Chael Sonnen: A Star Is Born at UFC 109

You write, "To be honest, it would be a monumental feat for someone with Sonnen’s style to beat Anderson Silva. "

That’s not true. A determined wrestler like Chael stands a very good chance of winning:

1. Silva’s take down defense is at best mediocre. Leites was able to take him down a couple times, Lutter was successful on 3 or 4 take downs, Hendo, Marquardt, Newton, Chonin, etc. all took him down. None of these people (a 39 year old Hendo included) is as good a take down artist as Sonnen. Silva will not be able to control where the fight goes, so he must either knock Sonnen out (he only needs a small opening although Sonnen has been finished just once in the past four years) or submit him off his back, which leads me to my next point.

2. Many posters somehow seem to have acquired the dubious belief that Silva has elite BJJ skills off his back. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he’d school 99% of BJJ practitioners out there (if you include all belt levels). Nevertheless Silva has not submitted anyone off his back. He used a triangle choke to submit Lutter from elbows. There was no way in a million years Silva could have finished the choke given that Lutter’s right arm was pressing against his head. Also Lutter basically fell into that sub after eating an up kick. It wasn’t as though Silva was controlling his posture and arms and set that choke up in a more conventional way. It was a good finish nonetheless but not a submission finish. Silva’s finishing Hendo via RNC is almost completely irrelevant to any discussion of how good he is off his back (obviously) because he set the RNC by blasting Hendo (who also appeared to be gassing). Awesome finish but not indicative of how he’d perform off his back against Chael, whom he has exactly zero chance of sweeping or achieving any sort of dominant position against unless he first hurts him (which is of course a distinct possibility).

3. Finally Anderson is not good at creating scrambles and getting back to his feet. He was seriously being controlled in the mount by Newton and Lutter before each went for sloppy arm bars and gave up the position. His best hope of getting the fight to its feet seems to be to stall by utilizing a body triangle. His body triangle is effective but obviously permits him zero opportunity to finish the fight off his back. Sonnen spent nearly the entire fight in Marquardt’s guard and managed to keep busy enough to avoid even getting a warning (from what I recall). Silva will be in for a long night if his plan for fighting Sonnen was to merely to stall and hope for a reset.

4. Silva’s ability to sustain several rounds of punishment from a high level wrestler and not gas is obviously a question mark. I’ve never seen him look tired so I assume his conditioning is pretty good, although he’s fought exactly one “wrestler” since coming to the UFC and that wrestler is much more of a brawler than wrestler; however, is it good enough to take a sustained beating for several rounds? Who knows? Nate looked like he was seriously fatigued about 1/2 through the second round.

5. Despite what many think, Silva’s chances of landing a fight ending knee are very low. He’s done it once in his career and obviously failed to do it numerous times, despite being taken down quite a bit (especially for someone who hasn’t fought competent wrestlers). Sonnen can obviate this risk by simply pressing Silva against the cage and then going for a take down. There’s no need to shoot double leg take downs from 8 ft out.

Nevertheless, Chael has never demonstrated that he has the highest fight IQ and Silva, since he’s a ninja on his feet, needs a very slim opening to hurt and finish Sonnen. I think Silva’s got to open at (depending on what happens with Belfort) around a -500 favoritie. I’d take Sonnen at about +150.