Performance Anxiety?: Anderson Silva's recent fights convenient scapegoat for low draw

Let me preface this with an admonishment of Anderson Silva's behavior in rounds 3-5 in the Demian Maia title fight at UFC 112. His antics in those rounds were detrimental to the sport and to his reputation, as they gave credence to the hackneyed beliefs that Anderson Silva should be hated upon and disliked. Whether Silva ultimately gassed in arid heat of the Middle Eastern desert or was simply teaching Dana White and the UFC a hard lesson, either way his actions in the cage in those rounds were inexcusable.

That said, the air of disdain for the gangly Brazilian is overwhelming. Lex Luthor Mr. Dana White has pretty much gone on record bashing Anderson's performance and, in fact, the marketing and promotion behind this fight with Chael Sonnen has centered around "Will Anderson Silva fight?" What the fuck kind of way is that to market a fight? Will my champion of the world fight? Even taking into account his last fight, that is an asinine assertion and a bass ackwards way to promote your championship fight.  

Kevin Iole, a Yahoo UFC writer, believes the onus on this fight is all on the spindly shoulders of Anderson Silva.

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.

Iole and I agree that Anderson's last 3 main event performances haven't exactly been the greatest (I like how he excludes the KO of Forrest Griffin), however we disagree on whom the blame should be placed for those fights. In the Patrick Cote fight, he clearly places the onus of blame on Silva. He even quotes Dana White as saying after the UFC 90 bout, "I was sitting there saying, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ " 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."

Well, far be it from me to question Dana White's viewpoints, but let me say he is incorrect. Let me further say that he, and pretty much everyone else that views that fight as Anderson "playing around", are seriously belittling Patrick Cote as a fighter and expected Anderson to just walk through him as he had done against others. Realize that Patrick Cote is probably the heaviest hitter (yes, including Hendo and Leben) that Anderson had faced in his UFC career. Cote also came into the fight with a great gameplan of resisting the urge to brawl with Anderson as Silva is the best counter-striker in the game and everyone else was destroyed by persuing Silva.

Let's be honest with ourselves here. Those that found this fight boring did so a) based on Anderson's track records and b) based on "Who the heck is Patrick Cote? The guy from TUF Season 4?" Anderson's previous fight efficiency was attributed not only to his skills, but to his opponents' desire to be overly aggressive. Silva was able to channel that into success. That's his style. The main influence on people's dissatisfaction is that he was fighting Patrick Cote, to which many fans said "What?" Many MMA fans expected Silva to get in the cage and take care of business quickly as he had done before. That wasn't the case. I disagree with Iole and Dana White in that this fight wasn't "boring" nor did it look like Silva was "playing with Cote" (one could have an issue with him offering his hand to help Cote get up).

As for the Thales Leites fight at UFC 97, anytime where Silva wanted to engage, Leites flopped to the ground. Did Anderson pull some clownish antics in this fight? Yes in between Leites divebombing at his legs, but they tended to be the only entertaining parts of this fight as Maia refused to engage Silva on the feet and Silva denied jumping Leites' guard. Are we to blame him especially with what has happened recently to an overly aggresive fighter playing in a world class BJJ player's guard. As I said earlier, I do condemn Anderson's actions in the later rounds of the Maia fight, but I must disagree with Iole's assertion that Maia "gave the fans their money's worth" while Silva did not.

Iole recaps Silva's legacy to say this,  Anderson needs to "step it up" this fight in order to get the fans to want to pluck down money for his fights. Newsflash Mr. Iole, the fans haven't been buying Anderson Silva's fights for years. This isn't just a recent phenomenon. As you can see above, Anderson Silva has been around the 350,000 PPV buy range with the noted exceptions being when he was on a Chuck Liddell card at UFC 97, a loaded BJ Penn title fight (and facing UFC fan favorite Forrest Griffin) at UFC 101, and another BJ Penn title fight at UFC 112. Facts are clear. When Silva is not on a good card, he is not a good draw. Ironic in that his buyrate went UP after he started "playing around" in the cage. When he was knocking out everyone in the 1st or 2nd rounds, no one paid to see him fight. If you look at the line chart below the numbers are even more staggering.

The "way" Anderson fights seems to be not important to his buyrate success, quite the contrary, the numbers bear the opposite. All kidding aside, It's clear that fans don't buy anyone in Silva's division as a competent threat. It's clear that the fans want to see him fight at 205 or have GSP move up to 185 and fight him. Instead Dana White and the UFC are pitting him against Sonnen (an uncompelling fighter to casuals despite his trash talk bordering on bigotism) on a card with no other draws. It's almost as if the UFC wants Silva's PPV's to fail. Fans aren't given any options. Either they tune in and see Anderson dance around for 5 rounds, they see Anderson destroy someone who wasn't on his level or they see Chael grind on Silva like a horny post prom senior for 5 rounds. If I weren't a hardcore fan, I wouldn't spend my money on that.

Fans want compelling matchups, not Anderson in there against someone who will provide little threat to him. It's called a "squash match" in wrestling. The thing is, you use those to build up someone of free television, you don't expect the fan to pay 44.95 for a squash. As I have said before, I coined the phrase "entertaining sport" and it applies here:

The UFC is not in the pure sport business. It's not mainstream enough frankly. It's still a "niche" sport, just a very large one.....Both the UFC and boxing are in the "entertaining sports" business. This is different than "sports entertainment", a term you've probably heard associated with the WWFand other pro wrestling shows. Sports entertainment is a show primarily based in entertainment that tries to (much less these days) present itself as a true sport. It's the opposite for entertaining sports. They are actual sports that thrive on drawing fans by being entertaining. NBA, MLB, NFL, PGA, WTA, etc can be "boring" and still draw based on the sport of the show. The UFC cannot. MMA as a pure sport isn't in the public scope as much as the other sports. It will take a generation of MMA to enter into the public's lexicon like the other sports. That development is accelerated to more entertaining the sport is.

And thus in the business of "entertaining sport", buyrates and interest in fights is fueled on creatingc ompelling matchups. That is directly on Dana White and Joe Silva's shoulders. Before the UFC 112 fight, UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre was shown at rindside and Joe Rogan told us that Silva would be fighting GSP next. Instead we got Dana White acting less like a boss and more like an acrimonious parent. Iole describes White's behavior below.

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.

White's blind fury to punish Silva and not give him what he wants punishes someone else more; someone much more important, the fans. By denying us of the only desirable matchup for Silva (aside from a permanent move to 205 or above), you piss off fans by, and I hate to say this, wasting Silva in bouts that aren't craved by the fans.And it's clear that Silva himself feels that his athletic prime is being dwindled in banal fights. He's felt this way since the Henderson fight and Dana is well-aware of this.

Anderson Silva can go out and destroy Chael Sonnen and he'll be in the same situation that he's in now. A low-drawing fighter who needs compelling matchups to get fans interested. So Iole thinking that an exciting fight will get fans back on the bandwagon isn't 100 percent on the money. That isn't to say that a boring fight (that is of Silva's doing) won't hurt Silva, but let's face it, he's already scraping the bottom of the buyrates.

If it takes an exciting fight for White to stop being a brat and put Anderson into fights fans want to see, that is on Dana White's head not Anderson's. Fans will pay money to see Anderson vs GSP even if SIlva gets into the cage on the 7th of August and takes a nap for 5 rounds. Dana White is in the business of MMA. And business says putting Anderson is fascinating fights that will get fans to draw money. That means Silva against GSP and fights against the best at 205. Dana White and the UFC need to realize that business is never supposed to be personal.

SBN coverage of UFC 117: Silva vs. Sonnen