UFC president Dana White has had this happen a few times now – a promising fight card will fall apart due to injuries, and he’s forced to patch shows up with other fights that aren’t quite as good. Then he has to go out and get in uber-promoter mode and tell us how awesome they’re going to be. UFC 153 on October 13th in Brazil is no different. It’s generally not that hard to sell an Anderson Silva fight, but when his opponent is someone who has never been considered an elite fighter, it’s tough. Even if the bout is outside of Anderson’s natural weight class. Still, that didn’t stop Dana from laying it on thick in an interview with ESPN UK:
“He’s huge, he’s going to be so much bigger than Anderson in this fight that it’s going to be crazy,” White told ESPN.
“People don’t realise what a huge Rocky story this is. Stephan has been so close for so long. He’s been waiting for a big fight to come up and then, boom, this comes up.
Stephan called us to ask for this fight. He’s on a four-fight win streak and I know how much this means to him. He’s going after it and this is the biggest fight of his life.
Anderson has fought at 205 before, you saw what he did with Forrest, but this is a completely different fight. It’s a dangerous fight for Anderson.”
Bonnar’s only on a three-fight win streak, not four as Dana said, but who’s counting. Bonnar obviously is bigger than Silva, but a Rocky story? It’s a dangerous fight? Okay, sure. Dana then goes on and just straight out says that he’s a huge fan of Silva:
“I’m a huge Anderson Silva fan, he’s the greatest of all time, what he does with his hands and feet is amazing,” White said. “He does things to people that other people can’t. He’s awesome and I’m a huge fan.”
Not exactly objective, but I guess it’s not a sin to be a fan of one of your best fighters. And he’s right, Silva is awesome. That’s why the Rocky stuff is kind of amusing, at least to me.