UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen wasn’t the only one disappointed with the California State Athletic Commission’s ruling on Wednesday.
The CSAC ruled to make Sonnen’s suspension an indefinite one, effectively taking the fighter ouf out of the running for a coaching gig on the next season of “The Ultimate Fighter” opposite Michael “The Count” Bisping. Both men would have eventually met in a No. 1 contender bout, something Bisping has been asking to get for months now.
The trash talking that would have gone on between Sonnen and Bisping would have certainly boosted ratings for the “TUF” series, which has seen poor ratings for it’s thirteenth season featuring coaches Brock Lesnar and Junior dos Santos.
After the CSAC’s ruling MMAFighting.com spoke to Bisping to get his thoughts on Sonnen’s suspension.
I’m disappointed. I’ve been sitting on the sidelines for a while now and I think pretty much everybody can work out that I was hoping to fight Chael Sonnen, and we were waiting to hear if he was going to clear up his personal problems. Obviously today we found out that he’s been indefinitely suspended.
It’s a shame for the guy. I really do feel for him. We’re all human beings; we all make mistakes. He’s being punished, and OK, he’s made some very, very bad decisions lately, but no one’s perfect — I’m certainly not perfect — and I feel for the guy. By the sounds of it, he’s stuffed in his career as a realtor and he’s also screwed as an MMA fighter at the moment. He’s an exciting fighter, and I think it’s a shame for him; it’s a shame for mixed martial arts…
You know, Chael Sonnen, a fight with him would have been a big deal for me and a No. 1 contender fight, so obviously, I’m disappointed as well, but yeah, I’m not sure what is going to happen now…
Chael Sonnen was ranked No. 2 and that’s the guy who I wanted to fight. Not only because of that, I mean, the guy certainly does bring a lot of hype to a fight rightly or wrongly, and I thought the guy used to be hilarious in his pre-fight trash-talk. So I wanted to fight him…
…there’s a bunch of guys who have been calling me out. They’re all just jumping on the bandwagon and trying to get a name for themselves. It seems popular to talk sh** about me. They can all go f**k themselves as far as I’m concerned. If they’ve got a problem with me, come and say it to my face, as opposed to over the Internet like a f**king spineless a**hole