Trading Shots: The booing of Wanderlei Silva

In this week’s Trading Shots, MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes and retired UFC/WEC fighter Danny Downes look at the decline and fall of Wanderlei Silva, and wonder how his stock plummeted so far, so fast.

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Fowlkes: Danny, I assume you’re struggling with a vicious UFC hangover, as I am after a full day of fights and Fram cams and featured prelims leading up to the grand finale of a heavyweight knocking out a small-ish 205-pounder, but what I’d like us to do this afternoon is step back and look at one specific moment from the TUF Brazil 3 Finale.

I refer now, of course, to the unbridled booing of one Wanderlei Silva. There we were in Brazil, of all places, where “The Axe Murderer” used to be something akin to really scary royalty, and yet the mere mention of his name in a post-fight interview was enough to make the crowd act like one of the local boys had started singing the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

How did this happen? Was it Silva’s showing on reality TV or his licensing … um … difficulties in Las Vegas that made the Sao Paulo crowd turn against him? Is there any hope for Wandy’s future, or is his reputation now too ragged to ever be fully repaired?

Downes: I’m suffering from neither a UFC hangover nor an actual one from the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest yesterday. Fortunately (or unfortunately), my tolerance for both is quite high.

Brazilian fans have turned against Silva for the same reasons the MMA community at large has. It’s like the girl that stays with her loser boyfriend too long. They want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but getting stood up was the last straw.

How did it get to this point? The process was already started before the “TUF: Brazil 3” season began, but his appearance there cemented it. The problem with having more access to fighters and celebrities through social media and reality television is that sometimes we see a side of them we don’t like. Being reckless and unhinged inside a cage is entertaining. Outside of one, it’s a mixture of pathetic and weird. When you look behind the curtain, you may not like what you see.

Public sentiment in Brazil (and everywhere else) may be against Silva right now, but that’s not to say he can’t regain it. When it comes to athletes and celebrities, the public is always ready to take them back. He’s certainly in the tail end of his career, though, so time is of the essence.

A win against Chael Sonnen is probably the quickest way to regain popularity and respect, but the odds of that happening are slim. An apology video can help, but after seeing some of his recent uploads to YouTube, I’m thinking he should hire a new script writer. Maybe he could get in on one of those Oprah rehabilitation shows. Is Dr. Drew an MMA fan?

Fowlkes: Well now you’ve got me picturing what would happen if Silva went on “Couples Therapy” to work his issues out alongside Ghostface Killah (who wouldn’t be able to understand a single word son said, nahmean), and I have to admit, I would DVR the hell out of that. But since reality TV has already stung him once, I’m not sure it’s the answer.

To me, the most damning thing is the accusation that he ducked a drug test. It seems like we’re all very ready to assume that any PRIDE mainstay was up to his skull tats in performance-enhancers, and so we’re just waiting for the opportunity to brand his entire career with a scarlet S.

I mean, that’s basically what Sonnen did when he went on that show where UFC employees talk to each other about the UFC and pretend like they’re reporting the news. The irony was that we know Sonnen used a performance-enhancer, even if he and the state of California could not agree on whether he had permission to do so at the time, and yet now he gets to cast aspersions on Silva all while doing the “I can’t call him a cheater even though I basically just did” routine.

I don’t see how Silva comes back from this. His career is winding down already, and if he goes on a losing skid (remember how easily Sonnen took him down during that on-set brawl?), it’ll be attributed to him being forced to get clean. Maybe the better question is, if you’re the UFC, is it even worth the risk to try and do business with the guy at this point?

Downes: I have to disagree with you on one point. The most damming thing wasn’t this allegation of ducking a drug test. As you pointed out, there are other fighters in murky waters concerning performance-enhancers, and while the Ben Fowlkeses of the world may draw a clear line, others don’t. I think the worst thing for Wanderei is that people think he’s ducking a fight. When it comes to combat sports, it’s better to be perceived as a cheater than a coward.

When the idea of a Chael Sonnen vs. Wanderlei Silva fight was floated, most assumed that it would be an easy win for Sonnen. I don’t know how much stock we can put into their physical confrontation on “TUF,” but it sure looked like how we expected an actual fight to go. It doesn’t matter if you believe Wanderlei’s stated motivations that he wanted to fight Sonnen to teach the West Linn gangster a lesson for badmouthing Brazil. The fact of the matter is that Silva picked a fight, initiated physical altercations, and then didn’t take care of business. He talked tough, and didn’t follow through.

To answer your question, I think that Wanderlei has a couple more fights in him, I just don’t know which match-ups really work. The only one that comes to mind is Dan Henderson for nostalgia’s sake, but do we really want to see that? Their last fight may have been only seven years ago, but the problem with revisiting the PRIDE days is that it will just remind us how far he’s fallen. It’s like when you see one of your favorite childhood cartoons on Netflix and decide to watch it for old time’s sake. You usually wind up turning it off only a few minutes in because it’s not nearly as good as you remember it (looking at you, “Transformers”).

Maybe Wanderlei can prove us wrong. There has to be some set of circumstances where we’d want to see him inside the octagon, right?

Fowlkes: Wait, is that really what people think? That what Silva was really running from was the fearsome Chael P. Sonnen? I mean, I would’ve picked Sonnen to win that fight even before we saw how easy it was for him to nab a takedown in jeans and flip-flops, but it’s not like he’s the kind of fighter who’s going to undo all your plastic surgery when he beats you.

Silva fought Mark Hunt back when Hunt was a super heavyweight. He fought “Cro Cop.” He fought Cung Le and Rich Franklin and Chuck Liddell and “Rampage” Jackson. And you’re telling me it’s Sonnen he wants no part of?

I agree that Silva probably loses that fight, but he loses it via decision, on his back, and he gets paid in the process. Even if he thought his own chances were as dismal as we do (and you know he doesn’t), he doesn’t have the brand of sense necessary to avoid a tough fight. Avoiding a tough (which is to say unscheduled and totally surprising) drug test however? Yeah, that seems like something he’d do.

I guess I could see the UFC putting him back in the cage after a requisite cooling off period, but I wonder what message that would send. What, if you know you’re going to fail a drug test, just avoid it and live to fight another day, with your record still technically clean? Plus, do employees get any more unreliable than Silva? If you can’t count on the guy to actually show up to fight, why give him all this leeway when it comes to licensing woes?

I love me some old-school Wandy, but I also feel conflicted about that, as anyone should who cares about clean, drug-free sports (especially those of the head trauma variety). I listen to his explanation for why he wouldn’t submit to a drug test, and I just don’t believe him. Maybe that shouldn’t color my perception of his entire career, not to mention whatever scraps might be left of it, but it does. Matter of fact, I’ve got so little interest in seeing him fight these days, I doubt I could even muster the energy to boo.

Downes: At the end of the day, what’s happening to Silva isn’t that unique. Sure, some of the specifics may be different, but it’s a familiar story. An aging legend of a sport fades, and the aura that once surrounded him starts to diminish. The alleged PED use is an important detail, but I don’t think it’s the full picture.

Even with all these recent headaches, you said, “I doubt I could even muster the energy to boo.” Why is that? Why the energy to write articles about Vitor Belfort and his testosterone use, but not even enough energy to boo Silva? Because Wanderlei isn’t relevant. Even if he showed up to fight Sonnen, few fans or media would have the energy to form an opinion about the result because nothing was really at stake.

That’s not to say that Wandy should get a pass because nothing was on the line, but it shows how far he’s fallen. We can blame it on a reality show, a missed drug test, a skipped fight or a hundred other things. What we do know, however, is that the Wanderlei Silva of today is not the same guy fans came to adore.

Will this recent episode tarnish his legacy? Only time may tell. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, and it’s doubtful if they’ll ever come. Sadly, the one question we can answer today is, “Are you a Wanderlei Silva fan?” and the response isn’t a good one.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who also writes for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.