Following the UFC and FOX Sports termination of Chael Sonnen, former UFC middleweight and fellow FOX Sports on-air analyst, Brian Stann, shared his thoughts on the firing of MMA’s silver-tongued devil:
“@AverageJoeArt: @BrianStann do you think UFC/FOX making an example of Chael is just?” Yes, absolutely no other choice imo
— Brian Stann (@BrianStann) July 1, 2014
Adversity reveals true character, if your first instinct is to lie or hide, then you have some serious flaws
— Brian Stann (@BrianStann) July 1, 2014
Sonnen, a former user of TRT, defeated Stann via submission at UFC 136 in 2011. Prior to Stann’s retirement from fighting, he had gotten knocked out by Wanderlei Silva at UFC on FUEL TV 8 in Japan in 2013. Silva was recently in the news for running from the same pre-fight test that Sonnen got popped for.
Interestingly enough, Stann implied one of the reasons he retired from fighting was because the playing field was not equal, and he knew it. In an interview on The MMA Hour (via MMA Mania), Stann said:
“I think the time when you retire coming off a loss and then you say that, what I didn’t want to do was discredit any of my former opponents. You know, specifically seeing that Wanderlei (Silva) was my last fight, I didn’t want to come off like, ‘Hey, I’m making excuses. The only people that beat me were people on drugs.’ I don’t know any of that for a certainty. There’s one time when I fought a guy on TRT when it was allowed, and that’s the only time that I could say substantially somebody was taking something. But, it was a factor. I’m a clean fighter. I’m 33 years old, and I have seen, in my own training, and in talking and knowing guys in the inner circle, I’ve known what guys are not on, and when they cycle on it. You can feel the difference in the gym and what big a difference it makes, and I do think there are a number of guys who are using just because the testing currently by our athletic commissions is inadequate.”
Stann already does some broadcasting work with FOX Sports, but now with Chael gone maybe he can move into working with them in a more full time capacity, if he so chooses. Seems apropos at this juncture.
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