American Chail Sonnen became famous as an MMA fighter. He was twice a contender for the UFC championship belt, but he never once received the coveted title. In June 2019, Chail announced that he would no longer enter the ring as a fighter. Now he works as an MMA analyst on the cable channel ESPN.
The beginning of a sports career
Chail Sonnen was born in Milwaukee (Oregon) in 1977. From an early age he was fond of wrestling. And in 1996, Chail (at that time he was a college student at West Lynn as a sociologist) began boxing.
In May 1997, Sonnen won his first victory in mixed martial arts - over Ben Haley. And after that, he spent several more successful fights in various promotions - with Jason Miller, Jesse Alt, Scott Shipman and Justin Haze.
Sonnen suffered his first defeat in January 2003. His opponent, a South African fighter by the name of Trevor Prangley, already in the first round held a painful technique called an armbar or elbow lever, and Sonnen was forced to surrender.
Sonnen's performances from 2005 to 2008
On October 7, 2005, Sonnen first performed in the UFC light heavyweight category. In the debut match he was put to fight against the Brazilian Renato Sobrala. Chail lost this fight. But his next appearance on UFC Ultimate Fight Night 4 ended in triumph. Here he met again in the octagon with the previously mentioned Trevor Prangley and was able to avenge his 2003 defeat.
For a long time then, staying in UFS with Chale did not work. In May 2006, he became a fighter of the Bodog Fight promotion. In the first match as part of this promotion, he confidently defeated Tim Kreder by technical knockout. Then he defeated the Russian Alexei Oleinik, the American Tim Mackenzie (this fight, by the way, lasted only 13 seconds) and another Russian Amar Suloev.
Soon, Chail Sonnen again changed his promotion and began to speak under the auspices of the organization World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC). In December 2007, Sonnen fought with Paulo Filho for the WEC middleweight title. And in the end, he lost in a painful manner five seconds before the end of the second round. The referee stopped the fight, although Sonnen subsequently said that he answered negatively to the question of the referee about whether he wants to give up.
A rematch between Phil and Sonnen was scheduled for March 26, 2008. However, he had to be canceled after Filw went to the clinic after drug abuse.
Sonnen and Filho could only face off on November 5, 2008. And in this fight Sonnen won by unanimous decision of the panel of judges. But this fight was not recognized as a champion, since when weighing it turned out that Filho weighed almost seven pounds more than the limit mark of his weight category. This, however, did not stop Filju after the defeat to declare that he would give Sonnen the champion belt.
Return to UFC and doping scandal
At the end of 2008, World Extreme Cagefighting canceled the weight category in which Sonnen performed, and he again signed a contract with the UFC. In his first fight after returning to UFC 95, he lost to Demian Maya, having missed a strangulation. At UFC 98 in May 2009, Sonnen defeated Dan Miller. In his next fight, at the UFC 104 event, Sonnen, by unanimous decision of the three judges, turned out to be stronger than the Japanese Yusin Okami.
On February 6, 2010, at UFC 109, Sonnen fought with Nate Marquardt, and eventually won by a decision of the judges. After that, he became the main contender for the champion title of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in middleweight. And in August 2010 at UFC 117, he entered the octagon against the then holder of the title - Brazilian Anderson Silva.
Throughout the fight, Sonnen was a significant leader, and the judges gave him more points in their cards. But in the last round, Silva captured Sonnen in a “triangle”, and forced him to knock on canvas (the so-called octagon flooring) as a sign of surrender. It should be noted that this fight was recognized as “Fight of the evening”, and then “Fight of the year”.
As always, after the fight, the analyzes of the fighters were tested for doping. And this test showed that Sonnen's T / E ratio (testosterone and epitestosterone) was 16.9: 1. And this is about four times the maximum permissible level.
As a result, Sonnen was fined $ 2, 500 and suspended from fights for one year.
Sonnen in recent years
When the period of ineligibility ended, Sonnen continued to perform at the UFC. On October 8, 2011, he went into the octagon at the next promotion event (UFC 136) and defeated Brian Stann with a strangling triangle. And then at UFC on FOX 2 he defeated Michael Bisping. This victory gave Sonnen the right to become a contender for the championship belt again and to fight Silva for the second time.
This rematch, scheduled for July 7, 2012, attracted a lot of attention from the audience. Many analysts called this fight one of the most anticipated in UFC history.
But he lasted only two rounds. At the beginning of the first round, Sonnen skillfully transferred the fight to the ground and ended up in a dominant position. But nothing significant was achieved in this position.
In the next round, Chail at some point unexpectedly tried to hit the opponent with the back of his fist from a U-turn, but missed. Silva took advantage of this situation, and eventually won by TKO. Sonnen did not become the UFC champion.
Until the end of 2013, he managed to conduct three more successful battles, and in the summer of 2014, information appeared that the UFC leadership terminated the contract with Sonnen because of his unsuccessful drug tests.
In September 2016, Chail signed an agreement with the Bellator promotion. In January 2017, he spent his debut fight in Bellator against Tito Ortiz and, unfortunately, lost.
Shortly afterwards, Sonnen gained mass and moved into a new category - he became a heavyweight. Quinton Jackson became his first rival here. The battle with him took place in January 2018 and ended with a convincing victory for Sonnen.
His next opponent was the famous Russian fighter Fedor Emelianenko. Fedor already in the first round brought down a powerful series of attacks on Chail, and he could not get up and continue the resistance. The judge prematurely stopped the bout.
After this, Sonnen had only one more fight - against Lyoto Machida. It was held on June 14, 2019 in New York and Sonnen was again defeated here. After the fight, he told reporters about his decision to end his sports career.
