UFC 153: Can Stephan Bonnar Pull a Buster Douglas? - Joe Chacon's Blog

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UFC 153: Can Stephan Bonnar Pull a Buster Douglas? Stuck

Posted on October 9, 2012 at 01:46 AM.

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UFC 153 takes place this Saturday night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In one of the most unbalanced main events, Anderson Silva will take on Stephan Bonnar in a light heavyweight bout.

Silva, for the last four or five years has been considered the best MMA has to offer. He has compiled a professional record of 32-4 and hasn't lost a fight since 2006. Even then, that was due to an illegal kick in the now defunct Cage Rage promotion.

Bonnar is best known for his fight against Forrest Griffin in 2005 that helped propel the UFC to a mainstream audience. All of a sudden Bonnar has racked up 21 career UFC fights and has won 16 of them.

Now Bonnar, in perhaps his final fight, tries to do the unthinkable by beating who many believe to be the greatest of all time. A Bonnar win would rival that of Buster Douglas pulling off the upset against Mike Tyson. For those not familiar with MMA, that would be the best analogy I can give you for how big of an upset it would be.

Bonnar has agreed to let the UFC market this as somebody who really doesn't have a shot. The advertising campaign centers around clips of Silva making every opponent look foolish while labeling Bonnar as somebody trying to pull off the upset. At least the UFC isn't playing the angle that this is a fight people have been clamoring for -- because it isn't.

Don't blame the fighters though. If anything, they should be applauded. Both men are stepping up to fight to avoid another UFC 151 disaster. If you recall, UFC 151 was marred by Dan Henderson getting hurt and Jon Jones rejecting a replacement opponent in Chael Sonnen. Eventually the entire card was canceled. In this current situation, Jose Aldo and Erik Koch were to headline the card but both became injured.

I've played the fight in my head a few times and I just can't see Bonnar pulling this off. I do believe, however, that he will put on a Sonnen type of effort and perhaps land a few shots early to make the fight competitive. As Lee Corso would say, it's going to be closer than the experts think, but that's really not saying much.

Bonnar with the win? I don't think so, but it would sure make for one helluva story.

OS Voice: How long will Stephan Bonnar last against Anderson Silva?

Joe Chacon is a staff writer for Operation Sports and a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.

Comments

# 1 TannerMendoza19 @ Oct 9

He will last 2 rounds if he's lucky

# 2 Marcojavi @ Oct 9

His a great fighter i know that. Im sure he wont get clowned this time.

# 3 GOBLUE_08 @ Oct 10

I think he'll last a round and a half, its gonna be ugly though.

# 4 DBMcGee3 @ Oct 10

It insults me as a fan of the sport that Dana White would even make this a PPV. He really needs to tighten some screws and make either Silva/GSP or Silva/Bones Jones happen. You own the sport dude, do it.