Anderson Silva Still The Champ, But He's Also Human: UFC 117 Aftermath

Don't let his alien-like physical appearance or his god-like striking fool you, Anderson Silva is as mortal as the rest of the world as proven by Chael Sonnen at UFC 117.

Silva pulled off the victory with a spectacular triangle choke in the fifth round, but for the first four rounds, it was all about Chael Sonnen.

Sonnen took Silva to the ground repeatedly in the fight and once he got him there, he stayed busy enough to avoid any possibility of a stand up while thwarting Silva's submission and reversal attempts.

Chael even managed more success on the feet than any of Anderson's previous opponents and actually managed to rock Silva with a solid punch in round one.

So, what did we learn from that fight? First, Anderson needs to work on his wrestling. Sonnen took him down with ease and in the brief moments of the fight that Anderson was on top, Sonnen reversed him easily.

This makes me really question Anderson's status as the pound-for-pound best MMA fighter in the world. How can someone be the pound-for-pound best with such a huge hole in their game?

We also learned that Chael Sonnen can talk the talk and walk the walk. I, like most of you I'm sure, felt like Sonnen was just blowing hot air going into this fight.

I thought that he made Silva angry and Silva was going to knock him out, violently, in the first round.

However, Chael did exactly what he said he would do. He brought the fight to Anderson, took him down and beat him up.

I think given another crack at it, Sonnen could be the guy to take Silva out.

In other action, Roy Nelson took on Junior Dos Santos in a bout to determine the No. 1 contender in the heavyweight division.

Junior won the bout handily, but (hopefully) learned that his punches won't always be enough to finish a fight and that he needs work on other aspects of his game as well as mixing things up on the feet.

Dos Santos threw very few kicks and didn't mix things up that well with his hands. Luckily his power and precision got him threw the bout.

Nelson (again, hopefully) learned that while his gut helps to get him attention from the fans he needs to be in better shape to compete with heavyweights best.

He was very noticeably exhausted in the third round of the fight.

While Nelson may need to take some weight off, Thiago Alves may need to put some on. Thiago failed to make weight for his welterweight bout with Jon Fitch (the second time in the UFC he's failed to make weight) and gave up 20 percent of his earnings as opposed to losing another half pound.

He looked sluggish and not himself in the fight against Fitch (taking nothing away from Fitch who for sure brought his A game) and it seems to be evident that the weight cut is too much for him. I think Thiago should think about moving to middleweight.

With his victory over Alves, Fitch seems to be next in line for a title shot against either GSP or Josh Koscheck. This poses the following questions. With Koscheck and Fitch being from same camp, if Koscheck is champ will the two agree to fight?

If GSP is the champ, how the hell is Jon Fitch going to beat him? Fitch's style is to take guys down, smother them, sap their will, and grind out the win. That will absolutely not work against GSP.

Matt Hughes fought for the first time since being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame against dangerous Brazilian jiu-jitsu opponent Ricardo Almeida and proved that he's not finished in this sport yet.

Ricardo went into this fight wanting to send a message to Hughes (Hughes having defeated Ricardo's close friend and jiu-jitsu trainer Renzo Gracie).

Ricardo went in the fight looking to prove the effectiveness of Gracie Jujitsu, but ended up falling prey an anaconda choke after being rocked by a left hook from Hughes.

What I wonder is how seriously Hughes is taking the sport at this point. With a three-win streak going for him he could, theoretically, be a couple wins away from a title shot. But does Hughes want to fight for the belt again?

Talking to Joe Rogan after the fight, Hughes said he was going to take the fall off and do some hunting, and that he'd talk to the UFC early next year.

It sounds to me like at this point in his career, Hughes is just fighting because it's something he likes to do, but he doesn't have any interest in being at the top of his division.