Dana White: Chael Sonnen rematch up next for UFC champ Anderson Silva

by MMAjunkie.com

Despite his loss at UFC 117, Chael Sonnen has earned an immediate rematch with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva.

UFC president Dana White, who's busy with a final media blitz for this week's UFC 118 event in Boston, today confirmed the plans while on ESPN's "SportsCenter," though a date has not been determined for the rematch.


Sonnen dominated four and a half rounds of the Aug. 7 fight before Silva scored a come-from-behind triangle-choke victory in the fifth and final round.

As MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) reported immediately after the Oakland, Calif. fight, White acknowledged fans' desire for the rematch, but initially he was noncommittal about Silva (27-4 MMA, 12-0 UFC) vs. Sonnen (25-11-1 MMA, 4-4 UFC) II.

"It's definitely a rematch I think people are going to want to see," White said after the event "Looking at Twitter, everybody is saying, 'Rematch. Rematch.' We'll see what happens. Vitor is waiting to fight right now, too. We could do the rematch with Chael, but we'll see what happens. We'll see how it goes."

White's initial reluctance may have been in part due to Vitor Belfort, who was slated to fight Silva until an injury opened the door for Sonnen. Belfort is expected to fight in November, but he's no longer fighting for a title.

Sonnen, of course, heavily hyped the UFC 117 bout with an endless stream of trash-talk. Many fans snickered at Sonnen's bold predictions of victory – Silva, after all, had soundly defeated the 11 previous opponents the UFC put before him – but according to CompuStrike, Sonnen scored 51 strikes to Silva's two in the first round. And through three rounds, he had opened a 218-to-11 gap.

Sonnen continued the lopsided beatdown until the fifth round, when Silva capitalized on one of his opponent's few mistakes and secured a fight-ending triangle choke at the 3:10 mark of the final round.

The rematch is now expected to take place later this year or in early 2011.
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