UFC 126: Silva vs Belfort

[Guest John Hancock]

Anderson wore a mask to taunt Belfort about his sister

 

If that's true (though I doubt it is) that's f*cking COLD.

 

Maybe they are just working the marks, promoting the fight? The fighting is MMA is real, but the storylines and angles are just as fake as they are in wrestling.

 

I don't mind a worked rivalry, but can't they at least give a reason? I mean neither of them has really said anything about each other than't out of the ordinary, and now, suddenly, Silva's running around with stupid masks on getting in people's faces. If it's a work, it's the weirdest, laziest work in history.

Edited February 5, 2011 by John Hancock

[Guest John Hancock]

Mystery solved;

 

"I just know one thing: When you say silly things, when you do silly things, it's because you're worried, and you're trying to wear a mask. The way I fight, and the way I am, I have respect. I just need to wear one mask: myself."

 

~ Vitor Belfort on MMAJunkie last night.

[Guest The Beltster]

I don't mind a worked rivalry, but can't they at least give a reason? I mean neither of them has really said anything about each other than't out of the ordinary, and now, suddenly, Silva's running around with stupid masks on getting in people's faces. If it's a work, it's the weirdest, laziest work in history.

Shit, if they are paying any attention to wrestling, they sure as hell dont need a reason, they'll just throw him out there with a mask for no reason and it will never be mentioned again.

[Guest John Hancock]

Shit, if they are paying any attention to wrestling, they sure as hell dont need a reason, they'll just throw him out there with a mask for no reason and it will never be mentioned again.

 

If I find out that Vince Russo and Dana White have been in the same room in the last month, you're the new Dave Meltzer.

 

In a good way.

[DC 536]

Credit: Telegraph

 

UFC 126: Tales of bad blood

Hatred and betrayal in Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort title fight

By Gareth A Davies Boxing and MMA

February 4th, 2011

 

The staredown between Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort was mesmerising. The tension is palpable. Behind the calm, and the platitudes, a storm has been brewing ahead of this fight. It is ugly, and there is talk of betrayal. The blood is bad. Nor is it hype.

 

This is not about bragging rights. It is personal. It is a serious feud. Indeed, the hatred Anderson Silva feels for Vitor Belfort has largely been downplayed this week. Yet Silva, the UFC’s middleweight champion emeritus, and without too much argument mixed martial arts’ leading pound for pound fighter, not given to outbursts in public, is privately fuming.

 

“Anderson is the guy who really feels this, really angry,” one Brazilian hack told me. “Anderson felt betrayed by Vitor, because they trained together before, because they were so close.” Silva had also helped Belfort through difficult times. In the past, they had been fighting in rival organisations, they have been unrivalled through Belfort’s battles at heavyweight and light-heavyweight.

 

Silva feels cut to the core. It is a fight he never really wanted. They trained together. Silva visited another town to help Belfort train in the past. Helped him through difficult times. And Belfort has been through horrific times, losing his sister in 2004, abducted and most likely murdered and about whom he has not been able to learn the complete truth. Belfort insists she is still alive.

 

Silva, in his Brazilian way, has deep-seated martial arts beliefs – of respect, of brotherhood, a code of conduct. Silva has that Chute Boxe mentality, that when he is fighting somebody they are his worst enemy. For Belfort, this is business. For him, it is about the belt. Yet Silva feels betrayed because the honour code has been broken.

 

Silva’s training team know Belfort inside out. Belfort, of course, now trains in the US with Xtreme Couture. There is huge interest in Brazil in this fight. Twenty million people watch MMA in Brazil. It is the cradle of the sport. They are calling it ‘The Fight of the Century’ in that country, pitting, as it does, two legends from within its vast panoply. The reference, of course, is to the great heavyweight title fight in 1971 between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. There are also those in Brazilian circles who believe firmly that should Belfort leave The Octagon as the victor, it will create a greater platform for MMA in that country.

 

“We are calling it the ‘Fight of The Century’. It is huge. There are almost 30 journalists from Brazil here for this fight. That has never happened before,” explained Fernando Kallas, one of the colour commentators of the UFC in Brazil.

 

Nose to nose, there really was something there. “Anderson was intimidating him there,” said one of the Brazilian journalists at the news conference this week at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. They are both calm in public, respectful to each other. Behind the scenes, Silva’s blood is boiling. There is genuine hatred between the two men. Moreover, there are many, Brazilians that is, who believe that if Silva attempts to treat Belfort the way in which he treated compatriot Demian Maia in their title fight last year, he will be inviting defeat to Belfort’s fast, heavy hands. Yet Silva wants to humiliate Belfort in The Octagon on Saturday night.

 

Dana White, the UFC President hit the nail on the head the minute the news conference ended this week “Thirty minutes of bull****. This really does matter to these guys.” This fight really does matter, both in Brazil, and globally. And there is the sneaking suspicion that Silva might not fancy it too much.

 

GAD Picks:

 

Silva (though my caveat here is I’m not ruling out a KO for Belfort)

 

Franklin

 

Jones

 

Rocha

 

Torres

[Guest Rikidozan]

My main card picks...

 

Anderson Silva versus Vitor Belfort

Forrest Griffin versus Rich Franklin

Jon Jones versus Ryan Bader

Jake Ellenberger versus Carlos Eduardo Rocha

Miguel Torres versus Antonio Banuelos

 

Stacked card, hopefully a great fight night, certainly numerous potential 'Fight of the Night' contenders. Buyrate predictions anyone?...

[Paul 584]

I cant see Belfort winning, but I hope to God he does! I loved seeing him in the earlier events and out-striking the strikers.

[Guest Frank Botch]

GAD Picks:

 

Silva (though my caveat here is I’m not ruling out a KO for Belfort)

 

Yeah way to go out on a limb, can't stand that dude. He's probably the most annoying one on MMALive, which is quite a feat. I've got a nostalgic attachment to Belfort too so I hope Anderson doesn't hurt him too badly. Third round TKO.

 

Buyrate will be exactly... 714,000.

 

Rogan had the crazy eyes at the weigh in

 

http://i55.tinypic.com/28gs17q.gif

 

http://images2.memegenerator.net/ImageMacro/5560041/Joes-not-holding-a-mic-Its-a-fleshlight-and-hes-almost-done.jpg?imageSize=Medium&generatorName=JoeRoganOface

 

The dudes on the MMAUnderground board worked hard on these...

[Guest Rikidozan]

I called a buyrate range of 750,000-800,000, so quite close to yours Frank. May seem quite high, but with Silva/Belfort, Griffin/Franklin and Jones/Bader I don't think it's that unthinkable.

[Guest carlito is cool]

:lol:lol:lol at Rogans crazy eyes!!! I expect Belfort to bring hell in the first round and give Silva some rough moments. If Anderson gets through through it i see him taking over en route to a late 2nd or 3rnd stoppage.

[Guest Frank Botch]

What is this nonsense about having to ''like'' UFC on Facebook to watch the Kid fight? I don't have a Facebook account, I don't have any friends!!! Jeez. I watched fine last time out... unless I used another stream. I'm pretty sure it was okay on the FB account though and they changed it this time. Anyway, I'm sure it'll be first up to fill time on the PPV. Still though, it irks me greatly.

 

Dana White joins Florian, Bonnar and Gareth Davies on MMALive right now, an admirable collection of douchebags right there.

 

I called a buyrate range of 750,000-800,000, so quite close to yours Frank. May seem quite high, but with Silva/Belfort, Griffin/Franklin and Jones/Bader I don't think it's that unthinkable

 

Yeah it's one of the most stacked cards I can remember, it should hit something in that area.

[Guest Frank Botch]

Just announced after the Bader fight that Rashad is injured and Jones is getting the title fight against Rua. Pretty hilarious that Evans was too much of a pussy to risk his title shot all these months and the dude gets injured.

 

Torres had a pretty horrible debut, that fight was beyond boring, Jones looked awesome though.

[Guest Frank Botch]

Alright, that was one of the coolest KO's I've ever seen, Anderson is the GOAT. Dude is unbeatable.

 

Pretty good card, not as great as I thought it would be, and Forrest messed up my predictions. And his fight sucked.

[Evil Gringo 279]

You know its a great knock out when a room of five people all go OOOOOHHHHH at the same time like me, the missus and our friends did watching it.

 

Saying that though I cannot wait for someone to beat Silva, his respect and posturing after fights seems so false because during them and in the build up to them he is the most arrogant and cocky son of b*tch known to man.

 

Dana looked really annoyed and unimpressed as he was putting the belt on him because right now for the sake of the Middleweight division someone needs to beat him because they are running out of guys to put infront of him.

 

Saying that though, if you put a good wrestler in there with him then I think Anderson can be defeated. Chael nearly had him but lost his head and posture control at the end of the last round and it cost him because he had done all the work and was more tired which allowed Anderson the chance to sneak in that triangle.

 

Someone like GSP however - if that fight happens down the road - I reckon could take him out.

 

Keep putting strikers in front of him though like Belfort and what you will get is the result you got tonight, likewise if you put men in there who are soley BJJ and want Anderson to try and instigate the grappling so they can reverse and counter you end up with boring fights.

 

Like I say the UFC as a whole and the middleweight division needs Silva to lose and soon.

[Guest The Beltster]

Silva is a beast, the dude avoids hits like the Matrix and then BOOOOOM, lights out.

[Guest Dusty Finish]

As ridiculously stacked as this card was, it was always going to struggle to live up to expectations. As was... yeah, a bit underwhelming overall.

 

There's nothing more to be said about the main that hasn't been said above. I after the first two static minutes I was thinking "Oh Jesus, here we go". Okami and his title shot will get well and truly shafted once again, and so they should. There's just no point in doing that fight. I never imagined it would be possible to even attempt a kick like that in a real fight without looking like a complete tit, never mind KO someone with it.

 

Equally as big for me is Bones being thrust into the title fight next month. He handled Bader with the consumate ease he's handled everyone else with so far (which wasn't unexpected), but as we've never seen him a) in any kind of trouble whatsoever or b) against a true top 5 opponent, a fight with Shogun is nigh on impossible to call. I'll just say that Jones is 100% legit, and will be light heavyweight champ at some point unless he fills out to the point where he can't make the cut and has to move up before it happens, and that stylistically this is a better match for Shogun than Evans was (ie. a really horrible one).

 

The greatest thing of year to date, bar none, was Jones reverse-leapfrogging Bader to take his back as he was getting up. WTF was that?

 

Gritty in parts, but ultimately Griffin vs Franklin (which fudged up my predictions) was a flat affair between two perenially overrated fighters. I'd love to know what Franklin was thinking, parading around with his arms raised after that lacklustre performance. Why is it that you hear all these stories about Jorge Gurgel being some kind of mystical zen-master of BJJ, yet excluding Dustin Hazelett and including Gurgel himself, no-one associated with him seems to have any applicable BJJ whatsoever? Forrest will likely take over Keith Jardine's win one/lose one duties from here. No idea where Franklin goes.

 

There are scores of people I talk to in real life that I'd love to make watch Torres-Banuelos followed by the first round of Ellenburger-Rocha. The former was all about Torres' gargantuan reach and how Banuelos could do Scottish Football Association about it... a 100% stand-up affair, and it was an excruciating bore. By contrast, the grapplefest that was the first round of latter was outstanding. This was one of those fights that makes you hate 10-point must as on those criteria Ellenburger won, but watching the fight... did you win, Jake? Did you really?

[Guest Rikidozan]

Well...3/5 is ok I guess, but what the hell was I thinking going with Belfort?! His usual inconsistency reared it's ugly head and messed up my picks. Stupid thing is, I even highlighted said inconsistency in my UFC 126 preview for TheWrestlingPress. I'm a stupidhead.

 

Like Belfort, Franklin made a fool of me, dropping to Griffin, still I guess this win puts Griffin back in the 205lbs mix somewhat. Back to the light heavyweight drawing board for Franklin though.

 

If there were any Bones Jones doubters lingering, they were completely dispelled after the Bader win, and now he moves into Rua and a title shot. Just from a pre-fight aspect alone Jones/Rua is interesting, could the rising young phenom Jones demolish Rua, like Rua did to everyone in Pride? Seems like in Jones/Rua, Jones is playing the role of Rua circa 2005.

 

Once again, the much hyped Japanese guys (Yamamoto and Omigawa) fall flat, and worse, with a ton of Japanese press in the building, and their fights screened in Japan too.

 

On a final note, I guess if GSP gets past Shields in April, the GSP/Silva megafight is on for the end of the year. Thoughs anyone?...

[Guest The Beltster]

If GSP/Silva happens, it wont be pretty for GSP. He's giving up too much size, it will be hard for him to pack on that much weight and keep it o naturally without trying. The fight appeals to fans and the buyrate should be huge, but they might just cut the legs off of GSP if he gets dominated.

[Guest Rikidozan]

GSP walks around at more than 170lbs, but yeah, it'd be wise if the UFC gave him one or two middleweight fights to get acclimatised to 185lbs. I agree about the buyrate being huge, they could also run Rogers Center/SkyDome too.

[Guest Frank Botch]

If GSP/Silva happens, it wont be pretty for GSP. He's giving up too much size, it will be hard for him to pack on that much weight and keep it o naturally without trying. The fight appeals to fans and the buyrate should be huge, but they might just cut the legs off of GSP if he gets dominated.

 

Pretty much, GSP has NO chance against Anderson. And I won't believe the fight is made until GSP actually confirms it. Though it really does have to be made, no one at 185 has even a small chance with Anderson, I think Dana will avoid it at all costs.

 

Saying that though I cannot wait for someone to beat Silva, his respect and posturing after fights seems so false because during them and in the build up to them he is the most arrogant and cocky son of b*tch known to man.

 

It's weird that people were complaining a while back about how Anderson had no personality, now he should just shut up before fights. And when Sonnen was arrogant, and you know racist, it was all an act. Huh.