Chael Sonnen is back at light heavyweight.
The former No. 1 contender for the UFC Middleweight Championship is moving up to 205 pounds to face Forrest Griffin on December 29 at UFC 155, as an undercard bout (and possibly the co-main event) supporting the UFC Heavyweight Championship rematch between champion Junior dos Santos and challenger Cain Velasquez.
It'll undoubtedly be an interesting challenge for the self-styled "Gangster From America" - Griffin defeated Sonnen with a triangle choke nine years ago at an IFC tournament in Denver - but win or lose, it marks a new phase of Sonnen's career, in which the former All-American wrestler is an attraction, rather than a contender.
That's the status that Griffin enjoys in the UFC right now: he's an attraction. He's the man who helped kickstart the UFC's massive growth in 2005 with his fight against Stephan Bonnar at the first Ultimate Fighter finale, and he's also a former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, but as he's shown in his recent outings against Rich Franklin, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and Tito Ortiz, he's not a championship-level fighter anymore. Griffin still has star power to lend, though, as well as the desire to continue fighting, so he gets matchups like this one.
These are the fights that likely await Sonnen as well. With his loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 148, Sonnen probably lost his last shot at the UFC Middleweight Championship. It's not inconceivable that he could match up against Jon "Bones" Jones at 205 pounds - particularly given the way the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion is cleaning out the division - but it's not the most likely outcome of this move to 205. While there are intriguing fights for Sonnen at 185 pounds - including Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort, both of whom could have issue with Sonnen after his comments about Brazil - the reality is that if a fighter is no longer working towards a title shot, there's little point to going through the arduous weight-cutting process. Sonnen will find no shortage of fights at 205 that are just as intriguing as the available fights at 185.
With his fights against Silva and his world-class trash talk, Sonnen set his sights on becoming a champion. He failed in that effort, but he succeeded in becoming a star. Now, he's set to reap the benefits of that success, starting with Forrest Griffin.