Ed Soares

(Doing the bird dance. Feeling the flow. Working it. Photo courtesy of LasVegasSun.)

Don't know about y'all, but Anderson Silva's flawless victory over Forrest Griffin at UFC 101 made the prospect of a second fight with Dan Henderson even less interesting to me; if the Spider's competitive days are truly numbered, I'd much rather see him rumble with guys like Quinton Jackson, Tito Ortiz, and yes, even Lyoto Machida, rather than sit through sequels to old fights. Luckily, it seems that Silva feels the same way (except for the Machida part). According to this Yahoo! Sports article, Silva's manager Ed Soares approached UFC president Dana White after Saturday's event and suggested that Silva vacate his middleweight title and move to light-heavyweight permanently. White was very receptive to the idea, saying:

(A brief glimpse of an offense. Photo courtesy of SI.com's UFC 97 gallery.)

Since Anderson Silva doesn’t seem terribly interested in defending his UFC 97 performance against critics, and because his lack of English skills makes that difficult anyway, his manager, Ed Soares, has been doing it for him.  Soares said in a recent interview that he didn’t think Silva’s fight with Leites was “a bad fight,” and even partially blamed the UFC for putting a “one-dimensional” fighter against the champ.  He also made the case for Silva’s dominance by pointing out the lack of damage he took in the fight:

"After watching the fight on TV, I thought [Silva] fought a good fight. He didn't finish him, but I thought he fought a good fight. Technically, I really didn't see anything wrong with the way he fought. Who goes in there and fights five rounds with somebody and doesn't even have a mark on his face? Not too many people can do that."

[…]

"I don't know. People have to look at it that way instead of always thinking that Anderson is going to go in there and knock people out or submit them really quick. It just doesn't happen sometimes."

Soares is right.  It is unrealistic to think that even Silva is going to finish everyone in spectacular fashion, especially if he’s facing an opponent who doesn’t want to engage with him.  But that’s only part of the problem. 

('Let my people go!')

EliteXC fighters have apparently had enough of waiting around to see what becomes of their contracts, and are now threatening to get tough.  MMA Payout reports that many of the fighters have joined forces with the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters’ Association to bring a formal complaint against the organization for holding them in limbo all this time.  EliteXC is said to have been given a week to respond before the fighters file their complaint in court.

Some high-profile agents, such as Ken Pavia and Ed Soares, are thought to be involved with filing the complaint, just as they were in banding together to stop the auction of the remaining fighter contracts.

Let’s hope the outcome is that EliteXC finally admits the jig is up and lets everyone get on with their lives.  But if that was acceptable to them you’d have to wonder why they haven’t done it already.  At least the clock is ticking now, so we should at least be moving in the direction of some sort of resolution.

(A chubby Filho tries to muster the interest to block a jab. Photo courtesy of WEC.tv)

True to their word, Paulo Filho's camp will be sending Chael Sonnen the WEC middleweight title belt that he wants so badly, according to Josh Gross. Sonnen didn't officially win the championship, what with Filho not making weight, and he may not have looked dazzling in his decision victory but he still clearly deserves the strap more than Filho. Ed Soares, Filho's manager, said he'd be shipping Sonnen the belt "as soon as he could."

What's perhaps more interesting is Soares' description of Filho after the bizarre fight. Apparently, he didn't even seem to realize what had happened, which is sort of odd for a guy who made it all the way through three rounds:

Having returned to his locker room after refusing to engage for 15 minutes, Filho (16-1), told several times he'd lost, reacted as if he was unaware the fight had even reached its conclusion, Soares said.

Soon, Filho drew attention from doctors when the dilation of his pupils didn't match. Later that evening, however, the 30-year-old grappler was released from a local hospital, his eyes functioning as close to normal as they'd done all night.

Just when you thought it couldn't get weirder. The confusion on Filho's part might help explain his performance, though. If he was unaware the fight had ended, perhaps he was also unaware it had ever started. Wait until he sees the tape of the fight. Boy, is his face going to be unemployed. I mean red.

('You dance very good, little woman. You are negative for the STD's, yes?')

Poor Anderson Silva. The UFC middleweight champ just can't find enough playmates in the UFC middleweight neighborhood. Yes, there's that nice Patrick Cote boy, but then what? Silva is basically being forced to go door to door and ask, in broken English, if there are any middleweights or light heavyweights who can come out and play. Next up could very well be Chuck Liddell, according to Silva's manager, Ed Soares:

“I think he wants to fight those big mega fights because that’s the kind of fight we want to be involved with right now,” he said about Silva’s future fights. “I think it’s a combination of seeing what the potential opponent is and also seeing what the UFC wants to do. At the end of the day, this is a business, and they need to sell fights. They need to sell a lot of pay-per-views, and they need to sell tickets. So, we want to be involved with those types of fights.”

“We’re not looking past Patrick Cote, but I think we’ll take one step at a time and see what happens. But yeah, if a Chuck Liddell fight came up, we’d take it,” stated Soares. “Whoever the UFC wants to put in front of us, he wants to fight the best, and whoever that may be at the time, that’s who he wants to fight.”

The very idea of a Silva-Liddell superfight is probably enough to give Dana White an erection, and for good reason. The pay-per-view numbers on this would likely be record-breaking, and no matter how it goes someone gets a big boost. Liddell, however, is probably a little less enthusiastic.

For one, he recently made known his belief that a victory over Rashad Evans should be enough to net him a title shot. Chances are he didn't mean the middleweight title. For another, beating the champ from a lower weight class is sort of like being the toughest kid in eighth grade after being held back a year. There's always a 'but' attached to that victory.

Silva has more to gain from this fight than Liddell does, but if there's one thing we know about "The Iceman" it's that he'll do the UFC's bidding, whatever it happens to be. He'll also probably make a ton of money to do it, and everyone can go home fat and happy if this fight materializes on a pay-per-view at year's end.