Jay wrote:regardless of the reason, Silva was off in a huge way in that first fight... he wasn't aggressive in the least and played defensive for over 4 rounds. If he didn't catch Sonnen, he would have lost on points.
They are replaying the fight for free on ufc.com if you haven't seen it in awhile. I think your assessment is just wrong. Silva TRIED to be aggressive like he always does but watch his other fights: he never comes out aggressive! He throws a few things to see how people will react, he moves around to see what the other guy does...and his typical opponents "respect" him/are scared and so they give him a few minutes of free viewing time, sometimes they spend the whole first round feeling him out.
And then when Silva has their riddle solved, he starts doing the hand rolling thing and you know it's game time. Several seconds later, his opponent is usually KTFO.
But Sonnen came right him and actually dropped him in the first. Then smothered him on the ground. The beginning of the next few rounds, Silva came out of his corner aggressivly looking to turn the tide and get back to his striking game. didn't work.
I thikn Silva got caught by surprise in that first round. Then he tried to turn up the heat whenever he was on his feet but he couldn't do it b/c he couldn't stop Sonnen's takedowns.