Is Anderson Silva kidding himself? Sure, but for an uncommon talent, it’s expected

At least initially, Ray Longo and I had the same reaction upon hearing Anderson Silva’s comments on the “accident” that cost him a victory in his rematch with UFC middleweight champ Chris Weidman at UFC 168.

Both of us, it turned out, read the translation of Silva’s remarks in a recent Globo interview and found ourselves thinking, to quote Longo, “Wow, this guy.”

I might have even said it out loud, maybe in those exact words. This guy. He gets knocked out in the first fight, gets dropped in the first round of the rematch, then snaps his leg in half after a well-executed check by his opponent, and his takeaway is that the other guy shouldn’t consider it a win because blocking the kick was “instinct, not something that he trained to do?”

Seriously, Anderson?

But, at least to me, even more surprising than Silva’s interpretation of events was the fact that Longo was so surprised by it. After all, this is a professional fighter we’re talking about. Not just any fighter, either. Possibly the greatest of all time.

If a little self-delusion is a job requirement for your average pro fighter (and it is, but more on that in a moment), then should we really be shocked if the greats turn out to be especially gifted in that department as well?

That’s not to say I agree with Silva’s assessment at all. I don’t. He lost the first fight against Weidman, and he was well on his way to losing the second fight when his leg broke. I’m not quite ready to give Weidman full points for breaking it, but I also think it was more the result of strategy and preparation on the champ’s part than Silva is giving him credit for. Weidman knew he had a problem with Silva’s leg kicks in the first fight, so he fixed it in the rematch. I don’t believe he ever thought he’d win via tibia snap, but I do believe he thought he could hurt Silva enough to make him think twice about kicking.

But fine, Silva’s not ready to admit that. Not to the media, anyway. He thinks he was well on his way to a win when he was struck down by this cruel, senseless injury. Surely though, if they fought 100 times, he’d win at least 95, right?

It wouldn’t surprise me if Silva told himself this, even now, with a metal rod in his leg and two consecutive losses to Weidman on his record. That’s because, to a certain extent, I expect fighters to think that way. That could just be because I’ve known enough of them over the years, or it could be because, in a sport like this, a little self-deception disguised as confidence goes a long way. It might even be vital to your success and survival.

It’s like what Travis Browne said about his knockout loss to Antonio Silva. Although Browne, unlike Silva, was prepared to concede that the loss was truly a loss, he also insisted he’d win a rematch, no problem.

“Everybody’s going to believe that about themselves,” Browne said. “They have to. Otherwise, you’d be sitting in the bleachers. You’re not going to be in the UFC. Every guy in this company thinks he’s the baddest motherf—er around. You cannot go into any fight, get whooped on in any fight, and say, well, he’s just better than me. You can’t admit that to yourself. That’s not me. I can beat any person in this division on any given day. I know I can.”

That might be hard for a lot of us to understand, but then we don’t work in such a hyper-competitive field where there’s only room for one champion at a time, and everyone else is just lining up to get their faces smashed on live TV. Most of us can afford to have bad days. We don’t have to be the absolute best in the world every time. We don’t need that comforting lie the way fighters do.

That’s why I disagree with Longo’s conclusion that Silva’s remarks threaten to “diminish his legacy.” It’s also why I can disagree with that part, while also agreeing with him when he says that “these guys just aren’t in touch with reality.”

By “these guys,” he might as well be referring to most fighters. And there’s really nothing wrong with that.

Silva doesn’t have to ever acknowledge the reality of the situation in his two fights with Weidman, as far as I’m concerned. It won’t change the fact that he was undoubtedly the greatest middleweight in MMA history, and possibly the greatest fighter ever. To some extent, it might even be his disconnect from reality that enabled him to do some of the amazing stuff he did in the cage. A reasonable, realistic person wouldn’t stand there with his hands down, waiting for a highly trained professional to take a swing at his face. A realistic person might have done the math on his odds of long-term financial success as a cage fighter and decided to go to law school instead.

Personally, I’m glad that Silva was not quite that in touch with reality. It was a lot of fun to watch over the years. If the flip side is that now we have to listen to his deluded, self-serving and laughably inaccurate take on the two rare losses at or near the end of his career, that seems like a fair tradeoff.

It’s not the first time we’ve shaken our heads at him and muttered to ourselves, “Wow, this guy.” It’s just for a different reason now, even if maybe it all flows from the same source.

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