UFC Undisputed 3: Why Anderson Silva Should Be The Cover Athlete

The UFC will be bringing back their signature video game franchise in January 2012.

The question always is, "Who is going to be on the cover?"

We ask this for every sports video game release, and there are a lot of good answers.  The ones that won't will be the ones that have already been on the cover, so Forrest Griffin, Georges St. Pierre and Brock Lesnar will take a back seat on this one.

There is one champion out there that may very well get the gig, and that is the UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson "The Spider" Silva.

Here is why he should be on the cover of "UFC Undisputed 3."

He's Back

The Anderson Silva we saw a couple of years ago would've been a marketing nightmare. Sure, he was the UFC Middleweight Champion, but he was driving his employers insane with his reserved fighting style that we saw in the Thales Leites and Demian Maia fights.

Now, Silva has a few victories in a row that showcased what he was capable of. The fifth round submission of Chael Sonnen, the front kick KO of Vitor Belfort and the sheer destruction of Yushin Okami have given Silva all the ammo to be marketed as the dominant champion that Lesnar was for the 2010 release.

Can't Be the New Divisions

In the new game, the featherweight and bantamweight divisions will debut. There isn't much steam underneath it at this point, but give it time and the divisions will move along strong.

This game can also be a gateway for UFC fans to get to know the divisions a bit better, but as for a cover athlete, the closest in those divisions would have to be Urijah Faber, and my hunch is that it will be a current champion, and Faber is not.

A Former PRIDE Star

Anderson Silva fought for PRIDE a number of years ago. In the new game, there is expected to be a mode that is set on PRIDE rules, including the ring and former fighters.

If you would like to market that, get the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world on the cover inside a PRIDE ring.

And lastly...

He's Got Charisma

You definitely need charisma if you are going to market something as big as a UFC video game, and as seen in this video, Silva has plenty of it.

It may not be understood what he is singing here, but though most of it is just screaming, Silva shows that as a star, he has a lighter side that a lot of people can relate to and when we only see the deadly side of him in North America, it's harder to relate to that because he is almost robotic.

Would you buy the new game as a new UFC fan, based on this video alone? If you don't know who Silva is, would you think he was a UFC fighter here?

What do you think?

Mark Pare is a Featured Columnist. You can follow him on  Twitter and don't forget to check out his sportswriter page.