Chael Sonnen announced last week that he is moving up to the UFC light heavyweight division and will be taking on Forrest Griffin at the end of the year pay-per-view on December 29th.
When he announced his move to light heavyweight, he began to talk about current light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. During last week’s “UFC Tonight” on FUEL TV, Sonnen said Nike has a long history of signing dorks and they just got another one. Also, he called Jones a “punk kid.”
Jones responded to Sonnen on Twitter and wants to see him earn a title shot and not talk his way into it. “Earn a title shot instead of trying to talk your way into one and I’ll be glad to hurt you,” Jones wrote.
Sonnen went quiet for a couple of day, but he has now posted fake tweets by Jones to make it look like the champion does not want to fight him.
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@jonnybones: been watching tape on@sonnench. I’d rather relinquish my title and run away to HW than fight that man.#P4P#GOAT— chael sonnen (@sonnench) August 19, 2012
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@jonnybones:@sonnench Why fight you? It’s a lose-lose situation for me. I lose the fight and I lose my title.— chael sonnen (@sonnench) August 19, 2012
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@jonnybones: Still growing in my career and in life and if I’ve learned one thing, it’s DON’T F@&K with@sonnench— chael sonnen (@sonnench) August 19, 2012
Jones is set to defend his title next Saturday night in Las Vegas and has maintained that he is only thinking of Dan Henderson and not Chael Sonnen. Over the weekend, Jones stated that he is not interested in a rematch with Lyoto Machida and wants big money fights.
If Chael Sonnen defeats Forrest Griffin later this year, will all of his tweets get him a shot at Jones over Machida?
First, Jones must defeat Henderson next weekend and Sonnen has to defeat Griffin.
UFC President Dana White always says that he makes the fights that the UFC fans want to see. Based on what we have seen in the past with Jones, it appears that fans rather see him take on fighters that use trash talking to promote the fight.
Two of his three title defenses have come against fighters that have tried to get into his head, with those fighters being Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Rashad Evans. Machida did not say anything about Jones and their UFC 140 fight was the lowest PPV buy rate of any Jones title defense.
Chael Sonnen knows what he is doing as he has done this in the past. He has the attention of Jon Jones and with a win in December, he has probably talked his way into his third title shot in the UFC.