The Case for Anderson Silva

You know the bad part of this fight is, it wasn’t the worst fight I have ever seen (go watch some fights at the local Indian casinos in California). I would have been mad if I paid for a ticket, but overall the card was good and the main-event just wasn’t an “event”.

I never want to see these two fight again, but I can’t blame Anderson for not rushing in and losing on the ground, and Leites did the only thing he could do to win (fall on the ground and act like a girl on prom night).

Oh yea, and the one thing to remember in a “title fight”, the opponent needs to beat the champ, not the other way around, Anderson did what he need to to keep his title (as boring as that was) and Leites did nothing (let me say again “NOTHING”) to win the fight.

Lets just hope these two are never in the same building again and “hope” Henderson or Bisping beat the champ and don’t just think lying on the ground and doing nothing or for that matter standing up and doing nothing will win them the fight.

Also, I’m not so sure that after watching the last two Silva fights he wants anything to do with GSP in a “super fight”. I could see grease on grease crime with GSP ending Silva’s mystique, but maybe that’s just me.

Reasonable people can indeed disagree. I wish more people took that attitude. As an opinionated person myself, it is amazing how many people I run up against who get offended by my very own personal opinion, which I never understood.

Anyway, the Silva debacle is disheartening. Probably like most fans of MMA, I have (had?) a borderline man-crush on The Spider. I’m still working out what I think/feel about the fight. First, I would like to say that for me this is not necessarily the end of my fandom for Silva. If he turns in performances in his next few fights like we know he can, I will simply assume he was in a small slump and forgive. I don’t blame Silva for the Cote fight quite as much, since the fight ended abruptly and it was not Silva’s fault that Cote’s knee blew unexpectedly. We will never know if he might have opened up in the 3rd or subsequent rounds, and so I would probably give the benefit of the doubt to Silva based on his previous fights.

The combination of Silva being aware that Leites was out-classed badly and the (very real) danger of Leites pulling a submission out of his ass may have made Silva overly cautious. It’s worth considering that Silva may have simply decided that the UFC is sending sheep to slaughter and angled towards a win with little damage, not to himself, but to Leites. The strategy may have been adopted by Silva (his corner clearly was imploring him to engage) to minimize damage to Leites, since he clearly had nothing, and it’s not Leites’ fault the UFC can’t put forward an actual contender. Admittedly, this thought is made less probable by the fact that Silva threw those potentially brutal kicks to the knee, but I thought I’d offer the thought.

I personally am much less inclined than some on this site to roast a fighter for a bad outing. If the next fight is like this and his opponent DOES engage, then I can rethink, but just as I don’t hate my team’s QB when he throws 4 interceptions against any one defense, I won’t disown Silva for the same. The totality of his body of work have brought me much enjoyment, and I just hope that we see the Spider of old, and soon.

Dana’s reaction to this fight is very interesting. He was ashamed of the way Silva fought. Dana’s reaction is the official ufc position. Silva was clowning and not throwing down. Maybe Silva wants to get cut.

If the title is your dream, go for it. If you decide you can’t win and don’t really want it as much as you thought you did, then tell your corner you want out.

Anderson has already held the title, Thales has not, which is why I would expect Thales to be more motivated to fight.

Anderson, the way the fight was going, was going to retain the belt. That’s another reason why Thales needed to step it up late.

Would a point deduction by the referee have been legitimate in response to Leites “pulling guard”?

Leites was essentially NOT FIGHTING at times, which essentially puts him in the class of a Kalib Starnes.

I still can’t understand why the judges didn’t see Leites fighting for what it was and give him 10-7 or 10-6 rounds in the 3rd 4th and 5th good job luke on reporting both the pros and cons of silva’s performance

Embedded video: Muhammad Ali vs. some sort of grappler, having the same problem as Anderson.

http://mma.fanhouse.com/2009/04/19/yves-lavigne-stood-thales-leites-up-14-times-vs-anderson-silva/

Yes, mma is a sport and a win within the rules is just that.

However, a ufc event is not like some Saturday afternoon college basketball game of Colorado State v. Wyoming. Watch it or don’t it’s up to you.

I being asked to shell out $50 for a 2.5 hour event! Let us nor forget, that is a shit load of money considering what I’m buying. I don’t pay money to watch any other sport. It damn well better be exciting.

Anderson Silva = San Antonio Spurs. They both win all the time but NOBODY wants to watch them. They have great fundamentals and Defense, but can’t put butts in seats.

Well I totally disagree. Watching Anderson fight this one, it felt like he had all the opportunity in the world to get in there and finish and he didn’t. In the fourth rd it was clear that Thales was no longer a threat and yet Anderson continued to corner Thales and stare at him, juking and jiving, and then stab his knee with that side kick. He so easily did whatever he wanted from round 3 on, and his quickness and power was so overwhelmingly obviously better that Thales, it made for watching this fight completely ridiculous. But if anything you have to blame the UFC brass for not challenging him, or at least talking to him to figure out why he seems so bored. His reasons for fighting this way I don’t hold it against him. But it’s painfully obvious that he wasn’t trying that hard. This certainly wasn’t the same Silva that completely dismantled Dan Henderson and Rich Franklin.

That said, Anderson’s skill amazes me every time. When he explodes into action I just can’t believe the power and zip on his kicks and punches. His control of his body is mindboggling.