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Former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight title challenger Chael Sonnen has spoken out about the controversy surrounding Conor McGregor's trash talk during the buildup and aftermath of UFC 264.
Chael Sonnen is somewhat of a pioneer in MMA when it comes to verbal warfare. Despite having a patchy UFC record, Sonnen was always able to sell a fight due to his incredibly effective trash talk, the likes of which had not been seen in the UFC until then.
It stands to reason that he is as qualified as anyone to do a little armchair psychology of Conor McGregor's mindset behind the insults he's thrown at Dustin Poirier over the past two weeks.
Insults from McGregor are the norm at this point. However, many thought the Irishman went too far when he began to target Poirier's wife.
Sonnen questioned whether McGregor was insulting Jolie Poirier out of malice, or was simply doing it to entertain the masses and sell the fight as a spectacle.
"Did he insult Poirier's wife, or, did he entertain? And that's a very fair question. If that is truly who he is, some of the stuff that you're seeing, he's a scumbag. Plenty of them out there, he goes into that bucket. But you don't know that. I don't think that we know that," said Chael Sonnen.
Chael Sonnen disccusses the mentality behind Conor McGregor's insults
Chael Sonnen went on to discuss the method behind the madness for McGregor. He stated that McGregor went into the verbal exchanges with the following mentality:
"'I need to entertain. They're going to forget what I say. They're never going to forget how I make them feel. I need to evoke an emotion, in this moment, before my entire life and career literally change'. And he did that. He entertained," said Chael Sonnen.
Regardless of whether McGregor was simply selling the fight or had a legitimate vendetta against Poirier, karma ultimately caught up with him as the Irishman suffered a tibia break at the end of the first round. The injury led to a TKO loss. He has since had surgery, but will certainly be out for the rest of 2021.
