The middle child often has a sense of not belonging.
They fight to receive attention from parents (Zuffa) and others (the fans) because they feel many times they are being ignored or dubbed off as being the same as another sibling (GSP, Brock Lesnar, etc.).
Being in the middle, a child can feel very insecure.
On the flip side, imagine what it must be like to possess confidence levels so incredibly high and powerful, that when a fighter steps into the cage, he already knows that he can beat anyone that the UFC puts across from him.
What result would that have on his levels of performance and psyche?
Well duh…just ask Anderson Silva.
Silva, in case you have been in a NyQuil-induced coma these past few weeks, has been the catalyst to a lot of negative publicity in the sport of MMA.
Screw you Abu Dhabi!! (Just kidding…please don’t kill me).
But you get the point. As far as first impressions go, that definitely sucked.
Oh well. You win some, you lose some. Such is life.
Maybe next week I’ll write about the “MMA Metaphor.”
Society has a funny way of holding a mirror up to itself, don’t you think?
Anyway, I digress.
Is it possible that Silva is super-pissed at the UFC for their continually failed efforts to sign Fedor Emelianenko?
Not likely. It’s not as if Silva would get the first crack at Fedor anyway. That honour would obviously go to the current UFC heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar.
Is Silva angry about his consolation prize—Georges St-Pierre?
The UFC had surely promised to hand over St-Pierre, immediately after the “GSP talks” had started.
Which “talks” you ask?
Well, the “pound-for-pound, best of all time” talks of course.
Fedor was the reigning “King of MMA” (notice I said “was”) for a very long time.
Then came Silva.
Then, not very long after (what…about two months?), the consensus was already starting to shift.
Suddenly, GSP was a legitimate pound-for-pound threat. The hairs on the back of the “Spiders” neck were officially raised at attention.
“How dare MMA fans compare anyone else to my greatness?” thought the all-mighty Silva.
Now imagine a Family Guy episode where Peter somehow convinces Anderson Silva that it’s a good idea to cruise through five uneventful rounds in a personally and professionally disappointing beatdown of Demian Maia at UFC 112, just to prove that he is the “best.”
Oh that Peter…isn’t he a stitch?!
In hindsight, as distasteful as that particular fight was, it was still an incredible and impressive display of passive dominance.
Silva easily could have ended that fight, but instead, he chose not to. We all know that.
After a bit of post-fight reflection, I think that my view on the number one pound-for-pound fighter has once again, shifted back (cripes…make a decision already!).
In my mind, Silva may now be the hands down—number one.
“But James, what about your ‘Golden Boy’ and Canadian MMA Ambassador, Georges St-Pierre?” asked the incredibly good lookin’ fight fan.
Sadly, in this business, you’re only ever as good as you were in your last fight.
Sorry…I don’t make the rules.
With such odd behaviour, does anyone else think that it’s at all possible that Silva wanted to get fired from the UFC?
Think about it.
At the very least, maybe he was daring Dana White to do it?
[INSERT POWER STRUGGLE HERE]
Strikeforce isn’t going anywhere by the way, despite the post-fight brawl on CBS, and Silva getting fired by the UFC…well…let’s just say, Strikeforce and M-1 Global would have been able to come to amicable terms very quickly.
Silva vs. Fedor would surely clear things up for both of these men.
Then again, on second thought…what about Jose Aldo as the best pound-for-pound fighter?
Or how about Ben Henderson?
Special thanks to the WEC fighters for reminding us all why we truly love the sport of MMA. In the future, let’s just hope that the good will continue to outweigh the bad.
For my next article, I will discuss the reason why this sport isn’t going anywhere, any time soon.
Stay tuned.
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These are my opinions. If you don’t like them…I have others. Check them out at www.mrjamesryan.com
No excuses for silva, but his antics are the symptoms of bad matchmaking. Silva is like a gifted child acting out, begging for a real challenge. Dana white himself has said that silva asked him to fight more often. Silva's even willing to fight at all different weight classes. He's willing to fight at 170 lbs to heavyweight (265 lbs), where he would be destroyed by much larger opponents, especially at the top of of the division. Sonnen has earned his shot at silva. But silva needs a better challenge to bring out the best in him. Belfort, shields, and wanderlei silva are all challenging 185 match ups. Silva's a small 205er so there are plenty of threats to focus him at 205. A catchweight (178 lbs) superfight between silva and gsp has the potential to eclipse boxing's proposed mayweather vs pac-man superfight. Fans would pay whatever to see it. No matter who wins, dana white would still have two belt-holders, undefeated in their respective divisions, to market. Fans worldwide are calling for this fight. Why is this fight not in the works? Once again, bad matchmaking is the cause of the problem. Bad fights are simply a symptom. Who's going to disagree?
lol that's too funny, thanks for sharing!
James, Surely you are just fooling around. Why would you take a purely American concept, like “the middle child syndrome,” and apply it to a man in whose culture it does not even exist? I must have missed something in sociology or one of my anthropology classes. On the other hand, maybe there is a plot brewing among the many Brazilian fighters in MMA to doom the UFC and then start up their own company to rival Dana White's. Possibly Anderson thought that Brazil should have been next in the line of foreign venues and resented the honor going to Abu Dhabi. Of course with all of the top Arabian fighters in the UFC, why would Dana cater to Brazil? Just love twisting logic to fit my beliefs, don't you?
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/384967-tito-…
Anderson Silva is suffering from UFC Syndrome.
Surely LOL
I like the way you think James. You know how to 'stir the pot' with a certain finesse' that keeps me smirkin' and shakin' my head when I read your articles! Way to make people stop and think about things!!
Great opinion as usual Ryan. Mine is that he is just bored and tried to make a fight “appear” more exciting by living it up a bit. But I think the heat and stupid crap he did took it out of him and he kinda gassed. Well, that's what I think some of the time, the other times, I really have no freaking clue what he was doing and I really don't care too much any more. He's making this a trend now and he's becoming pretty predictable about it. So, I actually no longer blame him, he is what is is. Now I blame the UFC, they should NEVER give him an easy fight again. He just doesn't live up to easy fights. There have been plenty of other teams that “play down” to their competition, he does the same. I don't care what weight class it is but only give him really, really hard fights from this time on.
I think the UFC has caused this problem with Anderson Silva. The guy has repeatedly said that he'll fight the best of the best guys and will jump up to another weight class and even Dana himself has said numerous times that he can fight at 205 with no problem and he's a guy that's right in the middle, but yet for the last two or three years they have given him nothing but match ups that were easy for him. He pulled those shenanigans twice after that Cote fight and as soon as he pulled that for the 2nd time, the UFC put him in the cage with Forrest Griffin which to me was one of the most stupid and idiotic things they could have done at the time. They thought that they were going to get a good fight out of that because Forrest is aggressive and fights foolishly, but all they got was an embarrassing ass whooping that anyone could have forseen before that fight occured. Not only that, I knew that it was putting Forrest in a terrible position to get swallowed by someone 100 times better than him. Then after Vitor gets hurt they give him Damian Mai of all people. I expected Silva to pull that little act again, so I wasn't mad when he did it. I was mad at the UFC for putting out another pathetic match up for Silva at 185. Now they're doing it again with Sonnen, so if I were you guys, I'd expect that to happen again. If Dana wants to kick him out after that, then blame Dana and Joe Silva for this, but don't blame Anderson because he's pretty much put the UFC on notice for over two years now that he'll act a fool in the ring if they don't give him some real competition and they keep giving him guys that are easy for him to beat that he doesn't take seriously.
Awesome article James great work and an even better read.
great article!!! good points.
Good stuff!
Here's another thought. Don't forget, Silva is 35 years old and he's closer to 40 than he is to 30. He's only got a few more years left to be in his prime. Let's hope dana white and joe silva put together some good matches while anderson silva is still in his prime. After all, anderson silva may be a once in a generation talent, the fans want to see great match ups, and the clock is ticking.