UFC 156 – The Best Heavyweight Slugfest of the Weekend Wasn’t the Super Bowl Mike Stroeh

For those of you who missed it (and really, how dare you, after I gave you such an awesome preview last week), UFC 156 on Saturday night was pretty stellar. With the notable exception of the Rashad Evans vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira fight (which was brutally boring and thoroughly confusing), every fight on the show delivered on its promise. However, for my money, no fight told a better story or had a more satisfying outcome than the match between Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and Alistair Overeem. My prediction for the fight (a first round knockout for Overeem) couldn’t have been more wrong, and I couldn’t have been more happy about it.

For those of you non UFC fans out there, I’ll expand upon my preview from Friday to properly set the stage for this fight. Antonio Silva is an enormous dude. I mean, you don’t get a nickname like Bigfoot without being a large individual. He is listed as 6’4″ and conservatively listed at 262 lbs. However, he has competed as a super heavyweight overseas (at around 310 lbs.) and has to cut weight to make the 265 lb. upper limit of the UFC’s Heavyweight division. As his nickname would imply, the dude is a MONSTER.

His most significant win in a major US promotion came in the now defunct Strikeforce back in 2011, over the legendary Fedor Emelianenko. While Fedor’s dominant undefeated streak had actually ended in 2010 by submission to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu master Fabricio Werdum, that could almost be chalked up as a fluke, as Fedor made a mistake going to the ground against the BJJ black belt early in the fight and just “got caught”. The Bigfoot fight was a different beast, as Fedor was brutally pummeled to the point where the doctors stopped the action between the 2nd and 3rd round.

Silva was not unbeatable, though. He followed up his career-making defeat of Fedor with a knockout loss to the unheralded (at the time) Daniel Cormier, who went on to win the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament, and is now on the short list for a title shot in the UFC. Silva’s next fight somehow managed to be worse than the fight with Cormier, an absolutely brutal destruction at the hands of Cormier’s teammate, and former UFC heavyweight champion, Cain Velasquez. This was Velasquez’s first fight after losing the Heavyweight title to Junior Dos Santos, and he was obviously looking to make a statement. If you look close enough, you can probably read that statement written on the canvas in Bigfoot’s blood.

In the span of two fights, and less than two rounds, Bigfoot had gone from monstrous fast-rising Heavyweight contender to risking losing his job with another loss. He rebounded from the massacre at the hands of Velasquez to score his first UFC victory over previously undefeated Travis Browne, but even that victory was slightly tainted. Browne spent most of the first round going for lots of spinning kicks and flashy offense, and in the process tore his hamstring. With his mobility significantly compromised, Silva was able to stalk Browne and start landing huge shots, resulting in a first round knockout victory. While his place in the company was now secure, his standing in the division was still very much up in question.

Alistair Overeem arrived in the UFC with far more fanfare than Silva. He had won Heavyweight titles in other organizations (Strikeforce, DREAM), as well as the K-1 World Grand Prix kickboxing title in 2010. He had also won significant skepticism from lots of MMA fans, as he had risen to prominence overseas, outside of the comparatively stringent drug testing policies in the US, and he had gone from a reasonably built Light Heavyweight to a ridiculously muscular Heavyweight powerhouse in a suspiciously short window.

Overeem’s Octagon debut came against former UFC champion Brock Lesnar, in what would prove to be Lesnar’s last fight. He was coming off of his second long layoff following a bout with diverticulitis, and first fight after losing his title in a one sided beating to the aforementioned Cain Velasquez. Being a former NCAA Division I wrestling champion, everyone expected Brock to attempt to take the fight to the ground immediately, but instead he chose to stand and trade with a world-class kickboxer. The result was about what you’d expect.

Overeem was then slated to fight UFC champion Junior Dos Santos in his next fight, but to the surprise of virtually no one, he failed a random drug test leading up to the fight. And it wasn’t like he had trace amounts of something in his system, or got popped for something silly like Sudafed. He was found to have testosterone levels roughly fourteen times that of a normal person. He concocted a ridiculous story about his doctor giving him a painkiller mixed with testosterone, unbeknownst to him. The Nevada athletic commission responded with an appropriate level of disbelief, and suspended Overeem for 9 months.

And that, dedicated reader, is what brought us to Saturday night. Upon serving his suspension, Overeem was matched up against Silva, in what was pretty much assumed to be a formality on Overeem’s way to a title shot. Given how Silva had lost his two fights to Cormier and Velasquez, it was almost universally accepted that Overeem was going to use his significant striking advantage to plow through his giant opponent in short order, and solidify his status as the top contender in the division. Perhaps no one embraced this inevitability more than Overeem himself. Throughout the leadup to the fight, he openly mocked Silva, referring to him as a “giant target” and a “notch in my belt… a statistic”. His disrespect and mocking of his opponent nearly led to a blow up at the pre-fight press conference, as well as the weigh-in.

As if he took his previous disrespect as a challenge, Overeem raised things to comical levels during his walk-in for the fight, playing to the crowd and dancing in the aisle on his way to the ring, acting more like this was a coronation than a fight.

In the first round of the fight, it looked like most of the experts, and Overeem himself, were going to be correct. He was noticeably faster than Silva, with much crisper striking and a better overall command of the cage. He was able to dodge almost all of the punches that Silva was throwing, although Silva spent most of the first round on the defensive. Overeem continued his disrespect for his opponent by keeping his hands down for long stretches, rather than show any concern at the punching power of Bigfoot.

The second round was equally dominant for Overeem, athough this time rather than simply outclassing Silva on the feet, he took him to the mat and unleashed some ground & pound offense. There were several moments where it appeared that referee Herb Dean might step in and stop the fight, but Silva managed to keep defending himself. Eventually, he was able to withstand the onslaught long enough for the fight to be stood back up. For the remainder of the second round, it was apparent that Overeem was starting to slow down. Silva landed a couple of solid shots before the end of the round, but Overeem continued to be mostly disinterested in defense and looked thoroughly unconcerned walking to his corner.

As the third round started, Overeem had likely built a significant advantage on the scorecards, with clear wins in the first two rounds. While I would hardly be one to advocate running away to protect a lead, or to go into completely defensive mode to preserve the win, at the very least he should have realized his cardio was compromised, and started to respect Silva’s offense. Unfortunately for Overeem, he seemingly couldn’t distance himself from his own mystique, and he continued to try to mock Bigfoot, and fight with his hands down. In a beautiful display of karma and comeuppance, Silva’s heavy hands finally caught up to Overeem’s over inflated head, in a finishing sequence that I can’t possibly do justice to in words:

From another angle:

After Overeem hit the canvas, Silva continued to fire verbal jabs at his fallen opponent, since he was no longer standing to hit with literal blows. While he was screaming in borderline gibberish Portuguese, undersized referee Herb Dean had to try to drag an enraged monster away from the downed Overeem.

The result of the fight itself has put the UFC Heavyweight division into chaos. Overeem, the presumed number 1 contender, now finds his entire resume at Heavyweight under scrutiny. Silva, despite the dominant win, was equally dominated by current champion Cain Velasquez. There are no other clear contenders coming off of victories in the UFC to match up in the immediate future. But, at least for this night, that didn’t matter.

The disrespectful fighter got what was coming to him. The underdog got an emphatic win. And we all learned a valuable lesson – when you’re locked inside a cage with a monster, keep your damn hands up.