Chael Sonnen appeared on Submission Radio recently to discuss his “feud” with Conor McGregor.
Obviously, the likelihood of these two meeting inside the Octagon is zero. But, that hasn’t stopped Sonnen from throwing out vibes.
“I will be a counter-puncher on this. I’ve always looked at Conor as like a little brother,” Sonnen said. “I thought he looked to me as a mentor and we had our relationship. If I’m wrong about that, I would be embarrassed and I would feel like a fool, and I will come back. To save my own ego, I will come back. But I will tell you that I don’t want the beef, I want it to go to away.
“If he steps and sits down to the table, I will give him a very hard reminder of why he looked up to me in the first place.”
Sonnen also offered up his thoughts on Saturday’s UFC 269 main event between Charles Oliveira and Dustin Poirier for the lightweight title.
“There’s a lot riding on this. Oliveira is not always consistent. Now, I’m not picking on him. This guy is the king of the hardest division out there. I respect them tremendously,” Sonnen said. “But if you wanted to be critical, you could go look at his career, he’s been inconsistent. He’s had trouble at the scales. He stubbed his toe in some very strange matches where he was a massive favorite within the competition. I think he’s worked through that. His last seven, his last eight, his last three and a half years, he’s looked unstoppable, and now he’s the king.
“But there’s a lot riding on this. If Oliveira wins by example, that is going to reflect poorly on Khabib. Khabib is younger. Khabib was at the same timeframe and Khabib fought and beat everybody except him. And that’s just going to create a question. Not enough to bring Khabib back. But when you want to talk about legacy, that’s all that you’re talking about, is the discussion going around it.
“On the other side of the coin, if one of the guys that Khabib disposed of, in this case Dustin Poirier, goes and grabs the belt, it really shows just how good and dominant Khabib was. And the same thing is sitting on Conor’s lap. If Oliveira goes out there and destroys the guy who destroyed Conor McGregor, there’s going to be a perception issue, and these guys are going to need to work. And these guys never study their career, they never study the land. If this was me and I was in that spot, I’d have a tweet ready to go for both guys. If Oliveira wins, to make me look good. And if Poirier wins, to make me look good.
“But these are dumb dumbs. And the only one dumber than the fighters are the managers that are managing. You’ve got dumb-dumbs managing dumb-dumbs. I expect nothing from any of these guys because they’re not smart enough to see it.”
