(Leites sells tickets to the gun show while Marc Ratner continues to stare at Arianny’s tits. / Photo via Sherdog)
You know, there was a time when this website thought that Thales Leites had a legitimate shot at beating Anderson Silva, or could at least give him a good fight. Neither of those things turned out to be accurate, but at the very least, Leites was a top ten middleweight who had strung together five straight UFC wins in 2007-2008, including first-round submissions of Floyd Sword, Ryan Jensen, and Drew McFedries.
Leites’s title challenge against Silva at UFC 97 was both uncompetitive and dull as hell; there was a lot of butt-flopping from Leites, and a lot of weird crap from a clearly disinterested Silva. Leites followed up the unanimous decision loss with a split-decision defeat against Alessio Sakara, and the UFC gave him his walking papers.
Since then, Leites has gone 6-1 competing for promotions like MFC and Superior Challenge, and is riding a three-fight win streak with victories over Tor Troeng, Jeremy Horn, and Matt Horwich. And so, the UFC is giving Leites another chance, three years after his last Octagon appearance, booking him at UFC 163: Aldo vs. Pettis (August 3rd; HSBC Arena, Rio De Janeiro), against former BAMMA champ Tom Watson. Watson is currently 1-1 in the UFC, and is coming off a TKO win over Stanislav Nedkov at UFC on Fuel TV: Barao vs. McDonald.
Can Leites prove his worth the second time around? Do any of you care? In other UFC 163 booking news…
Two light-heavyweights in need of a rebound will also be meeting at the 8/3 card. After being out-pointed by Phil Davis at UFC 159, grappling specialist Vinny Magalhaes will return at UFC 164 against Australian fighter Anthony Perosh, who hasn’t competed since his seven-second knockout loss to Ryan Jimmo at UFC 149 last July. In 20 professional fights, the 41-year-old Perosh has never been submitted. We’re not sure if that will matter against Magalhaes, but there you go.