Mixed Martial Arts fans must have heard this a thousand times: Anderson Silva refuses to, and will not consider any possibility of fighting his training partner and friend Lyoto Machida.

And it goes deeper than that.

Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida is highly favored to win over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in this week’s UFC 104. However, there is still a possibility that Shogun could beat Machida. If that happens, would Silva come in seething with revenge on a Silva vs. Shogun tiff? We think not… if we follow the depth of friendship and loyalty between Silva and Machida.

You see, if Machida loses over Shogun, he would lose his Light Heavyweight belt. It would be like Silva stealthily snatching that belt from his friend Machida by winning over the Shogun. If this happens, Machida could only regain the title by getting inside the octagon against his friend Silva. Silva fighting Shogun after a Machida defeat would make a mess of the friendship.

Silva has been talking about Machida since day one – even before Silva rose to popularity. He is not interested in getting into the light heavyweight fray as he would get in the way of his friend. If Machida loses to Shogun, he would want to take the title back and Silva wouldn’t want to get in the way.

Silva does not only refuse to fight his friend, he would also refuse any match that would lead him to eventually facing his old buddy inside the octagon.

But how long can he (and Machida) stand his ground?

Dana White, the guy who knows how to make serious bucks with his promotional instincts, is already setting his sights to a Silva Machida match – despite the two warriors’ pronouncements. Can’t blame the guy, a Silva vs. Machida bout is going to be one of those superfights that would surely fill venue seats at two asses per chair. White is looking at 2010 when this Silva vs. Machida ticket could happen.

In an interview with ESPN, megabucks boss White said, “Anderson Silva is two fights away from cleaning out his entire division, and he’s had two fights at 205 pounds where he’s looked absolutely phenomenal – he’s actually looked better at 205 than he did at 185.” MMA fans couldn’t help but be thrilled by this friendship-busting tiff when White said, “I think we’re probably a couple of fights away from a mega-fight like that.”

The question is: How would Dana White convince the two?

Well, Silva and Machida would eventually have to face each other if they both would keep on winning. It’s either that, or they’d just fight lame fights with non-winners, or they (or one of them) would just retire for the sake of friendship. That last option sounds lamer than fighting lame fighters, don’t you think?

Everyone enjoyed it. It was spectacular. Now, that’s what we’re talking about! Anderson Silva, from now on, that’s how you fight! Again!

Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin was a great show of explosive fists and great talents. The crowd inside Wachovia Center in Philidelphia was in a frenzy.

When the two gladiators went up the cage, the crowd was booing Silva while cheering for Griffin like a homecoming boy. Truly, Silva had lost his luster.

Until.

Silva came back on track not only with such combination of fury and flair, he also did it in a division heavier than his comfort zone, and with a fighter bigger than anyone he fought.

What does this tell us? Anderson Silva has outgrown his middleweight championship belt? He has fought and defeated all the best in that level? Cote and Leites were so below his league that he gingerly fought like a man faced with a kid half his size?

Maybe that is so. Raising his weight 20 pounds higher in a short span of time could do a lot of bad things to his speed and performance, but it did not. He literally brutalized the bigger Griffin.

Within two minutes of the first round, Silva (must have been traumatized by Dana’s tounge-lashing) made sure he ups the ante. Silva was so charged he was like a mongoose against a cobra. And like a mongoose, he works well when the enemy strikes. His counter-punches are lethal, and when it hit its mark Griffin was knocked down. Silva, the counter-puncher, was eeirily cool and controlled. And when the brutal set of Brazilian knuckles found its mark the second time, Griffin was on the floor again. Silva offered his hand to help his opponent up. They touched gloves, and the third knock down must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back (it didn’t seem so much – especially that Silva released that strike while backpedalling).

The first knock down must be what did Griffin in. He must know he’s in trouble he wished the round is over (he checked the clock after that first knock down).

Talk has it that Silva is willing to relinquish his middleweight championship belt and put it up for grabs. Dana White liked the idea and said he can make it happen. Anderson Silva may go up to light heavyweight division and fight a whole roster of bigger and better fighters than he ever had at the middleweight division. That’s a very interesting prospect. A second-grader would surely feel bored and unmotivated if you put him in a kindergarten class.  It's about time to put Silva where he belongs, so he can shine again.

Dana White is pleased with him again. The crowd approves of him again. Why not? Silva made sure it was an explosive fight. His body language showed it during the fight, pumping his fists towards him like telling Griffin, “C’mon! Let’s make it bloody. Hit me!” And when Griffin hesitates, he initiates.

Now, Silva, that’s what we’re talking about. From now on, that’s how you fight! Again!

MMA warriors, get a hint from that “little Filipino” pugilist.

Manny Pacquiao, who has just cemented his slot to becoming one of the the greatest boxers in history, must be today’s most popular fighter.  What makes him so?  It’s not the number of fights he won, it’s not the number of championship belts he collects – it’s how he fights.

The thoroughness, the intensity, the power – the heart! Now, that’s what we’re talking about.

It’s the process. It’s how you do it.  It’s how you win.

I heard my little girl sing this song from whoever-she-is-montana-hanna.  It goes something like this:

“Ain’t about how fast I get there/Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side/It’s the climb.”

Yessir! It’s the climb.  It’s the experience you give the audience.  It’s the spectacle.

We don’t want to go see two “intelligent” fighters dancing around the octagon thinking the fight out, and whoever outhinks the other wins.  Leave that to chess players.  Otherwise, I’d rather watch my son play Kung Lao in Mortal Combat – it’s more exciting.

What is MMA?  It’s a bloody fight!  Remember when it was still in its heydays, when it was still an underground (legally banned) sport.  It’s a bloody brutal fight.

No, we’re not saying that MMA gladiators kill each other.  No, we’re not saying MMA warriors should all be brawn with no skill or intelligence.  Au contraire, we’d love our fighters bright, with style… heck, we’d love them fighting with flair and class.  Do that Silva, and MMA fans would multiply overnight like twitter users.

And only then would you see the day where you earn by the millions of dollars, PER FIGHT.

Hardcore Anderson Silva fans are quick to justify their hero’s lackluster performance during the main event of the UFC 97 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.   Oh yes, Silva is the octagon’s finest artist (this is supposed to be grander that simply being a “martial artist”?)  He’s a champion.  He knows how to win.  How? By making sure he doesn’t lose?

You see, you can do it by avoiding a collision course against your opponent.  And that’s precisely what he did last April 18.  Oh yes, Silva was just showing his “technical skills” and a “smart fighter” doesn’t just attack and put himself in danger.  C’mon.  This is UFC, not some freakin’ chess tournament.  People go to watch action.  Why else would they be offered knockout bonuses?  To encourage the fighters to be more aggressive and show more action.

Yes, technical skills count, but this trait is supposed to make the fight more interesting – not boring.  If you want technical skill, running away is the best technical skill.

While Leites’ performance sucks, Silva’s was quite a letdown.  Silva’s defenders say, the pressure should be on the challenger to force the fight.  Normally, yes.  However, when things become obvious that Leites does not pose any danger, and that he was not even showing an aggressive campaign at snatching the champion’s belt, Silva should have stepped up his game plan.  While he intends to win, he should also not forget that fans would always want a spectacular win.  Why else would they pay to watch?

What he did was, “Oh, Leites doesn’t know how to snatch the championship belt on me.  Good.  I’ll just let the rounds pass by without breaking a sweat – without endangering myself – and i’m still sure of retaining my belt. And I’ll be UFC’s record-holder of the most number of consecutive wins.”  Well, that sucks.  That smacks of avoidance.  As I’ve said, this fight seems to say that you can keep your belt by avoiding contact.  No points earned by both dancers – er, fighters, the championship title doesn’t change names.

We expected more from Silva.  He IS Anderson Silva in the first place.  He even went back to Rio de Janiero to sharpen his BJJ skills, right?  When obviously, he wanted a stand-up fight and Leites proves to be less inclined, he should have changed his game plan.  But no, he wanted to play it “technical” and safe.  You call that a good showing?

Silva’s defenders say casual MMA fans do not understand the technicality of a fight.  They insist that Silva did a good showing.  Yes of course, and so does a chess player.  We seem to forget here that fans (especially the “ignorant” casual fans) didn’t come to see thinking, “technical” competitors;  the fans came to see gladiators – in a fight.  Again, being highly “technical” is a good trait of a fighter, but it should not get in the way of a good fight.  If you want “technical,” run around inside the octagon and avoid contact – that’s what happened to Silva’s kind of “technical” that night in Canada.

If you say it was a good fight “technically,” you’re missing the forest for the trees.  MMA thrives on its popularity, and its popularity depends on its being spectacular – it being a spectator sport.  As I keep on saying, mixed martial arts is still show business – minus the staged or theatrical nature of fights and further spiced up by antics and dramatics of the players in the world of professional wresting.

And the “casual fans” booed because they’re ignorant?  Think again.  These new, casual, ignorant fans are the future of MMA.  They are the ones we need. We need to get more new, albeit still uninitiated, fans to sustain the growth of this, still young, sport.

We have almost forgotten about that frustrating letdown on Silva’s performance during UFC 90 last year but the first 3 minutes of the main event of UFC 97 at the Bell Center in Canada just gave us an idea of how horribly boring and irritating things are going to be. It was all dancing and tentative strikes all the way till the end. Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites was horribly frustrating we felt we waz wobbed.

Leites was like someone in heat that at the slightest chance, he flops on his back to the ground, legs raised to expose his bottom. It would have been okay if Silva would oblige, but no. He just stands there, hands akimbo, feasting his eyes on Leites’ exposed derriere. A lot of instances, Silva would bend over gingerly trying to touch his opponent’s splayed legs. It was such a bizarre sight.

And we thought it was the only time we’ll see Anderson Silva in a “ bizarro world” with that dismal performance against Cote in UFC 90 last October.

Now comes UFC 97…what? “Redemption”? Nothing was redeemed here. Silva just sank deeper into his “bizzaro world.” We felt robbed.

When someone whose reputation is being peddled as one of the world’s best MMA fighters; one who is not only a martial artist but maybe the finest artist inside the octagon; one with eight consecutive wins (the highest record in the history of MMA); one who is hitting accuracy rate is touted at an astounding 80% while the rest of MMA gladiators only have an average 35% hitting accuracy, you would always expect nothing less than an explosive display of skill and power. But no, we waz wobbed.

A couple of months back, we remember him through a translator saying, “What’s important to me is to step into the octagon and give the public and the world a good performance.” What good performance was he talking about?

After the fight, when asked by Joe Rogan how he felt about the crowd’s boos, he said, “unless you’re here inside the octagon, you wouldn’t know what’s happening,” or something to that effect. He also said, sometimes even though you want a good fight, things just don’t go your way – or something to that effect. But Silva, YOU are one of the world’s finest fighters. You are supposed to have a lot of techniques in your mojo to force an attack against Leites.

We understand you want to keep a standup fight but when Leites have repeatedly flopped his back to invite you on the mat repeatedly, and it was obvious that he would not do it with you otherwise than by rubbing body parts on the ground, you should have obliged. You trained specifically for this in Rio, right?

But you didn’t. We, the spectators who paid a total of $ 4.9 million on tickets, and the several other millions of fans around the world who watched this game on TV felt we waz wobbed.

Anderson Silva now has the impressive top record of 9 consecutive undefeated matches. This does not mean anything to the fans. Mixed martial arts is a spectator sports. The fans wouldn’t mind if a fighter wins or losses as much as they would mind a lousy performance. They watch to see a fight. Mixed martial arts is about the fight, the skills, the action, the drama. Who wins or losses is just the anti-climax of the event.

The days seem to roll slowly. Barely three weeks on the countdown and we’ll see how Anderson Silva’s trip to the Carnival paradise Rio de Janeiro turns out during the April 18 UFC 97 “Redemption” at the Bell Center in Montreal. Besides perhaps learning a couple of samba steps or looking for that Girl from Ipanema, or lounging at the Copacabana, “The Spider” actually hied off to Rio for an octane-fed top-level jiu-jitsu training with BJJ legends Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Andre Galvao.

Galvao studied and tries to imitate Leites’ fight style and uses this during Silva’s fight trainings.

While Silva (23-4-0) is known for his primary skills of Muay Thai and Brazilial Jiu-jitsu, his top-level jiu-jitsu training in Brazil speaks a lot about what he thinks about his BJJ skilled opponent in Thales Leites (14-1-0). “Thales is a new kids who’s just starting out, but he’s already proven that he deserves this opportunity,” Silva declared. “He’s a dangerous opponent, just like all the others I’ve faced. He has this opportunity to fight for the title because he impressed the promoters enough to get this chance.”

The 27-year-old Leites (14-1) has never been finished in 15 career fights and has enjoyed a relatively stealth rise up the middleweight ladder.

Other fighters that makes us want to time-travel to April 18 are Cheick Kongo (13-4-1) who will clash against Dutch kickboxing hero Antoni Hardonk. Former World Extreme Cagefighting light heavyweight champion Steve Cantwell (7-1) also highlights this card with a showdown with world-ranked Luis Arthur Cane.

Here are more reasons for the excitement:

Chuck Liddel vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua

Brian Stann vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
Cheick Kongo vs. Antoni Hardonk
Luis Arthur Cane vs. Steve Cantwell
Denis Kang vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam
Jason MacDonald vs. Nate Quarry
Ed Herman vs. David Loiseau
Eliot Marshall vs. Mike Ciesnolevicz
Mark Bocek vs. David Bielkheden
T.J. Grant vs. Ryo Chonan
Sam Stout vs. Matt Wiman

On a side note, we just can’t help but wonder how the so-called previously unrecognized regulations of Regie des Alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ), the government agency that oversees combat sports in Quebec, would affect the over-all outcome of the fights. This so-called previously unrecognized regulations for the sport is the prohibition of elbow and knee strikes. The RACJ regulations, which were actually intended for “mixed boxing” in the 1990’s also asked referees to intervene whenever a fighter is knocked down. We hope this will not result to a watered-down scuffle at the octagon.

More reason for us to shiver in anticipation.

By Joe B. Skotzou

Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre comes in as one the three best pound-for-pound fighter in polls, next only to heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko and middleweight champion Anderson Silva. B.J. Penn, on the other hand is a great lightweight who entered the octagon a lot lighter at 20 lbs, and smaller than the formidable St. Pierre, who is comfortable at 187 against Penn’s forced 168 pounds.

The “Prodigy,” who has been eyeing the much lucrative welterweight (more bigger-named fighters and bigger purses) has been neglecting his advantage in the lightweight division. The devastation he suffered from St. Pierre must have brought him back to his senses: get back to where he is king – the lightweight division.

While it can be said that B.J. Penn worked harder and trained himself like he never did before anywhere during his entire career, it was not enough to realize his dream of being the first dual-titled mixed martial arts warrior.

St. Pierre came more mentally prepared with his game plan. The first round was to tire him down, and the game was stopped by ref Herb Dean, the ringside physician and by Penn’s corner at the end of the fourth round. The devastation was so…devastating that Penn has to be rushed to the hospital later.

A slight controversy threatened to mar St. Pierre’s win when one of his cornermen rubbed Vaseline to his body (which fight officials corrected by having the slippery substance towelled off St. Pierre’s body). While it was obvious that the Vaseline-rubbing did not have any bearing on St. Pierre’s win, Dana White maintained it was wrong and said the cornerman involved (Phil Nurse) shouldn’t be allowed to corner another fighter again.

St. Pierre did not only come to this fight bigger and heavier (not a guarantee to a win) but he also came with a better game plan, “My strategy was that he has small shoulders, which is good for hand speed, so I went to make him carry my weight and cause his shoulders to tire,” said St. Pierre. “You’ll notice I didn’t rush him right away going for the takedown (his style in his last few matches),” he added. “The idea was to cause him to have to hop on one leg and get tired, and push off, having to carry my weight in the clinch. That was the idea in the first round…… I knew I broke him mentally after the first round.”

St. Pierre, who earned $420,000 in this fight (excluding his share for the pay-per-view earnings), could boast of being a part of one of the biggest pay-per-view draws in mixed martial arts at more than 900,000. To give you a better perspective, the December 2008 Oscar de la Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao tiff drew 1.25 million PPVs (tied-in with the Mike Tyson vs. Razor Ruddock battle in 1991). UFC president Dana White must be ecstatic. Gate sales went as high as $4.3 million.