Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II: 10 Reasons Why Dallas Should Get the Rematch

Anderson "The Spider" Silva, arguably the most enigmatic combat sports athlete to be called "the best pound for pound fighter" in any sport, had himself a near-fatal career moment last year when he took a trip to Oakland for a UFC Middleweight Title defense against a man named Chael Sonnen.

Despite the circumstances surrounding the bout—namely the controversy surrounding the Testosterone Replacement Therapy Sonnen had undergone but overdone before the fight—the MMA world remembers that Sonnen did what many hoped the Chris Lebens, Nate Marquardts, Rich Franklins and Dan Hendersons of the UFC would do and pushed Silva for four and a half rounds.

Silva had fought guys with good submission skills before, but a fighter with the ground and pound of Sonnen?

Never, and Silva was still expected to waltz through Uncle Chael, but we all know how that worked out for both guys.

Now, it's 2011. Silva has torn through all but a few Middleweights, and Chael Sonnen found a submission that he wasn't really looking for against Brian Stann...complete with Sonnen saying Silva sucks and Dana White thinking about a few good venues for the rematch should he decide to go with it.

MMA Junkie reported after UFC 136 this past weekend that Dana White is looking at Dallas for a venue for the card which might feature Silva-Sonnen II if Silva's shoulder is good to go by then.

Of course, if Dana White wants to do it in a stadium and he's talking to Jerry Jones about a trip back to the Dallas-Fort Worth area—specifically to that big place with 110,000 seats and the huge screens in Arlington—he might be making a great move.

So while Dana considers allowing my credentials, here's why Super Bowl weekend should feature Silva-Sonnen II in Arlington, TX at Cowboys Stadium.

Until NYC Gets MMA, Dallas Is the Mecca of the Sports World, Besides Las Vegas

Beautiful view, eh?

That's the stadium that the Dallas Cowboys play at these days, and it's a beauty, but it's not the size of the stadium that makes it the reason why it should host the UFC's potential headliner for the Super Bowl card.

Rather than the stadium, it's the state of Texas in general.

At the risk of redundancy, I will just say that, as a resident of the state of Texas myself, I can definitely say that if you represent a sport and you decide to host any sporting event in the Lone Star State, there are very few logical reasons why a crowd would deny the chance to see it, and this fight would be no exception.

However, it's not just this one fight that would do well...

A Card of This Caliber Would Be Stacked with Something for Everyone

The UFC traditionally decks their Super Bowl card with a little bit of something for every MMA fan—MMA fans of all walks get everything they clamor for, from pound-for-pound greats and perennial contenders to veterans of the game, and everything all the way down to prospects with pound-for-pound aspirations and guys who might or might not ever be in the mix.

Heck, they loaded up a blockbuster on Super Bowl Saturday for UFC 126 when Silva fought Vitor Belfort, and that card was a good one in its own right.

That, plus if you revisit UFC 117, despite it not being a Super Bowl card, that card had a little bit of something for everyone in itself also.

What will the UFC suits do if the Super Bowl card—and/or Cowboys Stadium—does get Silva-Sonnen II, as oppossed to Las Vegas, which always gets the Super Bowl card?

Who knows, but it will be big.

The Aura of the Champion

Anderson Silva has never once fought in Texas, if you can believe it.

Actually, I believe his appearance in the crowd at UFC 136 this past Saturday is the first time anyone could remember The Spider coming to Texas at all.

He's a fighter who has fought in Vegas, in London, in Hawaii and all over Japan, and he defended his belt in his home country. Plus, he fought Jeremy Horn in South Korea—and above all else, his victory over Sonnen is the only victory in his whole career that he did not make to look completely easy.

Easy to show the heart of a champion when you have almost 25 of the worst minutes of your life? Absolutely, but that fight was not the walk-through it was supposed to be to some.

Still, that's the one thing about Silva, though—and we will talk more on that later on for both Silva and Sonnen—but the aura of an arguable GOAT-level fighter is there, even though there was proof prior to Sonnen's title shot that invincibility was not completely there, if it ever was there.

He has the distinctive qualities a fighter needs to be considered the greatest of all time, and he showed some heart against his brash rival.

However, he's never brought that aura down to Texas, where GSP lost his belt to Matt Serra, Junior Dos Santos defeated Mirko Cro Cop, Evan Dunham officially lost his "0" and Nate Marquardt headlined a Fight Night card.

Vegas is home to Dana and the UFC, but they've had their turn with Silva, and we already had our first dose of Sonnen in Texas.

Now, we want the full package. We want Anderson Silva in Texas against the only man to take Silva to hell and back in a UFC title defense.

The Aura of the Challenger

Chael Sonnen can draw crowds whether you like him or not, and if you're still with me on this, you know that his oratory skills have dividends paid to them by the UFC brass for all the butts he puts in seats or all the PPV buys people commit to.

You either pay to see him back up his s—t-talking, or you pay to see him own someone's foot in his hind parts (because you can't say the "A-word" on here unless you're quoting someone...hence, I use it a lot when Quinton Jackson speaks. Thank you, Rampage).

Anyway, Chael's aura is centered around two things, and one of them is his ability to talk smack and make people believe it is legitimate.

The other thing is what a few other wrestlers have in common with Sonnen, which is that he does press the action with his wrestling, although that's a double-edged sword, even if you are a Sonnen fan.

He presses the action and makes it obvious that he's whooping some heads, but the Stann win was his first win by a finish since his TKO win over Kyacey Uscola in 2007.

He dominated Silva with his wrestling, but if he was so concerned with that parallel universe where you can punch a man 300 times in the face, only for your opponent to get his hand raised after wrapping his legs around your dome, that raises a question in the minds of his critics and his deepest detractors:

In what parallel universe does it matter how many times you punched the dude in the face if you tapped out instead of looking for a TKO or Submission win?

In this universe, 300 punches to a champion's face is like bragging about the toy you got in your Happy Meal if you still didn't get the win.

The TRT Issue That May Not Be an Issue

Chael Sonnen has hypogonadism, so he needs testosterone replacement therapy.

Some people can live with it, and some cannot, but that's what it is at this time.

Sonnen seems like the best Sonnen ever last year, but then he failed that post-fight drug test, and his mouth got him into more trouble outside the cage.

All of that drama ended quickly, however, and it has led us back to where we are now.

Will TRT be that big an issue coming into the rematch?

It might, and the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation will still have to keep an eye out for it, but if Texas should host the rematch, maybe it won't matter.

All that matters is whether Sonnen can get the job done once again.

Has the Rain of Time Washed the Spider Out, Even If Only a Little Bit?

Silva fans point to many things when they try to explain Silva's performance in rounds 1-4 against Sonnen, and unsurprisingly, age has also been pointed out recently.

Silva is 36 now, while Sonnen is 34, and age plays more a role in MMA than we all want to think in some cases.

That said, is Silva really declining?

Has time caught up with the once-untouchable force that is the current Middleweight Champion?

Surely, Sonnen just beat Silva up badly, but even if an enhanced Sonnen didn't take his toll on Silva, nothing is stopping time from doing its dirt on the champ.

It hopefully won't have anything to do with the rematch, but a loss to the challenger would definitely raise that question.

Chael Sonnen Makes (Some) Ground-Gamers Look Like They Have No Ground Game

Now, you can't mention Chael's name to me and expect me to not mention the Demian Maia loss, either loss to Jeremy Horn, the Forrest Griffin loss or the loss to Renato "Babalu" Sobral, and he's really only handled Dan Miller and Nate Marquardt in addition to his UFC 117 performance.

But at the end of the day, TRT or not, we cannot pretend like the man doesn't have some wrestling.

He's actually one of the best wrestlers in the division, and some might say one of the best in the sport.

Regardless of how it happened, Sonnen's wrestling did nonetheless control Silva for almost 25 minutes, and it's always possible that it controls Silva again, just as it has done Dan Miller and Nate Marquardt.

Sonnen is just that good—he's good enough to turn some good Jiu-Jitsu artists into overrated Jiu-Jitsu artists.

Anyone who recognizes Sonnen's existence can anticipate the Pride of West Linn, Oregon taking the time out to showcase his fast-acting wrestling game in the rematch if it does happen, but critics of Sonnen will be intrigued by the potential prospect of Silva having an answer for his arch rival's Wrestling game this time.

Then again, Sonnen could make Silva look silly on the ground this time out, just as he did the last time.

Anderson Silva Makes Great MMA Fighters Look Like They Shouldn't Be in MMA

It's scary, but it is the honest truth.

You look at everyone on the UFC Middleweight Champion's track record—whether in the UFC or outside of it—and pay attention to the way in which he disposed of those opponents.

Even when he had to pull out a Triangle-Armbar on Sonnen to save his reign as the champion late in round five, he still made Sonnen look (and feel) bad because while Sonnen was able to hurt him, he was not able to get anywhere close to a stoppage, and once he drew somewhat closer to running on fumes, Silva sprung the trap and found the tap.

What that says is that Silva is good enough to pull off some spectacular finishes even when the world witnesses him on his worst day against a truly game opponent, despite the circumstances surrounding his opponent's performance.

What will it say if Silva can beat Sonnen again on what could potentially be his best day?

If Anderson Silva Loses, He Might Really Either Drop or Jump in Weight

Who knows if Chael Sonnen was serious when he threw the gauntlet down at UFC 136?

He ripped a line from The Rock saying Silva sucks and that he's willing to put his UFC run on the line against Anderson's place in the division if it gets him a rematch on Super Bowl Saturday.

Seriously, though...is that supposed to freak anyone out?

Half of the people who watch MMA consider a superfight against Jon Jones or his Black House/Team Nogueira stable-mate and UFC 140 headliner Lyoto Machida to be bigger than what Silva vs. Georges St-Pierre was made out to be, and the other half of those people still want Silva and St-Pierre to fight.

A loss at Middleweight might make Sonnen the No. 1 man at 185 pounds, but it doesn't hurt Silva's claim as being the pound-for-pound best in the world if Silva has to chase 12 pounds of gold at a different weight class thanks to a loss to the sport's premier trash-talker.

If Chael Sonnen Loses, He Might Actually Leave the UFC

Chael Sonnen is a great trash talker, and probably the best the UFC has had since Tito Ortiz, but he put his balls on a waffle iron when he made the "loser leaves town" stipulation for the fight, which has not been signed but is all too obviously going to be signed unless Chris Leben calls Sonnen out after a difficult-to-achieve victory over Mark Munoz at UFC 138.

Sonnen is so convinced that he can pry the belt away from Silva's hands and deepen the dead pool that is the remains of the UFC Middleweight Division, so much so that if he loses to Silva again—even if it happens the same way it did last time—he has made no claims to the contrary of what he spoke in Houston.

He doesn't care if Dana White wants him to face Michael Bisping, if the fans clamor to see him somehow get Dan Henderson next and if Kenny Florian jet-packs himself back up to Middleweight for a crack at Sonnen—the man has said that a loss in the rematch will lead to his requested release from the UFC, no questions asked, if Silva verbally agrees to the rematch on Super Bowl Weekend.

Now, when you look at both possible results—Silva conceivably leaving the division for real or Sonnen conceivably terminating his own contract with a loss to his arch rival for real—there's only one date and one venue appropriate for the fight of this magnitude.

Now all that's left to wonder is...can Chael do it again, and can one of the biggest hotbeds in the Wide World of Sports host that rematch?

Your move, Uncle Dana.