Think about the name Silva in Brazilian mixed martial arts and the name that immediately comes to mind is Anderson, not Antonio.
UFC middleweight title-holder Anderson Silva is the elitist, the one who has been a champion for so long and who has the reputation as the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in UFC history. He is the one with the multi-million dollar contracts, the nickname Spider and the moves that can be described in one word: freakish.
Then there is Antonio Silva, the poor man’s version of Anderson Silva. Antonio Silva’s biggest success came in EliteXC – a promotion that no longer exists – and he subsequently went on to fight for other companies that folded. He once fought in a classification, super heavyweight, which also went the way of the dinosaur. He has faced – and beaten – some legendary heavyweight opponents who have long since departed the fight scene or whose best days are behind him.
His nickname, Bigfoot, which is product of his huge feet, that seem overly proportioned on his 6-foot-4 frame, which is really not that big, at least not in terms of the Tim Sylvias and Stefan Struves of the MMA world.
He is also a freak, though that has to do with facial features resulting from a pituitary syndrome called acromegaly that produces excess growth hormone and can result in disfigurement or exaggerated body figures. The most famous person to suffer from this is the late Andre the Giant. Silva’s manager, Alex Davis, was once quoted as saying Silva spends between $6,000-$8,000 a month on medication for his condition.
Antonio Silva is a working-class individual. There is nothing fancy about the way he fights. There are no breathtaking, highlight-reel moves. He is slow and plodding, but packs a punch befitting of his size.
That Silva has come to be in the main event of UFC 160 this Saturday in Las Vegas facing heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is shocking, to say the least. Velasquez laid a significant beating – let’s call it for what it was, a bloody pummeling – on Silva at UFC 146 almost a year to the date of this fight. The referee mercilessly stopped the bout at 3:36 of the first round because of enough ground and pound by Velasquez to cause even a battle-hardened viewer to gasp.
Now he returns, following two victories, the last one against Alistair Overeem, a former Strikeforce champion who found his path to glory in the UFC stopped by a stunning loss against the longshot Silva. That shocking loss, followed by Velasquez’s victory over Junior dos Santos, who had beaten him in only 64 seconds in the November 2011 card that kicked off the UFC broadcast relationship with FOX, has produced a domino effect that has put Silva in the main event.
This card, coinciding with the American Memorial Day weekend, has become one of the most spectacular annual events on the UFC calendar. This is the showcase of the heavyweight division, which has gradually built up a significant talent level to create opportunities for good fights in which the outcome is not necessarily predictable. In fact, the championship belt has changed hands in the heavyweight division more than any other classification in recent history, and perhaps that’s because of the physics in which weight plus velocity equal power.
So the least likely scenario, if you had forecasted the division after dos Santos needed only slightly more than a minute to stop Velasquez, would have had Antonio Silva fighting in the main event 18 months later. The co-main event of this card has dos Santos, presumably humbled from his loss to Velasquez six months ago in a five-round fight that went the distance even though it wasn’t expected to last more than a round or so, against the Super Samoan, Mark Hunt. He is riding a four-fight win streak, albeit against a class of competition that is a clear cut below his latest opponent. This card looks to be nothing more than a chance for Velasquez and dos Santos to win and set up a trilogy match between the two.
That would apparently make this the zenith of where Silva will go in his career – the chance to collect his biggest payday and then slowly fall down the ranks. Or will he?
“I like it when people underestimate me,” he said through a translator in a conference call last week. “I get to go out and prove them wrong. There are no superheroes in this sport, nobody is invincible. I’ve been putting in a lot of work the last nine weeks. I’ve been preparing myself and I’m very confident I’ll have my arm raised (in victory).
“In our first fight, I was nervous and I was anxious. I’ve replaced those emotions. Now I’m calm and I’m driven.”
Vegas sportsbooks have a range of odds that have Velasquez favoured from -600 to -750, or roughly 1-7, which is fairly prohibitive and terrible value if you want to wager on him. Silva is a 4-1 underdog and slightly higher. He pulled off a huge upset beating Overeem, and anyone who took a flyer on him cashed with a significant grin. Overeem may have been a false favourite in that fight, but Velasquez appeared to have little hope of beating dos Santos. The answers all come out in the cage.
Velazquez is 30, but appears younger, while Silva is 33, but appears to be 10 years older, perhaps a product of his medical condition. He started fighting professionally eight years ago and has climbed the rungs through the minor leagues to reach the pinnacle of his career. You’d have to be a fool to count him out without at least thinking he has already beaten the odds just to be in this fight. He’ll have to beat the odds again, especially considering what he lacks in his game in contrast to the athletic champion.
“Comparing my style of fighting to (Cain Velasquez’s) style, I would have to be born again to become faster than Cain,” he said. “I’m 30 pounds heavier. He’s going to be faster than me, so I have to work with what I have, and what I have is very, very heavy hands.
“The first punch that I really land, he’s going to go down.”
In the UFC middleweight division, opponents have come to respect the name Silva. That is starting to happen in the heavyweight division now, and it didn’t come from any type of selling himself with his words.
“In my opinion, the less you talk the better,” Bigfoot said. “Respect is always first and foremost. You have to respect your opponent.”
All it’s going to take for Antonio Silva to put himself alongside Anderson Silva among the many Brazilian champions in professional MMA history and, in particular, the UFC, will be a win Saturday night.
For the freak, it will be no fluke.