Anderson Silva has defeated Chael Sonnen for a second time tonight at UFC 148, and this time in much more emphatic fashion than their first ecounter, though he did have to survive a shaky start.
From the off Sonnen came charging forward and dodged some power punches from Silva as he swooped for the early takedown.
A big confidence booster for Sonnen early and he was able to hold the position, with Silva looking to tie him up and perhaps force a stand-up.
Sonnen was able to slowly move to half-guard though. From their he wasn’t offering much in the way of his offense, but when he did land some shots they were effective and kept the referee at bay.
With a minute left Sonnen’s workrate was increasing and then he suddenly postured up and slickly moved into the full mount. It was a great position for him so early in the fight, but he didn’t do too much with it other than land a few shoulder shrugs. Nonetheless, it’s a huge round for the challenger and almost a mirror image of many of the rounds that he dominated in their last fight.
Sonnen’s gameplan was now clearly laid out and in the second he immediately rushed forward and attempted to get his opponent to the mat once again. Silva was ready for it this time though and was able to stuff the attempt and after clinching up briefly they broke free.
Silva looks to land strikes, but he’s throwing uncharacteristically wild and is missing the target. Silva drops his hands as he walks backwards and Sonnen lands a straight punch.
You can sense that Sonnen is keen to get another takedown, but he tries to mix things up a little and opts for a spinning backfist against the cage.
He gets it horriblly wrong though and misses as Silva ducks out of the way, resulting in him tumbling to the mat.
That’s the opening Silva was waiting for and he pounces at Sonnen with a vicious knee strike. At first it looks as if it was an illegal strike to the head, but it turns out it landed on his chest which is perfectly legal, and it was the turning point for the whole fight as it clearly hurt the challenger who slumped onto his side.
Silva began throwing down blows on his head and Sonnen appeared dazed. He managed to get back up, but was met with a flurry of strikes and quickly dropped back down again.
More ground and pound strikes followed and with Sonnen simply turtled up and offering no resistance the referee had no option but to bring an end to the contest with 1.55mins of the second round gone.
All credit to Silva who must have been concerned in the opening round after having been taken down so easily. He remained patient though and when his opportunity arrived he seized it with both hands with typical ruthless efficiency.
Respect to Sonnen as well though as he showed in the first round that his last performance against the champion wasn’t a mere fluke. His wrestling prowess was undoubtedly one piece of the puzzle to beating the Brazilian legend, but as with the previous challengers to his title he just couldn’t match his unparalleled striking prowess.
