Chael Sonnen questions the return of BMF belt
Former UFC middleweight title challenger Chael Sonnen has long been renowned as one of MMA’s most outspoken characters. Today, ‘The American Gangster’ has given his views on one of the sport’s major talking points this week.
Tuesday saw the announcement that despite previous titleholder Jorge Masvidal retiring, the UFC’s ‘BMF title’ will be making a return later this year.
According to Dana White, the belt will be on the line when lightweight favourites Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje rematch in the main event of UFC 291. The two men previously fought in 2018, with Poirier winning via TKO.
Dustin Poirier will face Justin Gaethje for the vacant BMF title on July 29 at UFC 291 in Salt Lake City, UFC announced Tuesday. https://t.co/wuwPS9iavR
However, while the reaction to the announcement of this fight has been largely positive with fighters and fans alike, the same cannot be said for Chael Sonnen.
On his YouTube channel, ‘The American Gangster’ went on a strange rant, questioning why the UFC has “ceremonial weigh-ins”, and then had the following to say about the BMF title, in his trademark verbose manner.
“I told you one day, 24 hours after we tore that cage down at Madison Square Garden...The Rock got on a plane, the president got on a plane...I told you then the BMF title would never be defended, didn’t I? And the BMF champion fought, fought again, fought again, but he never defended the title, did he? And now he has vacated the title, and now that title is going to be fought for...why?”
Watch Chael Sonnen’s rant below.
While Sonnen doesn’t seem to offer an answer to his question, another fighter who doesn’t seem sure about the return of the BMF title is current UFC lightweight champ Islam Makhachev. He took to Twitter to make a sarcastic post after the fight was announced this week.
You deserve this belt ))) twitter.com/mmajunkie/stat…
Chael Sonnen: did ‘The American Gangster’ break the news of Francis Ngannou’s move to the PFL?
Despite the announcement that the UFC’s BMF title will return this summer, the biggest news in the MMA world this week has definitely surrounded Francis Ngannou.
The former UFC heavyweight kingpin was announced as signing with the PFL on a huge contract after a lengthy period of free agency.
BREAKING 
🚨 BREAKING 🚨
"The Predator" @francis_ngannou is PFL bound!
He’s set to fight in the PFL’s PPV Superfight division
nytimes.com/2023/05/16/spo… https://t.co/5RRaG7oFwr
The news was largely broken by the PFL and Ngannou themselves on Twitter, but it wasn’t long before Chael Sonnen chimed in. ‘The American Gangster’ actually claimed to have broken the news of Ngannou’s move to the PFL himself.
In another YouTube rant, Sonnen suggested that he deserved the credit for breaking the news “two weeks earlier”, as he had claimed Ngannou would be joining the PFL in 2024.
Watch Chael Sonnen discuss Francis Ngannou’s move to the PFL below.