UFC must be smart about Silva-GSP bout
By Will Cooling, Inside Fights
Just before the start of the UFC 112 main event Joe Rogan announced that should Anderson Silva successfully retain his middleweight title then Silva would move down in weight to challenge George St-Pierre at 170 pounds. However after his bizarre performance against Demian Maia, the UFC seemed to pull back from the fight with an angry Dana White saying that Silva did not deserve to face GSP.
If White has decided to stop Silva from challenging St-Pierre then he will be seeing more clearly in anger than he was when he gave the match the provisional go-ahead. A fight between the two at 170 pounds would be a disaster for the fighters and the UFC.
For St-Pierre a victory would be dismissed as the inevitable result of Silva trying to make a near 55-pound weight cut while a defeat would cost him his title and tarnish the legacy he has developed at welterweight. For Silva defeat would leave him in the uncomfortable position of being a paper champion after losing to a much smaller man while victory would burden him with another title when it seems that "superfights" at light heavyweight are what really motivates him. Should Silva win then the UFC would be forced to choose between having him alternate between defenses of his two titles or immediately vacate the welterweight title without him defending it. Should St-Pierre win, then the UFC would struggle to market a disinterested middleweight champion who is little loved by a public who would have already seen his winning streak end.
In all likelihood, in the event of a St-Pierre victory, the UFC would have little choice but to book an immediate rematch between the two for Silva’s middleweight title.
That said George St-Pierre versus Anderson Silva is still the biggest dream match in all of mixed martial arts. The respectful if slightly cautious St-Pierre would be the overwhelming fan favorite against the erratic Silva, whose public persona is now a demented combination of Muhammad Ali and Floyd Mayweather Jr. at their most infuriating. The striking of Silva would test the suspect chin of St-Pierre while the wrestling and grappling of St-Pierre would expose any deficiencies in Silva’s ground game. St-Pierre would have to overcome the challenge of defeating a much larger man while Silva’s increasingly questionable cardio would be tested by the best conditioned athlete in all of mixed martial arts. The fight really is the UFC’s equivalent of Mayweather-Pacquiao, with the pound-for-pound kings both having strengths that go right to the jugular of their opponent’s weaknesses.
The answer therefore is not to cancel the match but to instead have it take place at middleweight, which unlike a welterweight title fight would be a win-win situation for the UFC. A Silva victory would simply continue the status quo at 185 pounds, and would not damage St-Pierre as the fans would accept that St-Pierre lost because he was the smaller man fighting out of his element. A St-Pierre victory would revitalize two divisions with the welterweight division seeing contenders such as Paul Daley, Dan Hardy and Josh Koscheck trying to claim the vacated crown while St-Pierre would have the new challenge of establishing himself as middleweight champion.
A St-Pierre victory would also provide the ultimate denouement to the sometimes thrilling, often exasperating story that has been Siva’s UFC career as he would lose his winning streak, his title and best pound-for-pound status with one defeat. It's hard not to suspect that Silva's extraordinary offer to challenge for the welterweight title was an attempt to avoid such a high-stakes match with Silva once again trying to put together a money match where he puts little on the line. It’s time for Silva to enter the octagon knowing that he has everything to lose and will be tested by an opponent superior to him in key aspects of the game. It’s time for him to defend his title against St-Pierre.