Following his unanimous decision loss to underdog Michael Bisping at UFC Fight Night 84 in London, Mookie Alexander believes that it’s time for the UFC to hand Anderson Silva his walking papers.
Disclaimer: These opinions are 100% dead serious, as are the facts and figures laid out in my arguments, which therefore makes them all indisputably correct. All beliefs held here are exclusively mine and do not represent those of other Bloody Elbow editors, although they really ought to think about siding with my views.
Anderson Silva lost to Michael Bisping by unanimous decision in the UFC Fight Night 84 main event in London, England. While Bisping is in prime position to receive his middleweight title shot, a lot of questions are being asked about the future of Anderson Silva. Will he call it a career? Should he still be fighting top 10 opposition at middleweight? What about a move up to light heavyweight? Is that Frank Mir fight at heavyweight still in the queue? So many questions, none of which I’m asking.
I think the UFC’s next step is to squash The Spider’s contract just 2 fights into his 15-fight deal.
Many of you are already in full agreement with me and I can see you nodding your heads (I didn’t hack into your laptop cameras, I swear!), but for those of you who are not — let me lay out my perfectly explained, factually accurate-ish argument in favor of the UFC cutting Anderson Silva loose.
He hasn’t won a fight since October 2012
The last time Anderson Silva won a UFC fight, Stephen Curry hadn’t been in a single playoff game with the Golden State Warriors, Ronda Rousey wasn’t even signed to a UFC contract, President Obama hadn’t won re-election over Mitt Romney, and Russell Wilson hadn’t yet thrown a game-winning touchdown pass to beat the New England Patriots in a game that sadly wasn’t for the Super Bowl.
Silva’s last win came against Stephan Bonnar in a short-notice light heavyweight bout at UFC 153, but Bonnar could’ve actually made it into round 2 with a full training camp. Full Camp Bonnar aside, Anderson’s final title defense came in July 2012 against perennial almost-champion Chael Sonnen, who dominated the 1st round before pirouetting into the cage with that silly spinning backfist. It was the Weidman/Rockhold of its time, and it’s a shame we never got to see Sonnen and Weidman engage in an epic clash of ill-fated spinning maneuvers.
Sure, you can claim that he defeated Nick Diaz — he’s without a win since 2011, but he was robbed in the Condit fight and won the GSP fight by Stockton Rules — but he failed his drug test and consequently had the bout flipped to a no-contest. Technically speaking, Silva didn’t win any rounds against Diaz by virtue of the NC, which means the only rounds he’s won in the last 4 years are the two vs. Bisping. We’ve seen fighters get cut for way less than this. I don’t care if Silva started out 16-0, because as noted philosophical figure Janet Jackson once said, it’s a “What have you done for me lately?” type of world. He’s 0-3, 1 NC with a KO loss, a broken leg, a near-KO loss to powerless volume puncher Bisping, and multiple failed drug tests. Tsk tsk.
And speaking of that…..
He’s a classless, habitual and proven cheater
There’s a lot more to Anderson’s disgrace than drug test failures. Does no one remember how his 2nd win over Sonnen happened? It’s a win that is as tainted as the sex pill supplements he claims he took. He grabbed Chael’s shorts and nearly created a wardrobe malfunction. NFL referees would dish out at least a 5 yard penalty for the infraction that Silva committed. Alas, this is MMA, where all fouls are unintentional and therefore shouldn’t be punishable.
Before the Weidman KO, which stemmed from Silva’s incessant taunting of his formidable foe, Silva was DQ’d for a disgusting illegal upkick on Yushin Okami in Hawaii. He knew that upkicks were illegal but threw it anyway. That’s the hallmark of a dirty fighter a la Jon Jones, whose illegal elbows and eye pokes recently overtook chronic masturbation as the #1 cause of male blindness.
On Saturday, even though Bisping was clearly signaling timeout to Herb Dean and Silva didn’t have a foul to give in the last 2 minutes, he went full blast on Bisping’s mouthpiece-less face and then excessively celebrated even though the fight wasn’t over. This after two rounds of waving his hands around like a maniac trying to goad Bisping into hitting his increasingly prone skull, which is one of the rare occasions when victim-blaming is perfectly acceptable. He’s gotten away with this tactic for years and it’s finally obsolete.
Prizefighting stands for respect and honor in many circles, and if you don’t have any respect for your opposing prizefighter, then I don’t have any respect for you. Anderson has disgraced the time-honored tradition of prizefighting with his disrespectful and classless antics, and the failed drug tests on top of everything else I wrote is just the icing on top of the cherry.
To quoth thy Dana, he’s “really expensive“
The UFC released Jon Fitch on a $66,000/$66,000 deal, even though he went 6-2-1 after Georges St-Pierre purpleized his face. They also cut Yushin Okami on a $42,000/$42,000 contract despite co-headlining an FS1 card in Brazil against Jacare Souza. Jake Shields was dropped even having beaten Tyron Woodley and Demian Maia prior to his loss to Hector Lombard. His win/show cleared six-figures but didn’t reach $200,000.
You know what Anderson’s salary was for UFC 183? $600,000 to show and $200,000 to win. That’s $800,000 without factoring in PPV points, pre-Reebok sponsorship arrangements, and discretionary bonuses, which are often known to triple your final payday.
$800,000 for a fighter who, at present, isn’t even the 3rd biggest PPV draw in the UFC is way too high when you look at his in-cage results combined with his steroid past. Paying out huge sums of cash to reward a losing product should be left to the Detroit Lions, not MMA’s premier organization. That $800,000 could easily be reallocated to more successful fighters who are winning but not getting paid well, invested into new programs to benefit UFC fighters as a whole, or even to form a 40-man tournament of $10,000/$10,000 salaried fighters to determine who faces the CM Punk vs. Mickey Gall winner.
So where does Silva go next?
Bellator seems like a potential landing place for Anderson, but at 40, he’s far too young to be headlining their really big tentpole events, and I don’t trust his chin to hold up against Kimbo Slice’s power. Plus, their Spider quota has already been filled by Kendall Grove, who unlike Silva, has actually been winning recently. World Series of Fighting can’t dole out that Anderson Silva money as they probably sunk a lot of dough into reserving that room at that sports complex earlier this month. Rizin FF seems very appealing and I think a dream fight with Sakuraba would sell extraordinarily well in Japan, even considering the serious damage Silva has absorbed over the last 4 years.
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To summarize: Silva isn’t winning, he’s repeatedly broken the rules of MMA, he isn’t obeying the strict steroid policy, he has been reduced to Fight Pass shows, and has shown himself to be a sore loser. He’s done some pretty good things over his career, but Father Time waits for no one, and while he may continue to fight for as long as he pleases, the UFC should not be using his services anymore.