UFC president Dana White rips Floyd Jr. for Pacquiao, Lin comments (VIDEO)

source: Adrian Dy | gmanetwork.com

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White went on "UFC Tonight" Tuesday (Wednesday, PHL time) to deliver a verbal barrage at boxer Floyd Mayweather, calling him a racist and urging him to agree to a 50-50 split of the purse in order to fight Manny Pacquiao.

Muñoz eyes comeback in June

source: mb.com.ph

Fil-American Mark Muñoz hopes to return strong by mid-year following an injury that cost him a key UFC fight last month.

“Everything happens for a reason,” the 34-year old Muñoz said in a press conference Monday at the ELJ Building of ABS-CBN. “My condition has improved since the surgery and I hope to come back strong.”

Muñoz highlights PXC29 event

Mark “The Filipino Wrecking Machine” Muñoz will add glamour to PXC 29 when he works the corner of Raja Shippen on Feb. 18 at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City.

UFC 124 Results: Georges St-Pierre decisions Josh Koscheck

Georges St-Pierre will defend his UFC welterweight title against Josh Koscheck. St-Pierre defeated Koscheck in their previous meeting via a unanimous decision at UFC 74 on Aug. 25, 2007.

Main Card
Georges St-Pierre def. Josh Koscheck via UD (50-45, 50-45, 50-45)
Stefan Struve def. Sean McCorkle via first-round TKO
Jim Miller def. Charles Oliveira via submission (kneebar)
Mac Danzig def. Joe Stevenson via first-round KO
Thiago Alves def. John Howard via unanimous decision

Undercard Results
Dan Miller def. Joe Doerksen via split decision
Mark Bocek def. Dustin Hazelett via submission (triangle)
Jesse Bongfeldt vs. Rafael Natal ruled a majority draw
Sean Pierson def. Matt Riddle via unanimous decision
Ricardo Almeida def. TJ Grant via unanimous decision
John Makdessi def. Pat Audinwood via unanimous decision


Georges St-Pierre vs. Josh Koscheck Round-by-Round
by Mike Chiappetta | mmafighting.com

Round 1: St. Pierre explodes for a takedown in the opening 20 seconds. Koscheck gets right back to his feet. St. Pierre tags Koscheck with an overhand right. Koscheck dives in for a hook, St. Pierre goes low for a takedown, but Koscheck stays on his feet. Koscheck already has redness around his left eye. St. Pierre shoots in again, Koscheck stops it and scores with a knee to the head before St. Pierre retreats. St. Pierre doubles up on the jab. St. Pierre's jab is connecting consistenly. Koscheck threws a right hook that misses and goes after St. Pierre's legs, moving him against the fence. Koscheck stayed at it and put GSP on his back with :15 left, not enough to steal it. 10-9 St. Pierre.

Round 2: St. Pierre keeps throwing out the jab, and Koscheck's left eye is already swelling badly. St. Pierre looks comfortable on his feet, digging into Koscheck's thigh with a kick. St. Pierre is more active, moving around the cage and initiating. Koscheck looking for the big right. St. Pierre lands a pair of hard rights. Beautiful combinations from the champion, who throw a superman punch/leg kick, landing both ends. St. Pierre punctuates the round with a right hand before the final horn, 10-9 GSP.

Round 3: St. Pierre lands a big right behind the ear in the opening 10 seconds. St. Pierre tries a takedown but Koscheck stops it. From the clinch, St. Pierre lands knees to the legs. St. Pierre digs low for a takedown again, but Koscheck's base is too wide, and he can't secure it. They break at the middle of the round. St. Pierre fires off a few jabs. Koscheck has a hard time avoiding them. Koscheck head-hunts with a kick that misses. Koscheck whiffs on a shoot, St. Pierre punishes him with a right hand and kick. Another round in the books for the champ, 10-9.

Round 4: The doctor looked at Koscheck's eye between rounds and let the fight continue. St. Pierre took Koscheck down quick. Koscheck tried to get up and St. Pierre took his back against the cage, delivering a knee to the head. Koscheck got his back to the fence and GSP held him there until ref Herb Dean restarted them. Koscheck slipped down after a miss. It's the second time he's looked at his foot during the fight. A big left hook landed for St. Pierre. GSP continued to ahammer Koscheck with jabs, and scored witha right hook. Koscheck's eye looks completely shut.

Round 5: Koscheck comes back for the fifth. A huge left hook early for GSP. Koscheck is a tough guy, but this is a dismantling. Koscheck is mostly a punching bag now. Another left hook. Koscheck can't possibly see anything coming from that side. GSP ducks under a punch and lands a sharp right. Crowd starts singing Koscheck off with half the round remaining. Much of the crowd is standing as St. Pierre's takes Koscheck down twice in a row. The game Koscheck is back to his feet in no time, however. The crowd builds a wave of applause with 30 seconds left and the fighters break. Koscheck tries a spinning back kick. St. Pierre lands a hard right. St. Pierre to the end, and the champion and his antagonist share an embrace after the final horn.

OFFICIAL RESULT:
Winner: Georges St. Pierre via unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 50-45)


Source: TEAM PILIPINAS.info

Koscheck brings out St. Pierre’s passion

MONTREAL – For six months, Georges St. Pierre has wanted to erupt, to lash out, to tell the world how sick and tired he’s been of Josh Koscheck.

If you poke a caged lion with a stick, you always have to be careful the lion doesn’t get free and maul you. You can be sure, as he spent a month-and-a-half in Las Vegas with Koscheck in the summer filming the reality series, “The Ultimate Fighter,” that there were plenty of times that St. Pierre wanted to maul Koscheck.

Koscheck hadn’t left the Octagon following his victory over Paul Daley at UFC 113 in May when he began the torrent of trash talk about St. Pierre. Then, for six weeks in Las Vegas, he poked and prodded St. Pierre, hoping to get a rise out of him. He’s continued the verbal onslaught ever since.

St. Pierre is a man who values his image nearly above all else. The thought of rolling around on a floor, brawling with Koscheck, is abhorrent to him.

The taunts and pranks didn’t go unnoticed by St. Pierre, who will defend his title against Koscheck on Saturday in front of a UFC-record crowd – expected to top 23,000 – in the main event of UFC 124 at the Bell Centre.

During the show, St. Pierre was, as he always seems to be, calm and in control. He responded with a grin and a shake of his head, largely ignoring Koscheck despite a fire that raged inside of him that told him he ought to shut his foe’s mouth for good.

Finally, on Wednesday at a workout for the media and again on Thursday at the final news conference, St. Pierre opened a window to his soul. He displayed a passion he’s rarely shown publicly before, something contrary to his carefully crafted, gentlemanly image.

As the news conference ended Thursday, St. Pierre was asked about a comment he’d made earlier, in which he said he’d be done with Koscheck after Saturday. St. Pierre won a decision over the former NCAA Division I national wrestling champion at UFC 74 in 2007 in a non-title fight. He pointed out that if he prevails again in Saturday’s title fight, Koscheck figures to be in his rear-view mirror forever. “I’m doing this job, because I want to be the best,” St. Pierre said. “I don’t want to be number two. I want to be number one. I’ve always been like this. And I don’t want to be just number one, I want to be the greatest. That’s my main goal. When I do something, I want to be the best of the best. Now I’m fighting Josh Koscheck and I fought him before. People say, ‘Oh, the pressure is on you. You’re in Montreal.’ It’s true. I’m in Montreal, but I am at my best when I’m fighting in my hometown. But also, if I win against Josh Koscheck, when I beat him, that’s going to be the end of it. It would be two times I beat him.

“If he has the same mentality as me, Josh Koscheck, he’ll have to reconsider his career. If he wants to be the best, after he loses two times to me, it’s going to take a long time again before he goes for the title. Maybe, never again. He’ll have to climb up the ladder a long time. I’m going to beat him on Saturday night and that will be the end of it. I’m not going to talk about him for a long, long time and I’m going to feel very happy.”

He spoke passionately, through clenched teeth, obviously speaking with his heart as much as he was with his mind.

St. Pierre is arguably the UFC’s most popular fighter, so in demand that UFC president Dana White dared to suggest that St. Pierre is more popular in his native country than NHL Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky is merely the greatest player in hockey history and the Canadian Press Athlete of the 20th Century.

White later amended his comment to indicate he meant St. Pierre is more popular on a global basis, but the point was made: People love the guy, and not just in Canada.

He made an appearance in the Philippines and the massive turnout made it seem as if Manny Pacquiao had stopped on the street corner. St. Pierre took calls on an Albuquerque, N.M., radio station on Wednesday and so many people attempted to get through, the telephone lines crashed. He signed autographs at the UFC Fan Expo and people stood in line for hours to get a few seconds of personal time in front of him.

“It’s really incredible, when you think about it, that people were willing to give up the better part of their day to stand in a line for his autograph in order to get about 10 seconds of his time,” his manager, Shari Spencer, said.

Spencer has helped him build his brand and land him endorsements from blue chip companies like Under Armour, Gatorade and Affliction.

The brand is everything to St. Pierre, who said he’s attempted to pattern his behavior after Gretzky. Gretzky is arguably the most dominant athlete in team sports history and he was a great ambassador for hockey from the day he first stepped onto the ice until his last day as coach of the Phoenix Coyotes.

Similarly, St. Pierre has attempted to maintain an equally wholesome image and avoid some of the unsavory stereotypes that often are associated with the fight game. That’s why he continually bit his tongue when nearly everyone else watching the reality show wanted to see him lose it and haul off and give Koscheck his comeuppance.

“To tell you the truth, there were many times (when Koscheck taunted me) that I had something to say in my head, but because of my brand, because of who I am and because of the way I want to portray myself, I didn’t say anything bad,” St. Pierre said. “But sometimes, I said it to my friends and they were laughing. People don’t know what’s happening in my head. Of course, I’m a good guy on camera, because I take my business very seriously. For me, when I’m in front of the camera, it’s a business. The way I dress and everything, it’s a business, it’s professional.

“I try to portray myself like Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan. Of course, I’m a human being and I have some bad thoughts in my head sometimes. I’m human, I have some bad ideas, but when I’m in front of the camera, it’s business and when it’s business, I think of my business and my brand.”

Koscheck, who seemed tense and disinterested at Wednesday’s media workout, clearly has tried to anger St. Pierre in order to affect the way he fights. St. Pierre, though, was on to the game early and wouldn’t fall for it.

St. Pierre said he’d be disappointed if he won by decision, rather than finishing Koscheck, but said he’s not going to be baited into a slugfest. It’s all about maintaining control in St. Pierre’s world.

“I’m going to fight smart and methodical,” St. Pierre said. “Of course, the crowd’s going to be there and that’s what Koscheck wants. Koscheck wants me to lose my temper. He wants me to fight like an idiot and lose my temper, because that’s how he can beat me. I don’t think skill-wise, he can beat me. In boxing, the guy who is the better boxer, he wants to box. The guy who is not as good as the other guy, he wants to brawl. When you brawl, it’s like flipping a coin. That’s what he wants me to do, to go in there and lose my mind. But that’s exactly what I’m not going to do. “I have a lot of tools in my bag. If he stuffs one takedown or two, I don’t mind that. I can knock him out standing up. I can beat him on the floor. I can do whatever I want.”

Pretty much, that’s true. He’s nearly a deity in Canada, though strangely, he’s more popular outside of his native Quebec because the Francophiles aren’t into fighting as much as the English-speaking population. He’s centered his business interests in the U.S., because it’s where most of the brands he’s going to be affiliated with are located, and because it will leave him a refuge at home in Quebec where he can get away from some of the maddening crowds.

It says something about the character of the man that he’s on display nearly every hour of every day, but he has the control of his emotions and doesn’t crack.

If White was growing fighters in a Petri dish, he couldn’t have grown one to be a better representative of his business than he’s gotten in St. Pierre.

“We’re fortunate not only to have him representing our company, but also to have him as an ambassador for the sport of mixed martial arts,” said Tom Wright, the UFC’s director of Canadian operations. “He’s one of our global icons. Clearly, one of the biggest draws we’ve ever had. Certainly, in this country, when we look at pay-per-view sales, they go along like this and all of a sudden, we see this major blip that comes along when GSP fights. People just love him, not just here but truly, around the world. He’s the kind of guy you want representing your country and the sport. He’s so good, it’s almost like he’s too good to be true.”

St. Pierre waves off comparisons to Gretzky and said he hasn’t accomplished nearly in MMA what Gretzky did in hockey – yet.

So for now, it’s OK to refer to him as the Wayne Gretzky of MMA.

But don’t you get the idea that if St. Pierre keeps this up, someday in the not-too-distant future, some Canadian father will be telling his son about Wayne Gretzky and will refer to him as “The Georges St. Pierre of hockey?” It probably won’t happen. But the fact that it might tells you all you need to know about St. Pierre.

Kevin Iole -Yahoo! Sports. 

Incredible night for Velasquez

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Javier Mendez predicted greatness for Cain Velasquez not long after the two-time All-American wrestler from Arizona State had walked through the doors of the American Kickboxing Academy in 2006 to begin training in mixed martial arts. After Velasquez’s first fight, Mendez said he could beat then top-ranked Fedor Emelianenko.

On Saturday in the main event of UFC 121 before a boisterous crowd at the Honda Center, a more mature and experienced Velasquez rewarded his coach’s faith in him by putting on one of the most impressive displays by an Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight in a long time.

He decimated Brock Lesnar, stopping the sport’s biggest star in four minutes, 12 seconds of one-sided action to claim the championship and stake his place among the game’s greats.

(Photo by Josh Hedges/Getty Images)

Lesnar charged Velasquez, roaring out of the corner and firing a knee at his much smaller challenger. But unlike other Lesnar opponents who were overwhelmed by the bull rush, Velasquez remained calm and fought back.

“He looked incredible tonight,” UFC president Dana White said. “The guy gets better every time he fights. Like I said coming into this fight, he’s incredibly well-rounded. I think the only questions hanging over his head going into this fight where people doubted him were the shots he took from Cheick Kongo [at UFC 99]. He got rocked a few times by Cheick and I said that night at the press conference, that’s when you find out what a guy has got. He took some big shots, he ate them and he continued to dominate Cheick Kongo in that fight.

“I think he answered all the questions tonight. Brock Lesnar came out like a bull, man. He went after him and hit him with some big shots. He hit him with a flying knee. I didn’t think this was going five rounds, I’ll tell you that, especially at the pace that these guys can fight.”

As the arena erupted in cheers when referee Herb Dean stopped the fight with a bruised and bloodied Lesnar covering up and trying to avoid Velasquez’ elbows and fists, the new champion rose, walked to the center of the cage and covered his face with his hands. It was at that moment that the emotions hit him.

“It was a sweet feeling,” Velasquez said. “All the work I put in was for that moment. I pictured it playing out that way. It was the best ending I could think of as far as the whole story.”

And then, in a sentence that probably defines why he’s great better than any other, he added, “I have to keep getting better.”

Velasquez is no small man – he’s 6 feet 2 and weighed 245 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in – but Lesnar is the size of a small grizzly with the temperament of a big one. Lesnar weighed in a pound under the heavyweight limit Friday at 264, but looked like he’d put on at least 10 pounds, likely more, by the time he’d stepped into the cage.

But Velasquez’s speed and technical skills were far superior and they soon played out. Tito Ortiz has been fighting in the UFC since 1997 and said it’s been a rare heavyweight he has seen who had the speed, quickness and overall game that Velasquez does.

“Hell, no,” Ortiz said when asked if he’d seen a heavyweight perform the way Velasquez did Saturday in his 13 years in the UFC. “Never. Ever. Did you see Cain Velasquez move? He moves around like a 190-pound guy moving there and he’s 240. He’s the best guy in the world right now. He actually made Brock look really, really slow.

“I thought Brock would do a lot better. They’re the best fighters in the world, and that’s why everyone bought the pay-per-view, to see who the best in the world at heavyweight is. Cain Velasquez is that man.”

The closing sequence came when Velasquez fired an overhand right that cracked Lesnar on the jaw and sent him stumbling back. Seconds later, Velasquez blistered Lesnar with a knee that put Lesnar down.

A workmanlike Velasquez followed Lesnar to the mat, but didn’t punch himself out as Shane Carwin, who challenged Lesnar for the belt at UFC 116 in July, did. Velasquez threw his punches and elbows with precision, hurting Lesnar badly with each one that landed.

“After Cain beat [Antonio Rodrigo] Nogueira, I posted somewhere that Brock was going to have a real tough time with him because his skills are so diverse,” said Daniel Cormier, a member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic wrestling team, who trained with Velasquez at AKA in San Jose, Calif. “He’s so good on his feet. He’s such a good wrestler. He is so well-rounded.

“The takedown he had (earlier in the first round) was what we’d been working on every single Saturday. Saturday in, Saturday out, we went out and drilled it, repetitiously, over and over. Honestly, we did it 5,000 times in the course of this training camp. This is a proud moment for me in my life to see a guy incorporate everything he’s learned, taking his wrestling from one level to the next, improving his standup, become a better fighter every day, and then going and doing it when it matters.”

Mendez had few doubts that Velasquez would pull it off, though he had to hold his breath early when Velasquez stood flat-footed in front of Lesnar and began to trade blows. But Velasquez probably has the best cardio in the UFC’s heavyweight division and he is a sea of tranquility. He never got flustered during hundreds of interviews and personal appearances and he didn’t get flustered as he had an angry Lesnar swarming him.

But Velasquez still isn’t a finished product in Mendez’ mind. But he was more well-rounded than Lesnar, who was fighting in just his seventh professional fight.

“He’s about over halfway there,” Mendez said. “I have to tell you guys, and I told him, too, that he’s going to meet Brock again. That man’s hungry and he’s coming. He’s greener than (Cain) in all these areas. Brock has a great athletic build and he has great power, but he’s still green compared to (Cain). He’s getting better, so we need to get better, because Brock’s still coming.”

But Lesnar isn’t coming at anyone any time soon. He was beaten up – badly – and didn’t attend the post-fight news conference. It was no shock that Velasquez won the fight, as many fighters and media were picking Velasquez, but the manner in which he was victorious was stunning.

To put away a man who was so much bigger, so much more powerful and so intense in such a short period of time was hardly expected.

“Technique beats size a lot of times,” Cormier said. “You saw that tonight. Cain is a real technician.”

And he’s only going to get better. No one has had a lengthy reign as UFC champion, so history would suggest that Velasquez will surrender the belt sometime soon.

But if anyone can hang onto it for a while, it’s a guy like Velasquez, who will be back in the gym working on his game in about two weeks. Velasquez got where he is because of a great desire to succeed and he’s not satisfied being 9-0, holding the UFC heavyweight title and looking at a spot in the pound-for-pound rankings.

“The main goal he wants at the end of the rainbow is to be one of the greats,” Mendez said. “To be one of the greats, you can’t do it one time. You have to continue to do it and he wants to be one of the greats. He wants to be remembered as one of the greatest-ever heavyweight champions as well as one of the greatest every MMA champions of all-time. That’s what is in his head. He wants to keep that belt for a long time. He’s not looking at just one time.”

He has no discernible weaknesses, as Lesnar would attest, so get familiar. Cain Velasquez is going to be around for a while.

Kevin Iole: Yahoo! Sports

Octagon Observations: UFC 121 aftermath

. Branching out: Cain Velasquez’s victory over Brock Lesnar could be a watershed moment in the UFC’s attempt to grow mixed martial arts fan base. The company heavily marketed Velasquez’s Mexican heritage in the run-up to the fight. The fruits of this push were evident in the Honda Center crowd’s vociferous reaction to Velasquez’s victory. For sheer volume, the intensity level was matched only by Georges St. Pierre’s 2008 title victory over Matt Serra in his hometown of Montreal. With Oscar De La Hoya retired from boxing, the Marquez brothers heading to the back end of their magnificent careers and no obvious successor on the horizon, there is an opportunity for the UFC to make Velasquez the marquee player among Latino combat sports figures. What Velasquez lacks in charisma he makes up for with his heart and his courage as a heavyweight who is smaller that most of his foes – a trait that cuts across all ethnicities and creeds. 

Photos by: Yahoo Sports

    

2. Brock’s next step: Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Lesnar’s career is how the MMA world has watched him develop under an intense spotlight. Each fight leads to a new set of questions about how the former champion, who only has seven fights under his belt, will respond. The question this time: What will be his reaction to getting his tail kicked for the first time? Lesnar marches to the beat of his own drummer and for all we know, he could end up deciding he’s made enough money and it is time to move on. But here’s guessing that a trilogy fight with Frank Mir, who Lesnar legitimately despises, is enough to get the former champ’s competitive juices flowing again.

3. Title worthy? So Jake Shields comes into the UFC, looks listless in claiming a split-decision victory over Martin Kampmann that many felt Kampmann won … and UFC president Dana White says he’s going ahead with his plan to give Shields a UFC welterweight title shot. Good luck selling that one, Dana.

4. Where does Diego go? Diego Sanchez appears to have made the right career move in returning to his roots with Greg Jackson’s camp, as his exciting win over Paulo Thiago at UFC 121 attests. Now, hopefully Jackson will get Sanchez to focus on committing to a single weight class. Sanchez has spoken of fighting at both 170 pounds and 155, but jumping between weight classes is more suited for a veteran who doesn’t figure into championship plans. Sanchez is still young enough to make another run at a championship, and the sooner he picks a path, the faster he’ll move forward.

5. The Tito show: Here’s the UFC’s dilemma with Tito Ortiz: Do you give the former UFC light heavyweight champion another fight or two to try to find his rhythm, or do you cut ties now, before his performance drops off a cliff? Ortiz has remained competitive in each of his past five fights, going to a decision in four of them. But he’s 0-4-1 in that stretch after his loss to Matt Hamill on Saturday, and his level of opposition has decreased with each successive fight. Ortiz has been valiant in battling through a series of injuries, but time is not on his side. The UFC may be better off releasing the former champ before his performances turn embarrassing.

(Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Getty)

6. Going, going, Gonzaga: Brendan Schaub notched the biggest win of his career Saturday night with his decision victory over Gabriel Gonzaga. But the match underscored how Gonzaga has become one of MMA’s biggest cases of squandered potential. Gonzaga possessed all the tools to become a great one, and he appeared well on his way after his legendary head-kick knockout of Mirko Cro Cop in 2007. But Gonzaga never left his small Western Massachusetts camp, never was pushed in the gym by elite heavyweights and never quite made it to the top. With three losses in his last four fights, Gonzaga is walking on thin ice.

7. Losing a step: Longtime fans consider it heresy to critique referee John McCarthy, ever, for any reason. But the icon of the sport had a bad night at UFC 121. In Tom Lawlor’s victory over Patrick Cote, McCarthy was the only person in the building who missed an egregious foul, as Cote blatantly grabbed the fence and used it to gain the leverage to get out of a Lawlor submission attempt. Then, in the Ortiz-Hamill fight, McCarthy was too slow in getting between Hamill and Ortiz at the end of Round 1. Hamill is deaf and can’t hear the horn to signal the end of the round; because McCarthy was late, Ortiz ate a punch to the head after the round ended. McCarthy’s place as a pivotal figure in MMA history is secure, but just like fighters, referees pass their peaks as well. Saturday night may have shown that McCarthy is losing a step.

8. Stout-hearted: If you buy a ticket to a UFC event and Sam Stout is on the card, it is a fair bet that you’ll get 15 minutes of good-to-great standup action. All seven of his UFC bouts in the past three years have gone the distance. Most of those fights have been back-and-forth standup slugfests, and he’s come away with Fight of the Night honors five times. His latest win came Saturday night, when was slightly better than Paul Taylor in a split-decision victory. The UFC seems content to keep Stout in an entertaining lower-card slot, but with three wins in his past four fights, it’s time to give the London, Ontario, native a crack at a high-level lightweight.

Dave Doyle: Yahoo! Sports

Time for Silva to step up his game

Anderson Silva is headlining yet another Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view card on Aug. 7, which should send shudders up and down the spines of those responsible for paying a cable or satellite bill.
In a terrible economy with a poor recent track record in terms of producing exciting fights, Silva is going to struggle to gain forgiveness from the fans he’s burned so often in the last 22 months or so.

He’ll also fight Chael Sonnen with the pressure of knowing that his boss vowed to cut him if he fails to perform or, more significantly, if he repeats his performance from UFC 112.
The UFC’s uber-talented middleweight champion hasn’t been a hit in the last three pay-per-view cards he’s headlined. Yes, he scored a first-round knockout of Forrest Griffin in a light heavyweight bout at UFC 101 in Philadelphia last year, but that was the semi-main event.

Silva is the UFC’s version of Mike Tyson, a knockout artist unparalleled in the sport’s history. He’s 11-0 in the UFC, holding the company record for the most consecutive wins. He’s also 7-0 in title matches (including his 2006 title-winning effort over Rich Franklin), holding the UFC record for the most championship victories. He was so dominant that not long after he won the belt at UFC 64, UFC president Dana White began calling him the most talented fighter in the world.
Silva, though, has rarely shown killer instinct in the last two years. Even his win over Griffin wasn’t devastating, though that wasn’t his fault. He hit Griffin with a jab while moving backward and stopped him.
More telling is how cautiously he fought in wins over Patrick Cote at UFC 90 in Chicago on Oct. 25, 2008, and over Thales Leites on April 18, 2009, at UFC 97 in Montreal. On April 10 at UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on what was a huge night for White and UFC co-owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, Silva opted to fool around in a win over Demian Maia, causing a seething White to threaten to cut him.
On Aug. 7, Silva is back, and again asking for your $44.95, when he headlines UFC 117 in Oakland, Calif., at Oracle Arena with a title defense against Sonnen, the trash-talking No. 1 contender.
Following UFC 90, which featured little action in the first two rounds before Cote had to withdraw after a third-round knee injury, White came to the post-fight news conference and said, “I was sitting there saying, ‘What the [expletive] is going on?’ ” He also said, “I was sitting there going, ‘No, this isn’t happening,’ ” and, “If you don’t know him and you showed up for the first time, you’d [think] that guy was goofing around. He was acting arrogant and cocky and trying to play with [Cote] like he was a little kid.”
It was more of the same at UFC 97, when Silva declined to follow Leites, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, to the mat and turn a fight into a grappling match, leading to a dull five-round fight. Silva didn’t understand why he was being criticized and said, “Everything I trained to do, I did.”
If that was the case, though, it didn’t please White, who was apologetic following the bout.
“I apologize,” White said at the post-fight news conference that night. “I personally apologize for what happened tonight. You guys know this isn’t what the UFC was built on and this isn’t the way the fights usually go.”
But Silva’s performances at UFC 90 and UFC 97 were just kind of a cruel warm-up act to the comedy skit that went on during his title defense against Maia, the first UFC card in the Middle East and the first with the White and Fertitta’s new partners, Abu Dhabi-based Flash Entertainment, in place.
It was clear two or so minutes into the fight that Silva was exceptionally more talented than Maia. He was out-striking Maia in the first, mostly with a jab, and broke Maia’s nose with a flying knee in the second. However, he was prancing around the ring, talking incessantly to Maia. At one stage, he ducked behind massive referee “Big” Dan Miragliotta. He shook his rear end, slapped the mat, made odd faces and mocked his countryman repeatedly. What he didn’t do was what he had done so well so often in the past: finish the fight.
By the latter stages of the fourth round and throughout the fifth, the crowd was chanting Maia’s name. It respected the fact that even though Maia didn’t have half of Silva’s talent, he was clearly expending twice the effort as the champion. Maia gave the fans their money’s worth that night. Silva, clearly, did not.
White nearly lost his composure in Abu Dhabi. He didn’t see the end of the fight, leaving ringside during the fourth round and handing the championship belt to Silva’s manager, Ed Soares, to present to Silva in the ring.
When White showed up that night at the post-fight news conference, he was visibly angry, breathing loudly as he waited for the high sign from the video technicians before beginning.
“I’ll answer the questions about what a disgrace the main event was and what an embarrassment it is,” White said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed in 10 years of being in this business. It’s the first time I’ve ever walked out of a main event.”
Had Silva fought against Cote, Leites and Maia like he had most of his UFC fights, when he destroyed quality fighters like Rich Franklin (twice), Dan Henderson and Nate Marquardt, among others, he’d probably be preparing for a superfight against welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre.
White, though, was outraged at the way Silva performed and didn’t see the need to reward him with a megafight. So instead, he’s defending his 185-pound title again, this time against Sonnen, who for the last seven months has unloaded a verbal assault on the champion in the clear hope of building his name and attracting interest in the fight.
Sonnen is a former collegiate wrestling star who upset Marquardt at UFC 109 in February to earn the title shot. He vowed to use his wrestling to defeat Silva next month, saying, “He’ll back on his back more than a [prostitute] with a mortgage.”
Sonnen has given Silva plenty of motivation, though it’s hard to gauge the champion. He is uncomfortable speaking English in public and uses Soares to translate his Portuguese. Plus, if Silva weren’t motivated following the very public tongue-lashings White has given him, it’s difficult to understand what could motivate him to fight for a finish.
The UFC under White has become the rare professional sport where winning simply isn’t enough. In White’s regime, it’s not solely that you win which counts; how you win counts equally as much. Silva has found himself on both sides of that equation during his four-year tenure in the UFC, which began with a stunningly quick and brutal 49-second knockout of Chris Leben on an Ultimate Fight Night card in Las Vegas on June 28, 2006.
He’s had the highlight-reel finishes that made him an international phenomenon and the boo-inducing bouts that have drawn White’s ire.
White prefers the flashy knockout, the highlight-reel finish over the conservative but fight-winning approach every time. That approach is what has helped the UFC to become a global phenomenon and surpass boxing in terms of overall popularity, but it also rankles many purists who despise White’s intervention into an area they believe he doesn’t belong.
Clearly, White girded for a potential fan backlash against Silva by putting together a stronger-than-average card. Included on the card is a fight between Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves for the right to become the No. 1 welterweight contender, as well as a significant and intriguing heavyweight match between slugger Junior dos Santos and bad-body tough guy Roy Nelson. The winner of that bout could wind up fighting the Brock Lesnar-Cain Velasquez winner for the belt sometime in 2011.
The pressure is going to be on Silva to get rid of Sonnen, who has been submitted six times and stopped twice among his 10 losses. If Silva doesn’t finish the fight but wins and makes a clear effort toward doing so, he’ll move forward with no issues.
But if there is a repeat, the pressure will shift from Silva to White. White vowed after UFC 112 to cut Silva should he fight as he did that night ever again.
If Silva prances his way to an unsatisfying win, the burden will shift to White to back up his tough talk and ax the man he’s touted for years as the best fighter in the world.
That would be far more interesting to watch than any of Silva’s last three title defenses have been

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