UFC 153 Results: Anderson Silva and Brazilians Dominate

Anderson Silva is a true master of Mixed Martial Arts. When he is on his game he looks like a character out of kung fu movie fighting that overmatched, nameless goon doomed to fail. Against Stephan Bonnar the Middleweight champion appeared to channel Muhammad Ali when he started playing "rope-a-dope" during the first round. Silva put his back to the cage and refused to leave, allowing Bonnar to strike, easily avoiding or absorbing the punches.

Then suddenly in the last minute of the first round, Silva went on the attack, tripping Bonnar and then landing a vicious knee to the body which caused Bonnar to crumple to the ground. Bonnar was never a true threat to Silva so we cannot read too much into this fight but it is a impressive reminder of his greatness.

In the co-main event Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira looked very out of shape, taking this fight on short notice coming off an injury certainly played a role, but he looked very slow. But while Nogueira looked half dead during the fight, his opponent Dave Herman appeared half-trained and Nogueira easily bested the American. While a prestigious physical athlete Herman has never really taken his training very seriously and as a result he has lost his last three fights to more skilled fighters.

Glover Teixiera put brutal beating Fabio Maldonado and forced a doctor's stoppage at the end of the second round. Jon Fitch and Erick Silva had a simply awesome match, as they went back and forth both on the feet and on the ground. In the second round Silva came very close to finishing a choke, but Fitch is famously tough to choke. In the third round Silva was completely gassed and Fitch was able to seal the fight with a dominant final round.

Finally, the main card opened with a pair of very impressive submission wins. Light Heavyweight Phil Davis put together two rounds of grappling dominance over Wagner Prado and finished with a very slick Anaconda Choke. And Welterweight submission wizard Demian Maia was all over American Rick Story and finished the fight with a neck crank in the first round.