Not too long ago, Tim Sylvia was focused on one thing: getting back into the UFC, the promotion where he once reigned as heavyweight champion. Sylvia’s pleas fell on deaf ears.
For his next fight, he is set to face Randy Smith on the June 16 NEF Fight Night 3 card, a fight card which will take place at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston, Maine.
Since leaving the UFC in 2008, Sylvia has gone 6-3, fighting for Affliction and various other smaller promotions. His last fight was a three-round unanimous decision victory over Andreas Kraniotakes for ProElite in November 2011.
In 2010, Sylvia spoke to Jonathan Snowden, then with Bloody Elbow, about leaving the UFC:
Everyone talks about (agent) Monte (Cox) and that decision, thinking I would be better off in Zuffa. But what if I did beat Fedor? Everyone would have been saying ‘Oh my God. Monte Cox is the greatest man alive. He’s the smartest man in MMA.’ But it didn’t happen that night. I lost. But if we had won we probably would have gone down as the best fighter and management team ever. But it didn’t happen. I’m happy, you know? There’s definitely some advantages, fighting on a lot of shows and always being a free agent. I don’t have to be a ‘Yes sir, no sir’ type of guy. I’m happy. I’m not saying I would never consider going back to the UFC again. We would definitely work a deal and it might be a nice place to finish up my career. But right now, I’m fine where I am
Sylvia recently spoke to NEF and has since changed his tune, saying, “I regret leaving the UFC, 100 percent.”
There are several potential reasons for Sylvia to regret that decision. It could be money; it could be the level of competition he has been facing since leaving the UFC. However, knowing what we do about Silvia, it’s very likely that he misses the attention of the UFC fans, good or bad, and the feeling of stepping into the Octagon and fighting on the biggest stage that the sport has to offer.
When looking at where he would stand among the top dogs in the current crop of UFC fighters, Sylvia wasted no time naming the five fighters he felt he would have difficulty with:
Alistair Overeem, Junior dos Santos, Frank Mir, Cain Velasquez and probably Shane Carwin. Those top five right there are very tough fights for me, the fight could go either way. All the other ones, I believe I win easily.
Sylvia hasn’t fought anyone near the level of those five fighters since leaving the UFC. In fact, when he did face true top-level competition during his prime, he was less than successful, dropping fights to Mir, Randy Couture, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Fedor Emelianenko. Sylvia’s biggest wins were against Ricco Rodriguez, Andrei Arlovski and Jeff Monson, fighters that many would say were never as good as today’s top tier of UFC’s heavyweight fighters.
Time marches on, and it’s almost certain that the UFC has moved past Tim Sylvia. Sylvia would be well-served to do the same, move on and put his hope of returning to the UFC behind him.
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