Chael Sonnen Goes Overboard at UFC 115 Weigh Ins, Lies About Twitter Account

Kevin Iole reports from tonight's press conference:

Asked about how the fight would go, Sonnen said he had some ideas but wasn't sure. "I can only attempt to speculate," he said of how Silva would attack him. "He has a black belt from the Nogueira brothers, but to me, a black belt from the Nogueira brothers is like a free toy in a Happy Meal. One [of the Nogueira brothers] is a punching bag. The other, I just ignore."

He had been making similar attacks about Silva and Soares on Twitter, but said on stage Friday that he does not have a Twitter account. However, he told Yahoo! Sports in February that he did, as he also does at the 45:40 mark of a video interview with reporter Ariel Helwani.

This begs the question, why would Sonnen bother lying about a Twitter account? Because it's causing him trouble in his campaign for political office. From Huffington Post:

Sonnen has become famous in the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) world through a twitter account that has been making increasingly outrageous and sometimes racist statements. On twitter.com/sonnench there are memorable tweets such as: "I'm a gangster from Oregon"... "Anderson, [Chael Sonnen's next MMA opponent] you are going to be on your back more than a pornstar with a mortgage"... and what I find most offensive "Ed [a Brazilian American MMA manager], pray to whatever Demon effigy you prance and dance in front of with your piglet tribe of savages that I decide not to CRUCIFY you."

I see this last tweet as racist and xenophobic and was wondering how a candidate of a major party for the State Legislature was getting away with this. So I reached out to some Oregon press asking them why they haven't challenged this candidate on this type of talk. A reporter I emailed said he would take up the story. A couple of days ago he emailed me and said that Sonnen denied that he ever made the statements and that the twitter account is a fake one.

Ben Fowlkes went to the trouble to utterly depants Sonnen's claims that it's not his Twitter account:

Sonnen did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the Twitter account, but at the very least the UFC seems to be under the impression that it's his account, as @sonnench appears right between @ChuckLiddell and @SugaRashadEvans on the UFC's Twitter follow list. 

What's more, an account claiming to be the "Official Campaign Twitter" of Sonnen (Twitter.com/VoteSonnen) is following only one other Twitter user, and you can probably guess which one (hint: it's not the Iron Sheik).

That tends to make one think that either this alleged online impersonator has been very busy creating and then barely maintaining Twitter accounts, or else he's so good that he even fooled Sonnen's campaign.

...

That's one question that springs to mind. Another is, if you were going to create a fake Twitter account for someone, and if that account quickly gained almost 6,000 followers, wouldn't you do more with it? Maybe I don't completely understand the mind of someone who would create a fake Twitter in the first place, but it seems like it's hardly worth the trouble for ten tweets in six months, especially if two of them link to Sonnen's actual campaign website.

Sonnen's trash talking has certainly generated a great deal of attention for him, but in my opinion he's crossed the line when he's disrespecting the Nogueira brothers and lying about his Twitter account. I for one will be rooting for Anderson Silva to actually try against Sonnen, because if he does, that should make for an entertaining and richly deserved beat down.

HT Fightlinker, heavy.com