Bellator 170 is in the books. The main event was a light heavyweight bout between Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz and Chael Sonnen. “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” ended his mixed martial arts (MMA) career with a first-round submission win.
While it was a storybook ending for Ortiz, the bout didn’t come without controversy. First, Ortiz held onto the choke after Sonnen tapped and took a thumb to the larynx from referee “Big” John McCarthy for it. Then some fans cried foul, claiming the fight was fixed.
MMANews.com’s very own Adam Haynes provided a breakdown on why the result was legitimate.
Sonnen was a recent guest on Luke Thomas‘ SiriusXM Rush show to respond to the accusations. He said he was confused when he was first asked about the legitimacy of the choke:
“It was a choke. It was an oxygen issue not a pain issue. Somebody had asked me that, Karyn Bryant had asked me that after the fight and I had no idea what she was talking about. I’m like, ‘Karyn didn’t you see it? I got put in a rear-naked choke.’ And then I got home and some people were saying that, ‘well it didn’t look like it was on.’ I don’t even know how to respond to that. All I can tell you is I couldn’t breathe.”
Sonnen said that while some may think there was something fishy about the finish of the fight, he was simply caught in a bad position that he couldn’t get out of.
“If you’re ever in a contest and somebody thinks that you threw (the fight) like some of your fans, or my fans in this case. The hard reality is I got put in a choke. I was trying and he squeezed the choke better than I was defending.”
