He’s the consensus best fighter in the world. He holds twin UFC records for most victories and most consecutive title defences. He has never lost in the Octagon. So why does unemployment loom for Anderson Silva if he performs badly this Saturday?
By Alan Murphy
“I’m telling you right now, if he ever acts like that again I will fire him,” fumed UFC president Dana White after Silva’s clash with Damien Maia in April. The mercurial champion spent the first two rounds of that fight mercilessly taunting his overmatched foe and pummelling him with accurate strikes.
With a knockout win seemingly inevitable, and under no apparent threat, Silva stunned everybody by getting on his bike and needlessly back-peddling.
By round 3, he’d almost fully ceased punching. By round 4, Dana White had tossed the belt to Silva’s manager Ed Soares and stormed from the arena. By round 5, referee Dan Miragliotta had paused the bout to threaten Silva with a point deduction for inaction.
If only it was an isolated incident. Silva’s two prior title defences against Thales Leites and Patrick Côté followed the same boring template: comes in, dances about, looks effortlessly superior, won’t engage, the fans boo and he coasts to a decision unfazed.
Ever enigmatic, Silva has done little to explain his behaviour. “I won,” he said when asked to comment on his performance against Maia. To White’s threat of dismissal, he replied, “Dana can say what he likes.” Hardly enlightening.
Silva on his good days – unstoppable:
So fans and commentators have been left to speculate on Silva’s erratic form. Some believe he has grown risk-adverse. Indeed, contemporary fighters like George St. Pierre pride themselves on avoiding damage. Even scrappers like Forrest Griffin won’t run to a dogfight like in days gone by.
Another theory is that Silva’s gas tank might be shallower than first imagined. The Maia fight in particular arose a lot of speculation that the champion was simply too tired to engage.
But the most widely held belief is that Silva is plain bored. Having thundered into the UFC with a first round KO of iron-chinned Chris Leben in 2006, Silva quickly demolished Rich Franklin (twice), Travis Lutter, Nate Marquardt and Dan Henderson – all within two rounds apiece.
With the division essentially ‘cleaned out’, the calibre of Silva’s opponents weakened noticeably. Having vanquished legends in Dan Henderson and Rich Franklin, matches against lesser profile fighters like Leites, Côté and Maia may well have proved demoralising.
Ruthless
Furthermore, Silva’s moonlighting visits to light-heavyweight represent his only acclaimed performances in over two years. James Irvin and Forrest Griffin were both KO’d with a ruthlessness he no longer exhibits at middleweight.
Though some sneer at the plausibility of the UFC sacking a champion, Silva’s leverage is oddly poor for a pound-for-pound great. Casual fans never warmed to him, even during his UFC beginnings when he was battering all comers convincingly.
Frankly, he has been box office poison. Not since the days of Tim Sylvia has there been a champion with such routinely low PPV figures. Champion or not, Silva is oddly vulnerable from a dollar perspective.
We’ll probably never know what underlies Silva’s more eccentric performances. He’s proven himself a flawed genius, and one whose motivations aren’t easily read.
One thing we do know, is that Silva desperately needs a big performance against tough-wrestling Chael Sonnen this Saturday. Silva knows it too. Whether or not he’s bothered, is anybody’s guess.
