Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion, Anderson Silva, tonight (Jan. 31, 2015) competed in his first non-title match in more than eight years, returning from an awful broken shin suffered inside the Octagon to battle Nick Diaz in the UFC 183 main event.
To watch full fight video highlights of Anderson Silva vs. Nick Diaz click here.
Diaz spent the majority of the first round clowning around, doing Anderson's old shtick and actually doing it quite well. He even sprawled himself out on the canvas, then backed himself into the cage for a hot minute. He got a little carried away with the tomfoolery, but UFC color commentator Joe Rogan was eating it up.
They exchanged some punches toward the end of the round, but the first frame was basically a circus act.
Round two got off to a pretty slow start but Diaz toned down the antics. "The Spider" seemed intent on circling in and out of danger and not really doing much in terms of volume. Diaz was the busier fighter, but he was missing as often as he was connecting, and they appeared to be even in strikes landed heading into the third.
That's where Silva appeared to pick up the pace and get a little busier on the feet. Diaz started to show signs of wear-and-tear on his face but was able to give as good as he got -- just not as frequently. Unfortunately, this was less of a mixed martial arts (MMA) fight and more of a hard sparring match with two rounds to go.
Unfortunately things slowed back down again in the fourth frame and it was probably a good two-to-three minutes before any action took place and when it did, it was brief. As hard as it is to believe -- considering the hype behind the return of these two headliners -- the boo birds were singing to close out the round.
The fans came alive again for the final five minutes of the fight, but the main event ended in much the same way it started: lots of juking and jiving interspersed with a few hard strikes from both sides. When all was said and done, "The Spider" walked away with a sweep on the judges' scorecards.
Watch the fight video highlights here.
For complete UFC 183: "Silva vs. Diaz" results, including play-by-play updates, click here.