Regardless of the outcome on August 17th of his main event tilt with Maricio Rua at UFC on FOX1’s first event, Sonnen will drop back down to middleweight to make another run at the title. He said so himself on Fuel TV when he confirmed signing a new five fight deal with the UFC.
It wasn’t shocking to hear him state honestly that things in the middleweight division had become interesting again, with Anderson Silva’s defeat. But where some may see chaos, Sonnen only sees opportunity.
“There are two guys I want to get matched up with,” said Sonnen on UFC Tonight. “The first is Vitor Belfort because he’s awesome and he’s on an incredible roll. Second, is Wanderlei [Silva] who I have now found out is going back to middleweight. The landscape has completely changed. I have a new contract, and I’m returning to the weight class.”
Having fared well against top competition in the middleweight division with wins over Nate Marquardt, Brian Stann, and Michael Bisping in the past, the American Gangster has every right to believe he can hang with the best at 185. But can he capture gold at the highest echelon within the MMA world? That’s the question that many will begin pondering very soon.
He definitely believes he can, and what’s more, he’s already concocted a strategy to become the number one contender among the middleweights, and it involves picking one key fight.
“It will be a gentlemen’s bet between Vitor and I,” said Sonnen in an interview with Fight Magazine. “If I beat him and he concedes, in the media, publicly, that I am the rightful contender, I will do the same for him if he beats me. I’ll concede that he is. That doesn’t guarantee anyone a fight, but amongst us as gentlemen, I’ll make him that bet.”
What’s more, is if he loses to Shogun, will his credibility among the middleweights become diminished, even before he begins his final run? A loss is a loss right? Well in the case of Sonnen, he went from losing a fight at 185, to vaulting ahead of the line at 205, to challenge Jon Jones for the belt. As long as no one clips his vocal cords, he’s going to be about two wins away from another title shot at 185, regardless of the breakdown in the division. He’s just in that high demand in the sport for some reason.
Yet two wins against the best of the middleweights is no laughing matter. Where Sonnen’s skill set is fairly well rounded these days, he’s just as capable of stealing a win through his dominant wrestling pedigree, as he is at instantly losing by submission. The way he see’s it, it’s anyone’s ball game at this point.
“You can be a chess player and look a few moves ahead, or you can be a checkers player and be like everybody else, and I don’t know that either is wrong,” said Sonnen (fightmagazine). “I personally always look past my fights. I try not to focus on a fight, and looking past it, looking at the next guy is a good way to take your mind off the matter at hand, and it just depends on the athlete. For some athletes, boy they don’t like to do that. They really gotta zero in. I’m a tournament guy, I grew up as a wrestler. I’d take on five guys, six guys in one day, and looking ahead is standard when you’re in a bracketed format. And the UFC for the most part is a tournament. There’s a new ranking system, the rankings get pretty close to followed, anyone in to the top ten could become the #1 contender, but I think we can all agree that that’s fair. The top ten guys are fairly close, the top five guys are essentially interchangeable. You could mix and match the top five anyway you wanted and nobody would argue. There’d be some debate but nobody would argue. They’re that close. So essentially it is a tournament, and to look ahead is appropriate.”
Since we can’t count out the man who pushed Anderson Silva harder than anyone had in their first match, we can’t underestimate the possibility of Sonnen shooting for a takedown, only to run in to a well honed triangle choke like he has in the past against the likes of Silva, Demian Maia, and Forrest Griffin (yes that actually happened back in 2003).
Personally I think Sonnen would be a great match-up for anyone circling the top ten of the division. Fighters like Tim Boetsch (10), Luke Rockhold (8), or Ronaldo Souza (5) are all ranked by the UFC, according to the numbers in parenthesis by their names.
Let’s say he hangs with those guys, but can he beat the top three in Chris Weidman (champ), Anderson Silva (1), or even Vitor Belfort (2)? I submit the answer is most likely, no. Plus, don’t forget about Mark Munoz (6). When Sonnen and Munoz were set to fight each other before Munoz bowed out due to injury, Sonnen went on record stating he had never beaten Munoz in a collegiate wrestling tournament, and was looking forward to his hardest test to date.
But then again, we all counted him out against Nate Marquardt and then Anderson Silva back in the day. He also walked through Yushin Okami at one point, and Okami’s currently ranked #3 in the world! Only time will tell what Chael P. Sonnen has left to offer inside the Octagon.