Chael Sonnen Says Being In the Cage With Jones Was Like Fighting A Bear

“This was like getting into a bear cage. This guy was a monster of a man. We weighed in at the same size the day before, and I don’t know how that was possible. I put my arms around him and I thought, ‘oh my god, you’re a big guy.’ As far as the match went, I got beat up.”

Chael Sonnen took his usual seat at the UFC Tonight hosting table last night and for the first time addressed last weekend’s main event against Jon Jones.

Here are some more snips from that discussion:

On the Stoppage: “It’s two-fold, any time the ref helps you and stops a fight to keep you from getting hurt, you never want to come out and say anything that could disparage his judgment. At the same time, we’re in the middle of an ass-whipping contest, let us get after it. When I had my hands up because a guy is punching me, that’s called defense. But I never want to question a referee.”

On winning the belt due to Jon’s broken Toe: “Diplomatically you don’t ever want to win that way. The ones that hurt are the ones you’re supposed to win and then you blow it. But if it was given to me, I would have grabbed that belt, I would have held it up, grabbed the mic and told the crowd the golden rule is ‘he with the gold rules,’ and I would have walked out of the place and never looked back.”

On the game plan for the fight: “I was going to have to grind him down. I could see him he poses a lot of problems. He’s big, he’s strong and he’s got the wing span of a radioactive condor. I knew he’d take me down, but I never thought that he could take me down repeatedly. That was a surprise. And the fact that he tried so quickly, I was thrown off a little.”