Chael Sonnen’s training partner Matt Lindland share some insights on why Sonnen is doing a lot of trash talking prior to his bout against the UFC middleweight champ Anderson “Spider” Silva. According to Lindland, Sonnen has been a hardcore pro wrestling fan for life.

“First of all, Chael’s always been a big pro wrestling fan. First and foremost. So we studied that sport and the entertainment side of the business for a long time. And I have to give Chael all the credit for going out there and doing it. Obviously he’s a very intelligent man to be able to pull that off. To get people to believe it and buy into it, to actually believe it so much that they did it with their wallet. They opened up their wallets and said ‘I believe in this so much I’m going to go ahead and put my money down to see you prove it.’ That says a lot. It shows what kind of salesman he is.” Lindland said via Bloodyelbow.com