Once he had that, the journal have a bullshit response that it was passed two months since the original article was published, and so not eligible for publication. Sokal through his connections, went to the CEO to get that decision over ruled (edit: by threatening that the journal would be humiliated by refusing to publish it). The original debunker would never have got that far on his own.
To me, this sounds like a process that is far from some sort of egalitarian "judge ideas on their merit rather than the person presenting them." If he hasn't got Sokal involved, I wonder if this would have gotten published at all.
Edit: also, this casts a pretty negative light on the field, given that it's been cited 350+ times in this field. Not one of those other papers dug into the content (or understood it) enough to question it, and/or raise the alarm bells. It's one thing Its one thing if this was some obscure paper that never got eyes on it, but that is obviously not the case.