Way back in the day, long before he’d broken through as one of the UFC’s most compelling draws, Chael Sonnen was breaking through the floorboards against a fellow by the name of Jason Miller at the “Rumble on the Reservation.” I say “a fellow by the name of” because that’s exactly how Sonnen relayed it to me in 2010 as if I’d never heard of “Mayhem” Miller.

I only mention any of this to illustrate the fact that Sonnen never takes a reporter’s knowledge for granted. He assumes you’re an idiot, and at some point, whether it’s early in a conversation or years down the line, he’ll let you know that his assumptions were correct.

Anyway, he and this fellow Miller crashed through the floorboards after a takedown. They didn’t bust all the way through, but they left a big hole in that makeshift contraption that they officially called a ring. They kept going even with the hole because back in 2002, the renegade air of cagefighting outdid any feeble calls for fighter safety. Sonnen persevered that night to take a unanimous decision, and that fight — in all its Wild West glory — turned him into a bit of a storyteller. He can tell you stories about any of the fights he’s had over the past 18 years, and you’d be happy to note that some of the stuff (some being the operative word) he says is true.

What is definitive, though, is that he’s fought just about every big name in the industry, often turning ordinary fights into must-see affairs. To look at his resume is to thumb through the pages of MMA history.

There was the fight with Jon Jones, in which Jones’ big toe ended up at a right angle. There was that series with Anderson Silva, which rocketed him into stardom and changed the way the fight game perceived self-marketing. There was Fedor, Wandy, Bisping, Tito, Rashad, Rampage. He beat Yushin Okami (when Okami was rolling) and dominated Nate Marquardt (when Marquardt was seemingly unbeatable).

The list goes on. He squared off with Forrest Griffin right before Griffin became Griffin. In 2003, he fought Akihiro Gono to a draw in Japan, the same Gono who showed up to his UFC 94 fight with Jon Fitch wearing a beautiful sequin dress. He lost three times to a man they called “Gumby,” and shrugged off every damn one of them. He lost to Demian Maia right before going on his unlikely run toward a middleweight title.

Overall, Sonnen’s lost 16 times in his MMA career, yet he’s won almost double that. He’s had title shots and has come very close to winning one. Who can forget UFC 117 when Sonnen backed up his every word against Anderson Silva for four-and-a-half rounds, only to get caught with a triangle armbar with less than two minutes left? That fight, with its remarkable storylines and the plot twist at the end, was — in that moment — the most enthralling piece of theater the UFC had ever known. It helped set up the most highly anticipated rematch in the promotion’s history, and for two years Sonnen dominated the conversation in MMA.

(Josh Hedges / Getty Images)

His greatest trick wasn’t turning himself into a megastar, but in turning Anderson Silva into a megastar. That was something the UFC couldn’t do without him. And he did that by assigning people their rooting interests in the rematch at UFC 148.

Some of those people wanted Sonnen to win. Others wanted to see him get his ass kicked. Some connected him to the colors of the American flag, and others saw him as its worst kind of representation. He was hated and reviled and celebrated with equal fervor, so smug and belligerent and articulate and charming all at once. He became MMA’s pound-for-pound king of audacity, a designation that left him wide open for disappointment.

That rematch with Silva was a great example. After two years of build-up, he lost early in the second round after taking a knee to the body. That was that. Poof. The UFC’s greatest rivalry was resolved. It was … what’s the word I’m looking for… anticlimactic. Afterward, an episode of “The MMA Beat” compared him to Jim Morrison, who’d famously described himself as having the soul of a clown, which forced him to blow it in the most important moments.

Harsh? With Sonnen, nothing has ever felt too harsh, too glowing, or too polarizing. He’s been large enough to accommodate all adjectives being flung at him. Part of what makes him who he is is that he owns his own complexities. He lives in a world of slants. He’s built a career on sharp angles. Who needs literal truths when you can shape hysteria to fill in the cracks? Sonnen always had a bit of a pro wrestler in him.

Over the course of his career, nobody’s been better at blurring the lines between fact and fiction. At some point, Chael became the “Gangster from West Linn,” later graduating simply to “The Bad Guy.” That’s the name he uses on his ESPN show that currently airs every Wednesday with Ariel Helwani. “The Bad Guy”. Those names were hard earned through suspensions, fits of hypocrisy, fibs, money laundering pleas, real estate ventures, political dealings, Lance Armstrong musings and wild stories of Big Nog feeding carrots to busses. In short, he earned those tags through events that lived in the gray areas of real life and bled over to the cage. He learned somewhere along the way that in the fight game, perception needs a guide.

If there’s been a constant through Sonnen’s career, it’s that he always shows up. If he signs on for a fight, he never fails to make the walk. He’s happy to tell you about that, too; modesty isn’t one of his strong suits.

The other constant? The feeling of being the genuine article. It’s really hard to hate Chael Sonnen. It’s hard not to laugh at his on-air quips or to align with him when he gets to telling it like it is, or when he gets to egging on an opponent. He’s mostly sincere.

Even heading into his Bellator 222 fight with Lyoto Machida on Friday night, Sonnen penned a piece for ESPN.com that swings him back into favor. The piece was entitled: “Chael Sonnen at 42: ‘I’m going to keep going until I fulfill my promise.’” The promise he made was to his late father that he would win a world title in MMA. It’s the only promise he says he hasn’t kept. It’s won’t be easy. Machida is a fellow twilight fighter, but a dangerous one — the kind who’s won three in a row and has likely envisioned punching Sonnen in his head for years.

Should Sonnen beat Machida, he’d still have to get through the dual-division champion Ryan Bader, either at light heavyweight or heavyweight. That’s not a very easy path to a dream. In fact, it might feel a little nightmarish to a man in his 40s clinging to a promise made so many years ago.

Still, through all the versions we’ve seen of Sonnen, this topic has always remained: He does really want to win a title. The thought has driven him to great heights, just as it has clouded his judgment. It has kept him in the gym, even through his banishment for banned substances from 2013-2017. It has gnawed at him and mocked him and reinvented his resolve at each deficit. The idea keeps him coming back.

As we get late in the game, he’s still making that walk. He’s gunning for the same thing he’s been gunning for since he transitioned to MMA from the University of Oregon’s wrestling team. Like so many others, he traded in his singlet for the four-ounce gloves. Unlike so many of the others, he has changed the game in which he played.

Without Sonnen, who knows if there would be a Conor McGregor? Who knows what becomes of Anderson Silva? Who knows if Bellator would ever show up at MSG, or if ESPN would be as gung-ho to partner with the UFC? So much of what Sonnen did became a formula for success, both for the UFC and for the fighters coming up behind him. The most unsung part of his game has been his ability to communicate his own failures.

He got more adept at that than he probably ever wanted.

Would it be a failure if Sonnen never wins a title? From reading his piece, he seems to believe it would. But that, too, is a slant. From the guy who at one time ruled the fight game to the one who is making a last push for a title in Bellator, there is a different angle to consider.

That being that Chael Sonnen — for all his flaws and triumphs — has meant more to the sport of MMA than can be weighed in gold. It’s not likely to change if Machida wins on Saturday night. Just like he did to the ring floor all those years ago against that fellow named Jason Miller, Sonnen has left his mark in MMA.

Even an idiot can see that.

(Top photo: Josh Hedges / Getty Images)