Chael Patrick Sonnen’s name is synonymous with eloquence, trash-talking, braggadocio, money laundering, steroid taking, politics and most importantly with one Anderson “The Spider” Silva. Initially, Sonnen’s vocal rhetoric came …
Chael Patrick Sonnen’s name is synonymous with eloquence, trash-talking, braggadocio, money laundering, steroid taking, politics and most importantly with one Anderson “The Spider” Silva.
Initially, Sonnen’s vocal rhetoric came to the fore during the leadup to his UFC 117 clash with the aforementioned.
It was, however, after he’d administered the worst beat-down that Silva had ever experienced in his MMA career, that Sonnen the man and Sonnen the character really caught the public’s attention.
In essence, it was the beginning of the Sonnen show.
The self-proclaimed “American Gangster” went into overdrive—to date, no one has been immune to the acidic vitriol that emanates from Sonnen’s oral orifice.
Uncle Chael’s offensive remarks toward Brazil were met with fury and threat of violence.
He lambasted the Nogueira brothers, questioned Wanderlei Silva’s authenticity as a mixed martial artist, queried Junior Dos Santos’s knee injury sustained after his championship-winning bout with Cain Velasquez, demeaned both Antonio Silva and Lyoto Machida, and the list goes on.
As for Silva, Sonnen has berated, derided, cajoled, abused and called out the UFC middleweight champion at every given opportunity.
He wants another shot at Silva and the title, a title he would have the public believe was ripped from his grasp, even though he genuinely knows he lost the match.
Does he deserve a rematch with Silva? My answer is no.
Nevertheless, it’s open to debate.
Still, the bottom line is this—you don’t get what you’re given, you get what you ask for, and that’s what he has so meticulously and expertly done.
With that said, he walks around proclaiming to be the UFC middleweight champion.
Bear with me—I couldn’t just get straight to the subject matter without a little bit of Sonnen history—that would’ve done a disservice to the man.
In a recent interview with Michael Landsberg, he consigned The Spider to the history books, and in doing so laid down the gauntlet to the triumvirates of the heavyweight, light heavyweight and welterweight assemblages—Junior Dos Santos, Jon Jones and Georges St. Pierre.
Still, in his most recent Sonnen-esque moments, he tweeted his own version of the 12 days of Christmas—hilarity comes to mind, because that’s what is was.
He also had a dig at Brock Lesnar following his defeat at the hands of Alistair Overeem at UFC 141—“Brock was robbed!!!” Sonnen tweeted.
With every vocalized syllable that has been emitted from his mouth, can he actually be serious? You’re damn right he’s serious—well, only if you’re of the gullible persuasion?
So, is Sonnen’s act getting stale? At present, I have to say a resounding NO.
Though, Sonnen’s orotundity will come to a grinding halt if he’s unable to defeat Mark Munoz on Jan. 28, 2012 at UFC on Fox 2.
If, however, he gets past “The Filipino Wrecking Machine” but falls at the next hurdle—the middleweight Holy Grail (dependent on whether Silva systematically puts a clinic on him), then his act will be well and truly over.
His comments and quotes will be laughable, and my guess is that he’ll fade away quietly or try to reinvent himself somewhere else—maybe in the UFC’s light heavyweight division.
For now, Sonnen’s act is an ongoing concern—his entertainment value is par excellence.
For all his faults and over-the-top antics, MMA and the UFC need Sonnen.
As far as shooting stars go, he’s still here, glowing ever so brightly.
It’s safe to say that while some of the elite fighters of the UFC had been immersing themselves in glory, Sonnen on the other hand had been cautiously waiting in the wings, and just like that, he’s struck gold.
Now it wouldn’t be a Sonnen article without a quote or two by the magniloquent one, so here are a few of his quotes to whet your appetite.
“When you are the best fighter in the world they have a name for you. They don’t call you a great fighter, they call you Chael Sonnen.”
“Wand, you might as well fill out your own toe tag. Where is says ‘Cause of death,’ just write, ‘I pissed off a Gangster.'”
“He’s got a black belt under the Nogueiras. I think a black belt under the Nogueiras is saying, like, I got a free toy in my Happy Meal. I don’t really understand what the big deal is. One of ’em’s a punching bag, and the other one I just ignore; he’s really irrelevant.”
“I’ll throw my shoe at Brock Lesnar and make him bring it back to me shined.”
“I’d slap you in your face and you wouldn’t do anything, Brock.”
“We only had one and that was Chandella (Powell). The other was the IQ card girl. Arianny [Celeste] kind of walks around and holds up her latest test score. One time when there was a title fight, she got all the way up to five and we were very proud of her.”
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With both competitors taking verbal shots at one another via Twitter, 
