Anderson Silva Considering Dropping Middleweight Title?

August 10, 2009, at 3:44 pm

After UFC 101 on Saturday night, Anderson Silva sat in front of hundreds of media sources and said that there was no way that he would ever fight Light Heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida.

White says he will make Silva fight Lyoto Machida in the future if Silva keeps on taking out all the top light heavyweights in the UFC. Silva shook his head and said that Machida is his friend and brother and that he will never fight Machida.

Apparently, things have changed since then. Now, we have rumors that Silva no longer has any interest at fighting at 185, and would drop his title for a chance to fight at light heavyweight full time.

That Silva could move up a weight class and not just win, but destroy with power, was a game-changing and perhaps UFC-altering moment. That’s what Silva and his manager, Ed Soares, wanted to discuss with White.

With his arm wrapped around White’s shoulder, Soares leaned in and delivered a proposition. “Spider” Silva would move permanently to light heavyweight, even if it meant the unorthodox move of giving up his middleweight belt.

“I can do that,” White smiled, a bit stunned at the offer. “I like that. We can do that.”

Soares smiled and shook White’s hand. Silva had been accosted by a fan by then and couldn’t hear White, but it was presumably the news he was seeking. The man has such outrageous confidence in his abilities he’s willing to potentially toss away a championship he’s owned for almost three years to take a challenge outside his comfort zone.

“I’d let him,” White said later, sitting in his quiet dressing room. “We’d put [the middleweight title] up for grabs.”

Ok, what in the world has changed since Saturday? While the UFC’s Light Heavyweight division is the premier weight class in the promotion, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to move up unless Silva would fight his teammate. He could fight big name guys like Rampage, Rashad Evans, and Tito Ortiz, but the end game would have to be the belt. That would involve fighting The Dragon.

All in all, I think this is a terrible move. I wonder if people won’t start thinking that Silva is a bit of a headcase. He’s gone through periods in his life where we wants to retire, he got so bored with his opponents that he went into operation shutdown for a while, and now he wants to drop his belt. Does any of this enhance his legacy, or does it start making him a problem child?

[Jason's thoughts]

I disagree with Anthony 200%. Everyone wins by Silva moving up to 205 permanently. For the UFC, no matter who Silva fights it could be a headline fight. In a marketing sense having him be a champion is almost a waste. Also from the UFC’s perspective what fights at 185 are compelling for Anderson? Maia? Belfort? Henderson II? I think the UFC realized no one cares abut Henderson/Silva II. From the fans perspective the only fight at 185 I’d be interested in seeing is Silva/Belfort. But, Belfort first has to get by Franklin for that to even be a possibility.

So why isn’t this a good thing? Silva has proved he’s the most dominant Middleweight champion of all time. He’s cleared out the division. His legacy is entrenched in that sense, now he needs on to bigger and better things. There’s a ton of intriguing fights for him at 205. Tito, Rampage, Evans and of course Machida.

I don’t want to see Silva fight at middleweight anymore. There’s no point.