WANDERLEI SILVA TWITTER SPORTCOURT

CASE FACTS

That frightening image above is that of Wanderlei Silva, he’s a beloved and very accomplished fighter amongst the mixed martial arts community and because of this he has over 375,000 followers on twitter.
So when he tweeted on April first that he was going to step in for the injured Alexander Gusstaffson this weekend to headline UFC on Fuel in Sweden, there was an out pour of responses from media outlets and fans alike. The tweet became a sensation on Twitter and even caused “Wanderlei Silva” to trend on both the first and second of April and keep his name in the headlines all week.
But what happened after the tweet is where the problem has arisen. Silva gave interviews to any outlet that wanted them to confirm that he was in fact fighting, only to then tweet this picture the next day saying he had fooled everyone.

POSITIVE

Think of this this way, would you rather someone like Georges St. Pierre have a twitter account and publicly state that he’s never been on twitter at all, that he has a whole other person run his “verified” account.
Or would you rather have someone like Wanderlei who you absolutely are positive that he’s running his account. Wanderlei will respond to his fans and he will tell the people what he wants to hear, all while maintaining his Wanderlei Silva-man-of-the-people style.
So if Wanderlei wants to play an April Fools Joke on the media outlets and say that he is stepping in to fight against someone, let him say that. He said it himself in the apology video that he released in the next few days that it was just a joke and if anything he thinks he made people excited about what on paper looked like a very lackluster card to most fans.
Plus if the UFC were to actually offer him the fight, he would have taken it. Even during the whole prank Wanderlei kept his attitude of fighting anyone at anytime and tweeted the phrase “Fight is Fight.”
Which, while it might not be correct gramitcally, it speaks volume about the character of this man and shows his true warrior spirit even during a joke.
So people can’t even be mad about the idea that he made this up because if the UFC did offer the fight to him on short notice he would have without a doubt taken it. This even set up the marketing for the future fight with Mousasi.
There are a few reasons why they wouldn’t offer him it at that time, one being salary, Wandy doesn’t fight cheap and timing.
Timing literally meaning the time zone difference between Las Vegas, Nevada his main training facility and Sweden the location of the fight.
Plus in the end he apologized to everyone involved, including Gegard Mousasi, and he said even if he doesn’t accept the apology that he does fight in the same division so he would make it happen. At the end of the day it was a good thing for the sport and Wanderlei came out on top.

NEGATIVE

The thing that everyone must keep in mind with this whole twitter fight acceptance/offer prank is, is how an April Fools joke is pulled off. Take this classic example for one, trick a person at work and saying, “Hey I just ate your lunch!”
They then go and check to see if the lunch is in fact gone and either the bag is in plain view for them to see or you make it a little tougher hide the bag somewhere in fridge for them to find and then you say, “April fools!”
Then there’s not harm done, no one actually goes hungry and it’s a fun little gotcha type moment.
Not, continuing to hide their lunch until the next day and they go hungry and then tomorrow tell them, “Man I really got you, you were sooooooo hungry!”
The second option is basically what Wanderlei Silva did, he told us the news we were all hungry to hear, someone would be replacing Gustafsson after he received a mysterious cut in training. (The cut being mysterious as to what the next plan of action will be.)
But Wanderlei Silva led the media, fans and most importantly Gegard Mousasi on a wild goose chase. In the end Wanderlei would not be fighting Saturday and he knew it but continued to do interviews saying that he would be fighting.
The repercussions were not as sever as they could have been though because Mousasi being the gracious fighter that he was, said he would fight anyone on the short notice, which is a long stretch from what some other fighters might do, if you can remember UFC 151. Or not remember it, since it didn’t happen because of another late camp injury.
So in the end Wanderlei’s all-in-fun joke was not so much fun for everyone other than Wanderlei Silva and he should have showed a little more restraint because he should know what kind of a great impact he has within the sports world with just 140 characters.