“He did everything that people questioned he could do. When it went to the ground, Thales Leites couldn’t pass his guard. The question if he could go five rounds? He went five rounds without breaking a sweat for 25 minutes. What else does the guy have to do? Is the only thing they want to see is knockouts? Then, put fighters against [Silva] that will stand and bang with him, not guys that will fall on their backs.” –- Anderson Silva’s manager Ed Soares to Sherdog.com.
"This is a main event fight, this is for the belt. And nobody wanted the mistake. This is why." -- Thales Leites to Sherdog.com about why his fight against Anderson Silva played out as it did.
"Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar. Now you tell me where we’d be right now if they fought like Anderson Silva and Thales Leites did the other night? If that fight was the first MMA fight you’d ever seen, would you be like, “What the f--k is everybody talking about? Why is everyone saying this is so great? This is the sh--tiest fight I’ve ever seen in my life.”" -- UFC President Dana White to InsideFighting.com.
“He is too cocky. I hope he can read this… I never talked anything bad about him; I always respected him. He has always been my friend, always respected me, but now he came with that statement. I can’t understand that. I didn’t come down to 185 to face him. Actually I didn’t have that intention… Changing divisions and fighting the champion would be too pretentious. I should have to have many fights before facing him, but concerning his last statements, I think the way is open and the war is declared." -- Wanderlei Silva on Anderson Silva to Sherdog.com.
"They deserved a hell of a lot better than they got from these two. I've seen more aggression from my fiancé when she hits the January sales. It was very frustrating for me to be sitting on my couch seeing Anderson Silva, who keeps saying how he’s gone through the middleweight division. I would have fought harder than both of them put together, and so would a lot of other middleweights." -- Michael Bisping on the UFC 97 main event on his UFC.com blog.
"I love him like a f--king brother and I don’t want to see him get hurt. There is no reason for it. He’s f--cking 40 years old, man. These guys that are fighting now are young, explosive, fast f--king kids who are well rounded mixed martial artists. There’s no f--king reason for Chuck Liddell to be out there at 40 years old still fighting. I don’t want to make a f--king nickel off that ever. Believe me, it will be a f--king war if he tries not to retire, believe me." -- Dana White to InsideFighting.com about Liddell’s pending retirement.
“WEC is not broadcasted in Japan, UFC is only broadcasted by a small cable station, so many fighter still don’t really know what’s going on in WEC. Sure, the media reports it, but you know when you look at a Japanese magazine, the majority of the pages are on Japanese shows… It’s still something that’s unknown for a 125-pounder in Japan. So they don’t know what to think of the WEC.” –- Japanese MMA agent Shu Hirata on the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Jordan Breen Show” discussing getting lower-weight Japanese standouts like Shinichi Kojima and Takeya Mizugaki into the United States.
"But I understand people's concerns. I think it's a little bit of fear mongering to think that I am going to send this sport back to the dark ages. I think that there's a much bigger likelihood that exists that I will be able to go and bring this to a larger uneducated market than we've seen before." -- wrestler and congenital amputee Kyle Maynard to AOL Fanhouse about his pro MMA debut on Saturday in Alabama.
The Week Ahead
With a dearth of high-profile MMA events this weekend, attention turns to notable bouts on local cards. Congenital amputee and scholastic wrestling standout Kyle Maynard has his first MMA fight in Alabama, though his opponent is being kept under wraps.
Sherdog.com streams the latest from Ultimate Warrior Challenge in Virginia on Saturday at 6 p.m. EST from Virginia, featuring standouts like Phil Davis, Mike Easton and War Machine.
2008 Olympic wrestler Ben Askren has his second MMA fight against Mitchell Harris on Saturday in Missouri. And finally, Tampa-based Xtreme Fighting Championship makes its premiere on HDNet, with a card Saturday night from Tennessee headlined by Bruce Connors vs. Jarrod Card to crown the promotion’s first featherweight champion.