Chael Sonnen had every intention of returning to the UFC. Until he didn’t.
Whatever the reason, one of the UFC’s most controversial, entertaining and bankable figures over the past seven years found himself on a teleconference Friday afternoon with media and Bellator MMA President Scott Coker. On the line from Budapest, Coker touted the signing of a 39-year-old star, with a notorious history of using performance enhancing drugs, to the most lucrative deal of his fighting career.
That assessment may sound harsh. The truth can be sometimes. But it’s important not to forget these things as Sonnen—“The American Gangster”—moves to the “other side of the tracks” following the conclusion of a two-year suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission for a cocktail of banned substances featuring EPO, HGH and three estrogen inhibitors.
Sonnen issued the track trope in relation to his days using banned substances. It could just as easily apply to his departure from the UFC.
“I'm on the other side now,” he said.
After three failed drug tests and a poor reputation for his transgressions regarding testosterone replacement therapy during his time under contract to Zuffa LLC, Sonnen has done the things he needed to in order to find some sense of redemption, including penning a wide-ranging mea culpa.
“I got an enhancement,” he said. “I felt better, period. I needed less sleep at night. I had more recovery. I never took anything that wasn't an enhancer. That's the only reason I took something.”
What he won’t do in his attempt at kick-starting his career instead of his testosterone production is return from an extended layoff to face the reality of stringent year-round drug testing instituted by the UFC. However, that is not the reason, Sonnen proclaimed, for signing a three-year, six-fight deal with Bellator, which features nowhere near the quality or punitive consequences of testing.
"It didn't have anything to do with it,” Sonnen said. “Had I gotten flagged by USADA, Coker’s not talking to me either. And I get it. I would be toxic. I don't like those things I did. They embarrassed me.
"It was a different world, different times. It just was. And you need to change with those times or you're outside of those lines. And I was outside of those lines. I should have been suspended. I was. I did my time. But I can tell you I'm not going back."
To this point, Bellator does not have a strong reputation for its anti-doping measures. Signing egregious offenders like Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva and sometimes promoting in locations where standards aren’t up to par with better financed regulators like California or Nevada hasn't helped.
California has regularly regulated Bellator events and was repeatedly mentioned by Sonnen and Coker as the location for the Oregonian's first contest for the promotion.
But even the watchful eyes of a top athletic commission will do little in the absence of year-round random testing.
Coker said his promotion’s policy is to abide by the rules of the state commission that licenses the event, and that he maintains little interest in following the UFC’s lead by aligning with a third-party testing organization.
"Unless it's a federal agency regulating testing I'm not sure it's going to work,” Coker said.
After making it clear to the UFC he wanted to fight again, Sonnen said he was looked at four times by the USADA, which enforces the UFC’s anti-doping policy, and came away clean on all the exams.
Sonnen’s new contract includes a clause that would force him to cede his full purse, plus $500,000, if he failed a drug test, he said.
"That's just to Bellator,” the former UFC middleweight title contender said. “That’s before we start dealing with commissions. I don't know if that was boilerplate or set aside for me. I'm on the other side of the tracks now. And you wouldn't believe it, I've still got the biggest arms in the business.”
Sonnen isn’t being paid for the size of his biceps. Or even his fighting ability—whatever that may be at this stage of his career. It’s his big mouth that earned him the big bucks. He is a major personality, host of a successful podcast, “You’re Welcome,” and a contributor as an MMA analyst for ESPN.
He is, quite simply, Chael Sonnen, and that is where Bellator MMA's interest sits.
Sonnen’s intention was to return to the UFC. "That was the track I was going down,” he said. Then he quickly shifted, for reasons he can’t quite say, after it occurred to him that there was another option. The one Rory MacDonald and Benson Henderson and Phil Davis and Tito Ortiz took.
"I thought I'd go back to the UFC. I just thought it would be that way. [Then] in my head I thought, 'No, not necessarily. Let's make a phone call.'"
Three conversations and a few text messages later, Sonnen was gone.
“It had nothing to do with new ownership or anything like that,” Sonnen said. “It just had to do with, look, you can only sign with one place. Unfortunately, but that's where the sport's at. People have their own promotions, their own networks. One is in the pay-per-view business. The other is in the television and rating business. It's different models. You have to pick you want to go with."
Sonnen has his fanbase and platform and knows how to sell a fight, and with some of the well-known names on the Bellator roster, it seems an easy fit to slot him in with a marketable B Side. In moving over to Bellator, Sonnen said he’s looking for competition. It was an odd statement among the ones he made on Friday considering that’s never been an element in short supply in the Octagon. But perhaps Sonnen (29-14-1) meant it another way. Perhaps at this stage of his career, without the enhancements and all, it's an acknowledgment his competitive peak isn’t where it used to be.
How could it be?
"We'll make our stand and we'll stand with Bellator,” he said.
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