Former UFC heavyweight Antonio Silva’s hopes of ending a long losing streak appear slim in his next fight as he takes to the Glory kickboxing ring to fight one of that sport’s top fighters, heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven.
On paper you’d struggle to find too many worse matches for Silva, with the 28-year-old Verhoeven having compiled a 51-10-1 record over the course of his career so far, including victories over the likes of Badr Hari, Errol Zimmerman, Daniel Ghita, Peter Aerts and Gokhan Saki to name but a few.
To add insult to inevitable injury, ‘Bigfoot’ won’t even be fighting for the title as he looks to pick himself out of a horrendous run of form over the past four years that’s seen him win just one of his last 10 MMA fights, with seven of those defeats coming by way of T/KO.
Remarkably, even the 37-year-old’s own manager, Alex Davis, has publicly stated that he thinks it’s a bad match-up for Silva.
“Obviously, it’s not a good fight for ‘Bigfoot,” Davis told MMAjunkie. “Jumping right into (GLORY) to go against the current champ, who’s a murderer? Yeah, we get it.”
Davis went on to claim that he had advised Silva not to take the fight, but admitted that he was powerless to stop it from happening and indicated that the fighter was struggling financially.
“He needs money,” Davis said. “He can’t turn down fights at the moment for that reason. If it was up to me, he would not take this fight. But at the end of the day, my job is to inform him, give him my advice, and the one who has to make the final decision is him.
“I’ll be very sincere and tell you, I can’t defend a man from himself,” Davis said. “If he fights and doesn’t manage his money, he’ll go looking for the next fight. This is a very common problem with many fighters, not just ‘Bigfoot.’”
