ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

No one handled Anderson Silva the way Chael Sonnen did.

So, heading into their eagerly awaited rematch this summer, conventional wisdom holds the American wrestler again should own large portions of the fight. And, if he simply avoids making one big mistake, Sonnen will become the first man since 2004 to legitimately defeat the reigning UFC champion.

I'm not in that group. In fact, I'd argue the way things are set up, Sonnen seems headed for a big fall in front of tens of thousands of people who surely despise him.

Here are five reasons, one for each enthralling round the middleweights fought in 2010, why "The Spider" will cement his legacy as the best mixed martial artist yet by defeating his nemesis on a grand stage.

The ambush factor

What could Sonnen possibly do to Silva that he didn't two years ago?

OK, yes, not tap to a triangle. But in relation to offense and pressure and pace, Sonnen was simply brilliant. Silva, meanwhile, was near his worst and the UFC champion still endured during the final throes of their epic encounter.

The most unique element of the fight was the ambush factor. Sonnen, everyone accepted, was tough. Limited, perhaps, especially compared to Silva's multi-layered game, but he was good at what he did. And then he walked directly at Silva and slammed a punch into the Brazilian's mouth.

No one expected Sonnen would show up to fight in Oakland on Aug. 7, 2010, the way he did.

Silva had not been tested since early 2008, when Dan Henderson made him fight for just over a round. Following that it was walkover bouts and embarrassing displays manifesting out of sheer boredom.

Unlike James Irvin, Patrick Cote, Thales Leites, Forrest Griffin and Demian Maia, Chael Sonnen was not frightened by the site of the man standing in front of him. He started fast, put Silva on the defensive -- a neat trick few -- and rolled like a tank for 20-plus minutes.

Sonnen has no reason to be frightened standing in front of Silva in Rio, but at least the UFC champion knows what's coming this time. Silva understands that Sonnen can box. And Sonnen can take him down. But he also knows that Sonnen's top game, for all the staggering punch-output totals, didn't damage him.

Sonnen's effort in 2010 will bring out Silva's best in 2012. That signals trouble for the challenger.

Silva's health

Silva fights like a poet writes, unless he's hampered by bad ribs. Lest we forget, Silva wasn't near 100 percent heading into the contest in Oakland. Assuming this isn't the case when they meet in Brazil, that's a huge boost to Silva. The man relies on movement. Everything flows though his feet. Take that away from him and he's a shell of himself.

Sonnen clearly deserves credit for his forward momentum throughout the fight, but I'm not buying his ability to do it again against a primed up Spider.

Home cooking

Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hurts.

I'd suggest to you that walking into a stadium holding upwards of 80,000 of his loyal countrymen will be a tremendous motivation for Silva.

What effect will the surroundings hold over Sonnen? I don't know. I hope the challenger isn't spooked by the scene, which could greet him much like Brazil's favelas welcomed BOPE.

Silva has accomplished tremendous things in MMA. Beating his loud rival in a soccer stadium in Rio as his country eagerly watched: that's storybook stuff. I just can't envision it going the other way for him.

Silva is better

That said, It's not like I'm looking through a crystal ball here. Newsflash, I can't tell the future. The closest any of us can get is by peering into the past, and Silva's is a thing of beauty.

In his two fights since struggling against Sonnen, Silva scored one of the most impressive knockouts of his career against Vitor Belfort, and absolutely mangled the usually steady Yushin Okami. He's as sharp as he ever was.

Sonnen bounced back from the Silva stunner to manhandle Brian Stann and, earlier this year, squeak past Michael Bisping.

Making arguments like "Silva is better" seems obvious and lazy. But sometimes obvious things need to be highlighted. Quite often, the obvious things tell us most about a person. And yet we tend to gloss over them, searching instead for small details that might or might not matter.

Silva is a better mixed martial artist than Sonnen. It's that simple.

One moment in time

Can Sonnen win when everything is riding on the outcome? We know Silva can. Sonnen, though, has yet to prove he's capable of doing the same.

The 34-year-old Oregonian won many competitions throughout his life -- just not the biggest. One failing of focus, judgement or technique is all it takes to lose at his level. A mistake against Silva when he was otherwise perfect cost Sonnen a UFC championship.

So, will Sonnen fight a mistake-free bout against a man he can't afford to make a mistake against?

I don't think so.

The UFC’s long lost welterweight champion sounded downright chipper on Wednesday, when he beamed in via satellite to the company’s all-purpose Canadian news conference.

Georges St. Pierre has been in Los Angeles rehabbing his surgically repaired right knee lately and it seems like the California living agrees with him. The No. 1 ranked 170-pound and No. 2 ranked pound-for-pound fighter in the world appeared highly optimistic about his progress (he’s on track for the fastest return from an ACL tear his doctors have seen, he said) and about the possibility he might get back in the cage as early as November.

St. Pierre even sounded fairly positive about the one topic he’s been least enthusiastic about over the last year or so -- a future fight with middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Where previously GSP didn’t seem too keen on the idea, he unexpectedly left the door open this week.

"If everything goes well, like the stars are aligned and everything, maybe we’ll see one day in the near future about what’s going to happen," St. Pierre said. "Am I going to go up [in weight]? Is [Silva] going to come down? It’s too far to think about it right now, but it’s something that can happen, of course."

Read those words once and they probably sound like nothing more than fairly typical GSP platitudes. Read them twice though and it’s hard not to notice -- hey, wait a second -- the stars already are aligned.

Truth is, there will never be a better, more opportune time to book the Silva-St. Pierre superfight than right here, right now.

Think about it: In the past, the biggest obstacle to actually setting up the mythical bout was GSP’s claim that he’d need several months of inactivity to naturally bulk up to 185 pounds. Well, he’s got that time now, doesn’t he? It’s fairly easy, in fact, to imagine the process of packing on 15 pounds dovetailing nicely with St. Pierre’s rehab efforts over the next eight months.

Not only that, but there may also never be a better time than right now to excuse the longtime titlist from the welterweight ranks. Interim champion Carlos Condit has his own extremely intriguing things going on and it would be simple -- not to mention marketable -- enough to have Condit fight the winner of the freshly announced Jake Ellenberger-Martin Kampmann fight sometime this fall. Provided Condit wins, he could lose the interim tag and then rematch Nick Diaz next year, as soon as Diaz’s marijuana suspension lapses.

Assuming Diaz doesn’t really hang up his gloves to become an amateur triathlete and herbal caregiver, of course.

The way things are playing out at middleweight, that division might also have a perfect window to stage a superfight sometime around St. Pierre’s targeted end-of-the-year return. We now know the UFC is close to locking down a June date for Silva to finally give Chael Sonnen a second crack at the title. After that, the 185 pound division’s schedule really opens up.

Matchmakers look nearly fresh out of options for giving Mark Munoz a credible No. 1 contender fight and Tim Boetsch’s scrap with Michael Bisping at UFC 148 sure isn’t going to produce the next middleweight title challenger. At least, it better not. So, unless we all agree we’re OK with Munoz proving his worth as top contender in a bout against the 8-0 Chris Weidman (which would be acceptable, I guess) it appears there will be no clear-cut next in line for the Silva-Sonnen winner.

Unless the next in line is Georges St. Pierre.

Maybe it sounds fanciful (and possibly unfair to slot him for such a superfight in his comeback from knee surgery) but GSP would be the most compelling and lucrative opponent of all.

If we’re allowed to strap on our fantasy matchmaker caps for a moment, we could just tell St. Pierre that -- while it’s great that he’s on pace for a record-setting recovery -- he shouldn’t strain himself, because he’s just going to be fighting for the middleweight title at the UFC's traditional Super Bowl weekend show on Feb. 2, 2013.

If Anderson Silva doesn’t win his fifteenth straight UFC fight, that means hell will have descended on Rio. That means the man in a foreign land, Chael Sonnen, went into Brazil and wrested the most elusive belt from the company’s most dominant champion.

How’s that for ultimate audacity?

Sonnen/Silva II is almost certain to be held in a Rio de Janeiro soccer stadium that holds somewhere in the range of 60,000-80,000 people.

Having seen firsthand the firestorm atmosphere of UFC 134, I have to think that the tension will be tripled in the larger confines. Partisan? That word fails to capture the loyalty and fervor that the Brazilian crowd exhibits for their own. It will be a high noon gathering of zealots, straining against their civil moorings. The reason? The American Sonnen will be dropped into the center of a cauldron that he alone helped heat to a burble.

This will be his comeuppance.

Or it will be something slightly more unfathomable. It could be the red, white and blue wrestler, Sonnen, getting fitted into a belt that has for so long belonged to MMA’s most lasting force. Either way, the scene at UFC 147 will be teetering on the brink of something -- celebration, outrage, relief, finality, disbelief. It’s the kind of scene that builds legend in a sport that could desperately use it.

And for this reason alone, it becomes the most dramatic event in MMA history. Think about it: Silva facing his only known rival in front of his countrymen. Sonnen, a journeyman-turned-star in his 30s, the interloper. Sonnen, the biggest threat Silva has known, his potential antidote. The bane of his existence.

Silva, the forever enigma. Possibly solved. Or order is restored, and he's once again triumphant.

It might be hyperbole to start comparing the outdoor fight to the “Thrilla in Manila” or Ali-Liston II or the “Rumble in the Jungle,” but maybe only narrowly. Who knows if in 40 years we’ll be talking about Silva/Sonnen II?

But as of 2012, it looks like the biggest fight in MMA history, with context filling in every corner. Their first fight, at UFC 117 in August 2010, was so one-sided as to become surreal for nine-tenths of the bout. Then came the late submission that has made Sonnen the butt of geometry jokes worldwide. Once again it’s Sonnen’s dogged wrestling against Silva’s violent grace. What buildup awaits. Sonnen knows what to do with a microphone, just like Ali did -- and he has his own parcel of scandals, too. In a bargain bin way, testosterone replacement therapy is Sonnen’s "Vietnam" references. Ali lived in turbulent political times. Sonnen is a politician (as well as real estate agent and author) with an uninspiring overall record.

Somehow, here we are.

Yet the better musical notes are just underneath. Don't underestimate how badly other countries want to score a win over Americans. We see this wherever the octagon goes, whether it's Brazil, England, Canada, wherever. The more benign the people, the more the situation intensifies. At UFC 129, there were 55,724 people at the Rogers Centre in Toronto letting up a deafening roar for Georges St. Pierre, their champion ... with an equally heated and communal display of disapproval for Jake Shields (possibly the most inoffensive American going).

It's real. Sonnen is everything that people dislike in Americans, even if he's the most exaggerated sample of perceived arrogance we have.

After all the talk, it's time that center stage becomes his ledge. He alone walks it.


Put all together, it’s a fantastic clash of elements for a mixed martial arts event. Whether the card is held at the Estadio Olimpico Joao Havelange (a.k.a Engenhao, which can hold generously around 60,000 people) or the better-known Maracana (which is being renovated, and can hold up to 80,000), it doesn’t matter. The house will come down figuratively either way. For those who like to fling the word “epic” around loosely, here’s a chance for the adjective to stick.

Silva/Sonnen II is an epic event.

Or maybe it’s more like this: What’s epic is the fact that it’s actually happening in such a setting.

Jose Aldo is Calgary-bound for UFC 149 on July 21. Who will he face? As of Wednesday afternoon, this information was not yet disclosed. Just like the injury that forced featherweight contender Erik Koch from his fight with Dustin Poirier in November, there are mysteries to be found all over the 145-pound landscape.

At least some of them are clearing up a little bit.

Having spoken to Koch, a couple of things stand out. One, he is feeling 100 percent after his strictly confidential injury and is ready to accept a bout. The Duke Roufus pupil was set to stake his four-fight win streak against fellow upstart Dustin Poirier in November before the injury forced him off the card. And two, Koch has a sorted order of preference of the guys he’d like to see.

“If nobody fights Aldo, I’ll fight Aldo,” he says. “If not, I want the second guy; I want [Hatsu] Hioki. He’s definitely in the mix. So that’s how I want my plan to be. Aldo first, and if not, Hioki as the back-up plan.”

Koch’s management is still waiting to find out what’s next for the man with the premonitory nickname of “New Breed.” Aldo needs an opponent for the UFC’s maiden trip to Calgary. Koch is willing. Couple that information with the fact that Poirier is scheduled to fight Chan Sung Jung on May 15 -- just two months before UFC 149, making for a short turnaround -- and Koch looks like a fun possibility. Koch’s training partner, Anthony Pettis, was just last week rumored to be contemplating the bout, but was quick to dispel those rumors (in part, maybe, to avoid stepping on Koch’s feet). Besides, Pettis himself is now sidelined with an injury.

And then there’s also Hioki, who might be in front of Koch on some people’s polls, but the Japanese fighter didn’t exactly assert himself after beating Bart Palaszewski at UFC 144. Everybody knows this is an industry that sneers at modesty.

Koch, on the other hand, brings a stampede wherever he goes.

Before decisioning the “Ultimate Fighter 12” winner Jonathan Brookins, Koch had won back-to-back knockout of the night honors against Raphael Assuncao and Francisco Rivera in what was Koch's final WEC match. His last (and only) loss was a decision to Chad Mendes back in March 2010. Since then, he’s been electrifying.

“Chad Mendes did beat me, but you know, I was a completely different fighter then,” Koch says. “And Aldo has a good track record against wrestlers. To beat him, you got to beat him at his own game. You’ve got to stand with him. You’ve got to know how to do it right. [Fighting Aldo] would be a blast, I can tell you that. You’d definitely get some stand-up war going.”

That’s the selling point. The very thing that gives some fighters pause when contemplating Aldo gives Koch confidence.

“

I think just having good footwork, good striking and good fundamentals, and just using my size as a featherweight, would give him big problems.

” -- Erik Koch, on why he matches favorably against Jose Aldo

“It’s the match-up,” he says. “I think -- nothing against Aldo because he’s a beast, he’s one of the best in the world for a reason -- but out of anybody in the division, if anybody matches up with him, it’s me. I think just having good footwork, good striking and good fundamentals, and just using my size as a featherweight, would give him big problems.”

Will it be Koch that the UFC sticks opposite Aldo? We may know very soon. But of all the alternatives, he at least packs some wallop. And he wants to stand and trade with Aldo, which is the right kind of roulette for a featherweight main event.

“For me, now it’s about trying to finish fights and making exciting fights,” he says. “I definitely want to be the best fighter in the world, but at the same time I want to be exciting. I want to bring something to the table that everybody wants to watch. People don’t realize, we’re in the entertainment business. I definitely want to give people what they want to see.”

Now Koch will sit tight and hope that the UFC wants to see things similarly.

Dan Henderson believes Michael Bisping deserves a future shot at the UFC middleweight title, but he warned that the Brit will be in big trouble if he does ever face champion Anderson Silva. More »

Mark Munoz told ESPN.com’s Brett Okamoto this week he was surprised when UFC matchmakers chose to pit Michael Bisping against Tim Boetsch at UFC 148, rather than give Munoz a crack at either one of them.

Come to think of it, that makes two of us.

Whatever the UFC's reasoning for temporarily sidestepping the former NCAA national wrestling champion to book Boetsch versus Bisping, the middleweight division suddenly seems trapped in an odd state of limbo because of it.

Even though he's been inactive since withdrawing from a scheduled title eliminator against Chael Sonnen two months ago to have painful, but fairly minor elbow surgery, the road to the next shot at the middleweight crown still runs through Munoz.

In other words, if he doesn't have a No. 1 contender fight, nobody has a No. 1 contender fight.

Bisping-Boetsch is an odd little scrap because, while it's certainly a compelling bout, it's not a particularly instructive one. The simple fact is, no matter which guy emerges victorious at UFC 148, he won't be ready for a title shot and that threatens to leave the winner of Sonnen's summertime clash with Anderson Silva without an immediate challenger.

In a world where the welterweight division is waiting for the return of Georges St. Pierre, the lightweight division is trapped in a seemingly endless string of rematches and the newly devised flyweight division is already on hold for a do-over, that can't be good.

Meanwhile, the rest of the middleweight top 10 is rapidly filling out its dance card. Vitor Belfort is already committed to a backtracking fight against Wanderlei Silva once filming on “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil” wraps and rushing Chris Weidman into a fight with Munoz would feel like a fairly clumsy upward leap for the undefeated prospect.

So, either Munoz is already the No.1 contender for the winner of Sonnen-Silva and he just doesn’t know it yet, or it’s easy to get the impression the entire division is headed nowhere fast.

Munoz contends he’ll be ready to get back in the cage around roughly the same time Bisping and Boetsch will square off in July, but the UFC reportedly hasn’t budged on getting him a fight. Perhaps company brass want to make doubly sure he’s healthy before booking him a date. Perhaps -- as conspiracy theorists are already whispering -- matchmakers are looking to rehabilitate Bisping as one of its most popular international attractions following his loss to Sonnen. Perhaps they feel Boetsch needs one more fight before they start to view him as a legitimate threat at middleweight.

Or perhaps, we’re just over intellectualizing. Maybe the UFC needed to make a fight, so it made one. In any case, it's a decision that effectively leaves Munoz (and the 185-pound title picture) in the lurch.

Prior to surgery, he’d ripped off four straight wins in 12 months during 2010-11. It appeared his two-round victory (via corner stoppage) over the notoriously tough to finish Chris Leben at UFC 138 had set him up for big things in 2012.

Now, it seems like nobody -- Munoz included -- knows exactly what to think.

Mark Munoz remains well ahead of schedule in his recovery from elbow surgery.

The UFC middleweight has resumed training activities following a procedure in late January that removed 24 bone fragments from his elbow. The injury forced Munoz to withdraw from a No. 1 contender’s bout against Chael Sonnen at UFC on Fox 2.

On his way to a full recovery, Munoz has an evaluation with his physician scheduled for today and hopes to accept a fight from UFC brass in the coming weeks.

The list of potential opponents to welcome him back lost two names on Monday, when the promotion officially booked a matchup between Michael Bisping and Tim Boetsch for UFC 148 on July 7.

Following the announcement, Munoz admitted he was a bit surprised the UFC hadn’t opted to keep Bisping’s calendar open.

“It was surprising to me,” Munoz told ESPN.com. “I thought we were on a collision course. I know there are a lot of people in the general public that wanted us to fight.

“I would have loved to fight Bisping just because he’s a bigger name and I match up well with him. But hey, he’s fighting Boetsch and he’s got his hands full. That's a real intriguing fight. We’ll see what happens.”

A fight between Munoz (12-2) and Bisping (22-4) would have certainly made sense. It was Bisping who stepped in for Munoz and lost a controversial decision to Sonnen in Chicago.

The two have never fought and are neck-and-neck for a future title shot at 185 pounds. ESPN.com has Munoz and Bisping ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, trailing only Anderson Silva, Sonnen and Vitor Belfort.

Timing, it seems, wouldn’t have been an issue, either. Bisping will fight July 7. Munoz, who was originally scheduled to be out until August, says he’d love to be on the UFC 149 card in Calgary, Alberta, two weeks later.

“I’ll take a fight in July,” Munoz said. “I’ll be ready by then for sure.

“I think the UFC likes Bisping and I think they’re giving him Boetsch right now. On the other hand, they like matching winners with winners and losers with losers. We’ll see what happens.”

With Bisping off the list, Munoz acknowledged there aren’t many options in the division left that make sense.

Belfort is already scheduled to fight Wanderlei Silva this summer. Rousimar Palhares and Alan Belcher, both owners of three-fight win streaks, will meet in May. Former No. 1 contender Demian Maia recently announced a move to welterweight.

That likely leaves undefeated prospect Chris Weidman (8-0) as the top candidate. Weidman is coming off a decision win over Maia on the same UFC on Fox 2 card Munoz withdrew from.

“That’s probably it, huh?” said Munoz, with a laugh. “We’re playing matchmaker right there. I don’t know. We’ll see if they give me Weidman. I would like to have a title shot but we’ll see what they give me.”

With Silva expected to defend his title against Sonnen in June, Munoz is expecting at least one fight before earning a title shot -- maybe more. Belfort and Bisping would each have strong cases to leap past Munoz with high-profile wins in their next fights.

If that were to happen, Munoz says he would not allow himself to fall into the position of waiting for a title shot, considering he’s currently in the midst of the longest layoff of his career due to injury.

Of course, he’s hoping it doesn’t come to that -- and believes it shouldn’t.

“I feel that I deserve a title shot,” Munoz said. “I feel I’ve done everything I possibly can do to get that shot. That’s what I want to fight for. That’s what I want.”

Before guys like Joseph Benavidez and Jon Fitch knew limbo, Rich Franklin was the original purgatory in the UFC. He was the middleweight champion for 16 months in the mid-aughts, beginning with a declarative victory over Evan Tanner and ending three fights later where things for all men come to an end ... with Anderson Silva.

Back in the day when immediate rematches were hard to come by, Franklin had to beat Jason MacDonald and Yushin Okami to get a chance at reclaiming his belt. “Ace” finally stepped in with Anderson Silva again at UFC 77, in a conflict that was dubiously dubbed “Hostile Territory.” That is, at least for Silva. Franklin was in the friendly confines of his native Cincinnati, eschewing his trademark Neapolitan trunks for those sporting Bengals colors. It was a homecoming full of furnace warmth.

Until he was being fetched back into consciousness with smelling salts.

For the second time, Silva made quick work of Franklin -- near mirror annihilations, primarily from the clinch -- and the former champion found himself in career limbo. The aftermath was unsettling, just as it has been throughout history with boxing’s newly obsolete. The cold question of “what now?”

Half a century ago, boxing heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson lost his belt and subsequent rematch to Sonny Liston via decisive first-round knockouts. Franklin had to come to a similar realization that Patterson did back in the day, which was this: Nobody wants to see a third match of a one-sided series. That’s a hell of a thing to come to grips with for a one-time champion. In Patterson’s day, you just fought on. In the rapidly changing, modern day UFC, Franklin at least had some options.

That’s why after he beat Travis Lutter in his last 185-pound bout, Franklin decided to move up to light heavyweight and make a run there. It was with reluctance that he did so -- remember how precise he was with weighing out his food? -- but the gatekeeper gig wasn’t for him.

Problem is, he’s been a sort of passing tourist ever since.

Over the past few years, Franklin has gone 3-3 outside the middleweight division (2-2 at 205 pounds, and 1-1 as a 195-pound catchweight). His latest, a loss to Forrest Griffin at UFC 126, left a lot to the imagination. But what was concrete was that Franklin was no longer a threat to anybody’s title. To frustrate matters, he underwent shoulder surgery and has been on the sidelines for more than a year. A lot of thinking goes on when a year passes off the calendar like that.

Now, to the consternation of dudes like Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Franklin is turning back up as a middleweight again at 37 and a half years old. He’ll face a state-of-the-art action kicker in Cung Le, who only fights one way (thrillingly). If you liked Franklin/Wanderlei Silva or Le/Wanderlei Silva, then you’ll love Franklin/Le. Noses will almost certainly be smashed and further reconfigured into sharp right angles that only a math teacher can appreciate.

It’s the kind of fight that is only a fight. No context needed.

And that’s where Franklin should be for his divisional homecoming. Forget a title run at this point, he wants fun (wholesale violent) shows in the twilight of his career. He doesn’t want to be smothered by Forrest Griffin for large segments of an event; he wants to be in fights like his one with Chuck Liddell at UFC 115, where a broken arm means you throw your good one and hope for the best. He wants to stand and bang. He’s old school. In fact, he’s one of the last of the surviving old guard. Stand and trade in each other’s wheelhouse? Now you’re talking. Surely there’s another Nate Quarry out there to add to his highlight reel.

Le provides this chance. And you never know -- Dan Henderson began bouncing around weight classes at 37 after losing to Anderson Silva, too. His emphasis has always been to put on fights that fans want to see and let title shots fall where they may. Now at age 41, Henderson is accomplishing both with no signs of slowing down. Mark Hunt will be 38 next week and yet is looking 25. Randy Couture didn’t get rolling until he was in his late 30s.

Maybe Franklin finds a similar resurgence. And, if not, bring on Le or guys just like him, and that’s good enough.

A couple of months from now, the UFC will go high concept.

Or at least, heavy concept.

Last week’s confirmation that a bout between Stefan Struve and Mark Hunt will open the main card of UFC 146 on May 26 means that the show will be an all-heavyweight affair. For the first time in the company’s modern history, it will put nothing but 265-pound fights on the pay-per-view portion of a broadcast.

It’s the kind of thing that’ll look great on a poster -- Five Exciting Heavyweight Fights! -- and the cherry on top will be Junior dos Santos defending his UFC title for the first time against the mountainous Alistair Overeem.

The public’s fascination with heavyweights is well-documented, so this particular promotional gambit can’t possibly hurt in the lead-up to UFC 146. Whether or not it significantly moves the needle while a slew of equally promotable, but lighter fighters are left on the undercard, though, remains to be seen.

Either way, it could be fairly instructive for the future.

Here’s the problem, though: Our preoccupation with heavyweights, aside from the sheer spectacle of it all, is rooted in boxing, where conventional wisdom dictates that the bigger the dude, the better the chance of fireworks. In MMA however, this doesn’t always translate. Sure, heavyweights can produce crowd-pleasing knockouts, but with four-ounce gloves, so too can flyweights. For the practical application of this, see: Benavidez, Joseph.

Though certainly in the running for most popular, MMA’s heavyweight division is also arguably the one most likely to let you down. Heavyweights get tired. Heavyweights are often inexperienced. Heavyweight bouts can be over before you know it, or they can slog to 15-minute decisions that seem to take an hour. In other words, in this sport, 265-pound fights are typically either great or terrible, with very little gray area in between.

That makes UFC 146 a fairly significant risk for those who shell out the dough to watch it.

The heavyweight division has produced some marvelous entertainment in recent months -- stunning comeback wins from Cheick Kongo and Frank Mir both come to mind -- but those stellar outcomes feel more like the exception than the rule.

More often than not, heavyweight MMA fights go one of two ways: They become a boat race to see who can be first to stick one in the other guy’s ear, ala dos Santos’ 64 second title victory over Cain Velasquez last November, or then they run the risk of becoming tepid and exasperating letdowns like Overeem’s decision win over Fabricio Werdum in the opening round of the Strikeforce grand prix last June.

When they're great, they're great. Worst case scenario? Well, when a heavyweight fight goes bad, there's nothing worse in all of MMA.

They can be so dreadful that fights like Gabriel Gonzaga’s epic staring contest with Kevin Jordan still haunt our dreams, even though it happened at UFC 56, a little more than six years ago. That bout was so painful that not even Gonzaga’s third round knockout victory via Superman punch could save it ... and that’s bad.

Perhaps the best testament to the reliably unreliable nature of the heavyweight division is the overall history of the UFC 265-pound title, where inconsistency, short championship reigns and freak accidents have always been the natural order of things. Stays at the top are fleeting, and they are just as likely to end with a whimper as a bang.

It’s likely there will be some great heavyweight fights at UFC 146. There is also a good chance some of the fights end up limping to the finish line. Those are the breaks when it comes to the heavies.

Personally, give me a card full of welterweights (and lighter) any day. They might not look quite as good on the poster, but they typically bring more action from bell to bell.

UFC veteran Dan Henderson insists the middleweight title is not high on his list of priorities, regardless of what president Dana White tells the media. More »

Dan Hardy insists he will not chase Matt Hughes for a potential welterweight encounter, even though the Brit "can't stand" the former UFC champion. More »

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira admits he is hoping to secure a fight with Rich Franklin, when the light heavyweight pair are both clear of injury. More

When the UFC introduced the featherweight division into its ranks at the beginning of 2011, it was as if the floodgates opened for two types of lightweight -- those who were small for 155 pounds, and those losing at 155 pounds. Joining up with the smaller class of men, under the aegis of the UFC, spelled out second chances, reinventions and broadened opportunity.

That’s why company brand names found themselves shoulder-to-shoulder in the sauna. Kenny Florian, Tyson Griffin, Ross Pearson, Manny Gamburyan ... even skinny Darren Elkins wrung his muscles of moisture to make it. As for the accordion-thick kickboxer, Dennis Siver? Just know that the threat is still there.

Yet for the most part, these days a drop to featherweight feels more like a demotion than an exodus. Either that, or the more people became familiar with Jose Aldo, the more the alternative path to glory presents itself as an unhealthy one. However you cut it up, the 145-pound division isn't salvation anymore. And that’s why Dustin Poirier had better be ready for the title gig if he beats Chan Sung Jung in May (and vice-versa), and Hatsu Hioki had better start smiting his chest after wins. None of the big guns in the lightweight division want anything to do with the featherweight strap right now.

In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen it. First the chants of Frankie Edgar to drop to 145 pounds became loud when Dana White got to nudging things along. When Edgar refused to budge and was reluctantly granted a rematch against Benson Henderson, the focus switched to the odd man out of the lightweight title picture, Anthony Pettis. Here is a lean, dynamic striker that suddenly could be thrust into a default title shot against a lean, dynamic striker who surfs (both crowds and waves).

Perfect, right?

Not really. Though there was some mild flirtation from Pettis’s camp that he’d be open to the idea, upon reflection the final word was “no.” Pettis tweeted that he was staying at 155 pounds where there was a lot of unfinished business.

Of course, in the two aforementioned scenarios the common link is Henderson. Edgar lost a close decision and was asking for some return love for his open-mindedness toward rematches throughout his time as champion. His case was so strong that the UFC relented. Pettis is the last guy to defeat Henderson, and he didn’t just beat him -- he posterized him with that Matrix kick at the WEC finale. Though his chance at a title shot at 155 pounds could be a couple of fights off and a year down the road, he wants to pursue what he started. Good for him.

But you do have to wonder why one belt looks that much more desirable than the other. Yes, the lightweight division is deeper, has bigger fights and is uber-competitive -- but there’s no waiting line to Aldo. Pettis, who has a very stylish fashion sense, is a very select shopper when it comes to accessories, too. Winning just any belt won’t do for somebody -- the reigning WEC lightweight champion, no less -- who’s had his heart set on a specific one for so long. People have been quick to understand his decision. Don’t rush to conclusions. You don’t just jump around divisions. That sort of thing.

There are, however, guys who have and who’ve done it well. B.J. Penn has held gold in two weight classes, and Dan Henderson stands at the ready to fight in any of three weight divisions. Nothing they did was irreversible, nothing was ever deemed permanent. They just happened to be at cusp weights that could go either way, much like Edgar and Pettis. Greatness is rarely so specific, anyway -- why not pursue a collection of hardware? Isn’t this what Jon Jones is talking about when talking of an eventual move to heavyweight?

Pettis likely has his reasons (having Henderson’s number is chief among them), but a lightweight title shot might be a dangling carrot forever just out of his reach. Right now the UFC is saying that the winner of Nate Diaz/Jim Miller will fight the winner of Edgar/Henderson, the latter of which is being discussed for August. That makes his road to a title a very long, detouring one with no guarantee of an end.

And that he’s willing to take it instead of clashing with Aldo tells you that the featherweight division isn't as enticing. Either that, or Aldo has gained a little invincibility.

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