Sliding Doors: 5 Fight Outcomes That Would Have Changed the UFC Forever

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

UFC 117 was craziest main event in the history of the promotion, from the selling of the event to the lead-up to the bout to the actual fight itself.

With Anderson Silva at the peak of his power, undefeated in the UFC and having stacked most of the middleweight division in a neat pile of unconscious bodies, Chael Sonnen came along and did the unthinkable: He beat Silva up.

Verbally, mentally and physically, Sonnen was Silva’s better at every turn. He made it his personal mission to rattle the champion in any way imaginable, fearlessly pursuing the Brazilian and aiming to take his title. When the fight happened after months of highly publicized feuding and promotion, Sonnen very nearly did exactly that.

For 23:10 of their scheduled 25-minute battle, Sonnen threw Silva around and beat him up. Continuously he took Silva down and wailed on him, sitting in guard and punching and elbowing the champion until success was all but a certainty.

Only it wasn’t.

Silva threw up a last-ditch triangle choke and cinched it in, causing Sonnen to tap and seizing victory from the jaws of defeat. It was easily the most stunning end ever seen in a UFC title fight.

If he hadn’t hit that triangle, there’s no telling how things might be different today. Silva defended his title three more times afterwards, cementing a legacy as the best of all-time that was truly established with the Sonnen win. He also beat Sonnen again in 2012 even more convincingly, leaving even less doubt as to his excellence.

A Sonnen win at UFC 117 would have ended the Silva run early, diminishing that legacy and perhaps sending Silva into the middle of the pack a few years early. He was, after all, approaching his late-30s at that point and would have been coming off the worst, most unimaginable defeat of his life.

Plus Sonnen tested positive for a banned substance after their fight, which would have seen him stripped of his title had he taken it from Silva. That would have sent the division into turmoil and produced a very different timeline, one in which the great Anderson Silva may have been less of a factor.