On the surface, that question is easy to answer.
A win tomorrow night by Thales Leites would be a career-defining moment, something that can be used to push him for the rest of his career. He’ll always be the man who beat the pound-for-pound king, the man who ended Silva's chance to break the record for most consecutive victories inside the Octagon.
But on the other hand, a win over Silva would probably do very little to improve the chances of Leites being a breakthrough superstar and a legitimate pay-per-view ratings draw. Zuffa (and Dana White in particular) has been promoting Silva as the best fighter in the world for over a year now, and the marketing campaign has done very little in terms of elevating PPV buy rates for main events that Silva takes part in.
He’s well-known, and people surely recognize his talent, but talent alone doesn’t correlate to achieving Chuck Liddell-type status. In order to become a massive draw on the level of a Liddell or a Brock Lesnar, a fighter has to have the ability to sell a fight, and Silva has that ability, but only on the level of people wanting to tune in to see how fast he beats someone.
And in the modern mixed martial arts world created by Zuffa, that’s not enough.
If Leites somehow pulls a rabbit out of his hat tomorrow night and defeats Anderson Silva, the only promotional tool he gains is the fact that he beat Anderson Silva. People won’t respond to his personality, and people certainly won’t tune in to see how fast he can beat an opponent.
A win over Anderson Silva surely means something, but it doesn’t mean that Thales Leites will instantly become a gigantic superstar.
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