...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief Following his performance in one of the worst fights in MMA history, WEC Middleweight Champion Paulo Filho plans to vacate his Title and send it to the man who defeated him via unanimous decision, Chael Sonnen. According to Josh Gross of SI.com, Filho's camp said they planned to ship the belt to Sonnen as soon as they could.
It is a fitting end to a strange week for the former Champ, who many had ranked as the number two middleweight behind Anderson Silva. After failing to make weight for his scheduled Title defense against Sonnen for Wednesday's WEC 36, Filho turned in an entirely lackluster, at best, effort in the subsequent three round encounter. He failed to do much of anything through the three rounds, and lost by way of unanimous decisions.
According to Gross, Filho's manager Ed Soares said that Filho had to be told several times that he had lost the fight, apparently not realizing it had reached it's end. He was taken to the hospital as the dilation in his pupils were different in each eye. He was released from the hospital later in the evening.
Penick's Analysis: There's some speculation going around that this might spell the end for Filho under the Zuffa banner. There was clearly something not quite right about him during the fight; this was especially evident in the third round where he was getting tagged, albeit lightly, and seemed to be looking off into the crowd into various spots as the round continued.
That fight was just awful on all accounts on Wednesday, as Sonnen could have absolutely taken advantage of Paulo's physical and mental state, and yet decided not to do much of anything. Paulo should have been stripped of the Title for not making weight for a Title defense, so I have no problems with his vacating of said belt, but it shouldn't necessarily be handed to Sonnen. Sure, he defeated a clearly not all there Champ, but he took the fight knowing it was a three round non-title affair, and he did nothing to show that he belongs as anyone's Champion. He certainly could not have endeared himself to Dana White and company as far as getting him an immediate shot into the UFC.
I'm hopeful that Filho gets whatever help he needs, as there is probably more to this than any of can know at this point. It was simply clear that he was not himself this week, or at least the self that we've seen from him as a fighter, and it just looked like there may be more to his story. Either way, he should not be allowed to stay as Champion if he cannot make a scheduled weight for a Title defense, so clearly vacating the belt is the right call.
DON'T GO YET... WE SUGGEST THESE MMATORCH ARTICLES, TOO!
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
