Chael Sonnen may have saved Anderson Silva from serious trouble with the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
The NSAC is mulling over the possibility of disciplining Silva for his actions at the UFC 148 weigh-ins.
After weighing in for the fight, Silva threw a shoulder at Sonnen during an intense staredown. There wasn’t any serious damage done, but the shoulder did hit Sonnen in the mouth.
After the incident, NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer told Silva and his camp that similar stunts won’t be tolerated in the future, and another such incident could result in the termination of Silva’s fighting license in the state of Nevada.
Kizer recently spoke with MMAjunkie about his heated discussion with the UFC champ.
“Anderson had some very lame excuse initially about, ‘Oh, well, Chael put his head down at the beginning of that.’ I’m like, ‘C’mon, that’s silly.’ And then he said, ‘Well, I’m upset about what he said about my wife.’ I said, ‘Look, I understand that, but that’s not an excuse for doing what you did. It’s inexcusable what you did.’
[Silva] wasn’t very happy with us pointing that out to him, but he understood. I finally had to say to him, ‘Look, if you ever, despite your previous record with us as a good licensee, if you ever do anything like this again, that’s it for you in Nevada. You’ll be fighting your fights elsewhere.'”
Before speaking with Silva, Kizer asked for Sonnen’s opinion on what type of discipline should be handed down. Since Sonnen was the one attacked, Kizer thought it was only fair to give him an opportunity to have some input on the punishment.
Kizer continues:
“I wanted to respect Chael’s opinion. He definitely doesn’t need me to fight his battles. Hopefully, we’ll never see anything like that again from Mr. Silva. I talked to [Sonnen] and said look, ‘What’s your view? What’s your level of outrage, so to speak?’ And he was very forgiving.
I’ve got to give him a lot of credit. He basically said to me that he wasn’t looking for any kind of serious discipline against Anderson, that he’d forgiven him. He wasn’t even sure if it was premeditated by Anderson. He was very gracious, very forgiving.
But I wanted to let him know. I said, ‘You’re the aggrieved party here. I want your input before the chairman makes a decision, here.’ His viewpoint was, ‘I’m not looking for you to discipline him or anything. If you want to do a small fine, that’s fine, but I wouldn’t even do any kind of fine.’ I said, ‘I appreciate your input, but it’s the chairman’s call. Your input is the most important of all.'”
According to Kizer, Silva apologized for the incident and admitted it wasn’t the right thing to do. He continued to attribute his actions to inappropriate comments made by Sonnen about his wife.
The NSAC has yet to make any decisions regarding a possible fine or suspension.
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