(‘Who shall I beat up for you, my friend?’)

Every company should be lucky enough to have a team player like Anderson Silva in their employ. You ask him to move up in weight and fight on short notice just to help you stick it to a competitor, and he doesn’t complain about overtime pay or make up an excuse about needing to go to his kid’s piano recital — he just does what needs doing.

In fact, he seems pretty unconcerned about the whole thing. He told Si.com’s Josh Gross recently that he’s walking around at 212 pounds and is ready to pitch in and do his part for the UFC’s global domination efforts:

“If the UFC asks me to do something, and it’s within my capability to do so, I’m going to do it,” he said. “I feel like I’m part of the UFC family and the head of the family asked me to fight. I’m in condition to fight, my coaches say I can fight — I’m going to fight. I want to do whatever I can to help make UFC the No. 1 event around the world like it is.”

Keep talking like that, Anderson, and Dana White’s going to show up at your house with flowers and an engagement ring.

Silva’s manager, Ed Soares, has a realistic though mathematically hazy take on the champ’s move up in weight.

We considered saying unkind words about Silva’s personality, but we’re convinced he’s a ninja terminator unit.

Okay, let’s go ahead and get this out of the way: this Anderson Silva highlight vid/mini biopic/letter to the haters is incredibly well-done, and seven months old. We checked out the maker’s YouTube channel, to discover that, at least according to his profile, dude hasn’t logged on to his account since October. Apparently, when you make a video that is this full of badassery, that matches up this well with turn of the millennium Nas, you smash your graphics tablet and drop kick your computer out the window.

At any rate, we here at Potato HQ have poured out our fair share of HaterAde for the Spider, so this goes all to all the fans with Silva at #1 overall. If artnomad ever comes out of retirement, we’ll let you know.

On Monday, we mentioned that Anderson Silva pulled out of a scheduled two-day seminar at Miletich Fighting Systems Houston due to “personal family health issues,” but was seen in Miami the same weekend at the grand opening of his own school. At the time, we were like “LOL EPIC PHAIL!” Well, it ain’t so funny anymore. As Sherdog reports, Silva’s aunt — who raised him from his youth, and who he thought of as his mother — passed away on Monday. According to a source close to the UFC middleweight champ:

Silva was already in Miami for the opening ceremonies of his gym. He learned of his aunt’s condition on Friday and tried to leave for Brazil on Saturday morning, but there were no flights. He then went to his gym for a few hours before flying to Curitiba in the evening.

So Anderson, we’re incredibly sorry — both for your tremendous loss and for the fact that we’re tremendous assholes.

(Ah, the good ol’ days. Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

In the last nine months, Anderson Silva has given us two title defenses marked by maddening stretches of inactivity, and fans have responded by giving him heaps of abuse. And the fact that he’s no longer considered the UFC’s thrilling golden boy who can do no wrong seems to have changed Silva in a fundamental way. Gone is the cheerful, lovable Spider, and in his place is a dude who has had it up here with the bullshit. Two examples, from recent interviews:

On the fans who booed during his recent fights: “At the end of the day, yeah, I’m there for the fans, but I’m the one who’s putting my body and my life in danger every time I step inside the Octagon. So, a lot of times when people aren’t as educated in this sport, it’s really hard for them to understand. I feel I went in there and did my job, and if people are booing, it’s from a lack of understanding of the sport, because I went out there and executed a good game plan, it was just unfortunate that my opponents didn’t fight back.”

(Props: Sherdog via Bloody Elbow)

If there was a rivalry between Anderson Silva and Wanderlei Silva leading up to UFC 99, it’s clear that the Spider has no interest in keeping it alive. In this video interview shot at Black House, Anderson insists that his training of Rich Franklin before Ace’s fight with the Axe Murderer was a matter of timing, not revenge. At any rate, he’s got a more pressing issue at hand — preparation for his UFC 101 fight against Forrest Griffin. And can we expect to see Silva to make a run for the light-heavyweight belt if he gets past Griffin? For the thousandth time, no: "Lyoto is the champ, and I don’t have intention of fighting him…I’m Lyoto’s friend. I like him a lot, and I think it’s going to be hard for anyone to beat him. This is Karate’s era, not the normal Karate but Machida Karate." Also, he ain’t got no time for no haters: "Whoever has a mouth can say whatever they want…I’m not worried about what people are saying."

Anderson Silva is a tough nut to crack. We know he doesn’t want to fight friends, and we know he doesn’t want to fight guys he’s already beaten, and we know he doesn’t want to fight guys who got middleweight title shots in the UFC without ever competing in the UFC at that weight class. New #1 contender Chael Sonnen doesn’t fit into any of those categories, so you’d think there wouldn’t be a problem. But as Silva’s manager Ed Soares has proven, you can find an excuse to duck pretty much anybody:

(Yushin Okami)

Who Anderson Silva should fight next is current debate among MMA fans. Silva himself seems bored with the weak competition and has even got his eye on going toe-to-toe with champion – or ex-champion – boxers. On the MMA side of things, the name that keeps popping up to fight Silva is Yushin Okami, the middleweight that beat The Spider via disqualification a little over two years ago in a Rumble on the Rock tournament. Silva spoke to Sherdog recently – via his manager, Ed Soares – and is non too pleased with the Okami win.

Silva was dominating the fight. When Silva went to his back, Okami got in some of his best strikes of the bout. But an upkick from The Spider connected with Okami’s mug, sending the fighter back. Troy “Rude Boy” Mandaloniz held Silva back from exacting more pain to Okami. Why did “Rude Boy” hold Silva back, you ask? He was the ref for the match. That’ll for sure be a question in Trivial Pursuit: MMA, so remember it. Anyway, Okami couldn’t recover and the DQ gave him the win.

Silva has a different point of view:

“I feel it was a cheap, cowardly way of winning,” a pointed Silva says more than two years after the scrap. “People that were there saw that he was in the condition to come back and keep fighting, and he didn’t.”

Silva says he doesn’t “really think much of anything of Okami,” but the Brazilian was more poised when stuck under Henderson than he is when discussing the Japanese fighter.

“It wasn’t really a fight,” Silva describes the disqualification loss before adding that he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.

(Smile, Anderson. You’re rich.)

Last week news broke that UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva had signed a landmark sponsorship deal with Burger King, whose ownership group,  3G Capital, is an investment firm whose largest investors include Brazilian billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Carlos Sicupira.

(Experts say it was this spot that got Anderson the deal with BK.)

Earlier this week week, Silva’s manager Ed Soares, who sold off his Sinister clothing line to Silverstar, TapouT and Hitman clothing ownership group Authentic Brands Group last year, announced that his client has also signed lucrative deals with both Nike and the Sport Club Corinthians Paulista soccer team.

“The Spider’s” fight shorts and walkout wear will be made by Nike and he will don a Corinthians jersey for his UFC 134 bout with Yushin Okami later this month. The club will also name their new stadium after the dominant 36-year-old Brazilian fighter.

(With the money he picked up from UFC 82, Spider would be able to buy 260,000 items from the dollar menu.)

TheMMADigest recently posted an impressive list of day-jobs held by notable mixed martial artists. Some of them are part of the fighters’ personal mythologies — we all know that Rich Franklin was a high school teacher, Clay Guida was a carpenter, Mirko Cro Cop was some sort of Croatian cop, and Houston Alexander still works as a hip-hop DJ. Others are a little more suprising. Did you know…

…Luke Cummo delivered pizzas, drove a cab, and tested video games?

…Leonard Garcia was an assistant manager at Frito-Lay?

…Cheick Kongo was an agent for a musical act in France? (Something called ‘Le Aristrocrats’)

…Karo Parisyan was a stuntman?

…Mauricio Rua was a model?

…Diego Sanchez worked at UPS?

…Anderson Silva worked at McDonald’s?

The list also says that Wanderlei Silva used to work in a bar, but judging from this picture, he also spent time as a live-in nanny, and was beloved by the children for his delicious homemade empanadas.

Did one of your favorite fighters pay the bills through busking, dog-sitting, or providing personal transportation? Let us know in the comments section…

…so said Silva’s manager Ed Soares, when asked by ProMMARadio about a potential Georges St. Pierre/Anderson Silva superfight:

“That sounds great, I think GSP is an incredible fighter. But I think GSP needs to prove himself. He still hasn’t had a successful title defense (at 170 lbs.). I don’t really feel that he deserves (a Silva fight) yet. Go defend your title a few times and then we’ll talk.”

The thing is, St. Pierre has proven himself many times over to be an elite-level fighter, and Soares is veering uncomfortably close to Juanito Ibarra territory, wild statement-wise. But what makes his dismissal of GSP particularly ironic is that Spider’s next fight is likely going to be against Patrick Cote, who doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as Silva or GSP. With Yushin Okami suffering a broken hand, Cote is really and truly next in line for a title shot; that little shitshow could happen at UFC 88 (September 6th, Atlanta).

A relatively one-dimensional striker, Cote doesn’t bring any more to the table than James Irvin did, and their bout will almost certainly be another brief exhibition for Silva. The silver lining is that with this belt-defense obligation out of the way quickly, Silva will be free to “test the waters” at light-heavyweight again — and he does plan on fighting at least one more time before the end of the year.

Sort of related: “UFC Silva vs. Irvin” was a ratings smash. The broadcast averaged 3.1 million viewers, peaked at 3.8 million viewers, and according to SpikeTV, beat all basic cable and broadcast networks in that timeslot for the “males 18-49″ and “males/females 18-34″ demographics.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/TUF)

Sure Anderson Silva has a date with Chael Sonnen the winner of Chael Sonnen and Mark Munoz this summer, but when you think about it, there really aren’t many fights left for the dominant UFC middleweight champion at 185, so why not have him move up?

Anderson has a plethora of reasons why he likely won’t fight at 205 and most of them concern loyalty to friends like Lil’ Nog and Jon Jones, but from a fan’s perspective, a move up in weight is the only one that makes sense for “The Spider.”

Look at how he toyed with Ryan Bader in the TUF sparring session, basically letting him punch him in the chin as hard as he wanted to. Granted, Bader has improved from his technique of charging forward with arm punches, but I really don’t see a match-up between the two going any differently now. Silva made one former UFC light heavyweight champ look stupid and he would likely do the same to most of the division’s top contenders, so why not have him step up?

We’ll tell you why.

(Props: Victory Belt via MMA.tv via BloodyElbow)

Based on a true story…

(“Dude, could you at least pretend to be surprised?”)

(Props: BloodyElbow)

It’s surprising how similar Anderson Silva’s new light-heavyweight build looks compared to his old middleweight frame. In fact, trying to spot the differences between these two pictures is like playing the most boring game of Photo Hunt ever. Sure, his stomach is a little more filled out now and he changed his shorts, but then it gets a little tricky. Does his neck look bigger, or is that just the lighting? Is he retaining water in his ankles?

Here’s the thing about this video. You know when you ask Dan Henderson who he wants to fight that he’s going to say Anderson Silva. And after that, when you ask him if he really thinks he has a legitimate shot at beating Silva, you know he’s going to say yes. You know that. But you have to ask him anyway, on the off chance that he’ll say he wants nothing more than to face Rich Franklin next. Then we could all relax without having to challenge one another’s illusions.

No such luck. However, note that Hendo says he wants to “get back in there and earn another shot.” Would beating Franklin accomplish that? Probably.

Also note the Dan Henderson-Wanderlei Silva highlight in all its slow motion, sound effect-y glory. Then tell me you wouldn’t want to see that one happen again. Just saying.

(That’s “The Predator” all right. I’d recognize those cheeks anywhere.)

Well, we’re officially disturbed. This picture of Patrick Cote, um, blowing off some steam(?) was sent to us by mini at hithiphop.com and we immediately wished we had never seen it. So we did what any responsible internet types would do: we forced it on you, our readers. Enjoy your nightmares.

We don’t begrudge a guy his right to have a few too many (at least we hope alcohol was involved) and do things he’ll later wish he hadn’t. But when we picture the guy who’ll finally bring Anderson Silva’s tremendous winning streak to an end, this isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

More pictures are after the jump…if you dare.

 
("If you’d like to donate to the Michael Bisping Memorial Fund…")

According to UFC prez Dana White (via Fighters Only magazine), Michael Bisping would be ready for a title shot if he manages to defeat Dan Henderson following their coaching stints on The Ultimate Fighter: Team U.S. vs. Team U.K., which is scheduled to premiere on April 1st after UFC Fight Night 18. The only thing that would prevent an immediate title shot for Bisping in this scenario is if Anderson Silva is tied up in the light-heavyweight division. As White explains:

Ever the good employee, Bisping is already preparing mentally for the possibility. As he tells FO:

Oh man. Fighters talking about the proper way to beat Anderson Silva (and Fedor Emelianenko) never stops being hilarious to me. It should be noted that Dan Henderson actually had some early success against Silva with an aggressive rough-’em-up style during their fight at UFC 82 last March, but that only made the Spider angrier, and Hendo was obliterated in the second round. And as we saw in his last fight against Patrick Cote, Anderson Silva now has the power to blow-out knees using only his mind. So basically, Bisping had better start training with Freddie Roach, or he has no chance in this one.

After reading MMA Mania’s recent interview with James Irvin, we have new respect for the Sandman. The dude is just plain ballsy. Not only did he accept the UFN 14 fight against Anderson Silva when four others refused it, but the man actually has the stones to explain why Silva really isn’t that much of a threat. For a guy selected to be the Spider’s first roadkill en route to a light-heavyweight title, Irvin’s taking his long odds in stride…

Jesse Holland (MMAmania.com): Well you don’t get Rashad Evans but now you’ve got UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
James Irvin: Yeah that’s a pretty big jump, huh? I can’t think of an opponent outside of Rampage or Liddell — maybe even Fedor that would be more shocking. But hey, Dana White seems to repay the people who fight hard for him…I’m gonna stand there and trade and I’ll take one to give one. In this case I might have to take two to give one.

Can you take two from Anderson Silva? Can anyone?
Absolutely. He has one or two tools that are problematic [ed. note: understatement of the decade?] but I know what they are. I think he’s more of a right-handed guy but he stands in a southpaw stance. He likes to lead with that left leg and he’s comfortable now. He’s used to getting guys on the defensive. There’s nothing he can do that I’m afraid of. I’m not afraid of him taking me down — that would be a shame, wouldn’t it? He’s a showman. He moved up to 205 to make a point. Maybe he feels like he ran through the 185 division and now he’s gonna start picking off the 205 guys.

And you’re not taking that lightly I assume.
No way! If anything I kind of feel like a representative of the light heavyweight division. I want this guy to know there is a reason we have weight classes.

I suppose Irvin can have such a cavalier attitude when he knows that he’ll be rewarded no matter what the outcome (i.e., whether he’s hospitalized after the fight with Silva, or if he actually dies in the cage). Not only does Dana White repay guys who fight hard, he also shows love to “real fucking fighters.” And Irvin definitely considers himself a member of that fraternity:

(Video courtesy of YouTube/00Alistair00)

If you haven’t heard the news, Anderson Silva has a new documentary called, “Like Water,” which set for release later this month at the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan. The name of the film is taken from a famous Bruce Lee quote as an homage to the world’s most famous martial artist who was a huge influence to The Spider’s MMA career.

The synopsis of the movie is after the jump.

(That doesn’t look too pleasant.)

Having cleared out the UFC’s middleweight division in scorched-earth fashion, Anderson Silva is looking ahead to new challenges — specifically, taking on Roy Jones Jr. in a boxing match. As Silva’s manager Ed Soares told MMAWeekly:

“It’s not just talk, we really would like to put that fight together…We respect Jones’ boxing ability and think he’s one of the best. but we’re tired of different boxers saying that MMA fighters aren’t technical. Anderson would love to fight Roy Jones in a boxing match under boxing rules to prove that MMA fighters are technical, too.”

Once considered the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, Jones (now 39 years old) has won championship belts as a middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight, and once held seven different light heavyweight (169-175 pounds) titles at the same time. Besides a disqualification loss to Montell Griffin in 1997, Jones went undefeated in his first 50 fights before losing three straight in 2004-2005. His last fight was a unanimous decision victory over Felix Trinidad in January.

If Anderson Silva is actually considering a temporary switch to boxing, he should probably aim a little lower for his first opponent, lest he go out like Brock Lesnar. And taking some time off from MMA feels a little premature anyway — it’s not like there are literally no challenges left for Silva in the UFC. For one thing, there’s Yushin Okami, the impossible-to-finish contender who previously “beat” Silva through an illegal upkick DQ in January 2006; it would be nice to settle that score. I also think Silva should have to take on Michael Bisping, Patrick Cote, and Demian Maia in the same night. What, you wouldn’t pay $44.95 to see that?

(Post-fight presser footage, via Versus.com)

Anderson Silva seems to be getting too used to disappointing fans.  Check the look on his face when a reporter takes him to task for not doing more to try and finish Thales Leites.  He seems more bored than anything else.  His manager and Chuck Liddell both get angry for him, but it’s as if Silva himself can’t be bothered with it.

Dana White will continue to defend Silva’s status as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter, and he has a lot of good points, particularly about Fedor being “at a buffet in Russia,” and not at all interested in proving himself against the best in the world.  But at the same time, if the world’s best fighter can’t entertain anybody but himself, what’s the point?  

This is the second straight time Silva has left us bored and confused with his performance.  He’s so concerned with fighting a “perfect” fight, he doesn’t care whether anyone actually wants to see it.  That’s a problem.  The UFC set a North American attendance record with 21,451 people packed into the Bell Centre last night, and yet the organization’s best fighter may have spent five rounds proving to the audience in the venue and at home that he isn’t concerned in the least with giving them their money’s worth.

In the latest episode of MMA Live the two sides of the ‘Is Anderson Silva just a big jerk?’ argument adopted here by Stephan Bonner (a fighter) and Franklin McNeil (a writer) tells us something we should have guessed from the start. That is, what you thought about that fight probably depends a great deal on how you see fighting in general.

Bonnar argues that Silva was fighting smart. It’s not his obligation to finish Patrick Cote in one round, even if he can. It’s his obligation to win and not do anything stupid that might jeopardize that.

McNeil takes the fan perspective, arguing that Silva owed a flashy finish to the people who had paid money to see him punch a hole in Cote’s face. He also compares Silva’s “playing around” to Roy Jones Jr.’s, while failing to mention how totally sweet Jones was in his prime.

The thing both men touch on is that because of who Silva is, as well as what the consensus opinion on who Cote is, Silva was in a tough spot. An immediate first-round KO might have seemed satisfactory. Maybe. And if Cote hadn’t blown his knee out, if he had stuck around until Silva put him away, we might not even be talking about this. It’s more a confluence of events that has us talking about Silva as if he’s suddenly public enemy number one, and because of all this talk, I honestly feel sorry for his next opponent.

From Yahoo! Sports:

[Dana White] said he’s found “the next Anderson Silva,” a lightweight who is competing in Season 8 of TUF at 155 pounds, though he declined to release the fighter’s name because it might spoil the season. “I was going off when I saw this guy,” White said. “He’s 24 and he’s destroying people. It’s sick how bad ass he is. I’m getting goose bumps talking to you about him.”

Early message-board speculation is pointing to Joe “Hybrid” Duarte, a 24-year-old San Diego-based fighter who claims on his website that he’s been selected for Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir. Duarte is 3-0 in pro MMA, 9-0 in pro boxing, and 19-1 in Muay Thai. According to his bio page, he walks around at 185lb-190lb (remember, he’s a lightweight) and is “really, really, really RIDICULOUSLY strong,” thanks to his Chamorro ethnic background. And yes, he does destroy people. His last two MMA matches are after the jump:

(Ooooooh this guy just makes me so mad!)

Considering the ongoing feeding frenzy in the middleweight division, MMA fans have been waiting to hear what’s next for UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Well hold onto your asses, because the answer is…nothing? With a matchup against #1 contender Chris Weidman officially nixed, the Spider has decided to just chillax until 2013, and then select his next opponent, because that’s what champions do. As Dana White explained:

“Anderson said he wants to take some time off until after the end of this year, [then] we’ll start talking to him. [Chris Weidman] is in a great spot. The kid looked fantastic, demolished the number three guy. Demolished in spectacular fashion. He’s got the right to call out whoever he wants [but] he’s gonna have to wait, or fight [somebody else first], because Anderson’s gonna fight after the end of the year.”

Look Andy, you don’t want to fight Weidman, we get it. In the grand scheme of life, love, and pay-per-view buys, he’s small potatoes. And you think that if you take half a year off, maybe Weidman will have to fight again (and maybe lose), or perhaps he’ll die of natural causes. This is your plan, basically.

(Video courtesy of  YouTube/MMAUltimateSet.com)

Re-watching Anderson Silva’s puzzling performance against Demian Maia at UFC 112 last night, I was reminded of the above outtake reel from the aspiring Brazilian Rich Little’s instructional video compilation he filmed with training partner Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. 

In the clip, which at times seems eerily similar to the Paulo Filho-like, Bizarro World showing he had in Abu Dhabi, “The Spider” clowns on MMA luminaries like Royce Gracie, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, and even his own training partner, Lyoto Machida.

It’s official now, and he has the “Mantlers” to prove it. Here’s the Spider picking up his award at SpikeTV’s Guys Choice Awards on Sunday. Our kudos to Silva for his perfect pronunciation of “Sorry, my English is no good,” and to Chris Leben for providing Anderson with an entire highlight reel via their match at UFC Fight Night 5. Klitschko never had a chance.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

Slow-motion destruction — always a good time. Here’s UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva doing what he does best in a pair of new ads for Budweiser Brasil. Please, keep your can-crushing jokes to yourself.

The Bud campaign is just one of several high-profile sponsorships that Andy has landed recently, including deals with Burger King and Nike. After the jump, Anderson Silva’s first “viral video” for Nike. Man, are Brazilian copy-writers lazy or what?

Anderson Silva at X-Gym – Watch more Funny Videos

I know. At first, you’re like "Whoa, CagePotato scored an interview with Anderson Silva in English? This is historic!" And then you’re like, "oh." CP’s Brazilian correspondent Brian D’Souza does his best, but it’s hard not to be disappointed when Anderson is fed a question about a potential superfight with Georges St. Pierre, and responds by saying that while GSP is the best welterweight in the world, BJ Penn is the best fighter in the world. (Does that mean he’d rather fight Penn? Aloha, brother.) Also: His training for Vitor Belfort is going well, moving back to light-heavyweight is not his decision, and Team Nogueira is more like Family Nogueira. Now let’s never speak of this again…

(Props: TATAMETV)

When we first saw that video of Anderson Silva’s fighter impressions we didn’t think it was anything more than an amusing party trick. But it turns out that the Spider’s gift for mimicry has a real-world application: He can use it to impersonate people that his teammates will be fighting. The above clip shows Silva doing his best Randy Couture in a sparring session with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira before UFC 102. It’s just another reason why you’d want to be on Anderson’s team, rather than going up against it — though personally, we think Randy should sue Silva for libel over the way he threw those kicks at the 0:27 and 1:47 marks.

Semi-related: Anderson Silva’s dumbstruck reaction to Nate Marquardt calling him out at UFC 102, after the jump.

(L-R: Andre Galvao, Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante, Anderson Silva, Gesias "JZ" Cavalcante, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

“God forgive me for saying it, but we’re years ahead of some fighters. We can also make mistakes of course. When we study our performances we see them, however it doesn’t always appear to the untrained eye.”

So said Anderson Silva in a recent interview with Fighters Only, speaking of his teammates in the Black House collective, which also includes UFC light-heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida. Check out more photos of Silva and his crew below, courtesy of Sherdog’s trip to the L.A. camp. Only five more days until Silva collides with Forrest Griffin at UFC 101.

(Demian Maia puts a hurtin’ on Jason MacDonald at UFC 87. Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner in the "Which Barely Credible Challenger Wants to Get Thrashed by Anderson Silva on Two Months’ Notice?" sweepstakes. From UFC.com:

* Sure. He’s also a mediocre kickboxer.

** Come on, nobody uses the phrase "top six." Just say "top five" and hope nobody questions it.

So let’s break this down…