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First up, in regards to Jackson, Sonnen was critical of the way he's gone about his recent string of complaints with the UFC.
"I like him. Look, he's a crybaby, but I find it entertaining," Sonnen said (transcribed by MMAMania.com). "I like it when he goes on his campaigns about entitlement and how he should be given easy fights. I don't agree with any of it, but, you gotta understand, everybody's gonna stumble, at times, but to miss weight at a fight poorly, when you're paid what he's paid - he's the second highest paid fighter in the industry now that Brock Lesnar is retired - it kind of puts him in a different ballpark."
"A lot of things are expected of him and he's not quite delivering. But as far as retirement talk, the guy ought to be able to have a bad performance here and there. Randy Couture, the greatest of all time, had bad performances, but he always came back."
The discussion about Jackson naturally went to the topic of TRT, which Sonnen has undergone and once said he needed to live despite never applying or receiving a therapeutic use exemption for the treatment.
"There's two things there. Hold on. If you're gonna associate the guy with TRT, make sure you also associate the fact that it's legal and it's not banned," Sonnen began. "Second thing with TRT is people are really getting confused. They look at TRT and they're missing the stuff that really is good. TRT is eight, nine or ten on the list of things they could take to help their careers. Secondly, any time a person says 'performance enhancer,' stop talking to them, because they don't have the intellect to debate with you."
Considering Jackson has publicly talked about how the TRT was administered to help his knee heal faster, that's precisely what using performance enhancers are for. And as soon as Sonnen made that comment, he turned around in response to an interrupting Carton and contradicted himself.
"I wanna make this point: I would never take anything if I didn't think it would help my performance," Sonnen said. "That's what medicine is in 21st Century America. Imagine if you go to the doctor and say, 'Doc, I'm feeling great. You got anything that can bring me down a notch?' That's malpractice. It's all meant to help your performance."
Sonnen then tore into Carton for suggesting he was drastically over the limit for his first fight with Anderson Silva back in 2010, which led to his six-month suspension after a circus of a commission hearing.
"No, no, no. Absolutely not," he said. "Not only did I not take more of it, I was never even accused of that. Josh Gross, who's incompetent beyond measure, went on ESPN and said that I did, so it became my reality and I went with it. I was never even accused of that. Is it legal or is it not legal? If a person's taking a legal substance, that's the end of the conversation. You're sounding a lot like Josh Gross."
Penick's Analysis: And here's where Chael Sonnen tries to talk circles around a number of arguments. For starters, "If a person's taking a legal substance, that's the end of the conversation" is absolutely not the end of the conversation. There are tons of legally prescribed substances not allowed for fighters to use. TRT is a legally prescribed treatment, but not automatically allowed by commissions. And when the TRT's are being prescribed by age doctors and general practitioners instead of a board-certified endocrinologist, then it's a major gray area that suggests some very shady things with a sub-35-year-old needing to use testosterone. If there's a legitimate need for it, the commissions should be making the fighters undergo a more thorough process - as Nate Marquardt was made to do and why he got in the trouble he did when he didn't do what was required in time. And look, I haven't ever made the argument that TRT should be illegal or even that performance enhancing drugs should be outlawed across the board. The problem is, they are, and TRT has become a loophole for fighters to use testosterone whether it's for legitimate reasons or not. Sonnen can continue to try to say he didn't do anything wrong, but the fact of the matter was that even if he had a legitimate need for TRT, he never got it cleared with the commission ahead of time and still doesn't have a therapeutic use exemption in a state for it. Regardless, this can't be a conversation the UFC likes seeing from several fighters, especially considering their supposedly hardline stance against PEDs.
[Chael Sonnen art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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