Former UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen recently pulled back the curtain on his ridiculous but effective pro-wrestling act of the past four or so years, admitting that he intentionally tried to be a villain (or, "heel" in 'wrasslin' parlance), and revealing why he did. "I got hit with a PED charge and a criminal charge in the same month," said Sonnen on the Short Time Wrestling Podcast of his rough 2010 after losing to Anderson Silva a first time.
"The whole 'silly me' defense is a pretty good one. When you go, 'Listen, I didn't know. I didn't know the rules.' That works. That's a good, solid defense. One time. I needed it twice in the same month. So I just knew I was beat. As far as a PR standpoint goes, this is a disaster. Anybody in politics will tell you that when there's a problem you steer into it, so I came out of that mess and I just came out and said, 'Yeah, I'm a gangster. This is the life. This is what gangsters do.'
"People just started going into it. I just kept going with it, too. 'This is nothing. These are just the things I was caught for. You should hear what I got away with.' I started going really hard into it. Yea, it was a lot of fun and it did turn it around."
Sonnen went on to say that he relished the villain role because there was less competition than in the hero role. "For me, I prefer to be the heel," he said.
"I just have always preferred to incite them and make them angry. I had death threats in Brazil, but if you're a heel, this is a major win. What's stronger than that? It's always fun for me. One thing I picked up on was that nobody else wanted that. If you're up there competing for popularity, well, everybody wants to be liked. Everyone wants to be patted on the back. Now you're competing with everybody.
"If you go to the other end of the pool, you can have the water all to yourself. I became the biggest heel in MMA and possibly in sports kind of by just swimming down there and saying, 'Well, I want to be down here.' If I could do it over again, I'd definitely chose the same route. I might have laid it on a bit thicker at times but I would never go back."
Are you glad Sonnen decided to let his fight persona reflect his real-world crimes and offenses? Let us know in the comments section.
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