UFC 148 took place last night in Las Vegas and the morning after I’m still shaking my head at what went down in the two main fights. We saw the possible end of the biggest feud in mixed martial arts and the final chapter in one of the best careers of all time.
The main event was for the middleweight title and a lot of pride. Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen truly disliked each other. They have bad mouthed each other for months leading up to the fight. Silva said he wanted to end Sonnen’s career and hurt him, and hurt him bad.
Anderson Silva won the fight in 2nd round after being manhandled in the first. I have watched the replay over and over and I didn’t see anything that should have really hurt Sonnen. Silva landed a knee to the body while Sonnen was in an akward position but it wasn’t fight ending. Sonnen threw some wild shots that appeared to take some of the wind out of him but in all honesty it looked like he just gave up.
Did Sonnen, the guy who acts like a WWE superstar ,take a dive? I wouldn’t go that far but the end just didn’t sit right with me. Silva landed some shots right before the ref stopped the fight but noting was clean. Sonnen curled up and just quit. This was not the way the most recent “biggest fight in UFC history” should have ended.
After the fight in the cage, Silva invited Sonnen to his BBQ. If the grudge match really did run that deep, the antics inside the octagon after the fight would not have been the way they were. You expect fighters to be respectful but this looked scripted and was way over the top. I didn’t like it one bit.
Tito Ortiz’s UFC career is finally over and rightfully so. The game has clearly passed him by. That being said, he should have gone out a winner over Forrest Griffin in their third fight.
The fight was a mess as both guys seemed to be out of gas three minutes in the first round and it just turned into slop. Ortiz landed some takedowns and I thought did enough to win the first and third rounds and take home the win. That didn’t happen as all three judges gave Forrest the upper hand, two rounds to one.
Forrest Griffin was booed after the fight for a few things. He got a win he didn’t deserve, he ran out of the octagon again only to be sent back by UFC President Dana White, and he decided to do the post fight interview with Tito instead of Joe Rogan. Just weird things happening here.
145 pound superstar Chad Mendes was impressive coming off of his first and only loss to title holder Jose Aldo. He simply destroyed Cody McKenzie with a body shot and then finished him off with hammerfists. Mendes needed just 31 seconds to finish the job.
Full results:
-Anderson Silva def. Chael Sonnen by TKO at 1:55, R2
-Forrest Griffin def. Tito Ortiz by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
-Cung Le def. Patrick Cote by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
-Dong Hyun Kim vs. Demian Maia def. Dong Hyun Kim by TKO at :41, R1
-Chad Mendes def. Cody McKenzie by TKO at :31, R1
-Mike Easton def. Ivan Menjivar by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 30-27)
-Khabib Nurmagomedov def. Gleison Tibau by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
-Melvin Guillard def. Fabricio Camoes by unanimous decision (3027, 30-27, 30-27)
-Costa Philippou def. Riki Fukuda by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
-Shane Roller def. John Alessio by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
-Rafaello Oliveira def. Yoislandy Izquierdo by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
All in all it was a god night of mixed martial arts action. The co-main event left a bad taste in my mouth because Tito Ortiz deserves better than what he got. The main event, I’m still trying to figure it out. I don’t know what to think. It all just seems unreal for some reason. I have seen a lot of things in the sport over the last fifteen years or so and this one has me wondering.