Stephan Bonnar may not have been the toughest opponent middleweight champion Anderson Silva has had to face, but his beguiling performance on Saturday night, finishing Bonnar with such contempt inside the first round, has just confirmed that Silva is the greatest of all time.
To Silva, his win in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, at UFC 153 on Saturday, was just one more on an incomparable 16-fight undefeated run. But to his admiring fans across the word, it provided clearer evidence that there has never been a fighter like him, and we may never see the likes of him again.
Of course the fight was not as important as his title-defence in July against Chael Sonnen. There was no title at stake. And even though the champion was fighting at 205 lbs, above his weight class for one night only, no one expected that Bonnar would provide any sort of challenge.
But that doesn’t matter when we have the privilege to witness what we saw on Saturday.
With little preparation for the fight, taking it at short notice to replace the injured Jose Aldo, Silva toyed with his opponent mercilessly. Like no other fighter ever could, Silva finished Bonnar with the same knee deftly and viciously aimed at the sternum—followed by a barrage of punches—which ended Sonnen’s knight.
It’s like Dana White said after the fight, “[Silva’s] like [Michael] Jordan—even the games he played that didn’t mean a lot—he still did a lot of great s**t.”
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com