Wanderlei Silva turned back the clock to the PRIDE era tonight as he KO’d Brian Stann in true ‘Axe-Murderer’ fashion in front of a delighted Japanese audience at ‘UFC On Fuel TV 8’.
Silva keeping his distance in the opening 30 seconds then Stann suddnely takes a leaf out of his opponents book by suddenly launching bezerker style into a flurry of strikes.
They are landing, but against the cage Silva starts to fire back and it’s an all-out fire fight.
Silva goes for the clinch and lands a knee. Stann unleashing vicious uppercuts and Silva drops to the mat, perhaps hurt but immediately moving into a takedown attempt which is shut down.
They break apart after another short exchange of punches and Silva grins, motioning Stann to come forward before lunging forward with a big right hook.
Another crazy toe-to-toe exchange breaks out and they are both connecting hard, but it’s Silva’s legs who buckle first and he has to desperately reach for the clinch in an attempt to regain his bearings.
Silva may be hurt, but Stann is also bleeding from a cut to his nose.
They exchange against the cage and Stann clips Silva to the groin with a kick that brings a momentary stoppage to this already crazy fight.
They get back to it and it’s not long before it all kicks off again with Stann initiating with a barrage of blows that knocks Silva off-balance, but he bites down on his gumshield and fires back, and the crowd goes wild when a punch lands that drops Stann.
‘The All-American’ is right back up though and continuing to let his hands go and gets Silva to the mat and works some ground and pound as the round comes to a close.
Onto round two and after a frantic first round the pace slows as the two men attempt to start picking their shots from range.
Stann’s nose is still bleeding prefusely, but Silva’s not landing too many shots as he waits to counter his opponent’s offense.
Another groin shot to Silva forces another stoppage.
Back to it we go and Stann lands a few kicks. Both men still fighting within themselves here, but then suddenly Silva presses forward and rocks Stann with a right hand down the pipe, then floors him with a left hook.
‘The Axe-Murderer’ swarms on Stann with bombing right hooks on the mat and he’s done it, Stann’s knocked out!
Stunning stuff and a fitting end to a spectacular fight from both men who left it all on the line here and served up an instant classic.
