Anderson Silva Not To Blame for Performance at UFC 97

After watching the Silva-Leites fight last night, I knew the casual MMA fans would be pissed and bored. I expected to see 100 articles on Bleacher Report this morning saying how Silva "didn't have it" anymore and was going to lose the title soon.

Here's what happened last night:

You had one fighter who, no matter what, didn't want to stand and another fighter that didn't want to go to the ground. Thales Leites was outclassed completely by "The Spider" and was afraid to really engage him the entire fight. Don't blame Leites, he was fighting the greatest middleweight in the world.

Anderson Silva has a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but he's known for his perfect standup game.

But Silva isn't to blame either; he was simply reluctant to go to the ground with Leites, who has a higher level of skill in Brazilian jiu-jitsu higher than a lot of people and is similar to Demian Maia. Anderson's gameplan was to stand and strike or exchange blows with Leites, and that's what he looked to do the whole fight.

Silva is a counter-puncher; he rarelly pushes the pace, and he waits to see what his opponent does so he can fight back. The problem is that last night, Leites didn't do anything. He stood there without throwing many kicks or punches and backed up whenever Silva attacked.

Silva is great in the clinch and tried to get it several times in the fight, but Leites fell to the ground every time Silva went for it.

Don't fault Silva for the boring fight; he didn't want to engage because he gave Leites all the respect he deserves on the ground. Leites would probably have taken Silva down if Anderson had exploded on him.

Last night proved what all the hardcore MMA fans were saying: Leites did not belong in the octagon with Anderson Silva. Thales looked afraid the whole fight, going for takedowns that didn't even come close to working. Silva came out of this fight with no damage at all and landed strikes that left Leites bloodied.

I do believe that Silva could have ended the fight in the fourth round when he began pounding Leites. Leites had nothing left, and Silva would have won it no problem, but Silva respected Leites' ground game and didn't want to stay there.

Dana White looked pissed after the fight, and I can understand his frustration, but there have been many fights like this one.

The thing with Silva is, he has dominated the best UFC middleweights when he arrived and ended fights in the two first rounds. The fighters know his style now and aren't stupid, yet people still expect Silva to beat everybody in the first round. So when he doesn't, he gets blamed even if it's not his fault.

Did Silva looked tired after the fight? Did he suffer any damage during the fight? Was he close to losing at a single point in this fight? Ask yourself those questions and reevaluate his performance.