Chael Sonnen: The Billy Conn of MMA To Get Another Crack at UFC Gold

Whether you became a fan or a hater, leading up to his UFC middleweight title shot, Chael Sonnen did an amazing job of forcing every MMA observer to develop an opinion of him. His off the wall banter filled with askew observations, history revisions, and clever insults certainly got his name in the headlines.

Still, the majority of the MMA world figured this all to be poppycock that would do nothing to fend off the inevitable beating he was soon going to suffer at the hands of champion Anderson Silva.

I'm not saying nobody had faith in the Oregon native, because I actually was one of the few that picked him to pull off this upset, and I know a few others felt the same, but he was a massive underdog. The betting odds had him listed at around a 3 to 1 dog, but the consensus opinion of him being on such a lower level than Silva made it seem like the odds were closer to 10 to 1.

The Sonnen naysayers mostly predicted a quick knockout in the first round, neglecting to acknowledge that Sonnen had never been knocked out in his career and that Silva rarely goes for the kill early in any fight these days—in the case of Forrest Griffin, that was more Griffin running into his fists than Silva going after an early knockout.

They also neglected to consider that Sonnen had the perfect style to give Silva problems. Silva had never been hard to take down throughout his entire career, and when he beat wrestlers, it was always when they abandon their wrestling and attempted to trade strikes with him.

Sonnen's discourse leading up to the fight had made a fan of me, and I wasn't the only one. His words were clever and refreshing in contrast to the average pre-fight talk consisting of vague game-plans and repetitive trash talk.

When he got caught saying something that maybe he felt he shouldn't have said, he flat out denied ever having said it. When asked about his previous losses, he straight lied about his record. And through it all, he mixed comedy with a unique disrespect for his opponent—and Silva is never at shortage of adoration—that seemed to aggravate those that gave him little chance of winning and entertain those that thought he could.

So, with the backdrop of a community seemingly annoyed by Sonnen's confidence opposed to their expectations of a quick one-sided destruction, the first round of their fight produced one of those feelings that only sports can provide. And for the fans that Chael had made, it felt good.

Chael did not start winning the fight with a takedown, which even I assumed was his only chance, but he began his offense by rocking the striker with a straight left hand that dropped him to a knee. The single punch was nearly as shocking as seeing Matt Serra finish champion Georges St. Pierre in one of MMA's biggest upsets of all time. To say it was not expected does not do it justice; it was near inconceivable.

From that moment on, Chael controlled the fight. And while keeping Silva pinned on his back, he unleashed a constant and consistent series of damaging blows that would have stopped most any other fighters in the sport.

It was that feeling of jubilation that only comes from being in the minority of rooting for such a long shot and having them perform like a reigning champion. I felt that feeling all the way until the end of the fourth round. And it was in the break before the final frame that a name popped into my head: Billy Conn.

For the young guys out there that don't know about Billy Conn, he was the light heavyweight boxing champion that moved up to heavyweight to get a shot at the unstoppable champion Joe Louis. Conn was a massive underdog leading into the fight, but had a tremendous following particularly due to his Irish heritage.

Despite the expectations, Conn boxed beautifully. After building a considerable lead in the first 12 rounds of their 15-round championship fight, Conn was not content in riding out his lead and stalked Louis in an attempt to finish the champion in round 13. Instead, it was Conn who ended up losing by knockout in a move he would regret for the rest of his life.

When asked by a reporter immediately after the fight why he had gone for the knockout, Conn replied with a line that became nearly as famous as himself, “What's the use of being Irish if you can't be thick?”

It was after those four rounds of Sonnen's masterful performance that I asked myself, “I wonder if Sonnen is Irish?”

Sonnen could have held Silva down and controlled him with little risk en route to an obvious decision victory, but it was not to be. Sonnen came out with the same pressure and violent consistency that earned him those first four rounds, and with just two minutes left in the fight, Sonnen carelessly lost his focus for just a second and Silva slapped on a deep triangle choke that forced the challenger to submit.

The great high I had felt for four and a half rounds was now met with an equally powerful drop. The money I had mentally already spent was gone, and Chael's briefly assumed championship had dissolved.

Like Conn, Chael was immediately asked for his feelings in front of millions and his heartbreak shone through. “Well, I'm only here to be No. 1. If I'm not the best, I'm going to move on in life. We'll go back and re-evaluate, but for now I got the silver medal.”

When I heard those words, I figured that was it for Sonnen. It appeared he would just be remembered for coming so close to taking away the title from a great champion. He had made such a spirited run through a series of fights that, in each, he was expected to lose.

He would go out like Conn, who, five years after nearly winning the heavyweight title, had gotten a rematch with Louis but lost by knockout in round 8. It was before that fight that Louis famously stated, “He can run, but he can't hide.”

The inevitable excuses from Silva's camp came flooding within minutes of the fight that the champion was injured and could not train, etc. But Sonnen's credit could not entirely elude him, despite the opinions of the impulsive halfwits that make up the majority of most anything in this world. He had pushed the champion further than anyone in the UFC ever had. That alone will keep Sonnen in the history books for years to come.

Well, it now appears that Sonnen is not done. For him, as he puts it, “the party isn't over.”

After a loss like that, a fighter can go two directions. He can fret about how close he came and never allow himself to let it go, or he can realize that he won every minute of the fight until the end and take confidence from the majority of the performance.

Sonnen seems like he realizes the mistake he made and is prepared to set it right. And he will now get his chance.

Earlier this week, the UFC announced plans for an immediate rematch between Silva and Sonnen. There has only been a small handful of immediate rematches in the UFC and each of them was due to a close judges decision that was met with strong criticism throughout the MMA community. This will be the first that had a definitive winner.

Will Sonnen write his own history, or will he follow the path of Conn? Will he take confidence from their first meeting or will he be plagued with regret?

Time will tell, but the rematch is targeted for winter, either on their New Year's Eve card, or Super Bowl weekend.