UFC Rio Fancho

Chael Sonnen Defends Diego Sanchez's Decision To Take DQ Win Diego Sanchez came under backlash for deciding to take a disqualification win over Michael Pereira. However, Chael Sonnen feels like this was the right thing to do. Sonnen is one of the most popular fighters in MMA history. Since his retirement from the sport, he has grown into a very respected analyst. This is as a result of his podcast, and ESPN show with Ariel Helwani. In fact, it was on that latter that Sonnen expressed his thought on Diego Sanchez's most recent performance. Sanchez was losing the first two rounds of his bout with Michael Pereira, before getting hit with an illegal knee in the third. Instead of continuing the fight, he opted to quit, taking the DQ win instead, which caused some backlash from the MMA community. Speaking on the latest episode of Ariel and the Bad Guy, Chael Sonnen made it clear that he did not agree with this backlash. This is what he said: "We are in a sport that has very very limited rules," Sonnen said. "The rules that are limited, including kneeing a downed opponent in the head, is invoked by a point being taken away, by the option to stop the match in its entirety, like we saw here. They're in place because it is such a vicious and nasty thing to do to somebody. There's not very many rules that we do have. Look, if diego was hurt, and he was hurt, for him to use that MECHANISM that is built in is a very smart thing to do." Sonnen went on to explain that there was a narrative in the sport, around 2008, that if a fighter did not continue after getting fouled in a fight, Dana White would be upset. However, he explains that at a fighter summit, the UFC President made it clear that this was not how he felt. In fact, as Chael tells it, White explained that virtually nobody was able to overcome a foul, and win. Following that, Sonnen gets more fired up, saying that Sanchez was definetly not in the wrong. Moreover, he says that considering the fact that so few things are illegal in MMA, you have to take it very seriously when fouls occur. He concludes by explaining that the fight should have been stopped, regardless of what Sanchez said to the ref. https://www.youtube.com/watch?vUl7xdqWLI9k Ultimately, to the point of Chael Sonnen, Diego Sanchez is well within his rights to stop the fight. Regardless, it was quite entertaining to see the American Gangster get fired up like this.