Okay. Let me get this straight. On the same day that B.J. Penn says that his next fight is going to be on the UFC 112 card in Abu Dhabi, Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort is rumored to be on that same date?

Weird.

While the UFC is introducing their brand to the middle eastern audience, it seems weird that they would choose to defend two belts on the same night. Silva and Penn are two of the biggest draws that the UFC has in their pockets. I know for a fact that there are a ton of people out there who are excited to see The Spider pushed by a fighter who is at least close to his level. Is Vitor close to Silva’s level? Who knows? At the very least, I’m excited to find out.

As for Penn, there is a bit of a question about which weight class this fight will be in. If it’s going to be in April, then it could be a title defense. Assuming that the top two lightweights in contention right now are Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard, it would give both of them a chance to train for the fight. Edgar is coming off a defeat of decent prospect Matt Veach, and Gray Maynard will fight this Monday against Nate Diaz. Assuming Maynard beats Diaz, then he would have more than two full months to train. Edgar last fought in December, so he even has a head start.

The other option is B.J. fighting at welterweight. It’s not that crazy to think. While Dana might have said that he needs to clean out the division, and that would take another win, it wouldn’t be that nuts to see him fight a top ten welterweight in an attempt to put together a massive show for their first trek into a new territory.

I’m not a fan of loading cards up like this. Look at last July and UFC 100. Sure, that was an awesome card. However, what happened after that? UFC 101 was headlined by B.J. Penn, and that is fine. However, 102 was Couture and Nog, which while it was an awesome fight, isn’t the strongest main event. They sold that card on the fact that Couture would be fighting in his home area of Portland. At UFC 103, Vitor Belfort defeated Rich Franklin. There needs to be an understanding about Franklin. America loves him, but he is just not a main event draw. A ton of people pointed at the Mayweather fight that night as the reason why the card barely drew, but I beleive that it’s more because Franklin just isn’t really a draw.

The next few cards suffered because of UFC 100. How much better would it look if the UFC held off GSP v. Alves til UFC 101, and had B.J. fight at UFC 102?

Couture and Big Nog could have been an awesome semi-main at either of those cards. Remember what the semi-main of 102 was? The wonderful Thiago Silva knockout of Keith Jardine from the “I saw that coming” file. Hell, even if they would have kept that and moved Franklin down to Semi-main, the cards would have looked better.

So, after all those words, let me say this. The source on Silva and Belfort is TATAME, which is a brazillian source. Let’s just say it’s not the New York Times. While it might be true, there is a chance that it’s not.

While it might seem incredible to look at a card like this and say “Sick, I’m so ordering that!” it’s just not good business for the month-to-month plan.