Submission Underground 1 is in the books and can be marked a success.
Promoted by Chael Sonnen and shown by online service FloCombat in an attempt to ‘Make Grappling Great Again’, the Portland, OR event survived various big name withdrawals and put on an enjoyable grappling competition for the fans.
For Sonnen, the motivation to play host stemmed from fandom.
“You gotta understand I’m a fan,” Sonnen said. “I started my career as a fan, finished it as a fan. A lot of these were matches I wanted to see. Generally if I wanna see a match, then fans will wanna see it too.”
Headlined by Vinny Magalhaes vs. Ronny Markes, Submission Underground also played host to various UFC veterans such as Jake Shields, Chris Lytle and former UFC heavyweight champion Ricco Rodriguez.
“I thought it was great to see Ricco back, it was great to see Fabiano [Scherner] back,” Sonnen said. “He just had his first fight in King of The Cage a couple of weeks ago, now he’s doing this. I always wonder… This is a gateway to MMA. Guys always come through grappling before they run MMA. When you see these legends come back into grappling, I just have to assume that they have other visions, and I get a kick out of that.”
Not that he’s content with grappling necessarily remaining as a warm up on your way to something else. With the start of Submission Underground, particularly with it being in partnership with FloCombat, Sonnen aims to make nights like this a reoccurring thing.
“We set record numbers tonight at Flo, and I’m convinced that one of the reasons is that there’s not enough grappling. If you’re a grappling fan you can’t miss… If you’re an MMA fan, there’s another show next week. There’s another show the following week. I just think in grappling when there’s a special event like this, its one of the reasons that this did so well and people had such an interest.
“I just think if you’re a grappling fan, it’s hard to turn down an event.”
While Chael’s role as a promoter isn’t particularly new to him (he’s been promoting Portland based MMA for 16 years), he obviously made his name in the UFC. Gaining notoriety as a trash-talking genius, Sonnen shot to prominence after an exceptional performance against then middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
After failing two banned substance tests and receiving a two year suspension in June, 2014, Sonnen retired from the sport. With that suspension coming to an end, many have speculated that ‘The American Gangster’ would soon be making a return to the sport – something he has repeatedly denied.
But why? Why wouldn’t he make a return?
His response: as candid as ever.
“I just felt like my race was ran. It’s not a competition issue, I still love the competition,” Sonnen said. “It’s training issue. I don’t wanna come back and… I never wanted to be one of the guys. I wanted to be the world champion, and I put everything into it. I had great teams, great coaches and I went as hard as I could and I got as close as I could. It’s just a matter of I don’t wanna come back unless I could win the world championship, and I don’t know if I’m willing to work hard enough. I don’t know if I’m willing to work as hard as it takes.
“Those were long and depressing days. I would wake up everyday depressed, knowing what I had to do that day to go back to bed. The miles I had to put in, the reps I had to put in, the guys I had to spar with. And it’s one of those things where I look back and I got a lot of good memories, and I met a lot of good people.”
But obviously, it wouldn’t be Chael Sonnen if he didn’t make at least one inflammatory comment.
“If I thought a damn one of these guys were good, I might show them the respect by coming back and whipping their ass, but quite frankly, I do not.”
Submission Underground 2 is scheduled to take place December 11.
