Anderson Silva: A Bad Match-Up for Chael Sonnen

Now that it has been officially announced that Vitor Belfort was forced to withdraw his challenge for Anderson Silva's Middleweight belt, the drum for a Chael Sonnen title shot will begin to beat.

If announced, Bleacher Report and really the MMA world will be flooded with break downs about how Sonnen is tailor made to defeat Silva, and how his wrestling will overpower Silva and lead him to victory.

There is a tendency when a striker is dominating in MMA for fans, fighters and analysts to all say, "All someone needs to do is him to the ground and rains down elbows." We heard it with Chuck Liddel, Cro Cop, and we are starting to hear it about Lyoto Machida. This is a natural part of MMA fandom and often this idea will linger even after said striker has proven that won't work.

Anderson Silva is 10-0 in the UFC and has dominated a division like no other fighter in MMA. Silva's muay thai striking is legend, and it is fairly well known that he is a legitimate Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt.

Standing Silva is unquestioned, but many fans have questioned Silva's ability to fight on the ground. Yet when you look at the evidence and the tape it becomes clear that Silva is still a huge threat on the ground.

First let's address the Dan Henderson fight, in which Anderson Silva lost his first round in the UFC and it is the round fighters point to as a case study in how to beat the Spider. But looking at the round, while Silva certainly lost the round, it is not nearly as dominating as many analysts make it sound.

After the feeling out phase, Henderson ducks a punch from Silva, gets a side clinch and takes Silva down with a knee tap. Silva establishes a good half guard on his hip and breaks down Henderson's posture.

Henderson was stalemated, dropped a few hammer fists and after about two minutes, Henderson passes to side control. Silva immediately re-guards, locks in a body triangle and finishes the round breaking down Henderson's posture.

Certainly the round was Hederson's, but he did virtually no damage and wasn't manhandling Silva by any stretch. In the second round, Silva stuffed double leg takedown attempts as well as clinch takedown attempts. And when Henderson got rocked, Silva put Henderson on his back, controlled him, took his back and choked him out.

Looking Silva's matched with Nathan Marquardt and Thales Leites , it becomes very clear that Silva is extremely hard to takedown using double leg shots.

Sonnen is an excellent wrestler, but Henderson is a two time Olympian and he struggled to take Silva down, so it's hard to imagine Sonnen being wildly more successful in that department. Really the only way to take Silva to get into the clinch with him, and trust me, you don't want any of that.

But there are safe ways to clinch without getting your nose kneed through the back of your head, so let's assume Sonnen takes Silva to the mat and on top of him. Sonnen has never finished an opponent while under Zuffa contract, and it is clear that part of this is while he controls opponnet's on the ground, he has lackluster ground-and-pound.

Sonnen also has trouble passing guard and tends to spend most of his fights in his opponnet's guard, and Silva's use of the body triangle will make passing that much more difficult.

Another key hole in Sonnen's game is his submission defense, with six losses by way of tapout. Matched with Anderson Silva's submission offense, which is very good and very underrated, and this is the most likely way this matchup would end. Silva submitted U.S. Jiu Jitsu great Travis Lutter and Dan Henderson, who has only been submitted three times in his storied career.

In the end, when the MMA message boards, websites and podcasts are buzzing with Chael Sonnen's master plan to defeat Anderson Silva, the only way Sonnen can win is by laying on Silva for half an hour. Meanwhile, Silva can certainly submit Sonnen and at any point the fight is standing Silva can knock Sonnen out cold. Sonnen has never faced anything like Anderson Silva, while Silva has faced and defeated far better than Sonnen.