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On paper it must have seemed like a good idea. Patrick 'The Predator' Côté had won four straight fights in the UFC. In a middleweight division seemingly starved for competition by the utter dominance of Anderson 'Spider' Silva, even a fighter with only a few recent UFC wins under his belt seems like a viable contender. Rich Franklin had only strung together victories over Jason MacDonald and Yushin Okami before UFC 77. Travis Lutter had only ONE consecutive win in UFC before he got his shot at the Spider, and that was the finale of Ultimate Fighter 4. 'Hollywood' Dan Henderson had NONE, having last battled his way to a five round losing effort against Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson. Hendo fared less well against Silva, being tapped to a rear naked choke in the second round. Of course that is a defining characteristic of Anderson Silva - he makes even world class fighters look bad on their best day. Nate Marquardt, a three time King of Pancrase champion, had four straight wins in UFC before stepping up to fight Silva for the middleweight title. A TKO loss sent him packing. In such a world Côté was clearly as viable a challenger to Silva as the UFC could possibly hope for.

A closer examination of Côté's record though suggests there may have been flaws in that theory right from the start. That one win Travis Lutter had before facing Anderson Silva? None other than Patrick Côté. Lutter promptly sucked his way straight out of the UFC, gassing out in two straight fights and being humbled each time. Côté's defenders will undoubtedly call the Lutter fight a fluke loss, and having watched Lutter I'd be inclined to agree. If we compare the four fighters that Marquardt defeated to the four Côté defeated en route to a title shot though, there's a clear difference in the quality of the competition faced. The first win in the streak came against Ivan Salaverry, a man who had an 11-3 record at the time and two straight impressive submission wins over Tony Fryklund and Joe Riggs. Clearly an elite middleweight at that point, no one could have suspected Salaverry would lose 3 of his next 4 and opt to retire from the sport altogether. Joe Doerksen is another fighter who holds a victory over Côté, sinking in the RNC in round three at UFC 52, but a loss to Nate at 58 would send him packing to the IFL for a while. Now beating Crafton Wallace is arguably not that impressive, but even today the man holds a 16-3 record with his sole losses coming to Marquardt, Martin Kampmann and some dude named Tom Sauer who apparently fights as a heavyweight now. (Perhaps they should bring Wallace back so Silva has more competition.) The most telling of Marquardt's four straight wins is the last fight of the streak, a unanimous decision over Dean Lister at Ultimate Fight Night 8. Lister's credentials - two-time U.S. National Sambo champion, four-time U.S. Machado National Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Champion and a National Gracie Jiu Jitsu champion to boot. Here's where it gets really interesting - with consecutive wins over Jordan Radev and Jeremy Horn, Lister may be one fight away from a title shot himself. Unfortunately the man standing in his way at UFC 92 is Yushin Okami, but that's another story for another day.

Côté's four straight UFC victories simply don't stack up by comparison. Scott Smith had only one win in his entire UFC tenure before Dana White at al sent him packing. Kendall Grove made his name from winning Ultimate Fighter, whereas Côté' is three years older and far more seasoned than Grove. Honestly with his only UFC wins coming over Ed Herman and Alan Belcher, Grove wasn't even in Côté's league when the two met at UFC 74. (To this day the chants of "CO-TAYYY, CO-TAY CO-TAY CO-TAY" from the live crowd at that event haunt me.) Drew McFedries is a hard punching fighter... and that's about it. Don't get me wrong, I like McFedries a lot, but he's almost the textbook definition of fluke win. He either knocks you out or gets tapped out - that's not what I'd call well-rounded or a challenging opponent. Last but not least there's the mind-numbingly boring fight Côté had with Ricardo Almeida at UFC 86, and Almeida had been retired for FOUR YEARS before returning to the world of MMA. To be entirely fair let's break it down to cold hard math. Marquardt's four opponents were a combined 63-17 when they faced him, which means his foes won 78% of their fights before losing to Nate. Côté's four opponents were a combined 33-10 before losses to him for a 77% winning percentage. The percentages tell one story, but the fact Marquardt's opponents had nearly double the amount of wins tells another. Marquardt faced and beat a more experienced set of fighters to get his shot than Côté did.

Ultimately a win is a win in MMA, they certainly aren't easy to come by, and with or without a streak to his name Côté undoubtedly had a fair argument for a title shot. It's arguable that watching Côté on Ultimate Fighter 4 for so long biased me against him, as he struck me as both boring and arrogant. I've often though he's what Georges St. Pierre would be if GSP had no charisma, personality, conditioning or ability. In other words suck the lifeblood out of St. Pierre and you wind up with Patrick Côté, a man whose 'Predator' nickname I've never been able to fathom. A predator would go in for the kill against a man like Almeida, a man coming off a four year layoff, a man possibly past his prime and in no way ready for high level competition. Despite dominating Almeida in their fight, he didn't go for the kill. Côté may have been wise not to take the bait and jump into Almeida's guard when he went to the ground, but being wise and being exciting are two entirely different things. Côté showed me more of the same at UFC 90. Again he chose not to take the bait, respective Anderson Silva's striking power, not wanting to make a mistake or get caught in a muay thai clinch. Côté engaged cautiously. No, that's not strong enough. He engaged TIMIDLY. Even though it took Silva a full minute to get his rhythm and start bouncing on his feet, Côté never seized the opportunity to engage and catch Silva with a strike when he wasn't ready. If even Matt Serra can KO a clearly superior fighter like GSP, anything is possible. ANYTHING.

Not only did Côté lose the chance to take advantage of the situation and "shock the world" as he had been promising to do, he showed absolutely nothing in the first two rounds before his knee blew out that would convince fight fans he deserves another shot. All the strikes that did damage were Silva's. All of the Octagon control was Silva's. Had it gone to the scorecards Silva was already two rounds ahead and cruising towards a third. Somehow I don't think it would have gotten out of round three regardless of the injury. What's really obnoxious is that Côté is claiming a moral victory for having survived longer than any of Silva's other opponents in title fights. Moral victories don't earn you a winner's purse or Fight of the Night bonuses. They might as well be called HOLLOW victories because they are ultimately meaningless. I'm no fighter but if I got in a cage and ran away from Anderson Silva for 15 minutes, miraculously managing to survive the whole time, I could claim a "moral victory" too. This predator turned pussycat even has the audacity to claim Silva was insulting him by offering him a hand up when he was on the ground. The irony is that Côté was trying to do to Silva what Almeida tried to do to him, and Silva was far too veteran to take the bait and jump into the guard so Côté could look for a submission. He was winning the standup and only needed to take the fight to the ground at his discretion, not Côté's. Offering Côté a hand up was not an insult in any way. If Côté was going to lay there the ref was eventually going to force a standup anyway. Silva's gesture was simply acknowledging the inevitable and being a gentleman about it.

I've heard nothing but crying and whining and revisionist history from Côté ever since the fight was stopped, and it's done nothing to improve my view of Côté as a fighter whatsoever. Claiming a moral victory doesn't make you a Predator. Claiming to win a fight you were losing doesn't make you a Predator. Claiming to have outstruck the best striker in all of MMA without landing a shot doesn't make you a Predator, it makes you a Pussycat. When Patrick Côté wants to stop crying like a pussy, start rehabbing his injury and string a few more wins together, maybe he'll deserve a second chance at Anderson Silva. If I were UFC though I wouldn't be in any hurry to give it to him. We often hear the saying "styles make fights" in MMA, and Patrick Côté's style results in many boring fights where he won't seize the advantage even when it's clearly his. You don't risk anything by not taking chances, but you don't win anything either. Until Patrick Côté shows me more than he did in his fight with Silva against some higher caliber opponents, I'm not buying his hype. Beat Rich Franklin, Yushin Okami or Dean Lister in dominating fashion and then we'll talk. Until then I consider the Predator to be nothing more than a Pussy who likes to run his mouth and drop F bombs but can't back it up when it matters the most. (But realistically he'd still kick my ass any day of the week and twice on Sunday without even trying.)