(Ramon says his head isn’t big; every hat he owns is simply too small.)
Brazilians always seem to take the glass is half full approach to life, so it shouldn’t surprise us that Anderson Silva’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach, Ramon Lemos sees a bright side to Chael Sonnen’s positive post-UFC 117 steroid test result.
Lemos told Tatame recently that Sonnen’s infraction only proves how good his fighter really is.
"I was very happy because he was on top of us for 23 minutes, on his best position, and Anderson submitted him, won the fight and kept the belt… Then you see that the guy had used things, so he had better conditioning than a regular athlete… It’s wonderful for us," Lemos said. "That proves that Anderson Silva is the best of t he world, without any doubts."
Considering that Sonnen, whether or not he had any help from PEDs, is the only fighter to ever dominate Silva the way that the Oregon Republican did in August, it’s no surprise that Ramos is in agreement that the one year suspension Chael was handed down by the California State Athletic Commission last month was just. He also is of the opinion that when Sonnen does come back from his suspension that he should be forced to work his way back up from the bottom of the UFC’s middleweight division.
Since Silva only has a handful of fights remaining on his current UFC contract and has expressed a desire to retire in the next year or two, unless Sonnen wins his appeal, it’s unlikely the pair will ever get a second match.
"I’m in favor of rematches for the fans, the show, the event, the whole media… But, as a professional and athlete, and now as Anderson Silva’s coach on Atos, I consider a rematch a bad thing and it doesn’t worth. Because, if the guy had loss on the judges’ call, it’d be ok. But he stayed for 23 minutes, and that means five rounds, on his best position, which is to takedown and punch from the top, and he couldn’t define the fight, and he lost," Lemos said. "There’s no need to know if he had taken extra medicines or not. You can’t have a rematch on those conditions. He has to be punished and stay a year off and then come back for the end of the line and wait for his call to fight Anderson Silva again."