ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

Writing about mixed martial arts, it's sometimes easy to come off like a hagiographer.

This little engine that could, surviving, thriving, making it to the top of mountain and all that.

There are days -- unfortunately more and more frequent -- when feel-good memories seem so distant. The impact of a rolling and rife drug culture. Power plays at the top. Lawsuits. Money matters. Twitter gaffes. Politics, union battles, media squabbles and, recently, high-pitched nonsense over television ratings. All part of the makeup of today’s not-so-innocent mixed martial arts. Life in the big city, I guess.

But you know what's never changed, what drew me in like, I imagine, many of you?

Action.

The ballast that steadied MMA through the rough patches. The fuel that helped cast aside a perception that almost killed it. The reason so many people are willing to spend so much money each month to watch mixed martial artists from across the globe do their thing.

Such are the wars of attrition, stunning moments, incredible acts of courage and fortitude.

They’re too many to count. Well, whatever the number is, go ahead and another add another because on Tuesday, Chan Sung Jung and Dustin Poirier offered a wonderful account of all the sport can offer.

From the opening bell, intrigue. Jung started strong, working over Poirier, the 23-year-old once-beaten favorite, from top position. "The Diamond" glimmered with a technical, beautiful reversal. They stood and traded shots at the end of the first.

You sensed it then, right? That this one was going somewhere special.

Round 2 confirmed what we thought we knew, as Poirier somehow surveyed an onslaught of submissions.

The third forced a deep breath -- perhaps Poirier had a late-round comeback in him?

No.

Jung slammed the door on Poirier in Round 4, finishing an excellent fight with an awesome flowing sequence that showcased MMA’s dynamism: uppercut, left hook, flying knee, D’Arce choke.

There was just enough brilliance in there for the 25-year-old Korean to receive $80,000 in submission- and fight-of-the-night bonuses. And apparently he’ll skip to the front of the line, earning a UFC featherweight title shot against either Jose Aldo or Erik Koch.

There is -- or was -- an inherent parity to MMA. Dominance, such as the kind displayed by Anderson Silva or Georges St. Pierre, has been fleeting and rare. Eras have lasted mere months. Though the sport may be entering a time when great champions stand tall above the rest, you can’t count out a guy like Jung. He’s aggressive. Undeterred. Unafraid. And, it turns out, damn skilled. There will always be room for a fighter of his disposition in the UFC, as there should be.

I don’t mean for this to come off like Jung-Poirier was the best fight I’ve ever seen. But it might be the best fight I’ve seen on a Tuesday night, and as prolific as MMA is in 2012, with all the troubles it seems to bring upon itself lately, that’s something to seriously sit back and consider.

For all the out-of-competition drama that follows MMA (sports in general, really) and therefore occupies headlines, isn’t it fun when all that’s forgotten? Even if it’s for a few minutes?

The headliner on a card many might have been tempted to ignore, it turned out, produced a smell-the-roses moment. Just remember that the next time someone or something associated with MMA makes you want to slam your head against a wall.

Oh, and if this read like a portrait of saints, so be it. After what Jung and Poirier managed to pull off, it probably should.

NEW YORK -- For as stacked as the UFC 146 card appears for Memorial Day weekend, it’s really two title fights (Urijah Faber/Dominick Cruz and Chael Sonnen/Anderson Silva) and a pack of glitzy non-consequential match-ups (Cung Le/Rich Franklin and Forrest Griffin/Tito Ortiz).

Not so for New Jersey and this weekend’s free UFC on FOX 3 card. No belts will change hands, but situations are in play. Complicated situations. Theoretical ones. Titles dangling in the balance, right there for some and just out of reach for others. And there is, of course, much obfuscation.

For example: If Nate Diaz capitalizes on his broadcast television main event and downs Jim Miller, he is essentially guaranteed a title shot at 155 pounds. However, with Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar fighting for the title in August, that shot might come in a wintry month like December. That’s a long time to wait for a guy who A.) fights for money, B.) likes fighting and C.) has a nice head of momentum. When asked if he’d wait in that situation at Thursday’s news conference, Diaz said simply, “I have a fight on Saturday.”

This drew a New York cheer. Diaz, for all his volume in punching, is a man of few words.

If Jim Miller beats Diaz, on the other hand, he isn’t guaranteed anything. Rather, he is guaranteed to be cheering for Frankie Edgar at UFC 150 when Edgar fights Henderson, because in that case Miller would potentially get to fight Edgar (his erstwhile training partner/friend).

Got it?

Here’s what Miller had to say when asked if he’s confused by Diaz getting a title shot with a win (even though he’s 3-3 in his last six lightweight bouts) while he (10-2 as a lightweight in the UFC) won’t necessarily:

“You know, honestly, it doesn’t matter to me right now. I’ve got a fight in two days, and that’s where my focus is. From doing that [10-2 record] and having that seven-win stretch and dealing with the rematches in this division, it really cemented that things change -- and things happen. So I’m not going to sit here and try and predict what’ll happen with a win or with a loss. I’m just focused on the fight itself, and after that, then it’s time to speculate about the next fight.”

If he won’t speculate, we sure will, and we’ll add a name to the mix: Anthony Pettis.

Pettis, who is a quasi-No. 1 contender, will be coming back to full health some time in the summer. Logic would say that the winner of Diaz/Miller will end up fighting Pettis to establish a true No. 1 contender, while Henderson/Edgar II plays out.

Meanwhile, the co-main event has its own wild set of conditions. Should Johny Hendricks beat Josh Koscheck, he is the No. 1 contender for a title fight. Problem is, once again, that Georges St. Pierre and Carlos Condit are likely fighting in November to settle up the permanent and interim belts. There’s no way that Hendricks will want to wait for that to play out for a spring 2013 title fight.

Yet if Koscheck wins, he will have to pull for Condit to beat St. Pierre to have a word in the title conversation.

Confused? You should be. If we learned anything from the final prefight news conference, it’s this -- the UFC doesn’t want repetition. Koscheck/St. Pierre and Henderson/Miller happened too soon ago to happen again. The UFC craves new blood.

It’s the most complicated contender-type card that ever was, and it’s going down Saturday night in New Jersey.

First UFC "super fight" in January?

In the post news conference scrum, a media member asked Dana White about a potential fight card at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, a venue which can hold 100,000 people.

White said all that flirtation about holding an event there was not only real, but is a serious possibility. He also alluded to a big January card that could potentially be so massive.

“We’re always looking for a potential big fight,” White said. “We’ve always wanted to do a fight, and we’ve been talking to [Jerry] Jones and his crew about doing a fight down in Dallas Cowboys Stadium, but we need a fight big enough to do it. The last fight that I was going to try and make there was Brock [Lesnar] and Fedor [Emelianenko].”

There is potentially a fight out there that’s big enough.

Running through the timelines of “super fight” candidates for a place like Dallas Cowboys Stadium, or a second event at the Rogers Centre in Toronto (or at the old, reliable stand-by in Las Vegas), one could envision a Jon Jones/Anderson Silva match-up at least being discussed.

Think about it. If Jones beats Dan Henderson in September, that would be four months ahead of January -- perfect for the turn around. Anderson Silva fights in July. Should be beat Chael Sonnen for his record 10th title defense, there would be only one way to raise the ante -- and it wouldn’t be to take on Mark Munoz or Hector Lombard.

It would be to fight Jones, who’d have tidied his own division up just in time. Is that what the UFC has in mind?

“I don’t know,” White said. “We’ll see what happens. We’ll see what we end up putting together.”

New York state of mind

By now, everyone knows about the MMA ban in New York, even as we make our way through open-minded 2012. This is why the UFC dangles its product just across the Hudson River -- to reinforce that all notions of “human cockfighting” are antiquated and hyperbolic. Whether the sport hasn’t been sanctioned in the Empire State is about “gangsters” in the Culinary Union (as Dana White says) or something less ominous, it depends on whom you talk to.

But when MMA does finally get legalized in New York, the UFC plans on doing it big.

“When we finally do break through and do a big event here, I think the event at Madison Square Garden that we do will be huge, and it’s be a great time to pull off a Fan Expo here in New York,” White said. “I think it would be huge.”

In the meantime, those in New York who want to catch MMA in a live setting must go underground. Or, underwater. For MMA, there’s light at the end of the Lincoln Tunnel, across the way in East Rutherford, N.J., where the UFC will once again mock New York with the one thing it doesn’t have.

With Chael Sonnen’s rematch against Anderson Silva now migrating from Brazil to Las Vegas, UFC 148 becomes the Miami Heat of fight cards. It is stacked, stuffed, loaded and insane.

And let’s face it, this annually huge Vegas card had a pot of gold drop in its lap: Sonnen/Silva II is already a big enough fight to tune in. The UFC could have booked Yoislandy Izquierdo against T.J. Grant as the co-main and things would still have been fine on July 7.

But the UFC’s July 4 weekend is all Roman candles and Saturn missiles, and it’s quickly become a countdown of matchmaking franchises. Aside from Sonnen/Silva II, there’s Urijah Faber versus Dominick Cruz III, Forrest Griffin versus Tito Ortiz II, Cung Le versus Rich Franklin I. All told, there are two belts in play, a swan song or a UFC pioneer, and a return to middleweight for the former champion Franklin, who is 100 percent guaranteed to put on a features-contorting brawl.

If that weren’t enough, Demian Maia will see how he holds up against human Velcro, Dong Hyun Kim, in his welterweight debut.

To Vegas go all the spoils.

To far off Calgary in the north, just two weeks later on July 21? Smartly, Tim Boetsch and Michael Bisping.

What was meant to happen in Vegas isn’t staying there -- Boetsch and Bisping, a big intrigue pairing of middleweights that was originally slated for UFC 148, is now headed for UFC 149 in Alberta. And this is ultimately a good move by the UFC. Why lose a contender’s type bout to a thousand bunched-up storylines at UFC 148 while peripheral PPV cards -- UFC 147 and UFC 149 -- could use the additional heft?

When the first question out of people’s mouths is nearly always “what’s next,” the guys chasing Sonnen/Silva are pretty important to the scheme of things. In the fight game we’re dealing in tapestries. The newly resurrected Tim Boetsch and the MMA’s “forever contender” Michael Bisping will get a better shake at the Saddledome behind headliners Jose Aldo and Erik Koch. Let Sonnen/Silva play out, and this fight takes on more significance. It’s our duty to talk, after all, and to invent the stakes while playing at what’s in Joe Silva’s head.

And right now, a lot of people more readily recall Boetsch losing by “Philmura” against Phil Davis instead of him storming back against Yushin Okami at UFC 144. If he’s really closing on a title shot at 185 pounds, Boetsch could use the boost of a co-main event type spotlight. Right now he’s more journeyman than contender. He’s never been the recipient of Zuffa’s marketing machine. It’s time to gussy him up.

As for Bisping? He believes the same thing he’s been believed for years -- that he’s the hands down No. 1 contender. Obviously there’s still the matter of Mark Munoz and Chris Weidman out there, but Bisping might actually be on to something this time through. With unpredictable circumstances and injuries and schedule syncing and suspensions and all the things that get in the way in obvious matchmaking, the Briton really might be next in line.

Or he might not. But that we can care sufficiently enough to find out is lucky for him and Tim Boetsch. In this rare case it’s better to jump cards than end up lost in the shuffle.

Chael Sonnen may be feeling extremely fortunate that his middleweight title fight against Anderson Silva has been moved out of Brazil, after UFC president Dana White detailed the dangers he went through just to attend a news conference. More »

Hey, remember when Jon Jones beat Rashad Evans?

In case the mega-fight slipped your mind already, which isn't altogether implausible thanks to mixed martial arts' wacky news cycle, that happened Saturday.

For instance: On Tuesday, three major pieces of information were revealed.
Anderson Silva would not defend his UFC middleweight belt in his home country of Brazil against Chael Sonnen. Instead, it was announced, the pound-for-pound king will return to sweltering Las Vegas for a mid-summer bout against the self-proclaimed king.

Heavyweight Alistair Overeem was denied licensure to fight in the state of Nevada, meaning he's yet another casualty on MMA's growing PED hit list.

And Bellator champion Hector Lombard is relinquishing that title for a chance to compete in the UFC and shut up his doubters.

Here are some quick thoughts on what went down.

Silva-Sonnen 2 heads to Las Vegas

Rather than promoting one of the most intriguing stadium shows in combat sports history, UFC president Dana White confirmed in Rio on Tuesday morning that it was going to be impossible to promote the bout as promised.

A suitable venue couldn't be locked down, even if the promoter openingly salivated not long about the possibility of his middleweights fighting in front of 80,000 fans. Hotel space was a real issue as well, with the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, a massive undertaking, was taking place at the same time.

Good news: we still get to see the fight.

Some winners and losers in all of this:

WINNERS

Zuffa

That's right. Even though they failed to deliver on the promise of a mega UFC championship fight in Brazil, the promotion comes out ahead since it won't have to cope with the logistic nightmare of competing with the Rio+20 conference. More important, a stateside Silva-Sonnen 2 fight will garner heavier media attention and potentially boost pay-per-view numbers for a card that's already stacked.

Nevada

Las Vegas needed major fights, and they just landed a marlin. UFC 148 was already stacking up as a solid offering and the addition of Silva and Sonnen to an event that featured Dominick Cruz defending his title against Urijah Faber and Tito Ortiz in a retirement bout against Forrest Griffin guarantees fans will flock to the sun-scorched city.

Sonnen

How could he not be? The challenger goes from needing to negotiate treacherous waters to remaining in the U.S., away from hostile Brazilian fans. The only stumbling block could be Sonnen's attempt to gain a therapeutic use exemption for his testosterone replacement therapy, but Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Keith Kizer is already on record saying he doesn't believe there will be any hiccups to the licensing process.

LOSERS

Brazilian fans

This was setting up to be a mega-event for Silva's countrymen, many of whom are now understandably upset. How could they not be? They lost the chance to watch arguably the best mixed martial artist of all time fight in a packed soccer stadium against the closest thing he has to an arch rival. By extension: Any MMA fan wanted to witness this spectacle.

Silva

It won't impact his performance in the fight, but, presuming he wins, moving the bout from Rio to Vegas certainly does dampen Silva's burgeoning stardom in Brazil. This was an unprecedented opportunity to shine in front of a nation that will soon host the Olympics and World Cup.

Nevada denies Overeem

The layers run thick but it boils down to this:

Alistair Overeem visited a doctor he claimed to know nothing about, allowed himself to be injected with something he claimed ignorance of, and subsequently tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone.

There is no one to blame but himself. Go ahead and point fingers at Dallas-based Dr. Hector Oscar Molina if you want. He is not above reproach here, obviously, but he also didn't force himself on Overeem.

For losing out on a UFC title fight against Junior dos Santos next month. For seeking treatment from Dallas-based Dr. Molina, who admitted to mixing a water-based testosterone cocktail for the Greek statue of a heavyweight he claimed was designed to treat a rib injury. For taking one injection. And then another. For such willful ignorance, especially when he owed Nevada two tests at a time and place of their choosing.

In a way, don't you hope Overeem attempted to cheat the system? I mean, at this stage of the game, it's basically expected and would at least provide an explanation for this mess. Otherwise, the alternative is to believe Overeem is oblivious and stupid.

Lombard leaves, Bellator show's hand

Put up or shut up time for Hector Lombard.

Finally.

After Bjorn Rebney and his partners decided against matching an offer sheet from the UFC for the Cuban's services, the now-former Bellator middleweight champion will get every chance he deserves to prove he's the world's best middleweight.

I have my doubts he'll make much of a dent against the type of competition he's soon to face. Is Lombard (31-2-1) better than Rousimar Palhares or Alan Belcher, who fight May 5 on FOX? I don't think so. But this is the great part: We don't have to "think" about it anymore; let the speculation end.

Bellator's choice is worth dissecting because it says something about the way they're conducting business, and could foretell Eddie Alvarez's chances of remaining with the promotion four months from now.

Bellator essentially would have been forced into the pay-per-view business had they matched the UFC's offer for Lombard. That's a huge advantage Zuffa owns over its potential competitors, because no one other than the Las Vegas-based juggernaut can seemingly compel consumers to buy a fight. Bellator hasn't even tried, though they may at some point.

If not, Zuffa will just poach away fighters they want, like Alvarez, and there's not much Rebney will be able to do about it.

There’s a danger in thinking out loud. And, at this point the UFC must realize this better than anybody.

For the past couple of months, Chael Sonnen was assuredly fighting Anderson Silva in Silva’s native Brazil, and the only thing left was to sort out the nagging details. Those details finally got in the way, and now the fight is headed for Las Vegas, which is a bit of crushing news for romantics.

Yet when you think about it, didn’t this thing always feel too good, too tantalizingly ominous to be true? The brazen American getting dropped into hostile territory in an attempt to take the belt from the company’s best-ever fighter? This was dramatic overload. It was the “Rumble in the Jungle” -- only it wouldn’t be held at a neutral site. This was Sonnen being lowered into a burbling cauldron. It was the odds being stacked so impossibly against him that the situation shared more in common with movies than reality (think “Rocky IV”).

And from the American perspective, the sweeteners were Sonnen’s motormouth in conjunction with the immensity of the setting. The event was targeted for Rio de Janeiro's Joao Havelange Stadium -- a.k.a. Engenhao -- which could feasibly hold a record number of people (between 60,000-80,000).

Sonnen was played up to be the man of risks -- the security risk with an overnight bag of asterisks. Bold enough to walk the plank. Silva was to be the deliverer of comeuppance. The rectifier. Fighting in Brazil for Brazil.

For the sport of MMA, it was history in the making, in a setting as big as their rivalry.

Only it didn’t get entirely made. The rematch is officially happening on July 7 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the “fight capital of Earth” as Sonnen says. Another way of looking at it is like this: Sonnen/Silva II is happening in a common setting on a big weekend of fights.

In a news conference yesterday from Rio de Janeiro, Dana White broke the news of the switch and explained the problems they had in securing a venue in Brazil. White, Silva and Sonnen showed up in person first and foremost to apologize, and second to redirect hype.

No doubt this whole thing is a bummer for the UFC, who sensed the historical value we’re talking about.

It’s disappointing to Calgary, the Canadian city that is likely losing featherweight champion Jose Aldo to fill the void at UFC 147.

It’s disappointing for Silva, who has fought an 11 times in the States, once in Canada, once in Abu Dhabi and once in Rio as a UFC employee. He is 14-0 in those fights, which means he doesn’t exactly have any big druthers. But his fifteenth fight -- and remember, every fight these days could be his last -- was meant to be epic. It was meant to shatter the UFC 129 attendance record -- in his native country.

None of that will happen now.

The good news is the fight is booked -- that’s the practical thing to remember. UFC 148 now looks like the most loaded card of the year, a card the promoters could easily dub as “Rivals” with all the continuations in play -- Sonnen/Silva II, Urijah Faber/Dominick Cruz III, Tito Ortiz/Forrest Griffin III. It’s a lot of sequels and trilogies in a city where whatever happens is meant to stay there. And that’s a little salt on the wound to Brazilians and romantics and any fan of "Mission: Impossible."

Yet plenty of people will like this switch. There’s a lot of foot traffic in Vegas come Memorial Day weekend, and this fight becomes accessible. The American media will rejoice because now they can attend without having to secure visas. This thing becomes a lot more convenient to cover.

But we weren’t dealing in conveniences; we were dealing in historic backdrops. We were dealing in extreme inconveniences, which is exactly why Sonnen-Silva II in Brazil was so alluring. The “Rumble in the Jungle” wouldn’t have been nearly as compelling as the “Fracas in Las Vegas.”

And it’s disappointing to wave good-bye to what could have been, especially knowing the magnitude of the thing that nearly was.

UFC president Dana White has dismissed suggestions that Anderson Silva will be stripped of his middleweight title following a mythical fallout with the UFC. More »

Brad Pickett maintains his confidence that all of England should believe in Michael Bisping's UFC title bid, claiming the Brit is better suited to challenge Anderson Silva than Chael Sonnen. More »

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.

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.

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.

Middleweight champion Anderson Silva and UFC president Dana White have largely enjoyed a smooth working relationship during their time together, but they clearly disagree when it comes to the idea of Silva fighting teammates like Lyoto Machida. More »