cha cha cha changes

Its quite obvious at this point that Silva just doesn’t want to fight a casual training partner and is using this elbow nonsence as a ploy to delay the bout in the hope that it will be scrapped.

I’ll try to come to Spider’s defense here, to some degree. Check out his “time between fights” since he’s come to the UFC:

Leben (less than 4 months)
Franklin (less than 4 months)
Lutter (approximately 5 months)
Marquardt (approximately 3 and a half months)
Franklin (approximately 4 and a half months)
Henderson (approximately 4 and a half months)
Irvin (approximately 3 months)
Cote (approximately 6 months)
Leites (approximately 4 months)
Griffin (would be 8 months if he fights in April)

That stacks up with most championship caliber fighters in any of MMA’s divisions. In fact, if he doesn’t fight again until April, that still wouldn’t be as long a wait as some other division championship defenses that we’ve seen in recent years. Also consider that Silva is the oldest of all of the # 1 ranked fighters in MMA and I, at least, can give him a pass on waiting 8 months between fights considering his age and the fact that he did have to have a little surgery done on his elbow. I know that it’s frustrating, as fans, cause we want to see these guys go out there and fight often.

In regard to the accusations that Silva would go ahead and fight in February if it was a more financially lucrative bout: I actually don’t deny this. Nor do I necessarily hold it against him. If I was a contracted employee of a company and they said, "Rich, how would you feel about starting your next project in February for “x” amount of dollars?" If I responded that I’d like to push that back about 8 weeks because of illness and they responded “Gee, that’s too bad. We could really use your help on this February job. How about we give you a fat bonus to come in and work even though you’re not healthy?” I’d feel no hypocrisy in taking that. Now, I could be reaching here to try and defend Spider. I’ll just say that I’m willing to give him a bit of a pass.