Tim Sylvia Could Shock Worldwide Audience
Tim Sylvia has a chance to flip the script on the story of his mixed martial arts career when he meets Fedor Emelianenko this Saturday.
The storyline going into Sylvia’s last fight, against Antonio “Minotauro” Nogueira in the UFC, was that the lumbering, physically-awkward heavyweight couldn’t get any respect despite wracking up 24 career victories, many over name opponents. A preponderance of fans insisted on booing Sylvia, so much so that the spectacle of Randy Couture shellacking him last March generated a guttural crowd intensity that has yet to be matched in the UFC. But now that he finds himself in the position to hand Emelianenko his first true loss in 29 fights, Sylvia is suddenly enjoying a groundswell of support.
“The fan support is huge with me right now, people are just going crazy and a lot of fans are behind me,” said Sylvia, 32. “I go to my Myspace every day and there’s 20 messages saying, ‘we want you to beat this guy, we’re behind you, you’re going to beat him.’ Everybody thinks I’m going to beat him.”
The change in tune is simple enough to understand. It’s interesting enough for fans to see Emelianenko, one of the most mysterious and dominant fighters mixed martial arts has seen, take on a top-10 heavyweight for the first time since 2005. But to see him defeated would be unforgettable. Sylvia is the fighter who can make that moment happen Saturday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. in the headline bout of “Affliction Banned” on pay-per-view.
“He’s been ranked number one for a while, and everybody wants to see him fight a top 10 guy,” Sylvia said. “It’s finally going to happen.”
Sylvia lost that February fight to Nogueira, the same fighter Emelianenko defeated handily in the Pride Fighting Championships on New Year’s Eve 2004. Sylvia gave the Brazilian submission master a run for his money, but the cagey Nogueira caught him in a guillotine choke in the third round.
“I was discouraged just because I know I had that fight won, I got over-anxious, made a small mistake and he capitalized on it,” Sylvia said about Nogueira, the only common opponent he and Emelianenko share.
He can’t afford a similar slip against Emelianenko, but Sylvia doesn’t think he’ll necessarily need to be the aggressor in the fight. He’s expecting the Russian to come forward in an attempt to get inside his unusually long reach, throw leaping hooks and try to body lock him in an effort to get the fight to the ground. Emelianenko has submitted men of similar proportion as Sylvia on the floor, most recently Korean 7-footer Choi Hong-Man. Sylvia has proved susceptible to such a submission game, succumbing to Nogueira, Andrei Arlovski and Frank Mir in three of his four career losses. In preparation for Saturday’s fight, Sylvia said he has brought in a jiu-jitsu coach from Brazil who may be unveiled as a corner man.
“We’re keeping that secret right now,” Sylvia said of the coach’s identity.
Sylvia is entering a new stage of his fight career after six years competing exclusively in the UFC. Sylvia said he wanted the Emelianenko fight in the UFC, but it couldn’t happen. Dave Meltzer has reported in The Wrestling Observer that Emelianenko’s handlers, when in negotiations with the UFC last year, specifically said Sylvia was someone they weren’t interested in facing.
“I asked (UFC President Dana White) to see if he could get Fedor; he said he was trying,” Sylvia said. “But I don’t think either one of us has ever been offered the fight before. This is the first time, that I know of.”
After the Nogueira loss, Sylvia and his management team negotiated a release from his UFC contract on terms Sylvia considers amiable. He leaves the door open to returning, and laughed knowingly when asked how much more likely that would become if he topples the heavyweight kingpin the UFC couldn’t sign.
In short, a win over Emelianenko could skyrocket Sylvia’s value overnight. The free agent signed a three-fight deal with Affliction, and he expects to fight for the promotion again in November regardless of whether he wins or loses Saturday. He’s also signed with Adrenaline MMA, the Midwest-based promotion started by his agent Monte Cox. Sylvia was exploring fighting in Japan when the opportunity arose to fight for Affliction, purveyors of the lucrative, skull-adorned apparel that has is ubiquitous in MMA arenas, nightclubs and department stores.
“Affliction’s not out there to compete with anybody, they just want to put on a good show and they’re friends with a lot of the fighters,” Sylvia said. “It might come back and bite them in the ass . . . you’re supposed to keep pleasure and business and friendship in three different categories, right? These guys have kind of put this fight on because they’re friends with a lot of us heavyweights, a lot of us fighters, and they want to see us do well, and they want to pay us well, you know. They had their money to do this and the opportunity so they did it.”
Affliction’s roster presents several intriguing possibilities for Sylvia. His old UFC rival, Andrei Arlovski, fights his training partner Ben Rothwell on Saturday, and a fourth fight with Sylvia is a possibility (Sylvia said there is no way he’d face Rothwell, a close training partner of his whom he defeated by decision in the formative years of his career). In addition, the winner of Josh Barnett v. Pedro Rizzo will likely face the winner of Sylvia v. Emelianenko, a fight that will result in the crowning of the first World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts (WAMMA) champion. WAMMA is a boxing-style sanctioning body that ranks fighters in every weight class and seeks to crown champions in them, regardless of company affiliation. The belt could influence which opponents Sylvia faces down the line if he were to win it.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Sylvia said. “The way the WAMMA belt goes is whenever the champion fights, he has to fight somebody in the Top 10. I think every time I fight I have to fight for the belt.”
Sylvia takes belts seriously. He wore the UFC title constantly when he was champion, even to the pool, and that was one of the quirks that earned him mockery and derision from fans during the most successful period of his career. He said he plans to sport the ornate, bejeweled WAMMA strap with the same pride.
“You bet,” he said. “The belt’s worth like $120,000.”
In fact, it’s worth more than that to Tim Sylvia. Wearing it means he beat Fedor Emelianenko, and even his most ardent critics will have a hard time mocking that.
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