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Anderson Silva dominates and defeats Stephan Bonnar at UFC 153
In the night’s co-feature, Brazilian MMA legend Antonio Rodrigo Nogueia (34-7-1 MMA, 5-3 UFC) brought the HSBC Arena to its feet with a rousing submission win over Dave Herman (21-5 MMA, 1-3 UFC), a man who has openly claimed that Brazilian jiu-jitsu “doesn’t work.”
Things didn’t start out well for the Brazilian, as Herman looked both quicker and more powerful as he delivered kicks and knees to the body and tossed Nogueira to the mat. But as the action continued, Herman adopted an oddly passive approach to the matchup, and Nogueira was able to gain both confidence and momentum with an aggressive boxing attack.
In the second, Nogueira floored Herman with a left hand and set the tone for the forthcoming ending of the fight. While Herman returned to his feet, he again seemed uninterested in resuming the aggression with which he began the contest.
Nogueira capitalized by working into a clinch and bringing the fight to the floor, where he secured mount and then latched on to an armbar. Herman defended well to start, but after a few rolling attempts failed to free his appendage, he had no choice but to tap with 29 seconds left in the frame.
“I feel so happy,” Nogueira said after the win. “This man said jiu-jitsu doesn’t work. Jiu-jitsu does work, and it’s an art. It was a beautiful position.”
With the win, Nogueira rebounds from a December 2011 loss in which he suffered a broken arm at the hands of Frank Mir. Meanwhile, Herman has now suffered three-straight defeats in the octagon.
In a highly anticipated contest between two Brazilian light heavyweights, Glover Teixeira (19-2 MMA, 2-0 UFC) earned an impressive second-round stoppage of a durable Fabio Maldonado. Teixeira dominated the fight form the opening round with powerful strikes and a smothering ground attack, but Maldonado (18-7 MMA, 1-4 UFC) showed incredible resiliency as he continued to scramble and look to return fire, but it was simply not his night.
