Greasegate Part Two? Anderson Silva Accused of Transfering Vaseline to His Chest and Arms
Less than 12 hours have passed since the main event of UFC 97, which featured UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva defeating challenger Thales Leites in an action-devoid unanimous decision in the first main event in UFC history that promoted Dana White to issue an apology to fans.
In the hours immediately following the fight, several comments were left of MMAFrenzy.com’s UFC 97 results stating that Silva had cheated by transferring Vaseline from his face to his body before the fight started.
SI.com’s Josh Gross confirmed the incident in his UFC 97 play-by-play, writing “The champion enters the cage after a coat of Vaseline is slathered on his face. I’m sorry to say this, but it was pretty obvious that Silva took his hands, wiped down his face and rubbed his chest and arms. Something to remember if Silva easily, and repeatedly, slips out of Leites’ grasp.”
The headliner featured nearly no fighting on the ground as Silva wisely refused to follow Leites to the canvas despit many tries by the challenger. Leites would simply fall to the ground in an attempt to bait Silva down but nearly every titme the title-holder would refuse, forcing referee Yves Lavigne to stand Leites up 14 times over the course of the contest. The main event featured no opportunities for the Vaseline to play a role in deciding the bout, but the evidence is pretty damning.
(video via Bloody Elbow)
Tags: Anderson Silva, Thales Leites
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The evidence is pretty damming, agreed, but I really hope we don’t have to go through this crap again.
Just what MMA needs, another greasegate…
damning*
I was going to use “damming/damning evidence” but couldn’t figure out which spelling was correct so I just tweaked the sentence lol.
Damming is something you do to a river or stream.
Heres an Idea ……… no grease allowed period or you are disqualified and fined .
That way all the fights can be stopped by cuts, and then you’ll be able complain about that.
then you dont stop the fight on cuts then Justin .
then fighters are blinded by unseen punches due to blood in the eye…
Grease can still be used in fights without anyone wiping it else-where after it is applied. Whenever we have grease applied to our faces in our gym, it is rubbed in a great deal before a second layer is applied. Once the second layer is on, you just have to wipe off with a towel. Then the face area is almost dry to the touch but once you start sweating, the grease starts to appear again. Maybe that is the way they will go. But fighting without grease is a bad idea.
So is unprotected sex kids! Cover up!
Yup every time we got in the ring we did the same thing. Once you start sweating it does start to get in your eye and that’s quite annoying.
Besides good cut men like “Stitch” Duran know exactly how much to apply and they typically won’t put enough on to have that big of an affect.
Besides , if you watch all of his UFC fights , he does the same thing everytime he is in the ring . So does this mean he cheated in some of the others too ?
THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN THE OTHER TIMES!!!! HE DOESN’T APPLY OH WHATEVER I’m done, you people who defend Silva are too much.
Then they might as well throw out the rules again and let them just kick the sh1t out of each other then . If you want to fight for a living dont be such a **** and take your cuts and lumps . Thats why its called “FIGHTING” not play around wrestling . If it was easy more people would do it .
That doesn’t even make sense.
Haha agreed man. Someone has no clue what they’re talkin about..
that’s the most retarded **** I’ve ever heard. If that’s the way it was, then guys would only be able to fight for 5 years. That’s like saying boxers are pussies because they fight with the gloves on. Get real.
Wow that’s pretty evident that Silva wiped his hands on his face and then rubbed him self down. I can’t even believe were going to go through another “Grease-gate” deal this is utter bullshi*. It is actually cheating to do so and Anderson and his camp should have been well aware of the rules and broke them even after “Crying J” {BJ} made a huge deal about this in the first place. One thing no one has mentioned is that Leites did not get his 5 min break for getting poked in the eye. I’m getting sick of the ref’s missing crucial moments in the fights we are at a level way to high for this nonsense. I really hope this doesn’t continue to happen or I believe people will start to believe our sport isn’t creditable. I also think that Anderson’s jits isn’t as good as Leites as others will agree and the lube definitely would have made a difference in the fight.
Im glad you mentioned about Thales not getting his 5 min break and a doctor to look at his eye. When I saw him blinking then telling the Ref (Yves Lavigne) he took a finger in the eye, I could not beleive it when I heard and saw the Ref say “No”.
Yves Lavigne has to be one of the worst Ref’s that I have ever seen. After the Pete Sell fight a couple of Months back I couldnt beleive the UFC didnt mention his mistakes. It is dangerous to even consider a Ref like that for your fights, and last night proved it even more.
Also someone needs to teach the guy when to stand two fighters up when they clearly dont need standing up or re-starting. Has the guy ever seen a Clinch or a thing called BJJ?
Dana blasted Lavigne after the Sell fight.
Oh, my bad. Well lets hope he gets it again.
And Im surprised Dana allowed him to Ref a main event after blasting him.
remember the athletic commission decides who refs the fights not Dana.
You don’t get 5 minutes for that.
Are you talking about the same fight? Yves Lavigne is a great Ref, yeah he’s made a couple of fukc ups but he’s a great ref. He was trying to, you know what I’m not even gonna explain it.
Hardly a great Ref. That is a little extreme
i think Anderson does NOT want to fight anymore!
I could possibly see that… Y else would he want to retire in his prime?
He does want to fight still. But the question is who else does he have to fight? Sure, GSP, but after that then what? He will have 3 fights left and who could possibly stand in his way? It is simply the fact that no one gives him the will to win. If he fights GSP we will see the Anderson Silva that destroys everyone in the 1st round.
* The headliner featured nearly no fighting on the ground as Silva wisely refused to follow Leites to the canvas despite many tries by the challenger.
fixed.
The reason this is much different than the GSP incident is Anderson doesnt have it rubbed on his back and neck and more importantly Anderson didnt GnP Thales. Anderson let him up every time and the placement of where Anderson rubbed would have no real effect IMO. this will blow over very soon cause its no where near what Nurse did.
Its worse than GSPs greasing cause he did it to himself
Ok well I didn’t even read the other comments due to the fact that I didn’t want to
when he did this my brother and myself looked at each other and said o shhit, here we go again. The difference between Phil Nurse applying it to GSP and Silva clearing his face of vasaline is that well Silva’s was more obvious and I wouldn’t say to do it for defensive purposes…. Leites had nothing for Silva nothing, and the candian fan were not so good, how do you make someone engage when its clear that he doesn’t want to fight (after the first round) anyways my thing is if Silva doesnt want vasaline on him the don’t apply it or apply minimal amounts not globs and with Leites not doing anything the vasaline “moving” didn’t had anything to do with the fight, where GSP’s well had a bit to do with the fight
i dont think tht thales would of won if the grease was less he didnt do much either anderson wasnt the only one who wasnt performing. this isnt as bad as it is made out to be the grease played a huge part in the gsp and bj fight since it was a grappling match. This fight was more on the feet and the anderson did not have tht much vasiline on his body.
To report a story like this is worthless when it had no impact on the fight inself. This is like saying, “The Kicker for the Dallas Cowboys has a metal foot, but they were shutout against the Redskins 14-0″.
This is without a doubt the dumbest analogy I have ever heard.
you’ve been dbiz’d…
My man.
A metal foot?!?!?
not again…
As i saw how the fight was starting: i just thought WTF IS HE DOING. And i was shocked that no one did something against it. Such things must be seen by the referee and in my opinion, if a fighter makes something with the grease like that they should remove all of it as a penality. I want to see the fighter who tries it then again and risking cuts. And yes, the referee was terrible … I dont understand why Dana doesnt apologize for that! That would be intelligent and not … well every real mma fan and sportsmen knows what I want to say.
Dana has no control over the refs.
This is retarded.
even if true doesnt matter because i dont think anyone got touched during that fight
That isn’t the issue. The issue is that it is against the rules. If anything comes of GSP’s situation, a harsher penalty must be applied here because HE DID IT TO HIMSELF.
If the commission decides not to do anything, that’s fine. But your rationale is utter crap.
There was no penalty given to GSP
If. Very important word throughout that comment. If.
how about they just grease you right up completely… that would solve alot of problems
Tooo many jokes too little time, ya…..
I think they have whole channels devoted to that if that’s what you want haha
OMG !!!! This is a deliberate attempt at a grease down, I’ve watched a lot of his fights and I can’t say that I’ve ever seen him do that before. He was putting it on his arms and chest and neck, all the key areas of submissions, how can anyone look at this and think otherwise…I am a fan of his but I have to say this is an outrage and right in front of the camera’s! Was he that scared? I would like to hear Leites’ view on this before I go off by the way, was he hard to grip? did he slip out easily? HOly **** people this is going to make those casual fans we need so much think it’s a big joke, he did it, he needs to be stripped of the belt. The difference between this and GSP is that GSP had no hand (literally) in the application. Man if you can’t win on your skill you shouldn’t be in there, my GOD boys I know this is your careers here but let’s keep the fighting fair shall we!!!!! The UFC is going to have to appoint cut men, and they are the only ones that can touch a fighter’s face after the grease has been applied…INCLUDING the fighter!!
There are appointed cut men. They are the only ones supposed to apply grease and they do not apply enough to make it a big deal. A guy is naturally going to be sweating a good amount before he gets in the ring because you start warming up for a fight 45 minutes(or some guys longer) and as I mentioned above the stuff does run into your eyes when you are sweating. Just like w/ GSP it was a negligible amount so it’s not going to have that much of an outcome on the fight especially if your chosen fight style for the night is flop and drop. Calm down if this is made into a big deal it is purely because no one has anything better to talk about. If he had two giant globs of grease on his hands when he did that then yeah I’d be worried and it would warrant punishment but the only reason this is being brought up now is because of the GSP incident, Silva does it every fight as do many other guys. Watch how many of them touch their gloves or arms to their eyebrow every fight.
First of all there wasn’t that much applied to his face yet as he was entering the cage. If he did it between rounds then I can see some one ****ing.
Yea sure guys silva cheated and should be stripped of his title and then condemmed to a firing squad,because thales clearly would have dominated the fight if silva wasn’t greased up.And then maybe the ridiculous silva bashing might stop.
Whoever has the authority needs to come out with greasing rules. To my knowledge, there are no rules about it currently.
I know, “it didnt effect the fight” but its not a fair fight. Im as opposed to this as I was to GSP’s actions. I DONT CARE IF IT EFFECTS THE FIGHT. I like Anderson and BJ so now everyone who said “quit your crying” can see that Im against it even when “my man” does it.
Please come out with clear rules about what is acceptable and what is not. Thats the easiest way to eliminate these discussions and make a fair playing field. Im also disappointed that honorable fighters would do this.
The only thing I can think of them doing is making a rule that you can absolutely not touch your body after touching your face where it is the only legal place to have the vaseline. If you touch your chest,arms,neck ect. you will be disqualified from the bout. Can anyone think of another punishment to have for the illegal greasing? Maybe a fine or something would also work we have to get this taken care of now before it becomes a huge deal witch it already seems to be happening. I know a loss in the UFC is detrimental to ones career but there is NO excuses for cheating.
does this mean the Silva v GSP fight will take place in a kiddie pool with both fighters covered in baby oil?
Awesome…very funny.
Seems to me (and trust me, I’m no fighter) that smearing your hands in Vaseline would make it HARDER to fight. How can you grab an opponent or keep a good clinch if your hands are slippery??
…make sense to anyone else??
guess its only a viable strategy if you’re looking to strictly strike an opponent and not be clinched etc. this is why UFC needs to start using yellow/red cards. yellow for not fighting, red for doing something stupid like getting grease on you…have the red take 50% of your purse and donate it to the troops!
Zac,
Please read my comment here.
wrong link? those are about Chuck
That was the wrong link, my bad. I don’t feel like finding the right comment now. Basically the Athletic Commissions don’t allow for them to take away purse money for infractions during a fight, according to Frank Trigg.
gdjId doesn’t matter if he greased up or not, Leites didn’t wanna fight anyway.
I don’t understand what I’m seeing here, you people actually defend what he’s doing. I know you can see what has happened. It’s an outright greasing. He goes intentionally from his face (to gather whatever he can obviously) and continually applies the vaseline to his chest and arms. If he isn’t trying to grease himself then why doesn’t he ask for a towel if he has too much on his face or it’s running into his eyes. If you look at the entrance to the fight you can see that he isn’t sweating and if he sweats that much in 25 seconds that he has to wipe the “sweat” out of his eyes I’d be amazed. Come on people, see it for what it is. He attempts to grease himself up because he knows Thales wants him on the ground, he doesn’t fight at all (exception of about 48 seconds throughout the fight he actually tries something other than a leg kick), regardless of what Thales is doing he should be attacking. I don’t like to compare other fighters but let me say if GSP or BJ Penn were defending their titles they are always going forward not backing up. I was a fan of the Spider until this fight. He just doesn’t seem like the fighter he was before Cote. He doesn’t want to get hit for some reason ( yes I know no one “wants” to get hit but, sadly it’s his job) and if he doesn’t want to fight on the ground (himself a black belt in JJ) then I suggest he take up some other form of employment because I’ll say this, I won’t be looking forward to the next fight of Silva’s like I have up to this point. Something has changed in him and now he’s like so many other fighters who have come and gone, he’s fighting not to lose. Dana won’t allow this to continue anyway. ANd this is nothing like the “GreaseGate” incident, GSP didn’t apply the vaseline to himself (in whatever amount), the cut man FUKED up! GSP is going to DESTROY the Spider and send him packin, unless he comes to fight, wherever the fight ends up!
“if he doesn’t want to fight on the ground (himself a black belt in JJ) then I suggest he take up some other form of employment”
So I guess Forrest Griffin, Brandon Vera, Rich Franklin, Michael Bisping, Chris Leben, Thiago Alves, Rampage, Wanderlei, Jardine and several other should all take up some other form of employment, since they (for the most part) don’t want to fight on the ground either?
i didnt know the stuff about the athletic commission not allowing purse to be altered…if that is true they could find another form of punishment….red card = you dont get another fight for a year…yellow = you fight on the undercard of the next fight…etc.
i can see a fighter being forced to the undercard wanting to make a statement in their next fight…if they dont suck.
That will never happen… A title shot on he undercard? Never.
There is no rule I can see being beneficial that would have made Anderson fight harder. To say “you must follow him to the ground” is lame. Why be a striker then, everyone just focus on jits and wrestling. Who needs a take down? Then everyone will complain that the ground fights are boring. Would you ever stand them up? Why, they are just going to flop down again?
Silva didnt break any rules (greasegate 2.0 aside). If the UFC wants their money’s worth out of Silva, they need to match him up with someone who can take him down or stand up with him. This is the UFC’s fault, not Silva’s. When you are the title holder, you dont have to struggle for a title shot anymore, you just need to hold onto that belt for all you’ve got. If I were Silva I would not have a wrekless gameplan either and I would let my opponent come to me. If I was loosing at that, I would mix it up, but he wasnt.