Built from Chael Sonnen’s own numbers — record, form, fighting style and standout rate. Not reported prose. Grappling-led all-rounder
6' 1" southpaw grappling-led all-rounder campaigning at Light Heavyweight. 7 UFC wins — 2 submission, 5 decision. Top 4% of Light Heavyweights: absorbs only 1.1 significant strikes a minute and avoids 62% of the strikes thrown at him.
The facts, plainly — vitals and record from public UFC statistics; nickname, nationality and camp from the public fighter register. A field we can't source stays “pending”; it never shows a fake value. Where a fighter was born and where they fight out of come from their Wikipedia entry; where we hold neither, the hometown shown is Sherdog’s. The UFC record is counted from the official results themselves, and is dated by the first and last bout it counts.
| Nickname | pending |
| Nationality | United States |
| Hometown (per Sherdog) | West Linn, Oregon |
| Camp | Team Quest |
| Height | 6' 1" |
| Reach | 73" |
| Stance | Southpaw |
| Age | 49 |
| Date of birth | Apr 03, 1977 |
| Weight | 205 lbs. |
| Pro record | 29-15-1 |
| UFC record | UFC 7-7 first fight 2005-10-07 · last fight 2013-11-16 |
| Finish split | 7 UFC wins — 2 submission, 5 decision |
Every week Chael Sonnen has stood in the official UFC rankings, one row per table, 2 of them, each band running from the table that set it to the table that changed it.
Official UFC.com official rankings, 2013–present · rankings of 6 October 2026
A published rank holds until the next table changes it, so a band runs from the table that set it to the table that ended it — that is how a ranking works, and it is why an unbroken reign is drawn unbroken. Nothing is interpolated: the band is the last published STATUS, never a rank in between, and the hatched stretches are weeks the archive holds no table for at all. The champion band sits above #1 because a belt is not a rank. The three pound-for-pound tables — the combined one to January 2020, then the Men's and Women's ones — share a row, because they are one standing under three names.
Career averages over Chael Sonnen’s UFC bouts, straight from public UFC statistics — the same eight numbers on his official record. These are the source’s figures, not our read: what we make of them is the card below.
Six 0–100 scores, each a percentile rank against the Light Heavyweight field — not against the whole roster. Tap any i for what a score measures.
Where the strikes go — and where they land on him. Career UFC totals, straight off the tape.
Significant strikes only, as recorded by UFCStats, across the fighter's whole UFC career. Shares are raw counts — nothing here is modelled or smoothed. Accuracy is landed ÷ attempted and comes from the per-round tape, which covers slightly fewer fights than the totals do. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average.
The level change — how often it lands, how often it is stopped. Career UFC rates, straight off the tape.
Rate bars run to the population’s 95th percentile (6.25 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.
Career UFC takedown rates exactly as UFCStats publishes them: takedowns landed per 15 minutes, completion rate, submission attempts per 15 minutes, and the share of takedowns tried on them that they stuffed. Attempts per 15 is the one derived figure — landed ÷ completion rate — and it is omitted wherever either input is missing. UFCStats writes 0% where no attempt was recorded at all, so a percentage of exactly zero reads “n/a” here rather than as a measured rate. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average.
Pro record: 29-15-1. In the UFC: 7-7. Chael Sonnen’s last 8 UFC bouts, most recent first — the result in the cage, not our pick.
Straight off the official UFC fight record. Card names are left off on purpose: the only event labels in our data are derived, and we’d rather print nothing than print one that’s wrong.
3 post-fight bonuses since the UFC’s bonus programme began in 2006 — 2 Fight of the Night, 1 Submission of the Night.
| Date | Award | Opponent | Event | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-08-17 | SOTN | Submission of the Night | Mauricio Rua | UFC Fight Night: Shogun vs Sonnen |
| 2010-08-07 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Anderson Silva | UFC 117: Silva vs Sonnen |
| 2010-02-06 | FOTN | Fight of the Night | Nate Marquardt | UFC 109: Relentless |
The UFC's post-fight bonus programme began in 2006, so every total here is a career total since 2006. A fighter who fought only before then has no bonuses because the award did not exist yet. Fight of the Night is a shared award and is credited to both fighters. Performance, Knockout and Submission of the Night are individual awards, credited to the fighter the official record names.
Awards whose recipient the official list does not name are credited to nobody, so these counts are a floor: 245 of 1,339 Performance of the Night and 1 of 180 Submission of the Night awards are unassigned as of 11 October 2026.
| Date | Opponent | Method | Rd | Event | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-11-16 | L | Rashad Evans | KO/TKO | R1 | UFC 167: St-Pierre vs Hendricks |
| 2013-08-17 | W | Mauricio Rua | Submission | R1 | UFC Fight Night: Shogun vs Sonnen |
| 2013-04-27 | L | Jon Jones | KO/TKO | R1 | UFC 159: Jones vs Sonnen |
| 2012-07-07 | L | Anderson Silva | KO/TKO | R2 | UFC 148: Silva vs Sonnen 2 |
| 2012-01-28 | W | Michael Bisping | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC on FOX: Evans vs Davis |
| 2011-10-08 | W | Brian Stann | Submission | R2 | UFC 136: Edgar vs Maynard 3 |
| 2010-08-07 | L | Anderson Silva | Submission | R5 | UFC 117: Silva vs Sonnen |
| 2010-02-06 | W | Nate Marquardt | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC 109: Relentless |
| 2009-10-24 | W | Yushin Okami | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC 104: Machida vs Shogun |
| 2009-05-23 | W | Dan Miller | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC 98: Evans vs Machida |
| 2009-02-21 | L | Demian Maia | Submission | R1 | UFC 95: Sanchez vs Stevenson |
| 2006-05-27 | L | Jeremy Horn | Submission | R2 | UFC 60: Hughes vs Gracie |
| 2006-04-06 | W | Trevor Prangley | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC Fight Night 4 |
| 2005-10-07 | L | Renato Sobral | Submission | R2 | UFC 55: Fury |
Every date links to that bout’s own page. Card names come from the official event record; where the UFC ran two cards on one date, or that record has no row for it, the Event column is left empty rather than filled with a guess.
The 9 cities Chael Sonnen has fought a UFC bout in, the camp on the record and the hometown on the record. Every pin was looked up by name in OpenStreetMap’s gazetteer and stored with the answer it gave; nothing here is estimated.
Coastline: Natural Earth (public domain). Pins: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Every host city and camp on one map.