Chael Sonnen co-hosted Spike TV’s MMA Uncensored last night and, as Chael is wont to do, he did a lot of talking. The focus of much of his talk this time around was Quinton Jackson. Jackson has recently been in the news for taking testosterone replacement before his last fight and wild Twitter rants about wanting to be out of the UFC.
When Rampage’s recent behavior came up, Sonnen had this to say (transcribed by MMAMania):
I like him. Look, he’s a crybaby, but I find it entertaining. I like it when he goes on his campaigns about entitlement and how he should be given easy fights. I don’t agree with any of it, but, you gotta understand, everybody’s gonna stumble, at times, but to miss weight at a fight poorly, when you’re paid what he’s paid — he’s the second highest paid fighter in the industry now that Brock Lesnar is retired — it kind of puts him in a different ballpark. A lot of things are expected of him and he’s not quite delivering. But as far as retirement talk, the guy ought to be able to have a bad performance here and there. Randy Couture, the greatest of all time, had bad performances, but he always came back.
That wasn’t all Sonnen had to say about the subject though.
Chael also wanted to make it clear that Rampage’s use of TRT shouldn’t be viewed negatively:
There’s two things there. Hold on. If you’re gonna associate the guy with TRT, make sure you also associate the fact that it’s legal and it’s not banned. Second thing with TRT is people are really getting confused. They look at TRT and they’re missing the stuff that really is good. TRT is eight, nine or ten on the list of things they could take to help their careers. Secondly, any time a person says ‘performance enhancer,’ stop talking to them, because they don’t have the intellect to debate with you.
…
“I wanna make this point. I would never take anything if I didn’t think it would help my performance. That’s what medicine is in 21st Century America. Imagine if you go to the doctor and say, ‘Doc, I’m feeling great. You got anything that can bring me down a notch?’ That’s malpractice. It’s all meant to help your performance.”
Of course, I’d argue that there is a big difference between medicine keeping people healthy and “feeling good” and making an athlete unnaturally virile for his age.