Anderson Silva Should Drop to 177 Pounds or Forget About a Superfight with GSP

Recently, some have wrongfully made UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre out to be the villain for not committing to a superfight with middleweight champion Anderson Silva.

MMA fans have resorted to calling St. Pierre "scared" and a "coward." There is one small underlying fact that some keep missing—outside of media questioning, St. Pierre has never expressed any serious desire to fight at middleweight.

This isn't saying the thought never crossed his mind, but it wasn't like St. Pierre was campaigning for a title shot at another weight class like B.J. Penn.

MMA fans have become spoiled with the concept of jumping weight classes "once you clean out a division."

UFC Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo has only defended his title two times, and fans are already clamoring for him to jump to lightweight, despite a multitude of challengers left at featherweight.

In the NFL, the Indianapolis Colts have won the AFC South division eight times in the past nine years, but you don't see NFL fans and pundits pushing the Colts into a bigger division.

As fans, we crave big fights, but sometimes we don't fully understand things from a competitive perspective. A jump from welterweight to middleweight looks fairly easy on the surface for those with no experience of adding or cutting weight.

On fight night, Silva would come in much heavier than a natural middleweight. Look at his fight at Light Heavyweight with Forrest Griffin. At 205 pounds, Griffin is an exceptionally large man that tends to dwarf opponents, but Silva was far from dwarfed in that fight.

Silva is a huge middleweight, and it would take time for St. Pierre to gain the right amount of mass necessary to take on a guy most consider the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.

How would lightweight champ Frankie Edgar look sized up next to St. Pierre?

Silva could opt to drop a few pounds to meet St. Pierre halfway. This is the best option if Silva really desires this superfight. But like St. Pierre, Silva hasn't shown much interest either. He generally only talks about the superfight when the media throws him questions. If anything, Silva seems more interested in competing in the light heavyweight division.

St. Pierre and Silva won't be on top forever. If they compete long enough, someone will come along and take their place. Look at Penn's last two fights at lightweight with Edgar. It's a shame that we can't enjoy and appreciate the success of world-class athletes. We always want more, and when we don't get it, we try to force it.

No one wants to see any half-hearted attempts at jumping or dropping weight.

One of the great things about the sport of MMA is its unpredictability. Before winning the welterweight title for the first time, St. Pierre defeated B.J. Penn, Sean Sherk, Karo Parisyan, Frank Trigg, and Jason "Mayhem" Miller.

These guys were the cream of the crop at that time. You could argue that St. Pierre "cleaned out the division" on the way to a title shot with Matt Hughes.

After defeating Hughes, St. Pierre got smashed in his first title defense against Matt Serra. Who would've thought? All of the other guys came up short, and Serra is the guy to topple the unstoppable Georges "Rush" St. Pierre.

Weeks before that fight, people were claiming that St. Pierre had defeated just about all of the top welterweights, and Serra didn't even deserve to breath the same air as him.

They may come from unexpected places at times, but there will always be challenges. St. Pierre faces an incredible one in Jake Shields at UFC 129. If he gets past Shields and decides to stay at welterweight, there are multiple challengers still in the mix, including Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, Diego Sanchez, Martin Kampmann, Carlos Condit, and a returning Anthony Johnson.

As for Silva, the UFC should give top contender Yushin Okami his title shot. There is no need in Silva waiting around for something that may never happen.

If Silva doesn't want to meet at a catch-weight, he should forget about the superfight with St. Pierre—at least for now.

(SportsHaze.com Original)

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