UFC 117 Sonnen vs. Silva Recap

I finally called a winner correctly.  Anderson Silva beat Chael Sonnen with just under two minutes left in the last round.  Many were predicting a submission as Chael has had all of his losses by submission and is somewhat susceptible to triangles.  I called for a KO because, well, I wanted to see a KO, but it just didn’t happen that way.  Instead Anderson caught his with a triangle/arm bar combination.

Funny aside: Chael tapped from that triangle choke/armbar, and then seemed to claim that he hadn’t tapped after ref Josh Rosenthal broke it up.  It was like his first fight with Paulo Filho where Sonnen turned to the ref and screamed after being caught in an armbar, and then tried to act like he never intended to submit. The Gracies call it “the Brazilian tap:

People were surprised as Sonnen was ahead of Silva for almost the entire fight.  As Sonnen predicted in his pre-fight interviews, he took Silva down, almost at will.  I personally was surprised that Sonnen was able to land some shots on Silva from the standing position.  Because I’m a big Silva fan, it was a bit hard to see Silva dominated like that, although I suppose it would have made quite a splash if Silva had lost.  It was also hard to watch given the nonsense that Sonnen had been spouting beforehand.  I know he was just trying to hype the fight–no one would care otherwise–but I would’ve liked to see him get it handed right back at him.

Now you’re going to read some things about this fight on the web about how Sonnen “dominated” Silva.  I guess that’s somewhat true if you feel that the top position is necessarily better than the bottom, but let me set the record straight on a few things, particularly with respect to the claim that Sonnen was beating up Silva.

First, people need to take the context into consideration.  Silva was in a very tough position.  He had Dana White threatening to fire him for not going for the finish.  Exactly why he gets threatened for not finishing while Sonnen never finishes his opponents is not really something I’d speculate on, but that’s some enormous pressure there.  Most guys get graded on results, but for whatever reason, Anderson gets the unfair burden of having to be exciting too. He couldn’t set the pace because Dana White was threatening to fire him.

Second, as Silva said after the fight, he was injured.  He had been training with Lyoto and judo Olympic gold medalist Ishii, which is why he wasn’t his usual self.  I think it was clear that he wasn’t moving as quickly as he usually does.

Third, it’s incorrect to say that Sonnen has been pounding on his opponents.  People need to examine what’s really happening in Sonnen’s fights.  Sonnen is good at Lay and Pray, NOT Ground and Pound.  He’s good at sitting on top of his opponent for three or five straight rounds and preventing his opponent from getting up.  But that doesn’t mean he’s inflicting damage.  His Marquardt and Silva fights were exactly the same–Sonnen spent oodles of time in the “top” position, while his opponents battered away on his head from the bottom.  He was bleeding all over Marquardt, and his eye was almost zippered shut by Silva’s elbows.  Both Marquardt and Silva looked clean after the fight.  Even after absorbing what Joe Rogan called “bombs” through twenty plus minutes of fighting, Anderson Silva’s face looked untouched.  There’s a reason why he has 0 knockouts in his UFC/WEC career.

In any case, it was a fun fight to watch.  Not as satisfying as I had hoped, but at least I called it right.  After the fight, both Sonnen and Silva showed class. Good work and congratulations to both men.

Also, I’m not usually a big Matt Hughes fan, but he had a really cool looking modified Anaconda Choke. Check it out.

Related posts:

1. Chael "Boring" Sonnen at UFC 109
2. UFC 116 Recap
3. UFC this past weekend, UFC next weekend (predictions)
4. BJ Penn and Anderson Silva Win
5. Ed Lin Event Recap