Chael Sonnen thinks Conor McGregor is buying into his own hype.
This weekend, former UFC Middleweight title challenger, Chael Sonnen addressed Conor McGregor’s outburst in Bellator. He said that McGregor’s behavior was “illegal” and that it “changed” their relationship.
Sonnen knows a thing or two about portraying a character in the fight game, and he said that McGregor is beginning lose hold of where the character ends and real personality begins.
“He’s starting to mark out for his own gimmick. As human beings, we are whoever we pretend to be. When you get these guys to adopt a character, over a small period of time, they become that person. We’ve seen this from the highest of levels.
“This is a real thing. Actors do it all the time. The great actors become the characters they’re playing at that time, whether it’s a cowboy, it’s a bad guy — I’m watching Conor mark out for his own gimmick.”
Many fans have speculated that substance abuse, more specifically use of cocaine, could have contributed to McGregor’s manic behavior, but Sonnen pursued a much subtler answer. He speculated that the money and the fame – character pollutants as old as time- may have taken their toll.
“People were coming out saying ‘oh he’s on coke, that’s the only reason he would act that way. He was drunk and was on coke.’ I don’t think that’s right — he probably was drunk, that part was probably true.
“Hey Conor, you’re not really a creep, you just play one on TV! You’re not really a guy who’s out of your mind and can’t really keep your cool. You just play one on TV, then you go back to your real life, Dee and your baby, you go back to your gym and your teammates. But he’s starting to mark out for his own gimmick.”
Sonnen also said that it is “more alarming” that none of his teammates tried to reel Conor in after the incident. Many people in the fight game have accused McGregor of surrounding himself with ‘Yes Men,’ and it certainly seems as though McGregor is unwilling to admit fault even in this egregious situation.
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