UFC 112 Recap & Reaction

UFC 112 left a memorable mark in the history of the organization for a number of reasons.

First, it was the first UFC held in the Middle East.

Second, it saw one of the biggest upsets in the history of the UFC from a betting stand point.

Third, you saw one man display dominance over another in a fighting sense by literally not fighting.

Many fans and even UFC President Dana White are upset with middleweight champion Anderson Silva for his display against Demian Maia. For those who didn’t see the fight, Silva was so far superior to his opponent that he spent most of the fight taunting him and swearing at him in Portuguese. Silva displayed in the first round that he could simply do whatever he wanted, landing every strike he threw at him while taking no damage. So he then chose to start dancing, standing still with his hands at his arms, and challenging his opponent to hit him in the face rather than overwhelm him and finish the fight. The fight, which lasted 25 minutes when it really had no business going more than 25 seconds, angered the fans to no end and forced White to storm off and not even watch the final round.

Silva offered almost no offense in the final two rounds as he seemed disinterested in fighting. While I can see why fans are mad, and I was somewhat frustrated myself, it is really just a display of how dominant this man is. He can decide when he wants the fight to end and how it will end. For Saturday, he chose to belittle his opponent and show him just how inferior he was to him for 25 minutes. A quick knockout could have been cool to see, but Silva obviously felt it was even cooler to show the world that he controlled every part of that fight, including how much action there would be.

During the fight, the commentators mentioned that Silva was a big fan of Muhammad Ali; well he certainly did his best impression of him, except finishing the fight. Truly, you can’t be surprised. Silva likes to be challenged. His most impressive showings were against opponents that tried to attack and pressure him with strikes. His awful fights that went much longer than they should have were against guys that didn’t want to exchange and simply looked to survive. Silva doesn’t want to play other people’s games and would rather embarrass their fighting style than knock them out. As sad as it sounds, it just shows how dominant he is when you really break it down. What Silva did doesn’t do the UFC or MMA any good, but it doesn’t diminish just how talented he is.

On to Penn vs. Edgar. I know many Penn fans probably don’t like the decision, but on my card I had the fight 48-47 for Edgar, but it would be fair to say that there wasn’t a round that had a decisive winner. I am not sure how one of the cards was 50-45, but Edgar certainly did what he could to bring the fight to Penn and it paid off. I never thought that another lightweight would out-strike Penn, but that is what happened. Edgar was quick on his feet, he used good combinations and he never developed any tendencies for Penn to catch on to. He fought close to the perfect fight given who his opponent was. The win was a huge upset as Penn was a 1/8 favorite to win. The win also shakes up the UFC landscape as Penn wanted to move up to welterweight with a win and the new champion’s lone blemish comes against Gray Maynard, a man who very well may not have defeated Penn had the two met.

There were a lot of positives that came out of UFC 112, but unfortunately the Silva antics will be what is remembered the most. If anything is certain, White is going to make sure this doesn’t happen again and he will do all he can to make something positive happen to make people forget about Saturday’s showing from Silva.

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