Chael Sonnen vs. Anderson Silva
Chael Sonnen was one of the UFC’s most memorable trash-talkers of all-time, and while there was always a sense that his often outrageous remarks were said in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, his delivery was so dead-pan and matter-of-fact that at times it was hard to tell when he was being serious.
More problematically, Sonnen’s remarks often had xenophobic, homophobic or sexist undertones that crossed the line for some observers, and all three were on display during his two fights with Anderson Silva.
Take for example his repeated verbal jabs at not only Silva, but the entire nation of the Brazil.
“When I was a little kid, I remember going outside,” Sonnen said at a press conference. “I’d sit around with me friends, we’d talk about the latest technology in medicine and gaming and American ingenuity and I look outside and Anderson and the Brazilian kids are sittin’ outside playing in the mud.”
Needless to say comments like that outraged the country, while Silva himself was livid when Sonnen brought the Brazilian’s own wife into the conversation.
“You tell Anderson Silva I’m coming over and I’m kicking down his backdoor and patting his little lady on the ass and I’m telling her to make me a steak, medium-rare just how I like it,” Sonnen told Mauro Ranallo on The MMA Show.
Then there was the homophobic remark as he looked to shrug off his first submission loss to Silva by triangle choke.
“If you lay on your back with your legs wrapped around a man’s head for eight seconds, that does not make you a winner.”
