Chael Sonnen was terrified throughout his first fight with Anderson Silva for one specific reason.
At UFC 117, on August 7, 2010, inside the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, USA, the American challenged the Brazilian for the middleweight throne.
Throughout the build-up, ‘The American Gangster’ oozed confidence, coming out with some epic one-liners on the microphone. To this day, Joe Rogan still says Sonnen is his all-time favorite MMA star to interview.
However, while he outwardly oozed bravado, that’s not a reflection of how he was feeling on the inside.
WOW: Chael Sonnen recalls being trolled by 50 Cent after Jon Jones caused an ’embarrassing’ moment
Chael Sonnen had never done a jiu-jitsu practice before fighting Anderson Silva
While Chael Sonnen knew how to grapple through his time in wrestling, the fan favorite knew very little about the art of jiu-jitsu, when he set foot inside the octagon with Anderson Silva.
His lack of experience turned out to be his undoing on fight night. Despite dominating the first four rounds, in the fifth segment, he was caught in a triangle and forced to submit.
In an interview on Jake Shields’ Fighting Back Podcast, the Oregon athlete said the loss was: “Devastating. It was harder a while ago. I guess time heals all wounds. But I never had confidence in that fight.
“I was only on top of him so much because of the urgency I felt on my feet. I did not want to stand with him.
“When I got on the ground, I was never really that confident. At that point in my life, I had never had a jiu-jitsu practice.
“In MMA, we’d worked on jiu-jitsu, but I wasn’t a white belt or a blue belt; I had no belt. I never had on a gi. It’s just one of those things that if I could go back in time, I would not have skipped the most basic training.”
Chael Sonnen reveals the weird things Jon Jones did before their fight that made him think he could pull off the upset
While Sonnen was extremely concerned throughout his clash with Silva, that wasn’t the case when he went to war with another legendary mixed martial artist.
When the charismatic trash talker challenged Jon Jones for the light heavyweight belt, he had a massive amount of self-belief that he could find a way to beat ‘Bones’.
And that stemmed from the all-time great’s behavior while they were filming The Ultimate Fighter together.
Now, Sonnen has revealed the things Jones did that made him think he could pull off the upset.