It has been nearly a year since UFC Middleweight Champion Michael Bisping defeated former UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva at UFC Fight Night 84.
Silva has claimed that he was the one who should have won the fight against Bisping, but after watching Silva competing at UFC 208, Bisping says that Silva is starting to tarnish his legacy.
“I’m not trying to kick a man while he’s down, I’m really not. I bought the pay-per-view to watch Anderson Silva. Regardless of what’s happened between the two of us, I’m a fan of Anderson Silva, and he still always brings that excitement. Even still, right up until the final bell of the 15 minutes fight you still thought, ‘Hold on, is he gonna pull something amazing out of the bag?’ But he didn’t and what he did was, he allowed Brunson to outwork him so when he went to a decision, everybody thought Derek Brunson was gonna get the decision. Of course, it went to Anderson Silva which was shocking, and I guess maybe you could see an argument for Anderson winning rounds one and two, but it was just a bizarre performance and his legacy is slowly turning into that of somebody that’s - well he’s tarnishing his legacy. Let’s put it like that,” Bisping said on The Countdown.
Bisping has won two fights since defeating Silva that night, including winning the UFC Middleweight Title by defeating Luke Rockhold at UFC 199. The middleweight champion says that it seems like Silva is afraid to pull the trigger in the cage.
“What Anderson was doing was just kind of stalking him down and not doing anything. He was kind of disrespecting everybody there, disrespecting his opponent. At time he grabbed the Thai clinch on Derek Brunson, had the Thai clinch, but didn’t do anything. Didn’t throw an elbow, certainly didn’t throw a knee and he allowed Brunson to just tee off with like 10-, 15-punch combinations to Anderson Silva whilst Anderson just held him. It was just bizarre, and I’m watching this thinking, ‘Anderson’s gonna get knocked out because he’s holding onto this stupid, dumb Thai clinch.’ The one time - or the couple of times - where Anderson actually threw something, Brunson turned around and literally ran away from him. You could see he was a little intimidated, he was a little bewildered, he didn’t know quite what to do. All in all, you could see that Anderson was the better fighter, but he just didn’t pull the trigger. He didn’t pull the trigger at all. People were booing in the audience, people were annoyed, people were pissed off. They paid to watch the fantastic Anderson Silva and he just wasn’t delivering,” says Bisping.
The British star isn’t the only one who was critical of Silva’s performance at UFC 208, as opponent Derek Brunson and UFC President Dana White have spoken out against it as well.
