Silva vs. Griffin a Huge Coup for Dana White, Public Justice for Silva?

Hearing news like I did today cements my opinion that UFC President Dana White and their decision makers are great for the sport of MMA—no matter what any ill-mannered naysayers attempt to put out there.

For over a week, Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva's boring victory over Thales Leites at UFC 97 became a swirling storm of irritation for everyone involved. Fans were upset at the manner in which Silva won, a second straight fight that didn't have exciting moments or end in someone decidedly being defeated.

Silva and his camp were upset at the reaction of the fans and media, who dared question his style of fighting. White was upset at the whole situation and openly questioned what might motivate Silva to fight in a more...well...crowd-pleasing style.

(And Chuck Liddell was also upset at the post-fight press conference on behalf of Silva, but that's another story.)

White had a major problem on his hands. Actually, he had several.

• In Silva, he has a champion that set a record for consecutive victories with nine and is clearly the most dominant fighter in his division and perhaps the world.
  
  However, with no real competition that could justify a potentially exciting and money-drawing title fight (Demian Maia and Yushin Okami are not must-see fighters yet), White has a chip he can't get full value out of. He has one of the world's best fighters and can't draw a good PPV number with him on top which is unbelievable if you really think about it.
  
  
• The buzz around Silva is about as cold and negative as can be. Fans and their conduits in the press are actually demonizing Silva as a heel, someone they would like to see defeated for the wrong reasons - retribution for wrongs they feel Silva has committed by his perceived lack of interest in their feelings when it came to the Leites and Patrick Cote victories.
  
  
• Silva himself seems to be a problem as there is clearly something wrong here. Perhaps he's upset at his UFC contract, the quality of competition or White himself but you rarely see an athlete at the top of his game perform in the manner that Silva has over his past two fights.
  
  Granted, he did win both of them but there is undeniably something off here. Where is the guy that captured our hearts and minds?
  

So given all of that, one of the world's best promoters did what he does best and has reportedly put together Silva vs. crowd favorite and never-boring Forrest Griffin in a light heavyweight battle to headline UFC 101 in Philadelphia on August 2nd.

More after the jump...

And just like that, White's problem's are on the way to being solved. Ready for more bullet points?

• As fans, we get upset when managers/owners don't publicly get on players like we feel they should. Here, White didn't dress down Silva too badly in public but essentially said, "If that's how you want to fight, you get to go up in weight again and take on the former Light Heavyweight Champion."
  
  By the way, this is the same Griffin who desperately wants to get a title shot again so there is major motivation on his end to win.
  
  
• Griffin isn't going to run from Silva, nor will Silva be able to hide from Griffin. You're not going to see stalling or ridiculousness as Griffin won't let it happen. I am 100 percent confident of this, as well as Silva's motivation going in. This is a big fight with plenty of positive ramifications if he wins.
  
  
• White gets a terrific pay-per-view draw and one that is going to do tremendous business, not even taking into consideration the new market they are running in Philadelphia. With B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian heading up the undercard, this could easily be around the 800k mark for buys and even better depending on the build.
  
  
• The light heavyweight division gets a boost in the arm. Once the sport's best assortment of talent, the 205'ers Top Ten has been pretty weak in terms of exciting fighters. Once you move past Rampage Jackson, Griffin and current champ Rashad Evans, there's not a lot there in terms of drawing power.
  
  Lyoto Machida isn't on that level yet and Chuck Liddell is now past his UFC prime. Adding Silva to the mix for even just one fight helps and his permanent addition to the division would be huge. He's too dominant for the middleweight group, which actually hurts the UFC more than it helps.
  
• It delays the Silva vs. GSP talk for a while. We all know this fight has to happen at some point, but it's going to be a while and probably won't be until '10.
  
  This lets the UFC focus on GSP and the welterweight division first, then figure placement and logistics for the eventual megafight of all megafights.

The obvious next step is for this fight to be officially announced, but I'll be damned if I'm not excited to see it already. The MMA public's outcry has been heard and at UFC 101, justice may be served to Silva with five oz. gloves and a bloodthirsty Philly crowd.

Josh Nason - josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com] - has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. He joined up with Bleacher Report in 2008 and achieved Columnist status in 2009.