UFC commentator and analyst Chael Sonnen has seen plenty of big stars come and go. He’s even faced a few himself. Sonnen, discussing the seemingly imminent arrival of former light heavyweight champ Jon Jones in the UFC heavyweight division, believes that Jones’ star power has diminished compared with a popular heavyweight: Australia’s Tai Tuivasa. Chael Sonnen made the case on his YouTube channel.
“If you have Tai Tuivasa, I feel like you have gold in this regard: you can do anything you want with him. You could grab anybody at random and you could put Tuivasa in there with him. Now that was questioned, including by people like me, who recognized the gains in skills and the absolute popularity, but questioned where he was at in terms of fundamentals.
Sonnen: Tuivasa Bigger UFC Asset than Jon Jones
That got called into question until Tai Tuivasa fought and almost beat Ciryl Gane. Now all of a sudden you go, ‘Okay, even if he’s a little bit unpolished in certain areas, he’s damn good and he could compete with anybody.’
To explain to you the phenomenon that is Tuivasa, I’ve been in the arena on four separate occasions when he’s fought. Guys, it’s unbelievable.
Tai Tuivasa walked into Houston to take on their favorite fighter, Derrick Lewis. They were cheering Derrick like mad. Tai won the fight, and the eruption of the crowd in a positive manner was louder for Tai post-fight when the match went the opposite way that the fans wanted.
They’re on their feet, they’re drinking shoeys. I’m looking around going, ‘This is one of the most fascinating sociological and psychological experiences I’ve ever actually witnessed.’
Tai is what we call ‘over’. Tuivasa is extremely unique.” Sonnen compared Tuivasa to his old foe Jon Jones, a dominant champion in his day. “I would love to have been as good as Jon. If I’m coaching a guy, I’d love for them to be as skilled as Jon.
I would love for the guy to be as popular, and multi-versatile, and have as many big fights in front of him as Tai does. Tai, right now, has had more massive fights. Jon Jones, for the last four fights of his career, has never sold out an arena.
There wasn’t one single sold-out arena. Some of those fights turned out to be awesome, but we didn’t expect that going in. Your own success starts to harm you.”
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