Anderson Silva vs Chael Sonnen: Was It the Biggest Sporting Event of the Summer?

Let's immediately get this out of the way: I am not counting the Olympics. They supersede everything. So, for the sake of the argument let's leave the Games out of it.

And I will eliminate Euro 2012 as well. It started before summer began. Is that cheating? Maybe, but tournaments are a process. Each game makes the next more important.

With that out of the way, I have to say yes, UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen II is the biggest sporting event of the summer.

What else is going on? Wimbledon, Le Tour de France, the MLB All-Star Game and what else? Maybe I am skipping over something crucial.

What makes this the biggest event is that it transcended. It went beyond the casual fan and grabbed the interest of the non-fan—folks who have never bought a pay-per-view and never watched MMA suddenly became curious about the hype. To what extent we will find out when the buyrate comes in.

Anderson Silva was trending the USA on Twitter from before noon ET onward. By the time the main event ended he was trending for more than 12 hours. Remarkable.

Another piece that makes this event so special is how rare it is to get a fight like this. Even the bad blood between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans could not generate the interest this fight had. In part it's because they did not have a first fight like Sonnen and Silva.

This fight could be compared to other combat sports' rematches in terms of anticipation. The weigh-in crowd on Friday showcased how much fans cared about this card. We have never seen that before.

The other events may have some nice stories that come along, but they do not have the backstory of this fight: a dominant champion, the greatest of all time, pushed to the limits in the first fight against a loud-mouthed contender who backed up his talk.

It was polarizing. Take a gander at any B/R article featuring Silva and Sonnen and read the comment section. There was virtually no middle ground for fans. It was one or the other.

It mattered to fans on a personal level. That's why it is special.

Other events do not touch the fans like that. Fans may like to watch a particular event or are even fans of a particular athlete, but rarely are they so involved with the event on a personal level where they come to bat for their athlete, team or sport.

As 2012 moves forward we will see how big this fight was in retrospect. Twitter may release the tweets-per-second stat they have in the past for the World Cup and other large events. The buyrate will come in and fans will continue to discuss the event and its fighters.

Nothing else touches UFC 148 this summer. It was a transcendent event that connected with people—a rarity in athletics, no matter what the sport.