Anderson Silva successfully defended his middleweight championship at UFC 148 Saturday night, but the bigger story of the night has to be what’s next for Chael Sonnen.
There is no question that Silva is the most dominating champion in the history of MMA, but that doesn’t mean Sonnen’s road to the belt is over; it just means it starts over.
With cardio for days and a ground game second-to-none in the middleweight division, Sonnen will have to start back at the bottom of the barrel again and work his way through the ranks…again.
While many fans and experts thought that a loss for the 35-year-old Sonnen would result in his retirement, there is too much pride in the fighter’s heart to allow him to walk away from MMA when he is arguably the second-best fighter in the division.
Sonnen told ESPN after the fight about his plan of attack after his loss and what’s next for the fighter:
You get knocked down sometimes in life and you have to put one foot in front of the other. You’ve got to learn to shake things off and you have to keep your eye on the ball. You can’t get down. You can’t get depressed. Every single day you get up, you’ve got to make the most of it. I really believe that if you’re going to be in this company [UFC], and take up a spot, you’ve got to be chasing a championship.
It’s tough but, unfortunately, it’s not my first athletic defeat. In this sport you have a 50 percent chance of failure. So you get out there and put in your mouthpiece and you do the best you can. You’ve got to man-up sometimes.
Now is one of those times Sonnen must man up. His career is far from over.
While it is a tough loss to swallow because of the sheer amount of trash talked, that is just what Chael does. The next man who gets in the Octagon will have to endure the same verbal lashing, but the hope is that the outcome will be different.
Silva is just too dominant right now and throughout his reign to be stopped, but the hope is that he will still be wearing gold in another year or two when Sonnen marches back through the middleweight division and finds his way into another title match.
As much as legions of fans and experts will claim that Sonnen doesn’t deserve a third fight, if Silva is still champion after Chael makes his way back to the top of the division, there is little doubt that the third installment is something may fans would love to see.
Until then, there is a long road ahead for Sonnen to get another shot at glory. He did it twice already, what’s one more time?
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