Chael Sonnen made his Bellator MMA debut a little over a month ago at Bellator 170, where he was submitted by Tito Ortiz.
The former UFC Middleweight Title challenger believes that Ortiz verbally submitted in the fight, something the referee missed.
“I would’ve taken it to my grave. It was between Tito and I. He gave me a look after the fight. Tito, we’re good man. I tapped fair and square. The ref called my tap, he didn’t call your tap, we’re good. You think I’ve never ran a tap back before? Sure I have. You’re in there, you do anything you can. I had absolutely no problem with it,” Sonnen said on the You’re Welcome podcast.
Sonnen hasn’t competed since that fight, although he nearly fought as a late replacement against Fedor Emelianenko at Bellator 172. However, when it comes to Ortiz, Sonnen would like one more fight with the retired superstar.
“The score is one-one between Tito and I and you always go into a rubber match. Everyone knows that. The only reason I kept my mouth shut at the Tito fight – look, Tito tapped in that fight. I knew Tito tapped when he tapped. I heard Tito verbally tap and I’ve never said a word about it, privately to Tito at the press conference or to you guys. I never said anything and the reason is, first off, when you lose, you just take your loss. It’s not a tap if the referee doesn’t call it a tap so therefore, Tito didn’t tap. I thought he tapped, and I let a move go. He verbally tapped, and I never said anything about it and the reason was, he quit the sport five seconds later. He quit the sport five seconds after I tapped and he quit the sport a minute and five seconds after he tapped. There was no rematch. There was nothing to build and no reason to tell the real story. He then make-believes that he’s gonna come back for Fedor. Now, Tito was nowhere near the Fedor fight. He didn’t offer his services, he had nothing to do with it, but the bottom line was, he then took himself out of retirement by pretending that he offered to fight Fedor, which he did not do. If Tito ever wanted to come back and play, I’ll tell the whole story of what happened in that fight,” says Sonnen.
Chael is now riding a two fight losing streak and it has been almost four years since his last win, after serving a lengnthy suspension for failed drug tests/
