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<h3><a href="/go=news.detail&gid=439195" target="_blank">
Chael-If Wand touched me I would have put him down
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<a href="/go=news.detail&gid=439195" ><img class="photo" src="http://img.mixedmartialarts.com/method=get&rs=80&q=75&x=83&y=113&w=310&h=165&ro=0&s=wand-chael-sonnen.png" /></a>
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<p>Late last month at the Olympia expo in Las Vegas, Chael Sonnen was signing autographs at a booth, when Wanderlei Silva suddenly appeared, accompanied by a camera crew. "The Axe Murderer" and Sonnen went nose-to-nose and ended up having to be pulled apart.</p>
Then Wand released an over the top video commentating on the altercation.
"Real men talk face to face," said Wand on the video. "With me the talk is straight up. I will punch you face, it will happen soon. I didn't smash you today because I'm a professional, and professionals keep it out of the streets... I heard the fear in your voice when you started talking with that thin voice like a girl. You were shaking in fear. You loser."
Curiously, Wand is injured and out likely until 2014, and Sonnen is slated to fight Rashad Evans at UFC 167 on Nov. 16.
“When Wanderlei does this, he needs to understand I don’t know him,” said Sonnen. “I don’t know if this is for show. I don’t know if he’s still hurt or healthy. I don’t know this guy. All I know is he’s yelling, he brought friends and now I feel threatened. That’s not a good spot to put a guy like me in.”
“It’s very hard, in his defense, to stay in the media if you don’t have a fight coming up. Well, he hasn’t fought since [March] and he’s not going to fight for a considerable amount of time, if ever again. So he hires his own camera. The guy has a camera follow him around and he goes and puts it on the Internet. All right, fair enough. I get it. He comes up to me and he’s yelling at me and he brings his own camera. So on one hand, you’re kind of going, ‘Aw, Wanderlei, really? You’re stooping to filming your own stuff? That’s just weird.’ On the other hand, he brings three guys with him.”
“I’ve got a guy that calls himself an ‘Axe Murderer’ pointing a finger at me and he brought three buddies with him. That’s a problem where I come from. My father taught me the fight doesn’t start when somebody throws a punch. The fight starts as soon as the other guy squares up. Wanderlei squared up.”
“I don’t like street fighting. I don’t like to hear about it. It’s unprofessional and I’m not advocating any of this. However, I will not let a guy within arm’s distance. Wanderlei, if his finger he was pointing touched me, I would have put him down right there. I would have had no choice. I must defend myself. And he had three friends -- these odds aren’t great for me. I want to take down as many of these scumbags as I can while I can.”
“You’re going to show that you had to build up this courage to come and mutter at a guy, with three friends? … I think that was the most confusing thing, for me. If I was doing the publicity stunt, I’m going to go, ‘All right, guys, listen. That backfired. That thing goes in the fireplace.’”
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