Chael Sonnen admits his frustrations about the UFC 321 main event ending might’ve been somewhat misdirected.
Sonnen grabbed headlines following Saturday’s event when after Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane ended in a no contest due to illegal eye pokes from the challenger that left the champion unable to continue at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.
Sonnen, alongside fellow ESPN post-fight show analyst Anthony Smith, said Aspinall should’ve fought on with comprised vision and lived with the result. That drew the ire of many in the MMA community, while others have chimed in with similar post-fight perspective on Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) vs. Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC)
Sonnen admits disappointment in the result fed into some of his immediate reaction, and although it still lingers, he said not as much of it is placed on Aspinall’s plate.
“When that fight was over I was mad – I’m still mad,” Sonnen said on his “Good Guy/Bad Guy” podcast with Daniel Cormier for ESPN. “As a fan, I’m bothered. In fairness I will admit I don’t know where that energy should go. Tom did nothing wrong. So it seems as though I couldn’t blame Tom. He’s out there doing his fight, something against the rules happens to Tom. I’m not mad at Ciryl in the least, and Ciryl was the one that caused that whole thing. So perhaps I do need to relook at this. And (Jason) Herzog is one of the great referees and I don’t second guess him, but we’ve got two things that we don’t do to each other. You don’t poke him in the eyes, and you don’t bite him. When one of those things are violated it seems a no contest is a very weak thing out.
“If somebody cheated, you disqualify him. If somebody needs to push through something, you don’t give them the option. I really don’t blame the referee or the call here, but we’ve seen this many times. This was not just a poke, this was a double poke, and whether you think that was unintentional or not, at some point it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not one, but two done at once. I don’t agree with no contest. I am still angry at no contest. I think very much that fight could’ve continued. I think if we’re being fair, that fight was a lot harder than people thought it was going to be and there was an opportunity to regroup with yourself and try again. All of things happened, and I don’t apologize for saying any of them. Just to be really clear.”
Ultimately with some hindsight and added perspective, Sonnen thinks Aspinall leaving with his belt and the least amount of risk to his long-term health was for the best.
“I do think that was the right decision, I do think that was the smart decision,” Sonnen said. “Tom’s got one thing to do, which is to leave that arena with the title that he brought into that arena.”
