Nobody’s booing Silva now

Forrest Griffin himself said it perfectly during one of the promo videos for Saturday’s UFC 101: Anderson Silva makes great fighters look bad. Griffin, a former UFC light heavyweight champion, knocked to the canvas by a short left 3:23 into round one with a reported dislocated jaw (among other injuries), looked very, very bad. It was a highlight reel demolition in a fight that will go down as one of the greatest striking demonstrations in UFC history.

I was one of the few who thought Griffin had a real shot. I thought I laid out a pretty convincing argument in favour of the natural light heavyweight over the middleweight champ who had moved up from 185 pounds to 205. Griffin is bigger, likes to brawl, will trade punch-for-punch and push the pace. A puncher’s chance, I guess you could say, although I know better than to put money on a Rocky Balboa moment.

In retrospect, my argument was pretty delusional. Sentimental wishful thinking more than anything. I like Griffin’s tenacity, his gameness and self-deprecating personality, and I’d come to be bored by Silva after two lackluster, sluggish wins over Thales Leites and Patrick Cote. Like a lot of fans I’d begun to question the Silva mystique, his supposed invincibility and whether he really is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, as so many have claimed.

I have no doubt now.

After sizing Griffin up for a minute, circling his prey, testing his range, Silva began to pick apart the larger, slower fighter with laser-guided strikes while avoiding Griffin’s counters like he was dodging bullets in The Matrix. Reality seemed to slow down for Silva as he dodged, ducked, weaved and danced and just never seemed to be where Griffin was punching.

Silva first dropped Griffin with a right hook. Griffin quickly recovered. Silva stood in the pocket, dared Griffin to hit him, then dropped Griffin with a left, an uppercut. Silva even offered a hand to help him to his feet. Griffin, all heart, charged forward and Silva, backpedaling, hands down at his hips, snapped a countering short right hand – a fade-away jab, Bruce Lee three-inch punch – into Griffin’s face that felled him for good.

It was staggering in its ease and simplicity and execution, in every sense.

Immediately afterward, Griffin sprinted from the ring and skipped the post-fight press conference, reminiscent of his technical knockout loss to Keith Jardine at UFC 66 that sent him in tears to the locker room. Turns out, Griffin was taken to the hospital with a possible dislocated jaw and hearing loss in one hear, according to reports. Others have a more cynical (and conspiratorial) opinion of what happened. I’m sure we’ll hear from Forrest by Monday or Tuesday unless his jaw’s wired shut. Whatever, there’s no shame in losing to Anderson Silva no matter how it happened. In retrospect losing was inevitable.

The question now is, who next for Anderson Silva, who is now 10-0 in the UFC?

While Dan Henderson, who gave Michael Bisping a sore jaw of his own with a brutal knockout at UFC 100, has been promised a rematch with Silva in a middleweight title fight, fans obviously want to see Silva fight the best. That means either welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre, who has toyed with the idea of moving up a weight class for the fight, or undefeated light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida. There’s just one problem with the latter scenario: Machida and Silva are friends and training partners.

When Machida’s name was brought up during the post-fight press conference, UFC president Dana White was clear: “It has nothing to do with friendship. It’s about who’s the best. It’s about competing against somebody else, no different than a basketball game or a football game. If Anderson gets to that point where he starts taking out 205-pounders, I’ll make that fight. I promise you, I’ll make that fight.”

But ever the counter-striker, Silva wasted no time letting his feelings be known: “Lyoto’s my friend. He’s my brother, and there’s no way that fight will happen,” he said in Portuguese, which the Brazilian’s manager, Ed Soares, translated.

And that might be the biggest fight in Silva’s future: His wishes versus those of the UFC’s.