After being knocked out in his last fight, the explosive Wanderlei Silva was a little more calculated in today’s battle against Rich Franklin at UFC 99. Maybe too much so, it appeared that the "Axe Murderer" landed the heavier shots throughout the fight but he also allowed Franklin to score too often with body kicks, jabs and straight lefts. Franklin took a unanimous decision in Cologne, Germany. Oddly for the third time on the night, UFC ring announcer Bruce Buffer chose not to announce the scores. Cagewriter had the fight 29-28 for Silva.
The fight was waged at a catchweight of 195 pounds. Silva has spent his entire career at light heavyweight while Franklin has toggled between 205 and 185. Silva did appear tired from the middle of the second round on. He swung wildly and missed a lot, but when he did land in the second round, he had Franklin in trouble with 1:10 left. He smashed Franklin with two rights against the cage:
"You know when you get hit and see black for a second? I came to quickly. Not like the times in the past when I couldn’t remember where I was for a few minutes," chuckled Franklin.
Franklin, a veteran of 29 MMA fights, collected himself and Silva looked exhausted as he prepped for the final round. In Round 3, the blueprint was the same. Franklin landed more shots from the outside but he did get blasted on several occasions. With less than a minute left, Silva threw caution to the wind and had Franklin injured against the cage. Franklin was wise, he clinched and got the fight to the ground with 38 seconds left. It may have sealed the victory.
Silva (32-10-1) has now lost five of six fights but all against high level competition. His plan is to move down to 185 pounds to set up a matchup against UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva. UFC color voice Joe Rogan reported that the cut to 195 was difficult, saying he heard that Silva, 32, had to drop 12 pounds on Friday before the weigh-in. With this loss, he’ll need at least two dominant wins at middleweight to earn a shot at one of the top five pound-for-pound fighters in the world.
Franklin (25-4) bounced back nicely from a tight decision loss at UFC 93 against Dan Henderson. He has too many options to name at 205 pounds for his next opponent.
Join Cofield, Adam Hill from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Ariel Helwani from Versus.com for another edition of the Yahoo!/ESPNRadio1100 postfight show tonight from 9-11 p.m. ET. We’ll have several of the winners from UFC 99 live from Germany. You can listen here. Calls are welcome at 702-364-1100 or texts at 63532.
