Chael Sonnen Roasts Tito Ortiz And Jon Jones
Though few would describe him as heavy-handed, Chael Sonnen has always been a knock-out artist when it comes to trash-talk. And his ‘Twitter-fingers’ have been dishing out some real punishment this week.
First in his cross-hairs was former opponent Tito Ortiz, who recently took to Instagram to call out Mike Tyson, based on reports of the latter’s return to combat sports. Readers may recall here the lauded trilogy match-up between ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ and the ‘Iceman’ Chuck Liddell in November of 2018. Though Ortiz won the fight due to a TKO stoppage, many saw the fight as something that hurt rather than helped the sport given the age of both competitors.
In a lengthy rant containing no shortage of insults, the man many refer to affectionately as ‘Uncle Chael’ attacked Ortiz and painstakingly unpacked the problems surrounding Tito’s callout (transcript courtesy of BJPenn.com).
“Oh the gift of Tito Ortiz just keeps on giving,” exclaimed Sonnen. “So, there is something that the kids call Instagram. Now Instagram is largely a photo-based social media outlet. You can include text, but if you don’t include a photo or a video you are basically misusing Instagram and you should just take that over to Twitter. Ok fine. Now Tito puts out a picture, and it is a side by side with Mike Tyson and Tito on the other side. Tito is shirtless, flexing his abs, captions: ‘Legend vs Legend let’s do this on pay-per-view’ exclamation point. Ok let’s start at the beginning. Anybody of any age, but particularly a grown ass 44-year-old man that goes on to Instagram shirtless while flexing his abs is a little bit of a dork. For one. Start with that.
“Now let’s move on to the text. ‘Legend vs Legend’. Ok so I am looking at ‘Iron Mike’ and saying ok that is one legend but the versus part I am a little bit confused by because the only other guy in the photo is Tito. So it’s like Tito, who are you bringing? Are you bringing Tank Abbott along? Are you bringing Randy Couture? Are you bringing King Arthur? Are you bringing Batman? Like who is coming that is the other legend here? Oh and by the way Tito, your final text said ‘Let’s do it on pay-per-view’ exclamation point. Do I need to be the one to inform you that pay-per-view no longer exists? Pay-per-view nowhere in the world is a thing anymore. It is all done through digital platforms. Even if they have a pay wall that they call a pay-per-view, it is not the same thing that you referred too, which is the pay-per-views you used to be on back in 2006. The world has just gone to a different place.”
Sonnen then let loose his acerbic wit in trademark style.
“Calling out Mike Tyson on pay-per-view is one step away from saying ‘Let’s put this in VHS and rent it to the world at Blockbuster”, quipped ‘Uncle Chael.’ “It is two steps away from saying ‘Me and Iron Mike are going to go do something and follow along on a transistor radio. It is very antiquated and the fact that you know that makes you a doofus. But, you also didn’t say what it was you were going to do. You just said ‘Let’s do it’. So before the big reveal that of course you want this to be an MMA match, but ‘Iron Mike’ only does boxing, and then you have this back and forth that ultimately becomes your way out of it before we even get into that, it would have been incumbent upon you to say what it is that you want to do. Marketing 101 Tito. Identify yourself before your enemies do it for you. You gave me an easy door! You gave me an easy door to come and walk all over you. I couldn’t even make this piece right now if you had the sense that God gave geese to come out and what rules were you and Mike going to contest. Are you guys arm wrestling? Are you in a bakeoff? Are we doing thumb wrestling? What exactly is going to happen here? You may be looking at this right now going ‘No Chael, I’m going to box him, that is what I was going to say’. Maybe you did, but you didn’t say it!”
Sonnen then began to laugh uncontrollably.
“You didn’t say it. Which allows me to come out and piss all over your idea. Why didn’t you say what you wanted to do? Oh by the way, I don’t believe you that ‘I was going to box him’. I don’t believe you. I think if you were going to box [Mike Tyson], you would have said it. I think you are rewriting your intent because I am calling you out on it. I think that you thought that you were going to be the one guy to lure 53-year-old Mike Tyson into a sport that he’s never done before called MMA. Which was never going to happen but seems like something you would still bring to the table at some point because you’re not very smart.’
Following this undressing of ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’, Sonnen took aim at another former opponent: current UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, who recently threatened to walk away from the sport given his disappointment following the UFC’s reported failure to provide sufficient final incentive for him to take on Francis Ngannou at heavyweight. Again, in trademark Sonnen style, Chael took to Twitter to mock ‘Bones’.
“NOBODY is gonna care if you WALK AWAY from the UFC”, Sonnen tweeted, adding “Just promise not to DRIVE AWAY, ok???”
For good measure, Sonnen continued his verbal assault with a few follow-up Tweets.
“As far as I can tell, you haven’t put anybody in the hospital by WALKING into them…”, quipped Sonnen, as he continued.
Another tweet from Chael read: “AND How much contraband can you tote on the ‘Shoe-Leather Express’, Y’Idiot?”
In a final reference to Jones’ well-publicized run-ins with the law, Sonnen wrote: “The Cops can’t impound your size 14 fake NIKES, Bruh”
Do you think Chael Sonnen is wrong in mocking Tito Ortiz and Jon Jones? Are his antics becoming too disrespectful or is ‘Uncle Chael’s’ trash-talk a staple of the sport?
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