När Chael Sonnen utmanade Anderson Silva efter segern mot Brian Stann på UFC 136 sa han bland annat att han skulle lämna UFC om han förlorade mot den regerande mästaren. Sedan dess har han vid flera tillfällen tagit tillbaka ”erbjudandet” då Silva inte accepterade, men där finns en som fortfarande tror att det stämmer. Det är Sonnens tränare Neil Melanson.
”Any time you’re a part of training camp or you’re friends with somebody and they lose, you just worry about them like, how are they gonna handle it mentally? Are they gonna come back from this? You know, I don’t know what Chael’s plans are, but I got a feeling he’s done fighting. I don’t know. I’ve just got a feeling he’s done. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think he was serious when he said, ’If you beat me, I will leave forever,’ and there’s a very good chance of that.”, säger Melanson till The Verbal Submission.
”I never met anyone that had a scenario where it’s like, ’If I don’t win this then I’m done,’ it never worked out positive for them because, just in my experience, you have to love the grind and if you love the grind, eventually you’ll get what you want because you give up what you need to give up. Apparently Chael had his limit like, ’This is it, I’ve had enough. If I don’t win this then it’s all not worth it.’ Having lost that, yeah, there’s a very good chance he could pursue other things. He’s a very smart guy, very well spoken. I know, whether he’ll admit to it or not, he has a lot of passion to be a broadcaster of sorts. He seems to excel in any type of speaking arrangement. He loves doing interviews. He loves hyping fights and I’m sure he loves training. He’s a good fighter. He’s a great fighter and he’s an awesome athlete but he can’t fight forever and maybe he’s at a point he’d like to do something else. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong.”
Melansons spekulationer står i direkt kontrast till vad Sonnen själv sa på presskonferensen efter UFC 148. Han menade att man inte kan vara nere över en förlust utan att man bara måste försöka göra det bästa av situationen. Inget han sa tolkades som att han hade för avsikt att lägga handskarna på hyllan.
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