MMA Weekly reports:

Following a rocky time in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, capped by a surprising knockout loss to Octagon newcomer Junior dos Santos at UFC 90, Chute Boxe fighter Fabricio Werdum has left the promotion.

Sources tell MMAWeekly.com that Werdum's exit comes on the heels of a failed contract renegotiation following the loss to dos Santos. The Brazilian came into the fight with the expectation that he would soon be contending for a heavyweight title shot.

The knockout at UFC 90 derailed anything of the like in the near future, and spurred a renegotiation of his contract. Werdum and the UFC were apparently unable to come to an agreement. He has already opened talks with other promotions in the U.S. and Japan.

As Zack Arnold points out, the implications of this are real:

I do find it interesting that UFC has the contractual rights to not only be able to cut a fighter after they lose but to also ask a fighter to take a paycut or get released. In other sports (like professional football), there are buyouts and cuts but generally a negative impact towards a ’salary cap.’ In the world of UFC, management has the best of all worlds — they have complete and total control.

Michael David Smith adds:

That’s a stunning fall from grace for a fighter who once thought that he would get the first title shot against the winner of the current four-man UFC heavyweight tournament. But it’s not altogether unsurprising: Werdum was never a huge draw, and that loss to Cigano was devastating. And, as Zach Arnold notes, when it comes to fighter contracts, UFC has total control. In this case, they’re using their control to say goodbye to Werdum.

This is why, as much as I love the UFC's product, I do hope for a competent and honest competitor to emerge in the American market.

Werdum isn't the world's greatest fighter, but he deserves better than this. The part I don't like is their pattern of giving fighters one run and then never bringing them back.

If Werdum goes on a 10 fight winning streak in Japan would he be brought back to the UFC? Would he want to? Jorge Santiago is one fighter currently in that situation. I think Santiago would be a great addition to the UFC's middleweight talent pool, particularly if Anderson Silva moves to 205 or retires. But I doubt we'll ever see Santiago back in the UFC. Same thing for Werdum. He'd be an excellent test for their crop of young wrestlers -- Shane Carwin, Cain Velasquez, etc. Too bad we'll never get to see those fights.

HT BE Reader nitro

I've been out of town for days due to a friend's wedding engagement and was unable to watch UFC 90 live or comment at all from Friday until basically today. I read everyone's commentary, analysis and thoughts to the extent I could. I followed all the results before I watched the event yesterday, so to some extent I knew what I was getting into.

Or did I?

While UFC 90 certainly left much to be desired, I cannot square the vituperative language being hurled at Anderson Silva, the UFC or anyone else (aside from the horrendous referees) with what I witnessed last night in replay.

To be sure, UFC 90 was not a particularly stellar event. Nor did it do an even remotely sufficient job of hyping UFC 91's main event between Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar. I'd also add that for a Midwestern crowd I wasn't overly impressed with Chicago's fans, but perhaps there is a distinction between small town, wrestling Midwestern and metropolitan Midwestern. Be that as it may...

The analysis of this event by many pundits, commentators and other invested parties seems wildly off the mark. While I understand after every UFC event the rules of the MMA universe are tweaked and that generates a great deal of emotion and analysis, I can only surmise that some let the current of that new reality lead them into strange territory.

So what was right about UFC 90? A fair amount, actually.

Before I delineate what I enjoyed about the event, I have to first acknowledge the circumstances surrounding how I came to watch it very likely affected it. For starters, I did not watch it live and how you watch it matters. There is something to "being in the moment" that allows for more tension and expectation, which can ultimately affect opinion. And in the subsequent chorus of thumbs down from critics, one's opinion can be colored or slightly reshaped by the sheer volume of detraction. I also watched the event after learning the results and reading the analysis of various experts. As a consequence, I was not expecting much short of the dos Santos knockout or Sherk vs. Griffin scrap.

For starters, those two fights were quite enjoyable for obviously different reasons. Sherk vs. Griffin was a pitched battle between two evenly matched opponents with superb conditioning. And the emergence of dos Santos over the highly skilled and extremely tough Fabricio Werdum (which makes the KO even more spectacular) was something to behold. More importantly, both types of fights - close, entertaining decisions and quick, thunderous KOs - are both staples of good MMA cards. The unexpected massive upset in dos Santos over Werdum is nothing to sneeze at either.

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Watch this.

Now tell me that the slippery sponsor's decal didn't jack up Cote and ruin the fight.

Fightlinker has more:

I don’t know the process for how the UFC puts it’s advertisements onto the mat. I do know that many fighters often complain that the ads often have different grips, and you often see dudes stalk across the octagon only to go banana heel one they hit a decal. At UFC 89 the Gears of War 2 advertisement seemed to cause several fighters some issues, including Brandon Vera and Keith Jardine. This isn’t the only time we’ve seen it … it’s just the most recent incident that I can specifically remember.

Can you imagine another sport where athletes could be hurt because of the way advertisements are presented? In MMA it’s worse than others … a simple slip in other games means a botched play and some embarrassment. In MMA it could result in the other fighter jumping you and punching your lights out. So even if there isn’t a rash of fighters blowing their knees out on these things, it still needs to be addressed.

The UFC really needs to find a way to make the sponsor decals less of a hazard to the fighters. As we saw Saturday night, if a headlining fighter gets hurt and spoils the main event, its not good for business.

Many have speculated on an immediate rematch between Anderson Silva and Patrick Cote following the unsatisfying finish to their fight at UFC 90.  Unfortunately for Patrick Cote, the injury that ended the fight may prevent him from getting a rematch at all:

UFC middleweight contender Patrick (The Predator) Cote, whose title challenge Saturday was cut short because of a knee injury, will undergo arthroscopic surgery next week and will be out of action for 6-8 months, Sportsnet’s Joe Ferraro has learned. 

These injuries always seem to take longer to heal than expected, and with training time built in, it's hard to say if Cote will ever get a rematch with Silva.  As for Silva, he could fight again very soon.  Sources indicate to Bloody Elbow that he wants to return as soon as December for one of the Spike shows, but Fighters Only Magazine reports that the UFC will return to London for UFC 95, and that Anderson Silva is a rumored fighter for that show.

Note: I heard a few weeks ago that the UFC was looking at this date as their first show in mainland Europe.  Perhaps the plan fell through and they've moved it to London.

Over at Yahoo, Maggie Hendricks blasts Anderson Silva for having a temper tantrum, all while having her own in the form of a hectoring article:

He is a professional fighter, and needs to do the job. Period. He is paid to fight the person put in front of him. This is not any different from you or me. Can you imagine what would happen if you showed up at work today and decided to not do your job? You might not like the work that you have to do that day, but you still have to do it. It is no different for Silva. I agree that the UFC needs to find better opponents for Silva, but the way for him to cajole his bosses into searching for better fighters is not to throw a childlike tantrum. He needs to destroy his opponents convincingly, and then ask for what he wants like a man.

Listen, I was critical of Silva's performance, but this condescending tone is way over the line.  It was a 5 round fight, Silva is completely entitled to take his time.  I'd rather see him demolish dudes, but it is nowhere in his job description that he absolutely has to murder guys in the first round.  I would have rather seen him do that than play games and toy with Cote, but it's well within his right to do so for a couple rounds.

According to Fight Metric (and anyone who watched the fight), Silva completely dominated.  He took his time with the fight, and would have probably finished in the third round if not for Cote's injury.  I think a lot of the disappointment on the internet comes from the fact that we felt entitled to see Silva destroy Cote, and now that we didn't get it, it's like Christmas morning without presents.  Maybe we should all grow up...

Kevin Iole jumps his case:

In a lame attempt at humor, Silva made a mockery of himself, his title and his sport in one of the most bizarre matches in UFC history.

"I think I’m living in an alternate universe," a befuddled UFC president Dana White said, shaking his head. "That was bizarro world."

Silva retained the belt when Cote collapsed in agony 39 seconds into the third round as he went to throw a punch. He later said he aggravated an old knee injury and was heading to the hospital, believing he had damaged the meniscus in his right knee. The near-sellout crowd of 15,359 booed Cote roundly, but it was Silva who really deserved its wrath.

There was no fighting in the match, largely because Silva opted not to fight. On the rare occasions Silva chose to engage, he got far better of the few exchanges.

Steve Cofield jumps in as well:

...the story of the night was Silva (23-4, 8-0 UFC) turning off the crowd by clowning around for the first 10 minutes. Between dancing around the ring, twirling his hands, bowing disrespectfully towards Cote at the end of the first and at one point offering a hand to help Cote off the floor, Silva came off as a big jerk. He went from displaying a Muhammed Ali-like playful aura early in the fight to looking like he was sticking it to the UFC for matching him up against such a longshot.

Iole is presumably in his usual role of Dana White's mouthpiece but Cofield is known as an independent voice.

While I was as bummed as the next guy when Cote's knee blew out, I'm certainly not ready to start hating on Anderson Silva. If Dana White can't find worthy opponents for the "greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the sport" then he shouldn't be surprised when things go awry.

Put Silva in the cage with Chuck Liddell ASAP. Resign Matt Lindland. Give Henderson or Marquardt another shot. Sign Gegard Mousasi, Jacare, Frank Shamrock, Cung Le, Robbie Lawler, somebody! Let Anderson box Roy Jones, Jr.

Give the man some challenges worthy of his abilities.

The man's talking about retirement for a reason. He's totally bored out of his mind. When a competitor of his skill and ability is put in the cage with an opponent he can toy with, no one should be surprised when that's what he does.

Sam Caplan agrees:

I did not see an unmotivated Silva take it easy last night and try to take liberties with Cote. I did not see a champion fight with over-confidence. Rather, I saw Silva fight with extreme caution. I saw a man who did everything in his power to avoid a repeat occurrence of the UFC 69 upset of then-welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre against the underdog of underdogs, Matt Serra.

I saw a man who respected Cote’s punching power and had enough respect for him not to present his chin on a silver platter, much like Chuck Liddell did to Rashad Evans last month at UFC 88. Granted, there were times where Silva dropped his hands, but he was always out of striking distance when he did so. The way I saw it, Silva didn’t want to press Cote and risk a knockout and instead wanted to take advantage of his reach by making Cote push the pace so that he could counter.

I didn’t see Silva take his opponent lightly; I saw a fighter in Cote who absorbed some tremendous combinations from Silva and barely winced after absorbing knees to the face.

-- Gif by Smoogy.

[UPDATE] by Nick Thomas - Patrick Cote and Dana White talk UFC 90; audio thanks to Steve Cofield and ESPN1100:





HT: Yahoo MMA Experts Blog

Head over to UFC.com right now and you can watch the full undercard fight between former IFL 185'ers Dan Miller and Matt Horwich for free. Needless to say, it's worth checking.

Anderson Silva d. Patrick Cote TKO (leg injury) 0:39 of the 3rd Round
Thiago Alves d. Josh Koscheck Unanimous Decision
Gray Maynard d. Rich Clementi Unanimous Decision
Junior dos Santos d. Fabricio Werdum via TKO (strikes) 1:21 of the 1st Round
Sean Sherk d. Tyson Griffin Unanimous Decision
Thales Leites d. Drew McFedries via Rear Naked Choke 1:18 of the 1st Round
Spencer Fisher d. Shannon Gugerty via Triangle Choke 3:56 of the 3rd Round
Dan Miller d. Matt Horwich Decision Unanimous Decision
Hermes Franca d. Marcus Aurelio Unanimous Decision
Pete Sell d. Josh Burkman Unanimous Decision

UPDATE: by Chris Nelson

Knockout of the Night: Junior Dos Santos

Submission of the Night: Spencer Fisher

Fight of the Night: Tyson Griffin vs. Sean Sherk

Each fighter earned an additional $65,000

via MMAWeekly, gif by smoogy

Patrick Cote suffered an unfortunate injury in the third round of his fight with Anderson Silva at UFC 90, and the fight was stopped early.  Mike Goldberg immedately said Cote had earned himself a rematch.

Realistically, he did nothing to earn a rematch.  Silva looked actively bored, and simply toyed with Cote.  My guess is he was trying to have a longer fight, carry Cote into later rounds, and then finish him there.  I have no idea why, maybe he is just bored, but Cote was so clearly out of his league that it was frustrating to watch.

To conclude, Cote does not deserve a rematch because Silva decided to mess around.  The UFC got what it deserved in this fight for booking such an uncompetitive main event.  Anderson Silva is also mistaken if he thinks fighting this way will make him a star.

As with every major event BloodyElbow.com will be here to provide live results, updates and commentary on tonight's UFC 90 PPV.  As always I do request that you leave any discussion of undercard fights out of the comments section until the event ends or they are shown on the broadcast, this is just to prevent spoilers for those who go out of their way to avoid them.

Please contribute your thoughts during the broadcast in our comments section.

Anderson Silva, Patrick Cote, Josh Koscheck, Thiago Alves..it's going to be a great night and I hope you all make BloodyElbow.com your home for the event.

And be sure and hit the Buzz Up! button to recommend this story.

9:51pm and we're 9 minutes from the start of the show and I am stoked.  Remeber to check in at the start of the show and stick with us til it ends.

It's 10:00pm EST and the show has started.  Keep throwing your thoughts in the comments for what should be a great show.

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