UFC middleweight/United States Army veteran Tim Kennedy isn’t one to pull his punches in or out of the cage.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that he was quite candid when asked by Above and Beyond MMA how he felt a potential fight with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva would go.
I think I could beat him. Everybody will be shaking their head, “Oh my gosh, Tim is insane!” No. Stylistically, I think I’m a bad matchup for him. I’m Chael Sonnen with better jiu-jitsu and better hands…I love making fights ugly. It’s a fight that I can go out there and make a guy that is music personified into violence — like Anderson — and just grab the record and start going [record-scratching noises] and play my own song.
Kennedy is 3-2 in his past five fights, losing Strikeforce middleweight title bouts to Ronaldo Souza and Luke Rockhold, respectively.
The Greg Jackson’s MMA fighter maintains that he fought poorly against both Souza and Rockhold, though he still believes he won his August 2010 encounter with “Jacare.”
The two biggest fights of my career, I looked flat…One fight against “Jacare” [Ronaldo Souza] for the Strikeforce title was really close, but I won it. Regardless, I fought a horrible fight. On the two biggest stages of my life, I — I — came up short. Me, I sucked…I’m not taking anything away from Jacare or Luke [Rockhold], but I beat me; they didn’t beat me.
Both Souza and Rockhold made their first appearances in the Octagon on Saturday at UFC on FX 8.
Souza scored a masterful submission win over Chris Camozzi, while Rockhold suffered a devastating knockout at the hands of Vitor Belfort.
Kennedy is scheduled to make his UFC debut at UFC 162 in July, taking on a world renowned Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt in Roger Gracie.
Given Anderson Silva’s reign of excellence inside the Octagon, it’s tough to imagine Kennedy would present much of a challenge for him should they even square off in the cage.
“The Spider” boasts a perfect 16-0 record under the UFC banner, also holding the promotion’s record with 10 successful middleweight title defenses.
He last defended his belt against Sonnen in July, though he improved his light heavyweight record to 3-0 when he TKO’ed the very durable Stephan Bonnar, the original “The Ultimate Fighter” runner-up, at UFC 153 in October
Sonnen, known for his takedowns and top control, is the only opponent who provided a challenge for Silva during that time frame. However, “The American Gangster” ended up being defeated on two occasions: via submission at UFC 117 and via TKO at UFC 148.
Silva headlines the UFC 162 card against a former collegiate All-American wrestler in Chris Weidman. “The All-American” boasts an undefeated 9-0 record heading into the matchup.
Would Kennedy stand a chance against Silva, or are his comments completely off-base?
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com and contributes MMA videos to The Young Turks Sports Show.
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