UFC: Could Anderson Silva, B.J. Penn and George St. Pierre All Meet at 170?

Anderson Silva's recent announcement that he was considering a drop down to the welterweight division has sent shockwaves through the MMA world. Previously fight fans had been calling for the UFC's three dominant champions, BJ Penn, George St Pierre, and Anderson Silva to vacate their respective weight classes and move up a division.

This seemed the most logical course of action with each man having virtually exhausted the options at their existing weight. The prospect of Anderson Silva moving down instead of up would suddenly mean that all three of the UFC's most dominant champions could potentially compete at the same weight.

Speaking ahead of his fight with Damian Maia at UFC 112 Anderson Silva discussed the possibility of fighting at 170 lbs for the very first time,

"I’d like to test myself and I always love to take on new challenges. It’s not that I want to go fight Georges St. Pierre for his title. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s the reigning champion, the absolute champion, in that weight category. But I just want to test myself and see how I’d do at that weight.”

Although BJ Penn has already been beaten twice by St Pierre, both fights were contentious. Penn argued bitterly about the points decision loss in their first ever meeting. He handed St Pierre a solid beating in the opening round before St Pierre battled back to win the next two rounds.

St Pierre won the second fight comfortably although there was controversy over the excessive application of vaseline to St Pierre between rounds. So dominant was St Pierre that it is difficult to argue that this affected the outcome of the fight but Penn did put in an official complaint and the general feeling amongst UFC officials is that the incident was unfortunate.

If St Pierre, Penn and Silva could all meet at 170 lbs it would free up the lightweight and middleweight divisions, at least temporarily, and allow fighters to challenge for the titles which Penn and Silva had vacated. This would give the UFC at least a couple of title fights to headline cards as well as a series of mega fights in the 170 division.

While some would argue that a fight between Silva and Penn would be a hopeless mismatch due to the size difference others will point to the fact that Penn has already faced undefeated UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida.

Penn weighed in at a career high 86.5 kgs, well above the welterweight limit, for this fight which Machida won by decision. If Penn fought Machida, who weighed in at 102 kgs for this fight, then why shouldn't he fight Anderson Silva at 77 kgs?

The St Pierre vs Silva fight has been a possibility for a long time, but people had always assumed this would happen at 185 lbs. Dana White was obviously intrigued by the possibility, describing himself as 'blown away' by the idea that Silva could move down in weight,

"If he could cut down to 170 lbs I would look at a GSP fight, I would do it. I don't like the idea of GSP moving up but i would do it if he (Silva) could make 170 lbs."

White also said that the fight with Frankie Edgar will probably be Penn's last fight at 155 lbs and, assuming Penn is victorious, he will probably move up to 170 lbs.

The stage is set for the three most dominant champions in the UFC to meet in what will be some of the most eagerly awaited match ups in UFC history. The only question mark is can Silva, who has always looked slightly emaciated at middleweight, still be effective as a welterweight.

It seems only fair that both Penn and Silva meet and beat an existing welterweight contender before getting a shot at St Pierre, but with three lucrative Champion vs Champion cards at stake the UFC could be forgiven for throwing them in the cage together at the earliest available opportunity.

Penn vs St Pierre, Penn vs Silva, St Pierre vs Silva. Seldom in the history of the combat sport can three such dominant fighters have had the opportunity to compete against one another. These are the kind of fights which will go down in UFC history and could come to define the current era of MMA.