Chael Sonnen and Anderson Silva are closer than ever 11 years after their all-time classic rivalry in the Octagon.
The pair of Middleweight legends had one of the greatest rivalries in mixed martial arts (MMA) history, competing twice from 2010 to 2012. Each fighter helped elevate the other along with the sport in terms of popularity, magnitude, and stakes. Ultimately, Silva came out on top in each affair, first by submitting Sonnen with a comeback triangle choke in round five of their UFC 117 main event. The sequel started out similarly with Sonnen dominating round one, but succumbed to strikes in round two.
In 2023, the hatchet couldn’t be more buried between the two as they were previously seen together in late 2022 for Silva’s boxing match against Jake Paul. Now, they’ve recently collaborated for an episode of Silva’s new series, Anderson Spider Silva, on Paramount Plus Brazil.
him getting a tattoo of Silva on his shoulder with little context, leading many fans to believe it was fake. However, Paramount Plus posted the video seen in the embedded player above that the tattoo came as a result of a bet between the two in Silva’s home where Sonnen watched a movie picked by “The Spider” and was bet he’d get emotional. Sonnen, obviously, lost the bet and got his foe-turned-friend’s old UFC pose inked on his body … along with Sonnen’s classic quote, “You absolutely suck! from the post-fight interview after his rebound win against Brian Stann at UFC 136 in October 2011.
