to be a little glib, this is spoken like someone who has forgotten silva gets millions of dollars every time he fights.

that's what he has to win.

a little bit more seriously and from a sporting perspective, Silva is no longer fighting his opponents. He's fighting history. Bisping, Munoz, Lombard, don't have much to offer, but Silva is extending his legend and securing his legacy. Instead of just being the best fighter in MMA history very probably, why not make it the best fighter in MMA history beyond a shadow of a doubt? Why not stretch the records to the point where they will never be broken? Most consecutive title defenses. Longest reign as a UFC champion. Most consectutive wins in the UFC, best record in UFC history. He holds all those records, now he can put them permanently out of reach with another couple great years. He's fighting history at this point.

That is true, I'm just talking strictly fightwise in terms of fighters and the challenge they present compared to the reward in terms of legacy.

Its not a legacy if you retire while you're still healthy and in your prime. If he retired rather than fight these guys there's the 'he ducked x' claims etc.

Not to mention the millions he'll earn + extend his winning streak in the UFC to make the record stand longer. Jones and co. will be after his record in 5-10 years probably.

Also Bisping arguably beat Sonnen, and Sonnen is a 'legit' challenger. Granted I dont think he has a chance vs Silva either, but if Bisping wins his next fight he's earned it. Same for Munoz, Belcher, Lombard etc.

Basically theres no reason to retire until hes physically past his prime and he proved he isnt

That's the problem with legacies in sports. Chuck, Tito and Fedor all hung on too long, going out on losing streaks, or in Fedor's case losing to top competition and ending his career with b- or c-level competition. But if they went out on top, people would say they quit too early, that they were ducking top competition, etc.

There are very few graceful exits from the sport for a top fighter, I think the only way silva could do it is by saying "I have x amount of fights left" and by winning them all and retiring.

I got a bit hasty but I agree, if silva feels he's the best, then he should keep fighting, but it's merely in points that none of the challengers are being convincing to beat AS. Bisping is virtually the easiest matchup for silva with him being a standup fighter with pillow hands. There's always going to be challengers, some more convicing aka Jon Jones when Shogun was the champion or when JDS fought for the HW title. I just don't think Bisping or Lombard are in that category.

Sonnen cleary won round 1 of this fight too without the busted up rib excuse. I just think Sonnen is a really bad matchup for Silva and even though Silva is 2-0 both wins were flukey. More a matter of Sonnen making mistakes than Silva being so dominate.

It's not like I bet on Sonnen or anything, I bet Silva in fight 1 and consider it a major suckout but I think in an odd way Sonnen has his number. No talk of Silva using the vaseline on himself or holding the band of Sonnen's trunks either?

Disagree. The fact of the matter is virtually nobody is capable of fighting a perfect 25 minutes, and part of the reason Silva is so good is that he can capitalize on ANY mistake. Sonnen is not good enough to be perfect for 25 minutes, and silva is good enough to take advantage of that and win. I think Silva wins 9 or 10 times out of 10 against sonnen, simply because sonnen, like most fighters, can't fight a perfect 25 minutes.

Flukes when he finished him twice, the second in dominating fashion? Come on man. He dropped the first against Hendo too, doesn't mean it's a fluke.

Weidman is the chosen one. He's the guy who could challenge Silva down the line if he keeps improving. Problem is by the time he's rdy 1 yr+ from now, who knows if Silva will still be the same or if he will even be fighting.

silva -250 was the bet of the year (well, maybe werdum -140 vs roy was about as good)

but i'm happy to see all the mentally challenged individuals saying it was a double fluke, gives me hope i'll be able to cash in on this ridiculous hype a 3rd time

cung le +200 was sick value too, everyone who took my advice can ship me a few bucks on the new US online sites next year

Weidman just hasn't impressed me

Alessio Sakara sucks, Jesse Bongfeldt is bleh, Tom Lawlor loses to average wrestlers and his win over Maia was one of Maia's worst performances and it still wasn't a one sided beatdown or anything

Sure, he's a prospect. But I think Munoz is going to derail his hype train. 1u on Munoz so far, may add more depending where the odds end up.

I'd be willing to bet Weidman doesn't get a title shot before the end of 2013 if ever in any case as he'll have to go through another top level guy to get the shot even if he beats Munoz and much like much like the way Mitrione was hyped I just don't think he'll ever get to the title.

Actually the best bets of the past year have been Evans over Davis and Belfort over imo at the prices that were available.

Also Lee over Yamamoto was sick value too.

If Silva opens at anything less than -500 against any of Bisping/Stann/Lombard/Munoz/Weidman/Boetsch/any other current MW contender, i'll be surprised.

i was on both of the bets you mentioned also (check the archives), but i still think werdum was probably the sickest value around, and that the hype train on last night's fight made a -450 line into a -250 one, which is obv unreal value for such well studied fighters.

oh right I forgot about that I was on Werdum vs Nelson too, that was amazing value, Nelson just isn't the right type of fighter to beat Werdum

LOL you compared Weidman to Mitrione.

The trolling around here is getting out of control, cmon guys.

Anyways, dogging on Weidman is pretty ignorant. IDK if he will ever make it to the top but there's no doubt he has the talent. The guy came into the UFC in his FIFTH pro fight and all he's done is dominate 3 mediocre guys and then beat a perennial contender whom he stepped in to fight on ELEVEN DAYS NOTICE. If that doesn't impress you then you have a skewed view of reality.

Gonna have to do a lil research, but definitely leaning munoz +125 here. Idk why this guy is so often underrated.

He's properly rated by most, I would say. We've seen more than enough of Munoz to know who he is in the cage: a good athlete with very big power, a very hittable chin, and the seeming inability to translate his wrestling ability fully into MMA.

I'm not saying Munoz is a lock but he's a proven commodity, and proven 4th-8th ranked guy. I'm also not denying that Weidman has potential, but I think Munoz wins over half the time, and he's the underdog.

Munoz beat Maia too fwiw and Maia fought a lot better against Munoz than he did against Weidman.

I was using Mitrione as an example of a prospect a lot of people thought would fight for the title sooner rather than later. I think we'll be talking about Weidman the same way we talk about Mitrione in six months time. I could be wrong of course, it's just my opinion.

Randy Couture's record is barely better.

I count 3 names in Tito's entire list of opponents that didn't go on to have successful careers, and only 2 of his 11 losses were to people who never held a title (and only 1 in Matt Hamill which was after his prime if we're counting Guy Mezger's UFC tournament win as a title). He also beat 3 champions/former champs and held the UFC LHW title.

Honestly if we look at Randy's record, he only has slightly better wins than Tito, and more losses to non champions (3 as opposed to 2) and his record is 19-11 and seven of his opponents never went on to have successful careers.

I don't see anyone questioning his HOF induction, and it's simply because he's more popular than Tito. Sure, Tito isn't among the greatest of all time, but he kept the UFC alive in a time when it was struggling, was a champion and had some of the most famous fights of all time. He deserves his place.

Defining his career as mediocrity is ridiculous. By that definition, BJ Penn's career is mediocre, as are Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Matt Hughes, etc. - just because they're not at the top of their divisions anymore doesn't mean they aren't among the best of their generation of fighters, Tito just stuck around longer than most of them did, and lost a lot of fights late in his career, but you have to remember they were all somewhat competitive fights and against mostly elite competition. Are Shogun, Fedor, Wandy and Chuck's accomplishments less meaningful because they're still fighting (except Chuck and now Fedor) and have started to rack up losses after they were past their prime?

TLDR; Tito absolutely deserves to be in the UFC HOF

LOL nobody ever thought Mitrione was fighting for a title "sooner rather than later."

Also Maia deserve to beat Munoz according to many. Judges love Munoz though.

bitches love munoz

I had money on Maia vs Munoz. Munoz won, but it was close. Maia fought a lot better than when he lost 29-28 to Weidman and got an identical result. Granted that doesn't mean much in itself, but Munoz has better wins than Weidman and outside of losing a SD to Okami who was top 5 at the time, his only other loss in the UFC was in his debut when he was still relatively green/inexperienced. Wins wise, Simpson + Leben > Lawlor and Sakara. Again, doesn't mean much since it's just on paper, but I just haven't been as impressed by Weidman's performances as I have by Munoz's lately.

On the first point i'll refer you to any MMA forum before Mitrione lost for the first time. Just because you personally didn't think that (and I didn't either) didn't mean a lot of people weren't thinking (and saying) that Mitrione would fight for the title after a few more wins.

I like Munoz as well. He has the heavier hands and can use his wrestling to make it a sloppy kickboxing match which he should finish. This will not be a pretty fight, but I like Munoz by violent finish.

Munoz can't hit takedowns on Weidman, I think Weidman has the better hands. Staying away for sure.
Rampage/Texiera is going to be epic.

This guy knows. Munoz's boxing is awful.

You can't go by wins when they have fought such different levels of competition, that's simply lazy analysis. Weidman has not had the chance to fight the same level of fighters as Munoz. We have to look deeper than that. You have to look at how their styles and abilities match up in a case like this.

Btw lol @ making it seem like Okami wasn't clearly better than Munoz, that decision was laughable. Cecil Peoples was the only one in the world who thought Munoz won that.

I agree Maia looked a lot better against Munoz but you are for some reason continuously overlooking the fact that Weidman took that fight on 11 days notice.

Obv a Munoz win wouldn't surprise me given that Weidman has yet to put forth a good performance against a fighter of this caliber, but I can't get past Munoz's seeming inability to hit takedowns on a consistent basis against UFC competition and the fact that his boxing has always been inexcusably sloppy.

Seriously, he gets hit so often. Maia was super close to finishing munoz in their first fight (I had money on munoz btw).
Ntm Munoz is what, 35? If weidman wins I am curious to see who they put against Anderson. I would hate to wait for the winner of hopefully Stann/Bisping, then it'd be like 2013 before the next anderson fight.