Portland, Ore. -- It’s been a long wait for Chael Sonnen. The popular yet polarizing middleweight fighter has not stepped into the cage in 14 months, an absence resulting from a well-documented cascade of suspensions, testimonies, and appeals. In the last year, he’s probably spent as much time pleading his case in front of a commission as he’s spent training.
[caption id="attachment_13" align="alignright" width="220" caption="Chael Sonnen trains for his upcoming fight with Brian Stann at UFC 136. Photo courtesy Benjamin Reed of Vorpal Images, www.vorpalimages.com"]
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The wait ends October 8th, when Sonnen will fight the surging Brian Stann at UFC 136 in Houston, Texas. It’s a contest that will likely decide the number one contender to Anderson Silva’s middleweight championship, and it’s not one that Sonnen feels particularly secure about.
“Tell me how you'd feel about not walking for fourteen months, and then being asked to run a 10k race,” Sonnen told ChatSports.com in the week leading up to his fight. “How you would feel if you weren't allowed to speak for that amount of time, and then had to give a speech? It would kill a mortal to be down for so long.”
Sonnen may have accrued some ring rust with such a long layoff, but his wit is as sharp as ever.
“Fortunately for me, I'm not entirely mortal.”
In Stann, Sonnen will face a foe that he respects and compliments with regularity, contrasting the incendiary demeanor he had toward his last opponent, Anderson Silva. Stann’s respectful demeanor and military valor may have brought out a kinder, gentler Chael Sonnen, but don’t expect a lack of soundbytes from the man who dubs himself “the people’s champion.”
“I have a friend to face in Brian Stann, which is a challenge in and of itself,” he said. “Stann's a good man and a national hero; he's the ‘Captain America’ of our day. I am the Tony Stark to his Steve Rogers, and those two have been on the same team from go. Cities get flattened when they fight each other, and the same can be expected when Brian Stann and I meet on Saturday. Houston, and all outlying suburbs, may be in danger in those fifteen minutes.”
Sonnen also praised Stann’s toughness, and was very frank about the fact that Stann is tough matchup for him. In an interview with UFC.com, he quipped, “On October 8th there’s going to be a red white and blue ass-whipping, and I don’t know if I’m going to take it or I’m going to give it or if it’s going to go both ways. We are going to fight.”
[caption id="attachment_15" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Chael Sonnen trains for his upcoming fight with Brian Stann at UFC 136. Photo courtesy Benjamin Reed of Vorpal Images, www.vorpalimages.com"]
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And now, just days before his first fight in 14 months, that honest and realistic appraisal of his upcoming contest are on full display. After a significant sabbatical from the sport that Sonnen referred to as “a string of doors shut in my face,” one might expect Sonnen to be animated and exhilarated about the chance to compete again. He’s not.
“I'm not excited [for this fight] for a lot of reasons,” he said frankly. “This doesn't mean that I don't want to go into this fight, or that I'm scared. I just have a lot at stake in Houston next week.”
That kind of response might sound odd coming from a guy who walks out to “Too Much Fun,” by Daryle Singletary, but Sonnen clarified by saying that he simply takes fighting too seriously to simply label it “fun.”
“To answer how I feel when I go into a fight, I feel hungry. I feel psychotically invested. I feel focused. I feel like what I am about to do is the only thing that ever mattered.”
“The thrill of the fight is what motivates me,” he continued. “But if you go into a fight feeling moronic with happiness and unaffected by the outcome, you turn into these lazy and bored Brazilian fighters who don't know Capoeira from Dance Dance Revolution. Wait, I apologize, those are the same thing. Please don't print that.”
Sonnen, for all his confidence and penchant for headlines, has never been one to promise that a fight will play out a particular way; he doesn’t even promise a win. All he’ll promise is that he’s done the work, he’ll show up, and that when his music hits the speakers there’s going to be a fight.
“You can expect that I have been working hard to make sure that I could give Stann the challenge that all fighters deserve,” Sonnen encapsulated. “I'm the guy who went to his personal hell and back, and I've come back as something else entirely. What that is remains to be seen, but I promise you that I have more than my fair share of guts and glory to put on that octagon next week.”
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