MMAVu

Thales Leites (right) tries to prevent his knee cap from being booted off by Anderson Silva at UFC 97 in Montreal. Leites ended up losing a dull, dull decision.

 Both are giants in their own fields, and each company is a hype-generating, money-maker. If you’re not there, really, you’re nowhere. There are only a select few guys who transcend the two big monopolies, Kimbo Slice and Fedor Emelianenko in MMA and Hulk Hogan and the Rock in wrestling. Without the companies behind them, average performers don’t stand a chance.

Thales was hyped and hyped, but in the end, he refused to engage with Anderson Silva in his (I’m going out on a fairly sturdy limb here) only UFC title shot. Though he’s still a young guy at 28, his career is all but downhill from here. It’s too bad one bad fight (see Starnes, Kalib) can ruin your entire career. Of course, it didn’t help matters that he lost to Alessio “Glass Jaw”Sakara in his next bout, but I hope he does well in is next fight, reportedly against Bryan Baker.

Reports also say that Dan Henderson is done with the UFC. Try as they might, the UFC pushed the hell out of Hendo, but he just lacks that “it” factor, and despite his solid record, he just doesn’t draw the crowds like a Michael Bisping, whose face he crushed in his last fight at UFC 100. Hopefully Hendo ends up back in the UFC, as he’s truly a great talent.

Thales Leites has been tabbed to replace the injured Rousimar Palhares, due to a broken tibia during training, to face Italian slugger, Alessio Sakara. You know how pro wrestling has a, “Loser leave Town” matches sometimes? Zuffa has them too, apparently.

One has to believe Leites is just a loss away from being cut, despite winning 5 of 6 bouts prior to his snoozefest against Anderson Silva at UFC 97. Leites blew the biggest opportunity of his career, flopping over like a turtle on his back when he realized he could not take Silva down.

Sakara, on the other hand, is coming off of an impressive head kick TKO of Joe Vedepo. Overall though, he has a 4-4-1 record with the UFC and I still maintain he likely has some incriminating photos of Dana White…possibly with some farm animals, to still be with the UFC. This was a guy who openly discussed taking on Chuck Liddell when Liddell at his peak, and promptly got subbed by Dean Lister. The guy crumbles against the upper tier fighters, and has/had a suspect ground game. We’ll see if he’s improved upon that, in the unofficial, “Loser leave Town” match this August.