Trainer “has a feeling” Chael Sonnen is “done fighting” after second loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 148
Neil Melanson, the head grappling coach at Xtreme Couture, has been giving his thoughts on the future of UFC middleweight contender, Chael Sonnen following his defeat at the hands of Anderson Silva this past Saturday night, and it seems the feeling is another big-name star could be about to hang up his gloves for good.
Speaking via The Verbal Submission, Melanson said:
“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.”
“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.”
Fans will remember that Sonnen issued the challenge to Silva back at UFC 136 following his win over Brian Stann that if the two men were to lock it up for a second time and he were to lose he would leave the UFC forever. Now we all know what happened on Saturday night but what we don’t know is whether Sonnen meant it.
By Michael Pepper. (Follow me on Twitter)
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