Overreactions and Excuses: Why the A. Silva Situation is Unacceptable on Every Level

I knew simply by sitting on twitter during the afternoon and following the discussions of UFC 112 that there was going to be a ton of crap that I was going to have to wade through with my friends, who are casual fans, on Monday. I knew that there was going to be talk about how Anderson Silva (26-4 MMA, 11-0 UFC, #1/#4 IWMMAR) is overrated and how his legacy as a UFC champion is tarnished by a second substandard fight.

What I didn’t expect was that both Anderson and Dana were going to be so phenomenally disproportionate in their handling of the press immediately following the fight. Both of them failed to do their jobs that night, and the entire community should be disappointed because, not only did we receive and unacceptable product from the man touted by many as the greatest fighter in the world, but we had to sit through inexcusably poor handling of that product after the fact.

While it seems that Anderson is, clearly, the easiest scapegoat (and for good reason, because he is responsible for the boring nature of the fight; he doesn’t get a pass like he did with Leites, where he wasn’t clearly at fault) it only seems fair to start with my frustration with Dana, as that is what is going to be different from most fans of MMA.

Dana was quick to come down on Silva. He admitted to not watching the fifth round, and simply leaving the belt with Ed Soares, claimed that Anderson doesn’t deserve a shot at welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre (20-2 MMA, 14-2 UFC, #1 IWMMAR) and stated that this may be the worst moment in his career as UFC President. While it’s certainly a disgraceful performance by Anderson Silva, Dana’s display of sheepish embarrassment seems misplaced. He’s perfectly entitled to be angry at Anderson (so are the fans, after all) and he’s perfectly entitled to demand something from the UFC middleweight champion as retribution for the poor performance.

That said, to say that Dana is embarrassed for Silva, to behave like the disappointed father-figure, is completely the wrong tact. As the leader of a company, disappointment is simply not a helpful reaction. Anger is something that can be dealt with, and part of what has made Dana effective is the passion for the UFC as a brand which, at times, has manifested itself as anger (both in defensive situations and when confronted with the stupidity and failure of others) and led to a reputation for Dana. Not only that, it gives Dana an opportunity to discuss how this can be dealt with in a way that is constructive.

In the fourth round of the fight, I turned to a friend and started a conversation about how it might be important to institute a yellow-card system in the UFC, and how that would certainly help solve problems like many of the ones presented in this fight. The presence of that kind of a discussion allows the UFC to look at the defective nature of this product and say “how can we make sure this never happens again?” Moreover, “how can we make sure that our consumers know that this will never happen again?” Dana is controversial among many fans of the sport, but what is not controversial is his historical commitment to improving the product that the UFC puts out. There is absolutely no excuse for him pausing from that goal to wallow in self-pity.

There has been discussion about stripping Silva of his belt for this performance, which is (of course) absolutely ridiculous. He just set the record for consecutive title defenses and beat Maia with a score that, from a judges standpoint, are completely non-controversial. The performance sucked, but so did Sylvia vs. Monson at UFC 65 and nobody talked about taking Timmy’s belt from him, though we certainly talked about how much the performance sucked and what a douche he was. Still, the UFC can definitely take retributive action against Anderson. Tell him that its time he fights another serious lightheavyweight like Rashad, where the fight is going to draw huge numbers regardless of whether people like Anderson, and put him in a position where he has to put on a serious performance or he may get beat.

But on to Anderson, and what pisses me off more than the incredibly piss-poor performance.

There are bad fights. A fighter as good as Anderson (and, just to be clear, Anderson is the greatest fighter in the history of the UFC; that is not debatable from a statistical standpoint) is bound to have performances that are disappointing. However, showing up at a press conference and saying that you put on that performances because Demian Maia (12-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC, #6 IWMMAR) disrespected you is just absurd. The comment is stupid because, while its true that Maia disrespected him, as the reporter points out in the follow up, why did Anderson let Maia stay conscious after the third round?

You don’t get to make excuses for a performance like that, and saying that you were disrespected is no reason to not finish a fight. It may be a reason to (as Dan Henderson did against Michael Bisping) throw a questionable follow-up shot, but there’s no reason to run away from a guy who disrespected you. While the taunting is clearly explained by the feeling of disrespect, the lack of an exciting finish, and the last two rounds generally, can only be explained by a certain level of incompetence on the part of Silva.

Moreover, there is a fighter who is really disrespectful of Anderson, and if Anderson wants to taunt and then beat the ever loving crap out of Chael Sonnen (24-10-1 MMA, 4-3 UFC, #3 IWMMAR) then I’m sure that would earn a lot of respect back in the eyes of the fans. But in the meantime, Anderson is going to have to settle for being a heel who didn’t put on a good performance (at best) out of spite and (at worst) out of incompetence.

There’s a final note that I have, though, and that’s for those who are going to make the argument that this in some way tarnishes the legacy of Anderson Silva.

This will, almost certainly, be the Anderson Silva we remember.

Surely, the presence of a bad performance will not be easily erased from the memories of the fans, and it shouldn’t be. But if Anderson continues to successfully defend his belt (and he will) and if Anderson continues to build on the title he has garnered for himself as the greatest fighter in the history of the UFC, then this will not be a substantial moment in terms of how people remember Anderson’s career. If he loses his next title defense, then another fight, and then fades into obscurity, than it may carry weight on the basis of being the last thing that people remember about Anderson, but in the likely event that Anderson continues to be successful (and I have seen no reason to believe that will change) then this will in time be minimized in the remembrance of what he did in the UFC.

What people will remember is that he shattered the record for consecutive UFC victories and consecutive title defenses, that he fought successfully in two weightclasses and lost only a handful of rounds in his UFC career, taking serious, top ten competitors and making them look completely incompetent. People will remember that his jiu-jitsu was good and his striking was brilliant. People will run the highlight reel and, in that highlight reel, they won’t see him running away. They’ll see him destroy Forrest Griffin (17-6 MMA, 8-5 UFC, #6 IWMMAR), Rich Franklin (26-5 MMA, 12-4 UFC), Dan Henderson (25-7 MMA, 5-2 UFC, #2/#8 IWMMAR), James Irvin (14-6-0-1 MMA, 4-5 UFC) and Nate Marquardt (29-9-2 MMA, 8-3 UFC, #4 IWMMAR). Anderson has the convenience of having enough substantial accomplishments in his UFC career that his failures can be forgotten, and that’s not a luxury many enjoy, so if you think his legacy is going to be seriously tarnished by this performance, just keep in mind exactly what that legacy is. That doesn’t defend the performance, but perspective is important, especially when it comes to discussing the way history will be written.