To the surprise of the MMA world, Chael Sonnen not only backed-up all of his trash talk but nearly became the next UFC Middleweight Champion. After months and months of degrading Silva and promising to be the one to dethrone the champion, Sonnen did what no man has ever done to Silva—controlled and dominated him for nearly five full rounds, even knocking him to ground with punches on more than one occasion.
As the fight began Sonnen wasted no time in engaging Silva, proving that he wasn’t afraid of the champion. After a very brief feeling-out session, the two began exchanging hands. Sonnen landed an excellent straight right, staggering Silva, much to the surprise of the announcers and everyone else watching. That right hand set up what would be the first of many takedowns. Sonnen shot in and took Silva to the ground, where he began to land strike after strike. Silva appeared to weather the storm OK, but was visibly shaken after the end of round one.
Most people watching assumed this fight would go the way of the Silva-Henderson fight, and that Sonnen would get swiftly knocked out or submitted once Silva had the chance to bring the fight back to its feet. That, however, was not the case. Sonnen came back with another, almost immediate takedown and continued his ground-and-pound onslaught.
This same takedown/ground-and-pound approach continued for most of the fight, and while Sonnen’s strikes from the guard weren’t particularly devastating, they were landing and taking more and more energy out of Silva. It appeared with only a few minutes left in the final round that Sonnen was going to be the new middleweight champion.
This, unfortunately for Sonnen, was not the case. Silva locked up an excellent triangle choke from his back that he had been working on the entire fight. Sonnen attempted to counter and Silva changed to a triangle/armbar combination submission. Sonnen tapped out, narrowly missing the middleweight title.
Although this devastating, last-minute loss was not the way Sonnen had hoped to finish, this fight was pivotal for two reasons: It exposed some gaping holes in Silva’s game that everyone knew were there, and it put Chael Sonnen on the MMA map. Sonnen is expected to receive a rematch if Silva retains his championship belt after his match with Vitor Belfort.
Tags: Anderson Silva, Middleweight, UFC
