Gotta say though just like we have seen before in his fights when in Pride that he has an amazing way of recovering from being hurt. have no idea how he does it.

The *only* complaint I have with the fight is that for the last 2:30 Chuck was fairly clearly fighting for the “W”, which he has every right to do mind you. But he was checking the clock every 15 seconds and really pulling a De La Hoya. On the other hand Silva just didn’t bring it enough to close the fight out either…I was really surprised he never attempted the MT knees when he had the chance (he had a few chances) and that he didn’t pounce on Chuck when he went down (either time) b/c his bread & butter has always been those wild scrambles.

Also, Rogan and Goldy really give me gas – they don’t even try to hide their bias to certain fighters – they might has well have just been openly rooting for Liddell. Not that it makes any difference on the fight itself, but it’s just tacky.

And GSP – that guy’s just on another level. I think he tops the p4p rankings in my books, even though I wasn’t surprised with the result, he just seems to bring a different wrinkle to his game every time out.

1. Silva won the second round from where I sat. Although Liddell recovered immediately, Wand knocked him down legit, I thought. The other one was a slip, but one was a KD.

2. I think Silva was playing possum. In general, I felt like Silva spent a lot of time trying to bait Liddell in to negate Chuck’s range — and he did tag him several times, but Chuck’s chin is pretty good.

3. I really hope they feed Wand someone he can just kick the crap out of. Crocop, Henderson, Liddell — the guy deserves a gimme fight, no?

FF

1. How did 2 judges give Liddell the 2nd round? IMO Silva took that round on or a bit above the level that Liddell took round 1. Not to mention that he actually dropped Liddell (the 2nd time he hit the canvas).

2. Was Silva actually rocked in the 1st round when he went to the cage or was he just “baiting” Liddell? At first I thought Liddell had rocked him but on the next few viewings, he seemed to have just been playing possum, b/c the second Liddell came in Silva’s range to finish him off Silva fired off a pretty wild shot that sent Liddell back.

As much as I hated seeing Silva lose, that was an excellent fight. His chin really surprised me…and boy did Liddell look rejuvenated.

I think UFC really won with the way this fight unfolded. You had a war bw two guys that need to respark their careers and neither of them looked bad. Now “Liddell is back” and they can make some serious bank in 2008 off a run to the title. And in the loss Silva appears to have been legitimized to most casual fans in the US.

At least that’s my take on the whole situation.

White can be happy, they ended the year in style.

GSP is a monster, and a gentlemen… I look forward to seeing him tear apart the Terror (much as I love that coffee-swigging little dude.)

the dude who unleashed an elbow holocaust on Kikuchi earlier this year.

That really is an unfortunate choice of wording. Valor may be the better part of discretion here.