OAKLAND, Calif. — Through four and a half rounds of fighting at UFC 117 on Saturday night, Chael Sonnen was the better man. But as UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva demonstrated with a late triangle choke submission, all it takes is a few seconds for an improbable triumph to turn into a heartbreaking defeat.
“I’m devastated,” Sonnen said at the post-fight press conference. “I worked hard and did what I could do all that nice stuff, but at the end of the day you either get your hand raised or you don’t, and I didn’t.”
Sonnen did exactly what he said he’d do to the champion for twenty-three straight minutes. He took him down, roughed him up, and seemed well on his way to a clear-cut, unanimous decision victory. Perhaps most improbably, he also staggered Silva in the stand-up exchanges at several points in the fight.