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Anderson Silva is no longer safe as a UFC PPV main eventer
By Zach Arnold | April 18, 2009
The greatest line in the history of UFC PBP (about Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites):
The crowd is absolutely furious as both fighters continue their pattern of non-violence.
Suddenly, I think the public perception of GSP beating Anderson Silva in a fight is going to skyrocket. They should book that fight for Montreal immediately.
And I think the concept of the “yakuza vacation fund” yellow cards may indeed be making a comeback here.
Vaseline redux
Josh Gross of Sports Illustrated notes this about the UFC 97 main event:
The champion enters the cage after a coat of Vaseline is slathered on his face. I’m sorry to say this, but it was pretty obvious that Silva took his hands, wiped down his face and rubbed his chest and arms.
Someone please get me a screen capture of this.
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 65 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
If I was Zuffa, I would never book Anderson Silva vs. Georges St. Pierre… For one good reason… They would lose so much if Silva won.
Anderson Silva shows absolutely no intentions of trying to finish the fight. That is garbage. No wonder he wants to fight Roy Jones Jr…. He obviously tailored his style by watching his fights.
What Zuffa needs to do is get guys like Wanderlei Silva, Michael Bisping, and guys like that after him. Damian Maia is a huge risk, cause it could turn out to be another Silva/Leitas fight… But honestly, I think he might have the best chance of beating him, and ending this Silva problem.
All I want to do is hear from all the people that kept yelling that Silva was toying with Cote during their fight. Because like I said after that fight there are now several red flads surrounding Anderson Silva and where his head is at right now because it’s not at being the best.
lol people still do not get Silva. Amazing. Seriously, counterpunchers sometimes don’t win fights against guys who fall to the ground and lay there when you throw a strike at them.
Let anderson and his bad attitude head on up to 205.
Allowing him to head DOWN and trounce guys lighter that him (if he got away with it against GSP), would only make him more of a “pretentious” michael jackson dancing jerk.
counterpuncher?
Silva just doesn’t care. He mocks his opponents. He hears the boo’s and makes no attempt to finish.
The worst was him walking away from Joe Rogan during the post fight interview.
It was pathetic.
45, clearly a fan of the frat boy turned fighter, not the martial artist.
I’m a fan of Lyoto Machida, Sean Sherk, & Jon Fitch. Not exactly the most exciting bunch.
Leites and Cote both made the choice to basically not engage and try to survive instead. Cote’s knee blew up before that could happen and Leites was gifted enough to make it 25. I agree with the idea that people who will attack him will make for better fights, but I don’t want to shove a guy like Wanderlei into a title fight when it looks like he’s completely washed up.
I disagree with 45 Huddle that Silva doesn’t care. He is a counter-striker. Some counter-strikers are better than others at adjusting their style and their gameplan when their opponent calls their proverbial bluff and forces them to be the one to come forward. Leites’ gameplan against Silva wasn’t all that different from Cote’s gameplan against Silva, or from Evans’ gameplan against Liddell.
I look forward to reading the UFC Version of History (which is disguised as Yahoo Sports’ MMA section), presumably about how it was so bad but it was all Leites’ fault and not Silva’s.
Also, the Montreal commission wouldn’t comment in the months leading up to this event, but we got our answer in the main event about whether the UFC agreed to use something other than the Unified Rules of MMA for this event. Silva did a foot-stomp, and the referee clearly said, “No foot stomps, no foot stomps.” Other MMA promotions do this with elbows, but this is the first time I can recall the Zuffa-era UFC using anything other than the Unified Rules of MMA.
lol, I spoke too soon. I just read Kevin Iole’s press release about the event, and it’s almost as predictable and humorous as that Dana White/Carmichael Dave interview about Fedor Emelianenko.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_ylt=AuhmVmkJ0BAfA67xzAutQQpXEo14?slug=ki-ufcearly041809&prov=yhoo&type=lgns&print=1
“Thales Leites didn’t appear to want to fight.” Even the UFC’s own commentators said on the PPV that Leites was trying but he just had nothing left to complete a takedown on Silva in the last few rounds after arguably winning the second round. That’s a far cry from “not wanting to fight,” but of course someone has to be blamed and it can’t be Silva.
Seriously, the article on UFC.com was more straightforward and accurate than Iole’s artice, and unlike Yahoo Sports, UFC is not trying to falsely present itself as a semi-independent web site.
lol at the almost-as-predictable Steve Cofield on Yahoo Sports, who wrote:
“Just like he did against an overmatched opponent at UFC 90, Silva danced and mocked his opponent Thales Leites, instead of finishing him.”
Not that Cofield doesn’t already know this, but I’m pretty sure that Silva WAS trying to finish him, but he couldn’t because his offense is far more effective when he’s the counter-striker (as opposed to the aggressor), and Leites showed much better defensive ability than he did in his fight against Martin Kampmann.
Silva’s the human rain delay like Mike Hargrove was in baseball
So a fighter just has to label himself as a counterfighter and can then get away with anything in Ivan’s book. I’m not buying it.
Leites was prone to getting KO’d for 3 rounds, and Silva made no attempts. Striker, Counter Striker, Wrestler, BJJ…. Doesn’t matter! Silva needs to be bringing the fight. He did not.
Everything about his last two performances screams that he isn’t very interested. Dancing. Walking away from interviews. It’s like a child with ADHD forgetting his medication.
I don’t think Anderson Silva has “labeled himself” a counter-fighter. I think anyone who has ever watched him fight can see that his style is to be a counter-fighter. The UFC’s announcers have even discussed that numerous times on the air. The vast majority of the time, that style works out very well for Silva. The question for any counter-striker like Anderson Silva or Chuck Liddell or anyone else is what happens if your opponent calls your proverbial bluff and forces you to be the aggressor. As I said before, some fighters handle that much better than others.
I just saw on the RSS feeds on FightOpinion that MMA Frenzy has a report from the post-fight press conference.
Wow, Chuck Liddell is officially retired according to Dana White. Liddell had a truly amazing career.
“White also said that Cheick Kongo is a serious contender for the heavyweight belt and is in the mix for a future title shot.”
lol, that is going to be a squash match for anyone with good takedowns. I’m sure Kongo is better now than he was when Carmelo Marrero dominated him with takedowns, but I don’t think he’s so much better that he wouldn’t be taken down and pounded and/or submitted by any number of heavyweights in the UFC. The UFC is not stupid. They know this, and that’s why Kongo’s last three fights (after the loss to Herring) have come against Dan Evensen, Mustapha al Turk, and Antoni Hardonk.
Im glad Anderson fought like that. It makes Dana White and all of his minion nuthuggers who claim Anderson is the best fighter in the world look absolutely ridiculous. All Dana’s ridiculous Fedor-bashing will hopefully come back to bite him in the ass via a string of Anderson Silva boring decisions. Karma is a motherfucker.
This is close to how it would have ended up if Marquart VS Silva wasn’t refereed by BJM.
> it was pretty obvious that Silva took his hands, wiped down his face and rubbed his chest and arms.
I’m sure that American media will ignore this until Leites’ mom living in upstairs flys to America by VASP economy to testify in court.
I guess they need to throw a mediocre japanese guy at him if they want to present any comp.
Anderson silva vs caulo uno must be the only option for some drama.
I’m more disappointed that ZA didn’t run with the idea that Silva turned heel tonight than the fight itself. Seriously, trying to bust the other guy’s kneecap with front kicks is a dick move.
I really hope that they don’t feed Wanderlei Silva to Anderson Silva after this. It’s amazing to me that there hasn’t been more talk of Wanderlei Silva retiring, just as there has (rightfully) been for Chuck Liddell.
While Liddell has been TKO’ed three times in recent years, only one of those was a knocked-out-cold KO. Wanderlei Silva has, in his last five fights, gotten brutally knocked out cold by Cro Cop, gotten brutally knocked out cold by Henderson, taken a horrible beating in a unanimous decision loss to Liddell, beaten Jardine, and gotten brutally knocked out cold by Jackson.
OMG!! A champion dominated 4 out of 5 rounds. Oh the horror!!
Sad. Just sad. Does he not want to fight anymore?
Leites will now be sporting a JOB squad t shirt.
Horrible, Horrrible “fighter”. Dives to the ground more than Jurgen Klinsman in his prime (old german soccer player)
Huddle 45 wants zuffa to get bisping after silva? ROFL TUF MARK ALERT.Theres no way silva would get himself up for that fight.
[…] Anderson Silva is no longer safe as a UFC PPV main eventer … […]
For one of the few times in world history I agree with 45huddle. A Superfight of that magnitude would be a short-term gain for a possible long time loss. Sure, that fight would probably set pay-per-view records. But you’re going to lose credibility in the public’s mind of one fighter. (Of the non-hardcore, fickle fans I’m talking about.)
I remember immediately after GSP beat Penn, right before the vid’s of GSP getting rubbed with vaseline came out, people turned against him immediately, so in reality the vaseline saved his career.
And especially if Silva wins and immediately retires, you’d be left with nothing. Not worth it.
Was funny Rogan saying that the casual fans didn’t understand, and just want exciting fights. Must be because they don’t understand MMA like him and want to be entertained for their money.
All the talk criticizing Silva for wanting to retire at 35 seems to have quietened down now. He’s never going to get the PPV bonus money he was after now.
Shogun is Back Back Back! Even though he beat a shot 40 year old and seemed pretty sloppy and still wants to waste energy on takedowns that go nowhere.
It wouldn’t shock me if Lddell came back elsewhere. Sure, he’s butt-buddies with Dana. But I keep hearing he blew all of his money, so in a few years when he’s got no income coming in and he’s hard-up for cash, Affliction or whatever flash in the pan MMA group is around then, could offer him a big pay day he can’t turn down.
How else is he going to make money? Training? Announcing? (Ugh, he’d be terrible.) I also predict his weight is going to go out of control like Mike Tyson now that he isn’t fighting.
I don’t think Bisping would beat Silva. However, I think it would be an exciting fight, and at least force Silva to put some effort into the fight, which what is needed right now.
People give Dana White a lot of crap, yet I have yet to hear one person praise him for how he is handling Chuck Liddell.
In boxing, a promoter typically shows little concern for a fighter and will milk a payday out of them until there is nothing left to milk. With White/Liddell, there is still some cash to be made off the name “Chuck Liddell”, and Dana White is trying his hardest to refuse to do that. He is protecting him from himself to a degree, and that is one of the major stories being overlooked in the aftermath of UFC 97.
As for Greasegate 2…. I saw Silva wipe his face then his chest. I saw some people say they saw it online, and then he did it again. Right before the fight starts, you can see the shiny stuff on his chest.
This just shows that if they use vaseline, it is going to get on the body, whether it is intentional or not. It just shouldn’t be used anymore in fighting.
Liddell isn’t done yet. No way in hell. He may leave for awhile (say a year or so) but he’ll be back to take another horrifying beating just like Mark Coleman, Don Frye, Ken Shamrock, Gary Goodridge, and on and on and on do.
This is a Couture retirement at best. He’ll take a year or two off and come back for a superfight and a big payoff.
Seriously the Anderson parade is still going on. The dude is absolutely brilliant on his feet and here was a guy that was deathly afraid of him and mismatched. The big problem was the ref kept letting Leites stall whenever Anderson started to hurt him.
Now greasing? Jesus. I didn’t see it and I don’t think I care, nor did it affect the outcome of the fight in any way if it did happen, just like with GSP/Penn. Some people are just looking to knock people down a few million pegs sometimes, it is sad.
Also blame the matchmaker for this fight. Okami, who people find “boring” deserved this fight before Leites did. I know Okami is “boring” but he would have at least engaged Silva.
Oh, and does this mean we can stop claiming that Shogun is “shot” now? He just beat up an aging party boy with a history of being brutally knocked out while looking for his lucky punch.
http://cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_assets/141506/vdzn2w_medium.gif
Grease Gate 2?
If Liddell did decide to jump ship, Liddell vs Sobral 2 could be an interesting booking for either Strikeforce or Affliction (Sobral’s been fighting for both, but probably Affliction, I don’t think Strikeforce has Liddell money).
Ivan-Re: Silva vs Silva, that would be an amazing fight. There is legit heat between the two of them, and Wanderlei, unlike most guys Anderson has fought, wouldn’t flop to his back like a whore and would actually pose a *gasp* threat to Anderson on the feet. I can’t wait for that.
Come on, Chuck Liddell doesn’t have much money left on his name right now. So Dana doesn’t deserve credit for the obvious. If anything, he handled the Ken Shamrock situation a little bit better by firing him after the 3rd Tito fight.
Nobody would pay to see him fight Babalu again, either. Although Babalu would finally win this time.
I have a feeling Chuck’s decline will be sad to watch. I hope he proves me wrong. I’ll never understand why these guys don’t make better investments.
As for Silva, he should have finished him. End of story. This was not Rampage-Henderson where they both went 25 min and in the last ten seconds were STILL trying for a victory.
I hope to God Shogun keeps up his new training, he looked sharp.
Wand should not retire, because he has not looked as lost as Chuck has in his recent fights. Plus Wand is 100x times cooler and I truly am pulling for a rebirth at 185 where he really should have been fighting his whole career.
Wanderlei was finished after the brutal cro crop loss. There are certain fights which fighters can never recover from and that fight was the one.
“Silva just doesn’t care. He mocks his opponents. He hears the boo’s and makes no attempt to finish.”
45, that’s extremely unfair of you to expect a fighter to change his or her game plan just because the crowd doesn’t like it. No fighter should tailor make his/her fight style just because the fans want it. And good for Silva for the way he fights. Hey, if he can get away with it and win fights with it, then more power to him. It makes his opponents who lose to him look bad, and it will make the fighter who may beat him in the future look like a million bucks, just like what happened to Antonio Tarver and Glencoffe Johnson after they both beat Roy Jones Jr.
On another note, this is what people get when someone is over rated by everyone for a few good performances. Max Kellerman made the same mistake years ago on an episode of ESPN2 Friday Night Fights when JC Candelo looked fantastic in beating Julio Garcia. For months Kellerman was raving about Candelo, and then what happened after that? He went on a THREE fight losing streak, including a decision loss to Eddie Sanchez, who took the fight against Candelo on seven HOURS notice. A hell of a feat, but it made Candelo look like a bum, but it also made Sanchez look good. Candelo’s record is now 27-10-4 with 18 kayos. He’s a good fighter, and was stopped only once, but nothing to rave about. I highly doubt Silva will end up that ordinary. He’s still too dominating of a fighter. He was that ordinary when he fought in PRIDE, but he turned out to be a hell of a fighter.
Jeremy, it’d be Liddell vs Sobral 3, but I’ve got a feeling that Liddell won’t have too many issues with needing cash. The UFC kept Couture around with a $100k+ salary to do promotional work for them, and I’m sure Dana will find something similar for his best friend.
No, it wasn’t, Liger. Wanderlei got KOed by Dan Henderson, but it’s Dan Henderson: he loves catching guys sleeping who underestimate him. And he had a ton of fire against Liddell, but his looping punching style (that he foolishly refused to re-tool) is perfect for Liddell’s famed counter striking. So he never had a chance to win that one even if it happened in 2003.
Wanderlei isn’t the same PRIDE Wanderlei, but he’s nowhere near as bad off as Chuck is right now. He’ll do great at 185, but I do think Anderson Silva will beat him.
Thanks Ice,
I thought it was three but a quick search to try to not look like an idiot only turned up UFC 62.
As to the money, UFC practically gets a hometown discount on fighters, with the remainder picked up by sponsors. Liddell fighting in UFC means that he has three revenue streams, his purse, his sponsors, and his share of the PPV. Fighting for Affliction you basically only get one (Affliction plus Affliction).
There’s a lot of people coming out and saying that Silva is overrated. Not necessarily here, outside of Chuck and David M. For sure that was a terribly frustrating and boring fight, but only because you knew the entire time that all Anderson had to do was unleash a flurry like he did against Rich Franklin and the fight would be over.
However, even his baffling lack of aggression can’t hide the fact that he was a completely different class of fighter than Leites. Leites isn’t the best out there, but he could beat most of the MWs in any organization and give anyone in the top 10 a serious fight.
Fightmetric’s effectiveness scores were 222-29 in favor of Silva. For comparison, Marquardt, a legit top 5 MW, only outscored Leites 217 – 183 by the same metric. Frustrating, boring, but Silva still dominated. Don’t start with the cries of “overrated” until someone is, at the very least, in a somewhat close fight with him.
Ice,
I didn’t mean over rated as in he got praise that he didn’t deserve. over rated as in too many people were all over his nuts after he beat Chris Leben and Rich Franklin. Hell,, I was one of the few people who predicted that Silvas would beat Leben. Back then everyone was UNDER rating him, and were saying Leben would beat him to a pulp. I predicted that Silva would win, but either by a lopsided decision (like last night) or a later round stoppage of sorts. I didn’t think the manhandling like what actually happened would occur, but it did. He’s still a great fighter, but most people were having almost unrealistic expectations of him, and I think I can safely say I was being much more realistic in my expectations of Silva. And I am not comparing Silva to JC Candelo, who went 1-5-1 after his dazzling performance over Julio Garcia. Silva is still one of the top three or so best fighters in the world. It was very unfair to Silva for most fans to compare Silva to some Godly deity after dismantling Franklin. He’s only human and he will have off nights. It’s unfair of anyone to expect more out of someone than what they can produce.
I think bisping might be better than a lot of people seem to think.
I cant explain exactly why I’m thinking that, its mostly a hunch I guess.
Pretty soon they’re gonna start giving him something to really be measured by. If he fights hendo at the end of TUF (is that the plan? I haven’t watched TUF since #2) I wont be too shocked if he beats him.
I think Silva’s overrated, but not by a whole lot. He’s one of the best active fighters in the world at all weights, top 20 easily, finding someone to take issue with that would be hard.
The hyperbole about him being the number one this or that is just that, hyperbole. I don’t think it needs to be counterpointed in any significant way. As if anyone at UFC would go around saying that Silva was the number 2 P4P fighter in the world, c’mon.
I do think most of us think he should fight Okami in UFC. It continues to be the fight that makes sense for all sorts of reasons (the synthetics show that it might be competitive, there’s the disqualification loss on Silva’s record…etc etc). The fact that it continues to not happen continues to mystify me. Especially since one of the arguments seems to be that Okami is a foreigner who doesn’t speak English and who is a boring fighter.
Silva’s been at the top of the UFC ladder for a couple years. He’s no closer to singing a lick of English and his fights aren’t getting any more exciting.
“Wanderlei isn’t the same PRIDE Wanderlei…”
Sure he is.
Pride was 1 part decent fighters and 1 part carefully arranged imagery.
… and yet more of Dana White’s credibility goes flying out of his mouth and away into the night.
As quoted on Bloody Elbow: “Fedor is not the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. These guys continue to fight the best. Fedor is at a buffet somewhere in Russia.”
Just to recap, Fedor’s last two fights were stoppage wins over the #4-ranked heavyweight in the world and the #3-ranked heavyweight in the world.
Anderson Silva’s last three fights were against nowhere-near-ranked James Irvin, nowhere-near-ranked Patrick Cote, and either unranked or #10 Thales Leites. And yet it’s Fedor who is not fighting the best in the world.
lol, I didn’t even see the full quote yet, but here’s the rest of it from MMA Junkie:
“So until this guy [Fedor] decides to get in shape, take it serious and consistently fight the best in the world, for you guys to even think about calling him the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world is insane.”
Someone break out the clown make-up and honking red nose.
Chuck says: “Hell,, I was one of the few people who predicted that Silvas would beat Leben. Back then everyone was UNDER rating him, and were saying Leben would beat him to a pulp. I predicted that Silva would win, but either by a lopsided decision (like last night) or a later round stoppage of sorts.”
Maybe I am having a foggy memory here but when in the hell was Chris Leben ever favored against Anderson Silva? Leben’s one of the most overrated fighters out there and he’s been beaten by way lesser fighters than Silva… I have a very hard time believing that there was some magical consensus for Leben who must have been a huge dog in Vegas for that fight.
Based on this article:
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=2132&zoneid=13
Franklin didn’t agree with either of you, he saw it as a fight between two of the top four likely contenders to his title at the time.
Robert,
Leben was considered the favorite to beat Silva. For the wrong reasons though. Mostly because Silva was a relative unknown going into the fight, and Leben was popular amongst UFC fans (especially the newer fans via The Ultimate Fighter). I don’t know what the actual Vegas betting odds were for the fight, but Silva beating Leben was considered an upset.
If Leben was the favorite against Silva, it would have only been because Silva, in his last two fights in Pride, got submitted by a fighter with a 7-4 career record and got submitted by a fighter with a 4-7 career record. Even taking that into account, I don’t think Leben SHOULD have been the favorite.