{"id":23795,"date":"2025-07-26T14:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T14:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/23795\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T14:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T14:49:10","slug":"jaw-clicked-i-fought-jon-jones-and-anderson-silva-but-the-the-head-juicer-hit-me-hardest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/23795\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Jaw clicked’ – I fought Jon Jones and Anderson Silva, but the ‘The Head Juicer’ hit me hardest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chael Sonnen has shared the Octagon with some massive punchers – but his hardest-hitting opponent may come as a surprise to many.<\/p>\n

During a 49-fight (31-17-1) professional MMA<\/a> career stretching back to 1997, Sonnen locked horns with a who’s who of future and current Hall of Famers, including Jon Jones<\/a>, Anderson Silva<\/a>, and Fedor Emelianenko.<\/p>\n

\"Sonnen<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Sonnen has taken some big shots from heavy handed foes like JonesCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

Yet Sonnen<\/a> insists that nobody had heavier hands than Demian ‘The Head Juicer’ Maia.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian MMA star isn’t known for his striking skills or his power.<\/p>\n

Rather, Maia’s legacy is defined by his elite Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu skills.<\/p>\n

Of his 28 career wins (28-11), Maia has only finished one fight inside the distance with punches.<\/p>\n

But when he duked it out with Sonnen in February 2009 at UFC<\/a> 95, he caught ‘The Bad Guy’ with a backhand that left him in excruciating pain.<\/p>\n

“The hardest I have ever been hit was by Demian Maia,” said Sonnen during a video on his YouTube channel.<\/p>\n

“Demian Maia backhanded me. He was in guard on the bottom, where you can’t even generate much power.<\/p>\n

“He reaches over like he is going to go in for a kamura, and then he brings a backhand across and it smacks me in the face.<\/p>\n

“I remember hearing a click. I remember my jaw had been hit so hard that I could hear it click.<\/p>\n

“And that is when the fight was over. That was the hardest I have ever been hit in terms of pain.”<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

It was grappler Maia who caught him with the biggest punch, thoughCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

Moments after the clubbing blow landed, Maia locked in a triangle choke to force the tap in the opening stanza.<\/p>\n

In the years that followed, both men went on to challenge for UFC titles in two separate weight classes.<\/p>\n

However, neither was able to get their hands on gold.<\/p>\n

Sonnen had two cracks at Silva’s middleweight title and a controversial shot at Jones’ light heavyweight crown one fight after losing his rematch to ‘The Spider’.<\/p>\n

The first time he fought Silva, he led by 40-36, 40-35, and 40-34\u00a0heading into the fifth and final round, only to be caught in a Hail Mary triangle choke with less than two minutes left on the clock.<\/p>\n

In his previous title defence, Silva had defeated Maia via unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

\"Sonnen<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Sonnen challenged for UFC gold three times, and despite coming desperately close against Silva, he never became a championCredit: GETTY<\/p>\n

But after dropping down to welterweight, Maia mounted another attempt at a title shot. <\/p>\n

This time, he was bested by Tyron Woodley<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chael Sonnen has shared the Octagon with some massive punchers – but his hardest-hitting opponent may come as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[23735,64,63,23734,23736,786,11877,785,9226,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-23795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-anderson-silva","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-chael-sonnen","12":"tag-demian-maia","13":"tag-fighting","14":"tag-jon-jones","15":"tag-mma","16":"tag-mma-news","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}