Cote gamely coming forward and exchanging punches with the intimidating striker Silva.
The fight was for the UFC middleweight championship with Anderson Silva defending. Patrick Cote was a replacement for the injured Yushin Okami.
The Fight[]
Silva bowed, Cote simultaneously returning the bow as a show of respect and the fighters went back to their corners. The first round began and the fighters came out. They touched gloves, Cote throwing a leg kick. Silva simply circled and waited, sizing Cote up. Cote threw another leg kick. The fighters continued circling. Cote dodged forward and caught Silva with a jab and seemed to piss Silva off. Silva threw an inside leg kick, his first real offensive activity of the fight, with three minutes and eleven seconds left in the first round. Cote checked the kick. They clinched. They broke. Silva threw a leg kick and then a body kick. Cote threw a leg kick of his own. Cote threw a body kick. Cote dodged forward, throwing missing strikes and then with about one minutes and thirty two seconds left, Silva hit him with a kick to the chin and then a few minutes later a knee to the forehead. Cote kept coming. The crowd roared. Cote was cut on his forehead about this point, most likely from the knee. One minute remained in the first round. Thirty seconds remained. They simply circled around and around. Silva threw a nice leg kick with twenty seconds remaining, and Cote began switching stances. With the final seconds, Silva hit him with a nice body kick and the two bowed to each other as the round ended.
The second round began and the fighters came out and touched gloves once more and Cote threw a very early leg kick. Silva dodged forward with two strikes and then a leg kick and attempted a switch to a scissor kick and landed a spinning back fist before clinching with Cote against the cage. The clinch broke and Silva landed a big kick. They exchanged strikes, Silva landed a leg kick, and then a body kick. Cote went for the takedown, Silva avoided, Cote ended up on the bottom and pulled guard. Cote threw a few very good elbows from the bottom and the crowd roared. He tried to roll into an armbar. Silva stood up, throwing lazy kicks towards Cote. Herb Dean asked him to let Cote up and Silva offered his hand. Silva touched gloves with Cote and the fight was restarted once more. Cote leaped forward. It seemed as if he had twisted his ankle when he missed the strike after the lunge. With forty-three seconds remaining in the second round, Silva went for a low leg kick and Cote grabbed it and went for the takedown. Silva twisted out of it and they began circling once more. Silva tried the kick again, Cote caught it again and he backed Silva up against the cage with that manipulation. In the last few seconds of the round, Silva turned the clinch around and threw hard knees to the body. The fighters went back to their corners without the fighters bowing to each other any longer.
The third round began and the fighters came out and touched gloves. Cote threw a jab that landed early and then a leg kick. With four minutes and thirty-three seconds of the round remaining, Cote went for a kick and collapsed. He tried to limp back to the fight but Herb Dean told him that the fight was over. Anderson Silva won the fight.