Wanderlei Silva may be just a shell of his former self, but even that was more than enough for “The Axe Murderer” to crush Cung Le at UFC 139.
“The Human Highlight Reel” came out as the aggressor early on, though his big swings resulted in misses that left him dangerously vulnerable to Wanderlei’s vicious fists. That didn’t seem to bother Le, at least early on, as he showered Silva with spinning backfists and twirling kicks, each of which seemed to do more to rile the crowd than actually damage his experienced competitor.
Silva managed to cause some damage above one of Le’s eyes, seizing on the advantage in vision to fit in some big fists before the round came to a close.
The second round began peculiarly, as Silva slipped and fell back, though not for long enough for Le to gain any sort of advantage. After a bit of dancing, Silva slugged Le with a huge right hand, after which Le continued to come at Silva with kicks but ultimately left himself open for a Brazilian-style head bashing.
Which is precisely what happened.
Silva landed a huge right hand and a series of knees to Le’s face–enough to knock Le down and let Silva in with a flurry of fists to force referee Dan Stell to call the fight.
Silva still has a ways to climb up the Middleweight Division before he can even think about challenging fellow countryman Anderson Silva for the title belt. Even so, this is clearly a step in the right direction for Silva, who had dropped six of his previous eight fights and seven of 10, coming into Saturday’s action.
Le, on the other hand, can’t be at all pleased with how he performed in his UFC debut, though he figures to get at least another opportunity or two to prove that his multifaceted skill set and entertaining fighting style can actually work at the highest level of MMA.
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