UFC 148: The Cementing of a Legacy

UFC 148: Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen II was the most hyped and anticipated fight in the history of the promotion. The pay-per-view buys in the United States have not been released yet, but UFC president Dana White predicts that the numbers will break the UFC 100 record from 2009 which was a reported 1.6 million buys. However in Brazil thus far its been released that 19 million people viewed the fight on television. The "live gate" numbers for the event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas approached $7 million and were by far the highest in MMA history. UFC 148 Preliminaries on FX have also set a new record for UFC prelims on that network with 1.8 million viewers. The Spike TV all-time record for UFC preliminary fights was set last year at UFC 126 with 2 million average viewers.

The UFC could have made their profit margin even greater if they didn't fail to secure air time on FX or Fox for the UFC 148 Countdown or Primetime specials, because that could have sold the event to hundreds of thousands of casual MMA fans.

Now let's talk about the fight!

Anderson Silva (30-4 MMA, 15-0 UFC) and Chael Sonnen (28-12-1 MMA, 6-5 UFC), who insulted the champion Silva, his family, and his native country Brazil, first fought each other 2 years ago at UFC 117. At that time Silva was already the UFC’s seemingly unbeatable champion, and heavy underdog Sonnen attacked and dominated Silva for the entire fight, except for the final 1 minute. It was with 1 minute left in the 5th round that Anderson Silva miraculously came back with a fantastic submission of Chael Sonnen, on what was later said to be the greatest come back in UFC history. Anderson Silva reported after the fight that he was fighting with multiple minor injuries that slowed him down and kept him out of sync throughout the five rounds. Also, Urinalysis conducted after Sonnen's loss to Silva showed he had an unallowably high testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) ratio of 16.9:1 at the time of the fight. An average man has a T/E ratio of 1:1, and testing bodies may allow a ratio as high as 4:1 for athletes. In other words, Sonnen's T/E ratio was nearly 17 times than a normal man's and over four times the allowed maximum for an athlete. He was fined $2,500 and suspended for one year (until September 2, 2011) by the California State Athletic Comission (CSAC). His scheduled rematch with Silva was subsequently cancelled.

The rematch finally came along 2 years later and it seemed like it would go the same way after Sonnen came out furiously attacking the champ and scoring an early take down, he even took top position and controlled the entire first round. However, the champ decided to react a little sooner this time and in the second round after Sonnen slipped following an ill advised spinning back fist attempt, the champ reacted with a powerful knee to the chest. Sonnen then fell to his side and Silva unloaded a masterful sequence of punches to force the TKO stoppage at the 1:55 mark of the second round.

After the fight, Silva did not seem to be rattled by his adversary's offensive remarks, and after taking the microphone away from the reporter he said "Chael disrespected my country, but it's fine. Yeah, I have big emotions." he then added in Portuguese "... let's show that Brazil has manners. I want everyone to applaud Chael. (And) Chael if you'd like to have a barbecue at my house, I'd love to have you over for one and my wife will cook for us."

Silva now has won 16 consecutive fights, including a record 15 straight in the UFC. He also scored his UFC record 10th title defense to cement his status as the greatest fighter in MMA history.