Chael Sonnen’s gut is telling him that a big fight is about to fall through.
UFC 298 is just around the corner and one of the most highly anticipated matchups on the card sees former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker taking on top contender Paulo Costa in the co-main event. Or at least that’s what it says on the schedule.
Speaking on his Beyond the Fight show, Sonnen speculated that something strange is going on with the pairing and it’s a feeling that he’s had before with other high-profile fights.
“Does Whittaker and Paulo Costa go off as planned?” Sonnen said. “If you were just to guess. I’ve had a couple of fights in my life where I’ve seen them and read about them and thought, ‘That’s not going to happen.’ And that was my reaction. I loved them and they were exciting, possibly a situation where it was too good to be true, but there was something about it where I didn’t feel it was going to happen. … I was asked what I thought about Jon Jones and ‘Rumble’ Johnson [at UFC 187] and I simply responded, ‘That fight will not happen.’ A couple of weeks later, the fight blows up and it doesn’t happen, and a number of people asked me about it, but I didn’t have any inside scoop. I just never felt that that fight was going to happen.”
Jon Jones and Anthony Johnson were set to meet in the main event of UFC 187 back in May 2015, but the bout imploded when Jones became the perpetrator in a hit-and-run incident a month before the event. The UFC stripped Jones of the light heavyweight title and suspended him, which resulted in replacement Daniel Cormier going on to defeat Johnson instead to claim the belt.
Sonnen points to Costa’s sketchy bout cancellation history (in the past few years, Costa has missed out on fights with Whittaker, Khamzat Chimaev, and Jared Cannonier for various reasons) and the fact that a recently cancelled fight with Chimaev is yet to be revisited.
“I am not that bullish on Paulo Costa vs. Robert Whittaker,” Sonnen said. “I am not that bullish, but boy it’s along the same vein. It doesn’t feel like those guys are getting ready to fight and to my understanding—and when is the last time Paulo Costa fought? It’s very meaningful. He was supposed to get into a little scrappy doo with Chimaev on October 22. Generally, when you have a fight of that magnitude, if something happens and it doesn’t come off, you rematch that same fight down the road.
“Now, both guys are going to have rest and recovery and injury, but that was in October, then you’ve got October, November, December, January, February… before you know it, you’ve had a pretty meaningful amount of time. Nobody knows how long that is but it seems like a period of time and re-booking that fight not only didn’t happen, it was never even discussed. It was never discussed by the promotion ever, once, not even a whisper.”
Most concerning to Sonnen is what he perceives to be a lack of build from the fighters involved. He criticized Whittaker’s salesmanship during his run as champion and isn’t convinced that Costa is doing much to promote the upcoming Feb. 17 pay-per-view either.
“If you’re little ol’ me, you’re little ol’ Chael and you’re looking at two highly paid guys that are two box office attractions—that is proven and unquestionable by the fact that they are a co-main event of a pay-per-vew—then you’re generally dealing with guys that know and understand and can overcome whatever internal anxiety they have about going out and doing interviews and promoting a fight, which is something these two guys have not done,” Sonnen said. “I’m not here to make a prediction, I’m not here to tell you that they’re not going to fight, but I will make an observation and that observation is that Paulo Costa and Robert Whittaker are not behaving and are not actively doing what other guys put in the same position that are three weeks closing in on a fight that’s televised and monetized on pay-per-view, they are not doing what two opponents generally would do that are going to plan to face each other.”
