The one thing you can say about Chael Sonnen is that he always backs up his comments 100%… or at the very least, 98%.
For any rock dwellers out there, Conor McGregor has announced that he has retired from the UFC and everyone is trying to figure out why.
One person who thinks he’s cracked the case as to why McGregor sent that tweet is former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight contender, and current WSOF commentator, Chael Sonnen. The gangster from West Linn spoke about McGregor’s situation during a live broadcast on WSOF’s Facebook page.
Sonnen believes that the announcement is true, McGregor’s burned his bridges with the UFC and Dana White isn’t willing to coop up the ashes.
“When he pulls out, you gotta re-do all that stuff… I’ve known Dana (White) since 2005, he’s not putting a patch on this boat. Conor could give him a call right now, he’s not putting a patch in UFC 200.”
Although he admitted he has no proof, Sonnen is extremely confident that this has all stemmed from a contract dispute between McGregor and the UFC. McGregor is currently under contract with the promotion and Sonnen reckons the Notorious tried to bluff his retirement to improve the terms of the deal.
“Yeah, it’s a contract dispute. I don’t have any inside info on this. Just being around the business since the 90s, I know how it worked, I know how this whole thing went down. If I tell you how I think, I can guarantee I’m 98% right, if not 100.”
“Conor had a deal with the UFC and Conor’s now going back and trying to renegotiate. It just doesn’t work that way. It can’t. You can’t write everything down. You can’t get contracts done all the time in this business. There’s 500 guys under contract. There’s not even that many employees within the UFC. I think there’s 340 employees with 500 fighters. There’s 53 shows scheduled for a year that only has 52 weeks in the year.”
However, Sonnen feels that McGregor may have become a little bit too confident in the amount of sway he had with his bosses and his negotiation technique subsequently backfired.
“Conor has a contract, he made a deal. Somewhere he didn’t sign it, let the promotion go out, let the money get spent and then realise ‘I’ve got the upperhand. I can come back and renegotiate. Who’s going to tell me no when the advertising’s already done?; That’s what he did. Guaranteed. That’s not going to work. That’s what happened.”
“Yeah, McGregor’s really done. I don’t know if he wants to be done. This was a negotiation tool. He called the bluff of the wrong guys. These are gamblers, man. There’s rules in Vegas. If you say bet, you have a bet.
