How do you follow up an embarrassing July 14th arrest for battery and trespassing? Easy, you hold onto a chokehold on another fighter who has already tapped out for another 5 seconds. Sobral was quoted during his post fight interview with Joe Rogan in front of 12,000 plus booing fans at the Mandalay Bay Events Center that, “he [David Heath] needed to be taught some respect” fitting from a guy who came out to the song, “Smack My Bitch Up.”
Renato “Babalu” Sobral is a great fighter, don’t get me wrong but what he did this past Saturday night was flat out dirty. In a sport that’s trying to gain mainstream success, you can’t put the sport you love in that much danger. Imagine if something bad would’ve happened to Heath? What would be the lesson taught by Sobral there? I understand that the heat of the moment sometimes gets to you, but somebody calling you a “motherfu**er” doesn’t justify putting someone’s health in danger during a professional sporting event.
Just earlier this year, Sobral was riding a 10 fight winning streak, which included a victory over the #1 Light Heavyweight in the world (Mauricio “Shogun” Rua) and was poised to be the guy who knocks off Chuck Liddell from his championship perch, but again he came up short against the “Iceman” at UFC 62. Then he suffered another setback seven months later when he was upset by Jason Lambert at UFC 68. Now he’s facing a possible suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission (and if they don’t, I believe Dana White will) and a fine on top of that.
Renato Sobral has a lot of apologizing to do to begin repairing the poor image that he’s built for himself. For a career that was so promising only a year ago to turn into what it has, it’s tragic. For his sake though, outside of being a fighter, just being a human being he can pull through and make a life for himself that he and his family can be proud of.
