Anderson Silva Likely Sidelined Until Mid-2012

Unfortunate..

Talk all over the web is that he's ducking Chael as Sonnen called him out for UFC Brazil 2.

Silva fears Sonnen.

I don´t like Sonnen but he can beat Silva, no doubt.

UFC champs have it rough when it comes to having to sit out for long periods of time due to injury. almost makes me wish there were some way to have interim champs implemented more often or something.

i'm getting sick of these so called "undisputed" UFC champs who keep ducking worthy opponents who call them out. Both GSP and Silva need to man up and cut the BS. Atleast Cain came in fighting INJURED.

AudaxPowder wrote:UFC champs have it rough when it comes to having to sit out for long periods of time due to injury. almost makes me wish there were some way to have interim champs implemented more often or something.

I'm pretty sure a lot of these guys have in many cases non-serious injuries whe they pull out of fights. Its just that Zuffa policies and contracts where they can cut you arbitrarily on a whim forces these guys to be super skittish about not fighting completely 100%+. If you do the numbers as time has gone on, 'the best are NOT meeting the best' in the UFC 3-4 times a year. Not even close. More like 1-2 or 1.5 times a year.

This never happened in PRIDE. PRIDE spent a lot of money building up their stars and they stuck with them. The fans also had a lot invested in their favorite fighters regardless of whether they won most of their fights. PRIDE gave it's major fighters 3, 4 maybe 5 fights in a year. They also had much more tolerance for losing streaks IMO. Alistair Overeem would have been cut 3 or 4 times by the UFC during his big losing record for 10 fights. I mean gone never to return.

Any pro athlete, or lay person for that matter, does not perform optimally when assured death comes if they lose. Or, if the don't know if the bar for them is 1, 2 or 3 losses.

The employer has set their contract up completely one-sided. They can be tied down to Zuffa forever if they keep winning, or cut at anytime by them on a whim. Can you imagine if Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers knew he had a 90%+ chance of facing the chopping block after 1, 3 or 3 losses. How would he perform? Less than his best I'm sure. Would he want to play if he had a cold or a sore shoulder? No. Even if he had mildly sore toe he would feign major pain to get the Dr's to pull him from starting the game. Why would he risk his career on one game if he wasn't 100%+???

Mob-style people/fighter management in the UFC thru fear of being bumped off arbitrarily eats away at the quality, consistency & number of fights a fighter will actually show up for each year. Even if they miss the paycheck. It ain't worth the long-term risk. Zuffa is not smart enough to realize this.

The other thing that hurts the UFC output from top-tier fighters and the quality of each card, is their very low labor budget in relation to income for each card. As well, the number of fighters under contract and the number of weight divisions don't help thins on this front. This all seriously waters down the amount of top-tier talent and top-tier match-ups for each card.

The last thing that kills the UFC average show quality is too many fucking cards. Short-term greedy, yes. Good for long-term customer satisfaction not quite.