UFC middleweight champ Andersen Silva's unanimous decision victory over Demaian Maia on Saturday should have cleared the last hurdle for a mega fight between Silva and Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre. Fight fans salivating at the potential dream matchup took a spinning side kick below the belt instead.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed in 10 years of being in this business," said UFC president Dana White. "It’s the first time I’ve ever walked out of a main event.”
Such grandiose statements from White are usually taken with a grain of salt because he's built the UFC by taking controversial moments and embellishing them to promote his product. But Silva's uninspired performance at UFC 112 gave not only White, but the sport of MMA plenty of reasons to feel red-faced.
Silva spent the first two rounds masterfully rearranging Maia's face with a combination of creative strikes; he broke the challenger's nose with a matrix-worthy flying knee midway through the second round. As Maia answered the bell for the third round, Demian himself looked as if he expected Silva to put him out of his misery. That's when Silva went Spanish matador on us, spending the next fifteen minutes circling his wounded opponent and stubbornly refused to engage him. He taunted Maia in Portuguese (subtitles should have read "Ole!") and by the end of the fight fans were chanting "Maia! Maia!" in frustration.
“Unfortunately, not every fight turns out the way everyone would like,” Silva said through his interpreter following the fight. “I came here well-trained, but Demian disrespected me, not as a person, but he disrespected me as a fighter. I take that very seriously. I came here to do my job, which was to beat him up and punish him. That’s exactly what I did.”
Silva's right about one thing: fighters can't always appease the masses with brain rattling knockouts. But the talented Brazilian Striker remains an enigma because he has all the necessary tools to destroy opponents in the first ninety seconds yet he has consistently resorted to yawning defensive tactics in has past three fights. Silva's soft spoken post-fight interviews over the past couple years have revealed little remorse or explanation for his arrogant antics in the ring.
Fighting is a different breed of sport because it's the only one where it's not enough to just win. The majority of fans watch fights to fulfill the primordial desire of seeing one man beat the living tar out of another. A fighter's legacy is measured by blood, not boxscores. This is a fact Silva stubbornly refuses to acknowledge, endangering the future of both his career and MMA's canonization as a mainstream sport.
White was equally frustrated after hearing Silva's responses to criticism following the fight: “I’m more unhappy than I was when I walked in the door,” he said. “That’s why I ended the news conference. I couldn’t stand to listen to that [expletive] any more.”
What about the possibility of Silva moving down to welterweight to fight Georges St. Pierre? “He doesn’t deserve to fight GSP." said White. White knows the fight could rival Pacquiao-Mayweather on the hype meter but understandably wants to avoid irreparably damaging the UFC's reputation with a similar letdown. GSP-Silva would would be the biggest event in the history of MMA and White isn't going to green light it until he's sure Silva is going to give fans a real fight.
Rumors swirl that Silva is intentionally tanking in order to be relieved of his contract so he can pursue a boxing career. Message boards suggest his heart is no longer with MMA but set on boxing 41-year old Roy Jones Jr (who is coming off consecutive lopsided losses). Joe Rogan openly suggested he may have been using his matador act as a smokescreen for fatigue. The problem is Silva is known for superior conditioning and has never gassed in a fight throughout his eleven-year career. His chiseled physique shows no visible signs of aging or injury.
Before the UFC can expect it's loyal, pimple-faced fans to pony up another sixty dollars for Silva's next event, they need to figure out why Silva refuses to finish fights. The only person who really knows is Silva himself.
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