Filed under: HDNet
Former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia is done as a relevant mixed martial artist.
In a result reminiscent of his embarrassing knockout loss to the boxer Ray Mercer, Sylvia showed up overweight and out of shape on Friday night for his bout with Abe Wagner on the Titan FC 16 card in Kansas City, and the result was Wagner battering him around the cage for 32 seconds before Sylvia fell face-first to the canvas, and the referee waved off the fight, awarding Wagner a quick TKO.
It was an indecisive stoppage by ref Jason Herzog, but not a bad stoppage: Sylvia didn’t seem to know where he was when he crumpled to the canvas, and he wasn’t intelligently defending himself.
Sylvia, who weighed in at 311 pounds on Friday, falls to 28-7. He was once among the sport’s truly elite fighters, but that was a long time ago. Sylvia no longer takes his conditioning seriously, and although he did enter Friday night on a four-fight winning streak, he’s just never been the same fighter since losing three straight fights to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Fedor Emelianenko and Mercer in 2008 and 2009.