Referee Wiped Down Silva Before UFC 97 Bout
Anderson Silva
Though Anderson Silva’s alleged greasing went unnoticed by most fans until after the UFC 97 main event, referee Yves Lavigne not only noticed the Vaseline on Silva’s chest and arms but wiped it off and received approval from Leites’ corner before starting the contest.
After several days of speculation, Lavigne confirmed his actions with Sherdog on Tuesday:
“I saw he had a little Vaseline on his chest and I wiped it from his chest and arms, as I saw him touching them as well,” Lavigne told Sherdog.com on Tuesday.
Lavigne said he then motioned to Leites’ corner and was given a “thumbs up” of approval.
“I took care of it, and the other corner felt OK with it,” said Lavigne.
“While I wiped one glove, Silva took the end of the towel and wiped his other glove. He was helping me,” Lavigne said. “Both corners were aware of it and approved [of] it.”
Victor “Shaolin” Ribeiro, who was in Leites’ corner for the UFC 97 headliner, affirmed Lavigne’s recollection of what transpired on Saturday in Montreal:
“I remember Yves Lavigne toweled and cleaned the body. I don’t think [the cutman] put a lot of grease on his face and [Silva] put it on his body. I think everything was pretty fair.”
For more UFC 97 coverage check out the MMAFrenzy.com UFC 97 archive.
Tags: Anderson Silva, Thales Leites
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Im glad to hear they watched fot that this time. I wonder why the ESPN guy who commented on that didnt also comment on the wipe down? Maybe he did, I didnt read it.
An interesting note that has nothing to do with Anderson. Chucks first MMA fight was at UFC 17 Redemption, his possible last fight was UFC 97 Redemption.
You could have written that on the thread about Chuck.
I still don’t understand why Silva would have to or even try to cheat. I mean look at the performance that Leites put on it was far from a challenge to Anderson’s belt. I didn’t see the ref wipe off the grease but he knew some foul play was going on if he noticed it and made him wipe it off. Anderson please destroy Maia {witch he should} and shut up the critics. If Maia is hoping on a method that Leites tried flopping on the ground and trying to pull guard witch looked pathetic he will be on the losing end to I’m afraid.
Maia is has a way better ground game than Leites, and is also a more agressive fighter. I don’t believe he has the stand-up to really pose a threat to Silva, but if he can be a bit more brave than Leites and go for the takedown he’ll be able to put Silva in danger.
Turk,
I agree with you, i also want Anderson Silva to silence his critics by destroying Maia.
As far as the grease being wiped off from Silva’s chest and arms, it’s cool that the ref came out and said this. That way people can stop doing too much on this issue. Leites didn’t come to fight, he didn’t want to be champ as bad as i thought he did and he was scared to figh period so the whole grease thing didn’t matter anyway.
cool and i know he had some what of a bad performance didn’t they say after this fight everyone will forget about the cote performance
GSP’s corner allegedly wipes Vaseline on him before the fight and it’s a bloody greasegate epidemic
Silva WIPES VASELINE ON HIMSELF and it’s almost a non issue? Come on, give me a break.
In the case of GSP is wasn’t “allegedly”, they did do that.
The reason i say it’s not a big deal and a non issue is simply because it had no effect on the fight. Of course him along with GSP are going to be monitored a lot closer on their next fights, but Silva rubbing his face then his chest and arms,it’s not a big deal to me because the ref wiped him off and he was dancing around the whole fight so it didn’t make a difference so it’s not important.
At least you know that the officials are now watching out for it, which is good. As far potential opponents for Silva, i really hope that IF Bisping defeats Henderson in his next fight, the UFC grants him the next title shot against Silva.
Although Maia has been great, and is undefeated, I just think his style is to much like Leites’ style to a certain extinct and to match him up right now against Silva might just turn out to be a replay of the Silva Leites fight. I think Maia needs at least one more when against a little bigger name opponent prior to getting the title shot. Some one like Okami or Marquart or maybe even Leites for that matter.
Bisping on the other hand, presents the most dangerous opponent for Silva right now at the LHW division and by far makes for the most marketablt match up for the UFC to promote. In additional to that, this match up could make for a stand up war!
Bisping and Silva fight at MW. Also, before you say that Bisping is Silva’s most dangerous opponent, don’t you think he should get past Henderson first? Kinda like GSP has to get past Alves before people
canshould really start clamoring for that fight.Although I’m not a big fan of Henderson’ I hope he absolutely destroys Bisping.I just watched the Bisping vs Hamill fight again and that was one of the worst decisions in UFC history.And even worse than the robbery was listening to Bisping talk afterwards,saying that he outboxed him and that he should go back to wrestling.What a goof.
Also,unless Alves lands a shot(a la Serra)GSP should dominate him.
well i am pretty sure that fight is for a title shot. not to sure for hendoson tho think he might fight one more. heres how i think will happen
if bisping wins he will get title shot then maia then marquart if he beats hendo. if hendo gets a fight with him after (IF) he loses
if hendo wins. maia will get title shot then a hendo/marquart fight for title shot after that
after either of these series hopfully cote gets back in the picture
Dana did say that Bisping v. Hendo would be for a potential title shot, to possibly take place in the UK. With UFC 103 scheduled for late September in the UK it would provide the right time frame for the winner of Bisping v. Henderson to face Silva in the UK. The question then is, does Silva fight between now and then, and if so against who?
if im not mistaken joe silva or dana white said maia gets the next title shot, then the winner of bisping-hendo gets the one after that. it was on a post on here about two weeks ago. maia is better than leites in my opinion. my theory on why silva did the wipe was because he feared leites’s bjj, I know leites did very little to show how good it is, but he won a world championship. if anything it would have done very little in helping silva, but thats just my theory. @Jaymz I highly doubt gsp will dominate alves. alves is either the same physical size as gsp, if not bigger, I think alves has more strength than gsp, and alves definitely has ko power. that fight will be a war, and I think we will see gsp bloodied. that will be gsp’s biggest test. back to silva, bisping will get destroyed by silva if hendo doesnt do it first. bisping got lucky by beating hamill, and I think marquardt would beat bisping. marquardt has improved since his loss to silva, and had he not illegally kneed leites in the head during their fight, we would have seen marquardt and silva last saturday night.
Bigchris2328,
Anything can happen in a fight so I guess we’ll soon find out.But I hear everyone saying how Alves is GSP’ biggest test,well GSP is Alves’ biggest test as well.And though I do think that Alves may hit harder,I think GSP has better striking,take downs,wrestling,and is more athletic-which is why he will overwhelm Alves.
There…im glad we can move on from this finally….silva performed well, and has no need to cheat…lets move on …… on the other hand…lets discuss GSP’s grease incident
…. u cant let GSP off the hook and then sidetrack onto Silva…first things first…. or we can move on
What does the “need to cheat” have to so with this. I’m tired of that utterance. Nobody ever has a “need” to cheat. Cheaters cheat and honest people don’t. Some people will take every advantage to get ahead even if they could win fair and square.
I cant say for sure what was going through Silva’s head, but wiping the grease from your face to your arms and body is not a stand up thing to do. I am a Silva fan and this is just as flagrant as what GSP’s corner did in my opinion.
I don’t give a rip if it made a difference in the fight and nobody else should either. Is that what you are waiting for? You need for it to make a difference before you get upset at a grease down? Ridiculous!!
This is a sport and it should be a level playing field. Neither guy should be able to grease up PERIOD. I’m appauled at the people who think this is OK on any level. Im not saying “kick him out” but I am saying “UFC set penalties and watch for this,” which apparently the ref did and he wiped him off.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could say someone finally pushed Silva to a 5th round. You can’t say it but it might be nice..
LAWLS @ SILVA = PUNK