Silva turns out lights on electric evening

Did you feel the electricity, and the little hairs on the back of your neck stand up?

Did you hear the haunting music? Phil Collins singing in a plaintive voice? Those drums?

Did you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord?

There's just something about a big prizefight - the portent of violence, the possibility of mayhem, the inherent promise of havoc being wreaked - that you don't get in the more traditional sports.

You sort of get it in motor racing. At the start of the Indianapolis 500 when the cars are tightly bunched, all it takes is one driver to put a wheel wrong. There might be a crash. Somebody might get hurt.

Ernest Hemingway supposedly was quite fond of motor racing. And of bullfighting. And of mountain climbing.

Hemingway, it can be assumed, would have loved the disabled list. And groin pulls and torn knee ligaments.

This probably is how the famous but never verified quotation, about there being but three true sports - bullfighting, mountain climbing and motor racing - with the rest merely being games came to be associated with Hemingway when he was crafting narrative and slamming mojitos down in Cuba.

For these reasons, I think the great writer/adventurer might have added UFC 148, Chael Sonnen vs. Anderson Silva at the MGM Grand Garden on Saturday night, to his true sports short list. Maybe even written about it for Esquire.

There was a chance of a crash, of somebody getting hurt.

There were portents of violence, predictions of mayhem, inherent promises of havoc being wreaked. There even was a nod to a dead pornographic film legend.

Trash was talked in two languages. For days. For months. For years, or so it seemed.

Sonnen started it in English. He grabbed the ring microphone following UFC 136 and, in turning to the 184-pound behemoth that UFC chief Dana White has called the greatest mixed martial artist ever, said "Anderson Silva, you absolutely suck."

Silva later responded in Portuguese that he absolutely was going to kick Sonnen's (behind).

Somewhere, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Terrell Owens and John Rocker were laughing their collective (behinds) off.

So these two ultimate fighters had a history. Or at least a contrived history, as Sonnen always had talked a good fight when it comes to Silva.

And when they met in 2010, in UFC 117, Sonnen fought a good fight, too. In fact, Sonnen pretty much was in control for 4½ rounds against the great champion, until Silva put Sonnen in a triangle choke hold. And that was that.

Until Sonnen told Silva he absolutely sucked. And said that he, Sonnen, had "trombone-size stones, like John Holmes."

So it was out of the frying pan, and into the rundown movie houses of the 1970s where pornographic films were shown. If Debbie did Dallas, maybe she'd do the octagon, too.

So however you slide the trombone, UFC 148, Sonnen vs. Silva II, was shaping up as one of the great fights in mixed martial arts history, with a live record gate and lots of pay per views and no chance of Las Vegas fight judge CJ Ross influencing the outcome.

And that is why a lot of people in the sold-out Grand Garden heard Phil Collins singing and the beat of those drums on Saturday night.

At 1:55 of Round 2, the drums stopping beating.

Sonnen tried a spinning backfist and missed, and when he fell backward into the cage, one could tell from the expression on his face there would be no further trash talking on this evening, no further comparisons to John Holmes and trombones.

The wrestler from the University of Oregon had run out of wrestling moves, and Brazilian fans cheered as if Ronaldinho or Kaka or one of those other Brazilian soccer stars had just scored the winning goal against Argentina in the 88th minute.

It was loud, and it was intense, and it was exciting for as long as it lasted, for as long as Sonnen was able to take Silva down and keep him there.

As Phil Collins said, you could feel that something was coming in the air, even if it never quite arrived.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.