Last week, UFC fan favorite and West Linn, Oregon native, Chael Sonnen, announced his retirement from mixed martial arts. The announcement came on the heels of a positive test for steroids. This was the second time in his career that Sonnen has tested positive. For many, something like this would result in a big fat black eye and some walking papers. However, in Sonnen’s case, his boss had his back and people seem more interested in his retirement segment on Fox Sports 1’s UFC Tonight than the results of the drug test itself. Over the last 4 or 5 years, Sonnen has created a persona that people can’t seem to get enough of. He is charismatic; he cuts promos that would make Dusty Rhodes proud, and on his best night he can compete with any man in the world at 185 pounds. But that’s the problem. When you compete in the UFC you have to have your best night, every night. Chael Sonnen had many great moments in the UFC but never had his best night when it really counted. For all the promos and all the prefight hype, Sonnen failed to ever secure a UFC title. Even when he had the great Anderson Silva dead to rights with less than 2 minutes to go in a title fight, Chael couldn’t finish the job. To make matters worse, following that loss, Sonnen had his first positive steroid test that showed his testosterone levels to be 17 times higher than that of a normal man. All that aside, we must remember, Sonnen is quite simply the best MMA fighter to ever touch a microphone, and his ability to sell a fight will never be rivaled. But for me, I can’t look past the missteps that Sonnen made on his way to the top. Nor can I look past the ones he made on his fall to the bottom.
As Sonnen’s mixed martial arts career began there was considerable hype surrounding the Oregonian. With a successful trip to the 2000 Olympics in Tokyo, Sonnen would return home with the silver medal in Greco-Roman Wrestling. Riding high off his Olympic success, Sonnen came out of the gate firing! He went 6-0 to start his professional MMA career and seemed to be following in the footsteps of Team Quest legends Dan Henderson and Randy Couture. So it came as a surprise to many when Sonnen proceeded to go 5-5-1 over his next 11 fights. While this inconsistent run was a snag in his career, Sonnen managed to win three out of his next four fights earning him his first trip to the UFC. This stint with the UFC was short lived as Sonnen went 1-2 before being released. Putting Sonnen’s career into perspective up to this point makes it easy to understand why the UFC let him go. Sonnen’s most notable win at this time was against a young Trevor Prangley. While Prangley would eventually be regarded as a well rounded professional, he was relatively unknown to fight fans at this time. To make matters worse, Sonnen had failed to show that he could learn from his mistakes, falling victim to many submissions throughout his career. In fact, Jeremy Horn not only holds a TKO stoppage over Sonnen but also submitted Sonnen in two other bouts. That’s right, Sonnen lost to Jeremy Horn … three times. It was inconsistent fighting like this that made me skeptical of what Sonnen was bringing to the table. As a former wrestler I was always pulling for Sonnen, but he continued to leave me wondering if he would ever level out and make a successful run in a top organization.
While things hadn’t gone perfect for Sonnen up to this point, his skills as a wrestler were undeniable. Following his release from the UFC, Sonnen appeared to finally put it all together. Sonnen found a way to incorporate a decent boxing game with his powerful wrestling and use his skills to their fullest potential. Over a period of four years, Sonnen amassed a 10-2 record and was poised to take on the great Anderson Silva. But why hadn’t people noticed him on his way up the ranks? This had been quite possibly the best run of his career. Sonnen had run through a handful of guys and had a couple of good fights in the WEC. After shaking off a loss to Jiu Jitsu ace Damian Maia in his return to the UFC, Sonnen scored quality wins over Dan Miller, and top ten Middleweights Yushin Okami and Nate Marquart. Still, people weren’t talking about Chael Sonnen. Maybe it’s because up to this point Sonnen had stood up straight, given a firm handshake to those he met, and smiled politely after giving an answer. While he had been calling Silva out for years, the fast-talking, fight selling, “Gangster” from West Linn, Oregon had yet to bring out his inner Don King. But now was the time. The lead up to Sonnen’s first fight with Anderson Silva will go down in history as some of the best trash talk of all time but that’s pretty much the only positive thing I can say about that fight. Going into the fight Sonnen knew he was going to test positive for elevated testosterone levels. He made the UFC aware of this before the bell rang to start the fight. For many, this fight was the point at which Sonnen became one of their favorite fighters, but for me he just became a guy who couldn’t get it down without performance enhancing drugs. Maybe his use of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) was necessary, maybe he really did have low levels of testosterone. Even if that is the case there is no one who can convince me that he and other TRT users weren’t misusing the treatment.
With this one positive test Chael Sonnen became a sideshow for me. The kid in me loved the wrestling style promos that Sonnen would cut, while the fight fan in me just wanted him to stay in the broadcast booth. Sonnen would go on to have what many believe were his two best wins in fights against Brian Stann and Mauricio Shogun Rua. Yet there I was, left to sit and wonder if Sonnen would have been as dominant if he wasn’t on TRT. In the end, Sonnen took a coaching gig on The Ultimate Fighter in Brazil in what I would describe as the last act of a desperate man. Once more looking for the spotlight, once more overselling a fight, once more believing his hype. For me the retirement of Chael Sonnen is more like a roast. People are pointing to his failed test, pointing to his overly dramatic persona, and it makes me yearn for the days that an Olympic silver medalist from West Linn, Oregon put it all together and had the run of his life.
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