Author: Chuck Mindenhall

As audacious as Chael Sonnen can be, it works better when he’s a lone affiliate. If ESPN interviews him ahead of a fight, it’s almost expected that he embark on rant about his opponent, or talk about the Nogueira brothers feeding carrots to buses, or try to touch the interviewer’s curly nest of hair in ice-breaking awe.

He does that to the consequence of nobody but himself. It’s why he’s where he is; audacity has made him one of the fight game’s transcendent stars.

But when he is giving his opinion on a fight, as an employee of FOX, his audaciousness is divided by a thousand. It becomes FOX’s problem, because he’s a representative of them and their content. Sonnen is obviously smart enough to know the difference, but not to avoid the one side of himself from spilling over into the other from time to time.

On Monday night’s edition of Fox Sports Live, a roundtable discussion where opinions are opined and opinions are coveted and opinions are the axis of the whole enterprise, analyst Sonnen made a fighter Sonnen joke. It was a slash at the rapper Chris Brown, ultimately. When asked about Floyd Mayweather he said, “I’ve never seen anybody in the in the history of America get so rich and so famous off of having complete wimps throwing punches at their faces. I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, ‘Well, it’s happened before, what about Rihanna?’”

Brown, of course, was brought up on felony assault charges for an incident with Rihanna in 2009. As Gary Payton laughed, Sonnen then said, “Too soon? Too soon?”

At that point, too late, actually.

Too late to take it back. And by Tuesday night, FOX took the measure of issuing a formal apology for the “inappropriate attempt at humor.” Most of Sonnen’s inappropriate attempts at humor are funny, or funny in how uneasily they stray into the inappropriate. Raw is something he does deftly well. In fact, we tend to give him the leeway of a comedian, which is a delicate space in which context is everything.

But this time Sonnen managed to give the network he hawks for a black eye in the process of talking about a rapper who is known to dole out black eyes to his girlfriends. Bad combo. The reasons are obvious: It’s a domestic violence situation that exists in a pop-culture bubble. But it’s a domestic violence situation that remains a domestic violence situation. Even if Rihanna took Brown back, and even if that situation is ripe for, and has been, a million pop-culture punch lines.

If Sonnen had rolled out the Rihanna joke in an interview in which he was promoting his own fight? That would have been Chael being Chael. The same people who hate him would continue to hate him, and the people who love him would continue to throw rose petals at his feet. But when he says it as a panelist in which he’s a paid member of the program, he falls under different scrutiny.

That’s a dynamic that Sonnen, as naturally as he fits in as a showman, a fighter and an analyst, is still sorting out. How not to make the one thing bleed too much into the other.

As audacious as Chael Sonnen can be, it works better when he’s a lone affiliate. If ESPN interviews him ahead of a fight, it’s almost expected that he embark on rant about his opponent, or talk about the Nogueira brothers feeding carrots to buses, or try to touch the interviewer’s curly nest of hair in ice-breaking awe.

He does that to the consequence of nobody but himself. It’s why he’s where he is; audacity has made him one of the fight game’s transcendent stars.

But when he is giving his opinion on a fight, as an employee of FOX, his audaciousness is divided by a thousand. It becomes FOX’s problem, because he’s a representative of them and their content. Sonnen is obviously smart enough to know the difference, but not to avoid the one side of himself from spilling over into the other from time to time.

On Monday night’s edition of Fox Sports Live, a roundtable discussion where opinions are opined and opinions are coveted and opinions are the axis of the whole enterprise, analyst Sonnen made a fighter Sonnen joke. It was a slash at the rapper Chris Brown, ultimately. When asked about Floyd Mayweather he said, “I’ve never seen anybody in the in the history of America get so rich and so famous off of having complete wimps throwing punches at their faces. I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, ‘Well, it’s happened before, what about Rihanna?’”

Brown, of course, was brought up on felony assault charges for an incident with Rihanna in 2009. As Gary Payton laughed, Sonnen then said, “Too soon? Too soon?”

At that point, too late, actually.

Too late to take it back. And by Tuesday night, FOX took the measure of issuing a formal apology for the “inappropriate attempt at humor.” Most of Sonnen’s inappropriate attempts at humor are funny, or funny in how uneasily they stray into the inappropriate. Raw is something he does deftly well. In fact, we tend to give him the leeway of a comedian, which is a delicate space in which context is everything.

But this time Sonnen managed to give the network he hawks for a black eye in the process of talking about a rapper who is known to dole out black eyes to his girlfriends. Bad combo. The reasons are obvious: It’s a domestic violence situation that exists in a pop-culture bubble. But it’s a domestic violence situation that remains a domestic violence situation. Even if Rihanna took Brown back, and even if that situation is ripe for, and has been, a million pop-culture punch lines.

If Sonnen had rolled out the Rihanna joke in an interview in which he was promoting his own fight? That would have been Chael being Chael. The same people who hate him would continue to hate him, and the people who love him would continue to throw rose petals at his feet. But when he says it as a panelist in which he’s a paid member of the program, he falls under different scrutiny.

That’s a dynamic that Sonnen, as naturally as he fits in as a showman, a fighter and an analyst, is still sorting out. How not to make the one thing bleed too much into the other.

As audacious as Chael Sonnen can be, it works better when he’s a lone affiliate. If ESPN interviews him ahead of a fight, it’s almost expected that he embark on rant about his opponent, or talk about the Nogueira brothers feeding carrots to buses, or try to touch the interviewer’s curly nest of hair in ice-breaking awe.

He does that to the consequence of nobody but himself. It’s why he’s where he is; audacity has made him one of the fight game’s transcendent stars.

But when he is giving his opinion on a fight, as an employee of FOX, his audaciousness is divided by a thousand. It becomes FOX’s problem, because he’s a representative of them and their content. Sonnen is obviously smart enough to know the difference, but not to avoid the one side of himself from spilling over into the other from time to time.

On Monday night’s edition of Fox Sports Live, a roundtable discussion where opinions are opined and opinions are coveted and opinions are the axis of the whole enterprise, analyst Sonnen made a fighter Sonnen joke. It was a slash at the rapper Chris Brown, ultimately. When asked about Floyd Mayweather he said, “I’ve never seen anybody in the in the history of America get so rich and so famous off of having complete wimps throwing punches at their faces. I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, ‘Well, it’s happened before, what about Rihanna?’”

Brown, of course, was brought up on felony assault charges for an incident with Rihanna in 2009. As Gary Payton laughed, Sonnen then said, “Too soon? Too soon?”

At that point, too late, actually.

Too late to take it back. And by Tuesday night, FOX took the measure of issuing a formal apology for the “inappropriate attempt at humor.” Most of Sonnen’s inappropriate attempts at humor are funny, or funny in how uneasily they stray into the inappropriate. Raw is something he does deftly well. In fact, we tend to give him the leeway of a comedian, which is a delicate space in which context is everything.

But this time Sonnen managed to give the network he hawks for a black eye in the process of talking about a rapper who is known to dole out black eyes to his girlfriends. Bad combo. The reasons are obvious: It’s a domestic violence situation that exists in a pop-culture bubble. But it’s a domestic violence situation that remains a domestic violence situation. Even if Rihanna took Brown back, and even if that situation is ripe for, and has been, a million pop-culture punch lines.

If Sonnen had rolled out the Rihanna joke in an interview in which he was promoting his own fight? That would have been Chael being Chael. The same people who hate him would continue to hate him, and the people who love him would continue to throw rose petals at his feet. But when he says it as a panelist in which he’s a paid member of the program, he falls under different scrutiny.

That’s a dynamic that Sonnen, as naturally as he fits in as a showman, a fighter and an analyst, is still sorting out. How not to make the one thing bleed too much into the other.

Gegard Mousasi is a guy who likes to stay busy. Since coming over to the UFC after Zuffa’s purchase of Strikeforce, the former Strikeforce and Dream champion has fought exactly once, though — and the person he fought wasn’t the person they booked him against.

In fact, Ilir Latifi wasn’t a person anybody outside of Stockholm had ever heard of.

Mousasi was to have faced Alexander Gustafsson in Sweden that day in April, in a fight with undefined but real title implications. Days before the bout Gustafsson was forced out of the spot with a deep cut on his brow, leaving the UFC in a bind. Latifi filled in on short notice, and Mousasi cruised to a unanimous decision that left a lot to the imagination.

Afterwards Mousasi revealed that he had suffered a knee injury in training, a torn ACL, which hindered his performance. He said he didn’t disclose it before hand because he wanted to compete. Since that time, it’s been nothing but one frustration after another for the Dutch fighter. Not only is Gustafsson fighting this coming weekend for the light heavyweight title at UFC 165 in Toronto, but Mousasi is slowly trying to recover from his knee injuries while politely being ignored by Vitor Belfort and, seemingly, everyone else.

On Monday’s edition of the MMA Hour, Mousasi explained some of that frustration.

“I’ve got a lot of disappointment,” he told Ariel Helwani. “I really wanted that [Gustafsson] fight. I think, even though I was injured I felt good going into the fight. I felt he was a taller guy but I could close the distance very well, and I thought I could even take him down. I had a good game plan in my head, but yeah, that happens and I had the knee injury — it’s all setbacks.

“I want to do MMA, I want to fight, and all I can do is wait and see how others do. That’s the hardest part, not being able to compete. I just want to come back and start fighting and then I can feel good again.”

Mousasi has been expressive in that desire on Twitter, where he has challenged Belfort to a fight at light heavyweight, middleweight or anything in between. Instead, the UFC opted to book Belfort against Dan Henderson in November at UFC Fight Night 32 in Brazil.

When asked why he’d targeted Belfort specifically, Mousasi said it was solely because of his place in the pecking order.

“I thought he was the No. 1 guy, especially after his two impressive wins [over Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold],” he said. “That’s a guy you want to fight. I like him. I like Vitor Belfort. He’s a nice guy and I have nothing against him. But I want to go for the title shot and if I fight him and I win, that would get me a little bit closer to my goal. That’s it, nothing less.

“But he’s got his fight with Dan Henderson, and it’s not going to happen any more. So I’m just coming back and fighting some guy who is top three or who is famous who people think is good.”

Mousasi was presented with a fight against Belfort a few years ago with the short-lived Affliction promotion, but Belfort didn’t accept it then, just as he wasn’t exactly accepting it now.

“I said I can make it to 185, let’s do a catchweight,” Mousasi recalls. “[Belfort] didn’t accept it, but he eventually went to the UFC and fought Rich Franklin at a catchweight. So that didn’t make sense. But he’s doing what is best for his career, I can’t blame him.”

Mousasi said he didn’t think his and Belfort’s schedules would mesh once he’s ready to return. As for Mousasi’s timetable for recovery, he said the earliest he could return would be in December, but more likely January or February. Though he’s been cautious with his knee after injuring it twice, he feels it’s stable and coming along fine. When asked if he still intended to come back as a middleweight, which is where he has stated he’d like to fight upon his return, he said that’s still the plan.

“I think so,” he said. “I’m already dropping weight. I gained a lot of weight, I was 230, 235 maybe even. For light heavyweight that’s not much, but for me that’s a lot. I’m coming down slowly. I’m not 220. Yeah, slowly dropping weight, every week two pounds. I’m already focusing on the fight.”

Who that ends up being against is still up in the air. Asked if there was anybody specific in his cross hairs, Mousasi said it’s not his strong suit to call people out. However, he did reiterate that he wants a big name next, somebody preferably near the top of the division.

“I have no doubt in my abilities that I can beat any of the top ten guys,” he said. “Once I’m focused I know I can beat them. I think people have their opinions.”

On second thought, those were just the cobwebs talking. Pete Spratt is back.

Spratt retired after his Legacy FC 23 bout with Tim Means on Friday night. It was Friday the 13th, which should have been an omen for the veteran fighter, who took a couple of big elbows that he never saw coming. When he’d recovered, he told the hometown crowd in San Antonio, “you’ve probably seen the last of Pete Spratt.” 

That was Friday. On Saturday, people kept telling him he’d been knocked out but back of the head strikes. On Sunday, Spratt watched the tape of his fight. On Monday, Spratt is an active fighter again.

John Lennon had a lost weekend that lasted 18 months. Pete Spratt’s retirement lasted one lost weekend.

“That was a retirement thing based on a guy who got hit in the back of the head, that was still groggy thinking about his family and that type of stuff, without having had the opportunity to review what actually happened in the fight,” the 42-year old Spratt told MMA Fighting. “If I looked back at it and my skills had diminished, that would be different. But that wasn’t the case.

“Me, I was thinking I just went in there and got my butt kicked, which isn’t what happened after I watched the fight.”

Spratt felt he was faster than Means and more than holding his own before the questionable elbows knocked him out. He is in the process of appealing the knockout with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which he hopes will be ruled a no-contest due to illegal strikes to the back of the head.

“Of course, I didn’t know nothing at the time it happened,” he says. “I remember having [Means] clinched up along the fence and then waking up with a flashlight in my eyes. Everybody kept telling me, ‘he hit you in the back of the head,’ and one of my friends sent me a screen shot from the fight, and it’s clearly an elbow that’s in borderline foul territory, and maybe ‘no foul’ territory — I’ll let the commission determine that. But it’s pretty close.”

Spratt says he’s experiencing soreness behind his right ear and close to his neck, which would fall in the vicinity of the foul zone that is described as the cell phone area where the spinal column meets the skull. He was given a 60-day medical suspension after the KO, allowing him to return in November of this year. If the commission deems it an illegal foul, Spratt would like an immediate rematch with Means.

If not, the man who at one point upset Robbie Lawler and had the chance to fight Matt Hughes for the welterweight title, says he’ll continue fighting on.

“I’m having fun with the competition and at the same time I’m still learning and enjoying testing myself against these younger guys,” he says. “If I wasn’t 42, people wouldn’t be talking about me retiring, or being in the twilight of my career. I never drank, never smoked, never abused my body negatively for me to be diminishing in my skills. Which I’m not.”

The other thing Spratt reflected on over the weekend was that he might be spreading himself too thin. He cornered four Texas-based fighters at Legacy FC 23, which he says took away from his focus.

“I was cornering, wrapping hands, warming people up, as well as getting ready for a fight,” he said. “So there was a lot of stuff going on for me that night. Whenever my next fight happens, I’m going to have to be more selfish and take time for myself. You’ve got your emotional ups and downs when cornering a guy, and that’s taxing in itself.”

The last time Dominick Cruz fought there was no such thing as a flyweight division in the UFC. There was no women’s division, either. Alistair Overeem hadn’t yet fought Brock Lesnar, and — indeed — there was still a version of Brock Lesnar competing without his shoes. Frankie Edgar was still the champion, and J. Edgar Hoover was still the director of the FBI.

This last part isn’t true, but, you know, hey — it’s been a long freaking time since Cruz defended his bantamweight strap. And it’s been a blur of passing frames in those nearly two years. Lots has happened. Renan Barao crawled out of the lagoon and licked every man put in front of him. He is the “interim” 135-pound champion, filling in for Cruz as the man to beat. It’s one of the longest tenured interim titles in the history of the concept.

Interim is the meantime. Meantimes aren’t meant to go on indefinitely (though, realistically there’s nothing to say they can’t).

Now we’re coming around once again to the question of what happens when Cruz returns to action in 2014? Will he be saddled against Barao, who will (more than likely) have defended his placeholder belt twice since winning it a year ago? That seems cruel and unusual for a guy who went through two separate rehabs for an ACL, one in which a cadaver tendon didn’t take, and one in which his legacy began to recede unceremoniously into the backdrop of a bygone day.

We have no idea how Cruz will look upon his return. We can only bank on his work ethic, which we know is as compulsive as it is preternatural. We have hunches that Cruz at 29 will look like he did at 27 — which is of course a flickering old-timey speed reel style made up of bobs, weaves, dekes, feints and blurry bangs (usually in a single sequence).

But the truth is, nobody really knows. We only know that the UFC has kindly allowed him to hold onto his belt while the time-lapse takes its toll.

As for Barao, he feels he’s the real champion based on this same statute of limitations. Half the fans feel that way too. He carries around a gold accessory that weighs exactly the same as Cruz’s, and that burden is his to protect. Instead of Barao challenging Cruz, it’ll feel like the other way around when they “unify” the belts. Barao should be a betting favorite. It will be a big fight once — and if — it finally materializes.

But if it doesn’t come together when Cruz wants it to in early 2014, you get the feeling that what Dana White means by “we’re going to have to make a decision” is they’ll be forced into stripping him of the belt. That seems inevitable. A sport based on the here and now can’t continue marketing something as non-urgent as a “placeholder.” It needs to promote Barao as the champion, and go into a campaign of Cruz coming back as a challenger trying to reclaim what’s rightfully his.

There are silver linings for Cruz if things don’t go according to plan. And, after being out of the cage for so long, silver linings are the next best thing to gold.