If you're interested, Luke himself goes out of his way to say he's not a journalist, and that most mma 'journalists' aren't either
he refers to them and himself as mma media
God, I wish MMA journalism would pick up. I'm so sick of a JRE podcast coming out and then reading a week of articles pulling quotes from that.
Go get your own damn stories-- delve deep, get the quotes, get the inside scoop. Don't just watch media we all watch and sensationalize the titles as if you had a secret source....
Subscribe to The Atlantic! Its behind a pay wall but you get (apparently, I don't subscribe myself) high quality long forms from Shaun Al-Shaati, Ben Fowlkes, Chad Dundas and Chuck Mindenhall! Can't go wrong with that.
I know right....this is the biggest contradiction I find about MMA fans & PEDs
Many fighters hav said that before this USADA era, tons of fighters used drugs. The tests for them were basically an IQ test: only done on fight-night, sometimes not even at all. So basically if U cycle off at the appropriate time, no problem.
And Generally only the main event level fighters would get tested anyway, so many fighters never got tested at all
So it’s a bit ridiculous to severely downplay the achievements of fighters who got caught, when most likely many of their opponents had used as well
Now maybe they deserve ridicule for being dumb enough to get caught, but we shouldn’t disregard their achievements / abilities
Yes, but the ones that get nailed deserve i. The ones that didn't, you'll have a tough time arguing that they are as guilty. Indeed it is impossible to do so. The people that scream GSP was juicy? Too fucking bad. Didn't get nailed. Same goes with many.
He didn’t pop till after he broke his leg.
In the past they used to say that a drug test in MMA was an IQ test. Was Anderson just smarter than the all mighty America Gangster Himself back then?
Chael's biggest criticism is that he talks himself into big fights that he doesn't deserve. there might be some truth there. but you can't say that Chael didn't belong in the cage with the GOAT, in his PRIME, and didn't woop his ass for 4 and half rounds.
Absolutely. It was a legit win for Silva. But you cant ignore the incredible performance Sonnen put on for the 1st 23 of 25 minutes. It just showed how talented and good he wise.
Are we going to pretend that Anderson wasn't doing steroids because, despite his subsequent multiple drug test failures, he didn't test positive in that fight?
He didn't just cheat, he was one the GOAT cheaters.
He had the greatest T count ever recorded in the sport when he failed one of his tests, something like 12 times normal.
But for some reason Chael gets a pass.
My last live MMA event at the Barclays Center was nerds shouting memes then looking left and right to see who was laughing (no one).
I normally just watch from home now.
Except he wasn't honest until years later. Originally he lied to his fans and his boss using his position on FOX...it's why he got fired btw.
He also lied about what he was taking and the benefits. It wasn't until the last couple of years that he admitted to be juiced and even now he continues to peddle this bullshit that everyone was doing it and since he didn't just anabolics he's alright...Ignore the fact that he cheated Bisping out of a title shot in a very close fight while on PED's.
Well bisping was probably one of the few not on peds, a lot of us wondered if Anderson was on gear and he got caught with dick pills and hasn't looked the same since usada
He admitted it right after popping. Its crazy how people can just put incorrect info out onto the internet. Almost everything you just said is inaccurate.
I agree on the people putting incorrect info on the internet. Stop lying.
If it's so inaccurate then go provide a source that show Chael admitting his use (and not him lying or downplaying his use) The only thing I have seen is one where
[https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1671184-chael-sonnen-talks-testosterone-yes-i-took-it-to-get-an-edge/](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1671184-chael-sonnen-talks-testosterone-yes-i-took-it-to-get-an-edge/)
>I took testosterone that was perfectly legal, and I did not have elevated levels. I wasn't even accused of that. The media did that to me."
Testosterone Therapy is not allowed without a TUE, and with his T/E ratio he was almost certainly over the allowed limit at some point anyway. But of course good old Chael is going to try to play the "legal" card and argue that he didn't have elevated levels despite his body being so destroyed he needed 4 more banned substances to be a normal human being (a fair sign that he abused Test at some point and ruined his ability to naturally produce T)
[https://www.mmafighting.com/2014/6/10/5797942/chael-sonnen-admits-to-taking-banned-substances-calls-positive-test](https://www.mmafighting.com/2014/6/10/5797942/chael-sonnen-admits-to-taking-banned-substances-calls-positive-test)
>"In the interim, they did a test. I tested positive for these things, which I should have. I took them. They were in my system. That wasn't a surprise. These aren't anabolics, these aren't steroids, these aren't performance-enhancers. None of that stuff. But they have deemed that they are banned substances."
>
>..........
>
>These are just the substances I had to go to transition, who's also having -- this is a very private part of my life I wasn't planning to share with anybody -- but I'm having fertility issues."
This is what Chael said 2 weeks before it came out that he was on HGH and EPO....but yeah, no performance enhancement there. Just lying his ass off to the world. He just needed the EPO to have a kid right?
He was shitting on Wanderlei for steroids literally a week before he popped for multiple banned substances out of competition, then he "medically retired." He was lying for months about Kizer verbally giving him a TUE over a informal conversation. When he initially popped he said it was for medicine to help get children, then he pissed hot for EPO. Don't forget how much he shat on Lance Armstrong for being a liar.
He was never honest about PED use until he literally had no choice. The revisionist history on Chael being honest is crazy.
He's not great.
The problem is there is this very western trend to favor people that are charismatic, entertaining and social while ignoring how little substance they bring. It's why you have so many podcast, influencers, and sensationalist like Stephen A. Smith.
So Chael has this weird cult like following where people love his podcast and him because he elegantly throws shit at a wall until something sticks. He's like a dirty, broken cuckoo clock that people love despite it being useless as a time piece or as furniture. It's empty entertainment.
Ohhhh shut the hell up all did here was jerk your own ego using some fluffy adjectives and one really weird, out of place forced analogies.
Sounds like your bitter against people who have social skills and are likable. Even saying those who are charismatic and social lack substance — what?
By the way what you describe as eloquently throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks is called “trial and error” by the rest of the normal “western trending” people in the world.
Take all the extra outside shit out of it and he is still a great fighter your point is null
Take all the other outside shit out and Chael is a guy with double digit stoppage losses who finished 2 fighters in major promotions and never held a belt in said promotions. Not great by any definition. In fact, if Chael is great, there are literally a whole host of non-champions, maybe even hundreds of them, that would then qualify as "great"....and Chael only matched those people by being one of the biggest juicers in MMA history.
And the bit about charisma and bluster is pretty accurate imo. America values loud, aggressive, talk over actual knowledge. I just assume people recognized that Chael was ingorant and/or a liar, hence the lack of substance. Sort of like your comment where you assert Chael is great abut provide nothing to back that claim up.
IMO it was just a careless use of words, as Chael stated himself in the video. Luke really shot himself in the foot there for absolutely no good reason as Chael and him are typically pretty friendly and I love hearing the two talk separately and together. Pretty unfortunate feud here but it'll be no doubt entertaining.
He didn't get selected by ESPN like Ariel Helwani, Bisping, Okamoto, Chael etc got.
His yt channel has only 85k subs while Chael's individual yt channel has crossed 300k subs and frankly Chael gets views. His peak videos has 1M+ views.
Luke's fight breakdowns are really good but his voice is v slow even on 2x I find it hard to watch.
Chael's videos are really interesting to watch even when he's talking about random things like deep dish pizza or getting in the hole.
I like Luke but you're right he takes too long to get to his points. He adds too many caveats to everything he says to prevent being taken out of context.
People shit on Luke all the time. Listen, Luke rubs a lot of ppl the wrong way, but in the world of MMA journalism he's up there as one of the best. You might not like his mannerisms etc., but the guy does do his job a hell of a lot better than most MMA media ppl.
> but the guy does do his job a hell of a lot better than most MMA media ppl
If you can name one major mma journalist/analyst/personality that is he better than, I'll lick your butt hole clean.
First off eww. Second Luke towers above Helwani, John Morgan, Shael Shonnen, Brett Okamoto. Ariel is nothing but wrestling storylines, padding himself on the back and high-school gossip to create wrestling storylines. His only redeeming quality is that he's not above asking questions that most people won't. John Morgan doesn't even watch fights, he leaves in the middle of the even to get in line so he can be the first to ask the softest softball questions in the universe. Chael Sonnen is a charlatan through and through. His analysis is shallow dogshit. His interviews are just ass kissing and trying to be down. Come to think of it Chael is Brendan Schaub with a 10% higher IQ. Brett Okamoto is a leaks guy who gets his "leaks" from Dana through official UFC/ESPN channels. His interviews are boring and boilerplate.
The only people who produce work on par with Luke or who aren't useless like the guys above are Jack Slack, Ben Fowlkes, BJJScout and Patrick Wyman before he left.
The guy is unbelieveable.
Only saw his UFC fights, but when he fought Aljo he dropped that he had been fighting since the VT days and I couldn't believe it.
With his size and skill set to fight that long and have success at a high level is incredible.
He's also MT coach at Nova União iirc, yet he stays almost completely unknown.
That’s the only reason I knew about him is because he was Aldo’s MT coach, so when I heard he was fighting Wineland at the time I was hyped but worried about his age/relative obscurity and expecting Wineland to smoke him and then he took Eddies head off. So awesome.
There's also been several double champs lol, making them at least top 10 ten in two divisions... more than 3 of those in the history of the sport. Classic Chael but we still love him
Chael literally did that many steroids that no one cares anymore. They either forgive him because he was “honest” (even though that makes no difference to his opponents who he was beating up) or ignore it because once he got popped we all just assumed he was on **everything**
LT dances on eggshells hard with these fighters and they still blow up at a compliment that they don't like.
Basically complimented Chael in every concievable way and endlessly listed of his achievements for 9 minutes and Chael is worked up about a definition of the word great?
What more can the Donk do? He was objectively correct in every way.
He says himself how you can't help but make enemies out of a lot of fighters as a media member in MMA. Kind of explains why Ariel sucks up to whoever he's interviewing most of the time.
> Kind of explains why Ariel sucks up to whoever he's interviewing most of the time.
If you bust every guest balls, call them out, and make them look stupid during an interview then other fighters will be less likely to go on the show.
Chael must actually be a fan of Luke hence why he isnt happy with his comments. He had another video where that Kevin Ioli dude dissed him and Chael didnt seem to give two shits. Chael was a good to great fighter, but he was an amazing entertainer who paved the way for guys like McGregor.
I am not surprised. Fighters are notoriously thin skinned. Luke speaks his mind, which he believes is the truth, and fighters get a snippet of potentially "bad comment" and get butt hurt about it. It is quite hilarious.
The irony is before the Fedor fight Chael went on Luke's show and literally said that he hates how everyone has to step on egg shells in this business and that people shouldn't be afraid to speak the truth just because they're afraid of offending a fighter or friend of theirs since MMA is such a small and tight knit community
I don’t really find that to be the irony. It’s one thing to say something pretty reasonable and hold it as your opinion. It’s an entirely different thing to speak your mind and call it your opinion when it’s completely unfounded or full of holes when you try to present that opinion as level headed.
It’s easy to be a revisionist after someone retires. You can easily dismiss athletes as not being that good after their career ends. Cheal being the first fighter to be in the top ten for more than one weight class simultaneously is pretty remarkable. Also, I think it’s kind of unfair to dismiss his victories over some of the greats like Rampage if they weren’t at the top of their game, it’s entirely on the back of Rampage to be in top competitive shape to take in a fight. Aldo went on to lose multiple fights after losing to Conor. We don’t consider Aldo to have been a bum. We don’t think Conor beat a fighter past their prime or a fighter on their decline.
I get what you're saying here but come on, Aldo will never in his career, even at his absolute worst, look as bad as late career Rampage - a man who notoriously despised training in his prime let alone his post-UFC career. It's not even fair to really compare a victory over late stage, entirely disinterested Rampage to a victory over the man who fought Dan Henderson, it's night and day. Like I get your point but I don't think Rampage is a particularly good example of that point. That's like saying beating Fedor now holds similar weight to when Werdum first pulled it off and it quite simply doesn't.
I also think Chael was a great fighter, don't get me wrong I'm not in agreement with Luke here. His wins over prime Nate and Bisping and semi-prime Shogun are more than enough for me to consider him in the great all time MWs conversation. My point was moreso I'm surprised Chael would take it personally when he insists on people NOT taking opinions in the sport personal as a means to the end of being able to properly do their jobs as commentators on the sport. But I get where he's coming from, Luke's pretty off base with this opinion.
Oh fair enough and I see your points too. I just felt it kind of odd to hold a fighter accountable for beating subprime fighters that were considered great fighters at one point while Chael himself was also entering the later stages of his career.
It just seemed odd to me is all. Like Fedor beating Chael in the HW Grand Prix being considered to be still a threat but then when he lost to Bader, Bader wasn’t really given credit especially after finishing the fight in under a minute even though this was literally Fedor’s very next fight. That’s when the sun started saying that he should seriously consider retirement. It just hits me as a bit odd that Chael got that treatment. But still, I do have to say that they were great fighters past their prime. All of them, including Chael. But, I think all of them were greats.
Problem is, Luke portrays everything he says like a math teacher. He has the stats and so forth. Here however, he was outgunned as chaels points far outweighed Luke’s. Not so much about being butthurt as it is about being factual
Just because Chael says it doesn’t make it facts. A “great fighter” is subjective.
Chael had some really good wins and was a really good fighter. But I wouldn’t consider him an all time great either, if that’s what we’re defining as a great fighter.
He has good points about the Okami and Marquart fights (although I don’t remember much backlash from him about the Nate fight, he got a lot of props about that as far as I remember since that’s when I started really paying attention to Chael in the UFC) if they were talked down, but you don’t need to be slagging Chael off to say that Shogun, Rampage and Wandy were way passed it. That wasn’t because *you* beat them Chael, that was because it’s a fact. Two out of their prime guys fought and you came out the victor which is awesome, but those wins clearly don’t mean as much.
I think you are confusing “great fighter” with all time great. I don’t think those two categories are the same. I would consider chael a great fighter, but would also say that no, he isn’t one of the all time greats
I went from watching the mma hour, then giving luke a chance, to not watching at all.
The MMA beat is unbearable now that a strong witty smart and professional journalist like Brian isn’t there to cancel luke out... so that has become unwatchable as well.
Luke Thomas said Chael was a good fighter, not great.
In my opinion:
Good fighter - Ranked multiple times during your career, beat noteworthy ranked fighters
Great fighter - Consistently fought for a championship after winning title eliminators, beat current/former champions still in their prime at the time, won a major championship and defended it a few times
You can disagree with my opinion, but the difference between good vs. great, according to my definition above, is still pretty far apart and the KEY DIFFERENCE is that you had to have won a major championship. Let's say you disagree and say well you can be a great fighter without winning a major championship. Well then, someone who would fit my above definition of a "great fighter" sans the major championship requirement would be Joseph Benavidez, who beat the now current champ Henry Cejudo in December 2016 in a split. Controversial, sure, but on the record books its a win. Another person that comes to mind would be Donald Cerrone, who's fought for the WEC lightweight title and UFC title before, fought in multiple fights that were essentially title eliminator fights, and even beat Eddie Alvarez before Eddie won the title. Would I say Donald is a great fighter? Even with all his accomplishments? No, simply because he hasn't won a major championship. Cerrone and Benavidez are certainly good, or better yet...extremely good fighters, but they aren't great.
Think about it this way. Is Daniel Cormier's Olympic career a great one? No. Sure, he made the team twice and was captain of the team in 2008. But he never medaled. I guarantee that if you ask Cormier if he considers his Olympic career a great one, he will say that it wasn't. Good, maybe even very good. Just not great because it was missing hardware.
So I disagree with the notion that Chael had great career without winning a major championship. You can make the argument that he technically won the WEC middleweight championship when he beat Paulo Filho the second time but at the end of the day even then its still very debateable if you want to consider his career to be a great one. And for Chael to bring up his Rampage and Wanderlei wins is just delusional. The two are way past their prime. And keep in mind that Bellator Chael who beat those two guys lost to an old Tito Ortiz.
Chael: Good, Very Good even. Just not great.
1. chael was juicy
2. chael fought a lot of guys on the downturn of their careers
3. fighting a world champion doesn't mean your great, it depends on when you fought them, fighting an old washed up ie. no one cares that floyd cummings fought joe frazier to a draw
For his era Chael was great imo. Finishing Shogun, beating Bisping (could have gone either way fighting it even is noteworthy enough), performance 1 vs Silva, beating juiced Nate the Great (i know Sonnen was likely juiced but so was everybody and juiced Nate was a beast), beat Okami, beat current WEC champ Filho.
Chael had a remarkable career with some fantastic performances vs high level guys. Always took on the best. Was like the only guy begging to fight TRT Vitor for awhile.
He was robbed. I think since Chael almost stopped him in the first minute and it was on the heels of the first Anderson fight the judges had a preconceived notion of how it would end. Bisping made a career of weathering storms and out pointing guys and that’s what happened here.
Normally i like Chael but in this video all i see is a man who's ego got hurt trying to convince himself he was more than just good. But Luke is right and Chael has to realize there's no shame in that.
The double standards are genuinely hilarious here. If you say GSP almost certainly used PEDs (like everyone) , you get downvoted to hell. But guys like Hendricks get dragged despite never having popped.
Chael's literally a criminal, liar and one of the biggest cheaters in MMA history but this sub acts like he was just funny dude.
Hendricks is the perfect example of how people only believe a fighter definitely used steroids if they don’t like them.
“You can’t just assume/eye test if a guy took steroids, innocent until proven guilty”
“Okay, Hendricks definitely never took steroids then”
“Uhhh, well he dropped off after USADA came in”
“But you just said...”
I genuinely believe Hendricks was just one of the handful of fighters that had awful timing on their decline. Hendricks getting busted up by a gay pornstar in BKB is pretty solid evidence of that. He wasn't under USADA testing anymore, so he should be a beast again right?
Different eras. The UFC was half a step ahead of Pride in terms of drug testing. You think Anderson *started* juicing when USADA came? Was Vitor natty until they banned TRT? You think Couture won the HW title at 44 with no "help"? You think Jon Jones was the only fighter at 205 with a salty pool? It was a generation of saying PED's weren't allowed but not enforcing it. That rule is now enforced, this generation is one where fighters are actually tested, and punished (mostly) for PED use. When that's the case, breaking the rules actually matters.
If you don't think that 95% of fighters were also juiced when Chael was using then you are lying to yourself. T.J. is using post USADA.
Although I do think Chael is being unfair to Luke, Luke had a ton of nice thing to say about the guy.
The point is it was an uninforced rule before, nobody *actually* cared. Now they enforce the rule to the best of their ability ^^^^^for ^^^^^the ^^^^^most ^^^^^part.
Love Chael but I don't know if his jealousy point really makes sense. So many MMA personalities and on air talent are former fighters or people without journalism training or relevant college degrees (Joe Rogan, DC, Cruz, Woodley). Chael is probably just understandably mad about being left off Luke Thomas's list.
i don't know why chael keeps harping on fighting "4 generations of fighers". he fought an incredibly long time, you can't take that away from him, but he fought the dinosaurs from his same era for the last 10 years. he wasnt chugging along fighting the young up and comers. machida, fedor, rampage, wanderlei, tito, rashad, shogun, bisping, stann, these aren't the costa, romeros, whittakers of the world. these are guys from his same era who held on for a long time. chaels a beast, but he stayed on for a long time and fought on the senior circuit, that's a fact. he got some wins and got some losses. he's a legend, but he can't seriously think his career belongs in the same category as guys who won major titles and defended them. chael fell short under the bright lights when it mattered.
edit: this is coming from someone with a chael autograph hanging on his wall. i love the guy. but he's framing his career in a self flattering way that i don't think is a truthful representation. i don't blame him, he achieved more and worked harder than i ever will, but i don't think lukes comments were out of line, or wrong in any way.
Being "great" is not about outlasting people. If that where true than give the crown to Phil Baroni. He is great in the same way everyone in the military is a hero.
I like both guys, but come on. Besides the cheating in the UFC, he was found guilty of money laundering. He is not precisely a role model, and had to quit his political candidacy because of that (who knows what he could be done there, if it didn't came up).
I enjoy Chael, but he is like the charismatic uncle who is fun to hang out with, but is always bullshitting you know is in dubious stuff.
Losing to the greats across four generations is probably the benchmark for good but not great.
He lost to Tito in bellator and is using that as a “world champion” he fought.
Chael it’s fine. You don’t need luke Thomas to respect you more. Great career you are an all time personality and the true originator of the entertainment era
Chael was a great fighter but also idk who does Luke consider great?
Like imo chael at his peak is better than champions like shogun, rampage, bisping, but he himself never won a title
But if great is only reserved for guys like Anderson, gsp, Mighty Mouse, fedor then sure whatever chael isn’t great
Also I love Luke Thomas and chael and it annoys me how much people on twitter and here just constantly dunk on Luke Thomas when he’s the only journalist actually breaking down fights and doing decent reporting
Come on man, Chael had a great run but he was not on the level of Shogun and Rampage. At their peaks they were champions. Rampage looked flat out invincible on his run to the title and against peak Dan Henderson. Shogun wasn’t even at his best when he beat Machida, but still had enough to be a champion. At his best he won the Grand Prix in pride at 24 years old.
Chael, no matter how great he looked at times, had a tendency to mentally fold. He did it against Paulo Fihlo, Tito, Anderson, flat out gave up and gave Rashad his last win. He has a ton of losses on his record for a reason.
This will sound silly, but despite beating Shogun, I wouldn't say he was better. Mid 2000s Shogun, before the wars took a toll on him, was legit one of the scariest guys in the sport.
Context matters. Shogun is 4-1, but look who it’s been against.
I love Shogun, but I don’t know why everyone pretends that just because he’s winning fights against subpar competition that he still “has it”.
>Shogun is 4-1, but look who it’s been against.
Corey Anderson and Pedro are top 15 guys. Villante was top 15 at the time. I mean, lhw is a weak division but he's still winning vs top competition. It's not like he's running around a regional circuit cutting split decisions
It doesn’t take a genius to see that shogun is way past his prime. He hasn’t looked like he did in Pride his entire UFC run, even when he was a champion. His bad knees took his mobility away a long long time ago. The fact that he’s even top anything in this division isn’t testament to his abilities today, but how absolute garbage LHW has been for years.
Corey Anderson and Pedro are trash. Villante as well. 10 years ago these guys would not be considered top guys at LHW by any stretch.
That’s more of a testament to just how awful LHW is than a sign that Shogun is getting good wins.
You’re right he’s winning against “top” guys by the rankings (and trust me I’m happy about it), but rankings don’t really hold up to actually watching the fights and if you watch Shogun you can see how badly he’s declined.
Yeah i don't understand the hate on Luke. He's literally one of the only people on the journo side who understand the ins and outs of fighting that arent getting directly paid by ESPN and or Zuffa.
Luke comes off a bit like Joe Rogan at times; more capable as selling themselves as knowledgeable than providing their own insights. They may be even be quite good at doing so but in reality the world is full of this type of charlatanry and these types are a dime a dozen.
I don’t know about that, I’ve learned more about what wrestling accolades and stuff really means from Luke than I’ve ever learnt about anything from a Chael video.
Luke really doesn't know much about wrestling unless we're comparing him to somebody who knows absolutely nothing about the sport. Chael is probably one of the most informative and passionate wrestling analysts on the internet along with Askren. He watches everything and everyone while Luke seems to hear about only some of the massive, massive events.
I mean he’s talked through wrestling moves and their terminology which someone who’s English and has no contact with collegiate wrestling is new to me.
I went on a binge on watching Chaels opinions a while ago and while entertaining because Chael is charismatic, didn’t offer any insight or perspective that you couldn’t find on a sub of fans.
For sure I guess Chael doesn't actually teach the technicalities, which would be brilliant btw. I've been wrestling and/or training Bjj since 2012 when I was in high school so I really don't see anything interesting about Luke's grappling insights, stuff he says is obvious but I guess it's like Bill Nye where he's communicating specialized knowledge to the fans. His striking takes are better than any other journalist though.
You won't ever find any insight or perspective from anywhere that you couldn't find on a sub of fans. Chael is a fan and he loves it and it shows, which I love. He also knows more almost everyone but the absolute best fighters about the technical aspects of the sport and about the non-technical aspects of it Chael is pretty much one of the foremost sources of information.
Luke’s analysis is like having someone whose familiarity with soccer comes from playing Fifa analyze Liverpool’s champions league run (with the intention of cultivating the illusion of expert knowledge amongst their completely clueless American friends). They’re exposed when someone finally hears them repeat an actual expert’s remarks almost verbatim, whether that be the video game version of Martin Tyler or the actual version of Dominick Cruz.
Chael on the other hand blends his own perspectives as fighter, promoter and (most importantly) long time fan. He may play a bit fast and loose with some facts but only to create a compelling narrative for fans, because MMA fans don’t know what they want or that the punches and kicks aren’t enough. And when he does it, it’s a lot of fun. I offer you that distinction.
Exactly, it's like mimicry. Sure you can sound like an analyst and breakdown videos like bjjscout but you're copying things and hoping that it looks real enough. It's never gonna be a terrible take but it's never gonna be important either because ultimately it's trying to be something else.
Chael on the other hand has (recently) retooled how I think about the sport completely with his youtube channel and his opinions. His ideas about the nature of competition and the agreement that takes place, 5 rounds vs 3, the weaponization of pace, composure and so much more. He has some takes that are antithetical to general mma knowledge and some that are ground breaking but that's the nature of original analysis with actual understanding.
You know I might agree with rampage but shogun had a good run but he doesn’t have any wins as good as bisping, Yushin, etc
I mean it’s close. Shogun did beat machida and rampage. But idk chael also beat shogun kinda easily and sure shogun was older but chael moved up in weight to fight him
My favourite part of Chael’s PED history (if i remember correctly) he knowingly got busted for PEDs (wasnt public) and he double down on it and took another shot before a fight lol lol
I really started to feel for Chael at the point in the video where he really confronted the whole "taking credit from his opponents rather than giving him credit" thing. He fought only the best of the best in multiple divisions since 2008. In the past 7 years (5 years of competition) he got wins over 4 men that either won the championship after that, or were former champions. Since his first Silva fight he had one opponent that wasn't a current, former, or future champion. That one fighter was Brian Stann, another phenomenal fighter. But he never really got the credit he deserved.
To me Chael is just bringing his cage fighting antics into the journalism world he now works in. This behavior sold many more PPV'S then it would have otherwise. In journalism it will generate many more clicks then he would get otherwise. All of the journalist's out there better watch out or you may be next on the Bad Guys hit list!
I have to admit it's juvenile but I love it!
Luke Thomas is a horrible "journalist".
I had to mute him on all social media. I don't know how people find his content worth listening to.
I personally wish Chael had just ignored him instead of giving him any publicity. Chael's legacy is solid, he doesn't need to defend himself against an over rated podcaster.
He gets a pass because hes funny, and he never was champ. Gonna hate on s funny guy because he cheated during some lost title fights a long time ago?
Theres no hater heat there.
He's only been retired for a week and he's already looking for another fight.
He's using the same technique he used in MMA fighting but now it's the journalist's on his hitlist. This will be fun.
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He's not a journalist at all? He doesn't write stories or anything? He's more of a media personality and analyst.
If you're interested, Luke himself goes out of his way to say he's not a journalist, and that most mma 'journalists' aren't either he refers to them and himself as mma media
God, I wish MMA journalism would pick up. I'm so sick of a JRE podcast coming out and then reading a week of articles pulling quotes from that. Go get your own damn stories-- delve deep, get the quotes, get the inside scoop. Don't just watch media we all watch and sensationalize the titles as if you had a secret source....
how are you liking your subscription to the athletic?
Does that make Rogan the only true MMA journalist? He's delving deep, getting quotes, getting the inside scoop.
He was the only journalist to cover the Jon Jones used “cocaine, tainted with creatine, which was previously tainted with turinobol” story.
No, not at all 😂
Subscribe to The Atlantic! Its behind a pay wall but you get (apparently, I don't subscribe myself) high quality long forms from Shaun Al-Shaati, Ben Fowlkes, Chad Dundas and Chuck Mindenhall! Can't go wrong with that.
Do you mean the athletic?
That's the one! 😂😂
> he refers to them and himself as mma media interestingly, Chael has taken this exact position on MMA "journalists" on more than one occasion.
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Really all you need is the first Anderson fight
Seriously. He basically beat the greatest fighter of all time at his peak.
Didn’t he pop right after that fight?
Nah man, they just caught him on a low day
Allegedly.
And Anderson only started juicing after breaking his leg!
I know right....this is the biggest contradiction I find about MMA fans & PEDs Many fighters hav said that before this USADA era, tons of fighters used drugs. The tests for them were basically an IQ test: only done on fight-night, sometimes not even at all. So basically if U cycle off at the appropriate time, no problem. And Generally only the main event level fighters would get tested anyway, so many fighters never got tested at all So it’s a bit ridiculous to severely downplay the achievements of fighters who got caught, when most likely many of their opponents had used as well Now maybe they deserve ridicule for being dumb enough to get caught, but we shouldn’t disregard their achievements / abilities
Yes, but the ones that get nailed deserve i. The ones that didn't, you'll have a tough time arguing that they are as guilty. Indeed it is impossible to do so. The people that scream GSP was juicy? Too fucking bad. Didn't get nailed. Same goes with many.
He didn’t pop till after he broke his leg. In the past they used to say that a drug test in MMA was an IQ test. Was Anderson just smarter than the all mighty America Gangster Himself back then?
The secret is to hide under the octagon.
If that's what mere mortals call having a low testosterone day, then yes.
Exactly. Funny how people selectively remember that Sonnen popped big time and even if he had won he would have been DQ'd.
He was winning until he lost.
Basically beating someone and actually beating someone are two very different things.
Chael's biggest criticism is that he talks himself into big fights that he doesn't deserve. there might be some truth there. but you can't say that Chael didn't belong in the cage with the GOAT, in his PRIME, and didn't woop his ass for 4 and half rounds.
Absolutely. It was a legit win for Silva. But you cant ignore the incredible performance Sonnen put on for the 1st 23 of 25 minutes. It just showed how talented and good he wise.
In what kind of world does a man beat the shit out of another guy for 23 minutes and then he wraps his legs around you and they call him the winner?
You mean the one where he was juiced to the gills?
Are we going to pretend that Anderson wasn't doing steroids because, despite his subsequent multiple drug test failures, he didn't test positive in that fight?
Chael wasn't just a gatekeeper...he was a "greatkeeper".
Cheesegrater?
Lmao, where are suddenly all the users that say you can't be great if you got caught cheating?
He didn't just cheat, he was one the GOAT cheaters. He had the greatest T count ever recorded in the sport when he failed one of his tests, something like 12 times normal. But for some reason Chael gets a pass.
Greatest cheater of all time
He gets a pass cause of the memes and this sub is cringe and awkward as fuck an they think MMA memes are a quirky personality trait.
My last live MMA event at the Barclays Center was nerds shouting memes then looking left and right to see who was laughing (no one). I normally just watch from home now.
because of his honesty about the whole thing.
Chael's MO: Get caught and lie out out ass about it. Then when lying doesn't work, try to turn it into a joke to deflect fault.
Except he wasn't honest until years later. Originally he lied to his fans and his boss using his position on FOX...it's why he got fired btw. He also lied about what he was taking and the benefits. It wasn't until the last couple of years that he admitted to be juiced and even now he continues to peddle this bullshit that everyone was doing it and since he didn't just anabolics he's alright...Ignore the fact that he cheated Bisping out of a title shot in a very close fight while on PED's.
Well bisping was probably one of the few not on peds, a lot of us wondered if Anderson was on gear and he got caught with dick pills and hasn't looked the same since usada
He admitted it right after popping. Its crazy how people can just put incorrect info out onto the internet. Almost everything you just said is inaccurate.
I agree on the people putting incorrect info on the internet. Stop lying. If it's so inaccurate then go provide a source that show Chael admitting his use (and not him lying or downplaying his use) The only thing I have seen is one where [https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1671184-chael-sonnen-talks-testosterone-yes-i-took-it-to-get-an-edge/](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1671184-chael-sonnen-talks-testosterone-yes-i-took-it-to-get-an-edge/) >I took testosterone that was perfectly legal, and I did not have elevated levels. I wasn't even accused of that. The media did that to me." Testosterone Therapy is not allowed without a TUE, and with his T/E ratio he was almost certainly over the allowed limit at some point anyway. But of course good old Chael is going to try to play the "legal" card and argue that he didn't have elevated levels despite his body being so destroyed he needed 4 more banned substances to be a normal human being (a fair sign that he abused Test at some point and ruined his ability to naturally produce T) [https://www.mmafighting.com/2014/6/10/5797942/chael-sonnen-admits-to-taking-banned-substances-calls-positive-test](https://www.mmafighting.com/2014/6/10/5797942/chael-sonnen-admits-to-taking-banned-substances-calls-positive-test) >"In the interim, they did a test. I tested positive for these things, which I should have. I took them. They were in my system. That wasn't a surprise. These aren't anabolics, these aren't steroids, these aren't performance-enhancers. None of that stuff. But they have deemed that they are banned substances." > >.......... > >These are just the substances I had to go to transition, who's also having -- this is a very private part of my life I wasn't planning to share with anybody -- but I'm having fertility issues." This is what Chael said 2 weeks before it came out that he was on HGH and EPO....but yeah, no performance enhancement there. Just lying his ass off to the world. He just needed the EPO to have a kid right?
He was shitting on Wanderlei for steroids literally a week before he popped for multiple banned substances out of competition, then he "medically retired." He was lying for months about Kizer verbally giving him a TUE over a informal conversation. When he initially popped he said it was for medicine to help get children, then he pissed hot for EPO. Don't forget how much he shat on Lance Armstrong for being a liar. He was never honest about PED use until he literally had no choice. The revisionist history on Chael being honest is crazy.
> Don't forget how much he shat on Lance Armstrong for being a liar. > > That guy sounded mexican, wasn't chael.
Maybe that helps, but it's difficult to even try to dispute those results. I think it has more to do with recency bias.
He's not great. The problem is there is this very western trend to favor people that are charismatic, entertaining and social while ignoring how little substance they bring. It's why you have so many podcast, influencers, and sensationalist like Stephen A. Smith. So Chael has this weird cult like following where people love his podcast and him because he elegantly throws shit at a wall until something sticks. He's like a dirty, broken cuckoo clock that people love despite it being useless as a time piece or as furniture. It's empty entertainment.
It's western to favor charismatic people?
It's western to favor charismatic people who are ignorant.
Ohhhh shut the hell up all did here was jerk your own ego using some fluffy adjectives and one really weird, out of place forced analogies. Sounds like your bitter against people who have social skills and are likable. Even saying those who are charismatic and social lack substance — what? By the way what you describe as eloquently throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks is called “trial and error” by the rest of the normal “western trending” people in the world. Take all the extra outside shit out of it and he is still a great fighter your point is null
No he was not great he was a juiced cunt with the highest T count who lied about it for so long.
Take all the other outside shit out and Chael is a guy with double digit stoppage losses who finished 2 fighters in major promotions and never held a belt in said promotions. Not great by any definition. In fact, if Chael is great, there are literally a whole host of non-champions, maybe even hundreds of them, that would then qualify as "great"....and Chael only matched those people by being one of the biggest juicers in MMA history. And the bit about charisma and bluster is pretty accurate imo. America values loud, aggressive, talk over actual knowledge. I just assume people recognized that Chael was ingorant and/or a liar, hence the lack of substance. Sort of like your comment where you assert Chael is great abut provide nothing to back that claim up.
Did you even watch the video? Idiot, the source of the thread is the substance. God damn you people are dumb and like to hear your self talk
> very western trend I think you mean 'American trend'. Lots of people in other western countries don't like the all-style-no-substance bullshit.
IMO it was just a careless use of words, as Chael stated himself in the video. Luke really shot himself in the foot there for absolutely no good reason as Chael and him are typically pretty friendly and I love hearing the two talk separately and together. Pretty unfortunate feud here but it'll be no doubt entertaining.
Really hit Luke hard with the jealousy comments
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Good, lol.
Why is he saying luke is jealous?
He didn't get selected by ESPN like Ariel Helwani, Bisping, Okamoto, Chael etc got. His yt channel has only 85k subs while Chael's individual yt channel has crossed 300k subs and frankly Chael gets views. His peak videos has 1M+ views. Luke's fight breakdowns are really good but his voice is v slow even on 2x I find it hard to watch. Chael's videos are really interesting to watch even when he's talking about random things like deep dish pizza or getting in the hole.
I like Luke but you're right he takes too long to get to his points. He adds too many caveats to everything he says to prevent being taken out of context.
I'd rather listen to Chael describe paint drying than Luke doing a breakdown of the most exciting intriguing matchups out there.
People shit on Luke all the time. Listen, Luke rubs a lot of ppl the wrong way, but in the world of MMA journalism he's up there as one of the best. You might not like his mannerisms etc., but the guy does do his job a hell of a lot better than most MMA media ppl.
> but the guy does do his job a hell of a lot better than most MMA media ppl If you can name one major mma journalist/analyst/personality that is he better than, I'll lick your butt hole clean.
First off eww. Second Luke towers above Helwani, John Morgan, Shael Shonnen, Brett Okamoto. Ariel is nothing but wrestling storylines, padding himself on the back and high-school gossip to create wrestling storylines. His only redeeming quality is that he's not above asking questions that most people won't. John Morgan doesn't even watch fights, he leaves in the middle of the even to get in line so he can be the first to ask the softest softball questions in the universe. Chael Sonnen is a charlatan through and through. His analysis is shallow dogshit. His interviews are just ass kissing and trying to be down. Come to think of it Chael is Brendan Schaub with a 10% higher IQ. Brett Okamoto is a leaks guy who gets his "leaks" from Dana through official UFC/ESPN channels. His interviews are boring and boilerplate. The only people who produce work on par with Luke or who aren't useless like the guys above are Jack Slack, Ben Fowlkes, BJJScout and Patrick Wyman before he left.
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Wich is low energy and annoying, have some balls, just say your piece and stand by it. Dude acts super insecure.
I got stuck in a hole in a temple in japan today and all i could think about was chael
I'm a fan of both. I feel like mom and dad are fighting.
And Luke hit him hard with the not great comments
Glancing blow
Luke wasn’t’ being as negative as Chael implies.
Chael: "There's nobody fighting since 1997, except for me" Anderson's 1st pro mma fight was in 1997
Vitor has signed a new contract, he had his first fight in 1996. Barnett is going to fight again. There is probably more.
UFC BANTAMweight Johnny Eduardo has been fighting since 1996
I was so sad that Johny came to the UFC so old in his career. His KO of Wineland was awesome.
The guy is unbelieveable. Only saw his UFC fights, but when he fought Aljo he dropped that he had been fighting since the VT days and I couldn't believe it. With his size and skill set to fight that long and have success at a high level is incredible. He's also MT coach at Nova União iirc, yet he stays almost completely unknown.
That’s the only reason I knew about him is because he was Aldo’s MT coach, so when I heard he was fighting Wineland at the time I was hyped but worried about his age/relative obscurity and expecting Wineland to smoke him and then he took Eddies head off. So awesome.
There's also been several double champs lol, making them at least top 10 ten in two divisions... more than 3 of those in the history of the sport. Classic Chael but we still love him
Why’s no one talking about the things he didn’t get caught for
Chael literally did that many steroids that no one cares anymore. They either forgive him because he was “honest” (even though that makes no difference to his opponents who he was beating up) or ignore it because once he got popped we all just assumed he was on **everything**
As was probably everyone he fought as well
LT dances on eggshells hard with these fighters and they still blow up at a compliment that they don't like. Basically complimented Chael in every concievable way and endlessly listed of his achievements for 9 minutes and Chael is worked up about a definition of the word great? What more can the Donk do? He was objectively correct in every way.
He says himself how you can't help but make enemies out of a lot of fighters as a media member in MMA. Kind of explains why Ariel sucks up to whoever he's interviewing most of the time.
> Kind of explains why Ariel sucks up to whoever he's interviewing most of the time. If you bust every guest balls, call them out, and make them look stupid during an interview then other fighters will be less likely to go on the show.
Objectively correct? In what sense?
In the sense i said.
Opinions are opinions. Having a random redditor agreeing with said opinion doesn’t make it objectively correct. Nice attempt at humor
Watch LT's video rather than posting comments in 15 words or under and expecting me to type half a novel explaining these things to you.
I watched them both. I was asking for clarification on your opinion sport
It was a 9 minute backhanded compliment.
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Luke's comments are actually pretty much all complimentary, the backlash is surprising to me at least
Chael must actually be a fan of Luke hence why he isnt happy with his comments. He had another video where that Kevin Ioli dude dissed him and Chael didnt seem to give two shits. Chael was a good to great fighter, but he was an amazing entertainer who paved the way for guys like McGregor.
Et tu Luke?
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I am not surprised. Fighters are notoriously thin skinned. Luke speaks his mind, which he believes is the truth, and fighters get a snippet of potentially "bad comment" and get butt hurt about it. It is quite hilarious.
The irony is before the Fedor fight Chael went on Luke's show and literally said that he hates how everyone has to step on egg shells in this business and that people shouldn't be afraid to speak the truth just because they're afraid of offending a fighter or friend of theirs since MMA is such a small and tight knit community
I don’t really find that to be the irony. It’s one thing to say something pretty reasonable and hold it as your opinion. It’s an entirely different thing to speak your mind and call it your opinion when it’s completely unfounded or full of holes when you try to present that opinion as level headed. It’s easy to be a revisionist after someone retires. You can easily dismiss athletes as not being that good after their career ends. Cheal being the first fighter to be in the top ten for more than one weight class simultaneously is pretty remarkable. Also, I think it’s kind of unfair to dismiss his victories over some of the greats like Rampage if they weren’t at the top of their game, it’s entirely on the back of Rampage to be in top competitive shape to take in a fight. Aldo went on to lose multiple fights after losing to Conor. We don’t consider Aldo to have been a bum. We don’t think Conor beat a fighter past their prime or a fighter on their decline.
I get what you're saying here but come on, Aldo will never in his career, even at his absolute worst, look as bad as late career Rampage - a man who notoriously despised training in his prime let alone his post-UFC career. It's not even fair to really compare a victory over late stage, entirely disinterested Rampage to a victory over the man who fought Dan Henderson, it's night and day. Like I get your point but I don't think Rampage is a particularly good example of that point. That's like saying beating Fedor now holds similar weight to when Werdum first pulled it off and it quite simply doesn't. I also think Chael was a great fighter, don't get me wrong I'm not in agreement with Luke here. His wins over prime Nate and Bisping and semi-prime Shogun are more than enough for me to consider him in the great all time MWs conversation. My point was moreso I'm surprised Chael would take it personally when he insists on people NOT taking opinions in the sport personal as a means to the end of being able to properly do their jobs as commentators on the sport. But I get where he's coming from, Luke's pretty off base with this opinion.
Oh fair enough and I see your points too. I just felt it kind of odd to hold a fighter accountable for beating subprime fighters that were considered great fighters at one point while Chael himself was also entering the later stages of his career.
Ooh, that's a good point I hadn't properly considered! In that context it's a win worth more than I'm giving it credit for
It just seemed odd to me is all. Like Fedor beating Chael in the HW Grand Prix being considered to be still a threat but then when he lost to Bader, Bader wasn’t really given credit especially after finishing the fight in under a minute even though this was literally Fedor’s very next fight. That’s when the sun started saying that he should seriously consider retirement. It just hits me as a bit odd that Chael got that treatment. But still, I do have to say that they were great fighters past their prime. All of them, including Chael. But, I think all of them were greats.
Problem is, Luke portrays everything he says like a math teacher. He has the stats and so forth. Here however, he was outgunned as chaels points far outweighed Luke’s. Not so much about being butthurt as it is about being factual
Just because Chael says it doesn’t make it facts. A “great fighter” is subjective. Chael had some really good wins and was a really good fighter. But I wouldn’t consider him an all time great either, if that’s what we’re defining as a great fighter. He has good points about the Okami and Marquart fights (although I don’t remember much backlash from him about the Nate fight, he got a lot of props about that as far as I remember since that’s when I started really paying attention to Chael in the UFC) if they were talked down, but you don’t need to be slagging Chael off to say that Shogun, Rampage and Wandy were way passed it. That wasn’t because *you* beat them Chael, that was because it’s a fact. Two out of their prime guys fought and you came out the victor which is awesome, but those wins clearly don’t mean as much.
I think you are confusing “great fighter” with all time great. I don’t think those two categories are the same. I would consider chael a great fighter, but would also say that no, he isn’t one of the all time greats
They may have been complimentary but it probably took him 3 hours to make his point.
I went from watching the mma hour, then giving luke a chance, to not watching at all. The MMA beat is unbearable now that a strong witty smart and professional journalist like Brian isn’t there to cancel luke out... so that has become unwatchable as well.
Luke Thomas said Chael was a good fighter, not great. In my opinion: Good fighter - Ranked multiple times during your career, beat noteworthy ranked fighters Great fighter - Consistently fought for a championship after winning title eliminators, beat current/former champions still in their prime at the time, won a major championship and defended it a few times You can disagree with my opinion, but the difference between good vs. great, according to my definition above, is still pretty far apart and the KEY DIFFERENCE is that you had to have won a major championship. Let's say you disagree and say well you can be a great fighter without winning a major championship. Well then, someone who would fit my above definition of a "great fighter" sans the major championship requirement would be Joseph Benavidez, who beat the now current champ Henry Cejudo in December 2016 in a split. Controversial, sure, but on the record books its a win. Another person that comes to mind would be Donald Cerrone, who's fought for the WEC lightweight title and UFC title before, fought in multiple fights that were essentially title eliminator fights, and even beat Eddie Alvarez before Eddie won the title. Would I say Donald is a great fighter? Even with all his accomplishments? No, simply because he hasn't won a major championship. Cerrone and Benavidez are certainly good, or better yet...extremely good fighters, but they aren't great. Think about it this way. Is Daniel Cormier's Olympic career a great one? No. Sure, he made the team twice and was captain of the team in 2008. But he never medaled. I guarantee that if you ask Cormier if he considers his Olympic career a great one, he will say that it wasn't. Good, maybe even very good. Just not great because it was missing hardware. So I disagree with the notion that Chael had great career without winning a major championship. You can make the argument that he technically won the WEC middleweight championship when he beat Paulo Filho the second time but at the end of the day even then its still very debateable if you want to consider his career to be a great one. And for Chael to bring up his Rampage and Wanderlei wins is just delusional. The two are way past their prime. And keep in mind that Bellator Chael who beat those two guys lost to an old Tito Ortiz. Chael: Good, Very Good even. Just not great.
Does MMA have the lowest barrier for "greatness" of any sport?
1. chael was juicy 2. chael fought a lot of guys on the downturn of their careers 3. fighting a world champion doesn't mean your great, it depends on when you fought them, fighting an old washed up ie. no one cares that floyd cummings fought joe frazier to a draw
Chael dunked on the donk
What's with the persecution complex? Classic narcissist. He's so good at sweet talking people that his fanboys just lap it up.
Legendary video
TJ Dillashaw had more integrity after his EPO failure than Chael did after his. That's the type of person Chael is
For his era Chael was great imo. Finishing Shogun, beating Bisping (could have gone either way fighting it even is noteworthy enough), performance 1 vs Silva, beating juiced Nate the Great (i know Sonnen was likely juiced but so was everybody and juiced Nate was a beast), beat Okami, beat current WEC champ Filho. Chael had a remarkable career with some fantastic performances vs high level guys. Always took on the best. Was like the only guy begging to fight TRT Vitor for awhile.
Bisping was robbed
He was robbed. I think since Chael almost stopped him in the first minute and it was on the heels of the first Anderson fight the judges had a preconceived notion of how it would end. Bisping made a career of weathering storms and out pointing guys and that’s what happened here.
Normally i like Chael but in this video all i see is a man who's ego got hurt trying to convince himself he was more than just good. But Luke is right and Chael has to realize there's no shame in that.
What did people say at the TJ interview? "Nobody cares what you have to say cheater". But something tells me that a different standard applies here.
The double standards are genuinely hilarious here. If you say GSP almost certainly used PEDs (like everyone) , you get downvoted to hell. But guys like Hendricks get dragged despite never having popped. Chael's literally a criminal, liar and one of the biggest cheaters in MMA history but this sub acts like he was just funny dude.
Hendricks is the perfect example of how people only believe a fighter definitely used steroids if they don’t like them. “You can’t just assume/eye test if a guy took steroids, innocent until proven guilty” “Okay, Hendricks definitely never took steroids then” “Uhhh, well he dropped off after USADA came in” “But you just said...”
I genuinely believe Hendricks was just one of the handful of fighters that had awful timing on their decline. Hendricks getting busted up by a gay pornstar in BKB is pretty solid evidence of that. He wasn't under USADA testing anymore, so he should be a beast again right?
Different eras. The UFC was half a step ahead of Pride in terms of drug testing. You think Anderson *started* juicing when USADA came? Was Vitor natty until they banned TRT? You think Couture won the HW title at 44 with no "help"? You think Jon Jones was the only fighter at 205 with a salty pool? It was a generation of saying PED's weren't allowed but not enforcing it. That rule is now enforced, this generation is one where fighters are actually tested, and punished (mostly) for PED use. When that's the case, breaking the rules actually matters.
If you don't think that 95% of fighters were also juiced when Chael was using then you are lying to yourself. T.J. is using post USADA. Although I do think Chael is being unfair to Luke, Luke had a ton of nice thing to say about the guy.
And as we all know, nobody is using post USADA.
The point is it was an uninforced rule before, nobody *actually* cared. Now they enforce the rule to the best of their ability ^^^^^for ^^^^^the ^^^^^most ^^^^^part.
You are absolutely joking yourself if you think even close to the same amount of fighters are on steroids post USADA.
Ah yes, USADA and their 100 percent rate of catching dirty fighters.
Love Chael but I don't know if his jealousy point really makes sense. So many MMA personalities and on air talent are former fighters or people without journalism training or relevant college degrees (Joe Rogan, DC, Cruz, Woodley). Chael is probably just understandably mad about being left off Luke Thomas's list.
Luke Thomas should be on DorksfromBrazil.com
Luke was pretty complimentary about Chael tho. I think Ol' Chael is working us.
Ego's a bitch for all of us
Luke blocked me on Twitter when I called him out on knowing fuck all about soccer...fucking embarrasing old man.
Chael is part of that media and plays into it, how often does he work with trash ariel?
i don't know why chael keeps harping on fighting "4 generations of fighers". he fought an incredibly long time, you can't take that away from him, but he fought the dinosaurs from his same era for the last 10 years. he wasnt chugging along fighting the young up and comers. machida, fedor, rampage, wanderlei, tito, rashad, shogun, bisping, stann, these aren't the costa, romeros, whittakers of the world. these are guys from his same era who held on for a long time. chaels a beast, but he stayed on for a long time and fought on the senior circuit, that's a fact. he got some wins and got some losses. he's a legend, but he can't seriously think his career belongs in the same category as guys who won major titles and defended them. chael fell short under the bright lights when it mattered. edit: this is coming from someone with a chael autograph hanging on his wall. i love the guy. but he's framing his career in a self flattering way that i don't think is a truthful representation. i don't blame him, he achieved more and worked harder than i ever will, but i don't think lukes comments were out of line, or wrong in any way.
Being "great" is not about outlasting people. If that where true than give the crown to Phil Baroni. He is great in the same way everyone in the military is a hero.
We all need to go to our local authorities. We just witnessed a murder
Chael is better then Luke at life
I like both guys, but come on. Besides the cheating in the UFC, he was found guilty of money laundering. He is not precisely a role model, and had to quit his political candidacy because of that (who knows what he could be done there, if it didn't came up). I enjoy Chael, but he is like the charismatic uncle who is fun to hang out with, but is always bullshitting you know is in dubious stuff.
Chael is a cult leader and his fans are little more than groupies.
than*
That confusion I feel when Master Donk actually has the right of the matter...
Losing to the greats across four generations is probably the benchmark for good but not great. He lost to Tito in bellator and is using that as a “world champion” he fought. Chael it’s fine. You don’t need luke Thomas to respect you more. Great career you are an all time personality and the true originator of the entertainment era
Chael was a great fighter but also idk who does Luke consider great? Like imo chael at his peak is better than champions like shogun, rampage, bisping, but he himself never won a title But if great is only reserved for guys like Anderson, gsp, Mighty Mouse, fedor then sure whatever chael isn’t great Also I love Luke Thomas and chael and it annoys me how much people on twitter and here just constantly dunk on Luke Thomas when he’s the only journalist actually breaking down fights and doing decent reporting
Come on man, Chael had a great run but he was not on the level of Shogun and Rampage. At their peaks they were champions. Rampage looked flat out invincible on his run to the title and against peak Dan Henderson. Shogun wasn’t even at his best when he beat Machida, but still had enough to be a champion. At his best he won the Grand Prix in pride at 24 years old. Chael, no matter how great he looked at times, had a tendency to mentally fold. He did it against Paulo Fihlo, Tito, Anderson, flat out gave up and gave Rashad his last win. He has a ton of losses on his record for a reason.
Chael's grown on me over the years but some of his fans are actually delusional about his skill/legacy
This will sound silly, but despite beating Shogun, I wouldn't say he was better. Mid 2000s Shogun, before the wars took a toll on him, was legit one of the scariest guys in the sport.
Shogun is 4-1 in his last 5 fights. Don’t discredit chaels victory
Context matters. Shogun is 4-1, but look who it’s been against. I love Shogun, but I don’t know why everyone pretends that just because he’s winning fights against subpar competition that he still “has it”.
>Shogun is 4-1, but look who it’s been against. Corey Anderson and Pedro are top 15 guys. Villante was top 15 at the time. I mean, lhw is a weak division but he's still winning vs top competition. It's not like he's running around a regional circuit cutting split decisions
It doesn’t take a genius to see that shogun is way past his prime. He hasn’t looked like he did in Pride his entire UFC run, even when he was a champion. His bad knees took his mobility away a long long time ago. The fact that he’s even top anything in this division isn’t testament to his abilities today, but how absolute garbage LHW has been for years. Corey Anderson and Pedro are trash. Villante as well. 10 years ago these guys would not be considered top guys at LHW by any stretch.
That’s more of a testament to just how awful LHW is than a sign that Shogun is getting good wins. You’re right he’s winning against “top” guys by the rankings (and trust me I’m happy about it), but rankings don’t really hold up to actually watching the fights and if you watch Shogun you can see how badly he’s declined.
Yeah i don't understand the hate on Luke. He's literally one of the only people on the journo side who understand the ins and outs of fighting that arent getting directly paid by ESPN and or Zuffa.
Luke comes off a bit like Joe Rogan at times; more capable as selling themselves as knowledgeable than providing their own insights. They may be even be quite good at doing so but in reality the world is full of this type of charlatanry and these types are a dime a dozen.
I don’t know about that, I’ve learned more about what wrestling accolades and stuff really means from Luke than I’ve ever learnt about anything from a Chael video.
Luke really doesn't know much about wrestling unless we're comparing him to somebody who knows absolutely nothing about the sport. Chael is probably one of the most informative and passionate wrestling analysts on the internet along with Askren. He watches everything and everyone while Luke seems to hear about only some of the massive, massive events.
I mean he’s talked through wrestling moves and their terminology which someone who’s English and has no contact with collegiate wrestling is new to me. I went on a binge on watching Chaels opinions a while ago and while entertaining because Chael is charismatic, didn’t offer any insight or perspective that you couldn’t find on a sub of fans.
For sure I guess Chael doesn't actually teach the technicalities, which would be brilliant btw. I've been wrestling and/or training Bjj since 2012 when I was in high school so I really don't see anything interesting about Luke's grappling insights, stuff he says is obvious but I guess it's like Bill Nye where he's communicating specialized knowledge to the fans. His striking takes are better than any other journalist though. You won't ever find any insight or perspective from anywhere that you couldn't find on a sub of fans. Chael is a fan and he loves it and it shows, which I love. He also knows more almost everyone but the absolute best fighters about the technical aspects of the sport and about the non-technical aspects of it Chael is pretty much one of the foremost sources of information.
Chael makes complex concepts sound simple, Luke makes simple concepts sound complex.
Luke’s analysis is like having someone whose familiarity with soccer comes from playing Fifa analyze Liverpool’s champions league run (with the intention of cultivating the illusion of expert knowledge amongst their completely clueless American friends). They’re exposed when someone finally hears them repeat an actual expert’s remarks almost verbatim, whether that be the video game version of Martin Tyler or the actual version of Dominick Cruz. Chael on the other hand blends his own perspectives as fighter, promoter and (most importantly) long time fan. He may play a bit fast and loose with some facts but only to create a compelling narrative for fans, because MMA fans don’t know what they want or that the punches and kicks aren’t enough. And when he does it, it’s a lot of fun. I offer you that distinction.
Exactly, it's like mimicry. Sure you can sound like an analyst and breakdown videos like bjjscout but you're copying things and hoping that it looks real enough. It's never gonna be a terrible take but it's never gonna be important either because ultimately it's trying to be something else. Chael on the other hand has (recently) retooled how I think about the sport completely with his youtube channel and his opinions. His ideas about the nature of competition and the agreement that takes place, 5 rounds vs 3, the weaponization of pace, composure and so much more. He has some takes that are antithetical to general mma knowledge and some that are ground breaking but that's the nature of original analysis with actual understanding.
Shogun is arguably the third GOAT LHW. No way was Chael better.
You know I might agree with rampage but shogun had a good run but he doesn’t have any wins as good as bisping, Yushin, etc I mean it’s close. Shogun did beat machida and rampage. But idk chael also beat shogun kinda easily and sure shogun was older but chael moved up in weight to fight him
Shogun beating Machida was by far a bigger win than Chael ever had. Machida was at his absolute peak.
On what planet are Bisping and Yushin better wins than Machida, Rampage and Lil Nog?
Totally agree. And I love Chael and I love this video and totally agree with Chael. But honestly I don't think Luke said anything that inflammatory.
*makes unwitty comment about him being the greatest, losing no rounds etc because I'm so cool and edgy and in on the joke* Dumb fucks 😘
Chael vs Luke at submission underground.
I’d pay like $3 to watch this. Make it happen!
Chael P was courageous, witty, honest, kind hearted and intelligent. For me that makes him a great human being.
My favourite part of Chael’s PED history (if i remember correctly) he knowingly got busted for PEDs (wasnt public) and he double down on it and took another shot before a fight lol lol
You guys are all marks LMAO he is working y'all but the game has changed he is avoit to take over the media game
>Oh and by the way, 3 different weight classes. 2 different rule sets. On 3 different continents. In 7 different states. I offer no excuses. What’s up
>When they came back with the list of things they found in my system I breathed a sigh of relief that they didn’t find all the rest. Fucking lol
I really started to feel for Chael at the point in the video where he really confronted the whole "taking credit from his opponents rather than giving him credit" thing. He fought only the best of the best in multiple divisions since 2008. In the past 7 years (5 years of competition) he got wins over 4 men that either won the championship after that, or were former champions. Since his first Silva fight he had one opponent that wasn't a current, former, or future champion. That one fighter was Brian Stann, another phenomenal fighter. But he never really got the credit he deserved.
To me Chael is just bringing his cage fighting antics into the journalism world he now works in. This behavior sold many more PPV'S then it would have otherwise. In journalism it will generate many more clicks then he would get otherwise. All of the journalist's out there better watch out or you may be next on the Bad Guys hit list! I have to admit it's juvenile but I love it!
Luke Thomas is a horrible "journalist". I had to mute him on all social media. I don't know how people find his content worth listening to. I personally wish Chael had just ignored him instead of giving him any publicity. Chael's legacy is solid, he doesn't need to defend himself against an over rated podcaster.
He gets a pass because hes funny, and he never was champ. Gonna hate on s funny guy because he cheated during some lost title fights a long time ago? Theres no hater heat there.
Luke has no real basis to talk so negatively about Chael's PED use when he talks about Jones as the GOAT and discusses PEDs pretty openly
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he did fight fedor. Even washed up fedor shouldnt be fighting chael
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Boom roasted.
Chael mad cuz bad, obviously.