2010 Bloody Elbow Reader Awards: Fight of the Year

Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen

This was not a one-sided fight. Pick your jaw up off the floor. It wasn’t. The score was one-sided, sure, but Anderson Silva was competitive at points in each round. Except maybe the first. But all the other ones. Now, with that out of the way…

There’s going to be a lot of people, especially the Japanophiles, complaining that Jorge Santiago vs. Kazuo Misaki is the deserving winner for this award. It certainly has a case, and if we’re judging strictly on the merits of the action contained inside the fighting area, it has as much an argument as any other fight.

That fight, under the Sengoku banner, didn’t have the same sort of backdrop as Anderson Silva’s title defense against Chael Sonnen. Silva and Sonnen fought for the most legitimate 185-pound title in the world as the number one and number two fighters in the division. They fought in the UFC, the only surviving superpower in MMA. They fought in front of a raucous Oakland crowd; cheering and chanting; rising, falling, and flowing with the action.

Misaki never insisted Santiago’s black belt originated in a McDonald’s Happy Meal. He didn’t call Santiago a dirt bag. Or a fraud. Or a liar. Or a thief. He didn’t insult Santiago’s manager as belonging to a “piglet tribe of savages.”

Yeah, Sonnen probably went overboard and crossed the line separating acceptable fight promotion and disrespectful, crass commetary more than a handful of times. Yeah, ramblings like that don’t make the in-ring/in-cage product any better.

But it certainly adds a level of drama to the proceedings though. It created a good guy versus bad guy situation. Heel versus the face. Team Silva vs. Team Sonnen. You either Anderson Silva to shut Chael Sonnen’s mouth, or you wanted to watch Chael Sonnen walk out of Oakland, California, wearing UFC gold.

The fight was full of dramatic, high-spot moments as well. Sonnen hurting Silva with a punch in round one. Boxing his ears with both hands in round two. Anderson coming out hot in round four, buckling Sonnen and throwing the same back elbow that KO’d Tony Fryklund in Cage Rage (most people seem to have missed this) before Sonnen planted him back on the mat. Sonnen exiting round four wearing a crimson mask.

And then the triangle that ended it all.

Full results after the jump.