Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen Results: What Went Wrong for Sonnen

It was all going so well for the self-proclaimed “Gangster From West Linn” in the first round.

Takedown. Pass guard. Ground and pound. Mount. More ground and pound.

10-9 Sonnen.

But boy did it go off the rails in a hurry come Round 2.

A rejuvenated Anderson Silva decided that nobody—certainly not Chael Sonnen—was taking him to the mat, and from there he began the 1:55 process of ending the fight, and by extension the rivalry.

Sonnen labored for a takedown against the cage, and with the aid of a handful of shorts Silva made that pretty tough on him. Sonnen then chucked a jab and followed it up with a flailing spinning elbow that the champion dodged, leaving the challenger seated against the cage.

With the smell of blood in the proverbial water, Silva pounced with a vicious knee and finished up with more ground strikes as Sonnen laid in the fetal position and awaited rescue at the hands of the referee.

It was a decidedly ungangster way to go out.

Nobody can say for sure what went wrong for Sonnen, maybe aside from the fact that Silva went full beast mode and is a notable handful when that happens.

Other issues, however, would have to include the fact that Sonnen is not a man who throws spinning elbows. He boxes until he can take you down, then he smashes your face there. Trying to get fancy against the best striker (and most evasive standup artist) in MMA history is a recipe for disaster.

There’s also the fact that the sheer pressure of talking that big game for two years had to play on his mind. He can say what he has to now that it’s over, but you absolutely would not have seen that elbow in his first meeting with Silva or in a fight he’d worked less to sell. When you talk that much and sell that hard, you’re more prone to do things you normally wouldn’t do.

Another factor was how much sharper Silva was. It’s been well-documented that he was hurt the first time he fought Sonnen, and the showing at UFC 148 supports that. He never once struggled from guard, and once he got the range figured out to defend Sonnen’s double, it was game over.

Realistically, many things conspired to add to up the demise of Chael Sonnen at UFC 148. His ill-advised elbow is probably top of the list, but pressure and a healthy, hungry Silva probably didn’t help either.

But that’s all that went wrong for him.

Even in the loss, for two years of talking and seven minutes of fighting, Chael Sonnen made himself a very, very rich man. Considering that, he can very likely live with the things that went against him.