zatoicchi
18.07.08, 08:31
LAS VEGAS – Anderson Silva has pretty clearly been the one of the elite mixed martial arts fighters in the world for the past 18 months or so.
He hasn’t been a star, though, until very recently.
But on Thursday, the large media scrum that squeezed ever so tightly to hear Silva’s every utterance was symbolic of his rise into stardom.
Fighting talent and box-office appeal don’t always go hand-in-hand and some of the game’s best fighters frequently are poor draws.
But Silva compensated for his lack of proficiency in English in front of an entirely English-speaking media by grinning and grunting and grimacing to captivate an audience that couldn’t understand a word he said.
The UFC middleweight champion and the man who sits atop the Yahoo! Sports mixed martial arts rankings will move up to light heavyweight on Saturday to meet rugged James Irvin in a nationally televised card on Spike TV from The Pearl at The Palms Theater.
Pound-for-pound king speaks with his strikes - MMA (http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_ylt=Arg2KKPTHUCm2Klv2wpisAE9Eo14?slug=ki-silva071708&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)
He hasn’t been a star, though, until very recently.
But on Thursday, the large media scrum that squeezed ever so tightly to hear Silva’s every utterance was symbolic of his rise into stardom.
Fighting talent and box-office appeal don’t always go hand-in-hand and some of the game’s best fighters frequently are poor draws.
But Silva compensated for his lack of proficiency in English in front of an entirely English-speaking media by grinning and grunting and grimacing to captivate an audience that couldn’t understand a word he said.
The UFC middleweight champion and the man who sits atop the Yahoo! Sports mixed martial arts rankings will move up to light heavyweight on Saturday to meet rugged James Irvin in a nationally televised card on Spike TV from The Pearl at The Palms Theater.
Pound-for-pound king speaks with his strikes - MMA (http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_ylt=Arg2KKPTHUCm2Klv2wpisAE9Eo14?slug=ki-silva071708&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)