Close calls catch up with Silva in stunning loss to Weidman at UFC 162
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Snip:
His stunning second-round TKO was not the greatest upset in UFC history -- Weidman (10-0) was only about a 2-1 underdog and had been picked to win by many fellow fighters, including champions past and present -- but the manner in which it happened was unfathomable. The two-time NCAA Division I All-American wrestler had employed the Chael Sonnen blueprint of putting Silva on his back for the better part of the first round of the UFC 162 main event, and he actually landed more crisp ground-and-pound shots through the first three minutes than Sonnen had throughout nearly six full rounds on top of Silva.
HUNT: Bizarre Weidman-Silva bout the highlight of UFC 162
But as the first five minutes at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas wound down and the second session began, the fighters were back on their feet, where Silva wanted to be. Where Silva has always made elite fighting professionals look amateurish.
With his feet on the ground, Silva (33-5) fights like no man ever has. And he pulled out all of his confounding tricks against Weidman. He dropped his hands to his sides and motioned the challenger forward, inviting Chris to hit him with his best shot ... or at least try to. And when Weidman did manage to land leather on his face a couple of times early in the second round, the champ wobbled with dramatic clownishness. It was beginning to look like an Anderson Silva fight. He was setting a course not simply to victory but to the humiliation of another opponent.
The crowd of 12,399 loved it. Weidman did not.
The second time Silva did his mocking wobble, the challenger lunged forward with a feisty right hand. He missed. Then he flung the right backhanded, and while the awkward strike only lightly grazed "The Spider," it served a purpose. It occupied Silva to the point where he didn't notice the left hand being flung in his direction. This one had more oomph behind it. This one landed square on the jaw, whereupon Silva landed square on his back. The soon-to-be-ex-champ's eyes did a dance he'd not choreographed.
"I was ready for it," Weidman later would say of Silva's clowning. "It [ticks] me off when someone tries to do that to me."
Clearly not a wise thing to try to do to this hard man.
Weidman pounced on Silva with wild abandon as the fans roared, landed a hard right hand on the jaw that left Anderson limp, and followed with a couple of more shots before referee Herb Dean could jump in at 1:18 of the round. |
