(Video courtesy YouTube/HDNet)
Chael Sonnen sat down with Mike Straka for the HDNet interviewer’s "Fighting Words" show the day after his UFC 117 war with Anderson Silva and spoke a bout a variety of topics including his loss to the UFC middleweight champion, the fact that he didn’t get a cut of the PPV earnings and the fact that he visits a sports psychologist to help deal with the weight a loss like he had against "The Spider"two weeks ago heaps on him emotionally.
Overall, it was another polarizing interview, minus all of the pre-fight posturing that has garnered him so much attention (which he maintains was not an act), but it what the Oregon wrestler said about the controversial tap and subsequent stoppage at the end of the fight was arguably the most interesting tidbit from the Q&A session.
Here’s Chael’s recollection of the heavily-debated Hulk Hogan-esque double tap:
"I never once disputed the tap, but I also didn’t know it happened. Whether I tapped or I didn’t tap — and that’s by no way me saying I didn’t tap [because] I haven’t seen the video — it was the right stoppage. [Referee] Josh [Rosenthal] woke me up to let me know the fight was over. Josh was saying my name the same way my mother used to wake me up for school in the morning. ‘Chael…Chael…’She’d say it over and over and it would kind of get in my dream and I’d snap out of it. That’s what it was like with Josh. He repeated my name three or four times and I remember when I came to, [I asked] ‘Am I the champion?’ I didn’t know how it ended. Josh Rosenthal is awesome. The UFC has awesome refs, and with that being said, he’s at the top of the list. Above all, his job is to keep us safe and he’s always kept me safe."
So much for the theories that he denied tapping or that he didn’t tap.
Here’s the second half of the interview:
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He that goes aborrowing goes asorrowing.