this fight as well. In the first round, he offered very little resistance and he came back strong.”