This weekend’s Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos fight on FOX is perhaps the biggest fight in the history of the company (and sport), but there is one fight that everyone is still waiting for that could overshadow even a heavyweight title fight.
I’m talking, of course, about the potential super-fight between UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva.
UFC President Dana White has spoken publicly about his desire to deliver this huge fight to the fans, but even with White and matchmaker UFC Joe Silva running the show, they have not yet been able to make it happen.
A few reasons have contributed to this, the most obvious being that one of the two fighters would have to either bulk up or drop down in weight. The UFC has put on catch-weight fights before, but they typically only happen when fighters are amidst a permanent weight class change.
Interestingly enough, Anderson Silva used to fight in the 170-pound welterweight division; of course, that was a decade ago and he has put on considerable body mass since then, so dropping down to 170 pounds seems nearly impossible at this point.
The most likely scenario is that St-Pierre adds on some weight and moves up to 185 after completely dominating the competition at 170. As if that alone wasn’t a big enough roadblock, perhaps an even bigger one was that Anderson Silva appeared to be heading toward the end of his career even just a few months ago.
Silva is plenty set financially, and his legacy cemented as one of, if not the, greatest fighter of all time—so there really was nothing left to prove.
But when recent news broke that Silva plans on fighting for another six or seven years, this potential dream match was suddenly infused with new life.
With Silva allegedly planning on fighting for quite a few more years, that gives GSP plenty of time to add on the weight to compete in a larger weight class. At the moment, he is an average-sized welterweight, so a move up is going to require a complete change in diet and workout regiment. As he has stated in the past, this would definitely take some time.
But again, now that it looks like Silva is going to stick around for awhile, St-Pierre may now see a reason to move up in weight to set up the potential super-fight.
The biggest reason this fight may eventually happen is that, as we have seen with the high level boxing fights in the past, a super-fight like Silva-GSP would almost certainly shatter every previous PPV record in the promotion’s history. Of course, this would lead to a gigantic payday for both fighters, win or lose—the likes of which has never been seen in the sport.
This is a dangerous fight for both competitors, but as they always say, money talks. If Pacquiao-Mayweather can eventually happen, certainly the UFC can do something to put together GSP-Silva.
I’m not saying it’s going to happen…just don’t give up hope…yet.
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Attention UFC fans and admirers of beautiful women: Grab onto your seats because some great news has just been announced that will make you very, very happy.