Sonnen

By FCF Staff

While Chael Sonnen has gone out of his way to launch criticisms at Anderson Silva the last few years, which helped created one of the sport’s greatest rivalries, the middleweight wasn’t making any excuses for his stoppage loss last night.

When asked in the post UFC 148 press conference whether he believed the knee Silva landed in round two was legal, Sonnen responded by saying:

“I don’t make those decisions and I hate those rules anyways. I’m an old school guy before we had rounds and weight classes and all that stuff. We’re in a lot better spot now, I don’t propose we should go back to that, but I don’t care about legal or illegal. I could see him, I could see it coming, that’s just the way it goes.”

After taking Silva down within seconds of the main event bout, Sonnen dominated round one, as the champion was unable to get back to his feet. In round two, however, Sonnen was unable to take Silva down and after missing a spinning back-fist he fell to the mat.

From there, Silva landed a hard knee to the downed Sonnen, which on the replay appeared to land primarily in the challenger’s midsection.

“There’s always some opportunities, and I feel like a dufus because I fell down, but we’re in the middle of battle and there was some parts that felt really good and some parts that really hurt, including the end,” Sonnen said when asked about the spinning back-fist attempt.

“I’m going to have to watch the match, I don’t really recall what happened,” Sonnen furthered. “Somebody told me after the fact spinning back-fist. I know I was on the ground and I know he kneed me, and we kind of went downhill from there.”

Although Sonnen easily took Silva to the floor in the bout’s opening frame, and worked from the champion’s half guard throughout much of it, he was unable to land any telling shots.

“I think so,” said Sonnen, when asked if believed not inflicting more damage in round one was a contributing factor to what happened in the second frame. “I’m always trying to find that good shot that can change a fight and wear a guy down, make him think twice, but yeah, I wasn’t able to find it.”

The 37 year-old Silva (32-4) has now won 16 straight fights. The 35 year-old Sonnen (27-12) was coming off back-to-back wins over Brian Stann and Michael Bisping, after he was submitted by Silva in their first meeting two years ago.