Arona faced PRIDE middleweight champion Wanderlei Silva (Pictures), winner of the first man Middleweight GP crown in 2003, in the semifinals. There was a lot of bad blood between these two going into this match-up, as evidence by their intense stare down at the weigh-in the previous day.
This is pretty much how the rest of this fight played out on the ground. Arona was never on his back during this match-up. Silva kept his guard closed tightly, preventing Arona from passing. Arona often pushed Silva’s head to the mat, following up with punches.
The referee stood the two combatants up several times. On their feet, both fighters came charging in and put together some powerful punching combinations. When Silva came forward with punches, Arona would back up about two or three steps and then go down looking for the shot.
Arona basically overpowered Silva in this one, a bout few would label “technical.” The Brazilian Top Team member was awarded the unanimous decision and Silva was clearly disappointed as he left the ring. After the event, Arona said that Silva’s guard was good and that he couldn’t do as much as he wanted to do on the ground.
The other semifinal match pitted Shogun against Dutch fighter Alistair Overeem (Pictures). This was another fast–and-furious battle for Shogun. Several times Overeem tried to apply the guillotine choke that he used versus Vitor Belfort (Pictures) and Igor Vovchanchyn (Pictures) to earn a spot in Sunday’s “Final Conflict.” The lanky fighter also was able to fire some knees on the ground.
Shogun scored some great takedowns and worked his way to side-mount. From here he switched to knee-on-belly position and landed a grazing soccer kick, followed by a stomp.
Shogun continued to make some nice transitions on the ground, eventually mounting Overeem and raining down punches. From here, the Brazilian crawled up his opponent, pinning a shoulder to the ground with his knee. Overeem tried to bridge but to no avail. Shogun continued to pound a helpless Overeem until the referee stepped in and stopped the fight.