Chael Sonnen makes humiliating u-turn on wild McGregor rehab claim

Sonnen has been forced to backtrack on his theory that the Dubliner is in rehab rather than genuinely injured, which was reportedly the reason for his withdrawal from the UFC 303 bout against Michael Chandler.

The embarrassing reversal comes days after the Irishman’s representative in the US clarified that Sonnen’s wild claims were unfounded.

UFC CEO Dana White officially announced on June 13 that McGregor’s long-awaited return to the Octagon on June 29 has been postponed due to an unspecified injury sustained during training camp.

McGregor himself also recently confirmed suffering an injury, though without providing details, noting it occurred shortly before the scheduled pre-fight press conference in Dublin, Ireland earlier this month, which was cancelled at the last minute.

However, amid widespread speculation within the MMA community, especially on X, regarding the cancellation of the McGregor vs. Chandler fight, Sonnen took it one step further and suggested on last week’s episode of ESPN’s Good Guy / Bad Guy with Daniel Cormier that the former two-division champ pulled out from UFC 303 due to being in rehab.

Inevitably, the UFC veteran’s theory spread quickly and Karen Kessler, head representative of Team McGregor, was forced to come out fighting unequivocally refuting all claims of “The Notorious” being in rehab.

Now, Sonnen has ashamedly adjusted his stance saying: “I do not know that Conor is in rehab, for one. For two, I would not begrudge or tease Conor in the least if he was in rehab.

“I would be very proud of Conor, and I would imagine for somebody in his spot, to go into rehab is something you want to keep quiet. To do that in Ireland, I would imagine that he would have needed to humble himself greatly.”

Clear; missing the point of his backtrack he then went on to reiterate: “So, I don’t know that he’s in rehab”.

McGregor has been sidelined from competition since suffering a leg break in the first round of his trilogy fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 way back in July 2021.

It is hard to believe but the biggest name in UFC history has not won a fight since UFC 246 in January 2020, when he secured a 40-second knockout victory over journeyman Donald Cerrone.

This week, Dana White and Michael Chandler both reiterated that the highly-anticipated bout will eventually happen later in the year as soon as the UFC finds a date and location.

Meanwhile, Conor has been getting over his injury by partying in his Black Forge Inn.

Earlier this week he hosted a movie night to show the John Connors film The Black Guelph that was attended by his family and the cast of the movie.