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Wanderlei Silva

With Bellator 131, the company’s biggest event of season 11 taking place this Saturday, November 15, the promotion have pulled one more rabbit out of the overused and dusty hat; the ‘signing’ of legend Wanderlei Silva.

Silva went rouge from UFC after failing to complete a drugs test before his scheduled battle with Chael Sonnen. This landed him in some serious diarrhea with the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) who gave Silva a lifetime ban from competing MMA in the state as well as a $70,000 fine. Lets not forgot, he has also been indefinitely suspended from the organisation. What happened to a good old slap on the wrist?

Despite announcing his retirement from MMA in this heartfelt video, he has not been shy of calling for fights over twitter, still looking to face Chael Sonnen in some form, and now with his new formed friendship with the Bellator boys, it could possible end with a return to the cage for Silva.

Wand is schedule to make an appearance at the Dave & Busters Official Pre-Party Kick Off on Friday, November 14. Alongside fellow UFC veterans Royce Gracie, Randy Couture and Frank Shamrock, the Bellator MMA revolution of the old generation seems to be in full swing.

Now, does this appearance means that Silva has signed for Bellator? Of course not, and there hasn’t even been a rumbling of a potential fight deal as there are still a lot of contractual specifics the Brazilian needs to resolve with his former employers. But with another of his infamous Wandy YouTube videos, it is safe to say it looks like all ties to a UFC return have been cut.

Whether Bellator and Silva want to admit it, the truth behind this scheduled appearance isn’t because Wanderlei can be hugely beneficial to the promotion. His name still holds value, but his drawing power has significantly diminished as the years have passed. The main factor in this deal is a figurative middle finger to the black suits over at the UFC.

Legends of MMA signing with Bellator all seem to have one common factor intertwined, these fighters have what seems to outsiders as genuine hatred towards UFC President Dana White; barring maybe Stephan Bonnar, and that is why it seems they are so happy to help Bellator grow.

Tito Ortiz, Rampage Jackson, Shamrock, and now Wanderlei Silva, these guys don’t necessarily have Bellator’s image vested at heart, although I hope to be proven wrong, it would seem that there is this personally fuelled rage and desire to get one over White. Which realistically, won’t happen. Yes Bellator are drawing pretty decent numbers on Spike TV, and they’ve held there own against UFC cards this year but it is starting to look like Bellator are trying to force a battle that quite frankly for the UFC, doesn’t really exist.

There are plenty of arguments to be made that Zuffa vs Viacom is actually a very even monetary challenge. Both these companies have a plethora of resources they can pump into their brands, but UFC vs Bellator is of different sort. The machine vs manual labour, a pitbull vs a labradoodle, WWE v WCW, and we all know how that ended.

The Monday Night Wars, as the battle between the then World Wrestling Federation against World Championship Wrestling, re-defined the genre and took the sport (well, sports entertainment) to a whole new demographic of fans. Truth be told, Bellator would love a ‘war’ with the UFC in the capacity that Vince McMahon and Ted Turner/Eric Bischoff battled throughout the nineties. Dana White vs Scott Coker doesn’t exactly have that appease but the stories of these MMA legends jumping ship follows closely to the tails of the wrestling circuit during the ‘Attitude Era’.

Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall kickstarted the wars with their jump to WCW from WWF and the formation of the New World Order (nWo) which indefinitely revolutionised the business. These three individuals made the move to WCW due to their disgruntlement with the WWF management, as McMahon ostracised the old-guard.

Guys like Shamrock, Couture, Rampage, Ortiz all found themselves in similar positions with Dana White and the UFC. Too old, too battered, one fight too many, and just like that they appeared in less than desirable positions. They had a choice; Fade into the shadows in the world’s largest MMA promotion, or prove that they “still got it” over in Bellator.

Bellator are trying to increase their drawing power by bringing in these already established UFC legends, and it’s hard to fault their technique. These fighters all made their names during the so-called MMA ‘boom period’ and even the casual fan could probably recite a few of these men off the top of their heads.

Although you could argue that the promotion should be building their own stars, in the modern era of MMA, unestablished names e.g. non-UFC, doesn’t draw, and that is the exact reason why Ortiz ad Bonnar are headlining Bellator 131, and not Michael Chandler and Will Brooks who fight for the lightweight gold.

There were rumours that Bellator 131 was to be held in a major location and venue in the California area, however the UFC blocked them from doing it, and that really speaks for itself.

So, Bellator bring in a seasoned, tired, drug test evading vet, but the UFC has yet to even unleash cavalry.