Sorry for the late recap, been a busy week at work mma awesomeness aside. In my 2 years of actively watching & following this sport I have never experienced a fight as intense as the UFC 117 main event title fight between middleweight champion Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen. For the majority of mma fights you can tell who is the better fighter minutes into the first round. And as the fight progresses you may get to see if the opponent is either a slow starter, completely out of their leage, a victim of a bad style matchup or even injured.

Due to the many offensive options in mma and other factors like fatigue and overconfidence there is always a chance that a capable fighter can snatch victory out of the clutches of defeat (Duffe vs Russow). But rarely in high level mma do you see an elite fighter get put in the worst of positions:

Competing with a nagging injury that turns into a significant one.

Against an opponent whose offensive strength is your biggest defensive weakness.

Your title as champion and barring an unimpressive performance your job itself is on the line.

Anderson Silva faced all of these things, in Chael Sonnen who not only possessed the wrestling pedigree to give him fits, but also attacked with a reckless abandon devoid of the fear and trepidation most of Silvas previous opponents exhibited. For roughly 23 minutes Silva went from nigh invincible pound for pound demigod to a very flawed and human fighter who took a shellacking at the hands of a perceived gimme of a challenger in Sonnen. The previous 6 months of supposed delusional fight hype actually looked like legitimate threats, Cheal was clobbering the previously hard to hit champ, many times with a variety of strikes, from the devastating

to the desperate,

Mongolian Thunder Chops ftw

In the end it was all for naught with minutes left in the fight quite possibly the greatest comeback win in mma miraculously revealed itself in all its rapturous beauty.

The sub that sealed the greatest comeback in MMA.

Shattering loss aside, Sonnen is in the rare company of fighters who come off as winners even in defeat. He has also given the middleweight division the greatest gift of all: hope. Chael made the demi-god champion in Silva look like another mortal. In regards to a rematch I am going to have to say no to it, even though it would do gangbuster ppv sales. Chael has to win another fight and show some improved finishing skills, as he learned the hard way 5 rounds with Anderson Silva is too much time for him to find a way to finish.

The way I see it, if Anderson not only wins but finishes Sonnen again how does that look on his record years from now. I can already see future generations looking at his record and complaining about how he fought unworthy and flawed opponents and one guy back to back. Now if Sonnen manages to win the rematch, that would put them 1-1, does Silva get a rubber match? With the champ out until March 2011 it should be enough time for Chael to get another fight in. Preferably the winner of Okami vs Belfort a fight that needs to happen, you hear me Joe Silva.

The rest of the card was pretty entertaining, even the Fitch vs Alves rematch was entertaining near the end when it seemed Fitch was close to choking out the Brazilian. Alves survived to the bell losing to Fitch again, at least this time it was a UD instead of getting tko’d. Other highlights included Matt Hughes busting out a wrestling submissin (front headlock, Dave Schultz choke) Clay Guida improving his striking to the point were he is breaking jaws, but still using his scrappy top position grappling forcing his opponent to tap via injury. Heavyweight contenders Junior Dos Santos and Roy Nelson had an entertaining but one sided fight which got Junior his first decision win in the UFC and Nelson his first loss. Proving that a solid striking defense can preserve your conscience against the JDS express, if you don’t mind taking a beating in the process.

This was a card to remember and has set a high water mark for mma events in August and some would say the year. Only greedy fans like myself will hope that it will be outdone.

Thanks to my super hectic and disorganized life I will be posting this as the undercard is underway so I will refrain for making picks for one of the most stacked prelim cards the UFC has put on this year. Now onto the main card picks tonight’s event in Oakland, California.

RAFAEL DOS ANJOS VS. CLAY GUIDA – Taking The Carpenter against my better judgment, Dos Anjos is a slick BJJ player but I’m a sucker for Guidas super aggressive style even if he doesn’t have the actual firepower to back up his pace. Hopefully he was worked on his sub defense and checking leg kicks.

Guida- via Unanimous Decision

JUNIOR DOS SANTOS VS. ROY NELSON – Nelson has the grappling advantage but when I ran across this.

I realized that Nelson may have decent boxing but can be out struck by a faster boxer. JDS is a way faster boxer. Dos Santos is going to make the Arlovski KO look G rated.

Dos Santos – via Ultra Mega Combo

RICARDO ALMEIDA VS. MATT HUGHES – Hughes is a legend and a gamer but he will turn old overnight. Depending on how dominant the finish is welterweights may stop calling out Hughes to make a name for themselves.

Almeida - via sub

Mr. Ferttita is not happy with Alves

THIAGO ALVES VS. JON FITCH – The fight that the Combat Gods did not want to happen is finally upon us. The long awaited rematch between perennial top 5 welterweights Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves is going down tonight despite weigh in shenanigans on Alves’s part. This is a tough one to call since Thiago has been out of action for over a year and Fitch hasn’t shown any signs of improvement since their first fight in which Jon finished Alves with a 2nd round tko.

If anything Fitch has gotten more cautious over time (his last finish was in 2007) and still has to rely mainly on his stifling top game and wrestling to get the W. Alves on the other hand has improved his takedown defense and to complement his slashing stand up game. That being said, I can’t pick a guy whose been out of action for this long competing at the highest levels and unable to make weight.

Fitch – via UD

Middleweight Championship

CHAMP ANDERSON SILVA VS. CHAEL SONNEN – Remarkable fight hype and trash talk aside, Silva should take this. Sonnens media antics have so little to do with how this fight plays out in the cage, but leading up to everything to most people it totally does. With that talking point taken care of this is the brass tacks of the match up.

Sonnen undoubted has the wrestling to manhandle Silva, but thats as far as his bag of tricks will go (well maybe that and conditioning/cardio but you get the idea). With his rudimentary at best stand up and lackluster submission defense, Sonnen will be lucky to make it to the 4th frame. Silva has too many offensive and defensive options along with the ability to finish in both the stand up and off his back.

Silva – via The Dance of Destruction

Rivetingly edited teaser for the upcoming Silva vs Sonnen championship fight. Thanks to Nick The Face for his dedication and skill in putting this all together. Wonder if Zuffa is aware of videos like this, a ‘Make a Promo’ contest wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Check out the other amazing fan promo for UFC 113.

Its official Sonnen vs Silva for the middleweight strap. Showboater leaves town.

There seems to be conflicting views on the past weekends Lightweight title bout even between the mma statistic and analysis sites Fightmetric & Compustrike. Both tabulated the same very close fight between lightweight legend BJ Penn and the newly minted champ Frankie Edgar. Having rewatched the fight myself it’s still really close with every single round being highly competitive 10-9 only rounds the whole fight through. While Penn did land what seemed to be the harder, cleaner shots, Edgar could be seen as the busier fighter with his high mobility and calculated aggression.

Edgar clearly wanted it more, with Penn being content on waiting for countering opportunities and not cutting off the cage or event hinting at taking the fight to the ground, its easy to see why a judge would give the New Jersey native the nod. Another aspect of the fight that can not be tabulated by a statistical rubric is the perception of Penn and how it might of worked against him. All things considered this was a champion who had until UFC 112 had only been defeated once at lightweight and had finished every opponent since he won the title. Factoring that with Edgar coming in as a +500 underdog who didn’t get eviscerated in the first round and was able to hang with arguably the best boxer in mma in a striking exchange. You can entertain the idea of a judge seeing Edgar as the victor based solely on him not losing or looking particularly bad.

All in all I am glad Frankie won, but the fight was so close I still have doubts he is the best lightweight in the UFC, much less the world.

Now onto the other title fight, I will keep this one short since there is a veritable plethora of opinions on the middleweight champ, whose to blame, who does he fight next, why should we care, etc… This is how it breaks down in my eyes:

The ball is in Dana White’s court. He has to put Silva in fights against opponents who will try to beat him. Whether it is at middleweight, light heavy or heavyweight he has to face fighters who will attempt to hurt him. Demian Maia is a top tier middleweight, but we have to remember his shot at the title was the result of a perfect storm of injury’s and medical suspensions taking away first the intended opponent Vitor Belfort and then the #1 contender in Chael Sonnen. The match up of superstar striker vs decorated and feared bjj practitioner would have been compelling were it not one of the most tired match ups in mma and a repeat of Andersons last title defense against Thales Leites.

Contrary to popular belief I think Silva has now elevated himself into being a huge ppv draw or is on his way to being one. Granted he took the long way around to getting there, the UFC now has another heel champ to go along with their current heavyweight titleholder Brock Lesnar. Instead of taking things personally the UFC brass should be accommodating and put Silva through a gauntlet of super fights until he can stand no more. And the next time one of his opponents is unable to fight, just scrap the fight unless someone begs to take The Spider on. When Silva doesn’t feel like he is in danger or threatened he acts out, so only put him in fights where he will never have that option.

After spending the majority of the day away from the internet in anticipation of UFC 112 I did as much as I could to stay away from my laptop. Running around the backyard with my son, took out the trash, got some laundry done. As fight time approached I was tempted to go to twitter and when I did I quickly backed out for fear of some random tweet ruining the night. I wanted to enjoy the event unspoiled by any random update or outburst of the already 9 hour old event.

Well I succeeded here are few things that stuck out to me during the event.

- Mark Munoz is one tough S.O.B. after suffering one brutal first round from Kendall Grove. The Filipino Wrecking Machine rebounded in the 2nd frame used his wrestling and savage ground and pound to get the TKO victory.

-Terry Etim may have good submission offense but can’t hang with a bjj black belt.

- Phil Mr. Wonderful Davis is the man and is coming along nicely and his anaconda choke should have gotten sub of the night in my opinion.

- Matt Hughes played it safe and showed off inexplicable stand-up against a man who hasn’t fought professionally in 3 years.

- I was afraid Frankie Edgar was going to get destroyed by BJ Penn and was oddly happy when he went toe to toe with him and held his own. Edgars fundamental head movement and angles frustrated the then champ who seemed uncharacteristically sluggish after a couple rounds.

Be it his fabled bad cardio, fighting in the first outdoor UFC event in the Middle East, having to keep up with one of the fastest lightweights in the division, or a perfect storm of all 3, BJ just didn’t seem like his old self. Granted Edgar didn’t stand right in front of Penn like other challengers, while he did get hit the New Jersey native never seemed hurt. Even more surprising were the two takedowns Frankie landed in the last two frames of the fight. While I am going to rant like hell over the next title fight I am going to give props where they are due and call attention to one of the biggest underdog performances in UFC history.

Frankie “The Answer” Edgar shocked the world plain and simple.

-And now from one of the most surprising fights in recent UFC history to one of the worst title bouts in the Zuffa era. Anderson Silva the pound 4 pound greatest fighter in the world as told by Dana White put on yet another lackluster performance that went went form silly to infuriating over the course of 5 rounds as he clowned, jeered then ran away from a over matched but game contender Demian Maia. It was made crystal clear that Maia had nothing for Silva standing in the first 3 frames of the fight, which had the champ putting on an clinic that could only be be described as mma improv comedy. As Demian shadow boxed his way into striking range he was promptly greeted with the effortless array of kicks, punches and knees that we have come to expect from The Spider.

Then things got weird, when Maia tried to prep himself for some telegraphed long distance double legs takedowns, Silva began to goad and harass him to exchange in some stand up action. Being that he already tried and failed Maia opted to try to get the fight to where he had the advantage. That didn’t happen but what did will be seen as exhibit A in the case against Anderson Silva being a ppv draw. Nobody likes a cocky jackass, plain and simple all the talent in the world won’t get you fans as much as just being a humble person. Not being an English speaker Anderson’s actions and octagon decorum is how he is gauged and perceived by the public and in his past 3 fights Silva to most casual and hardcore fans is coming off like a disrespectful bully. But one who is so predisposed with mocking his opponents he doesn’t bother to actually show and prove by finishing them. Granted he did take out Forrest Griffin in his last light heavyweight bout at UFC 101. But this is the second consecutive title defense in where Silva has chosen to play it safe by only engaging on his terms and heckling his opponents for doing the same. Never had I heard such disdain and disappointment from a crowd post title fight.

On a fight card filled with grappling legends such as Renzo Gracie, Matt Hughes, BJ Penn and Demain Maia in a grappling and submission friendly country like Abu Dhabi it would be safe to assume that the night would be filled with outrageously competitive ground wars. Or at least if the fights were to take place entirely on the ground there wouldn’t be a litany of boos emanating from the crowd as soon as the fight went to the ground, but there were few and far between.

- Props are also in order for Big Tan Dan Mirgliotta doing a decent job as ref for once, as he tardily warned Anderson Silva to fight instead of retreat near the end of the 25 minute fight. Better late than never :/

I can only imagine the fury of Dana White after this event having to yet again apologize for the unremarkable performance of what he calls the best fighter on the planet. Coupled with the fact that both Strikeforce & Bellator are holding events this month the UFC didn’t set too high a ceiling for both organizations to surpass. If Zuffa is smart they will put their full weight and leverage of their advertising department on promoting WEC 48 along with giving the fans a break by having the organizations first ppv be at a reasonable price ($30 sounds fair to me). The shockwaves from this event will be felt in the weeks to come.

But I am done being bitter about it (for now at least)and will re-watch WEC 41 to remind myself how awesome MMA can be.

Anderson training for his UFC 112 title defense. Hanging out with his father and passing the ways of awesomeness down to his son.

Demian Maia believes all he needs to do is more or less grab a limb and he’ll take Anderson Silva out. Seriously though, the way Silva moves and strikes that like saying, “all I need to do is catch a lightning bolt and hold onto it.” I really like Maia and believe he’s great at what he does, hopefully he’s got some slick tricks up his sleeve.