Antonio Silva vs. Sergei Kharitonov?
June 26, 2008 by Michael Huckaby
The bout has been verbally agreed to according to Sherdog for EliteXC’s July 26th show. If the bout comes to fruition it would certainly be one of the most relevant fights EXC has ever put on as it pertains to world rankings. Of course the bout has a hangup due to Silva’s past with the California State Athletic Commission:
Silva will face extra scrutiny to get cleared for active duty in the Golden State. The 6-foot-4, nearly 300-pound goliath was removed from a K-1 “Dynamite USA” roster over a year ago after pre-fight medical tests revealed a pituitary gland tumor in the 26-year-old’s cranial region.
Under the commission’s recommendation, “Pezao” underwent surgery last summer to remove the tumor.
Let us all hope the bout occurs as it gives us a rare fight between big men from formerly separated organizations. Kharitonov’s last bout was a beatdown of Alistair Overeem in K-1 to overcome his shoulder injury and knees to the face in their previous bout. Antonio Silva’s last bout was a not all that impressive decision win over Ricco Rodriguez at Showtime’s EXC Street Certified event in February.
I’d look highly forward to this bout but whenever Armando Garcia is in any small way involved I’ll just assume something excellent isn’t going to happen until I see it with my own eyes.
I like Silva, but I want Shaw to shut up about how he’s a top 10 HW. If he can get by Kharitonov in impressive manner I’ll consider him a top 15 HW who would need another win over a top 10 to break into the top 10 himself. Until then, he’s nothing but hype at this point.
EliteXC has a bunch of really good prospects, but to hype people as better than they are just hurts the growth of the fighter.
Armando Garcia seems like a really difficult person to deal with. I’m not sure if he is a good Comissioner to have over seeing MMA in the State of California. Maybe he is, I’ve never had to deal with him so I don’t know. It’s just seems more often than not, there are a lot of probelm’s fighter’s are have in California involve him directly.
I hope this fight between Sergei and Bigfoot goes down. That would be one badass fight. Afterwards, the winner could fight the victor of Kimbo vs. Rogers.
#2 I think you mean the winner could destroy the Kimbo-Rogers victor.
1st, if I were promoting, I would be very leery of putting my shows in California at this point.
2nd, I consider Silva a top 15 HW right now, but that is as much to do with the sorry state of the division, as it is anything he has accomplished thus far.
And #3, Mike C., I think you mean the winner could destroy Rogers, lol.
Yeah, I messed up there in my first post. But, I would take both Sergei and Bigfoot over Kimbo and/or Rogers. I just don’t think Kimbo or Brent would last against vet’s like them. Sergei for one has excellent boxing and I believe if he were to fight either of them, it would end via KTFO.
With 5 oz.’s newest post saying Slice vs. Rogers is a go. All this really could end up happening.
SERGEI’S A BEAST!
i’ve been waiting to see him fight again for soooo long..
he has been inactive for almost a year..
let’s hope this happens.. it would be GREAT..