The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil is generating a good bit of buzz at this time in both Brazil and the United States.
I recently talked about the importance this season of TUF holds for the coaches on FX’s The Ultimate Fighter: Live and what it could do for them in terms of making them top UFC stars.
The coaches of TUF Brazil, though, are a very different story.
While TUF Live is building up into a title fight featuring a top-ten (possibly top-five) pound-for-pound fighter in Dominick Cruz and a mainstream sensation in Urijah Faber, TUF Brazil is working its way to a showdown between aging middleweights.
While my article on Cruz vs. Faber talked about how much these two young, powerful fighters have to gain from their time on the reality show, TUF Brazil is the exact opposite—with a coaches fight that highlights how much either has to lose.
These coaches are Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort.
Both of them are Pride alumni.
Both of them have many vicious knockouts to their name.
Most importantly, both of them are still reeling after brutal losses in 2011.
Wanderlei Silva was among the best fighters in Pride (only Fedor Emelianenko edges him out).
After leaving the UFC in 2000 after a loss to Tito Ortiz, Silva went on one of the greatest streaks in MMA history, going 16-0-1, 1 NC and getting wins over all-time greats like Dan Henderson (once), Quinton Jackson (twice) and Kazushi Sakuraba (three times).
His final fights in Pride were back-to-back losses to Dan Henderson and Mirko Cro Cop, and after Pride was folded into the UFC, he continued this trend with a loss to Chuck Liddell.
Since then, he has been back and forth, beating Keith Jardine and winning his middleweight debut against Michael Bisping. Shuffled between those though, are losses to Quinton Jackson and Rich Franklin.
More recently, however, Silva suffered a bad knockout loss at the hands of Chris Leben. Dana White began making less-than-subtle nudges in the direction of retirement, as seen with Cro Cop and Liddell.
This has not worked…yet.
While he followed this loss by beating former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le, the possibility of a forced ending to his career still hangs over his head.
He remains one loss away from retirement and he undoubtedly knows that as he is facing knockout artist Vitor Belfort.
While Belfort is widely regarded as a top-five middleweight, that is not what people know him for.
The only highlight that the average fan remembers from Belfort’s current UFC stint is the clean knockout that came from Anderson Silva.
While he has two wins (a KO and submission) separating him from this, the kick knocked him as far away from a title shot as it did from his senses.
While Belfort’s career is not in jeopardy in this fight, this remains an absolute must-win for him.
Even though Belfort is possibly the most deserving next opponent for Anderson Silva (assuming he beats Chael Sonnen), he is very unlikely to get it.
If he loses though, Belfort will be separated from a title shot for years, regardless of who happens to be the champion at that time.
Both of these fighters need this win in order to hold their ground; Silva to keep his job and Belfort to keep his spot near the top of the division.
They fought once before—all the way back in 1998 at UFC Brazil—with Belfort winning with his signature run-forward-and-throw-punches technique.
Unfortunately for Silva, there is little reason to believe that this fight will be any different.
Silva’s chin is not especially strong at this point by any means and Belfort, as stated, is a knockout artist.
One of the best knockout artists in the UFC in fact and, as such, it is tough to see Belfort losing.
Silva is slower than he was and though he still has veteran savvy and is no stranger to knockouts himself, it would be somewhat surprising if this lasted more than one round until Belfort lands a hand and capitalizes.
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