Dana White steps between champion Anderson Silva and challenger Chael Sonnen at the July 3 presser. Photo: Josh Hedges/UFC.
At a pre-UFC 148 open training session in Las Vegas, middleweight title challenger Chael Sonnen sweat like a lion. When interviewed by Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting shortly thereafter, though, Chael was back to his calm self. Too calm, as the reporter himself noted.
“I got a call from Renzo Gracie, and when you get a call from a Gracie, it’s kind of like getting a call from Randy Couture: You don’t share your opinion, you listen, and you hang up. And that’s it. … He wasn’t overly happy with me, but let’s leave it at that,” says Sonnen in the interview.
The challenger also addressed the moment the two looked about to throw down for real at the pre-event press conference on Tuesday. “To me he was trying to get disqualified to not have to fight on Saturday. It was very hard to keep a straight face when he was doing that…” said Sonnen, who has to shed around ten kilos (22 lbs) by weigh-ins today.
In the interview, Sonnen is also charmed to hear he had been spoken kindly of by Mike Tyson, despite previously targetting the former boxing world champion in his frequent diatribes.
Check out the complete interview to see what else Saturday’s headliner has to say:
The post Chael Sonnen and UFC 148: “A call from Renzo Gracie changed my behavior” first appeared on Graciemag.