Tyrion wrote:Horrible stoppage. Dood was defending himself.
Nah, that's not how it works.
TKO
"Stoppage Because of Strikes: The fighter is overwhelmed by strikes (blows), and cannot intelligently defend himself. The referee intervenes to avoid unnecessary damage or potential injury."
Chael was defending himself yes, but there is a big difference to intelligently defending himself. If you've watched MMA enough (or practiced) you'd know that the ref just prevented the fighter to receive more damage as the ref noticed that the fighter is not going to get up anymore and wasn't fighting back at all nor tried to improve his position. Chael knew the fight was over when he got caught with the knee to the body and was only covering himself and waiting the ref to stop the fight. If you listen the interview after the fight Chael even himself admitted that he got caught badly with the knee and that was it.
Seemed a soft stoppage to me, Chael was vulnerable, but Silva didn't particularly land any significant strikes. Shame it ended with a mistake by Chael though, in the end he handed it to Silva on a plate.
yeah sonnen was defending himself preaty well....ref could have waited more if he wanted to. And there is rumors circulating that Anderson used Vaseline on his body...
I think obviously in most fights a stoppage was alright there, but in a big hyped up one you want it to go a littler longer. Sonnen did admit he caught him with the knee, but I would have to look at the video more closely. Missing with that spinning elbow was embarrassing.
Who does Silva have next? This is the part I hate...waiting 6 months to a year for another fight. Couple that with a rematch that was expected to be a battle...sucks.
At least I was half right, I said Sonnen would be rocked in the 2nd and submitted. Turned out it was TKO though.
After a win or two against the other top contenders in the middleweight division I'm eagerly waiting for Hector Lombard to take on Silva.
- Record of 31 wins and 2 losses
- 24 of his last fights without a loss
- Last loss 5½ years ago
- Olympic judoka
- Black belt in BJJ
- Deadly striker
Sure there have been skilled competitors against Silva before too, but IMO Hector is the greatest threat in the division for Silva now when UFC signed him finally.
Preciate the info on this guy, I heard his name but never looked him up. Little excited to see his first UFC fight now, replacing an injured Michael Bisping on the July 21st card at UFC 149 against Tim Boetsch.
From what I've seen of Lombard he looks the business. However the problem is that his style isn't really a good grounding for beating Silva. Chael Sonnen is pretty much purpose built to give top level muay thai/BJJ fighters a tough time, with his energetic wrestling/ground and pound/submission style. If you could build a fighter to take down Silva or a similar fighter, those would be the attributes that you would pick, and still Silva is too much for him.
Lombard is all striking and BJJ too, and I can't see him being able to live with Silva, because Anderson is a freak and has unbelievable speed and reflexes. We've seen what he can do to Griffin and Maia with their BJJ mastery and Patrick Cote made it three rounds with Silva in a MT fight, but he has possibly the best chin in middleweight, and I doubt even that would have helped him had the fight not been stopped.
As much as I hate him, Anderson Silva is the perfect MMA fighter, the only way I can see someone stopping him is if GSP or Jonny Bones change division and go after him.
Lombard fight was terrible...soooo damn boring. Even Joe Rogan was giving him hell, Watching Boetsch's highlights now, the dude is a light heavywight in middle. Powerful and built with muscle, and he just won by split. Wow, so much for Lumbard. Something looked wrong with him...total yawner, crowd was so quiet.