Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen: 5 Fights for Sonnen to Take Next

Five minutes into the UFC middleweight title fight between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen, the entire MMA world had the same basic thought: “Here we go again.”

It took roughly five seconds for Sonnen to grab Silva, and after a slight resistance from the champion, Sonnen was exactly where he wanted to be.

Much like the majority of their first bout, Sonnen used his top control and pitter-patter ground-and-pound to make the fight ugly, but this time Silva remained far more composed and simply avoided as much damage as possible.

By the time the bell rang to start the second round, Silva looked like a new fighter, and after thwarting a few takedown attempts from the challenger, he landed a barrage of strikes that sent Sonnen back to the end of the line of middleweight contenders.

Sonnen has been here before, and he knows exactly what he needs to do to get back to Silva and try to quite literally wrestle the belt away from the champion: win some more fights.

Now that he’s made himself a household name amongst MMA fans, don’t expect Sonnen to fall too terribly far from the top of the division. He’ll likely end up fighting another big-name opponent in his next bout.

Wanderlei Silva

This fight just makes too much sense.

Sonnen has done nothing but bad-mouth the PRIDE legend for the last few years, and Wanderlei himself has said he wants to fight Sonnen on several occasions.

Honestly, this is a terrible matchup for “The Axe Murderer” unless he has some amazing takedown defense we don’t know about. However, grudge matches sell fights, and the UFC can easily make some money off of a Sonnen-Silva bout.

This would be a solid Fight Night main event or even a decent co-headliner on a smaller PPV card, especially if they decide to book it in Brazil this October.

Rich Franklin

We go from Wanderlei Silva to the man who recently defeated him.

Despite being well over the age of 30, Rich Franklin looked pretty darn good against Silva in last month’s UFC 147 main event.

While Wanderlei is a much better stylistic matchup for Franklin than Sonnen is, “Ace” proved he has plenty left in the tank against Silva, and a win over a top guy like Sonnen would catapult him into title contention.

While it’s unlikely Franklin or Sonnen would get a title fight with a win over the other (after all, they both have multiple losses to the champ), the winner would be in pretty good shape in the case that Silva decides to retire soon.

Mark Munoz (If He Loses to Chris Weidman)

Remember when Sonnen was supposed to fight Mark Munoz at UFC on FOX 2?

Unfortunately, Munoz was forced to pull out of that bout on extremely short notice following an injury, but an eventual matchup between two of the best wrestlers in the division could be a lot of fun.

These two have actually competed against each other once before, by way of a college wrestling match. In a lot of MMA fights between tough wrestlers we end up seeing them slug it out on the feet.

Munoz has proved he has the knockout power to rattle anyone in the 185-pound division, but Sonnen has some seriously underrated striking of his own. He could get a chance to showcase it against "The Filipino Wrecking Machine."

Michael Bisping

When Michael Bisping stepped in on roughly two weeks notice to fight Chael Sonnen at UFC on FOX 2, most fans didn’t give him a chance in the world.

Everyone expected Sonnen to come out and put Bisping on his back with ease, but The Count showed up with some excellent takedown defense and almost spoiled the Silva-Sonnen rematch before we even got to see it.

Bisping believes he should have gotten the decision, so why not run it again and see if he was right?

As long as rumored bouts with Brian Stann and Alan Belcher don’t come to fruition for Bisping, a fight with Sonnen is the way to go.

Vitor Belfort

If you’re a well-known Brazilian fighter in the UFC, odds are Chael Sonnen has verbally attacked you at some point. Vitor Belfort is no exception.

As recently as early last week, Sonnen was aiming some verbal jabs at “The Phenom." With Belfort currently recovering from a broken hand, the time may be right to set up another grudge match.

A fight between Sonnen and Belfort would be a classic striker vs. grappler bout, and it would be a highly-anticipated fight between two of the very best in the division.