Anderson Silva was the heavy betting favorite heading into his first matchup against Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 in 2010. However, after narrowly escaping with a late submission win and absorbing over 200 more strikes than he dished out, it’s safe to say that the odds in this fight are much closer this go around.

From a press release:

According to FightMetric, the challenger landed 252 more strikes than Silva, with a total of 320 punches, kicks, elbows and knees finding the mark; Sonnen completed three takedowns in the fight, and kept Silva on his back for a combined 20 minutes of the fight – twice as much as “The Spider” had been on his back in his entire UFC career; Sonnen passed Silva’s guard into side-control six times and swept him as well; Sonnen also out-struck Silva during the three minutes the fight was contested standing up.

Of course, all the champion cares about is that he was still the champion when he walked out of the cage that night while Sonnen had to swallow the bitter pill of defeat after having victory well within his grasp.

Silva commented:

“He took me down, he is good at wrestling. Okay. Good. But I punch him in the face ‘BAP! BAP! BAP! BOOM!’ and that is it. I win. That’s it. No different from the first fight on Saturday. I win!”

Sonnen still maintains that he won the ‘fight’ because of how much damaged he inflicted upon the champion, and makes some valid points despite the loss:

“To say this guy is superior to me is a joke. Look at the statistics from the first fight. I out-landed him by over 200 punches, I took him down at will, I passed his guard at will and I beat him on the feet too.”

Here’s a video package of the stats from the first fight:

Does Sonnen have the ability to replicate what he did the first fight, or will Silva make the necessary adjustments and dominate Sonnen like he has done every other UFC opponent since 2006? Stay tuned to ProMMAnow (www.prommanow.com) for a breakdown of the rematch on Wednesday.

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