UFC 97 Anderson vs Leites, Chuck vs Shogun

[Blarg]

This Saturday on PPV and whatever online streams you can find.

Main Card

Anderson Silva (23-4) vs. Thales Leites (13-1)
Chuck Liddell (21-6) vs. Mauricio Rua (17-3)
Brian Stann (6-1) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (16-8-1)
Luiz Cane (9-1) vs. Steve Cantwell (7-1)
Cheick Kongo (23-4-1) vs. Antoni Hardonk (8-4)

Preliminary Card

Eliot Marshall (6-2) vs. Vinny Magalhaes (3-3-1)
Denis Kang (31-11-1) vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam (20-8)
David Loiseau (18-8) vs. Ed Herman (14-6)
David Bielkheden (13-6) vs. Mark Bocek (6-2)
Ryo Chonan (16-8) vs. TJ Grant (13-2)
Jason MacDonald (21-11) vs. Nate Quarry (16-3)
Sam Stout (14-5-1) vs. Matt Wiman (10-4)

I think Silva will get taken down once or so but will survive and eventually get a tko in the second or third. I see chuck winning by tko in the third when Shogun is tired. I want to see shogun win but unless he has his cardio fixed it likely won't happen.

[FNH]

Main Card

Anderson Silva (23-4) vs. Thales Leites (13-1)
Chuck Liddell (21-6) vs. Mauricio Rua (17-3)
Brian Stann (6-1) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (16-8-1)
Luiz Cane (9-1) vs. Steve Cantwell (7-1)
Cheick Kongo (23-4-1) vs. Antoni Hardonk (8-4)

Preliminary Card

Eliot Marshall (6-2) vs. Vinny Magalhaes (3-3-1)
Denis Kang (31-11-1) vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam (20-8)
David Loiseau (18-8) vs. Ed Herman (14-6)
David Bielkheden (13-6) vs. Mark Bocek (6-2)
Ryo Chonan (16-8) vs. TJ Grant (13-2)
Jason MacDonald (21-11) vs. Nate Quarry (16-3)
Sam Stout (14-5-1) vs. Matt Wiman (10-4)

message too short

[Chips]

Main Card

Anderson Silva (23-4) vs. Thales Leites (13-1)
Chuck Liddell (21-6) vs. Mauricio Rua (17-3)
Brian Stann (6-1) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (16-8-1)
Luiz Cane (9-1) vs. Steve Cantwell (7-1)
Cheick Kongo (23-4-1) vs. Antoni Hardonk (8-4)

Preliminary Card

Eliot Marshall (6-2) vs. Vinny Magalhaes (3-3-1)
Denis Kang (31-11-1) vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam (20-8 )
David Loiseau (18-8 ) vs. Ed Herman (14-6)
David Bielkheden (13-6) vs. Mark Bocek (6-2)
Ryo Chonan (16-8 ) vs. TJ Grant (13-2)
Jason MacDonald (21-11) vs. Nate Quarry (16-3)
Sam Stout (14-5-1) vs. Matt Wiman (10-4)

Both Anderson and Chuck will have a 1st round KO, Chuck's might come in the 2nd once Shogun gases.

Luiz Cane is a good prospect, Denis Kang needs to deliver, Loiseau has gotten pretty good and Stout needs this win or he's out of the UFC.

[Brill Weave]

Shogun has never really recovered from his knee injuries. It's kind of sad considering he's still as young as he is. On to the predictions though.

Silva(but I really think Leites is going to test him, I don't know why, just a hunch.)
Liddell(Rua doesn't have the stamina or the knees anymore.)
Stann(Everyone says that Stann doesn't have the stand up to last. He's going to win.)
Cantwell(Just a hunch.)
Kongo(Won't even be close.)

[tyven]

ugh leites has awful stand up, unless silva toys with him like he did cote i expect it to end real ugly for leites.

[Blarg]

Spoiler: show

Fuck yes Shogun! He looked good and I love how he can threaten with various leg submissions to sweep or submit

[FNH]

jyakku had it right, kinda. I love shogun.

[FNH]

what the shit is leites trying to accomplish?

[tyven]

ugh, two shitty spider fights in a row. he's either gotta go up to 205 again or GSP needs to go up to 185, there is just no one worth a shit for spider to fight in his weight class.

[Epical]

Just got back from a buddy's house where we had the ... pleasure ... of watching this. GSP needs to win his next fight and then superfight Silva (hell, make it a catchweight if you have to) at UFC 105 or something.

[Einherjar]

Yushin Okami deserves his rematch with Silva. Even if people don't believe he can win, he does, and he would attack Anderson, unlike this shitty fight.

I feel bad for Jason MacDonald and Ryo Chonan, they'll be released now.

I also would like to say that all those folks betting against Shogun had better not just try and jump back on the bandwagon, quitters! I was rewarded with a blizzard for my loyalty and faith.

[Chips]

Shogun looked awesome last night, hopefully he keeps it up.

[Dimmauk]

Silva not winning over fans or boss

By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports Apr 19, 3:38 am EDT

MONTREAL – Anderson Silva wasn’t one of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s biggest pay-per-view draws despite a slew of highlight reel knockouts and a reputation as the finest mixed martial arts fighter in the world.

After Saturday’s performance, the toughest job in sports may belong to the person who has to devise a marketing campaign for his next fight.

Silva won a unanimous decision over Thales Leites in the main event of UFC 97 on Saturday night at the Bell Centre, but it was such a mystifying and dreadful performance that it left UFC president Dana White angry and embarrassed.

“I can honestly tell you that I’ve never put on an event that I was embarrassed to be at until tonight,” White said. “I want to publicly apologize to all the fans.”


Leites was flopping onto the ground at the first sign Silva would throw a punch at him, hoping to turn it into a grappling contest. Silva, though, wouldn’t fall for the bait and forced Leites repeatedly to stand.

And while it was admittedly hard to look good with the way Leites was fighting, the man who is supposedly the best fighter in the world needs to find a way to force the action.

It’s the second consecutive time that Silva has been in such a fight. At UFC 90 in October, White was so mystified by Silva’s lack of aggression that he said he thought he was in “bizarro world” watching it.

Silva had an unlikely ally Saturday in Chuck Liddell, whose career likely ended earlier in the night when he was knocked out by Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. Liddell clearly placed more of the blame for the lack of action on Leites’ unwillingness to engage even a little.

“He was attacking the whole time,” Liddell said of Silva. “It’s a frustrating fight for a striker when every time you go to hit a guy, he falls on his back.”

Silva is paid big money to hit his opponents and then knock them on their backs. For the second fight in a row, he failed to let his hands and feet go and fought a measured, controlled fight.

The crowd of 21,451 at the Bell Centre was booing a minute into the fight and by the final round, it was chanting an obscenity in an attempt to convey its displeasure.

White planned to have a long conversation with Silva and manager Ed Soares following the postfight news conference. During the fight, White got up from his cageside seat and walked over to Soares and gave him an earful.

Just as he was in Chicago, though, Silva was singularly unaffected. He had the air of a man who had just performed his job exceptionally, rather than one who had more than 20,000 people in the building and thousands more watching on television at home feeling he’d cheated them out of their money.

“Everything I trained to do, I did,” Silva said.

It’s one of his stock answers these days, as he repeated it incessantly prior to the fight in response to numerous queries about his performance against Cote.

But the bottom line is this: If Silva is going to be the big star, if he’s going to make the big paycheck, then he has to realize it’s incumbent upon him to put on a show. Liddell has now lost four of his last five and has been knocked cold in three of them, but he came to fight and made his bout entertaining for as long as it lasted.

The same can’t be said of Silva, who doesn’t seem to grasp that he’s not carrying his end of the bargain.

“I apologize. I personally apologize for what happened tonight,” White said. “You guys know, this isn’t what the UFC was built on and this isn’t the way the fights usually go. Listen, any night you can have an off-night. When a guy is that talented and can literally end a fight whenever he wants to, wow.”

Leites clearly deserves his share of the blame for the debacle that was the main event. He had a three-month training camp and knew he’d have to deal with Silva’s striking at some point.

The challenger, though, simply ignored that facet of the game. He backpedaled until he could go back no more and then, more often than not, fell to his back hoping to sucker Silva into a jiu-jitsu fight.

It never worked. And when Silva did manage to keep the fight standing, he didn’t force the action and try to knock Leites out.

“I’m comfortable with people’s opinion, because they have a right to their opinion, but when I went out there, everything I [prepared for] in training, I felt I executed in the fight. My game plan was that I wanted to go to the later rounds with Thales. I was unable to finish. Sometimes I’m able to finish guys and sometimes I’m not able to. But I felt I proved to everybody that I’m able to go five rounds and that I’m in good shape.”

Nobody really wanted to see that, though. They purchased big money for the tickets – the paid gate at the Bell Centre was $4.9 million – to see him blast Leites and get rid of him as early and as violently as possible.

The only thing that may change Silva’s performance at this point is to give him an opponent he feels may be able to defeat him. White was pressed a lot about making a fight between Silva and welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, but he noted St. Pierre has a difficult bout upcoming against Thiago Alves.

The other option is for him to move up again, however briefly, to light heavyweight and challenge one of the slew of great strikers who compete in that division.

“We’ve got to do something,” White said, shaking his head. “Watching that was hard. That was tough to take. It was embarrassing, honestly. It was really and truly embarrassing.”
Kevin Iole covers boxing and mixed martial arts for Yahoo! Sports. Send Kevin a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

[EckoGecko]

most boring fight ever.

[Brill Weave]

I really am shocked that Silva bounced back from the Cote debacle with another complete disappointment. Leites was pathetic to be sure, but Silva could have ended the fight at any time. Seriously what happened to the guy who would walk in and physically destroy anyone standing in front of him. He's been replaced by a guy who goes through the entire fight timidly, never forcing the action, never bringing it to his terms. All in all it was one of the worst fights I've seen.

Gotta feel bad for Liddell. But Rua looked fantastic. He looked like he did before he had the knee issues. Liddell never was able to adapt anymore. He's trained in Jiu Jitsu yet Liddell never even bothers with it. He was always looking for that homerun punch. Still sad to see him all but officially retire.

[Dimmauk]

I really am shocked that Silva bounced back from the Cote debacle with another complete disappointment. Leites was pathetic to be sure, but Silva could have ended the fight at any time. Seriously what happened to the guy who would walk in and physically destroy anyone standing in front of him. He's been replaced by a guy who goes through the entire fight timidly, never forcing the action, never bringing it to his terms. All in all it was one of the worst fights I've seen.

Gotta feel bad for Liddell. But Rua looked fantastic. He looked like he did before he had the knee issues. Liddell never was able to adapt anymore. He's trained in Jiu Jitsu yet Liddell never even bothers with it. He was always looking for that homerun punch. Still sad to see him all but officially retire.

White on Liddell’s future: ‘He’s done’

By Dave Meltzer, Yahoo! Sports Apr 19, 4:30 am EDT

Yahoo! Sports

MONTREAL – When Chuck Liddell, the biggest star in Ultimate Fighting Championship history, left the Bell Centre cage on Saturday night, the reaction was no different than many of his greatest wins. He got a lengthy standing ovation from a sold-out arena.

But this time the ovation came after he was stopped in four minutes, 28 seconds by Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in what his promoter, UFC president Dana White, insisted was the last match of his career.

“He can still sell out shows and he can still sell pay-per-views, but he’s done,” said White, who had said beforehand that Liddell would need not just a win, but an impressive win to continue his career. “He helped build this company and he helped build this sport, but it’s done. Even Michael Jordan turned 40, and he was done.”


Liddell, who turns 40 at the end of this year, stopped short of outright announcing his retirement, either in his postmatch interview or later at the news conference.

Liddell said he would go home on Monday, talk with his friends and make a decision, but later hinted more strongly his career was over.

“It’s probably the end,” said Liddell, who has been with the UFC since 1998.

Liddell, who wrestled at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo and was trained as a kickboxer, captured the UFC light heavyweight title from Randy Couture on April 16, 2005, right after the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show ended with the two as coaches.

[tyven]

spider just needs to go back to fighting and destroying americans. at least they go after him

[archibaldcrane]

If White wanted action, Leites was the absolute worst opponent to put in with Silva. Saying he's disappointed and embarrassed now after the fact is just completely retarded - you made the match with basically noone saying Leites deserved the title shot, now you get to deal with the consequences.

I just don't know what he was expecting.

[Dimmauk]

If White wanted action, Leites was the absolute worst opponent to put in with Silva. Saying he's disappointed and embarrassed now after the fact is just completely retarded - you made the match with basically noone saying Leites deserved the title shot, now you get to deal with the consequences.

I just don't know what he was expecting.

Yeah I guess next time Dana will have Silva fight a tomato can. UFC needs more Peter Mcneeleys

[archibaldcrane]

Yeah I guess next time Dana will have Silva fight a tomato can. UFC needs more Peter Mcneeleys

They call it "a puncher's chance" for a reason, Leites didn't even have that.