Troubled UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen, who was supposed to meet with the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) sometime this month in hopes of getting re-licensed in the state, has been suspended (again) by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC).
This according to CSAC Director George Dodd, who let MMAWeekly.com know what the deal is:
"Chael completed his suspension for the athletic commission just recently, so he still had time on his license here in California, and what we did, we put him on a California State Administrative Suspension for the remainder of his license, until he appeared before the commission. We sent Chael a letter and he's requested to appear in front of the commission to appeal his suspension. Currently, we have the date of May 18 for next week for his appeal of his current suspension."What a mess. And a recurring one at that.
Dodd also stated that Nevada has elected to honor California's ruling and will uphold Sonnen's suspension. This likely puts the final kibosh on any hopes of the mouthy middleweight's chances of coaching the upcoming season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF).
Sorry, Michael Bisping ... and Dana White ... and fans the world over.
So what has the CSAC all up in a fuss? There are two issues, actually, that Sonnen will have to answer for on May 18:
"It's based off two things. One, his pleading guilty to his felony conviction up in Oregon, as well as possibly providing false testimony during his hearing back in December."It seems those tall tales about phantom conversations with Keith Kizer during his recent steroids appeal in California have officially come back to bite the former Republican Realtor in the butt. Sonnen tested positive for banned substances after his submission loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 117 in Aug. 2010.
The felony conviction Dodd speaks of is related to Sonnen's recent bust for money laundering, which earned him a $10,000 fine, the loss of his Realtor's license and two years probation.
Despite the legal woes, the Team Quest trash-talker has recently been champing at the bit to return to competition.
Sonnen was most recently calling out Michael Bisping after his spitting incident at UFC 127 back on Feb. 27. "The Count" accepted his challenge, but the promotion has been slow to announce anything regarding Sonnen's fight future until it knows for certain he's cleared to fight another day ... inside a cage.
Now we know the exact day the mouthy middleweight will get to plead his case to the powers that be in the "Golden State." And that's before he can patch things up with Kizer in Nevada.
Sonnen will need to do some seriously convincing to get himself back into the Octagon in the near future. The list of infractions is long, and the river of muck is deep, but if anyone can talk his way out of a hole, it's a former politician.
No comments:
Post a Comment