Chael P. Sonnen returned to mixed martial arts knowing that as long as he made that walk to the cage, everything would sort itself out.
Sonnen has described this march like some kind of a ritual, and it was the one thing he needed to do above all others after yet another doping fiasco prompted the former UFC star into a hasty retirement/hiatus in 2014.
Three years later, the 39-year-old Oregonian hasn't changed how he operates: When you commit to fight, you show up. Everything else—including the potential moral fuzziness that comes with how you got there or the actual outcome itself—lags behind in importance.
"I've never game-planned," Sonnen said in the buildup to his main event fight Jan. 21 at Bellator 170, which ended with a quick first-round submission loss to Tito Ortiz. "I've never watched the other guy and thought, 'Well he does this, I'll do that.' I focus on myself completely. I show up ready to fight, and that's it. My skills are my skills. Sometimes it's been enough, and sometimes it hasn't. But you make that walk and you find out.”
Not long ago, when he reigned as the sport’s most colorful personality, this idea was a cornerstone of Sonnen's career, and it remains true today.
Facing a bigger and historically better opponent while apparently being clean (or, as he said, "pretty much" clean) of the banned substances that aided and defined his memorable career? That produced a tough set of circumstances for Sonnen, who began a six-bout deal with Bellator by floundering so badly that some of the smartest people in MMA, like his friend and training partner Vinny Magalhaes, an ADCC heavyweight champion, almost immediately questioned the validity of what they witnessed.
After a long stint away from the cage, there was reason to believe that as he stepped back into competition, Sonnen would be a noticeably diminished fighter from the one who navigated the wild days of challenging the world's best fighters while on a cocktail of performance-enhancing substances.
A couple of days before returning to challenge the retiring Ortiz in the main event of what turned out to be a near sell-out night of mixed martial arts at The Forum in Inglewood, California, Sonnen joined The Huntington Beach Bad Boy on the dais at a charged press conference to hype the first card of the year for the Viacom-owned and Spike TV-aired fight promotion.
They traded shots, some of them cheap, but looking back on it there was some earnest analysis mixed with the heated banter. Inside a conference room at the brand new Viacom offices in Hollywood, California, Ortiz laid out how The American Gangster had been set up to get steamrolled.
"You're a good comedian, man, a good actor," Ortiz told Sonnen, who for the first time in a decade fought in a cage that wasn't eight-sided. "That's about it. I'm a fighter. You're an actor. You're on the Apprentice because of me. You're the 'Bad Guy' because of me. You try to talk because of me. You've never won a world title.
"Who was the last champion you ever beat? Who was the last legend you ever beat? You call yourself a legend? What have you done legendary besides talk? Buddy, on Saturday night, those little blue eyes will be sparkling even more, man. Just wait and watch. You dug your grave, man."
Sonnen did his best to spin his own analysis afterward on SportsCenter and at the post-event press conference, which he admitted felt terrible to attend but, like making the walk, was part of his code. He'll say whatever he wants before a fight and to his credit face the music afterward if he has to.
After Ortiz squeezed his head and made him tap at 2:03 of the opening round, Sonnen fielded many questions about the finish. There wasn't anything funky about it except that it seemed Sonnen wasn't overly interested in fighting through what must have been terrible discomfort. He appeared listless while submitting to a hold that referee John McCarthy later indicated never appeared to endanger him.
"It felt so easy to get that position," Ortiz said. "As soon as I see that palm hit the mat, boom, I got the choke. I'm super strong, and if I can get that choke, it doesn't have to be under the chin. I can get it because I can crush. I just squeezed."
All the fire Sonnen threw Ortiz's way came back to bite him as a pissed-off former UFC light heavyweight champion clamped down on a pure power wrench of a headlock that made the ex-middleweight contender want out pronto. The defendable nature of the submission contributed to unsubstantiated claims of a "fix"
or "work" that popped up on social media before the crowd had a chance to exit The Forum.
In September, after announcing his new agreement with Bellator, Sonnen told the press: "You either want to fight or you don't, and one of my main motivations for coming back is pure anger."
For this reason and others, Sonnen's quick opening-round defeat, where he displayed little initiative or emotion, should be considered a disaster. Not that he saw it that way.
"I've been out for three years, and this was a long-term play," Sonnen said to the press. "For me, it's not a sprint. It's a marathon. I need to get those minutes in, and I thought I did it in the practice room, and I had some deer-in-the-headlights out there. Tito threw a right hand right down the middle right off the bat.
"It was helpful. I hate to get stuck in those, and I hate to lose a competition, but I've got to get some minutes in. After three years, it's just the way that it goes. I'll be in the practice room on Monday, and we'll just use it to get better."
By Tuesday, he found another silver lining to smile about. Sonnen and "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” are expected to draw upwards of 2 million viewers to Spike TV when the final ratings are tallied, a spokesperson for the network told Bleacher Report, which represents a strong night for Bellator that suggests with a foil there's promotional marrow left in his bones. At least there was pre-Ortiz.
With Sonnen's 40th birthday coming up in April, Bellator will continue to bank that his talk-and-walk combination is appealing enough to draw headlines. Bellator has a match lined up for Sonnen with the man he has repeatedly stated drew him to the promotion to begin with, Wanderlei Silva. Despite how poorly Sonnen performed against Ortiz, Bellator appears eager to sell attractions like the Bellator 170 contest and plans to capitalize on the hype the UFC created before both fighters unceremoniously left the organization in 2013 after doping issues.
Sonnen vs. Silva is good on the marquee. And it's good on a dais. It's also a good walk for a guy who needs to pick himself up off the dirt after being booted from the Celebrity Apprentice Monday for—wait for it—cheating.
Let it be said that no one tries harder in more ways than Sonnen does.
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