History isn’t always impressive or pretty, but history occurred at the main event for UFC 97: Redemption at Montreal’s Bell Centre. It appeared that the Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva-Thales Leites matchup was an audition for Dancing with the Stars.

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Silva (24-4) retained his middleweight championship with an ugly unanimous decision over an outclassed Thales Leites (14-2). That’s what happens when the main event has a $6.50 favorite (bet $650 to win $100), pitting a counter puncher against a guy afraid to engage unless the fight is on the ground.

‘The Spider’ became the first UFC fighter to win nine consecutive fights inside the octagon, overtaking the eight-fight winning streaks from UFC Hall of Famer Royce Gracie and Jon Fitch. Silva won the lackluster main event on all three scorecards (49-46, 48-47 and 50-46). VegasInsider.com gave all five rounds to Silva, 50-46.

How bad was the matchup?

After touching gloves at the start of the fight, there wasn’t another punch thrown that made contact until for another 1:12. This was the worst UFC main event since UFC 61: Bitter Rivals that saw Tim ‘The Maine-iac’ Sylvia win a boring unanimous decision over Andrei ‘The Pitbull’ Arlovski to retain his heavyweight title.

Silva controlled the entire contest, and outside of a Leites takedown in the second round there was little or no drama. The fight played out with Silva stalking Leites, even dropping his hands in an effort to get Leites to engage. There were sporadic barrages of punches with Leites going to the canvas at every opportunity, even when a punch didn’t connect. From there, Silva would land a couple of leg kicks before backing off to get the fight standing once again.

As disappointing as the main event was for UFC 97, there was plenty of drama in the co-main event.

Some questions were answered in the Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua-Chuck ‘The Iceman’ Liddell fight. Rua looked impressive by recording a technical knockout victory at the 4:28 mark of the opening round. It was a back-and-forth battle before ‘Shogun’ connected with a left hook that knocked down the former UFC light heavyweight champion. Rua then pounced on the downed opponent and finished the contest by landing numerous hammer fists before the fight was called.

Rua (18-3) cashed tickets as the $1.60 underdog, and has now won his last two fights inside the octagon. The 27-year-old has been hampered by two knee surgeries and a broken arm, but stepped up in this matchup. The Brazilian has been dogged by cardio questions after his last two fights, and this fight didn’t last long enough to answers those skeptics.

Speaking of questions, the future of Liddell (21-7) is now up in the air. The 39-year-old has now lost four of his last five fights, three by knockout. ‘The Iceman’ looked bigger against Rua, and both connected on some solid leg kicks and punches.

Rua almost locked in an inverted heel hook submission halfway through the first round, but Liddell escaped and later got top position himself. Then when the fighters got back to their feet, Rua connected on the hook that ultimately ended the fight and possibly Liddell’s UFC career.

Another light heavyweight matchup on this card was a battle between Krzysztof ‘The Polish Experiment’ Soszynski and Brian ‘All American’ Stann. Soszynski won the fight with a beautiful Kimura submission 3:53 into the opening stanza from side mount. ‘The Polish Experiment’ (17-8-1) entered the octagon as a $1.70 ‘chalk,’ and left as one of the rising stars in this division. Soszynski began his UFC career as a member of The Ultimate Fighter 8, and was one of the favorites to capture that show’s guaranteed contract.

Stann (6-2) was making his UFC debut after being the World Extreme Cagefighting’s light heavyweight champion. ‘All American’ then lost his title, and the WEC later dropped its light heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight and lightweight divisions. Stann is also a Marine veteran of Iraq, but has now dropped his last two fights. Expect Stann’s next fight to be on an upcoming UFC Fight Night or Ultimate Fighter Finale.

The only heavyweight fight on the UFC 97: Redemption card saw a rising star continue his ascent.

Cheick Kongo (14-4-1) impressed inside the heavyweight division once again with a second-round technical knockout of Antoni Hardonk (8-5). Kongo, the $2.80 favorite, finished the fight at 2:29 of round two by devastating ground and pound.

The powerful Frenchman is a kick boxer, but has been working on improving his ground game. Kongo will not move into our top-five heavyweight rankings, but remains one of the fighters to watch in this vastly improved division.

There was another light heavyweight matchup pitting a Brazilian striker against a former WEC champion.

Brazilian Luiz ‘Banha’ Cane improved his MMA record to 10-1 and cashed tickets as a decided $2.65 ‘chalk’ over Steve ‘The Robot’ Cantwell (7-2) in a hard-fought unanimous decision. Cane won on two judges’ scorecards, 30-27, and 29-28 on the other. VI also scored the contest in favor of Cane, 29-28, giving him the first and third rounds.

The fight remained standing the entire time, with each fighter trading an assortment of punches and kicks. Cane mixed things up a bit in the clinch by utilizing his Muay Thai skills, but the majority of the contest occurred in the center of the octagon.

‘Banha’ continues to move up the light heavyweight ladder, with his lone loss occurring to James Irvin when he was disqualified for kneeing to the head of a downed opponent. Cane entered this matchup ranked fifth in our latest UFC Power Rankings, and will remain in that slot after his Montreal performance.

Brad Young can be reached at byoung@vegasinsider.com.