Silva vs. Sonnen: Did Sonnen Deserve a 10-8 1st Round?

In the end, Anderson Silva was the one with his hand raised.

Early in the fight, things weren't going so well for the middleweight champ in his UFC 148 rematch with Chael Sonnen. As if a page were turned in a book, Sonnen picked up where he left off two years ago. He controlled the center of the Octagon and utilized his world class wrestling to force the fight to the ground.

Silva showed better resistance from his guard this time around, but he still wasn't able to find a way back to his feet. For the first five minutes of the fight, Sonnen rode out top position and racked up a multitude of unanswered punches.

Silva didn't land a single strike in the entire round. From bottom, his only offense was a stalled out defensive posture in hopes the referee would stand the fight back up due to a lack of action.

Did Sonnen deserve a 10-8 first round?

There have certainly been closer rounds than this one that have also been given a 10-8 score.

According to Fight Metric, Sonnen landed 76 out of 86 strikes (14 out of 21 significant strikes) after scoring a takedown. Towards the end of the round, he even had Silva full mounted. It certainly had all the makings of a 10-8 round.

Regardless of personal opinion, the fact that Silva scored a zero in any form of offense is quite staggering.

With that said, Sonnen was once again defeated in the most important statistic, the win-loss column. The common consensus surrounding the rematch was that Sonnen only needed five takedowns to win the fight.

Well, he got one.