At UFC 136, the UFC welcomed back Chael Sonnen, who had been suspended for a year and had his share of legal issues. With all of that behind him, he defeated Brian Stann in the second round by arm triangle choke, afterward calling out the champion Anderson Silva.
It was then assumed that Sonnen was the No. 1 contender, and after a weird phase of Anderson’s representatives saying Sonnen didn’t deserve the fight, the UFC announced that Chael was indeed the No. 1 contender. Soon after, Silva ended up injured and out until June.
When that was announced, Sonnen had already said multiple times that he wanted to stay active, and that if someone could beat him, then they deserved the title shot. The UFC soon announced that Sonnen would be facing Mark Munoz at UFC on FOX 2, after Munoz did an interview discussing how they had wrestled each other in the past. At the World MMA Awards, Sonnen stated in an interview that he was not facing Munoz, and without actually saying it, he implied that he would be facing the winner of Michael Bisping vs. Jason Miller in The Ultimate Fighter finale.
Years ago, Sonnen defeated Miller by decision, but neither man is truly the same fighter that they were in that fight, and Sonnen has been wanting a fight with Bisping for a while now.
If Michael Bisping were to win and go on to face Chael Sonnen, this match up would be very bad for him. Bisping does have wrestling, and has decent stand-up, more technique than power. The problem is that Chael has some of the best wrestling in MMA, and his striking is very underrated, and always plays a big role in him setting up his take downs.
Bisping is good at picking his opponents apart, but when the pressure is put on him, it appears that he becomes overwhelmed, ex. vs. Dan Henderson, and vs. Wanderlei Silva. Chael always puts the pressure on and never backs off. This would be a fight where Chael would utilize his striking, and do what he does best and utilize his wrestling and ground and pound handing Bisping a loss.
Many people try to discredit the striking of Sonnen, when in fact he got the best of Silva on the feet when they fought, and before he went to college years ago, he wanted to give up wrestling to focus only on boxing. Him sticking to wrestling was a very wise choice.
If Sonnen were to rematch Miller, this would be the tougher of the two fights. Miller is an excellent grappler, and also has much improved stand up. The problem that Miller has had over the years is that he has always struggled against grapplers that were just a little bit better than him. Sonnen’s wrestling, and his dominate top control would be the difference maker in this fight. Miller would have to land a sub off of his back if he is going to win this fight. Sonnen has had his trouble’s with elite grapplers in his past. People hate on Sonnen for his submission defense, but if you go and see who exactly the losses were too, then odds are the hate would go down just a little bit on that topic.
It would be totally unfair to say that Chael would 100 percent defeat both men, because this is MMA and anything can happen, but when it comes down to it, the Sonnen vs Silva rematch is a must and Chael will do whatever it takes to get that fight.
When Sonnen’s father was on his death bed, he promised him that he would be champion, and defeating one of these two men will put him one step closer to his promise.
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