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Chael Sonnen ended retirement out of ‘pure anger’ at the state of the game

Much has changed since the mixed martial arts world last saw Chael Sonnen compete in 2013.

Sonnen, at the time, was the fight game's preeminent carnival barker, a salesmen who rode a loquacious approach to record success and secured a string of monster paydays despite never winning a UFC belt. In retrospect, those were simpler times -- an era before Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz smashed financial records and championed the ideals of the money fight, before buzz words like leverage and renegotiation cemented themselves in the day-to-day MMA lexicon.