Anderson Silva To Contend for Light-Heavyweight Championship

Scribe Written on July 05, 2009

CHICAGO- OCTOBER 25: Anderson Silva (L) wrestles with Patrick Cote in the Middleweight Title Bout at UFC's Ultimate Fight Night at Allstate Arena on October 25, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

At UFC 101 in Philly, Anderson Silva will step into the octagon against Season One Ultimate Fighter winner Forest Griffin. This will be Silva's second time he has gone up to 205 lbs. after he dominated the 185 lb. division.

His first fight ended like most people would expect—quick. He knocked out James Irvin in the first round of their fight.

That win, coupled with his immaculate record in the octagon, has enabled him to match up against a top five contender and former champion in Forest Griffin.

We know Forest isn't going to sit back against Anderson like Thales Leites did, and the fight should be a true slugfest, but if Anderson beats Forest, what's next for The Spider?

The next logical step would be a title shot at the winner of Lyoto/Shogun, but Rampage is already the number one contender, and has put off a title shot once to intensify his rivalry with Rashad Evans in TUF 10. Surely, the UFC wouldn't give the next title shot to someone else.

But also consider this—Yushin Okami has already been confirmed that he has a title shot somewhere in the future, Michael Bisping is scheduled to fight Anderson at UFC 105 in England, if he beats Hendo and Demian Maia and Nate Marqaurdt are scheduled to fight at UFC 102, also for a title shot.

Throw in a super fight with GSP some time in the near future, and it's not like he's short on competition.

Anderson moved up because he had no competition, but now he has worthy challengers. He would obviously like to continue switching weights so that he can pursue two championships, but that's not the best option for the UFC.

The UFC would prefer Anderson to stay at middleweight and defend his title, thus preventing the middleweight division becoming stagnant, or give up his title in search of Lyoto's title, and numerous super-fights in the light-heavyweight division. But UFC can't like Anderson Silva's hot-stepping between Middleweight and light-heavyweight.

So at the moment, I am rooting for Forest, because a win for Forest would eliminate these problems. Anderson would return to middleweight to defend his title and fight GSP sometime towards the end of the year (UFC 107?)

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written on July 05, 2009 Opinion

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