Chael Sonnen: ‘It’s Hard To Study Fedor Because His Fights In Japan Were Fake’
Chael Sonnen will face Fedor Emelianenko in the semi-finals of Bellator’s heavyweight grand prix and it’s taken only a few days for “The American Gangster” to get stuck into the Russian
Sonnen was called into the cage for a staredown with Emelianenko this past Saturday at Bellator 198 following the Russian’s win over Frank Mir. The confrontation was a little awkward to say the least, but taking to his podcast this week, Sonnen took a more considered aim at Emelianenko’s past history of fighting in Japan.
“You won’t say anything about me, but I will say something about you — I don’t accept your wins in Japan,” Sonnen said. “The referee was wearing an earpiece, you never had a weigh-in, you never had a commission. Anyone that came over from Japan to America has a losing record. Why? I’ll tell you because the fights over here are real and they are fixed in Japan.
“You got a whole lot of rub and a whole lot of money out of doing fake fights, that pisses me off as a fan who bought those fights and that later found out I was buying wrasslin”
Whilst accusing of Emelianenko of being involved in fake fights, Sonnen went on to say that he might not have been aware of what was happening. According to Sonnen, some of Fedor’s fights would’ve been fixed without him even knowing.
“Fedor would greatly be offended if I said that he had a fake fight,” Sonnen said. “I have said this to Cro Cop who was offended, he couldn’t believe that I said it, Wanderlei Silva couldn’t believe I said it, that guy is crazy.
“The guy that is going to go over in professional wrestling will sit down in the same room as the guy that’s going to put him over and then work out the match. What they did in Japan was they only told one guy. So the guys that were going to win, your Cro Cop’s, your Wanderlei’s, your Fedor’s, they were never in the room when the guy that was your promoter, also known as the Yakuza, also known as the Japanese mafia, walks in the room and tells the opponent when to go down.
“So when the guy goes down, the winner, Cro Cop, Wanderlei, Fedor, just for example, really thinks they won. So they don’t know that the fix is in. Pretty soon they really think they can go beat 20 something guys in a row.”
Sonnen conceded that he respects Emelianenko’s skillset, but that his fights in Japan make it hard for him to prepare for their upcoming fight. The former UFC title contender is convinced that Emelianenko’s opponents were instructed to lose and that means he thinks he can’t read too much into the fight he had in the Far East.
“I don’t deny the guy has got skills, I don’t deny that he’s big and powerful and all these things,” Sonnen said. “I’m not pissing on his skills at all. I’m just telling you that when I think about him it’s very hard to go out and study him because his fights were fake in Japan. His opponent was told when to go down.”
Listen to the full episode HERE.
