Anderson Silva: They Don’t Love You.
Posted by Dave Walsh on April 19th, 2009
Anderson Silva has quickly found out that the fans (which then turns into the media — CREDENTIAL LUKE THOMAS ALREADY~!) do not love you if you do not give them what they want. They do not care about your health your well-being, they do not care about your reputation, how you feel, they do not care about your artistry or your values. No, not at all. They want you to go out, put on a show, be entertaining and win at all costs.
This is the reality that must sink in for him right now; that people are going to hate him unless he clowns everybody like he did RIch Franklin. I keep seeing the word “pretention” in relation to him from fans, when anybody that knows him always talks about how down to earth and modest he is. Does it translate into his fighting style? Not always. When Silva is fighting and becomes bored he starts doing whatever he wants. It has happened twice in a row for him now, with the second sub par opponent in a row. This is what happens when you are exceptional, it happens in every walk of life; you claw your way to the top and then realize there are no more challenges for you in your current path. Do you accept and revel in mediocrity or do you rise above and seek out new challenges?
Thales Leites was never going to defeat Anderson Silva. He just wasn’t, just like Patrick Cote wasn’t. Sure, anything can happen, but outside of the off chance, it wasn’t going down that way. Even then, these guys are no slouches, it is just that nobody at 185lbs can challenge Anderson Silva. Leites continually dropped to the ground any time Anderson was getting into his groove or even threw a decent strike. We will, rightfully so, hear talk about how there should have been a penalty for essentially avoiding fighting, but don’t blame Silva for that. Silva’s only other options were to engage on the ground, which he waited to do until he worked over the leg of Leites enough to nullify his guard or ability to use submissions.
The fans only love you when you excite them, and exciting them means taking risks and turning into Chuck Liddell eventually, who suffered ths third brutal knockout within the past few years, each one scary in their own right. The big difference is Chuck is Chuck, a dude that likes to have fun and just hang out, Silva is a martial artist and does the things he does for respect and honor, not for the cheers and love of the fans. He needs to remember that, because the path he has chosen is not the one of the Chuck Liddell’s of the world who are big money draws and make tons of money.
April 19th, 2009 at 2:33 am
[...] Total MMAAnderson Silva: They Dont Love You. [...]
April 19th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Last night the UFC laid yet another bomb of a horrible fight card in its two co main events. First we had Liddell, who supposedly hired a boxing coach to help him work on his defense, head movement and keeping his hands up. You certainly couldn’t tell that by Chuck’s performance and he got tagged by one of the most over rated fighters on the planet. It was a sad exclamation point which pointed out just how far and fast the sport has evolved past Liddell’s repertoire.
That was followed by another mismatch set up by White (who is getting fatter by the day) and company. Silva often stood there with his hands down by his sides and his opponent refused to throw hands. It was a total joke. It was bad enough having to listen to Ferguson go on and on about Silva being “pound for pound the best …blah, blah blah”. Then we had Silva fan club President Joe Rogan trying to blame the multitude of boos on “casual fans who don’t realize how technical Silva is …blah, blah blah”.
It didn’t seem to occur to either of these geniuses that folks were booing a bad matchup. That they were booing the fact that they had been gouged by a two co-main events which both stunk to high heaven. This was a bad a mismatch as the last Christian Cyborg fight against an equally overmatched one dimensional grappler from Japan last week.
There are a number of fighters who could beat Silva and GSP is only one of them.
With the Brock Lesnar fiasco, the shameful way the UFC treats both fighters and fans, TUF devolving to a lowest common denominator fiasco specializing in alcoholic pissing games, and far too many fight cards that stink to high heaven, White is rapidly turning the UFC into the WWE.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
This was a mismatch in the purest sense. Here is a guy that offered nothing against Silva. The only critique I could have is that Silva should have just gone to the ground with him and beaten the snot out of him. In the later rounds he actually did that, which just proves he could of just done that early on. I think he was looking for another highlight reel KO to get people amped and that just wasn’t happening.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Silva can’t be blamed for the fact that ZUFFA is simply scheduling too many shows now. UFC 97 amounted to a last gasp for Liddell or Rua, a mismatch for Anderson, and not much else. When I was handicapping the show for last week’s article I was surprised how thin it was.
April 19th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
I found Spider declaring that Leites was not worth the effort a lot more damning than just adding another KO to his highlight reel. Why change your game to please the mutants?
Then we had Silva fan club President Joe Rogan trying to blame the multitude of boos on “casual fans who don’t realize how technical Silva is …blah, blah blah”.
The thing is, it’s true.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
MMA is a sport, ergo the number one thing is winning. However, the idea that he’s some fantastic artist playing to people who don’t understand him is nonsense. He’s a guy pounding shitty midlevel contenders because that’s what the UFC provides him, and he does so without taking unnecessary risk. The hilarious nature of him wanting to face Roy Jones Jr., a guy who’s historical standing has taken a monumental beating for having countless examples of that very sort of behavior, is downright ironic.
Everyone expects Anderson to make the big step up any day now and fight a top light heavyweight because Dana gave him a mighty fine contract. Instead, it looks increasingly like Anderson will ride it out, content with making very good money that is almost guaranteed rather than taking the really big money that comes with risk. Only when Dana either deems GSP worthy of sacrifice (which would be incredibly stupid) or when he decides to pay Anderson even more outrageous sums of money will you see him in with a legitimate test outside the limited ranks of the UFC’s middleweight division. Until then….
April 20th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Why does everyone say that Anderson Silva is the best pound-for-pound fighter so definitively? I’m not saying he isn’t great, but it’s not fair to claim that he is the best when you have someone like GSP who is as good, or better than Anderson. I think that if the two of them do end up fighting at a catchweight, GSP will use his wrestling and ground and pound to completely neutralize Andersons striking. But even if he doesn’t use wrestling, its not as if he’s a slouch on the feet; he beats the hell out of everyone standing up (except for in the Serra fight when he got caught). The point i’m trying to make is that credit should be given where it is due. GSP and Anderson have both proven to be among the best, pound-for-pound, so don’t refer to Anderson as the best everytime his name comes up. Mention him as one of the best.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I think because Dana White sez so. At the moment I can see him saying GSP instead, though, just because he is vengeful and spiteful.
Honestly, if you aren’t Dana White you should probably be saying that Fedor is. He just is.. I mean, it is close between the 3 of them, but you know. Fedor hasn’t lost, and if you are gonna criticize his lack of worthy opponents, you could also bring up what UFC has tossed at their champions of late. When you are in another league from your opponents of course nobody will be worthy.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Certain fans are going to complain, no matter what. It’s because they’re ignorant. Great article, as usual, Dave–you are right in your points. I’m sure Silva can live with not being “loved” by a few beer-drinking rejects.
Anderson just needs better opponents who will challenge him. He’ll be back to his usual self when that happens.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Yeah Fedor definitely is up there with them, but Dana nor anyone affiliated with the UFC will mention anything about him because they insist that the UFC’s heavyweights are better, which we know isn’t the case. That would be awesome to see Fedor square off with GSP or Anderson. Although those two have more refined skill, Fedor would be Fedor and somehow find a way to end the fight out of nowhere.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
GSP has never *ever* faced a shoddy opponent in pretty much his whole career. Even Serra had at least a solid record coming into that fight. For me he’s above both Silva and Fedor in the P4P stakes.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Dude, he faced BJ Penn twice, the first time it was close, the second time BJ stood no chance. There was all the hype around the fight and BJ is unstoppable in his weight class that nobody really noticed just how far GSP had come since their last fight. The first Serra fight, c’mon, let’s face it, total fluke. Regardless of Serra’s record Serra was a huge underdog for the second fight and offered nothing to opposed GSP.
We are in a weird time where each guy in their respective weight class is so high up that the drop off from them to the next best challenger is quite steep. I really want to see what kind of challenge that Alves poses for GSP, as he is the only real threat in that division right now.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Fun fact: GSP’s opponents’ combined record (not counting Hughes, Serra or Penn twice that is…): 315-105. And most of the losses there are from Denny and Spratt who he fought very early in his career. He’s fought 16 different guys.
Fedor’s opponent’s combined record, again done in the same fashion: 417-229. He’s fought 28 different guys.
Silva’s opponent’s combined record: 439-209. He’s fought 27 different guys. It should be noted that he’s fought Jeremy Horn who has 80 wins, though. Remove Horn and the record is 359-190.
Another fun fact: GSP is the only one of the three who has never fought an opponent with a losing record.
Obviously the numbers don’t mean everything, but it’s interesting to look at the debate from that angle.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:18 am
Fedor is number one. GSp second and Anderson down to number three.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Yah, the Silva - Leites fight was a weird one. And it was somewhat embarrassing to watch; pathetic, actually. But you know, I give Anderson a lot of credit for not pounding the snots out of a helpless opponent. I think that Anderson Silva displayed a tremendous amount of human worth and a good deal of class by not giving in to the audience taunts.
During the 1st couple of rounds Anderson was very cautious — not wanting to get clipped or taken down. Then he realized (as did everyone else) that Leites was absolutely no threat and Anderson couldn’t bring himself to beating Leites up. Like Anderson says, “sometimes things don’t work out the way that you like.” That does not diminish Anderson in my eyes; it elevated him! What purpose would it have served to utterly destroy Leites when it became obvious? True martial artists are not just brutish mercenaries. It is so rare to see that kind of conscience in an MMA match — even though it was very boring.