Silva overpowers Vera, smashes his nose in win at UFC 125

Yahoo! Sports

Sat Jan 01 11:41pm EST

Silva overpowers Vera, smashes his nose in win at UFC 125

Brandon Vera just can't figure it out. He was great at heavyweight, but his drop to light heavyweight has been riddled with lackluster fights. It happened again tonight as Thiago Silva took him down then held him down and beat upon him for 13-of-15 minutes rolling to a unanimous decision win, 30-26, 30-27 and 30-27.

Vera was helpless throughout and really showed no sense of urgency. Even when the fight ended, Vera with a horribly crooked, broken nose, sort of clowned with the crowd.

That attitude was shocking considering Vera had just dropped to 3-4 at 205 pounds with the UFC. This loss makes it three straight loss for Vera (11-6, 7-6 UFC). He's in jeopardy of being cut by the promotion.

This was a great bounceback victory for Silva, who was incredibly dangerous during a close loss to Rashad Evans at UFC 108. Silva had Evans hurt badly in that fight, but lacked stamina down the stretch. He claimed a back injury had kept from normal training.

Silva hadn't fought since Jan. 2 of 2010. Entering this fight, he looked much better physically and had plenty of energy for all 15 minutes.

Silva (15-2, 6-2 UFC) so dominated down the stretch that he pinned Vera on the cage for the final three minutes. Sitting on Vera's back, Silva began to open-hand slap the Filipino-American. He even slapped a little tune on his back. In the final minute, he unloaded with some heavy punches. That's when it looked like Silva put a huge dent into Vera's schnoz.