This is not the first time that Chael Sonnen spoke about “The Emperor”. However, this time around, Sonnen compared Fedor Emelianenko to Kimbo Slice and bluntly stated that Fedor is “definitely overrated”.
Chael Sonnen is not new to controversial opinion. In fact, he has said a lot of about current events in the the MMA industry lately. During a recent interview in The MMA Hour, Sonnen discussed the latest buzz about Fedor’s comeback from retirement again. Last month, he said that Fedor was ‘terrible’. Now, being a guest on the 300th episode of the program, he went to the topic much deeper and he definitely didn’t sugarcoat any of his thoughts about it, just like what he did last time.
“He’s definitely overrated. But he’s not that highly rated. The people who listen to your show, the people who listen to my podcast, we have some hardcore fans. They watched him over in Japan. They watched some of those matches and they’re more than happy to forget when he came over to the states and actually did a sanctioned fight with a real referee that’s not wearing an earpiece. They forgot about those. The average human being doesn’t have the foggiest idea of who he is. And history is not going to reflect well on Fedor Emelianenko, as far as his MMA career goes,” Sonnen said.
Sonnen then went on comparing Fedor and his career to those of Kimbo Slice.
“Fans assess Fedor constantly. They have no idea what they’re talking about. I hear things said about Fedor where I’m just sitting there rolling my eyes. I had to live through this with Kimbo Slice. I had to live through this where the fans’ perception gets so far off that they don’t know what they’re seeing. Fedor can give you a very good assessment of himself. He knows where he’s at. So when he puts himself over there in Japan and goes, ‘I can make a few bucks doing this, I can stay busy and I don’t have to fight those guys in the UFC,’ that ends the argument. His fans always want to come out, ‘You’d do so well in the UFC.’ If he’s telling you that he won’t, you’ve gotta listen to him,” he added.
He also said that it was a great choice for Fedor to avoid the UFC and opted to sign up to another promotion.
“The Emperor” will be coming back inside the octagon after being gone for three years this coming New Year’s Eve in Japan. As of the moment, the promotion hasn’t released any names that will go against him in the fight.