Although he won’t be part of the USADA testing pool after leaving the UFC to return as an active fighter under the Bellator MMA banner, Chael Sonnen claims he still must be clean when fighting in his new MMA home or there will be major repercussions.
Sonnen claimed during the media conference call featuring himself and Bellator MMA President Scott Coker over the weekend that if he fails a drug test while fighting for Bellator MMA, it will cost him 100-percent of his fight purse and result in an additional $500,000 fine.
“If I was to fail a test under my Bellator contract, it would cost me 100 percent of my purse and $500,000. That is in writing,” Sonnen said during the media call (listen above via MMAFighting.com). “Now, I understand for you guys, that’s not as good as a clean test, but boy, that’s got to mean something. If you think I didn’t read that part of it before I signed it, I did.”
Sonnen continued, “I don’t know if that was unique to me or if that was boilerplate and everybody’s got it. I don’t know, but I saw that. That’s before you deal with your commission issues and everything else, but it was right off the top: full purse, $500,000. That’s just to Bellator. That’s before we start dealing with commissions, and again, I don’t know if that was boilerplate or if they set that aside for me. But I’m on the other side of the tracks now, and you wouldn’t believe it if you saw it, I’ve still got the biggest arms in the business.”
While nothing has been made official regarding when and where Chael Sonnen will make his Bellator MMA fighting debut, both he and Coker have mentioned such names as Fedor Emelianenko, Wanderlei Silva, Tito Ortiz and Rory MacDonald as potential opponents, with “The Bad Guy” reportedly being open to fights anywhere from Middleweight to Heavyweight.
H/T to MMAFighting.com for transcribing the above Chael Sonnen quotes from the Bellator MMA media call.
