I've been waiting awhile for something sports related to post about----once Lebron signed with the Heat and the Cubs decided to wave the white flag, I thought I might have to wait until the Bears started their preseason games to blog again. That was until I watched UFC 117 last night and saw one of the most dramatic sporting comebacks in years.
I am not a die hard UFC fan---I try to catch most of their free shows on Spike Tv and the Versus Network and I'll occasionally check out a pay per view event if there is a fight that really interests me (GSP vs B.J. Penn, Brock Lesnar vs Randy Couture, etc.). When I heard a few months ago the the main event of UFC 117 would be Anderson Silva vs Chael Sonnen, I thought that might end up a being a fight card that I skipped. Though Silva is one of the most talented and respected fighters in all of MMA, he was coming off an embarrassing match-up with Demian Maia where he spent the majority of the fight dancing around the octagon and behaving oddly. Sonnen was a fighter that I didn't know too much about and I didn't expect him to challenge or bring out the best in Silva.
Then Sonnen stepped in front of a live microphone and things changed. He talked up this fight to the extent that Muhammad Ali would have been proud. Sonnen said that he would beat Silva so badly that he would retire from the sport. He claimed Silva could speak perfect English and chose not to in order to avoid dealing with fans. He insulted Silva's jiu jitsu black belt that he received from the Nogueira brothers. Sonnen basically called out Silva and challenged his manhood at every opportunity he had. What had originally seemed like a boring fight to me became something that I was curious to see. I didn't think in my wildest dreams that Sonnen would actually be able to back up any of his talk once he stepped into the octagon with Silva, but I had to tune in live to find out how Silva would react to the poking and prodding he received from Sonnen.
Then the fight started and much to everyone's surprise, Sonnen was able to do exactly to Silva as he predicted. He beat Silva to the punch on his feet and then took him down at will. Once he got Silva on the ground, he proceeded to ground and pound him to the point that I actually thought the ref may have to stop the fight in the first round. This same scenario of Sonnen taking Silva down and pounding him continued through the first 4 rounds of this 5 round fight. Sonnen had certainly won all 4 of these rounds on the judges' score cards and only way Silva could possibly win the fight would be for him to either knock Sonnen out or submit him in the 5th round.
For about 30 seconds of the final round, Silva was able to keep the fight on his feet where he had the best chance of knocking out Sonnen, but then as he had been able to do during the first 4 rounds, Sonnen took Silva down once again and began to pound him. With about a minute and a half left in the fight and Silva looking like he was about to suffer his first loss in the UFC, Sonnen had a momentary loss of concentration. In just a split second, Silva was able capitalize on Sonnen's error and slip on a triangle choke that forced Sonnen to tap out/submit. After being dominated for 23 minutes, Silva pulled off a miracle submission and created what will go down as one of the greatest and most memorable fights in MMA history. I can now only hope that Dana White is able to sign a re-match as soon as possible--there will be no doubt that I will have to tune for that one!
