ANT FROSH is a Melbourne writer and BPL'S UFC expert.

For those of you who can remember the first ever UFC tournaments, you'll recall that Royce Gracie easily won his first seven fights to win UFC1 and UFC2 and going into UFC3, many people believed that Gracie was invulnerable.

But then in the first round of UFC3, Gracie fought prison-reformed steroidal monster Kimo Leopoldo. Back then, UFC fights did not have rounds or weight classes, and the much larger Kimo threw everything at the MMA legend, prompting one the commentators to say, "Make no mistake, Royce Gracie is in a battle!"

After nearly five minutes of a fight where he was quite brutalised, Gracie managed to lock on to an arm bar, forcing Kimo to tap. However, Kimo had delivered enough punishment to force Gracie to withdraw from the tournament.

In some ways, the Anderson Silva-Chael Sonnen fight on the weekend was reminiscent of this. Many believed Silva had become invulnerable; such has been his dominance in the middleweight division. There was something of a consensus that Silva had nothing more to prove at middleweight, and the time had come for him to challenge for the light-heavyweight crown. Chael Sonnen, despite not coming away with the title, has absolutely rocked the perception that Silva is invulnerable.

Not since Silva joined the UFC in 2006 had he ever been in what could be described as a battle. But make no mistake, against Chael Sonnen, that is what Silva was in. In the five-round title fight, Sonnen won the first four rounds. In every round he was able to take Silva down and deliver strikes from within Silva's guard and half-guard. However, with two minutes to go in the final round, with Sonnen again having Silva on his back and looking like he was on the verge of a massive upset, Sonnen, for the fourth time in his professional career, was forced to tap out due to a triangle choke.

So where to from now? There has been talk after the fight that Silva had an injured rib, and his doctor had advised him not to fight. This injured rib is said to have limited his mobility and thus allowed Sonnen to come so close to defeating him. This may well be true, but even so, it seems a good idea for Silva to spend less time with Steven Seagal, and instead incorporate more takedown defence into his training regime.

He needs to do practice this not only with jiu jitsu fighters (against whom he matches up quite well), but also with world class wrestlers. Sonnen, on the other hand, must start to learn more submission defence. A look through his fight history shows that almost all his losses have been by submission.

As for the UFC in general, any plans for Silva to make an assault on the light-heavyweight division will probably need to be put on hold. The fans as well as UFC boss Dana White will surely be interested in a Silva-Sonnen rematch.