Quote of the Day: The False Choice of Safety vs. Pleasing the Fans in Mixed Martial Arts

I agree. There’s a big difference between fighting intelligently and not trying.

I thought in the Cote fight he wanted to extend the fight and manage risk. Stay on the outside and pick Cote apart. With Leites, you are right, the standing threat isn’t at the same level at all. I agree Silva is partly to blame for the lack of fighting, but Leites was activly backing up and rediculously trying to pull guard from the outer edge of Silva’s range. I don’t know how Leites felt about the first two rounds, but I guess he had enough after that. Where is the outrage? Nowhere because Leites can fade away and Silva still has a belt to defend. Maybe Silva has some issues with the UFC position on him boxing, maybe he didn’t want to hurt Leites, maybe he was just collecting a paycheck. None of these excuses are acceptable, but what the hell was Leites doing?

Firstly, I have to point out (as I’m sure Luke already knows) that no one can really judge Anderson Silva for his decision making in the Octagon. Even if you were a fellow professional fighter, the fact remains that Silva’s judgment (however poor it might have been) was probably that it really was too risky to try to finish Leites. If that is his judgment, he’s the one in the cage.

Secondly, if we assume that we can, objectively judge that Anderson Silva would NOT be in ‘more danger of losing’ had he tried to finish to fight then the logical extension of this thought is that he had some ulterior motive in mind. This is clear because had he not been at increased risk (of harm or losing) by attempting to finish the fight, then he would have had no incentives for fighting the way he did. The benefits of finishing Leites would not be counter-balanced by any downside of adopting a ‘more risky’ strategy.

Therefore the logical conclusion is that Anderson Silva was trying to send a ‘message’ of some sort. If you (Luke) believe that then maybe you can enlighten us as to what motive this might have been? I guess an alternative scenario would simply be that he couldn’t be assed.

At the end of the day, having never stepped into a professional MMA fight myself, I cannot bring myself to fault the judgment of one of the best fighters on the planet. That was the decision he made given his expertise. Who am I to question him?

As a fan though….yeh the fight totally sucked balls….lol…

Agreed, I was at the fights, and for all those who complained about wasting money on the pay per view, I spent money for seats, hotel, rental car, gas, and took off of work to drive up to Montrael (7 hours) from Long Island because I wanted to see my favorite fighters (Anderson & Chuck) live for the first time. Obviously, I ended up very disappointed.

The Liddell fight just made me sad but then I figured at least I would see Silva maul Leites. Now, there is no shame in a decision win if it happens because two fighters are very evenly matched and neither can finish the other, but that was obviously not the case here. Every fighter, every time, should be going out there to win (finish) the fight if at all possible and it was very possible here. That doesnt mean throw caution into the wind, but no fighter should be aiming for an easy decision if it is well within their power to end it. Marquardt dominated Leites in their fight (although he lost due to deductions), you cant tell me Silva was that afraid of him, he just wasnt trying, he felt comfortable sitting back and winning a decision when he could have finished it at any time, which isnt right in my opinion.

Most of the blame should go to Leites though. If you aren’t winning the stand up, you must go for a takedown, even if it means you may get knocked out. While Silva felt comfortable coasting to a decision win, Leites felt comfortable doing nothing for five rounds when he knew he was losing the fight. He might as well have never showed up.

Dont know if we will be seeing Silva as the main fight on the card any time soon and Leites should be sent to the prelims for now after that performance. I actually left this fight angry (and embarassed that I had brought my friend to his first live UFC for that), which has never happened before, and I have seen multiple events in Vegas.

P.S. The afterparty thing is pretty much bullsh*t. The fighters didnt show up til about 2AM and the place closed at 3AM. They dont actually come hang out with the people who paid to be there, not even just for a few minutes so you can get some pictures and autographs. You basically pay $50 to watch them drink for an hour on a fenced off portion of the stage. I happend to be one of the lucky few that got some autographs (Dan Henderson, Chuck Liddell, and Anderson Silva) so at least it was semi worth it for me. Also saw Wanderlei as he came out of his afterparty around the block.

I think that the reason that many of us that enjoyed Silva’s performance disagree with your main assertion is that we view it differently.

Silva thrives while counter striking; can he be aggressive and win? Sure. His primary strength, however, lies in waiting for an opponent to make a mistake and then caving in some portion of that person’s head.

Leites offered Silva two choices that night: come to the ground and play or attack me on the feet. Silva obviously chose to ignore the ground, when possible so attacking on the feet was his only option for finishing the fight. The problem was, anytime Silva attacked Leties either ran away and flopped or flopped right there on the spot.

So, what should Silva do, at that point? Fight on the ground or throw potentially risker strikes? When you suggest that Silva wasn’t risking anything by throwing more than one strike at a time, you’re somewhat correct. What you fail to mention is that anytime Silva closed distance with a strike, Leites would immediately fall to the ground. When Silva threw strikes that maintained distance, Leites would remain standing; if he cut the distance between them at all, though, it was back to watching Leites on his back. The only way that Silva could’ve closed the distance in order to strike would’ve been to come in guns blazing without any real setup to his power shots. In my opinion that significantly increases the chances of a fighter getting caught.

In short, the only real way that Silva was going to finish that fight was if he went to the ground or waded in in such a manner that Leites thought that he might catch Silva; frankly, either of those plans would have been just plain stupid. There simply was no high-probability way for him to close the distance and engage on his feet without Leites guard-flopping, which was clearly clearly the challenger’s gameplan.

…. would be significantly more likely if Silva had thrown more punches. He doesn’t have many years left, and I doubt he wants to sit one out (like Forrest) just to satisfy bloodthirsty fans. He did have an obligation to the sport, and he fulfilled that by engaging.

Leites refused to engage, whereas Silva did not. Silva was under no obligation to follow Leites to the ground, and did engage on the feet, and when a takedown was attempted. Leites did not engage on the feet, and rather than continue to work for a takedown simply hoped that, in exchange for offering top position, Silva would be willing to turn the MMA match into a grappling match . Silva declined, as he had every right to do.

Silva fought a very smart fight. He had no reason to risk injury to himself, and he had no reason to create additional opportunities for counter strikes or a takedown.

Violent chess is sometimes more chess than violence.
 

.. a google search of “broken hand and UFC”. A broken hand is a very real possibility everytime a fighter throws a punch.

Just off the top of my head I can think of several broken hands starting with Forrest, Fedor, etc….. Leites himself withdrew from UFC 81 with a broken hand. Human hands are not designed for punching, and it is a significant risk.

The simple fact is that if you don’t break your hand when you repeatedly hit someone in the head you are either very lucky, or you don’t hit very hard.