Chael Sonnen Comes Up Short in Bid for Third Smack-Off Title

Popular and polarizing Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Chael Sonnen came up just short Friday in his bid to capture his third Smack-Off title, losing by the closest of margins to Brad in Corona.

The annual competition of the Jim Rome radio show, the Smack-Off pits the show’s best callers against one another in a battle to see whose smack talk is the best and Sonnen’s defeat has already stirred up controversy.

Sonnen, who arguably has the sharpest tongue in all of the fight sports, had won two previous Smack-Offs -- in 2012 and than with Mike in Indy last year -- and he was the slight favorite entering today, which marks the 21st year of the battle’s existence. There was some mystery midway through Friday’s show when Mike in Indy apparently had ditched Sonnen and took to the battle alone, but his call somehow got disconnected a few minutes in. Sonnen contacted Kyle Grant, the show’s producer, claiming he was angry at his Smack partner and needed some time to gather his thoughts.

In typical Sonnen fashion, it was all a rue because after he called in near the end of the show and verbally laying waste to everybody and everything, Mike in Indy joined his call -- just like Chael had done with Mike last year -- and the teammates proceeded to insult virtually all of their rivals using a comical biblical routine where they targeted their foes via the seven deadly sins, among other things.

While it wasn’t the greatest Smack-Off call in history, it seemed somewhat obvious that the Sonnen/Mike in Indy duo had done enough to retain their title and become the first back-to-back champions since Sean the Cablinasian won three straight Smack-Offs between 2005 and ’07. However, Brad in Corona, the Smack-Off champ in ’09 and ’11, led off the show almost three hours earlier and vowed to be the first person ever to win the competition wire-to-wire.

In the end, the Jim Rome staff, dubbed the XR4TI, had what they claimed was one of the toughest, closest votes in the show’s history. Just before the show ran out of time, they awarded Brad in Corona with the victory, handing him -- not Sonnen -- his third overall Smack-Off title. Twitter exploded in debate as many of the show’s listeners, or Clones as they are labeled, felt that Sonnen and Mike in Indy were robbed. It must be noted, though, that Rome revealed just before he went off the air that Sonnen had personally texted him and admitted that he thought Brad in Corona had the best call of the day. Sonnen and Mike in Indy officially came in second place.