The Voice of Reason: A V.I.P. Pass to Enlightenment (18 page)

I’m heading mindlessly down this path, and then years later I receive a call. The voice on the other end of the phone is real friendly.

“Hey, Chael, I’m a big fan,” the man says. “Love watching your fights.”

“Great, how can I help you?”

“Well, I’m an agent for the government, and we need to clear a few things up. We need your … expertise in understanding a few things.”

“Sure, happy to help,” I say. “But I’m no expert. I’ve only been doing this a few years—kinda learning as I go. Maybe talk to my boss or one of the good, experienced salespeople here? I’ll put someone right on. Let me just put you on hold a sec. …”

“No, Chael. You’re the guy we think can help. Help us. Can you come down one day this week so we can talk?”

“Ummmm, sure. If there is anything I can do, of course. I’m your guy!”

So. Go downtown. Actually bring a few T-shirts to give to my “big fan.” Even bring a few in smaller sizes for his kids. It’s the least I can do. They’re letting me
help
get rid of the
bad
guys. What I don’t bring is the notion that I could have done something wrong
myself
. What I
don’t
bring is a
lawyer
.

I get there and sit down. I’m expecting to leave in a half-hour, after supplying them with whatever meager insight my short tenure and low position in the office have afforded me. I’ll leave a few T-shirts lighter and maybe with my very own plastic “Junior G-Man” badge.

Then the questions. They start innocently enough. General questions on broad enough real-estate-oriented topics—things I’ve told them I am no expert in. But then the inquiries begin to circle ominously back to the
third
deal I ever did, a deal based on the instructions and approval of my superiors. And I can’t help noticing that my “big fan” and his fellow agents, who were slapping me on the back, laughing, and talking to me about my UFC fights just a few minutes ago, are now staring at me like a pack of hungry wolves staring at a baby bison with a clubfoot and a racking cough.

Why are they looking at me like that? I’m on the team, aren’t I? I came down to
help
. I’ve done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide. But it’s becoming clear—even to a well-meaning lummox like myself who stubbornly believes in everyone’s benign and charitable nature despite a lifetime’s worth of contrary evidence—that I have
no
fans in this room. In truth, I am a conviction waiting to happen.

My mind races. Should I have lawyered up like a villain in an episode of
Law and Order
? Are they going to slap the bracelets on me, read me my rights, and then lead me into the bowels of the building as if we were in an episode of
Dragnet
?

This
cannot
be happening. I’m a law-abiding citizen. A pillar of my community. I coach wrestling a few nights a week. The kids look up to me and ask for moral advice. I don’t belong here.

But I am here, and the questions are getting more and more specific. Copies of paperwork with my name on it—paperwork I ran past my bosses to make sure the deal was legal and ethical.
It’s good, Chael. We do it all the time. Put it through
. I didn’t even make any money on the deal. I did it to close out paperwork and move on. What the heck is going on?!

As I mentioned, I had no idea what money laundering was or how to go about it, so I asked my lawyer. This is how our conversation went:

Him:
Think of the biggest library you’ve ever seen, and then multiply that by three. That’s the federal law library, and nobody, and I mean
nobody
, knows what is in
all
of those books. If you tell them that you didn’t do this crime, and your statement has merit, they can simply dig into those books and come up with fifteen more charges to hit you with. They’ve chosen to bring you down. They’ve chosen to end your political career, and it’s going to happen. Now, you can fight them and go before twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty, or you can go along with them. Say you did it and go home.

Me:
All that happened was one guy gave another guy some money. Nobody knew this law existed, including our team of attorneys who approved the deal?

Him:
You are dealing with the United States federal government, the most powerful entity on planet Earth. Just hang your head and go home.

Again, I couldn’t believe I had landed in that spot. But there I was, and there the charges were—hanging in front of me like a creature from the underworld sent back to destroy me.

And destroy me it did. It was a deal I barely understood. It involved a technicality I couldn’t have identified even if I suspected it was illegal. I hadn’t been around long enough, and wasn’t a good enough salesman, much less crook, to conceive of it as an illicit moneymaking, or money laundering, enterprise. But that didn’t change the fact that the deal and I are now handcuffed together like two brawling drunks in the back of a paddy wagon. There are no keys to this pair of cuffs. There is no way out or away from the whole mess. I am connected to this mistake for
life
. My political career, which I was hoping to begin full-time after I retired from MMA, is
shattered
. Any good I could do, any positive change I could have potentially made as a member of government, is
gone
.

Over a deal I didn’t concoct. A deal I was told was legal. A deal I didn’t profit from. And you people wonder why I act crazy sometimes?

The moral of the story is don’t trust terms like, “We do it all the time.” Even if you’re just the grand fracking facilitator and not the scumbag proper, make someone else sign. If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it’s money laundering.

itting around the ol’ homestead, engaging in some light reading of my least favorite French existentialist, I came across the above, which brought to mind something that has bothered me for a while—the uninspiring choices that fighters make in terms of their walkout music.

It’s hard to believe that the vast majority of the poor lummoxes who fight for a living have atrocious musical taste and absolutely no sense of the power and drama that they could invoke with a good walkout song, but unfortunately that is the absolute truth. Do we continue to allow them to molest one of our most prized senses in such a filthy fashion? Do we continue to stand idly by as they ruin one pay-per-view event after another?

Personally, I feel that those of us who have been blessed with a fine musical palette should help those who were clearly not. Whether it is seen by them as scolding for doing mankind a horrible injustice or as charity, this motley crew of offenders needs to be schooled in music much like a Brazilian plucked from the primitive streets of São Paulo needs to be taught how to use modern kitchen appliances like silverware. I’ve had it with the colossally unimaginative, puerile, sonic garbage that most fighters walk out to, and therefore the following is addressed as much to my fellow combatants as it is to you, my dear readers. I’m going to make some stylistic suggestions vis-à-vis walkout music in the hope of improving the quality of events and thus all of our lives.

Let me start by making an official Chael P. Sonnen Rule. If you are a fighter, and so unoriginal and clueless that you come out with “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns n’ Roses, everyone in the audience is thereby allowed to throw one shoe in your general direction as that overrated, hackneyed, played-out trash-heap of a song heralds your schlepping decent toward the cage. If you clomp out to “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” by Drowning Pool, everyone present is thereby allowed to throw
both
shoes at you. And if the ensuing deluge of hideous, overpriced, slave-labor-produced footwear does not pummel you to death or send you running back to your dressing room in fear of your miserable life, and you actually make it to the cage, you must wear a dunce cap while you take your beating. Harsh? I don’t think so. How many times have you been subjected to those two crummy songs at fights? Seriously guys, this is all you could come up with? Really? Both of those songs were bad enough the first time someone walked out to them, and it’s not like they’re getting better with repeated playing. If they sucked then and they suck now, it’s safe to assume that they will suck forever. Forget that those songs ever existed.

Next, no death metal with Cookie Monster vocals. You know
exactly
what I am talking about. No one wants to hear a lead singer trying to mimic Lucifer in the pits of hell. (And by the way, why do we all assume the devil talks like that? How does he get anything done down there if no one can understand a word he says? Has anyone on earth actually
heard
him speak? For all we know, the devil sounds like Truman Capote.) If the embarrassing Cookie Monster vocals weren’t bad enough, they are always backed up by dreadful, hyperspeed “music.” So stop. Even if that’s the garbage you waste your time listening to in the privacy of your own head, don’t torture the fans with it. You have a
job
to do, and yes, a part of that job is to
perform
in the cage. But another part is to find music that tells a story. If that is too complicated for you, then let me present a more simplistic directive: Choose a walkout song that isn’t sonically assaultive, incomprehensible, and annoying. In case that went over your thoroughly concussed head, let me spell it out in a way that could be understood even by those riding on the short bus: Death metal is
out
.