Chael Sonnen has never been one to shy away from the spotlight.
However, he’s unsure of why comments regarding a potential return to MMA in July when his suspension is up came to the forefront recently.
Sonnen, who was suspended by the Nevada Athletic Commission for taking a banned substance, appeared on a recent edition of “Submission Radio” to clarify the remarks.
“Well I would tell you this, he does believe that. He argues with me all the time, and it’s very playful, but he just tells it – I always tell him, ‘man my race is ran and I’m done,’ and he says, ‘yeah I don’t believe you. I think you’re going to come back. I know you’re in the gym, and blah blah blah’. So he is sharing his opinion. The only push back I would give is that he said “for the right fight”. Man, I’m not a bully, I’m not coming in to fight some dinosaur like, you know, Vitor (Belfort), Rich Franklin. If I come back, I’m gonna whip all their asses – and I’m not coming back, but if I did, it wouldn’t be for the “right” fight. I would come back and fight anybody that fought me.”
For now, Sonnen is set for a grappling match with Michael Bisping. It is a rematch of a fight won by Sonnen via decision.
“I got asked to fight on the card. I initially got asked to fight in boxing against Roy Jones Jr. I can’t fight at any capacity for another few months. I’m on a suspension right now and I can’t do any kind of fight. Whether you wanna call it boxing or MMA, I just can’t do it. So I said, ‘you know I’d love to participate but I can’t. I’m suspended from fighting’. So they said, ‘well that’s in Nevada, we’re gonna hold this in Abu Dhabi. That’s officially where this is going to be, on a rooftop in Abu Dhabi’. And I said, ‘man I don’t care where you put it, I made a deal specifically with Pat Lundvall, she spoke for the whole commission, but specifically I looked her in the eye and told her I won’t fight for two years. I can’t fight’. So they said, ‘alright, you wanna commentate?’. And I said, ‘yeah I’ll commentate,’ and somehow it transferred to “how about a grappling match?”. Well that I can do. So I was going to wrestle with Rampage (Jackson) and we both signed contracts, and about four to five hours after we sign, Rampage calls up and says, ‘I gotta pull that out’. He said, ‘Viacom just stepped in and you know, they’re going to give me some problems if I go through with it’. So we looked around for somebody else and Bisping agreed to it in about a half a second and that was really it.”
