We are witnessing Babe Ruth in the 1920’s here, Jordan in the 90’s, Gretzky in the 80’s, Ali in general, if you aren’t watching and appreciating Anderson Silva as his career winds to a possible close, then you are missing out on one of the great performances in sports history. Bonnar was huge, he had the Carlson Gracie black belt, his extensive background in Muay Thai, his increased and impressive wrestling training. Most importantly Stephan Bonnar was ****ing game. So many fights are lost to Anderson Silva before anyone even steps into the (expletive) cage, but Bonnar was down to bleed his own blood and get into whatever fight was needed in order to defeat Anderson Silva. He had the chin, in twenty three fights he was never finished, Bonnar had confidence.
Then Anderson Silva got that look in his eye.
What does it feel like to be the best at what you do? What does it feel like when you can throw around a grown man with 20 pounds on you and do whatever the hell you want? Does Anderson Silva need to cut off his ear like Van Gogh? This isn’t Kimbo Vs. a random fat dude in a boatyard, say what you will about Stephan Bonnar, he has dedicated his life to martial arts and Anderson Silva just made it look like he never trained a day. It all started about a minute into the first round. As many predicted, Bonnar closed the distance fast and slammed Silva to the cage wall, looking for a grind of a fight. Anderson slid a hand down into one underhook, kind of looked around bored, then threw Bonnar away. What would follow is one of the most incredible acts of domination ever recorded in an MMA cage.
Knocking out someone in six seconds is one thing, it’s an entirely different angle when you pull out the Lars Von Trier Five Obstructions bag of tricks, lower your hands and place your back against the wall so you can dodge your opponents punches as if you were Neo in the Matrix. Yes, you read that right, even after he threw Bonnar to the ground after a clinch he calmly walked back over to the cage and put his back to the links and told Bonnar to ‘come on.’
Lesser men would have tapped out right there.
At least Bonnar would then attempt to hit Silva until The Spider and greatest fighter I have ever seen threw Bonnar off the cage, laying him up into a knee that hit his face and chest – a dig at all of the Chael fans who questioned the end to Anderson’s latest middleweight title defense perhaps?
Thank you for existing, Anderson Silva.
Thanks to MMAxnate for the gifs!
