UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen II

Date: Saturday, July 7th
Preliminary Card (Facebook): 18:30 LP.net / 4:30pm PST / 7:30pm EST Facebook stream
Preliminary Card (FX): 19:00 LP.net / 5pm PST / 8pm EST
Main Card Time (PPV): 21:00 LP.net / 7pm PST / 10pm EST
Live Streams: Prelims are Live on FX & Facebook - http://www.vipbox.tv (All MMA events are listed under the UFC button. Press the UFC button and you'll see the event in the list.)





Main Card

Anderson Silva (31-4) vs. Chael Sonnen (27-11-1) (Middleweight)
Forrest Griffin (18-7) vs. Tito Ortiz (16-10-1) (Light Heavyweight)
Cung Le (7-2) vs. Patrick Cote (17-7) (Middleweight)
Dong Hyun Kim (15-1-1) vs. Demian Maia (15-4) (Welterweight)
Chad Mendes (11-1) vs. Cody McKenzie (13-2) (Featherweight)
Ivan Menjivar (24-8) vs. Mike Easton (12-1) (Bantamweight)

Preliminary Card (FX)

Gleison Tibau (25-7) vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov (17-0) (Lightweight)
Melvin Guillard (29-10-2) vs. Fabricio Camoes (14-6-1) (Lightweight)
Constantinos Philippou (10-2) vs. Riki Fukuda (18-5) (Middleweight)
John Alessio (34-15) vs. Shane Roller (10-6) (Lightweight)

Preliminary Card (Facebook)

Rafaello Oliveira (14-5) vs. Yoislandy Izquierdo (6-1) (Lightweight)

Other

- The UFC Middleweight Championship between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen was originally intended to take place at UFC 147 at Havelange Stadium in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. Due to a scheduling conflict with the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, the bout was subsequently moved to headline UFC 148 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- In the co-main event at UFC 148, Urijah Faber was expected to fight for the UFC Bantamweight Championship against champion Dominick Cruz following their stint as coaches on The Ultimate Fighter: Live, but a torn ACL forced Cruz off the card. This would have been the third match between the two, with both Cruz and Faber holding a win against each other. Faber defended his Featherweight Championship against Cruz at WEC 26, and Cruz defended his bantamweight championship against Faber at UFC 132.
- Faber was expected to face replacement Renan Barao for the Interim Bantamweight Championship, but that fight has been moved to the main event of UFC 149 in Calgary. Barao was originally scheduled to fight at this event on the preliminary card against Ivan Menjivar. Menjivar's new opponent is Mike Easton.
- Rich Franklin was expected to return to middleweight with a bout against Cung Le at the event. However, due to an injury to UFC 147 headliner Vitor Belfort, Franklin was pulled from the bout with Le and replaced Belfort and fought a rematch against Wanderlei Silva in a 190 lb catchweight bout on June 23, 2012 at UFC 147. Le is now expected to face veteran Patrick Cote.

cung le lmao. never again

how about a fading the asians 2-team parlay

maia/cote, its gotta be +ev

Sonnen > Silva (Silva said he's going to break Sonnen's teeth and retire him. Silva is the better fighter, but, I'm remembering how easy he was for Sonnen to take take down and hold down.)

Ortiz > Griffin (Ortiz still brings it for the first round, unless he gets hit with a good shot, then he crumbles. Griffin only fought 3 times in the past 2.5 years, split-decision win vs. Ortiz/decision win vs. Franklin/TKO loss to Shogun. He looked terrible vs. Shogun.)

Cote > Le (I'm only picking Cote cuz he's hungry for the win and Le is just not UFC material. He's a one kick pony)

Kim > Maia (Stun Gun got finished by Condit because Condit rushed him. Maia will try to do the same, since that's how is striking is now.)

McKenzie > Mendes (I think McKenzie will have a plan for Mendes, as he trains at Cesar Gracie's now, so his boxing got better.)

Menjivar > Easton (Easton is decent, but his pre-fight hype is better than his in-the-ring fight skill. Menjivar can beat most people at 135)

Nurmagomedov > Tibau
Guillard > Camoes (Guillard needs this win bad as he's on a 2 loss streak, Camoes is a 3rd degree black belt in BJJ)
Philippou > Fukuda (Philippou hits hard and has a good chin, Fukuda is Japanese)
Alessio > Roller (Do or die for both fighters)
Izquierdo > Oliveira (Do or die for both fighters)

I want to see cung le throw a bajillion kicks, should be great fun

One of the best lessons I ever learned about betting MMA was in the marloes coenen vs miesha tate fight. If i recall the odds were relatively even and I was forced to pick a winner. I chose coenen. She was a great striker who had struggled vs some wrestlers but managed to pull off submission victories. However vs tate she was dominated on the ground and ended up getting submitted. I realized that she was facing a better wrestler than she had before and praying she pulled off a miracle sub was lunacy. Horrible bet and lesson learned to never rely on a miracle, but instead to face reality.

that being said, im all over anderson in this fight. People have a hazy memory of what actually happened in the first fight. Let me key you in on a few key stats and paint a picture of how the fight was going (completely ignoring the submission). Most people believe chael just took anderson down at will repeatedly and owned him every round. The latter half is true but the former is not.

Chael was 3 out of 7 on his takedown attempts vs anderson. At least one of those takedowns was off of a retarded kick anderson threw as well. Chael was in top position for all 5 rounds. One of them was off a knockdown, and one anderson actually had a takedown on chael and then got swept. The key was that once anderson was on his back he stayed there the whole round and never got up. thats not a great sign for anderson being on his back, but when it comes to preventing takedowns, anderson is very underrated. he has much better takedown defense than a guy like carlos condit.

here are some key things that make me think anderson will win this fight:
-anderson adapts and figures opponents out better than anyone else in MMA and having 5 rounds with chael helps him more than his opponent.
-anderson improved each round of the first fight
-chael struggled with bisping. people say bisping has better wrestling than anderson. thats not true. what bisping has is better ability to get up off his back. but i attribute a lot of andersons struggles on the ground to his "injury". i think getting up once he was down was hard because of the injury and he didnt want to overexert. i dont think being taken down was due to the injury at all, just the fact that he stayed there
-chael said bisping hurt him really really bad. not a good sign in a 25 minute fight with anderson. he gets hurt bad in a 25 minute fight its not a great sign for him at all

if the anderson that fought okami/belfort shows up and the chael that fought bisping shows up i am setting this line anderson -375. however that might not be the case. chael maybe had a slightly off night vs bisping and anderson has had injury struggles since then. he hasnt fought in a year and may have aged considerably in that time. you just never know. that is the biggest wildcard in this fight. is anderson the same as he was a year ago? i cant answer that question without seeing his training camp and sadly i havent seen it in depth. there are also reports of another injury going around. hes denied it but when theres smoke theres fire.

all in all theres a bit too much randomness for me to lay decent money on either side. i will probably put a small bet on anderson close to the fight when the odds drop significantly as I expect LOTS of money to come in on chael. will probably hit anderson around -190 or so which is about where i expect the line to end. but it wont be a large bet. wont be at all surprised to see chael win the same way he was winning last time, but if these fighters are the same as each of their last fights, chael is in for a rough night i think

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2010/8/9/1614522/anderson-silvas-fight-iq

great article on anderson and the adjustments he was making in the first chael fight. i do buy the injury slowed him a bit and think the adjustments he makes this fight are better

Sonnen didn't look too great in the Bisping fight, which is 25% the fighter Silva is. Should be an easy Silva bet with all the retarded Sonnen fanboys willing to bet against.

gonna be so epic

Cote > Le. Because Cung sucks a lot.
Kim > Maia. Maia's moved down in weight but Kim is a pretty huge 170 lb'er anyways and I would think still holds the strength advantage.
Griffin > Ortiz. Easy to see Griffin just smothering Ortiz after maybe a decent first half of a round then Ortiz getting tired.

I agree with the notion that people are buying too much into how good Chael looked in the first fight. And I really dislike Silva quite a bit. I think Silva is going to stop a ton more takedowns than people think if it even gets that far. Although I really couldn't figure out what to make of how Chael was actually continually landing some pretty nice strikes in the beginning of the rounds before it got to the ground. Easy answer is that Silva's style always has him with his hands down but he always seems to get away with it vs better strikers than Chael. So many ways for Silva to win though. Wouldn't be at all surprised by a monster knee to the face ko during a Sonnen takedown attempt.

The problem with simply looking at stats about Chaels takedown attempts on Anderson is this. Chael is one of the most relentless wrestlers in MMA. So even if Anderson stuffs most of chaels take downs, Chael will keep coming full steam ahead until he gets it. He's not the kind of fighter who gets stuffed, then strikes for 1-2 minutes.

Also Anderson has never really been a get back to his feet fighter. Every other Silva fight I can remember he never tried to get back to his feet. Once down he either ended the round on his back or got a submission. So injury or not, once down I expect Sonnen will keep him there.

I think Chael saying Bisping hurt him was just Chael trying to talk up bisping and give him credit. Chael seems to do those kind of things. He's pretty gracious in victory and talks up his opponents he beat a lot. Chael has a granite chin. Doesn't mean Silva can't KO him, Silva can KO anyone. Just means it's going to be really hard to do.

All that said I agree Silva is an incredible fighter and is great at making adjustments. He's incredibly strong willed and crafty, so not getting finished by him in 5 rounds when he's trying to finish is really, really hard to do.

I think it's really close, with Silva deservedly being a slight favorite.

Rooting for Chael though. Funniest guy in sports.

http://hosteddb.fightmetric.com/fights/index/2892

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I think either Sonnen had a bad day vs. Bisping, maybe Bisping is that good, or they both had fixed that fight. Chael looked bad vs. Bisping, which was weird since he looked okay vs. Silva in their first fight and his fight vs. Stann was just a mismatch.

I don't know who Chael's striking coach is, but he needs to fire him and go train in Holland or something after this fight. He has the worst striking stance and technique in the UFC, now that Mayhem Miller is out.

Anyway, I'm rooting for Chael. If Silva really is as mad as he says he is, with the whole breaking of Chael's teeth and such, he will get taken down when he tries to go hard on Chael instead of fighting smart.

I see this going to the ground with Chael on top, unless there's some miracle one hitter that stuns Chael, which Silva is known for.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SONNNNNNNNENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

what are the chances of Anderson actually breaking chael's teeth arms or legs ? Fights are usually stopped before such things happen arent they ? Id love to see that happen tho

On June 27 2012 23:18 Zadan wrote: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SONNNNNNNNENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Warrr Sonnen!

more like anderson looked shit vs sonnen in their first fight. silva also wanted a submission finish which was why he seemed too easy to take down. remember sonnen kept on bashing his jiu jitsu black belt from noguiera camp(which is why silva wore a gi in his ring entrance instead of his usual shirtless wear). this is going to be a good fight but a funny one sided Silva performance.

Silva has fought a ton of high level wrestlers in the past and made them look really silly and people seem to forget this.

On June 28 2012 00:41 whamm! wrote: Silva has fought a ton of high level wrestlers in the past and made them look really silly and people seem to forget this.

Aside from Dan Henderson, who rarely* uses his wrestling since he can usually keep it standing, what wrestler, let alone what high level wrestler, has Anderson Silva beat since he's been in the UFC?

I say "in the UFC", because he's been in the UFC since 2006 and has only fought 2 wrestlers in Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen. I also like to keep things recent within the last 3 years of a fighters career, since trying to say "this guy beat this guy 6 years ago means he can do this and that to somebody else" is irrelevant.

Okami
Irvin
Henderson
Marquardt
Jeremy Horn

who do you think qualifies as high level wrestlers? Only Chael Sonnen? Silva just clowned around with these guys. You base your criteria the last time they fought but Silva was sick and it was probably his worst performance in a fight (stylistically), Sonnen did not force him to fight bad as I've explained in my previous post why he wasn't really up to par with his TD.

Simply put Silva put out his worst performance and still came out on top with a finish no less. I'm sure Silva wants some questions erased. Im sorry but that Bisping fight was really a bad decision and Sonnen looked like Mark Coleman there.