Fighting at Light Heavyweight will be a challenge to Anderson Silva
Published by Zach Arnold on May 6th, 2009 in Current Events

 Print |  Email |  RSS

Dana White told UFC-friendly Yahoo Sports writer Kevin Iole that he has booked Forrest Griffin vs. Anderson Silva as the semi-main event fight for UFC’s August show in Philadelphia. The show is headlined by BJ Penn vs. Kenny Florian, a fight that will have a lot of buzz because it will be Penn’s first contest since losing to Georges St. Pierre and Florian’s best chance at winning the UFC 155-pound Lightweight title.

Lately, it seems as if Anderson Silva has lost his smile. For the fans who think he’s not showing up to fight or showing any heart, he has a message for you — you don’t understand what he’s doing. There are nuances in his game and he’s technically smooth in a way other fights aren’t, so therefore some people will just be mad about his fight style and there’s nothing he can do it about.

Dana White has just sent Anderson Silva a message in response — screw you. I’m about to make life hell for you.

White has spent an enormous amount of energy pushing Anderson Silva as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, and yet the response from UFC fans towards Silva has been largely muted. It’s ironic that despite Silva winning 9 fights in a row, the only reaction he seems to be attracting is heat — heat that his fight style sucked against Patrick Cote and Thales Leites; heat that he doesn’t seem to care about how the fans think of him; heat that he seems more focused on fighting Roy Jones in a boxing match than taking care of his responsibilities as the ace of UFC’s Middleweight division.

With Anderson’s carefree attitude lately towards his opponents, Dana White had no choice but to find someone who would bang with Silva and make him work. White needed to find an opponent with name value and cache that people would take seriously in a fight against Silva. That man is Forrest Griffin, who rarely has a boring fight and will pose a lot of challenges to Silva.

As we’ve seen in the past with Silva, this is someone who has trouble against BJJ artists like Travis Lutter on the ground. However, Silva showed amazing skills against a world-class wrestler in Dan Henderson and submitted him. Will Forrest take the fight to the ground and press the action? In terms of the stand-up game, Silva’s going to be facing someone who is a heavy hitter (ask Rampage Jackson) and someone who is well-trained in striking. Anderson Silva is a tremendous stand-up fighter, but lately he seems more interested in counter-punching and playing defense. Griffin will take the fight to Silva and make him work. Griffin will be the first major name opponent that Silva has faced since March of 2008. Plus, Anderson Silva will not have to cut weight at all to make 205 pounds. He is a big man who will have to keep up with Griffin’s raw strength and power. Will Silva take Griffin more seriously than he has his recent string of opponents and rise up to the challenge?

If Anderson does beat Griffin, who does he face next? Yushin Okami, a man who Silva will more than likely will be able to match up with very favorably? Or will he end up fighting the likes of Quinton Jackson and Rashad Evans?

For Dana White, Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin is about as good of a match-up as he could possibly book. In the end, Griffin taking this fight is better than fighting a lower-name opponent on the UFC 100 card in July. Griffin’s fight style and demeanor will fit perfectly in with the Philadelphia audience, which is an audience that loves blue-collar, bring-your-lunchpail kind of fighters. And if Anderson Silva delivers another boring, defensive performance? He will soon find out why Philadelphia sports fans have the reputation they have earned over several decades.

Some curious matchmaking for UFC 98 in Las Vegas

The main event of Rashad Evans vs. Ryoto Machida may not have a lot of sizzle, but it will be interesting to see who the fans decide to cheer and who they decide to root against. Evans is disliked by a healthy amount of fans and Machida is only, slowly but surely, starting to grow on the casual fans right now.

The semi-main event featuring Matt Hughes versus Matt Serra is almost, at this point, a legends match. Two great characters who are basically fighting in a loser-leaves-town bout. With the 170-pound division as stacked as it is, neither man can afford to lose one more time. Serra, more than Hughes, has a shot of surviving even if he loses but a lot is on the lot for Matt Hughes. Two years ago, the consensus would have been unanimous that Hughes would dominate this fight. Now? Not so much.

When you look at the other three fights on the main card for UFC 98, there is a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good is Sean Sherk vs. Frankie Edgar, which will be a very entertaining fight even if it goes to a decision. Edgar has an amazing pain threshhold and will not be submitted. Plus, he has good wrestling skills and it will be fascinating to see if he can fight off Sherk’s raw strength in terms of being outmuscled on the ground. The only way this fight will get ugly is if Sherk plods his way through all the rounds by laying on Edgar like a blanket and not working for a submission. This is a good opening fight on the TV broadcast.

The bad and the ugly, unfortunately, is the rash of injuries that have decimated the undercard. Remember how Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar was going to headline this show? Things went downhill from there after Mir pulled out due to knee surgery. Yushin Okami is out and so is Houston Alexander.

So what are we left with?

There are some potentially great fights on the undercard — Philippe Nover vs. Kyle Bradley could be really good (despite what the oddsmakers think). Patrick Berry vs. Tim Hague could be a heavyweight slugfest with Berry (having K-1 experience) producing another good finish. Brock Larson should be able to beat Chris Wilson and hopefully not by decision.

Here are the BetUS odds for UFC 98:

Machida (-220) vs. Evans (+170)
Hughes (-250) vs. Serra (+185)
Sherk (-300) vs. Edgar (+200)
Nover (-500) vs. Bradley (+300)
Yoshiyuki Yoshida (-500) vs. Brandon Wolff (+300)
Berry (-350) vs. Hague (+225)

Evans, Serra, and Bradley are all solid underdog bets. As much as we love Frankie Edgar, he’s about to face someone who much bigger and stronger than he is.