Sonnen was scoring all kinds of points, but he wasn't doing any real damage. He wobbled Silva one good time on his feet, but that was about it. He didn't really land any hard shots on the ground and most of them didn't even really connect.
Silva seemed to pick and choose his shots and like usual he was super accurate and it showed on Sonnen's face after the fight. Sonnen was busted up and Silva barely had a scratch.
Silva definitely looked rusty and/or apathetic at times though. Who knows whether the rib injury was real and/or whether it had an effect on his performance. I'll give Sonnen credit that he came out and was very aggressive and kept pushing. But I think that Silva may have been waiting for the opportunity that he knew was coming and he took it when it came up.
Silva was never in any real danger of getting stopped and he was purposefully absorbing a lot of shots. I'm not sure that he didn't want the match to go like it did after Dana lamblasted him over the last fight. Not saying it was rigged or anything, but the match was definitely more exciting for viewers than Silva's last fight. Maybe Silva wanted people to think he was on the ropes so that nobody considered him an unbeatable phenom and as a result the expectations of him were lowered some?