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Anderson Silva has been getting shit for going from saying he wants to get back in the cage ASAP to turning down a potential February match up with Thales Leites. As fans, we're selfish bastards and want to see Silva back in the octagon sooner rather than later, "putting the stamp on kids" (thank you Chris Leben). It looks like Silva wants to have his cake and eat it too; he wants a high quantity of fights but he doesn't want to sacrifice quality to do it. I think it's obvious that match ups with guys like James Irvin, Patrick Cote, and Thales Leites aren't exactly fights that are going to add much to Silva's legacy in the sport or line his wallet the way a super fight with Chuck Liddell would.
Despite Silva's utter dominance since his debut with the UFC, they're treating him like Cinderella was treated by her step-mother, which I think is an appropriate metaphor considering MMA fans and Disney fans are practically the same demographic. He has proved his superiority to his contemporaries (i.e. everyone) yet is being served prison food while guys like Randy Couture, Georges St. Pierre, and BJ Penn are eating surf 'n turf on a consistent basis. There is an old adage that a person is judged by the company he keeps. In mixed martial arts, that translates to a fighter being judged by the quality of competition he faces. A fighter's opponent also translates to financial gains.
Georges St. Pierre has reached legendary status and no doubt made enough cash to buy all the french berets his heart could possibly desire in match-ups against the likes of the Matt twins, Jon Fitch, and now Baby Jay. Asking Silva to step into the octagon against Thales Leites would be the equivalent of telling St. Pierre his next fight will be against Marcus Davis or Dustin Hazelett: good fighters who simply don't carry the name recognition at this point to make the match all that compelling and thus not worth GSP's time.
This is all part of my conclusion that Chael Sonnen is out of his fucking mind if he thinks he should fight Silva upon his return to the UFC. While this jovial fellow might disagree, Silva has cleared out the middleweight division and needs a big fight at the current juncture. Sorry, Chael, but the idea of you getting a shot at the Spider - based off of your earth shattering performance against Paulo Filho - doesn't exactly give me goose bumps. After all, Filho looked less like a fighter and more like the 17 year old ecstasy-fueled girls who I "tutor" on the weekends - and Sonnen failed to put him away or even look all that impressive.
Long story short, Silva has every right to be treated the same way guys like Randy, GSP, and Penn have been treated in terms of opponent quality. Anything otherwise is an injustice towards Silva on the part of UFC management. Fights with legends like Liddell and Couture or even with the suddenly relevant Robbie Lawler are the types of fights Silva needs to be involved in. The best fighter in the world needs and deserves the biggest fights available – it's that simple.  What sucks about Silva's situation though is that he gave the UFC a deadline to his fighting career. Otherwise, he current situation could've been written off as a rough patch similar to the time Hughes was fighting fucking Joe Riggs for the WW title.I'd say just get the Okami fight over with and then concentrate everything else on superfights in 205. ...or better yet, fix the Lister/Okami fight so Okami loses and taking away his right for a title shotSilva fights winner of BJ/GSP.  Love the picture  I dont want to hear silva or his fans complain about lack of comp until he takes his ass up to 205 already. I'm pretty sure Silva is cool with fighting at 185 or 205. He just hasn't been offered anything good at either class. Realistically, there are only 2 fights the UFC has for Silva at 185; GSP or Okami (I'm thinking his pissiness over the DQ is the only reason for him to take a last true top contender for a fight @ 185, after this just super fights). Both those guys are tied up for the mean time so then we look at 205. Then pull big names out and you have tons. Guessing Randy or Chuck would take the fight, again after that, we don't want to see another James Irvin so that leaves all guys who are already scheduled for fights. Thiago Silva Machida (just do it guys) Forrest Rampage Wanderlei Shogun Or (Insert any top Fighter's name) ie: Evans, Coleman, whatever to make it interesting. My point is, right now the only fights the UFC can possibly schedule that would make sense to Anderson is either Chuck or Randy. This is why i think Anderson is pissed. The UFC booked everyone up and are now using the excuse "There's no one available for you to fight"Yea, no shit. Because you booked them all up. Silva has been dicking around since July fighting dorkballs who are barely worthy of holding his jockstrap. The UFC has had months to prepare and sort out opponents but they didn't. That tells you something right there.  Randy doesn't want to make the cut and Uncle Fester Dana won't let his favorite nephew Chuck be eaten alive while his career seems so fragile. Randy's said that he'd go down if the fights interesting and he's also said in a recent interview that there would be no problem for him to drop. I know he said he doesn't want to get in the way of Forrest with his belt so I'm pretty sure as a one off fight, that would leave Randy with no obligation to stay is the Anderson fight. I really think that's the one fight he would take at LHW.  I consider myself to be a Thales Leites fan, I really like the guy mostly because he's very explosive with his submissions. But I still can't reason how in the blue hell he would deserve a shot against Anderson. Dana's reasoning seems to be that he beat Nate Marquardt who is a legitimate Top10 or even Top5 middleweight but everyone knows that Thales didn't really beat Nate. Nate was just stupid and cheated. And cheated. And cheated again.What I really don't understand is why they booked Okami vs. Lister. It's not like Okami has to prove he deserves a shot at the belt and it's not like he proves anything by beating Dean Lister (no offense, but no one, ABSOLUTELY no one cares about Dean Lister). Okami is a boring, cocky piece of shit, but I'd still rather see Anderson destroy him than Thales. Agreed. They should have held off on all this and given Okami a chance to destroy Lister. He managed to KO Tanner in entertaining fashion, and i think at this point he's comfortable enough to fight better in the UFC and smart enough to know he needs to be more entertaining if he wants to stick around.
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