Anderson Silva UFC 97 Fight Odds Favorite: The man considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva [-500 ML], has been listed as a huge Sports Odds Betting favorite in this weekend’s UFC 97 Fight Odds.
But coming off the strangest performance of his MMA career, should “The Spider” be listed that far ahead of his underdog opponent, Thales Leites [+350 ML]? Looking back at his bout against Patrick Cote at UFC 90 in Rosemont, IL, the man who had been so devastating in the UFC suddenly didn’t seem so indestructible. 
After capturing his 9th consecutive MMA victory (8th in the UFC; tying a record-high) in a freak occurrence, which saw Cote’s knee just give out, UFC president Dana White had no explanation for what happened with Silva, as he was booed loudly after the bout. “I think I’m living in an alternate universe,” White said that night. “That was bizarro world.”
“I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t want to be the next dude to fight him, because he’s not happy,” White said. But the next dude is no slouch, and in fact, might be Silva’s greatest challenge (with the right gameplan) in the UFC. And I know right now people are thinking, ‘I’ve heard this before’. But does Anderson Silva have something to prove in his UFC 97 Fight Odds? You bet!
Leites, another great fighter to come out of Brazil, is among the craftiest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in the UFC. The differential between the two Brasileiros comes into play when they’re both on their feet, as Leites is nowhere near Silva in the striking game.
“I wasn’t very happy with the way that the fight ended,” said Silva of the Cote bout. “I felt that my performance was good in the fight. I felt that I showed – I executed everything that we did in training. But unfortunately, when he got that kick in the second round and in the third round his knee popped, the fight didn’t necessarily end the way the world and myself would have expected… I was definitely aiming to finish him in another way. But that’s just the way the fight goes sometimes.”
