Make me
First of all you have no idea how much Silva is worth. He could have blown it all on poor investments or gambling. Athletes have been seen at alarming paces to incinerate their wealth with abandon. You are literally speculating with no facts to back it up. If Silva was worth so much money why would he bother fighting in shady boxing promotions against YouTubers then? If someone is truly worth $20million and is a champion of their sport why would they lower themselves for low class and embarrassing opportunities such as fighting a social media clown and risk ruining their legacy? You think Silva could not have fought an A-level boxing champion in a legitimate promotion for millions? Or signed with another MMA promotion after leaving the UFC for good money? That his best opportunity was this freak show style boxing?
Him signing up for a YouTube boxing bout makes him look pathetic and weak and desperate for money. Joining classless imbeciles like Woodley and Askren.
Secondly there are endless amounts of criminals who were rich or wealthy and kept committing crimes. There are multimillionaires and billionaires who have committed crimes despite being financially well off enough to never have to work again.
Silva was paid allegedly $500K to fight against Paul. He could have easily gotten that for a boxing fight or MMA fight that would have been more prestigious in another organization or platform. To me it looks like Silva is flat broke. Maybe he took a dive or did not. But there is no way that he is financially secure like you are speculating. His behavior screams the opposite. That he is desperate to pick up any paycheck possible now that the UFC is done with him and going up against rising social media stars was a good opportunity to make easy cash for him.
Silva looked awful in his match against Paul. He was barely throwing at all. And when he did throw it was not accurate nor powerful. He stood there often frozen just waiting for Paul to initiate some type of contact or action. He either should be ashamed or he deliberately held back his abilities to allow the other fighter to shine which is honestly just as bad as taking a dive.
1. Jake v Silva was on Showtime PPV so how is that a 'shady boxing promotion'? They're as legit as it gets when it comes to boxing promotions, the UFC were fine co promoting Mayweather v McGregor with them, so I don't understand where you're coming from by describing Showtime as a shady boxing promotion? Enlighten me?
2. Anderson Silva cannot compete with 'A level champion boxers', have you lost your mind? A level champion boxers at the top of the sport would do very, very bad things to Silva in a boxing ring, his life would be in danger, so why would Silva face opponents like that who represent huge danger whilst also giving himself no chance of being competitive against for equal or less money over taking a fight with Jake for similar or more money but with the added benefit of being in much less danger due to Jake still being novice level on top of the fact Silva could still be competitive with Jake too? Which he was given two judges had the fight scored 4-3 Jake going into the final round, it was a competitive bout.
Silva has also ruled himself out from ever competing in MMA again after his leg injury, he only came back to UFC to see out his contract and jump into boxing where there are far less demands on the legs, so I don't know why you are suggesting that he should or could have joined other MMA organizations when he already ruled out ever competing in MMA again.
That $500K was just his purse fee, Silva would have then made much more from ads on his social media platforms throughout the build up, sponsorship and then his cut from PPV/arena ticket sales, probably made between $5-10M all in, there's no one you can suggest to me that Silva could have fought instead for similar money whilst being faced with the least amount of danger as he was against Jake.
3. Silva loves fighting, it's like a drug to him, an addiction, he can't give it up, which is why he's still continuing to fight even into his late 40s, he's struggling to accept the reality that his fighting career is nearly over, he's hanging on by his finger tips, the feeling he gets preparing for a fight and then fighting clearly can't be replicated by doing anything else, he can't stop chasing it, that doesn't mean however that he won't be smart about it by taking the biggest opportunity for the most amount of money against the least amount of danger, which is what fighting as main event on Showtime PPV against Jake represented.