[Kris P Lettus]

When Chael Sonnen was pursuing a fight with Anderson Silva, his key weapon was the MMA media. The ‘American Gangster’ produced a ceaseless stream of outrageous comments about Anderson, his career and his homeland. The latter subject was controversial, with more than a few commentators accusing Sonnen of racism for his various derogatory comments about Brazil and its culture. For example, in the process of labelling it a third-world country, Sonnen expressed surprise that Brazil possessed such things as computers and internet access. He also claimed that the Nogueira brothers had “tried to feed carrots to a bus”, the inference being that vehicles are such a rarity in Brazil that they didn’t know how to approach it. Many Brazilians, fighters and fans alike, were annoyed and offended by these comments. Brazilians generally take a fierce pride in their nation. This past weekend, one of them attempted to gain restitution via a pound of flesh. Sonnen was at the TUF 17 Finale in Las Vegas and did some meeting and greeting with fight fans afterwards. One of them called him over for a photo opportunity - but it was a trap. “He was there, shaking hands with everybody and everything, and this guy says, 'Hey Chael! Chael! C'mon over here.' Chael goes over there and the guy starts swinging on him, tried to punch him,” UFC president Dana White tells us. “[Security] bundled the guy up and dragged him out and he's saying, 'F--k you! You are a piece of s--t! I'm from Brazil!' and all this other stuff. The guy attacked him at The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 17 Finale last Saturday.” The Brazilian’s direct action came back on him in rather immediate fashion however, as the venue security gave him the five-star treatment on the way out of the building. “It was a bad move. They didn't take him out of there politely. He got bundled and dragged over every stair on the way out,” White laughed. The humour of it aside, the incident does raise interesting issues. Sonnen’s press conference appearances in Brazil prior to his second Anderson Silva fight were fraught with security concerns. One of the reporters who attended tried to sabotage Sonnen with a novelty pen which delivered a mild electric shock. Obviously that wasn’t a particularly serious incident but if a reporter feels like doing something like that, there’s no telling what a young hothead might attempt. There’s a world of difference between US and Brazilian culture; the WWE-style trash talk which American audiences understand to be hyperbole don’t necessarily get understood that way in Brazil. Many Brazilians took Sonnen absolutely literally and were incensed by what they saw as outrageous slanders on their culture and country.