Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen: Did It Live Up to the Hype?

Let’s be honest: There has never been a fight in UFC history with as much hype around it as last night’s UFC 148 main event.

Over the years, there have been fights that have been its equal as far as pre-fight excitement is concerned, but for the first time it felt like MMA and especially its media were big enough to truly build suspense around a huge main event.

This was made all too easy by Chael Sonnen, who was dropping pipe bombs à la CM Punk every time he got anywhere near a microphone. By the time Sonnen was set to step into the cage, Anderson Silva had done more than enough to sell the fight himself.

Whether it was Sonnen’s comments on Silva’s wife and Brazil, or Silva’s conference-call verbal assault and shoulder-bump at the weigh-ins, these two gave the world plenty to talk about leading up to one of, if not the, most anticipated fight in MMA history.

By the time the actual fight rolled around, it seemed like it would take a five-round war for the ages if this fight truly wanted to live up to its potential. Surprisingly, the somewhat anti-climactic two-round affair proved its purpose.

The atmosphere surrounding the main event was extraordinary. You could almost feel the electricity coming through your television set as Yves Lavigne had the fighters meet in the center of the cage. At that moment I realized that there was no way for this fight to fail.

By most standards, the first round of Silva-Sonnen was a miserable thing to watch. Sonnen got the takedown within seconds, but despite eventually getting all the way to mount he was unable to do any significant damage.

However, even though the action was incredibly lackluster by MMA standards, the hype around the fight made every second feel special.

By the time Silva stuffed a few Sonnen takedown attempts and swarmed the challenger with punches, the fight had already lived up to every bit of the buildup.

Really, it didn’t matter what the outcome of Silva-Sonnen II was.

Silva came out and cemented his status as the best fighter in the world, but a five-round ground-and-pound clinic by Sonnen would have been equally as electric as Silva’s TKO victory.

The pre-fight trash talk and altercations did all of the work. All Silva and Sonnen had to do was show up to fight.