Chael Sonnen on loss to Fedor Emelianenko: “Everything hurts”
This past Saturday night at Bellator 208 was a night that Chael Sonnen will most definitely want to forget as he suffered yet another devastating loss in his MMA career, when he was finished in the first round by revered MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko via TKO in their Heavyweight Grand Prix Semi-Final match up.
Though Sonnen got off to a excellent start in the fight, utilizing his world class wrestling skills and was able to take Emelianenko down frequently, he eventually got caught with some stiff shots by the russian before being pounded out as the referee stopped the fight.
Now with the event officially behind him, Sonnen had came out to speak on the defeat from Bellator 208 on the MMA hour Monday afternoon.
He stated, after getting caught by Emelianenko an then ultimately grounded and pounded, he’s in physical excruciating pain.
“Physically, everything hurts,” he said (transcript via MMA Fighting). “[Emelianenko] hit me with a missile about five-seconds in. That one still hurts a little bit. But other than that, I am doing well…My teeth are okay. If I had one wish going into a fight, aside from serious injury, it’s that I won’t lose a tooth. I had that same wish since I started this when I was 19 years old. But, yes they are all intact.”
But it’s not only the physical pain Sonnen is having to deal with, it’s also him having to once again deal with the emotional agony of defeat.
“Emotionally, I get heartbroken about these things,” he sad. “From a competitive standpoint, I have dedicated my whole life to this since I was nine years old and I would have started earlier if my dad would have let me. He wouldn’t let me start until I was nine. It hurts. It hurts really bad that you don’t get those moments back.”
Then in his own words, Sonnen summed up how the internal anguish of handling defeat is simply something common in the life of a fighter.
“I’ve had these feelings before,” he said. “I am convinced, in my interpretation, this is what it means to be a fighter. Somewhere over time that word became corrupted. It became about the punches and the kicks. But I’ve always believed it’s feeling like I’m feeling right now and getting out of bed anyway and facing the media and getting back on it. So now I have to be a fighter. I prefer to be a winner, I prefer to be on top of the world and looking down on everybody else. But today I’ve got to fight.”
What are your thoughts on Chael Sonnen’s comments?
Who would you wanna see him face next?
