Chael Sonnen is one of the greatest fighters in the business regarding his work on the mic. However, he might be disappointed by the lack of trash-talking in the UFC 264 co-main event between Gilbert Burns and Stephen Thompson.
Still, Chael Sonnen took to YouTube to share his thoughts on who the winner of the fight should call out if they win. He said:
"I would encourage whoever wins this fight to be very clear now, before you get to the post-fight speech of who you are going to call out, because your options are going to be very limited. Colby's busy, that's going to leave you jumping on the Chimaev grenade or the Leon grenade."
Chael Sonnen then went on to say that Burns and Thompson should pick a fighter who's more beatable. Sonnen revealed that the strategy should be to fight the easiest guy for the biggest paycheck every time. 'The American Gangster' cited his time on The Ultimate Fighter as an example and said:
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"I can remember times back on the Ultimate Fighter, you'd have the hardest guy and the coin toss and the team that gets to pick and you call out the hardest guy. The number nine seed calls out the number one seed, why did you call him out? "I wanna beat the best guy" Why would you wanna beat the best guy? Who told you that? That's stupid!"
Chael Sonnen says that Burns and Thompson should ignore the rankings and call out the easiest guy
Adding to his point, Chael Sonnen said that while there aren't many easy fights in the UFC, fighters should still strive to fight the easiest guy. 'The American Gangster' stated that there is no point in trying to be stupid and said:
"It is your job to assess the other team, not look at rankings, not look at seedings, not look at who the first pick was. Look for who is the guy I am most likely to beat, that's the guy you call out."
Watch the full video here:
It's unlikely that either Burns or Thompson will call out Khamzat Chimaev, but Leon Edwards is a realistic possibility. It will be interesting to see if Chael Sonnen's words ring true in a week.
That said, Stephen 'Wonderboy' Thompson is probably gunning for his last shot at the title, so he will most likely aim to win and call out reigning welterweight champion Kamaru Usman.