Silva-Sonnen the best fight ever?
Anderson Silva’s late submission victory over Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 is the greatest fight in UFC history, in my…
Anderson Silva’s late submission victory over Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 is the greatest fight in UFC history, in my opinion. The opinion of mixed martial arts fans is all over the map.
Yahoo! Sports readers have their say in this week’s edition of the MMA mailbag, which we’ve changed from a weekly feature to an occasional one.
Good fight, but not the greatest
I totally disagree with the hype that the Silva-Sonnen fight was the greatest UFC fight ever. The fight was fantastic and I was on the edge of my seat as a Silva fan. As a Rocky! story goes or a movie fight with a twist at the end, it was highly compelling. Many people call the first Forrest Griffin-Stephan Bonnar fight the UFC’s best ever, but to me, it’s just the most notable for its role of helping to save the company. In my opinion, the best UFC fight ever was the Diego Sanchez-Karo Parisyan bout in 2006. That was a back-and-forth slugfest with some fantastic ground work, takedowns and two guys putting it all out there. It still takes the cake as the best ever.
Jon
Long Island, N.Y.
Jon, I was at the Sanchez-Parisyan fight, as well, and it is one of my favorite MMA fights ever. Having said that, it didn’t hold a candle to Silva-Sonnen. It’s a personal opinion and, of course, there is no right answer. But in this fight, you had a long shot challenger who had talked an unbelievable amount of smack for more than six months going out and for 96 percent of the fight, doing what he’d say he’d do. Then, suddenly, you had the man widely regarded as the best in the world pull off a highly improbable submission to get the win and retain the title. To me, that makes it the best ever, though I respect other opinions and viewpoints on it.