But is that a life worth living?!

Manufacturing any sort of contender artificially is just beyond comprehension to me.

“but it’s also managed to ruin what couldhave been much bigger & better contests that would’ve brought his bosses even more $$$ & attention.”

The last part of that is true – the first part is not. Building someone up beyond their natural position, as you want to do, is a recipe for worse quality but overhyped contests, not “better” contests… Not better in any way whatsoever.

When the hell did I ever say ANYTHING about ANY of these fighters being personal favorites of mine? Not once. So piss off with that nonsense.

I was involved in the pro boxing game for the better part of two decades & worked side by side with men like Don Elbaum, Russell Peltz & Mike Acri. Men who’ve forgotten more about building fighters & resurrecting careers than Silva will EVER know.

No, MMA’s not boxing, but the fight game is the fight game & there are ( SURPRISE! ) actually ways in which to build fighters into top attractions destined for big money bouts without resorting to mis-matches.

Silva’s pell mell, sink or swim style has resulted in plenty of good fights, I’ll give him his due, but it’s also managed to ruin what couldhave been much bigger & better contests that would’ve brought his bosses even more $$$ & attention.

Just as an example, given the right preliminary fights, they could have built up a Couture-Cro Cop contest that would’ve been huge.
But, instead, in all his “brilliance” Silva used the Croatian to simply & rather unnecessarily further put over De Silva & he put Couture into a thankless bout with Vera that diminished much of the value that he still had left following his losses to Lesner & Nog.

To what end?

Which is what his major weakness as a matchmaker has always been …
There’s all to often been no continuity from one card to the next & for the most part one could’ve gotten the same results by putting various names in a hay & then tossing them out on the table.

Face it, his work sucks.

Crocop lost because he is a worse fighter than Gonzaga. So instead Gonzaga got the shot, which he deserved, and since he’s a better fighter than Crocop it was a better title shot than Crocop would have been (if you look at MMA as a sport not spectacle). Wandy never got a title shot because he can’t beat a top contender.

This all has nothing to do with Joe Silva, and everything to do with the fact that the fighters you have a man-crush on can’t win their way to the title on their own power, and instead require favorable match-ups. Boohoo.

Haven’t we heard this song and dance before about Anderson/Belfort? I’ll believe he’s fighting when I hear that a contract is signed, and not about this “depending on recovery” garbage.

Well damn, I had no idea that I had to be a non-critical “fan” of the company’s bloody matchmaker in order to not be considered a “hater”.

I haven’t got the energy tonight to write a dissertation on my beefs with Joe Silva & his work. All I have to do is point a finger at the shambles he made of their top star Chuck Liddell’s career as evidence of his obvious shortcomings.

Or take a look at what he did to Wanderlei Silva & Cro Cop’s careers once they arrived in the UFC. The man simply has no idea how to build, sustain or re-build a fighter’s career.

And no, I’m not saying that anyone should have been coddled or over-protected either. This obviously isn’t Japan where a series of terrible mismatches is an acceptable thing, nor would I like it to be so.

But, look at what the idiot did with regard to Filipovic alone.
He made damned sure that the UFC never even got close to a return on their investment in him.

If you want to defend him, fine, but IMO he’s a sh*t matchmaker.
If he’d done his job properly the UFC wouldn’t be backed into a corner like it is with it’s total lack of interesting contenders for GSP either.
But, rather than being able to keep him busy against the likes of Swick, Marcus Davis etc., he made them all run the gauntlet until only Hardy remains. Meaning the Canadian only fights twice a year.

Would challengers like them have been real threats? Not likely, but they had a history with UFC fans & would have drawn interest in their opportunities against one of the elite.

Now what?

What did Swick’s run lead to?

What did Davis’ build up in the UK accomplish?

Nada in both cases.

Sure, Hardy’s emerged out of the ashes, but then what?

I sure hope GSP’s interest in the ‘12 Games is legit, ’cause barring a move up to ‘85, he’ll need something to keep himself busy.

The guy was constantly tarred and feathered by his own boss in a very public fashion, sat out a year, had multiple surgeries, was “exposed” twice by Liddell (which imho the rematch was a really short sighted and hot-shot booking at the time) and was “fed” to Machida in a move lauded by everyone who “hated” Tito because he dared test his market-value (even if he overrated it, like he does his talent). I’m sure now that they’re really hurting for main-event draws at the moment, the 45’s of the world that thought Dana was brilliant and that was the greatest move ever are re-evaluating what a great idea that was.

But back to my original thought – I’m really wondering how much value Tito Ortiz has in popping buys as a headliner after a lot of the lustre has been rubbed off.