For something like this, the books-on-tape version might be even better. But for now, Chael Sonnen fans – and even those who aren’t fans, but just can’t look away – will have to settle for bound matter.
Sonnen has written a book, “The Voice of Reason: A VIP Pass to Enlightenment,” and it will be released on May 15. Just over a month later, on June 23, Sonnen gets his long-awaited rematch with Anderson Silva at UFC 147 for the middleweight title – in a soccer stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Sonnen has become Public Enemy No. 1 to the Brazilian MMA fans for his call-outs of Silva, other Brazilian fighters and the country in general.
There is no word yet if Sonnen spends any time further alienating Brazil in the book, but a press release announcing the new book alludes to that possibility: “Backwoodsmen and unlearned folk call him ‘The Walking Thesaurus.’ His contemporaries have bestowed upon him the title ‘Sir Sonnen,’ and those dwelling in the forgotten, forlorn jungles south of the equator reverently refer to him as ‘filho da puta,’ a term Sonnen personally deciphered as ‘the great and humble bearer of knowledge.'” (“Filho de puta” in Portugese, the official language of Brazil, translates to “son of a b**ch.”)
The release also says it will be a “hybrid behind-the-scenes look into the sport of mixed martial arts, a personal memoir and a political manifesto on the way the world should be – all rolled into one.”
“This book had to be written,” Sonnen said in the release. “The world demanded it, and as the people’s unofficial leader, I felt compelled to bestow upon them the truth as they needed to see it … through my own eyes. I know how the world works. I’ve been face-to-face with presidents, wardens, dignitaries, judges, kings and queens and athletic commissions and learned something from every one of them. Now it’s time to pass that knowledge along.”
But the difference between him and every other Muhammad Ali wannabee is that Sonnen backs his mouth upwith action. He dominated and nearly dethroned the UFC’s most decorated champion, Anderson Silva, and their rematch in June will be one of the mosthighly anticipated fights ever. Now he’s putting his thoughts onto paper in his debut book The Voice of Reason; A VIP Pass to Enlightenment not because he wants to, but because evolution will stall without it.
Sonnen, apart from being the top contender to Silva’s middleweight title – and the man who has come closest to beating him in the UFC – also has dabbled in politics and real estate, the latter of which found him pleading guilty to a money laundering charge in a mortgage fraud ring that lost him his license. The University of Oregon product also promises to touch on “the truth about history, politics, endangered species, cinema, terrorists, music, particle accelerators, diets, a culture of fear and his plans for creating a Chaelocracy, or as he calls it, ‘a better earth.'”
Sonnen joins numerous other MMA standouts who have put their words into book form, including Forrest Griffin, Randy Couture, BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, Chuck Liddell, Brock Lesnar and Tito Ortiz, all within the last several years.
Just in time for the buildup for his UFC 147 main event against Anderson Silva in Rio de Janeiro, Chael Sonnen's first book hits shelves on May 15. Look out, world.
