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“The Spider” to weave his web at 205

Anderson Silva will make his long-awaited debut in the light-heavyweight division on July 19th against James Irvin. Silva is headlining the event that UFC President Dana White is putting together to compete against the inaugural Affliction pay-per-view that will be headlined by a fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Tim Sylvia.

The move to light-heavyweight is a temporary one for Silva as he will more than likely defend his middleweight title before the end of the year, most likely against Yushin Okami.

Silva is coming off of a submission victory over Dan Henderson in March. Henderson gave Silva all he could handle in the fight, but Silva was able to overcome a bad first round to get the victory in the second. Henderson has the type of game that could eventually end Silva’s dominance over the middleweight division but that rematch won’t take place until next spring at the earliest.

Irvin is returning to the Octagon for the first time since his stunning eight second defeat of Houston Alexander in April. Irvin obviously has great punching power but is inconsistent at best. He has loss three of his last six fights and his win over Alexander was the biggest of his career.

While I think Silva will win this fight rather easily and that will only make him want to fight at 205 even more, I think it’s a bad move in the long term. Although Dana White may disagree, Silva still has several great fights at 185. Okami deserves his shot at the title and then Dan Henderson deserves a rematch as well. If Silva can get by those two, maybe Rich Franklin will have gained some better clinch defense and be a better challenge for Silva. Michael Bisping is quickly making his way up the middleweight ladder and looks like he could be a threat as well.

Silva is a superb middleweight and would no doubt be a legit contender as a light-heavyweight, but he belongs at middleweight to showcase his skills and dominance that makes him one of the best fighters of all-time.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Yushin Okami, Fedor Emelianenko, Michael Bisping, In the Cage, James Irvin, Rich Franklin, Anderson Silva, Dana White, Pay-Per-View, Tim Sylvia, Houston Alexander, Dan Henderson, UFC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.