Chael Sonnen fires back at John McCarthy

Former UFC title challenger turned Bellator MMA fighter Chael Sonnen recently made quite the controversial claim when he stated that Tito Ortiz actually verbally submitted in their Bellator 170 main event scrap.

“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.

That was met with some criticism from referee Big John McCarthy, who took to social media to respond to Sonnen’s claim, saying:

Chael must have been listening to a different frequency then the rest of the world that night. Tito didn't say anything #AskBJM https://t.co/mlIf7nbOpO

— Big John McCarthy (@JohnMcCarthyMMA) February 24, 2017

Now, in a recent appearance on Phonebooth Fighting, Sonnen responded to McCarthy, saying:

“I love John, and I respect John, but I don’t know what that would help.”

“One, I don’t know if he felt he needed to defend himself. And, two, if there’s a major fire burning for a rematch with me and Tito, why somebody who has nothing to do with the business would come in and put any kind of water on that, or who that is to help, is beyond me.”

on 3/1/2017.