Chael comes clean on PED use
Published on Thursday , 10/16/14, at 12:30 a.m. Eastern.
Chael Sonnen has been laying low since getting forced into retirement following a pair of failed drug tests. The 3-time challenger for a UFC belt in two separate divisions came clean today in the debut of his new podcast, “You’re Welcome with Chael Sonnen.”
“I’m not going to apologize because I’m not sorry, ” Sonnen said.
I’m not, either. Call me crazy but if liking Chael and enjoying his career was wrong, I don’t ever want to be right.
Look, I get it. The mixed martial artists — and players on every level in every sport — that stay clean should be commended. They are undoubtedly the good guys.
All of our sports should be clean. No athlete should ever hold an unfair advantage over another based on using illegal substances.
But when you bet busted like Sonnen did, you should handle it this way. You should retire, admit what you did and take the consequences like a man.
That’s what Chael is doing here.
Sonnen said, “I’m a consenting adult; I knew exactly what I was doing. This was a premeditated decision. If I go jump in my car and I back up and I hit my neighbor’s garbage cans, I’m sorry for that. This was a calculated decision. I made the decision and I’ll live with it. That’s it. I wouldn’t make any excuses about it.”
He continued, “Here’s the problem: it worked. There’s a term out there, ‘performance-enhancing drugs.’ The reality is, that’s all medicine. There’s no medicine made that isn’t meant to make you better. It’s all meant to enhance you. If it did the opposite it would be malpractice. You’re not going to the doctor and saying, ‘Hey, give me something to make me worse.’ I was taking things and they were making me feel a little bit better.
“You also have to understand, I came from a little bit different of a time. This isn’t like the guys of now, this is back – when I grew up through the ’80s I would go to the local health food store, your GNC, whatever it might be, and I take everything on the shelf with the hope something would work. Whether you’re talking protein, whether you’re talking creatines, whatever it might be, if there was a guy on the label and he was big and strong, I would beg my mom and dad to buy me that. I have tried everything over the years with the off chance something might work. Every now and then you’ll find something that does.
“For me, the litmus test was flawed. Here was my litmus test: can’t be a steroid and it’s got to be legal. I can’t take anything – I don’t want to be in possession or consume anything that’s not legal. And what I’m talking about there is I’m not talking about the commissions and the rules, I’m talking about the law. I’m talking about if I’m holding something in my possession and a police office sees me, am I allowed to have that or aren’t I? If the answer’s, ‘Yes,’ then I’m in. That was my test. If I can get this legally, if there’s a legal medication, I’m taking it. I’m not cross-referencing that with the commission. I’m not going to take the rules or anything over that of a doctor. I told myself to sleep well at night. That’s a flawed test. I don’t think a lot of guys do that from this era. I don’t think there’s a lot of guys that do it. I think that the problem, or the guys in the violation of the rules are the guys from my time. The guys that before these rules take place or were changes and adapted to what they are now, the guys that got set in their ways, they grew up through the 80’s and grew up in the early ’90s, they just grew up doing stuff wrong. I think that’s where the real problem is. I know that’s where it comes for me. The other thing is that it was working. I was feeling good, I was having some good success. You’ve got to stay in compliance, it’s completely wrong, but there it is. I’m speaking purely about mindset now. I think that’s what my mindset was.”
So there it is. Chael cheated. Chael got busted and now he’s owning it. And yes, he’s still the Best Shit Talker to ever live!
**H/T to MMAMania for transcribing the quotes from Chael’s podcast. **
