UFC 97 Preview Pt. 3: The Main Events

UFC 97 looks to the marketability of two of its top stars, Chuck Liddell and UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva, to make the event a memorable one.  While Silva is looking to cement his greatness with yet another title defense (and a ninth straight UFC win), Liddell is simply hoping to get his career back on track and inch his way back towards the light heavyweight title picture.  Will they succeed?  Let’s take a look at these two marquee battles.

Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua

Let’s get this disclaimer out of the way first: this one is very hard to handicap because you don’t really know what to expect from either man.  Liddell has built a historic career for himself, but has fallen onto hard times due to his reluctance to eliminate bad habits, such as leading with body shots and leaving his hands down.  Meanwhile, Shogun was once considered by many to be the top light heavyweight in the world, and was vaunted for his explosiveness, aggressiveness and all-around striking skills.  However, he has looked nothing short of lethargic and tired in the majority of his two UFC appearances, where he lost to Forrest Griffin by a late submission and outlasted the surprisingly game Mark Coleman in an underwhelming decision win.

So, the question here becomes, who is more likely to adapt and make the necessary changes here?  Liddell has said that he has worked hard to tighten up his standup technique, but he also said that after his KO loss to Rampage Jackson, where he made the mistake of leading with a body shot and not getting his hands back up quickly.  Do we believe Shogun, who says that he’s in great shape and injury-free?

I’m going to give both guys the benefit of the doubt here, and believe that Liddell has worked on his flaws, and Shogun is going to show up in shape.  In that case, I think that Shogun’s aggressiveness really puts Liddell in a comfortable position.  Liddell is at his best when his opponents come straight at him, opening up holes for counter-attacks and tiring themselves out.  Therefore, unless Shogun can aggressively attack Liddell and put him away early (which isn’t out of the realm of possibility), he’ll eventually be finding himself on the receiving end of some hillbilly haymakers and overhand rights.

Also, Liddell claims that he will be using all of his tools more often, which means that we may see Liddell shoot for a couple of takedowns in this one, like he did in his fight with Wanderlei Silva.  If he does, he won’t finish the fight on the ground, but he should be able to stay busy, avoid submissions and score some points with the judges by doing so.  I also think that if this fight goes into the third round, Liddell will be fresher than Shogun, who will be pushing the pace throughout.  Because of all this, I think Liddell takes this one by a late TKO, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he won a decision instead.

UFC Middleweight Championship: Anderson Silva (champion) vs. Thales Leites

Anderson, Anderson, Anderson.  It is hard- no, impossible to think of a more talented fighter in the game today, but we constantly hear talk of an early retirement, a boxing match with Roy Jones, Jr., and now a sudden rivalry with former Chute Boxe teammate Wanderlei Silva.  Then there’s the absolute head-scratcher against Patrick Cote, where Silva fooled around for nearly eleven full minutes before Cote blew out his knee and had to stop fighting.  After fights where Silva quickly and brutally dispatched of the likes of James Irvin, Nate Marquardt, Rich Franklin and Chris Leben, Silva’s dancing and goofing off were unexpected, to say the least.  The fight had a feel of a cat taunting with a mouse, all while knowing that it could end the entire thing whenever it feels like it.  Of course, that backfired and the fight ended in a very unsatisfying manner.  Speculation abounded: was Silva mocking his opponent?  Was he simply bored with the level of competition he was facing?

If the latter is the case, one has to wonder what Silva will do against young Thales Leites.  Leites has just one career loss, a decision against Martin Kampmann, but has kind of backed in to this title shot.  He has beaten fighters such as Floyd Sword, Ryan Jensen, and Drew McFedries by submission, but none of those fighters pose the type of threat that Silva does, of course.  Meanwhile, his best win was an extremely close decision victory over Nate Marquardt at UFC 85.  Stop me if I sound crazy here, but it almost seems as if (gasp!) the UFC simply doesn’t know who else to throw in there against Silva.

Listen, I’m not going to say that Leites has no chance to win here.  He has a chance to win in the way that snow has a chance of falling in June, or the Detroit Lions have a chance of winning a Super Bowl in the next few years.  I mean, we’ve seen fights where combatants have  had to withdraw due to sliced eyelids from missed punches, and bouts where rare submissions have been used against the top fighter of a weight class by a smack-talking stoner from Stockton, CA.  Oh, wait.  Apparently, we didn’t see that.  The athletic commission says so.

You get my point, though.  It is beyond the realm of my imagination to come up with a scenario where Leites will have an advantage in this fight.  Leites is not known for having great takedowns, and even if he does work the fight to the mat, Silva can more than hold his own with most MMA fighters, as he’s a BJJ black belt himself.  Meanwhile, for every second the fight is standing, Leites is in extreme and imminent danger of having his face rearranged.  Silva will win this one via strikes, but which round it happens in is up to how seriously Silva wants to take the fight.

by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com

Tags: Anderson Silva, Chris Leben, Chuck Liddell, Forrest Griffin, Mark Coleman, Martin Kampmann, Patrick Cote, Rich Franklin, UFC, Wanderlei Silva