THE BIG PAYBACK

For those of you new to the MMA scene, the name Chael Sonnen doesn’t mean much. Yeah, you’ve heard it a couple of times, he’s done a couple of things, but why does this 39 year old former professional mixed martial artist keep coming up in conversation? It’s because he brought us into a new age. The guy who wrote the playbook on shameless self promotion for MMA, Chael Sonnen was a major mouthpiece in creating the biggest rivalry in MMA history. His legendary feud with the former Brazilian champ Anderson Silva left audiences entertained and shocked, and brought MMA to a new level of out of the cage entertainment. While Cheal may not have his sights set directly on Silva, he does have sights set on coming back. In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani of the “MMA Hour”, Chael talked about his possible comeback, and of a 5’10” Canadian he’s got a score to settle with.

“I would love to kick Georges’ ass,” Sonnen said. “I’ll tell you this. This is a true story. I got a call one day and it was from Kenny Florian, and he says ‘hey, you want to work out?’ I was in LA and I said yeah, and he goes, ‘okay, well Georges is in town. Do you want to work out with Georges?’ And I said yeah. So we go to this gym.

“We went hard. I think I could’ve gone harder, but we went hard, and I came in second. And it drove me nuts, man. It drove me nuts. But I really think I could’ve done better. It was close. It was fine. If you ask him, he might try to put me over. I’m not trying to put him over right now, I’m just telling you what happened. He won that go, but I could’ve done better with him, and it’s driven me nuts ever since. I thought, man, I could’ve gotten that guy. I could’ve done better.

“He knew he got the best of me,” Sonnen continued. “So at the end of the workout, he tried to pay me a compliment. He goes, ‘thanks for not using your size; if you would’ve used your size, you really could’ve crushed me,’ which was really his way of saying, ‘hey man, I just beat you.’ And I knew what he meant, and I knew it was meant to be a nice thing. It stuck with me, man. This is a workout that was years ago and it stuck with me.”

Sounds like he’s got a score to settle. Both retired from the sport in 2013 but under very different circumstance. George retired at the top of the MMA world after his 10th straight title defense against Johnny Hendricks. Chael retired under investigation of USADA after two failed drug test. However, both men have said they would come back for “big fights” and while Chael Sonnen has vowed to never fight again, his manager has always left the door open.

But besides George, Chael has some other bones to pick. Giving a list of five fights he’d love to have back, and a couple he’d like to have for the first time. His hit list includes George St. Pierre, Anderson Silva, Wanderlei Silva, Vitor Belfort, and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

While the list mainly consists of ageing fighters, there’s definitely some mach-ups fight fans would want to see – as for promotion? well the one good thing about Chael is that he sells himself. How do you guy think Chael would do in each of these fights? Are you interested in a comeback or is he better suited on the other side of the cage? Let us know by hitting up our comments below or head on over to our official Facebook and Twitter.