For Chael Sonnen, July 7 may wind up being one of the best days of his life.
To get there, however, it sounds like he'll have to endure one of his worst.
Sonnen was a guest on ESPN's Sportscenter on Thursday afternoon to promote his UFC 148 fight against Anderson Silva for the UFC Middleweight Championship, and while the self-proclaimed "Gangster From America" had plenty to say about what he would do to Silva on Saturday night, he also told anchor John Buccigross that he has a lot of work to do before Friday afternoon's weigh-in.
A mere 28 hours before he's expected to weigh in at 185 pounds or less, Sonnen proclaimed himself to weigh 205 pounds.
"After this interview," Sonnen said, "I'm going to be in severe discomfort."
Weight cutting is an inexact science, and different fighters do it differently. However, the idea of Sonnen stepping on a scale at 185 pounds on Friday afternoon when he weighed 20 pounds more than that at noon PT on Thursday is hard to fathom.
Of course, given the way Sonnen has been known to boast, embellish and flat-out fabricate his stories during his pursuit of a rematch with Silva, it's quite possible that Sonnen was bluffing. His claims that he didn't know that he'd end the fight by tapping out to Silva's triangle choke two years ago are certainly a bluff, as are his claims that he once saw Silva's jiu-jitsu coach, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, try to feed a carrot to a bus. Is his claim of a 20-pound weight cut in one day equally bogus? Even by MMA standards, it's certainly a stretch.
Sonnen has never missed weight in his MMA career, and in fact, he had his shot at the WEC Middleweight Championship ruined when his opponent, defending champion Paulo Filho, failed to make weight (Sonnen won the fight at a catchweight, scoring a unanimous decision victory).
The fact that Sonnen has never won a major championship - he won light heavyweight titles in Dangerzone and Gladiator Challenge - may have been on his mind on Thursday when he appeared on SportsCenter.
"You cannot retire from a sport unless you win a world championship," Sonnen said. "You can only quit."
Sonnen used his wrestling career as an example - he never reached the Olympics - and promised that he would be able to someday retire from MMA after taking the UFC title off of Silva on Saturday night.
Whether or not he has as much weight to lose as he claimed, he certainly has some work to do.
