Anderson Silva v. James Irvin

[Pinky]

First of all, the #1 contender in the Middleweight Division is no longer Rich Franklin, Rich moved up to 205 after his second loss to Anderson Silva. I believe the current #1 contender is Patrick Cote, after winning against Ricardo Almeida, earning himself the Middleweight Shot that he deserved. However, I still think he's going to be another quick victim for Silva... Cote is too premature to carry the Middleweight Belt, and is unlikely to win against Anderson Silva. Cote has shitty ground game which the Black Belt Anderson Silva will gladly take him upon it. Besides, Cote mainly resorts to standing up and banging against his opponents, but his reach is no where near Anderson Silva's so naturally his striking is going to be very limited.

That's right, Rich is fighting Hamil in UFC88. Being from Ohio, I was just too excited to think about two good native Ohioans going at it to realize that Franklin moved up. Regardless, keep in mind that Franklin's professional loses are owned by Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida, which is another feather in Machida's cap.

The UFC have not yet announced an official contender for the LHW title, and I'm pretty sure at UFC Breakthrough 88 the winner will become the next LHW title contender, so it's pretty much down to Liddell or Rashad Evans. Of the two, I would have to choose Rashad to win over Liddell, no matter how impressive Liddell is, obviously, Rashad have been waiting for a chance ever since he won the Ultimate Fighter, which practically promises a title shots. Evans have also been headlining many UFC events, I think his time may be soon. When it comes down to it Rashad Evans carries a 16-0 record, and holds notable wins over various headlining LHW. At first Rua vs Liddell was supposed to take place at UFC 85, but then Rua pulled out due to an injury, resulting in Evans taking his place. But Liddell also injured himself near 85, and the fight was removed from the card. Now the fight is going to take place in UFC 88, and I'm pretty sure if anyone was set to fight Chuck Liddell, that guy was getting close to a title shot. After all, Liddell have always been lingering around the top 5 LHW throughout his career, and right now he's still amongst the top 5. I think it's safe to say that the winner at UFC 88 is going to move up to face Forrest Griffin..

Are you drunk? Evens is going to be pounded into a meaty pulp. He's a Jardine-level fighter, and he does not belong in title contention. The only reason Keith beat Liddell was that Liddell fell into a lazy rut, and he still mauled Keith. Keith was the first to break away from an exchange more often than not, and at several points he actually turned his back to Chuck and ran away, and after the fight he looked like he was hit by a truck while Liddell could have kept going for another two rounds.

I agree with Wanderlei, Chuck should have won the decision that night, but the scoring system is fucked sideways. Joe and Dana agree that the decision was bad because after that fight Chuck went on to fight Wanderlei, and Jardine only fought Wanderlei after Chuck beat him - this is a clear indication that even after the Liddell-Jardine fight Chuck was considered the superior fighter. And now Liddell is making a comeback with a vengeance, since that fight with Wanderlei was like a clash of the titans, and Wanderlei in turn proved that Chuck is beyond human because he just raped the dogshit out of Jardine which obliterates any claim to fame that Keith had.

Rashad's record might officially say 16-0-1, but in reality Tito beat him and was robbed of a point during the match, so his record is really 15-1. Besides that, his best wins in the UFC are all split decisions, he has two TKO's over non-contenders, and the rest of his record is against no-names outside of the UFC. Realize that Rashad is going to have to do what Wanderlei and Tito could not - beat the Ice Man who is at the top of his game right now - and Rashad is nothing compared to Wanderlei, and Tito gave him more than he could handle. Reports claim that Rashad can't even out-wrestle GSP who is two weight classes below him, so he won't be able to even clench with Liddell. His best chance is to exchange with Liddell, and the Ice Man's record is a who's who list of KO's by strikes (he was on a seven-win KO streak before fighting Quinton). Unless Rashad's luck causes a rafter to fall on Liddell's head before or during the fight, it's a foregone conclusion that he's going to lose.

Although, I must say that I wouldn't mind seeing Forrest v Liddell. Chuck was his coach during the first season of TUF, and now Griffin took the title from the guy that beat Chuck, but he's training under Couture who was season one's superior coach that held the title before Chuck took it back from him. The careers of those three or four fighters makes for a nice soap opera, except that everybody is cool about it and they just beat each other senseless because it's their job.

edit: after re-reading this, this is a lot of rambling. the point was that rashad has a snowball's chance in hell of beating liddell. i also want to say that winning the TUF tournament doesn't automatically give anyone a title shot: forrest was s1 winner and he JUST had his first title fight, diego sanchez hasn't had a title shot, s2 joe stevenson had a title fight earlier this year and was nearly bled to death by penn, and season 4 was an exception because they were all veteran fighters who had contracts with the ufc and the prize was a title shot. rashad dropped from heavy to LHW, his record isn't impressive, meanwhile the LHW contenders are all world-class monsters. if he beats liddell then i will shit a brick.

And just an additional note... RAMPAGE WAS ROBBED BLIND IN THE LHW TITLE FIGHT!!!

Note the exclaimation marks...

I dunno about that. I definitely think that the fight was closer than the judges called it, but it really could have gone either way. From what I remember, they both earned two rounds and one of the rounds was up in the air. That's the danger of letting the judges decide, and I think Dana allows it so the fighters will finish it themselves.